Children's Club Tuesday

Yesterday was the third Children's Club day. I think these have been the funnest Children's Club programs that we have done since I have been here.

In the morning, Davis completed his third and fourth open water dives for his PADI scuba certification. We had two dives with Mitch from Blue Water Divers. Short and quick, there is too much to do today.

The Children's Club program was a mangrove study. It turned out to be three hours of kayaking in North Creek. The kayak excursion had to be moved from South Creek to North Creek after the hurricane because of the destruction in South Creek. I have never been in North Creek. Paddling out was no problem, except keeping everyone together. We kayaked to the mangroves. We kayaked to the jellyfish spotting field. Then we tried to return.

I have always heard that the tidal current in North Creek is very strong. This is what makes it dangerous (if you remember the post from a few weeks ago). In fact the current is very strong and tide was coming in. Paddling the hardest you could got you nowhere. Kayaks were spread all over the creek, which looks more like a large lake.

After an hour of vigorous paddling, everyone was able to beach their kayaks onto a dredged jetty that extends into the creek. There is a large dredge barge with a huge crane rusting where it stopped working in mid project years ago at the end of this jetty, but that's a story I have not heard yet. Everyone walked down the jetty back to kayak shack. Only Reuben was able to get his kayak back to the dock. This left 15 kayaks to be carried back portage trail style.

When we finally got back to the museum an hour and fifteen minutes late it was time for the program to be over. But we stayed to have our snack of Poop Deck chicken.

Unlike every other day we have a program everyone sat eating their snack in total silence. Everyone was totally exhausted.

Yes it is!

I did not even get to finish my last blog and here I sit in Grand Turk.

Austin to Dallas, Dallas to Miami, overnight at the Crown Plaza, Miami to Provo, Provo to Grand Turk. I got in Sunday afternoon.

When I left everything was blue skys. Today, we have two named storms in the Caribbean. We also have three ships in port because of the storms south of us. Children's club meets on Tuesday and we are not prepared yet. Also, the Astrolabe is now a week overdue to the editor.

Back to work.

is it Saturday yet?

Austin is crazy.

There are over 1900 musical acts here playing at nearly 200 venues. I had no idea.

In the 1930s Austin developed a unique form of Blues, the East Side Blues. I have actually sat through a symposium on how the archives of this historical musical period is being preserved.

As it exists today, everyone here is an amazing vocalist.

I have heard lots of bands here, but tonight I heard the best one.

Ahhhh...Sandals

I am running late, go figure...but I wanted to jot something down while I was thinking about it.

My feet hurt soooooo bad. I have blisters all over my heels from wearing dress shoes for two days.

I presented my paper this morning, but that is a boring work story. This afternoon I rented a car and drove north into the suburbs where you can Xchange and Xbox.

On GameStop.com you can locate a GameStop anywhere in the US. What an amazing ubiquitous conglomerate of sameness you have managed to create here! Though, evidently there are more GameStops than meet the pixel. At exit 245 on I-35 where the Kohls is located, get to that in a minute, there were two. Niether came up on Mapquest.com.

I like the adventure, but does it really have to be all the time? I bought and exchanged three Xboxes today. Yes, you heard correctly. This took do long that I now have to keep the car overnight, which means I have to find somewhere to PARK IT.

My last memory of Martin is that he is standing at the door holding the power converter saying, "Are you sure you don't want to take this?"

Smart man. Who would have thought. Everything is the same about the new Xbox except the new power converter does not have a square pin in the center.

For $10.00 dollars I could have exchanged our used Xbox for a new Xbox. Not could have, did! I had to buy a new one to open the box to see if the power cable fit.

Xchange...(think sound of a cash register)

The problem was it did not fit. The young man could not swap the power cable and because I did not have mine I had to return the new one.

Xchange...(think sound of a cash register)

"Is your power cable nearby?" asked the young man.

"No," say I, "it is on a small island off of Florida." Now, this is not exactly not the truth.

OK, we rip open the new used Xbox. I pick it up to put it in my bag and something sounding like a small piece of metal falls from the bottom to the top.

"Is it suppose to sound like this?" as I turn it over and over with what I think is a samll nut pinballing around all of the internal magic circuts of the Xbox.

