Still no Shuttle

It did snow today, but not as much as they threatened us and so we were able to get to the archives  ok but getting home was tricky because the roads were slick.  Icy rain is in the forecast for tomorrow.

We are working on the Penobscott Court of Common Pleas.  The cover was a hard cover at one time but someone has put a linen jacket over the top and the spine has come unglued from the book.  This makes it hard to keep the book in the cradle and hard to have an open gutter.  When we digitize the cover  (to show that we are on the right book) it comes up with a moiré pattern.  That is how the pixels see it and from Weaving it looks for all the world like tracking in the woven piece when you are using cotton.  The year is 1827 for volume 6 that we worked on today and it was in very sad shape.  It seems like some animal got into the stacks and chewed the last 200 pages of the book.  It chewed the top corner of the pages so that the numbers were all gone but most of the court case transcript was still intact.  This is the worst damage I have seen to a book for the entire time we have been here.  We needed to let people know what page they were looking at on the digitized copy and so we wrote the page numbers on a little piece of paper and then digitized the record.  It was very slow going and we finished the book at 3pm and we were both so tired that we just shut everything down and went home.  There was a piece of paper in the book (that had no information on it at all) and I took it to toss it away and it literally crumbled in my hands.  It really was a weird feeling to try to fold it and see it disintegrate; Puts a whole new face on “from dust to dust”.

We have signed up for a line dancing class just so we can get in some exercise.  It is not much different than trying to keep up with the Zumba classes I have attended at the YMCA at Prescott.  It is a workout and beats walking around the track at the Kennebec Valley YMCA – after 45 trips around the track I have done 2 miles and I am done.  At home 2 miles is nothing but here it seems like such a drag to go around the track that many times.  I guess at home it does not seem to be so difficult because we are outside when we do our walking…..usually 4 to 6 miles.

At church on Sunday one of the members approached me about a quilt she is working on.  From the description she gave me, the fabrics are very old, not in such good shape, not cut with a template and are all triangles.  This should really be a lot of fun to try to help her with it.

It seems like we will only be here for about a month if they don’t find any more stuff for us to digitize.  I am not crazy about moving anywhere –we’ve stopped camping in the apartment and really moved in.  It will be hard to leave the people here as well…..those in the church as well as those outside the church.

I don’t want to think about trying to get it all back into the car to go to our next phase – getting back home with a packed car is another story.

The saga continues about the shuttle.  Apparently the driver has noted that he delivered it but he failed to get the required signature.  He said he left it at the Arthives but no one can find it.   We checked with the Library as well as with the museum and they don't have it either.  Vanishing is not a good past time for shuttles.

potential disaster

Well it was bound to happen I suppose, and it looks like it has happened for sure.  The shuttle that we use to capture and send the digitized images to Salt Lake city office has wandered off.  It arrived in SLC ok and according to their records it was sent to us and was supposedly delivered to the Archives, but no one has seen it.  Oops!  I wonder who has it? 
We are now working on records that the earliest date is January 1816.  These books are terribly fragile and the ink is fading fast.  If the digitized image does not come out as expected, then we do not know what else to do to preserve the information that is in these books.  I must say that the quality of the paper is wonderful - it has a high rag content.

Bill spent the morning at the car repair place and supposedly we have a car that is pretty much put back together.  I hope that Bill does not hotrod in the snow again and wreck the front end.
The snow that was forecast for today did not come.

 Our car wearing its snow blanket (to keep it warm?) from the last snow storm

the master of the house removing the snow blanket

 An example of an afterthought house.  Note all the additions to the original building.  I am pretty sure they did not start with the front sunroom and then add the rest.  It looks like they built the main house, added the front enclosed porch/sunroom then the side room and then the back piece that connects the main house to the garage.

 Pristine snow and Camelot bare road on Sunday Afternoon.

 This is a pond on the other side of these trees.  It is completely frozen.

This cemetery monument place is right across the road from our apartment.  If we decide to ditch mortality, we will not have to go far to get a memorial slab................

