Its this crazy touch of person, stone, tools which results in this wondrous work. I always was amazed at the flintknapper, the focus to detail, the final result. Here’s a pictorial review of the worker at work. I could only make “footballs” and John Fagan would tell me “good work, Michael. Footballs are useful tools”. Then John would show me the craft. In his hands this piece of stone became a artwork; reduced into a thing of beauty and quite lethal.

Why am I saying all this though? What does all this archeological stuff have to do with information technology or the price of masala dosa’s in Chennai? Well, nothing really. But really everything is connected. The stone in the knapper’s hands, the work we do in project management, the changes we all feel are necessary when push comes to shove. Its flintknapping at the most basic of levels. We need to remove the chaff from the wheat, resharpen our tools, get back to something which matters. For Mr. Fagan, it was all these different stone types, tools, replicating what he saw on archeological sites. Replication is another key. Whether you do QA or archeological reconstruction, or anthropological research, you use replication. You need to find another thing which acts the same, can be tested, studied, redone.

I did this once with prehistoric hearths or cooking features. I wondered what made them grow larger over time. I thought it was some simplistic explanation. Maybe it was. But then I watched people gathering around a campfire. When more people are added, the space between each person was impacted. It dawned on me that perhaps we could use hearths as a possible interpretation for prehistoric cultural growth in the western Mojave Desert. In QA engineering, you also start with a known. You apply scientific rigor to locate “edge cases” which may cause an inflection in the pattern. These edge cases can be used to then locate issues. But its all about replication and interpretation. The QA engineer’s mind seems wound differently than ours. Just like the flintknapper’s may. They look at different patterns but its the same final result.

Life is like this too. We look for patterns but there are always inflections or subtle differences. I’m looking at the patterns and differences in my own life now. Which ones do I need. Which ones can I toss.

I think the thing I enjoyed the most was the replicative effort that scientists attempt and achieve when faced with an unknown scientific proposition. Back in the day, we did this to patiently recreate how prehistoric cultures made flaked-stone tools. I think this replication is a necessary first step to understanding anything human produced or even other. At the human level, tool stone always acts in a certain way, detaches from its parent in certain ways, exhibits a blade or lack thereof in certain ways. I think geological forces act the same way. Glacial moraines act a certain way, deposit these lonely boulders in unlikely places but with a studied nonchalance. Its all measurable when you understand the measurement. I felt this way with how prehistoric humans built their warming or cooking pits.

I think it works this way for things like the Tunguska and for how we used to build our incredible stone tools. There are interactions that are caused by either natural aptitudes or limitations of the event. We either influence these interactions or learn by them and then influence them. In the case of the Tunguska event, scientists found multiple rationales for a thing. I think this is normal. Its the same with replicating stone tools. There are a few ways of achieving a goal but when you get down to watching an accomplished flintknapper at work; there is almost this detachment from the world around them. Its the stone, the hammer-stone, the material. You become the material. You know its stresses and limitations. Its a piece of you; that obsidian or chert. Same with the Tunguska at a bigger level, but we have not learned the right questions or replications even yet. Hell, we still don’t know why certain animals disappeared from the scene in our geologic past or why they occurred.

Science gains from replication, theory, hypothesis, creation. We need the entire sequence to gain an understanding of some event in the past. I truly enjoyed watching the Tunguska researchers painstakingly recreate the environment, take peat bog samples, take tree rings. What has occurred to me though is that we simply don’t know the right question yet so the answer eludes us. Once we know the right question to ask, we will start understanding how to replicate the event. Then we will be closer to knowing what really happened.

As a friend anthropologist once noted to me, “never stop questioning”. It works the same for prehistoric stone tools and mega-geologic happenings. Crawl through time and you can find all kinds of samples of this where we learned the next question which lead to the next answer. Will we ever know all the questions? No. Its not our fate to know all the questions.

These last few days I got to see my friend RWR. I have blogged here so many times of not seeing him, trying to screw up that courage to find a way. In the end it was so simple to do. I rode the train down, called him, we met at a El Torito’s first and talked for 2 hours. We had to ask the waitress to come back for our order like 5 times. Then we just talked. It was like the dam had opened and we tried to fill a pool that was empty for 15 years in 2 days of trying.

