An Archaeological Cliff Hanger

It occurs to me that despite being an archaeologist, I have never written much about archaeology or what I am doing. That is because I am well aware of the fact that there are exactly 3 people in the world who are really all that interested in what I do…and two of them are my graduate students whose livelihoods depend on feigning interest in what I do. What I am going to write about is pretty interesting. It is as much iconography as it is archaeology and that is the attempt to find meaning in ancient symbols—still pretty cool if you ask me. As a way to make this more interesting, I am using that old trick of the early 20^th century radio, movie, and comic strip (and of course the Star Wars the Clones Wars show currently running on TV) —the cliff hanger.

This story starts in 1539 when Hernando de Soto landed on the Gulf Coast of Florida with 600 soldiers, about 300 of them mounted, and all of the equipment of a 16^th century European army…oh, and a herd of pigs. As a tangent, that is how the domesticated pig got to the New World and where our feral pig population (including Hogzilla) came from. De Soto was looking for a giant pile of gold like the ones Cortez found in Mexico and Pizzaro got from the Inca in Peru. De Soto and crew traveled northward through Florida, into southwestern Georgia and finally made it to central Georgia to a very populous and powerful Native American province called Ocute. The collection of archaeological sites that represent the remains of Ocute are likely near Milledgeville, GA. Between their landing and Ocute, de Soto and his army traveled from Native American town to Native American town. At each town, the army was “given” food, women, and burden bearers. I am certain they were given these things in the same way that you might give the class bully your pudding—as an exchange for not getting a wedgie that day. Or in the same way that a really bad State employee gets a sterling recommendation for a new job—to get rid of them as simply and quickly as possible. In other words, the Spaniards ate and coerced their way through Florida and Georgia.

The Native American leaders de Soto encountered usually tried to do two things. The first was to make an alliance with the Spaniards, often by making de Soto a relative through adoption or marriage. The other thing they did was make sure to tell them that the next town over was the one with the gold. The leader of Ocute did both of those things. In this case, he directed de Soto and army toward central South Carolina—to a province known as Cofitachequi. This place was located on what we now know as the Wateree River and the archaeological sites representing that province are near Camden. De Soto and army set out from Ocute and traveled eastward toward Cofitachequi. This route took the Spaniards across the Savannah River somewhere south of Augusta. Now in order for this giant army to survive, they needed the corn that they got from Native American towns along the way. The Spanish basically ate up all the stored corn along their route. The Native Americans traded their winter food supply to get rid of this giant collection of bad tempered, ill behaving foreigners. When de Soto got to the Savannah River he found that no one lived there. There were no Native American villages to be found. The army nearly starved to death and just barely made it to central South Carolina. There they found communities with stored food that they could take. The leader of this province was a woman (which was unusual) and some of the chronicles that survive of the de Soto expedition describe the first encounter between this Lady of Cofitachequi and de Soto—great stuff.

From our safe perspective of history, you can’t help but chuckle at the cleverness of the people at Ocute. Not only did they send this scourge that ate their food and took their wives into a no-man’s land where they were likely to starve, but they also sent that scourge to their mortal enemies. Ocute had been at war with Cofitachequi for years. People are people.

The story goes on, but the Savannah River is where I will stop. Along de Soto’s route he and his army left lots of evidence of his visit. Archaeologically, this has been found mostly in the form of European things like iron tools and glass beads. No evidence has ever been found of de Soto’s visit to the Savannah River valley. Probably that is because they didn’t stay in one place very long and they didn’t find anyone to “trade” with.

This is a photograph of a Native American pottery bowl. It was found by some local people digging into a mound in the Savannah River floodplain. I’ll save my take on unsystematic digging (aka looting) for another time. Inside this bowl is an image that was etched onto the bottom after the pot was fired. The current owner of the pot has hypothesized that this image actually is of a Spanish solider and that the H prominently placed on his chest is evidence of the visit of Hernando de Soto. You can form your own opinion of that idea. I have mine.

(click to enlarge)

I am part of a working group of scholars who study Native American imagery just like the one on this pot. I am going to send this image to a bunch of them to see what they think about it. Is it real or is it a fake…in other words, is it old or was it scratched in the bottom of that pot recently? Was the image made by Native Americans, 16^th century Spaniards, or modern South Carolinians? The pot is definitely old and without holding the pot, it is hard to tell if the etching is recent or ancient. Even if it is recent, it can be hard to tell if it was done 30 years ago or 300 years ago. In short, the best way to figure this out is to look at how the image is made and what it shows. As I get responses back from my colleagues, I'll let you know what they say.

I weighed 201.7 lbs today, after not exercising and eating pizza for dinner followed by some ice cream. I guess I should keep up that particular regimen since it has given me my best results so far. It is rainy and cold today, so my chances of going out for a nice walk or bike ride aren’t very good. That means only one thing. I have no choice but to help clean the house. Besides mowing the lawn, I can’t think of anything that I dislike more.

Cell Phone

So cell phones and I have a very complicated relationship. As you can tell from my last post, I do love electronic gadgets. You could also gather from my last post that I might have trouble keeping them in running condition. My IPod experience is part of a larger cell phone problem. I got up last night at midnight to collect my cell phone from downstairs. I often use it as an alarm clock. I found it on the kitchen table sitting in a pool of water. That pool of water was from a cup of water that once was sitting upright on the table. I’ve never seen it, but I’ve deduced that spilled water cups are caused by one of our three cats. This water thing has gone on for a long time, on and off. I’ve actually concluded that it happens when our cats run out of water. So, my cats tell me that they need water by spilling cups of water in inconvenient places. This time, it was right next to my cell phone.

