It has been almost a full year since I posted, which is surprising in some ways and not so surprising in others. I've completed my three-year term at Ithaca College, and am now teaching at SUNY Cortland. The faculty, students, and facilities are great, and there may be on-going work there, which would be nice. I'm also taking pictures of cuneiform tablets at Cornell, which is an interesting job if a bit outside what I've been doing for the last, oh, twenty years. At Cortland, I've been working in the ceramic studio with Jeremiah Donovan again, which is fabulous. I've made a few pieces, and the kiln was just fired yesterday with a number of pieces of mine. I'll try to get a picture up after they are out of the kiln.

We've been making some cheese, and tried a "white-mold" cheese, this one based on a chevre-style goat cheese. It took a while for it to develop, but wow, was it good. I'll make some more soon, but cow's milk since I just picked up a gallon from Jerry Dell Farm.

A couple of years ago, I started writing a play titled "In the Court of the Sea King." It was written on a small pad (5x8 or so), and was up to 28 pages (single side). Then it got packed away in a box and I didn't see it for a while. While looking for something else, I found it again. This morning will be used to type it into the computer and then backing it up so I don't have to hunt for it again.
I had almost given up on finding it, and wrote out an outline of it so I could start again. I was very happy to see that the outline and the written draft were more or less the same.

Time for my semi-annual update here, it seems.

Yesterday, there was a party for my for boss, Karen Hartgen, in Albany. She retired from running the business she started 37 years ago. Through a combination of things, I found out on Friday, but went anyway. Nothing like 7 hours of driving for a 3 hour event. But without Karen giving me a job and letting me open an office in Ithaca, I would not be in the house I have or probably even have the job I love teaching at Ithaca College. I got the job because I was in the right place at the right time, and the right place was Ithaca. Laurie and I would have stayed in East Greenbush and gone on with life there. Working for Karen also made me a better archaeologist and got me experience working on a remarkable set of sites. The people I worked with and met because I worked for Karen are some of the best folks around, so for many reasons I am where I am today because Karen offered me a job.

Otherwise, life is doing well. Classes are going well, with some great students this semester. We had a good season of gardening, and have a cupboard filled with tomatoes, applesauce and a few other goodies to last at least into part of the winter. We've even planted some things for the spring, specifically winter wheat and garlic. The wheat may have been planted a little later than ideal, but at least it went in.

It has been almost a year since I posted here, which is surprising to me in some ways and not others. It has been a very busy year.

The summer vanished between working, field work, and class prep. In the Fall, I taught Experimental Archaeology, which was a great class to teach. This spring, I'm teaching Medieval Archaeology and World Archaeology. This smmer, I'll be teaching Field Methods in Experimental Archaeology, which is a much more focused, hands-on course than the regular semester course. The first week will be making a series of mock sites or activity areas, to be followed with stone tool making, pottery making, cooking, then excavating the sites we made at the beginning of the class.

I'll try to post some pictures soon.

After a long absence, I'm back! It has been a busy 4 months! We've moved into the new house, and Emma had her 2nd birthday. Here's a selection of photos:

Here's Laurie and Emma sitting at the kitchen counter in the new house in the new chairs we bought just after we brought them home. They are really a nice place to sit.


Emma wanting to get the flowers. She does spend a lot of her time standing on the chairs at the counter.

A slightly older view from the living room back toward the kitchen.

I'll get some more recent photos up soon.