What i learned is that it cannot be done and that I must come back and continue to come back to see RWR. Now the walls have fallen asunder and the water pours out and we have reached to each other again. It felt good, strange, other worldly. Thanks to Nan and Dave for posting a facebook entry which I really took to heart. Nansters basically told me to go ahead without fear or expectation and it would all work. Dave said in such an eloquent fashion to make it happen. His words,

Don’t be afraid to express yourself. Reach out and tell someone what they mean to you. Because when you decide it is the right time to tell them, it may be too late.

These words kinda guided me to a point where I needed to be. Thanks Setuid and Nansters. Both of you in your eloquent ways made sure I did the right thing.

This was a day of other days. It was the past come back but yet it was not the past coming back. It was a future that can beckon. It allows me to write a fitting capstone on those years of blogging about not seeing RWR again and state with ultimate certainty, that you must reach out. If you do wait, it may indeed become too late.

What a wondrous, odd, significant few days it was.

Barstow, California, 90s or so. Dropped off about 30 miles outside of Barstow on this training range that was used for World War II and after armor and artillery training. The area is described here by a military occupant. Make no mistake, this place is grim and you don’t want to get lost. We heard stories from this small bar somewhere on some road in some alternate reality about a car of tourists which simply disappeared into the desert. A bunch of these unique desert inhabitants took off to find them. Months later they were accidentally found. All dead. One rather stupid person had taken off walking and was found walking exactly the wrong way. We had maps, compasses, two vehicles and a bunch of beer. Well prepared in the archeological sense. But it was hot. The heat mercilessly beat down and sand whirled in the afternoons and our little survey and excavation units disappeared completely sometimes in the whirling dervishes of sand, wind. Our supervisor would summon us back to the so-called “Land Shark” and we sit it out. Often we just ended up back at the hotel at the swimming pool with copious amounts of beer. What was learned? Well, we learned to respect the f**king desert boys and girls. The desert rules and its not a nice ruler. It will subject you to its will, it will drive you mad, it will make you all either God fearing or atheists depending on how you enter. On the other side, its wild and primitive and beautiful and full of the most complex life cycles and coalescing paths of beauty and grimness. I will remember its space and and sun and time forever. Its a philosophical idea with a 125 degree reality.

Edwards AFB, CA. The gunnery range. From here you can see the Rogers Dry Lakebed extending its 20 or so miles and you can remember all the aviation history of the place. I am walking out along a solitary jeep track with two others. One is a botanist and the other is a wildlife biologist. We all walk 30 meters apart with the road path sandwiched in the middle. We have a 4 wheel drive loaded with water, pizza, sandwiches. Its marked on the map as our start and we will end up back here in 4 hours for lunch and then drive to another spot for the afternoon. The desert here is wild and wonderful. It extends to wild looking buttes around the town of Rosamond. North a bit perhaps is another desert ville called Mojave. Both are unique little places. Rosamond is the gateway to Edwards AFB and we used to drive there every day on my commute to work. Here is a memory. Rob Fishman and I worked together there and were driving one morning. It was quiet with only Rob humming along with KLOS FM from Los Angeles. It was the Mark and Brian show I believe. I had this package of 6 donuts with the white frosting or sugar on them. I opened the package with my teeth but was squeezing the package and all this white dust flowed out and ended on my face. Rob looked over at me and did not say anything. For about a minute. Then he started laughing. I looked in the mirror. White donut powder all over my beard and face. He got to work and started telling everyone.

Anyways though, back to the story about the hiking in the desert… You reach a moment where heaven, hell, desert, sky, mountains, hills, buttes all come together into a wild menagerie of reality. Desert scapes beckon all the time to you and you see where they all meet up. Desert dwellers know the feeling. Life just begins and ends as you do the archeology there. Its wondrous and its a sun and sky moment where it all blends into a scene vividly and forever implanted.

