The East Side Boat Landing

 In one of the court cases there were three consecutive copies of a newspaper that was advertising the case and needing input etc.  It was hard to read because of the English they used.

 this is the item of interest in the newspaper

 could not resist photographing this Dexter's Rheumatic Pills advertisement.  In any case, I read it through and it will cure just about any illness you have - may even finish you off so that you will be permanently cured of all that can ail humankind.

 These Jaundice Bitters will perhaps be the alternative to the rheumatic pills - not willing to give it a try.

 this is a map of the Greenway - an area that Augusta is trying to develop as a recreation walk way etc.

 The river was still and reflected like glass.  the statehouse is poking its head just above the horizon, just left of center in this picture.

 Looking south down the Kennebec from the Arsenal area.

 Looking North on the Kennebec

 The boat landing.  From the other side of the river it looks to be solid but to my surprise it is made of blocks of granite and there is grass growing in the cracks.

 A metal ring in the granite which they used to tie up boats.

 One of the buildings in the Arsenal complex.  It boasts a TV antenna - also dates the last occupants.

 Looking at the Arsenal from the boat landing.  the arsenal was used to store guns, gunpowder etc. for the troops.

 another view of the house  with the TV antenna.  It also sports 4 chimneys which means four fireplaces to help keep people warm.

 Could not resist taking this picture of the beginng of Autumn in Maine.

 another historic building in the Arsenal complex.

 Looking at the boat landing where they set up the fireworksand you can see the back side of the buildings that line Water Street (facing West)

 another view of the buildings in Downtown Augusta.

 foe a whole year I have wanted to get a picture of the buildings of the businesses of Augusta reflected in the river - today I did it and I am very happy

 Old fort Western.

 Rock where Benedict Arnold assembled his troops to go to Canada.

 Perfect reflection of downtown Augusta in the Kennebec.

 Church of Christ Scientist sharing the grounds with the historic Old Fort Western

 Cushoc is the native American name for the area of Augusta because it is the place where the incoming tide meets with the out flowing Kennebec River.

 They are taking off the green lead base paint from the river undergirding and they have wrapped the bridge in tarpaulins to catch the paint chips.  It looks like the bridge is getting one Huge Bandage job.  After they have chipped off the paint, they will put on some sort of sealer and then paint it the wonderful Government Green.

 Kayak Condo's for people who live in apartments and cannot store their kayak so the inventor did a great service to the boaters.

 I have waited a long tme to get this perfect picture of the downtown reflection.

this ladder seems to be the only way up into the bridge structure and also the only way out.

Labor Day Weekend............21 days to go

We are facing a long weekend.  I wonder who coined that phrase – ‘long weekend’ – it is still two days and the government tacked on a public holiday to boot.  Some weekends are long even when they are only two days because we tend to pack so much stuff into each day we need to go to work on Monday to recuperate. 

While Bill was at the YMCA this afternoon, I went for a walk along the rail trail and looked across the river to the Idyllic Scene of the  Arsenal and the auxiliary houses that are on that property.  I have admired this scene ever since we got here and today I got to see them up close and personal.  Sr. Kada took us there at lunch time.  I think I like the looks of the buildings from across the river because up close and personal they are falling into disrepair.  It seems that some developer came by with big plans that never got off the ground.  These buildings are on the national register of historic buildings but the present owner has let them fall into disrepair and vandals have since taken over.  Truly sad to see.

The River was coming in at the time we were there and the reflections were wonderful.

We were supposed to be having a picnic for lunch but the hour went too fast with sight seeing but I did learn one important thing – it is in Augusta that the river coming down from Moosehead lake and the river coming up from the ocean with the tide meets in here. 

There is also a large rock where Benedict Arnold stood and spoke to his troops who went with him to Canada for the war there (I think that is what I was told).  This was before he became a trator.

Today was the second day for Jacob’s test with mayo Clinic and we hope that he did well.  We are also hoping for some good news for Jacob.  I did call Sara but at the time I called her she had not heard from him other than a short note saying “I love you”.  The children seem to be doing better today than they were doing yesterday.

It must be time for us to go home because my lipstick is almost all used up and my supply of Olive Oil soap has almost gone.  I am in need of prescription refills and the herbs and spices I brought with me are all now out of date.  When I get back home I just want to sleep until I wake up – no more 6 o’clock Charlie every morning……..but I am sure that the quail will take over with the morning noise.

