World Series

Go Phillies!!!!!

Andrew & Hazel in Cleveland

Sarah:
Andrew, Hazel, and Isabela came to meet us in Cleveland while we were there and arrived around noon on Friday the 17th. It was ~21/2 to 3 hour trip for them from their home in Novi, MI (just west of Detroit). It was so fun to see them and see how much Isabela has grown and changed. The last time we saw them was when we spent Memorial Day weekend at the Outer Banks in NC and Isabela was 8 months old. She is now 13 months and walking/running and full of personality. She smiles a lot and it was really neat to see the transition from baby to now toddler. It’s incredible….she seemed SO big to us since we have been so used to seeing Jackson even though Hazel said she is by far the smallest in her class at day care. She seemed to like her new cousin (Jackson) and would curiously look at him and touch him.

She liked Jackson so much that she even tried to see what he tasted like…. She was holding his hand while we were taking pictures and then she put his hand up to her mouth, giving him a kiss…and then a little nibble. I think it scared Jackson more than anything….he just cried for a second and then he was fine. His first bite….it was pretty funny. We took several pictures of them together but as most of you know….it’s so hard to get a good picture when the little munchkins move around so much.

Andrew and Hazel seem to being doing well and are enjoying Michigan. Hazel only has ~ 1 year left of her residency. We were all saying we can’t believe we have lived in Philadelphia and them in Michigan for over 3 years already. Here are a few pictures…

The Bite!!!

SVP Day 2 & 3

October 15, 2008 (SVP)

I got up early today to put up my poster, and then went to some talks. There weren’t many good talks today. However, my poster session went well. I got a lot of feedback on my poster, and I was pleased with it considering this morning was the 1st time I’d seen it printed. I used a new program to make it, one that I’d never used before I started this poster ~3 weeks ago, and it was too expensive and I was too late in completing it to have it printed before I left – you always find mistakes on the printed version that you’d never find on the computer screen, and sure enough, I found lots. However, almost none of them were ones anyone would notice, and I was pretty pleased with it. Ed Hooks found me during the poster session. Ed is an old friend that I used to do field work with near Selma, Alabama in the summers. He used to be the state paleontologist at the UAT, but he’s an Auburn graduate so he knows what a crap hope tuscalooser is. It is always great to see Ed, and it had been a few years. Other than that, the day was pretty uneventful.

This 1st night of every meeting is always my favorite. This is the night when we all get bussed to the local Natural History Museum for a private party. There is always good food, drinks, and a lot of fun. It’s a lot of fun to hang out under and around the dinosaur mounts and various other natural history displays. The museum was nice, but you can tell that it is old and many of the displays have not been changed in a very long time. Some are obsolete. It was fun regardless, and Jackson was great as usual. We hung out with Ed, Jason Poole, and some other friends and acquaintances, for most of the evening. We didn’t stay too long though because the Museum was very hot and crowded, and we were pretty tired. These meetings are always stressful for me, especially doing the poster. I’m usually pretty tired each day and throughout the week.

We came back ~9:30pm and just went to bed. We got back in time to see the Phillies win the pennant. That’s pretty awesome – I’ve gotten a little bit back into professional baseball for the 1st time since the strike. It’s pretty fun to go to a game, and the Phillies’ stadium is beautiful – right down town. I know people in Philly are going crazy right now. Philly hasn’t won a professional championship in any sport since 1980 (I think). They call it the “curse of William Penn” – I guess every crappy sports town or team has to blame it on some silly curse. Anyway, Philly has a beautiful old city hall building – the largest in the country. On top of the dome is a statue of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania. There used to be a city ordinance that said you couldn’t build anything taller than William Penn’s top hat, but that ordinance was lifted in 1980, and since then Philly hasn’t won much of anything. It’s a great sports town – they just haven’t won much of anything. It will be exciting to be in Philly during the World Series.

As you can tell from how much I’ve written, there aren’t many interesting talks today either. Next year’s SVP meeting is going to be in Bristol, England. That’s the 1st time the meeting will be outside North America – a nod to the fact that SVP, once basically a small American organization, has really become international. It’s a little frustrating because it is still dominated by American and Canadians, and that trip will be prohibitively expensive for much of the group. I know I won’t be going – especially if the economy is still in the toilet, as everyone says it will be. The next meeting in 2010, though is in Pittsburg, which is even closer to us than Cleveland, so that’s good.