Now to call this phone I am using “my cell phone” is a bit of revisionist history. It is really not technically my cell phone. My original phone met a different fate. I left it on the roof of my car as I drove off to work one morning. Someone found it and called the number attached to Home in the contacts. That number went to my in-laws’ house because I think I borrowed that phone from my wife because something happened to my previous phone. So my in-laws called my wife, who in turn called the people who found the phone. They lived across the street from us. That phone was seriously beat up so I recycled it. Then, I think I went and bought the cheapest phone Verizon had. That one did OK until it accidentally jumped into a mug of hot coffee in the drink holder of my car. I still have that one somewhere. It turns on but the screen is pretty messed up.

After that little bath, my wife compassionately gave me her old cell phone (replaced by a new phone). It is (was) a nice Razor. I really liked that phone. It was big enough that it was harder to lose and it looked pretty cool, too. That Razor and I did fine together until we all went to Walt Disney World in December of last year. One night the kids begged me to take them to the pool. We were staying at the Polynesian. I took them and refused to get in the water because it was too cold. The kids were really mad at me. Then we decided to go to the volcano pool. It has a zero entry end, so you can wade in. It was just cold enough that I really didn’t want to get the important parts all wet. When it is cold I don’t mind getting my feet and legs wet. The trouble starts in the area between my quads and my waist. When it is cold, I find it really hard to get those parts wet. It’s a psychological thing. Even that isn’t too bad once I go there. The really big hurdle is from my ribs to my shoulders. That is the area that really doesn’t want to get wet because once it does I am cold and I stay cold. Anyway, with the zero entrance I could wade into the pool and at least partially satisfy the needs of my kids to have me in the pool…without getting the critical areas wet. As I was drawn into the pool by my kids, I forgot that my Razor was in the back pocket of my bathing suit. I am sure my subconscious knew it was OK because I really never intended to cross that quads line. Well, somehow I did and my Razor took a dip in the volcano pool at the Polynesia Resort at Walt Disney World. So that phone bit the dust.

The phone I have now (“my cell phone”) actually was given to me generously by a friend. She had been given it by her mother-in-law and was keeping it as a back up phone. So, it wasn’t really her phone either. This phone has a camera and my kids have had a great time playing with it. I should upload the pictures they’ve taken because they are a funny, kid’s-eye view of things. The problem is that the phone isn’t working right now. The odd thing about the donated (borrowed) phone is that it has pictures on it of my friend’s husband, kids and dog as well as other people. I almost feel intrusive when I accidentally look at them. So, the phone that one of my cats doused with water as an act of defiance because I let their water run dry is not really my phone at all. If this phone doesn’t revive, I am really in trouble because I have run out of people to borrow phones from. It is clear at this point that I cannot take care of them. I swear this one was only my fault indirectly. Why my cat couldn’t douse my wallet instead of my phone, I just don’t know.

If you read yesterday’s post (which no one did) you’ll conclude what my wife already has concluded. I shouldn’t have an expensive phone, I should not own any expensive gadgets, and I definitely should not have an IPhone. It is a good thing my kids are big enough that I can’t leave them on the roof of a car or drop them in a cup of coffee!

Mix Tape

My iPod is broken and I miss it. I need to qualify that statement in two ways. First I never really had it all that long, so it’s hard to say I really miss it. It really only worked for me for a few months. Second, to say “it is broken” is to skirt the issue of how it got broken. The cold, hard reality is that I broke it. I left it on the roof of my car and drove off. I didn’t see it again for weeks. It came back into my life in a funny way. I was near Macon, GA doing some remote sensing at the Macon Plateau site. We were eating lunch and my graduate student was sitting on the back of my car eating his vegetarian lunch from Burger King—french fries. He asked, “Looking for this?” as he pulled my iPod from that space between the back window of my car and the trunk. I was pleased to see my favorite gadget again, but also a little worried that it was dead. I later found that it wasn’t completely dead, just mostly dead. It charges up enough for about 5 minutes of operation and that is it.

This isn’t just an iPod, its an iPod touch. Not only does it hold songs, but it also shows movies and pictures, surfs the web, stores contact information, has a calendar and a note pad and room for lots of apps. It is the freakin’ coolest gadget I’ve ever owned. Not only is it the coolest gadget I’ve ever owned, but I got myself into a lot of trouble getting it. I got it the same time that I got my university-owned laptop. Despite the insistence of my friendly Apple customer service representative, the price of the iPod was charged to my university card and part of the computer was charged to my personal credit card. Not only did I get my university purchasing privileges revoked, but a permanent black stain was placed on my university record. My situation quickly became THE example used at university purchasing seminars demonstrating what NOT to do with your university credit card. This IPod represents my self-imposed brush with unemployment.

It is a cool gadget because it so simply allows you to do what used to be a time-consuming labor filled with longing, angst, and sometimes unrequited love—the making of a mix tape. I can remember laboring endlessly over my combination record player and cassette deck. Coming up with the song line-up was part and parcel of the angst. Making sure you pressed the two buttons to start the cassette deck recording at precisely the right time was even tougher. You either started it too early and there was a pop-filled pregnant pause between songs, or you waited too long and missed the beginning of the song. Either way, the miss made it so you had to rewind the mix tape and stop it at the appropriate point after the last song and start the recording process all over again. The time and frustration was part of the pain and longing that inspired the tape in the first place. It could take hours or even days to get it just right. God forbid you change the line-up after you’ve started or find a skip somewhere in the middle. It had to be perfect. It seems like I made a lot of mix tape. Music has always been something that has made me feel my feelings. Making a mix tape, for me, was putting my feelings into concrete. Just like poetry to Wordsworth or music to Chopin.