Xchange...(think sound of a cash register)

Well, to make this a short story, I am in the possession of a second new used Xbox marked "checked" and "cleaned."

I was hunting down a Kolhs so that I could get a new battery and watch band for my watch that is constantly at 2:07. If it read 5:00 I would wear it, because anyone who knows anything about Jimmy Buffet knows this would be funny. But 2:07 is not humorous in any way. Believe me, I have been trying to think of a joke about it for thirty minutes and it is just not funny.

Well, Kolhs in Texas evidently does not carry Columbia watches so it is 2:07.

What they do have is 80% off sandals. What a country. It is an amazing life you live here in this place of $10 sandals and $2 beer. I guess that is the trade for ubiquitous sameness.

Anyway, now I am really late, but I have my dancing sandals on, and my feet are happy.

Ain't No Party Like an Archivist Party

I am in Austin, Texas, attending the Society of American Archivists annual conference. Tomorrow I am participating in a symposium on sustaining Caribbean archives.

This is just a comment for Jamey - welcome back to the fourth floor.

I booked too late to stay in the conference hotel, so I had to book a hotel about six blocks away. The unintended consequence of this is that I am in the heart of the music scene. Austin, evidently, is the "live music capital of the world." There are over 200 live music venues here. Plus, the award winning PBS show Austin City Limits.

I got in very late last night but was still able to catch two blues bands. One band had a 13 year-old drummer. This band happened to be playing in the "best dive bar" in Austin, which also had two for one hamburger. I had forgotten what a great hamburger tastes like.

I would tell more, but I am off to the Plenary session and then to the exhibit hall reception.

Linda's Birthday

I am in Miami. My sister Linda is in Orlando. This has nothing to do with each other. Except that when I called to say happy birthday I found out that she was in Florida.

Yes, I am in Miami. With the desperate year we have had on Grand Turk, I am still amazed that we are just an hour and a half from Miami. But we are. My journey began early with a flight to Provo to take care of some business before an afternoon flight back to the US.

I stopped at Unicorn Books in Provo to ask Toni if he had a great book he could recommend that I read on my flight today. I left with The Sex Lives of Cannibals by Maarten Troost. It is a travelogue of two years the author spent on a small island in the Pacific. Evidently living on a small island is the same everywhere. The difference is that Maarten Troost is an exceptional writer. It is suppose to be funny, but I know all of the jokes already.

For both myself and Maarten Troost getting to a small island in the middle of nowhere is in itself a story. But evidently getting off is also a story.

Getting into the US through the Miami airport requires a mile and a half jog. I had to do this carrying 50 pounds of luggage. I am not kidding about this. The walk between the gates and immigration is so long there should be people cheering at the end and you should break through a tape at "US Citizens." OK, that is my funny joke I told to three people as I passed them. Evidently it gets a laugh 33% of the time.

Even before this I had four baggage checks and had to remove my shoes twice.

This is about how my day has gone so far...

"What is this?"

"An Xbox."

"What is this?"

"An Xbox."

"What is this?"

"An Xbox."

"Hey, an Xbox!"

I will get to that at another time if my Xbox mission is successful.

Children's Club Tuesday

Today was our weekly Children's Club outing. We loaded onto a bus and were off for an ECO ADVENTURE.

Now when I say we loaded onto a bus, I mean that 32 of us got on a twenty passenger bus. The tour was fantastic. We visited several natural history sites with one of the best tour drivers on the island.

The highlight for sure was our visit to North Wells. This is one of the oldest heritage areas on the island. The north wells were created by Bermudians in the seventeenth century as fresh water wells so that the horses and donkeys left on the island would not die.

Today, the area attracts a variety of wildlife, because it is one of the few areas in the bush where water is found.

The minute we got out of the bus kids started chattering about a dog in the well. The story is one you have heard over and over and over. Who is going to climb into the well to rescue the trapped puppy?

After we had loaded everyone back on the bus, I climbed into the shallow well and Martin and I pulled the dog out of the water. It appears that the dog had been in the water for a few days with nothing but its head above water. It came out easy enough, but had difficulty walking. The bus driver had a leftover lunch on the bus, which the dog ate enthusiastically.

We went back later to make sure the dog had recovered and moved on home. It had.