In case you're wondering, the shirt says "Jacksonasaurus".

Allegheny Portage Railroad National Monument

October 14, 2008 (continued)

About 30 minutes to the northeast is Allegheny Portage Railroad National Monument. This monument is on top of a high ridge, and the weather up there was fantastic too – noticeably cooler with a lot of wind. There are giant wind turbines everywhere up here.

This monument is $4/adult and also features a nice visitors center and theater – I don’t remember so many theaters in these parks when I went to them as a kid. Maybe they were there and I just don’t remember, but I don’t think so. These all seem new. Anyway, the building is beautiful, but the exhibits inside were not as good or interesting as I would hope. The video was good, though. The best part about the park is that you take a short walk to one of the original buildings, and it there that you really get a sense of what this park is all about.

During the early 1800, there was no good East-West route across Pennsylvania. Roads had been built in New York and one was planned in Maryland, and people here didn’t want to miss out on the economic benefits of the booming westward expansion. The problem with such a road in PA though, was the Allegheny Mountains – a particularly beautiful, but steep mountain range within the Appalachians running basically north-northeast to south-southwest. Until now, goods and people from Philadelphia or Pittsburg traveled by canal to the foot of the Alleghenies, was unloaded onto horse-drawn carriages, hauled over the treacherous mountains, loaded back onto canal barges, and pulled toward the opposite city. This usually took about 25 days.

Some pretty smart guys thought up a better way. At the tops of 10 ridges, people built buildings to house huge steam engine pulleys. They would float those canal barges onto train cars, which would be connected by rope to those steam engines. The engines would pull those huge, heavy train cars loaded with canal barges loaded with goods, up those extremely steep mountain sides on rail cars – all with hemp ropes miles long. As you can imagine, there were a few breaks, and you can only imagine what would have happened when that huge load flew downhill on those tracks to the bottom of the mountains. More than a few people were killed. But, it was still a far better mode of transportation than anything available before. It turned that 25-day trip into a 3 day trip. In the 1860’s they replaced those ropes with the newly invented steel cable, which obviously was much safer. The whole thing is and was an engineering marvel. To think that they were able to do all that, including digging huge train tunnels, some 90 feet long, is just amazing. The Allegheny Portage Rail Road (APRR)opened in 1834.

Engine house #6.

At this Memorial, you get a close-up view of engine house #6 and a tavern built beside is. The tavern has an interesting story as well. A man (I forgot his name) kind was in the right place at the right time. He owned a house here and occasionally boarded travelers. When he heard that the rail road was going to build an engine house right there on his land, he built a big hotel and tavern to travelers. The house has been fully restored to its original condition, and is just beautiful. Archaeologists were even able to determine the exact color of paint used in the house, and painted it that color. He made quite a fortune with this tavern, but then struck gold again – or rather coal. On his property, just a few feet from the engine house, he found a seem of coal, and obviously, you need a lot of coal to run a steam engine. He became one of the richest men in the Alleghenies.

Sarah ordering a beer at the tavern.

With improvements in strength and efficiency in steam locomotives, the APRR became obsolete, and by 1889, it closed. I think it would be amazing to hike the path of the old railroad. There are still a lot of reminders of the old rail road along the way.

Sarah on one of the old railroad trails.

We had another short picnic in the parking lot, mostly just to enjoy the beautiful weather. There are several other places nearby that I wanted to see, but unfortunately, we had to get going. It was already 3pm and we still had a long drive to get to Cleveland.

We took some small roads and then the interstates to Cleveland, with a couple of long stops in the middle to feed Jackson, who had been amazingly patient in the car considering he’d been in the car seat for the better part of 2 days now. He would have been justified to be a screaming holy terror, but wasn’t at all. Anyway, we got to Cleveland and our hotel around 8:30. We’re in the Cleveland Renaissance Hotel, which is pretty swanky, but I learned a long time ago that it is worth the extra expense to stay in the same hotel that is hosting the meeting. We found out once we got there that they give free parking to hybrid cars, which will save us $30/night! That, and the huge savings on gas totally made the cramped drive worth it. We were pretty tired once we got here, so after we unpacked in our room we only went down to the lobby for a few minutes to hang out with friends.