Honestly, most of the mix tapes I made were for me. In my younger days, I was pretty much a hopeless nerd…unlike now, when I am a super-cool, popular guy. (Self-deprecation alert!). There was one mix tape that really hit the mark. I made it for a girlfriend that I was leaving in Pennsylvania to go to graduate school in Georgia. It was a tragic story. We really couldn’t continue our relationship because her family wanted her to marry a nice Jewish boy and I was not Jewish, no matter how nice. Our parting had that Romeo and Juliet quality to it. That mix tape may represent my most successful artistic achievement. It was so good that she copied it and gave me the duplicate!

I still love the idea of a mix tape, but now it’s just called your mp3 player or IPod. You can rip and burn yourself a mix tape in a matter of minutes. The gaps between the songs are perfect and there is no skipping. It is so easy now that it almost takes something away from the meaning of the mix. It doesn’t have that same investment. Maybe technology has compressed the time span of angst.

If I had my IPod, I’d make a mix tape. I am in that kind of mood to do something like that. I guess that means I am filled with angst and in need of feeling my feelings. I guess I can go onto ITunes and make a mix. Then someday I’ll have an IPod that I can transfer it to…or I can rip and burn that sucker to a cd and…I don’t know what I would do with it.

I recently took my IPod to the Apple store in Augusta. It is a first generation IPod touch—almost a “classic” or antique in the fast-moving world of electronic gadgets. The Genius at the Genius Bar (Apple tech support) spotted evidence for a “bit of water damage.” I guess it rained in the weeks that it sat between my back windshield and my trunk. My personal genius informed me that it would cost $149 to get my IPod fixed, but that my smartest move would be to buy the third generation IPod touch for $180 (with 10% rebate for surrendering my compromised first generation IPod). I guess that is why he is behind the Genius Bar and I am on the other side (the not Genius side). Word is out that Verizon is getting the IPhone and I REALLY w I recently took it to the Apple store in Augusta. It is a first generation IPod touch—almost a “classic” or antique in the fast-moving world of electronic gadgets. The Genius at the Genius Bar (Apple tech support) spotted evidence for a “bit of water damage.” I guess it rained in the weeks that it sat between my back windshield and my trunk. My personal genius informed me that it would cost $149 to get my IPod fixed, but that my smartest move would be to buy the third generation IPod touch for $180 (with 10% rebate for surrendering my compromised first generation IPod). I guess that is why he is behind the Genius Bar and I am on the other side (the not Genius side). Word is out that Verizon is getting the IPhone and I REALLY want one of those! All the stuff I love about the IPod touch I never really had plus it is a phone too. The killer is that I’ll likely have to wait until the last quarter of this year to get an IPhone on my Verizon account. In the meantime, I can shell out 200 big ones for a new IPod touch. Or, I can buy a battery changing kit off the internet and try to put a new battery in my gen one IPod. As Apple reminds me, I risk breaking my IPod if I try to change the battery myself. At this point, I don’t have a lot to lose.

I read that Floyd Landis won the time trail at the tour of Bahamas recently. I can’t help but be happy to see him succeed. I guess I really wanted (and still want) to believe that he didn’t cheat in winning the Tour de France. I at least really want him to return to top form while cycling clean. I suppose we’ll never see him in the European peleton again, but I think it would be great if he made it back. I was really rooting for RadioShack to sign him. Maybe they will yet.

My weight has fluctuated back and forth. I think I was just over 204 this morning. I didn’t get a chance to do a lot of exercise yesterday—several walks back and forth across campus. Today wasn’t much better. I did go on a walk with my son. It wasn’t a power walk, but I got my heart pumping and broke a bit of a sweat—its better than nothing.

If someone likes your shirt, just give it to them

I have a friend that actually read my blog. He must be a true friend. He described it as a self deprecating blog that vacillates between death and weight loss. With testimonials like that my readership is not likely to grow much. Honestly, I am not sure if I want it to. If my friends don’t get my blog how can I expect people who don’t even know me to understand? So today I’ll try for uplifting.

I’m a pretty nice guy. Most people know me as a nice guy. My family knows me as “too nice for my own good.” When I was a kid I came home one day from fishing with the local kids and asked my mother if I could invite one of the kids home for dinner. He had told us that he was sleeping in the park and eating squirrels. My father and brother were thrown into hysterics over my naivety. It’s a story that is still told at family gatherings with great hilarity. I haven’t changed a whole lot. I still tend to be trusting and nice.

It remains one of a few key differences between me, at least philosophically, and the rest of my nuclear family. Its not that my mother, father and brother aren’t nice, compassionate, generous people—they are all of those things and more. Still I can’t get away from the label of being too nice.

I have a friend (besides the one that read the blog) who I’ve known for years. We roomed together in graduate school and have remained close friends ever since. In fact, we work together. In graduate school this friend of mine always had money…and he was very generous with it. I cannot begin to count up the amount he spent feeding me, housing me and buying me beer. When he started writing his thesis he bought himself a PC. This is back in the day when most people didn’t own their own computers. He dropped several thousand dollars on it. When he finished his thesis, he gave the computer to me—just gave it to me.

