There was supposed to be a big announcement from WB and other Hobbit players on the 8th, but it's been postponed. Judging from what was writting at the following link, I think when they announced the big announcement would be today, they were expecting to have already done some casting. ...totally going with the unhappy Thranduil icon today. Get with it folks! Don't get us excited about one day and then on that day announce another one!

http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2009/12/07/34554-peter-jackson-hobbit-casting-begins-this-week/

I realized recently that I haven't really posted much of anything in a long time. There are a couple reasons for that. One of the reasons is because I recently went through some real ugliness at work. I think the worst of it is over, but there is still some fallout that I'm dealing with. I was, for all intents and purposes, being slandered all over the place by an individual I have never met. The governor's office ended up calling the CEO of my company. Luckily, I had already spoken with the CEO, so he was prepared. The company is supporting me 100%, which so far has been really nice, but it's still been an ordeal. We've gone from declaring that we are going to sue, to deciding to apologize just to be done with it, to finally settling on not taking this crap and going over the accuser's head. Considering a letter was sent to the governor's office about my field staff, I think it's the only thing we can do at this point.

Anyway, that has really been affecting everything else in my life. I've buried myself in my game (LotRO) and haven't done much of anything else (other than one Saturday when my friends made me leave the house to walk a 5k charity thing). I had pretty much lost all interest in everything other than hiding out in my game. I think I'm back now though. I had about five books that I had started (including Daw's-sorry that I haven't gotten very far, but it's coming up soon) and not gotten past the first chapter. All of them are good though. I've just been... meh. So I finally forced myself away from the game yesterday and started reading again, and here is my recommendation.

Get The Lovely Bones! I love this book! It's getting me back into reading again, and I think everyone should go out and buy it. :-)

Hopefully this time next year we will be seeing Bilbo's Big Adventure Movie making some actual progress.

Sigh. English.

The following is taken from the Endangered Species Act.

A determination is limited to either
“no affect,” which equates to no effect at all, positive, negative, or neutral, or to “may affect,”
which equates to any effect, positive, negative, or neutral. “May affect” can be further qualified
with a determination of ‘likely to adversely affect’ or ‘not likely to adversely affect.’ A “may
affect and is likely to adversely affect” determination triggers formal consultation with the Fish
and Wildlife Service. A determination of “may affect and not likely to adversely affect” can be
addressed with informal consultation with the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Freaking amazing! Why can't I have even a hint of that talent?

http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/902-Benjamin_Harff_Interview_Edel_Silmarillion.php#ACS_Comments_Container

I'm tired of rumors and I would dearly love to not be drawn to TORN every day, but dangit, I really can't help it. I want The Hobbit to be finalized and casting settled. I want the rumors to be from the set, not from Joe Blogger who heard from someone who heard from their Aunt Clara who was once married to a cameraman who was friends with someone who had a cousin who talked to someone who knows Peter Jackson's next door neighbor's sister that The Hobbit will be in 3D, that they've cut the Rivendell stopover, and that there will be six movies-the first two directed by GDT, three directed by Peter, and the last directed by the ghost of Rainer Werner Fassbinder!

...I learned from taking my cat for a drag. ( Read more... )

I thought I'd post some recent photos that I like. I've mostly been working on the reservation the past couple months, and I've really come to love one area in particular. ( Read more... )

/ranton

( Read more... )

So I got a call yesterday from the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer on one of the reservations where I do a lot of work. He wanted me to come in today for a meeting which, of course, I did. It turns out that they are building new housing developments and came across some cairns, some of which they think may be burials. The THPO wanted me (ME!) to come out and excavate them.

Rather than going into a lot of cultural explanations about why I was so stunned that he called me, I will just say wow. I really feel honored that he called me and glad that he not only trusts me to do the job in a respectful manner, but that he felt I was the right person to do it.

The mama bird returned! Cleo didn't kill her! ...I still feel bad about the other bird, but at least I don't know where that one lives.

I've been in the field for the past... hmm.. forever. I think it was only actually 8 days, but it felt like forever. Anyway, I came home last night and today I let the cat out that likes being out and... oh, did I mention the robin nest on my front porch? Well there is one there and it has eggs in it. I haven't seen the mom for awhile this afternoon and I was getting concerned. I'm even more concerned now that I saw Cleo running around the house with a robin in her mouth.

sigh

I really hope not. I really really hope not.

This isn't my normal post, but I just HAD to do it. I'm not advising anyone to go spend more money or to buy something they don't need, but wow do I love my vacuum. I got it at Sears. It's the Intuition model from Kenmore. If you are in the market for a new vacuum, get this one!

I've been through two vacuums in three years and, if you count the one that I had borrowed from my previous work place, I've really been through three in four years. I have two cats, one of which is a long hair. I don't have any kids. Two cats really shouldn't ruin vacuums, but they do! I've cleaned out every filter, tube, nook, and cranny, but eventually they crap out and stop sucking even after being declogged. I need a vacuum that sucks! (heh)

The Intuition was expensive compared to the last two vacuums that I've owned, but so far I feel like it's also more than worth it! When I went to Sears, I had kind of decided that I wasn't going to get another WalMart vacuum. I was going to get a canister rather than an upright and it would have to pick up kitty litter from a hardwood floor. If it was another one that spit things out the back, I wasn't going to bother! Well, the Intuition does that and more! It has a step-switch on the head that releases the bare floor attachment (no tracking down attachments that get lost and don't work right anyway), it has a sensor that tells you when it's still picking things up so that you know when you've gotten everything, and the HEPA filter actually seems to make a real difference (unlike other vacuums with alleged HEPA filters that haven't made it feel any different at all).