Camelot is a place where it never rains until after sundown and by  9pm the moonlight must appear according to the song.  Well it is somewhat like Camelot today with ideal conditions.  The sun was shining, it was fairly cool but not unbearably cold, the roads are dry and clear of snow and ice and the ice and snow is where it should be – on the rooftops, on the fields, and not bothering anyone.  I even went walking on Riverside Drive.  The snowplow did a wonderful job leaving a swath of road for people to walk or run and early this morning there were many runners out jogging in the early morning sun and when I was out this afternoon, there were runners still out there passing me up.  I cannot jog or run because my balance is not as good as it used to be and it is easy for me to fall over. 

Some of the fields have been tracked up by the snowmobiles and others have been crisscrossed by the cross country skiers.  It really is much nicer if there are no tracks in the snow.  When we lived in Pennsylvania David and Sara loved to track up the snow.  David made paths in the snow with the snow shovel in hopes that the newspaper boy would enjoy the twists and turns as he followed the maze made by David.  In reality, the newspaper boy was late in getting out and had to deliver the papers quickly so that he could then go to school and to follow the maze made by David would really have slowed his delivery.  Making the maze kept David busy and busy is good.  The field mice made little runs under the snow and as it melted, these runs became visible and the grass was lovely and green, just as if the field mice had been farming the runs so that they could have fresh greens to eat during the winter.  Always there was a rabbit or two that decided to test the pristine snow and leave tracks.  There are not too many rabbits left where we live in Arizona compared to when we first moved there so in recent winters there have not been too many rabbit tracks in our snow there.  Don’t know if their numbers have dwindled due to housing encroachment on their environment or if the population is controlled by the coyote packs that hunt in the area.

Today while I was walking I heard the waterfowl down on the river.  They sounded like Canada Geese calling to each other.  The river is not a solid white sheet of ice these days because we have had quite a run of above freezing temperatures and the little breaks give the appearance of crackle glaze.  I wanted to see the ice houses where people are hoping to do some ice fishing, but the locals say that the river ice is not thick enough in Gardiner to go out on the ice and fish.  I guess the warm temperatures had a lot to do with whether or not people go ice fishing this far south.  Up in the northern part of Maine the newspaper has shown pictures of ice fishermen setting fish traps.

It is amazing what appears in this local newspaper.  They had an article on Jack Brabham of Australia.  In my memory bank, I had given him the fame of being gelignite Jack of the Round Australia Trials but my friend Graham in Australia emailed me and said that Gelignite Jack was Jack Murray.  I am glad that Graham has a better memory than I do.  This week they had a picture of the Australian Prime Minister being escorted from a meeting.  The article said that an angry crowd had gathered outside the building where she had been and she needed an escort to get her out safely.  That same day there appeared a political cartoon in the paper showing the events surrounding Congresswoman Ms. Gabriel Giffords (D) of Tucson, Arizona, who was shot by a mentally unstable person named Jared Loftner.  Ms. Giffords survived and after extensive surgery and rehab she is now able to walk and talk etc. and she appeared on Capitol Hill in Washington DC to announce that even though she has survived the attack, she is stepping aside so that she can continue with her recovery.  The political cartoon drew the events of Ms. Giffords journey from shooting victim to appearing on Capitol Hill and the caption underneath quipped “The only time both sides of the house joined together to honor an event.”

It is now the end of January.  I wonder if the weather patterns here in Maine follow the same course they did in Pennsylvania?  Groundhog day signals 6 more weeks of ice and snow in Pa. so I wonder if it will be the same here.  The locals say that this winter has been the strangest one they have had in a long time.  The forecast says we are to have snow for the next two days.  Guess  I won’t be out walking on Riverside Drive but walking in the YMCA with the hardbody 20 somethings in their Nike spandex and Vibram shoes.  You just have to dress for success these days.

spun silver trees

the above pictures are of the trees in our yard just after the ice storm and the sun came out.