So what can we all do to survive in our deserts? Reach to that desert, see it for what it is. I reached there and dwelt in a fantastic spot that I still miss. The stories still flow. Sometime in March or April I will return to the land of sun and sky and revisit some people I have waited too long to get back with. it will be a mix of joy and sadness I fear. Truly said, you can never go back again. But I need to. As Robert Frost commented so well,

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there’s some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

From here

Thanks Mr. Frost. You always remind of the sun and sky moments and that we all have some miles to go.

So what we did was every 10cm we measured the units all around to ensure they were still “square”. WE dug 1m by 10cm units or so. So each 10cm we recorded all the stuff or lack thereof and closed that unit out. Roddy would walk by and yell at us those impeccable words “keep them godawful sidewalls straight”. We would wipe the sweat, red dirt, midden, blood, and strain from our eyes. We would eye the units so critically; ensure that those walls were straight.

I have these memories in all of my 15 years of doing professional archeology of digging under those requirements. RWR would enjoin us to manage those holes wiht integrity inbetween flipping small pebbles at the back of our heads. Snooking was a favorite pastime in the units with RWR. People would feel him getting his aim on the back of a head or neck all day long. We would be sweating under the hot and unforgiving Mojave Desert summer sun. The wind would pick up in the afternoons and blow the sand and dust down our shirts. We’d pull up bandanas and cover-up. No use; no damned use. The dirt would insinuate itself into each possible place where we would prefer it not to be. Then the pebbles would start flying by 3pm each day. By 4, we were done with serious work. We’d all load up into RWR’s Chevy powered Landcruiser Jeep and head to a swimming hole with so much cold budweiser. Soon, we’d be swimming, drinking, and repeating. Man. Getting all that dirt out of all those places was luxurious.

Sometimes we’d leave the place and drive to a Pizza place in Lancaster or Palmdale or this beer place we frequented that had the best burgers in town. We’d toast each person. After leaving one place, one of our crew was stung by brown scorpion. She had to have the poison squeezed out but by evening she was there with us drinking, eating.

What is it about those days which seemed to magical I always wonder. I’ve partied with technologists, open source guys, Microsofties. There were great parties; but nothing like those days sitting in a bar with Roger, getting god awful drunk, and talking with a variety of people that wandered into the biker bar.

So life is fun everyone. Keep them godammed sidewalls straight in your digs.

Okay, ready?

I was riding the train back yesterday from wondrous Mysore and saw this really interesting country inbetween Mysore and Bangalore. There were hills dotted with scarpments of granitey looking formations. Magnificent bluffs and weathered and blasted rock formations etched with the loving care of erosion and deposition. Those are the twin god figures of this earth. Additive and subtractive processes that rule most life forms out there. The material of planet earth responds to these twin forces in different ways. Out in the Mojave desert, the sand dunes pitch and yaw this way and that and travel kilometers of distance. There are different types of sand dune did you know that dear reader? There are parabolic dunes and a few others depending on their shape. I always found it interesting that we have many words for a collection of sand crystals which can blast away a windshield in minutes and leave it a porous wreck.

I remember once doing desert archeology the wind picked up its force and the sand was blasting its way around us with such velocity that it hurt through clothing. We were digging these excavation units and finally had to just stop and hide in a cave we had seen on the side of smaller canyon. RWR and I sat there for awhile and we chewed beef jerky and ate apples or something. The sand propelled itself down this washed out watery streambed and we waited. I think I’ve mentioned before that RWR never talked much. So we sat quietly and he chewed on a straw. We looked around and there painted on a wall of a cave was this unusual figure painted in the style of the figures painted hundreds perhaps thousands of years ago. One figure only and nothing else.

After some time, the sand ebbed and we left. We continued working on this conservation archeology site digging, measuring, clearing out the sand that had deposited. The day ended and we packed it in. Built a fire, threw down a tarp. We never slept in tents then. We opened warm beer and I remembered what a New Mexican cowboy told me once that they never drank beer because it “warmed up”. Whiskey was their drink of choice and for wild times that juice of the devil Tequila.

But RWR sat there and drank some warm Budweiser. Finally after awhile he laughed.  I asked him so what was so funny? He said he knew why that stick guy was in that cave. Why? It was the sand storms here. He had to wait them out too.

