Ice Storm '09

Our Backyard. August 2006.

The storm became visible Monday afternoon with ice starting to accumulate on cars. By late Monday night the weather seemed to be progressing like any other winter storm we've had since our arrival in Arkansas - speculation of intensity; a teaser. Turns out it was a creeper.

Early Tuesday morning (5:30AM early), I was awoken by my annoying vibrating phone announcing an incoming email, text, call or some other digital leash. I got a text followed by a voice mail followed by an email - sure, in that order. This was a first in getting notifications from the university via my phone. They all informed of a campus-wide closure on Tuesday.

It rained heavily Tuesday morning, then by early afternoon the precipitation had turned to freezing rain, then heavy freezing rain. By Tuesday evening, the weather moved on to sleet. Snow was to follow overnight. With at least 1/2 inch of ice accumulation on trees by Tuesday evening, the over-stressed trees synchronously (it seemed) began to bend until ultimately limbs began cracking, snapping and crashing down with a bang - mostly in the yard, but every 30 minutes or so a loud thud on the roof could be heard, alerting us to pause the movie and inspect. During one such inspection we discovered that one of the loud bangs was a felled tree in our backyard.

Tuesday evening. The first tree goes down.


Considering the neighborhood-wide cacophony of falling branches and trees, I rightly assumed that I would get another 5:30AM call announcing the closure of the university a second day. Sure enough, the text, voice mail, email barrage came on time and campus was closed on Wednesday. By this time, the storm had passed and we were left with destruction.

Wednesday morning. Two felled trees, two split trees.
"A Tree Graveyard"

The temperature on Wednesday hovered around 25F and kept things iced over throughout the day and overnight into Thursday morning. Surely, I thought, the university will be open on Thursday. Not so. The Thursday morning digital combination announced that the university will be closed on both Thursday and Friday.

By around 2PM, when the sun had warmed the temperature above freezing, I realized why the campus was closed for two more days. All the ice that was now packed in the trees, dangling on wires, or hanging around building edges had been formed into dangerous "ice daggers" waiting to fall on unsuspecting pedestrians. Throughout the day tree branches were still continuing to break, but now, with the weight of melting ice, 1 inch think sheets of ice were also smashing to the ground with the branches.

Thursday afternoon. The ice melts revealing lots of work and a new backyard.


Internet went down quick, around Tuesday afternoon and came back up Thursday afternoon, then was down again until Saturday evening. Power was out variously citywide. No roof damage and no car damage. Just a foreseeable giant bonfire and a new, less shady, backyard.

More photos at flickr.

Living The Map

Last week we had a guest at the survey who wanted to be an archaeologist for the week. Evidently, his week at the survey was part of a larger 50 jobs, 50 states, in 50 weeks project. I don't watch TV so I was not aware of the national coverage our guest had been getting or the previous jobs he had already done. I really didn't care, actually.

His project is called Living The Map and he has a website where one can read his (brief) journal along with some selected photographs of his experiences at his weekly jobs.

www.livingthemap.com

Well, he showed up last Monday (12th) to start his week as an archaeologist and spent the week "doing archaeology". On Wednesday some of us took him out to a Civil War site to do a little research. A nice enough kid and frankly I wish I was doing the same thing - traveling across the country, meeting people, learning about people and our vernacular America. Hopefully, through his experience, he will see the United States and the people that occupy it (in all their various idiosyncrasies) in a new light.

Anyway, he took several pictures and uploaded two to his website that include me so I figured I would post them here. His journal entry for his week of archaeological work only includes one day. I'm not sure if he plans to contribute additional entries.

A group photo of students in our Monday night Cultural Resource Management class. You can't miss me, I'm the tall dude in the back with the scruffy face.


A photo taken in the field at the end of our day. It was a little chilly that day, although not too bad for an northwest Arkansas winter day - probably in the 20s, maybe low 30s. The kid with the camera remote is Daniel, our guest. The others are all archaeologists at the survey. I, of course, am the one with the snazzy hat and matching windbreaker. I'm about average height in this photo!

Powers of Ten

My Netflix account is filled with stuff. So much so, that often when movies/documentaries show up, I usually don't remember putting them on my list. It's nice this way because I never really know what to expect when I put the DVD in the player.

Such is the case with a recent DVD arrival: "The Films of Charles & Ray Eames #1". When did I choose this, I thought... and what is it. So, I put in the DVD and began watching the first chapter, "Powers of Ten". I then realized (remembered) why I put this on my Netflix list. It's only 9 minutes long but really is interesting and makes one think about the relative size of space (not outer space but simply *space*) and the human existence in this space, both at the macro and micro level that we tend to take for granted. I vaguely remember watching it in a science class in high school.

I burned a copy of it, of course, but was able to find an original on YouTube to post here. Oddly, there are some parodies and other versions with new soundtracks and narrators, but the 1977 original is just perfect. More so, during my YouTube search, I realized the the outgoing part to "Men in Black" (where the alien are playing a game of marbles with our galaxy) is based on "Powers of Ten" where our galaxy is but one galaxy in a realm of an endless cosmos filled with matter and gas.

So simple in delivery but deeply provoking in metaphysical reflection. Pretty cool, I thought (no pun intended, although it works).

Enjoy.