Yesterday the snow storm was in full swing by the time we left for the Archives and then it turned to icy rain and then to rain as the temperatures warmed up.  They do a really good job on the main roads here in scraping off the snow and ice.  I am very pleased that we live on a main road to and from Augusta.

This morning the sun has come up and I took pictures of this spectacular world in which we live.  The ice has stuck to the trees and with the sun shining on them; they look like they are made of spun silver.  I took lots of pictures and I see that a neighbor from the condo’s next door is outside taking pictures as well.  Guess you can tell who is from Maine and who is not.   When we lived in Pennsylvania I saw this same thing on the road from Johnstown to Ebensburg.  We had gone through a pretty horrific storm that had coated everything with ice and the bare trees looked like a bevy of silversmiths had gone berserk with their trade and made all the trees like spun silver.  It was truly beautiful.  We do not have ice storms like this in Arizona and so I am thrilled to have this gift given to me this morning.  I am watching the ice fall off the trees.  I know that these are ice balls that are falling off the trees because I stood under one of them to see if it was water that was falling, but it is ice balls and they hit the ground with great purpose.  There is nothing soft about falling ice.  Last ice storm yielded a serious accident on the highway when a plow was working on a bridge over the highway and a chunk of ice fell off the bridge and smashed through the windshield of a passing car.

I did not write yesterday because I felt too bad when we got home.  One of the office chairs I was sitting on went out from under me when I bent over to put my shoes on and I fell and hit my head on the table.  It could have been way worse than it is.  I only got a goose egg on the back of my head behind my left ear.  A few inches either way and it could have been serious, more so if I had connected with the sharp corner of the table.  I went to the Reflexologist this morning and she has put me back together.  I do not really know how her skills work, but they work and it is a similar effect as Cyna achieves – she is my massage therapist in Prescott.

As I was walking home this morning I decided to walk across what was our lawn before the snow fell.  Well the Ice storm left a deposit of ice that is so thick in parts, that I did not dent or even go through the ice and snow.  It has remained cold so that also contributes to the thickness of the ice.

On Saturday afternoon we went to see the movie HUGO.  It was an excellent show and I thought I saw Johnny Depp in it.  I said as much and Bill laughed and said I was seeing things, but the lady in the next seat said, “Oh I thought I was seeing things when I saw Johnny Depp but I was not.”  Then the credits came up at the end and sure enough, Johnny Depp was one of the producers or something and I felt that I was not losing my mind.  Thank you lady in the next seat.

Australia Day was a REAL celebration

 One of the grand homes near the Capitol.  It is now a set of offices.  Must have been a grand home in its day.

 this is the Governors Mansion.  Probably the closest I will ever get to it while here.

 this is the view from the only window in our room.  and we cannot see out of it while we are working.

This is the Pavlova I made for the office staff to help them celebrate Australia Day.

 this is the Shepherds pie I made for everyone to have lunch.

 Lamingtons made a hit with the office staff.  Unfortunately I could not find Macaroon coconut here to use.

 these are the Kangaroo tracks Anne put in the hallway to guide the office staff to the luncheon.

 The tracks led right into the lunch room and ended at the food table.

 The tracks even got onto the door of the lunch room  The Kangaroo picture is the same as the one I found on my computer console this morning when I went to work.

 Now you know what Kangaroo tracks look like here in Maine.

 The Australia picture on the refrigerator is the invitation that I posted in the lunch room to invite people to come and eat lunch with us.  Right next to it is the poster for the little girl who was kidnapped 17 December.

 Rob was wearing this patriotic Australia sign for Lunch.

 Visitors parking sign in front of the Archives.  The figure in the back is a bronze of a CC project worker.

 The legislature is in session right now and they have preference in the parking lot.

 This is what the legislators have as tags on their cars.  They don't like to bring these cars with their distinctive plates to the parking lot because people have been known to come by and slash tires etc.

 a view of the iced over Kennebec River from the YMCA parking lot.

Some Sun Bonnet Sue international pictures that my wonderful Grandchildren colored in for me.
Happy Australia Day to all.............whether you are from Australia or not.