I remember one time we were with some friends and someone commented on his shirt. He took it off and gave it to them. I asked him later why he gave away his shirt. He said to me, “Adam, if someone likes your shirt, just give it to them. It’s just a shirt, you can get another one.” That is how he lived and still lives his life. It hasn’t always produced happy results. One year he was driving to visit me on New Year’s Eve and he took a wrong turn. He ended up in a very poor neighborhood. Some young men jumped in front of his car and approached his window. He rolled it down and they asked for money. He went to give them some and they grabbed him by the hair and pulled him from his car. They beat him badly and trashed his car. He only got away by tearing free of his clothes. Luckily a resident in the area took him in until an ambulance and police could show up.

I am sure that really affected him in many ways, but it didn’t change him fundamentally. He is still generous to a fault and still lives by that same creed. He’s been an important friend to me because he affirmed to me that there is no such thing as “too nice.” We may pay the price for being who we are, but in my mind that price is worth living my life the way I want to.

Maybe that is why I can understand why my landlord wants to screw me. He announced yesterday that he wants to sell the house he is renting to us. He wants to start showing it next month and when it is sold we will get 30 days to move out. That really stinks. We have a lease and it’s not up until August. Still it looks like an obscure clause in the lease will let him do it. Who wants to live in a house that is being shown all the time? Who wants to live under the threat of having to move in any given month? In fairness, they just discovered that their taxes went way up. They can’t afford the taxes without raising our rent $700. I feel for them and I understand that they are in a bad spot. Am I too nice? I’m empathizing. Is that so bad?

Of course, the fact that I think I’ve found a way to get us all out of this situation makes it easier for me to be gracious. If that doesn’t work out, then I’ll turn nasty and mean.

So how was that? Was this post self-deprecating? I don’t think my blog is self-deprecating. It is self-indulgent and narcissistic, sure, but it’s not self-deprecating. Do you like how I turned that into a bit more self-deprecation?

Yesterday I weighed in at around 205 and today I weigh 202.3. I like the trend but also know that my weight fluctuates within a few pounds. I also know that I walked for about 40 minutes yesterday and also went on a short bike ride with my kids. The exercise is going to be the thing that gets me where I want to be. The diet will help but won’t do it alone.

I watched a bunch of the end of the TDU last night online. It was fun to see racing again. It is amazing how fast those guys go. My wife and friends really don’t get my interest in cycling, but they graciously accept it as they accept me. My kids will follow it a bit. They love the fact that one of the stars, George Hincapie, lives just two hours away. We haven’t gone trick or treating at his house yet, but if I brought that idea up the kids would go for it. My wife wants to trick or treat at Bruce Springsteen’s house and he lives in New Jersey. Who’s crazier? I think she is.

What if I succeed?

I weighed myself this morning and I’ve dropped a bit, down to 203.4 lbs. Imagine if I actually get into a consistent exercise routine. I might actually lose enough weight to comfortably ride a bike for a long time. In classic Woody Allen fashion, that potential success has me worried. What if I actually do manage to become a consistent road cyclist? I have some real reservations about the whole cyclist thing:

1. The Clothes

Let’s face it, cyclists wear stretchy, tight clothes. Unless you have a real cyclist’s body, those clothes just can’t look good. The bibs are just really tight, spandex shorts. If I went out for a walk or grocery shopping in tight spandex shorts old ladies would gasp, real men would stare, and mothers would shield their children’s eyes from the sight of me. I might even be asked to go home and change. Southerners are generally polite, but they’ll protect their women and children when they need to. Another possibility is that I’d simply be arrested, taken to a dark room, and beaten with a hose. Finally, and most likely, the county sheriff would grab me, shove me in his cruiser, drive me to the county line, and dump me on the side of the road leaving me with a curt “We don’t do that shit in Lexington County, son. Not on my watch.”

The jerseys aren’t much better. I tried on a swim shirt this summer and it looked like I was pregnant. A cycling jersey is going to look just about the same. Let’s face it, bulgy people like me just shouldn’t go around wearing close-fitting clothing. It’s just not socially acceptable and I know it.

Everyone knows that only slim people should wear cycling gear. I am afraid that if I get some before I am something other than obese I will be exposed for the wannabe that I really am. You know what I am, I know what I am, but I don’t want everyone to know it.

2. It takes a lot of time

Serious cycling is not something that you do a couple of times a month. It takes a huge investment of time. I had a roommate in graduate school who was a pretty serious road cyclist and he’d go ride for hours a day. Hours a day! If he skipped a ride, he’d act like one of those heroin addicts you see in movies (in my line of work I don’t see drug addicts, so all I’ve got are celluloid stereotypes as points of reference). He’d get agitated, sweaty, and a little mean. Come to think of it, that is how I get when I don’t have coffee. That is definitely how my wife gets if she can’t get to the internet. Maybe I do have some real-life points of reference after all.

Besides a job and a wife, I have two little kids. We home school so time when I am not working is usually devoted to some or all of my family. Sure, road cycling can be a family thing. But to be a really cool road cyclist, you can’t spend all of your time joy riding with your kids. You’ve got to devote hours. Plus, I’ll never overcome the problems outlined in #1 above if I just joy ride with my kids.

This investment worries me. This may require more of me than I have to give. What if my wife looses interest in me because I am on the open road too much? Even worse, what if I have other cycling friends who look better in their bibs than I do? Or what if my wife looses interest in me after seeing me in MY bibs? What if I am gone so much that my kids forget my name? I just don’t know if it would be worth it.

