Sunday, 31 October 2010
I found Piedmont Park this afternoon swarming with dog-walkers, strollers, a few kids, lots of people with cameras—the usual Sunday crowd when the weather’s just about perfect.
Since I don’t have any stories about cute Halloween kids, instead I suggest you allocate your archaeofacts-blog-reading-time to listening to this fascinating story about the psychology of responding to political slurs.
We humans are such curious creatures….
Saturday, 30 October 2010
I did stay in from the glorious afternoon and watch most of the Stewart-Colbert rally in Washington live (streaming).
I liked that they ended with a serious speech, which essentially advocated seeing things from other sides, and working together to moving things forward with compromise.
Love the idealism.
Should there have been more concrete suggestions about how to accomplish the moving forward?
Friday, 29 October 2010
Seems to me the yard (garden in Britain) decorations have become more elaborate lately.
I’m confused about some reasoning that is floating around: households and communities that have decided to send the kids around begging for sealed packages of HFCS and sugar on Saturday night, or perhaps Monday evening (often before dark).
I presume they still do call this ritual event, termed by some a holiday…Halloween. Just what do they think this word means? It’s a PAGAN ritual, modified, of course, over time, but a PAGAN ritual. So they’re are having their wee innocents do this pagan dress-up begging, but changing the date, to honor the lordz day?
I’m head-shaking confused.
Surely, this is a teeeee(d-off) parteeeee move-ment?
Thursday, 28 October 2010
I spent a fun day exposing social science schoolteachers from around the state, in Athens for a conference, to the ArchaeoBus, with a great crew of ArchaeoTenders. We even had two who said they’d seen the Bus at the Georgia National Fair earlier this month, who were excited to be making a return visit!
I got bonus family time at the end of the day, driving back to Big A-Town with the Budding Scientist…great!
And a super-bonus James-chili meal, too!
Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Decorations on somebody’s porch, the other day when it was sunny….
I looked out the window today numerous times at typical piedmont Georgia fall weather—intermittent rain. We had some serious cells, but nothing super-scary. (Yet.)
Speaking of scary, why are spiders and their webs so prominent in today’s Halloween decorations? I don’t remember them from my childhood, except as part of the natural features of a Michigan basement haunted “house” we once did. (I was wrapped with sheeting strips and stood in a dark corner in a quiet pose—a mummy.) So, have they been extrapolated from haunted houses? Or do they symbolize darkness and therefore the unknown and scariness?
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
Last weekend, Piedmont Park hosted the smallest festival I’ve ever seen there—with no banners listing sponsors. I saw only maybe a half-dozen food booths, so this one offering a long, multi-cultural menu was standing in for what is usually a dozen vendors. The one to the right outside the photo listed “DEEP” FRIED OREOS (yes, with the quotes), which sounded positively gross to me.
One group of booths looked like pure low-end carny, with tosses for the most hideous stuffed creatures I’ve ever seen—because they were made with the fewest production steps possible (for example, hands were stuffed blobs with several lines of sewing to delineate digits).
I leave you to muse on the name of the booth to the left….
Monday, 25 October 2010
Flowers from yesterday.
I very much appreciated the rain this morning—although it delayed the dawn and had me nervous from the lightening and general storminess—because it’s gotten so dry here.
Sunday, 24 October 2010
This fall giant is unknown to me—gorgeous, with a subtle blush to the petals. When still closed, I could see that the trumpet was twisted before it opened. Or as it opened. Something.
Saturday, 23 October 2010
I didn’t stop long enough by these flowers to do a good job of capturing the magic of the sunlight coming through the petals. Trust me, it was special.
Friday, 22 October 2010
This view of the Piedmont Park dog run from the Park Drive bridge is from two days ago, and I could see today that they’re working in this area. The open hillside in the left distance now has trees planted on it. Note that the RR track in the far right has been pulled up. The grade is to be replaced with the new BeltLine trolley/train.
There are special areas for small dogs in the far distance and behind me south of the bridge I’m standing on.
I’m glad to see the heavy use of the dog run. I’m sad (okay, annoyed) to see that many people seem to think that leash laws don’t apply to them in other parks—even ones a ten-minute walk away.
The building you can see has a handy drinking fountain.
Between the building and the hillside is what I think is a marshy area, or will be a marshy area (it’s pretty dry now). Nice benches border this wetlands feature. I will keep an eye on what happens here….