I love that after I vacuum it feels really clean in here. This is definitely the best vacuum I've ever had. Oh yeah, and it has a retractable cord so you don't have to do that wrapping thing! :D

So one of my Facebook friends sent me a message today to tell me that he was reading and article in Plains Anthropologist and I was cited in it! It's kind of nerdy how excited I was to hear that! It was my thesis that was cited (though I haven't read the article, for all I know they said it was a bunch of crap, but I think my friend would have told me that if it were the case) and the thing that makes it the most exciting is that the citation is from two people who I very much respect and admire. One of them was on my committee and the other is a professor at Calgary with whom I consulted a bit while writing my thesis and have since contacted him about some things that I've found in this job. Overall, it's a good start to the week!

I loved Star Trek. It was one of those movies that I was able to completely lose myself in, which is what going to the movies is all about for me and, I suspect, one of the reasons that I'm such a big fantasy geek. The movie was hilarious in places-mainly because you could definitely see the development of the various characters into their older selves. There were lots of Star Trek joke moments for fans of the other movies and the TV show, but they weren't so obscure that you had to be a trekkie to get them-that's probably what made it so good. I won't give anything away here, I'll just say that I loved it. I will probably buy it when it comes out on DVD.

YAY! It didn't go below freezing last night or the night before. Of course, what this also means is that we're flooding again! Once again, nearly the entire state is under a flood warning. The Knife and Heart rivers are over their banks, overland flooding is pretty much the norm everywhere within a mile of a river or creek. Roads are closed, Valley City and Jamestown have had the National Guard dispatched to help with flooding of the Sheyenne River. They are dropping sandbags from helicopters in Valley City.

I'm supposed to go in the field this week. JOY! I went out for a drive with a friend of mine on Saturday and there were roads closed everywhere even then. It's worse now and I'm not real sure I can even get to the project that I'm supposed to be looking at.

In other news, the warmth is lovely as long as you can stay dry.

Edit: The civil air patrol is taking aerial photos of the flood in various parts of the state. This site isn't always 100% up to date, but there are lots of pictures here if anyone is interested:

https://cid-f46daf3cf8ce8075.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/2009%20ND%20Flood%20Reconnaisance

You know the one. The one that said Spring was cancelled. I got up this morning to snow that is knee deep. I started digging out so I could go to work and was about half way done when I got a call to tell me not to bother hurrying in, they were locking the doors at work. That was about an hour and 1/2 ago. There are another good 2 inches out there since then.

I think God hates North Dakota. That is the only reasonable explanation.

Oh well. At least I brought work home with me and can sit in my living room writing reports in my pajamas.

So I didn't go to work today. Instead, my roomie and I volunteered with the sandbagging efforts. The Missouri apparently has (had, now, I think) two ice jams. One is north of Bismarck at Double Ditch, and the other is in southern Bismarck just past Fox Island. I think we were going to flood regardless, but the ice jams made it worse. The National Guard and Core of Engineers did a bunch of flyovers of the area and tested the ice at the jams. They were supposed to have set off detonations around 3:00 this afternoon at the southern one to relieve flooding and let the water pass through. In the mean time, areas along the river flooded and, because of the blizzard yesterday and additional melt-off (even though it's below freezing [don't ask me to explain that!]), the storm drains are backed up and there is additional flooding in other low-lying areas. Pretty much most of south Bismarck is blocked off. This morning they were asking for volunteers to help with sandbagging, so we went.

When we got there, there were a few hundred people already there, including a couple National Guard units. We went into loading area at the civic center to sign up. There were steady streams of trucks in and out collecting filled sandbags, and big dumptrucks dropping off more sand. My first job was moving bags. This was kind of fun and worked like a water bucket line. I got the bag from the person on one side of me and passed to the person on the other. It seemed, however, that every time the line stopped moving, I had a particularly heavy bag! heh. My second job was to hold bags open while someone else shovelled sand into them. That was definately the easiest job of the day, and time flew by when I was doing it. Everyone was in good spirits and we were joking around and having a grand time playing in the sand. My little group went through a LOT of sand!!! I don't even know how many bags we filled. My last job was tying the bags closed. This was a finger murderer, but it was with the same group of people that I had been doing the previous job with, so it still pretty fun.

We worked for several hours at the sandbagging place. I have some photos and will post them later if htey turned out-I took them on my phone. I wouldn't say that the effort was overly organized, but everyone there was pitching in and doing what needed to be done. We organized ourselves, really. So while my group was filling bags, there was another group moving them to pallets, and another group throwing them into the backs of trucks who showed up to collect them. There were other crews that went out to help lay the bags, but I didn't end up on one of those.

So this morning I was sandbl... no, iceblasted by the blizzard. We have sustained winds of 28-30 mph. That may not seem all THAT bad, but when it's blowing snow and ice against your face it's plenty bad. My house is yellow, but because of the snow blasting at it, it looks white today. Windows and everything are covered with wet, heavy, sticky snow. Driving was an adventure. The ice jam in the Missouri has caused substantial flooding in areas south of here, and roads are closed pretty much all over the state. The northwestern portion of the state seems to be in the best shape right now, but I saw a news report that the Missouri may flood up there as well, so we'll see.

South and some roads in eastern Bismarck are flooding. Highway 94 is closed from Bismarck to Dickinson due to the blizzard. There are more ice jams showing up on the Heart River in Mandan, which has caused flooding there as well. Highway 94 is also closed between Valley City and West Fargo. I got an email from someone in our Valley City office saying that most of the roads around there are either closed or have at least minor flooding and will soon be closed if the water keeps rising. Our Dickinson office is closed due to a snow emergency. Our Moorehead office is open, but most people from that office are out sandbagging along the Red River. Our Valley City office is open, but most people are sandbagging there as well. Highway 83 is closed from just east of Bismarck into South Dakota due to flooding.

It's bad out there.