3. The gear isn’t cheap

Cycling equipment is expensive. A good bike alone could cost my family the yearly Disney trip. But that is just the start. You can’t just jump on your fancy new road bike in your Levis, tennis shoes, and Disney t-shirt. Oh no. You’ve got to have the right gear. Otherwise you’ll be exposed for the poser you really are. You’ve got to get the bibs and jerseys. Forget about how they fit, they’re expensive. You need a good helmet, the right shoes, and gloves. Even after you have a bike and the proper clothes, there’s still more. Water bottles, special food, etc. Then once you get into it, you get bored with the rides you can take around home. Then you’ve got to travel to other places to get in those fantastic rides. Then are competitive rides far behind? It is amazing how simple sports like cycling can be so expensive. I may have to cut out some of my kids’ activities. “Sorry baby girl, you can’t ice skate this year because Daddy’s got his eye on a new Trek.”

Once I get really good (which you know I will if I really apply myself) then I’ll need support staff: a chef, masseuse, sports psychologist, mechanic, etc. Really, once I reach that level, how can I be expected to have a full-time job? I guess I could fit my wife into that staff. She already acts as my psychologist and she could be my masseuse. At least I might salvage my marriage. Maybe I can start training the kids now. My daughter is a pretty good cook. With a bit of culinary training, she could be my chef. My son loves tools. Maybe I can send him off to learn to be a bike mechanic. Maybe this will work after all.

4. I may hate it

Here is the really big one. What if I decide that I hate serious cycling? I ran track in high school. I was a distance runner—the mile, two mile, and two mile relay. I also ran 10K road races. Looking back on it, I remember it being a lot of work and a lot of pain. What I loved most about it was the camaraderie and the sense of accomplishment. I didn’t really enjoy the punishment. Come on now, think about it. Cyclists are really masochists. They love to punish themselves, to see how much they can endure. They take pride in the amount of self-inflicted torture they can endure. Is that healthy? Anyway, I don’t need to spend all kinds of money (see #3) and invest all kinds of time (see #2) just to torture myself. Hell, give me an electrical outlet and a glass of water. For that matter, just make me practice my profession. Make me go dig a site instead of making graduate students do it for me.

Maybe when my body is stronger I’ll get into the idea of pushing myself and seeing how hard I can work. Apparently I liked that sort of thing when I was a younger man. Right now as a complacent, inactive, somewhat successful person the idea of punishment and pain sounds a bit unappealing. Maybe I’ve become just a bit too soft and satisfied. Sounds like some more bootstrapping, owning my journey, and redoubling my effort is in order.

You always go up before you go down

Today I weigh 206.2. I think I am going the wrong way here. Now granted, yesterday was not a particularly good day when it comes to exercise or eating. Still, here are what I think are the real causes of my weight gain are:

Deprivation accumulation
Obviously, the radical changes in my eating habits along with demanding exercise regimen are causing my body to hold on to the fat it has. This is a well known phenomenon which is really my body’s way of adapting to potential food shortages. In fact, what it seems to be doing is rather than burning carbohydrates, it is turning them into fat because it senses that lean times are coming. This is called deprivation accumulation—wiki it. As I continue to embrace healthy eating as a lifestyle and push my body to its physical limits through freeze tag, the weight will start to come off. It is only a matter of time.

The paradox of exercise
It is also apparent that my weight gain is caused the by the fact that my body is converting fat into muscle. Being denser, muscle is naturally heavier. Clearly the freeze tag exercise plan is converting my body fat into muscle on a large scale. The result is that I am actually getting heavier. This is sometimes called the paradox of exercise. As long as I continue to work hard and eat right, this trend eventually will reverse itself. I may need to play two games of freeze tag each day.

Survival of the fattest
My body understands that winters are cold in South Carolina and it needs to pack on a bit of extra fat to increase my chances of survival. This is a corollary to Darwin’s idea of the survival of the fittest—survival of the fattest. This is what will help the most--getting a warm coat and dressing in layers when I brave the elements walking from my house to the car and the car to my office and my office to my classroom. As long as I can counteract this innate survival reflex the weight should start to drop right off.

So I’ve concluded that not only am I battling my own behaviors and habits, but I am also fighting against protective measures my body is taking that were developed over millions of years. I am fighting the very thing that has made humanity such a successful species. This is a bigger challenge that I originally considered.

The Day After

Today is the day after our friend’s graveside service. Yesterday was a long day but a good day. We got in late and my wife and I stayed up late talking. I had to get up early this morning to head to a meeting about an hour away in Aiken—at the Bomb Plant. So I didn’t weigh myself this morning. I’m guessing that not much has changed, though. It is almost 4:30 and I haven’t exercised. To make up for that, I’ve really worked hard on my diet and really sacrificed! I brought a couple of oranges with me to the meeting for breakfast. I left them on the roof of my car when I pulled out of my driveway, so when I had time to eat my healthy alternative was gone. I had to eat a plain bagel with margarine. I am sure I could have done worse if I tried, but a start to the day with a big gob of white bread covered in saturated fat is still pretty bad. I made up for it with deep sacrifice at lunch. At the all-you-can-eat barbeque where we always go for lunch, I really buckled down. I passed on the potato salad and hushpuppies and filled my divided plate with corn, green beans, and sweet potatoes. Sure they were all cooked in a healthy combination of pork fat and butter with ample amounts of salt. Here is where I made a big one. I passed on the pulled pork and went for the chicken! I am so proud of myself that I am still getting misty-eyed now. Then came another big one—I didn’t go back for seconds! Then I really owned my journey and redoubled my efforts by skipping the peach cobbler! If that is not pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, I don’t know what is.