The meeting (SVP, or Society of Vertebrate Paleontology) is a lot of fun. It’s a relatively small group of about 3,000 people each year, so everyone knows just about everyone, or at least recognizes faces. Its really more of a social event that a professional meeting. I go to some talks and the poster sessions, but it’s really much more useful as a socializing/interacting/networking function. For most of us, this is the 1 time each year that we get to see old fiends and colleagues.

Johnstown Flood National Memorial

October 14, 2008

We had a great day today. We started off with our free hotel breakfast and by stealing breakfasts and lunches for the next several days.

We drove ~ 20 minutes north on hwy 219 to Johnstown National Memorial. This was a fascinating site that I don’t think I’ve ever heard of. Before I get into it, the Memorial is $4.00/person over 15 yrs old. They have a wonderful visitors center with a theater, interpretive section, and museum. The whole building, movie, etc., should only take about an hour to go through.

Here’s the story: the Memorial building overlooks where a large man-made lake was in the mid 1800’s. The lake was about 1 mile wide and 2.5 miles long and was owned by a bunch of rich business men from nearby Pittsburg, some of which you may have heard of – Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, etc. They built the lake as a “country get-a-way” – kind of a county resort.

This is where the lake used to be.

Anyway, as the owners, they were in charge of maintaining the earthen dam, which was said to be the biggest in the world at the time. After 1 dam failure in the 1850’s, which wasn’t a big deal, the dam was improperly repaired and safety features were ignored, or eliminated. Anyway, on Memorial Day, 1889, there was torrential, record rainfall after an unusually wet spring. The next day, the dam gave way, releasing tons and tons of water down a narrow gorge formed by the Conamaugh River. At certain narrow points in the river there was a wall of water 75 feet high traveling at 40 miles per hour. The thing about floods is that its not just the water – it’s all the things carried by the water – boulders, trees, houses, anything it can move. Anyway, there were a couple of small towns uphill from Johnsonstown, and in each lots of people were killed, but they had a little better warning. One of these towns was completely wiped out, and by “completely”, I mean there was literally nothing left – the ground was scraped bare to the bedrock. There was no sign of a living thing after this wall of water went through. On its way down the mountain, the flood took out several huge bridges, including rock arch bridges, and even entire trains full of people. 80 ton steam engines were found washed miles away from were they were picked up by the flood.

The main affects were in Johnstown, though, 14 miles downstream of the dam. People there had very little warning and mostly ignored those warnings. This was a big mill and steel town of ~30,000 people at the time, and was particularly badly positioned in a flood plain at the bottom of a steep valley at the confluence of the Conemaugh and another river. The flood hit the town ~40 minutes after the dam break and nearly completely wiped out the town, drowning a lot of people. That’s not the worst of it, though. In town, there is a huge, 7-arch stone bridge. That bridge dammed all of the debris – houses, trees, etc. – it essentially created a 60-acre debris field many feet high. Most of the people that got carried away ended up here floating on and trapped in this debris. The horrific thing is that mixed with all this debris was oil and hot coal and embers from the steel mills. Not a good mixture. The debris field caught on fire, burning many more people while they were trapped in a flood. Pretty scary! The official death toll was 2,209 people, though everyone agrees it was far more than that. The last body was found in 1911 many, many miles away in Cincinnati.

This was Johnstown right before the flood.

Johnstown immediately after the flood.

This was a pretty powerful place. Unfortunately, I’d never heard of this flood.
There is a short walking trail to go to the edge of what remains of the dam, with a pretty view of the valley where the lake used to be. The visitors center is very nice as well with lots of interactive displays that do a very good job of explaining what happened, explaining the timeline, and describing the effects. The only complaint is that the movie was REALLY loud!

The National Memorial buildings from the site of the old dam.

After the park, we drove down the hill to a little community park to have a picnic, then drove around the town briefly and found a couple of the original cottages built by those rich business men along the banks of the lake, which were being restored, than headed up country roads to the next park.

Again, it was just a spectacular drive. The fall colors are amazing. The weather was nice too, though unusually warm – about 20 degrees above average, and very sunny.