I remember all these fragmented moments of working with RWR and his joyful love of the whole science. I see these wondrous scenes crossing part of India and I’m taken back to a place and time way gone. Rock and stone, desert and sand. People then, people now. We all experience the force of life. Main question is:

Do we take the lemons or make lemonade?

Work has changed me out a few ways and that’s good.

I went with my son, wife, and daughter to the wondrous Hearst Museum at Cal Berkeley. I enjoyed it but came away with some different feelings. I’ve truly left many of those things behind and while my heart still beats with the echo of a field archeologist; those folks were academics. I don’t mind them and the world needs them; but its not what I ever did. We need both, but I was an am far afield (excuse pun) from their worlds. I loved the Hearst but my reality back then was deserts, mountains, valleys. Not the hallowed halls of the museum with its never-ending exhibit halls. I was a dusty field archeologist and treasured it.

Hey, look who has arrived. Its our rich boy scientists.
Yah. They look tired… And thirsty…
Hey rich boy scientists. Want some hot milk to help you sleep?

We’d all laugh and we would buy a round of drinks. Those guys would have “boilermakers” and we’d do a few rounds of draft beers.

If you have read this puny attempt at a weblog, you probably remember me discussing how archeologists do like to drink. And not warm milk either. We would sit after the jokesters left for dinner and have a few more beers. Sometimes it would be Thursday and we would not be working Friday; so we’d stay longer for dinner. Other days we would leave for home. We worked a variable schedule. On the days I left for home, I remember driving home caked in the red dust.

I’d get home and my wife would draw a bath and have a cold budweiser for me. I think I mentioned that archeologists do like to drink beer . We would start talking about the “archeology” and the doing of it. Its an active thing you see. Its doing archeologiy in the active sense. Being an archeologist is more than just reading 10 books and getting a degree. Its a way of thinking and doing and living. I felt the most connected those days with friends, family. It just seemed I had it all engaged.

Anyways, Theo and I still take time to talk and its always good. We remember those moments and others. I remember desert moments that Theo never lived through. I seem to dwell more on archeology sometimes. I think I secretly miss it more than what I admit to.

Such it is. It was lesser than and more than and equal to. It was a time of being, a solitary endeavor filled with notables and less than. Some folks I met, I would not choose to be around again. Others though seemed more than. The space they occupied was like one of those burgers. Super-sized.

I started thinking again about it flying back from North Carolina for some reason.Then I remembered that my wife is taking me to the volunteer day at Cal. I get to wander a museum collection. I get to see old friends named Boaz and Kroeber. I get to remember and feel trapped but free.

I often think we don’t give enough to these universals and their importance. Whether we believe in them or not, the idea that they may evolve to become more important based on how our culture evolves is rather provocative. Lets face it, that there is nothing so constant as change.

So who shapes your world and who cracks the walls down so you can reach some other horizon? I like Eddie Vedder and the songs for Into the Wild myself. They bother me, irritate me, make me question. I like U2′s Joshua Tree album. It takes me back to a desert scape. I like Born to Run by Springsteen and finally I like Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon.

But just because you like a thing does not mean you can easily listen to it. Some of the music I like bothers me at a basic level. The music of Joan Baez still does. Harry Chapin makes me feel sad sometimes. His was a life snuffed out too early.

But what does all this have to do with the price of tea in San Mateo? Or pizza in Berkeley? Well, today my son who most likely will not follow in his dad’s footsteps received an internship there. My wife and son were invited to tour the collections, see Kroeber Hall, walk the floor of one of the collection sites. Of course to my son, this is just another entry in the growth and maturation process. To me, its this larger than life thing which makes me remember the stories and books and papers. Most of all it makes me remember the good days of doing the archeology. Archeology was a “doing” thing. You could not passively practice it. You had to get out there in the 125 degree heat in Barstow or the below freezing in the mountains and do it. Then you could say at the end of the day, “yes I did archeology”.

Now my son gets to see a set of prehistoric and historic relics that I have never seen but could get lost for years in. I could wander the collections halls, be lost to all reality, and gaze in wonder at the anthropology there.

I’m jealous and I’m proud of my son. He will see things far beyond my grasp.