By the time my daughter was done with ballet and my wife was done with class, we ended up at a Middle Eastern restaurant. I did OK--humus and gyro wrap without the flatbread. I didn't get much exercise in. I played freeze tag with the kids on campus while my wife was in class. I did sweat a bit, so I did something. Overall, in the great obesity battle, this may be a lost day. Tomorrow I’ll redouble my redoubled efforts.

I am glad Greipel didn't win tonight. Honestly, I am already sick of him and Team Columbia. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great sprinter and Columbia is a great team and I’ll still likely root for them over Katusha or something, but with Hincapie gone I care just a little bit less about them. Sure, I’ll root for Cavendish to win the green jersey at le tour. I don’t know why I’m griping about Greipel.

Has anyone else been “listening” to the Tour Down Under on the audio link to Australia from Steephill? I know they are doing what they can because they don’t have live video feed themselves, but they fill a lot of air between race updates. The best part is the last 10 seconds when the announcers actually see the racers cross the line. The thing is that it happens so fast for them that they don't always know what the hell happened. I end up following the text updates until the race just about ends. Still I listen. But then again, I am the guy that listens to NPR during the pledge drive.

Weigh Day Plus One

Got up this morning and weighed myself on day number two. Brace yourself because I am sure you will be as surprised as I am. All of my hard work (yesterday) truly paid off—the exercise, the will power, the hunger. Since yesterday—wait for it—I actually gained .2 lbs! On top of that, I am still obese. What is up with that? I did what the Mayo Clinic said to do. I embraced healthy eating as my sentence for life, I mean lifestyle, and I even ate several pieces of fruit! I ate healthy chips made of great things like beats and taro. I skipped lunch and had a lumpy, dusty soy protein shake. At the Chinese restaurant my wife and I went to (sans kids for the first time of 20 years) I just ate soup…oh yeah and four big, fat spare ribs dripping with what I am sure was a healthy sauce. I exercised! I punished myself up and down those brutal hills in my subdivision for more than 30 minutes. What does a guy have to do to lose 30 lbs here? I mean, RadioShack almost got their first win last night. They are plowing ahead toward achieving their goals and I’m going backwards! I guess this is going to be harder than I thought. I shouldn’t order the bibs and jersey just yet…and no need to shave my legs, buy the Livestrong helmet or tell my mom I am now a cyclist. I guess I’ll just pull myself up by my bootstraps, own my journey, buckle down, and redouble my efforts.

Today is going to be a hard day. Our friend who passed away on Saturday is being buried this afternoon. We have to load the kids in the van and drive about 3 hours to a green cemetery in northern South Carolina. The green cemetery goes with the cardboard casket that we decorated a couple of days ago. We’ll do our usual community thing and have a pot luck at the cemetery. Painting the casket was a really positive thing and it made me feel a lot more at peace about our friend. Did I tell you about the rainbow? We were at a friend’s house on the lake the other day to decorate the casket. Before we started someone spotted a rainbow across the lake in the clouds. Soon it turned into two rainbows and then the reflection of the larger one traveled all the way from the horizon to our side of the lake and right up to the shore. It was a rainbow path that lead from where we were into the sky. If that wasn’t our friend telling us she was OK, then I am not alive. The most incredible sight was seeing her husband and daughter standing at the end of that path together. Some Native Americans here in the East believe that the rainbow is the pathway that souls follow after they die. I don’t think I need to say anything more, but just writing this gets my eyes watery and gives me chills. Life is pretty amazing if you let yourself feel it. I am not always very good at feeling it. Somehow writing about it forces me to do it. So this is good. Today will be good and hard.

Weigh Day

I got up this morning around 8am. Sleeping in was a treat, especially since I stayed up until 2am with my wife. We went to a unique and perfect gathering of friends last night. One of our friends died after a long battle with cancer two days ago. This amazing woman will be buried in a green cemetery in a cardboard coffin. It was her wish that her friends and their children decorate her coffin. We all gathered and did lots of hugging and crying. Like I remember funeral gatherings as a kid, the kids ran in large herds in and out of the house. Little girls put on make up and chased little boys while older boys played video games and discussed the merits of various gaming platforms. Everyone painted, from the smallest to the oldest. The kids covered the insert that her body will rest on. The adults painted all around the coffin both inside and out. We wrote notes and painted various things that represented how we felt and our relationship with our friend. Honestly, when I first learned that we would decorate the coffin I didn’t know what to think. I am not used to interacting with coffins. There were several amazing things that came out of it all.

One of the most important was that this act was what our friend wanted and we got to fulfill her wish. And we, unknowingly, fulfilled another wish of hers. We all know she loved these kinds of gatherings—tie die parties, potlucks of any sort—she loved her friends and their children because we were and are all family. Diverse and sometimes dysfunctional just like any true family. We did exactly what she wanted us to do. We had our usual potluck party where we all gathered and talked and played and remembered and planned for a good solid 11 hours. The whole event did another thing, at least for me. It humanized death. Knowing someone who dies is very personal and human. Once they are gone, we tend to disconnect from the physical part that is left. The objects associated with death become almost taboo except for close family and death professionals. We personalized that coffin, got to know it and put ourselves into it. When I arrived to see the coffin standing up in the garage, I was a bit shocked to see something associated with death so publicly on display. By the time I left, the coffin was just a container that we had put our love, thoughts and even a bit of blood into. It had become something of our own creation that would hold our precious friend until she could return to the earth. I don’t know about anyone else that was there, but I felt a little better about the whole thing having gotten to do what we did. The most fitting thing of all—something so outside of the norm as allowing kids to paint your coffin just fits our friend so perfectly! Like her life, her death has given all of us so much.