Success!

Today is Australia day...............our gift to the staff at the archives is a sampling of Australian type food. (cooked in Maine  using American ingredients - how authentic can you get?)
Our gift from the headquarters of the digitizing auditors was 50 folders out of 50 folders passed.
Yay Team!

Different life situations.

The snow removal people were hard at work when we arrived at the archives today.  I guess if I want to go play in the snow with them I will have to bring my own tractor. 

There are many experiences on this mission that I never thought I would ever have but they keep coming.  For days now the Kennebec river has appeared to be solid but now and then a rift appears and perhaps that has been caused by high tide or something – not sure.  What I am sure of, is that the river is not safe to walk on here in Augusta due to it being swift flowing here.  Downstream it is more placid and it freezes over well enough for people to go out and walk on it.  There is a man who rents out ice fishing shacks and the people go out on the ice, dig a hole through it and fish through the hole.  I really doubt I would want to do this.  They have a rule here that if your car, snowmobile or ice shack falls through the ice, you are responsible for its removal from the river.  I cannot imagine people driving on the ice in a car or a snowmobile – sounds a bit farfetched to me.

We have begun to do the re-works.  The one book we did today was 265 pages and was single page and had to be done on top of the cradle.  We did it one page at a time with the level and every 25 pages we did a new focusing and we hope that this will please the auditors.  If not, I doubt if we have the courage to try to re-work it – do we have to re-focus every 10 pages – now that seems too much to ask.  One question we do have is – how come 5 books failed when all the others in the batch passed?  After all they were all done the same way – refocus every 50 pages and do the spirit level every 5 pages.  Logic would have us believe that all of them should have failed or on the other hand, all of them should have passed since they were all done the same way.  Today’s book took us 3 ½ hours to do.  That was a long haul.

All of our shuttles are in Salt Lake City as far as we know and we did not know how we were going to get this week’s books out there on Friday.  So, today, surprise of surprises, one box showed up and we loaded 20 books onto it – it took 30 minutes to load the finished files onto the shuttle.  What a relief to have at least one shuttle to use this week.

Met a young girl this week that is going through a divorce and she has two little children 4yrs and 2 yrs.  I came to find out that she used to walk to Gardiner, a town down river from Augusta and it took her 3 hours to walk there, go to work at Mc Donalds and then walk 3 hours home.  Her husband has the children through the week and she has them on the weekends.  A young lady in our church befriended her and got her a closer job – at Sears for over the Christmas holidays and now she has a job at Tim Hortons (coffee shop and snack shack type shop) that is only ¼ mile from her home.  Jobs are so scarce that I guess desperation caused her to walk 3 hours to her job and 3 hours home.  That is not an easy walk by any means.

I met a man at the YMCA who assured me that he was a healer.  I have been in many places where people have assured me that they are healers – like the apothecary shop in Shibuya, Tokyo, where the kusuriya said that to drink the liquid from the bottle containing a snake, would give anyone a burst of energy like they have never known before.  I did not drink it – just the sight of the snake alone was enough to make me run the other way.  I saw bottles of aphrodisiac being sold on the train station platform in Japan – usually bought by old men wishing to regain their vim and vigor – and they usually had a pretty young thing on their arm as they waltzed into the train.  In the gas station close to where Sara lives, they sell bottles of stuff that is designed to give you 10 hours of unlimited energy.  They were also selling bath salts – that’s the latest craze of the drug generation.  The man at the YMCA gave me his card – in hopes that I would take him up on his offer.  I went to his web site and was amazed at what I found there.  I am not sure if he uses hypnosis or auto suggestion to achieve his results that he claims, but one thing he does use is a crystal skull that is touted at being the be all and end all of experiences.  I guess there was something to the tale by Indiana Jones when he found crystal skulls and worked his magic on them.  I never cease to be amazed at the belief systems  that people adopt to achieve relief from every day ills.
He calls the Crystal Skull, 'Skully" and rents him out for parties.
I don't do skulls!