Flight 93 Memorial

October 13, 2008 (continued)

The 1st National Monument we wanted to visit was the Flight 93 National Memorial. A temporary memorial is still there – they’re hoping to begin construction on the permanent memorial next year. The monument is free now and I assume it will remain that way after the new one is built.

When we got there a park ranger was giving her presentation to a group sitting on benches. She was telling stories of the individual passengers while showing their pictures in a notebook. Most of the stories revolved around their last conversations with their loved ones while on the plane. It was very, very sad. She also detailed the last few moments of the flight.

The memorial wall with all of the objects on it is quite powerful. There’s not much to say about this really – everyone knows what it is and what it’s about. Here are some pictures that we took. Our computer crashed last week, so we'll have to put up video later.

On our way to Cleveland, OH

After dropping off Lincoln at the pet hotel this morning, we left on our trip to Cleveland. We drove West on I-76 for several hours, then got on the back roads for about another hour. The whole drive was just beautiful, especially when we got into the mountains. Fall is about a week or 2 further along than where we are, and the trees on the hills and around the farm fields are just beautiful – it looks like an impressionist painting. No matter how many times I see them, it is still hard to believe that trees and hillsides can get those colors.

We stopped at an overlook approaching 3,000 feet in elevation and drove through lots of small towns and countryside. We came upon a couple of wind farms. Pennsylvania (and New Jersey) are leaders in the country when it comes to alternative energy. I absolutely love to see these wind turbines. They are simply amazing, from an engineering standpoint (they are freakin’ huge!), and aesthetically – they are both stately and graceful. Studies have shown that wherever they are put up, they become tourist draws.

This is one still being built. Look how big it is right behind those huge trucks/cranes!

Here is the base of one of the blades waiting to be assembled, with Sarah for scale.

Here's Sarah for scale again under the widest part of the blade. It's hard to fathom how big these things really are.

Well, we left a day early for my meetings in Cleveland partly because I have off tomorrow for Columbus Day, and so that we could get to a couple of National Monuments, which I’ll save for the next post.

We’re staying the night in Johnstown, PA in a motel. I just realized that we're only a few miles East of Latrobe, Pa, where my Unlcle and cousins used to live years ago. I was there a long time ago.

Jackson is 10 weeks old!!!!

We can't believe Jackson is already 10 weeks!! He's growing so fast and changing so much. He now smiles a lot and squeals....but of course I can't seem to get him to smile for the camera....he's already stubborn. He had his 2 month check up and he now weighs 13 lbs 1 oz (75% for weight) and is 24 inches (85% for height). He's holding his head up much better and loves to look at people. He seems to really "study" people's faces. It's fun now that we can tell he is really looking at us when we talk and is much more responsive. I was teaching him the sounds of animals the other day and he did NOT like to sound of a cow "moo". It was so funny....he was smiling and cooing and then all of a sudden after I made the cow sound he wrinkled his eyes brows and quivered his bottom lip. I tried it again a few hours later to see if it was really the "moo" that he he didn't like or if it was a coincident....it was the "moo". :)

We are not sure what Jackson is going to be for Halloween yet but we're thinking about a "puppy" because for the first several weeks Jason and I were both calling him "puppy" on accident. We were just so used to calling Lincoln "puppy". We'll keep you all posted.


Here are some recent pictures....

Lincoln LOVES his lil' brother!!!!

Season's Over

Well, I'm beyond ranting about how completely horrendous we are. The collapse is complete - our former strengths, the kicking game and defense, have fallen apart. I don't know what the hell is going on, but as far as I'm concerned, the season is over. The only other team we might beat is Middle Tennessee, which means we won't even be going to a bowl. I don't care to see, read, or hear one more thing about football this season. Unfortunately, after promissing to take Jon David and after months of begging for and finally getting tickets, we have to go to the WVU game in 2 weeks. I don't want to spend the time or money to go watch us play like shit and watch us get beat by a mediocre Big East team. I feel bad that Jon David spent a lot of money to come up for that game. Hire Patrick Nix to take over the offense and groom him to be the next head coach for a few years. Season is over . . . I'm going to my cave now . . .

Meeting in Cleveland

This week Sarah, Jackson and I will be going to Cleveland for the annual Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting.