Anyway, back to the weigh in. I am 5’8” in a thick pair of socks. When I ran track and played football in high school I weighed in at strapping 145 lbs. I weighed myself New Year’s Day and in the intervening 27 years (since I graduated) I’ve added 60 lbs! That comes out to 2.22 lbs per year. Actually, the weight really didn’t start staying around until my wife and I started having kids. I’ve always joked that I gained 20 lbs with each kid and haven’t been able to get it back off. Well, here it is. This morning I weighed in at 203.8 lbs. According to the Mayo Clinic, who probably has someone on staff that knows what they are talking about, my BMI is 31. In medical terms I am OBESE. I guess I should change the name of the blog to the Obese Archaeologist. Here is what the Mayo Clinic tells me to do:

Consider the benefits of achieving a healthy weight — a reduced risk of serious health conditions such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes, increased energy and improved self-esteem, for example. Then talk to your doctor about the best weight-loss approach for you. To get started:

• Embrace healthy eating as a lifestyle by choosing a variety of nutrient-rich foods including fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

• Exercise. Before exercising ask your doctor about the right level and type of activities for you. Remember, even small amounts of activity provide immediate health benefits.

• Set action goals focused on specific healthy activities such as starting a daily food and activity diary.

Even if I knock off 30 lbs by le tour, I’ll still be overweight! In order to get into the upper range of normal, I need to get down to 160 lbs. I really need to lose 45 or 50 lbs. That is pretty daunting.

I said I would start today. So what am I going to do? Well, for one I want to get some kind of exercise in. Because I have kids and we homeschool them, I am never without my kids except when I go to work. At one level, kids are good at keeping you active. At another level, it is hard to go on a walk or bike ride for exercise when the kids come along. It is more like a gentle stroll or slow-moving, noisy bike parade. I need to exercise without the kids. Today is a holiday (thank you MLK for trying to help us meet our goal of becoming a just society) and so I don’t have to work. Still, there is a memorial service to go to and I may end up watching a gaggle of kids while a couple of moms go to the service. Then my kids have ice skating and skateboarding in the afternoon. Oh and my wife needs to drive to Augusta to get our Macbook looked at because it keeps spontaneously shutting down. Yeah and we loaned our second car to a friend who came from out of town to attend the happening surrounding our friend’s death. At the moment, I am not even sure how I am going to get all that done today. Without sounding too much like a martyr, I guess I need to put my health stuff on the same priority level as ice skating and misbehaving computers.

My plan is to go for a walk for at least a half an hour. I’ll report back in on that. As for diet, I’ll have a reasonably normal breakfast and try to eat fruit and have a protein shake for lunch. Dinner? That depends on when I get back from the skating rink. What ever I do, I’ll put it in a food journal.

So I got a good 30-35 minute walk in. My route through the subdivision took me up and down some light hills and one pretty good one. I broke a pretty good sweat and felt my legs getting heavy. I feel like that is a pretty good start, but the key will be to keep this up for the long term. Looking back at my food journal, I am doing OK so far. Honestly where I do my best backsliding is after dinner. I’m looking forward to the start of the TDU later this evening. If I am home I’ll follow it online. I expect Sky to dominate but Greipel will get his licks in there too. I am not sure where, but I expect that if LA wants a stage win then Team Shack will get one.

Day Zero

So yesterday I wrote my manifesto. Today…I’ve decided to put off the whole weigh in thing until tomorrow. There is something ingrained in workers of the great industrial capitalist experiment that makes it hard to start something new on Sunday. Its not so much the day of rest thing, although that is part of our society’s justification for not giving the surplus value of our labor to the owners of capital on Sunday. Unless you happen to work at Walmart, Target, Publix, convenience stores, restaurants or anywhere else that is not considered a white collar job. Clearly your contribution to our society is so valued that you simply have to pick another day to take off. Left wing, un-American, anti-Freedom, cynics might try to argue that your time isn’t as valued by society and that is why you don’t get a day off. That sort of thinking will drive us all to socialism. What is there to like about socialism? After all what good is a society where every person is equal and shares equally in society, and no one is left behind? This “All men are created equal” rhetoric will be the downfall of American society. Wait, how did I get on this rant? Enough about the world, back to me. I am going to weigh myself and report on it tomorrow. I’ll also schedule a doctor’s appointment tomorrow.

The Fat Archaeologist

Welcome! Let me start by confessing that the name I’m taking on and the ideas behind this blog are not mine. Anyone who knows me well knows that I am great at following good ideas, but a little slower at coming up with my own good ideas. The name and idea behind this blog are stolen openly and directly from the Fat Cyclist. He’s a guy that writes a blog about his life and cycling. He started the blog as a public way to force himself to lose weight. His wife recently died from breast cancer and for a long time he has raised awareness and money for cancer research. You should go check him out. He’s funny, thoughtful and real.

