A Useful Day

I popped down today to visit some of the digs I have been working with. I was hoping that bwo would come with me, but she opted to stay at home and clean up after last night's Asian Fest. A pity (not the cleaning up part), because the visits made me feel useful.


First I visited JVRP (Jezreel Valley Regional Project) run by one of the area directors at Megiddo. They are trying out some of the code I wrote for the main dig at Megiddo in 2 weeks.  It is quite gratifying as the code seems to be working, which is always nice.


Then I visited Norma and her team at Kibbutz Jezreel. They are starting a survey on Tel Jezreel tomorrow and so were just getting settled in.  I helped a little with some of the tech issues they have. A Garmin eTrex hand held GPS is a cool toy for around $100. I will definitely pick one up next time I'm in the US. All in all it is very nice to feel needed. The stuff I have been doing is rather trivial and would probably make any of my squints wince (hmm, squints wince - a rhyme), but the archaeologists seem most grateful and it makes me feel good.


I am looking forward to the 17th when my vacation and the big dig starts. I can then pretend I'm an archaeologist (as they say: To my mother I'm an archaeologist, to my wife I'm an archaeologist, to my kids I may even be an archaeologist, but to an archaeologist, I'm no archaeologist - should be quoted with a nice thick Yiddish accent).