It's not as nerdy as it sounds - its actually a lot of fun. I'm presenting some research there.

We've never been to Cleveland, so we're looking forward to it. I have off from work on Tuesday, so we're going to head up a day early so that we can stop along the way at a National Monument or 2. We don't know which ones yet - there are several choices.

Also, Sarah's brother, Andrew, and his wife, Hazel, and their daugher Isabela (just over a year old) are going to drive over from Detroit to stay with us for part of the time. It should be a lot of fun. We'll keep you updated.

Ahh, Memories

Kevin sent me this picture - the Trailer Trash Bash in Auburn. I have no idea what year that was. regardless, it was awesome. Sarah and I have a picture of ourselves dressed for this party on our fridge. We went as redneck (typical) alabammer fans. I still remmeber the look on the faces at the gas station workers when we went in there beofore the party to buy a pack of cigarettes for Sarah to be "smoking" while she was "knocked up". Man, that was fun. Judging by Sarah's pregnant belly, I'm guessing this was fairly late in the night.

Edgar Allen Poe National Historic Site

Admission: Free

Open: Only for a few hours, a few days/week.

It's been a while since I've had a chance to update this.

On the same day that Sarah, Jackson and I went to the Thaddeus Kioscuzko National Monument a couple of weeks ago, we also went a couple of miles away to the edgar Allen Poe National Historic Site, on 7th and Fairmount.

This is the house where Poe lived for several (~3-4) years with his dying wife and mother-in-law. Some of his most famous works were written here, incuding The Black Cat (I think that's what it is called - I'm no literature expert!), and The Raven.

Unforutunately, the Site is under renovation, so we're going to have to go back. Most of the rooms were stripped bare to the walls and original wood floors and there wasn't much to see in most of the house. It was kind of dissapointing, but I'm sure the renovations are necesary. They are expected to be done in mid January.

There were a few things to see. For example, there is a small theater with a short (~8min) movie about Poe and his time here. The rangers give you a laminated (temporary) guide to each rom in the house that tells you which rooms were which. The basement is cool, and pretty creepy, regardless of who lived here. Here is a video of Sarah trying to do her best "The Blair Witch Project" impression - I'm not sure she's actually seen it based on this.

The best part of the house was the reading room. They have 1 room that is completely restored with period furnitures, carpeting, etc. You can go in there, read from a complete colelction of Poe's works, or listen to them on cd. That part was actually quite nice.

Unfortunately, since most of the house was not completed, we can't mark this one off our list. We'll go back in the winter or spring and give an update. It was funt o go, anyway.

On an adjacent building there is this mural:

This mural is part of the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, which has placed nearly 3,000 mural, small and enormous, on buildings, retaining walls, etc., all over the city. Most are fantastic. It's really a great program that the city has.

Conveniently, this building was right beside the EAP NM:

Now, we're not going to add National Historic Buildings to our list - that's too much. Frankly, while I love history, I care much less about buildings than I do nature, so we'll stick with National Parks and Monuments.

Do Not Call List

The 1st 5 years of the national do not call list is about to expire. I already did this and it only took a few seconds.

From an e-mail I got recently:

Please Note: Cell Phone Numbers Go Public todayREMINDER.... all cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sale calls..... YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS !!To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone:
1-888-382-1222.
It is the National DO NOT CALL list. It will only take a minute of your time. It blocks your number for five (5) years. You must call from the cell phone number you want to have blocked. You cannot call from a different phone number.You can do the same for your regular “land line” phone.
After 31 days, if you receive an unwanted call, report the number, or the caller by name, to the number above (1-888-382-1222) or to www.donotcall.gov
HELP OTHERS BY PASSING THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS.
It takes about 20 seconds.

Fall is Here!

We had our 1st frost this morning! It's been beautiful lately - sunny and in the low to mid 60's. I know my family has heard me say this a million times, so they're forgiven if they don't read this, but we love fall and spring up here. In the south, it seems like everyother tree is a stupid pine tree. There are no pine trees up here, so everything blooms in the spring and everything changes color in the fall. Falls are amazing here. The other great thing is that all that nasty, thick yellow pollen that is everywhere in the south in the spring - we don't have that here at all. People here complain about pollen in the spring and I tell them they don't know what pollen is!