Back to my reasons for starting this blog—Fatty (the fat cyclist) and I have some things in common. They’re really pretty superficial. Fortunately for me, cancer is not one of them—well at least not my wife, but that is another story I am not ready to talk about. My wife and a few other friends also know that over the past 5 years I’ve become slightly obsessed with professional road cycling. I’ll be the first to admit that it was Lance’s 6^th Tour de France that started me and his swan song that really hooked me. At first I just followed le Tour but after Lance retired, I started to follow the professional peleton throughout the season. I was really excited to see Lance come back, but love following a group of other favorites. The funny thing is that I’ve always followed sports—and played them when I wasn’t fat—but I only realized recently that the reason I love sports is because of the individuals and their experiences. That is how I can get sucked into professional football (I played in high school—remind me to tell you the male model story and my coach’s assessment of my odds of starting the next game), figure skating (my wife and daughter both figure skate), and beach volleyball (really only when the summer Olympics come around), etc.

My wife has wondered aloud many times over the past several years, “If you like cycling so much, why don’t you ride your bike?” She bought me a bike, oh about 10 years ago—a really nice mountain bike—and I’ve ridden it just a few times. She has a really good point and I’ve got…some really good excuses that I outline below.

Now the Fat Cyclist really isn’t fat anymore and by our country’s standards never really was. For that matter, I am not really considered fat. However, I weigh a lot more than I should and it is very clear that belly fat like I have is not healthy to carry around in the long term--especially for the over 40 crowd that I belong to. I have two little kids (5 and 8) who are going to need me around (earning money) for a long time. When my oldest goes off to college I’ll be long past eligibility for AARP.

So, I need to lose weight. I used to be pretty skinny. In fact, just a couple of years ago I was much better off than I am now. I also used to be pretty active. Graduate school and a career killed off most of my hobbies—or at least that is how I justify my sedentary existence. Right now, my favorite hobby might be eating and my most consistent form of exercise is walking from my office to my classrooms. I am thinking that the same kind of public humiliation that worked for Fatty may be my best hope as well. Not only would I like to lose weight, but I’d also like to get more into road cycling and mountain biking. Now you see how the Fat Cyclist is an inspiration.
Since there is already a Fat Cyclist and I am not really a cyclist, I had to come up with a different name for myself and the blog. I am an archaeologist. Despite how movies and TV depict archaeologists, most of us spend the majority of our time writing and teaching instead of buckling swashes. Its mostly the younger ones that do a lot of actual digging. In fact, it may be over a year since I did any digging myself. I don’t work anywhere exotic or particularly dangerous. I study the Native American past in the southeastern US. Sure, rural anywhere can have its dangers but the only Nazis, fascists, or angry Indians I’ve encountered have been on college campuses or the halls of government offices. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a cool job and I get to do some really fun things but it causes me to be pretty sedentary most of the year.

So the reason for the blog is to put myself in the eye of the disinterested public. Just as Fatty did, I want to get myself in better physical condition. And secondarily for putting more time in on a bike and maybe someday thinking of myself as a cyclist. Right after the New Year I, like lots of other optimistic fools, resolved to change my diet and get more exercise. So far, roughly two weeks in, I’ve done OK on the diet and pretty crappy on the exercise. For the first couple of days I did ride my bike around my neighborhood. Once the semester started, I stopped. Here are my reasons:

I’m busy

Archaeologists are vitally important to our modern world and I recognize the responsibility I owe to the rest of the world. I am simply too busy designing syllabi, pawing broken pottery, and thinking about ways to get and spend grant money. If I took time away from that, what would happen to our society, to life as we know it? I don’t want to be overly dramatic, but what I do is simply too important to slow it down. Its tough to bear the weight of the world and find time to ride and eat sensibly.

Its cold outside

I live in South Carolina. Do I really have to say anything more? Everyone knows that South Carolina winters are long and brutally cold. I’m tough and I have no choice but to acclimatize, but still…its cold and uncomfortable. I don’t have winter gear to protect against the cold and I don’t have rollers or a stationary bike like the big boys use. As I said, I’m tough but I am not superman. Look, even Alberto Contador has had trouble training in southern Spain because its too cold. Sure, George Hincapie lives in Greenville, SC where it has actually snowed this year and he’s been riding all winter long. I never said I was as tough as George. I guess I am made more in the mold of the more delicate el pistolero!

It hurts

I found that riding my bike gets hard pretty fast. There are hills around my house. Riding down is not too bad, but the thing with hills is that you eventually have to go back up them. That is hard. I find that my legs first burn and then stop moving. I suppose I should get my bike tuned up. Its probably got something to do with the “big ring” or the derailleur or something cycling techie like that. Maybe I just need a better, more expensive bike. Anyway, the hurting and the legs not working really gets discouraging and I think the mental strain of the discouragement really tires me out. When I do get off the bike after a wicked 10 minute ride around the subdivision, I’m totally drained. Maybe I need a feed zone for those long rides. Maybe I’m experiencing the bonk.

Anyway, if I an am to overcome these hurdles I need to buckle down, redouble my efforts, own my journey, and pull myself up by my bootstraps. Since none of those things usually work, I am turning to a fresh, hot helping of humble pie served very publicly.

Here is what I am going to do. I am going to weigh myself every morning and talk about what I am doing to get healthy and on the bike. I am also going to schedule a doctor’s appointment where I will get a head-to-toe physical. I haven’t had one of these dignity stealing exams in quite some time. I’ll post pictures and also tell some stories along the way.

As I write this the Tour Down Under has just started. My goal is to lose 30 pounds and be comfortable with long bike rides by the time Lance goes for number 8. Please help me by encouraging, goading, or humiliating me.