When the stress level gets high..........

Our room is silent.  No Jason hitting the record cards on his desk to separate them so that they will go through the digitizer cleanly.  That also means no dust from the records either and no broken pieces of cards all over the floor from his efforts.  It is altogether too quiet – but we get more done this way.

I am pleased with the progress I have been able to make in preparing the records for York county.  I am also feeling more comfortable in working with this higgeldypiggeldy hodgepodge of record keeping that they used in York County – the trick is to beat them at their own game and I think I have done it.

I am now working with the April Term records for 1806 and have separated out the continued actions portion of the records and divided them into 3 piles – 1-100, 101-200, 201-300 and I have completely put the 1-100 in its folder and into the storage box.  How cool is that?

The Carmack’s who are working in Ohio doing digitizing are having troubles with it and so they wrote to the Duncan’s who used to be in Vermont till about a month ago.  Duncan’s forwarded their query to us and said they were now home…………….so ask the Markham’s in Maine to help you.  Passing the Buck I suppose – but I wrote the following to the Carmack’s:-

Hello to fellow workers and retired workers in this missionary effort,
first, Elder and Sr. Carmack, are you working with a cradle?
      We had a cradle to work with but it was not in good shape and SLC continually told us that they would fail all our work if we did not get the glass changed due to it having a scratch in it, but the state was strapped for funds and would/did not change the glass until I found someone on the staff who just took care of it and let the state whine over the cost.
that was problem no. 1.
Problem No. 2 was a bigger headache than anything else.
It consisted of a camera that was not working properly and SLC said it was the operators (meaning us) but then it finally died and then they sent us a replacement that was also not working and they had to send us a third item so that it now works.
I am not shouting at you in the next sentence.
YOU MIGHT WANT TO HAVE YOUR CAMERA BENCH TESTED TO SEE IF IT IS WORKING PROPERLY.  ask if the array is doing its thing in the corners of the pages.
It is probably something they are not willing to do for you because they expect that the camera is in good working order.  However, after the comedy of errors that were committed they did send us a camera that was appropriate for the work.
I am not a camera buff, but I suspect that this digitizing thingy that the church has embarked upon is the best they can come up with but does not seem to be fully appropriate for the work that they are asking us to do.  that is my opinion and I know that they violently disagree with me, but they are not the ones on this end struggling with the problem of cameras.
Problem no. 3.  also a big headache
Movement.  we got ding'd more times than enough for blurring - and try as we might we struggled with this problem for the entire time.  It was not until Bro. Sanhueza came (last month - just 2 months before we leave for home) that we discovered that the camera setup - primitive though it is compared to what is available in this day and age - was not properly  bolted together and therefore it wiggled and gave us blurred images.  He also got  after us for this problem and scolded us for not checking the set up before this, but what did we know?  We have not been  schooled in the finer points of camera work or set up.  when we came we assumed that this was the way things should be and that they would work perfectly - after all are we not on the Lord's errand?  shouldn't we expect it all to work perfectly?  turn out a perfect product every time?
Problem no. 4.
Blurring or imperfect capture in the corners of the pages.  this is a difficult one to overcome.  The first thing to check is the camera and its ability to do what is asked  of it. (bench test)
Second thing is to have the camera high enough up so that the array is complete as possible. (eternal arguments erupt among the computer guru's in SLC over that problem)
If you have a cradle and I am assuming that you do, having the camera high enough might do the trick so that the camera can capture all four corners of the open book.  If not, then you may have to do what we did - do it one page at a time.(with right / left capture, which is a pain to do and takes a long time)  SLC is not happy about that because they said that the camera is not being used efficiently if we do one page at a time, but they have no help to offer about non-capture of top left and right corners or non-capture of bottom left and right corners of an open book.
Another problem is the books that we were asked to capture.  they were tightly bound and the image 'fell off' and was unreadable close to the center in the gutter.

To conquer the most stubborn of problems that faced us, we did right/left capture of two really oversized books and we did not use the cradle but used clamps to hold the pages down, and we used spirit levels to make sure that the pages were level as possible - horizontally as well as vertically and then pressed capture.  We also used foam wedges and anything we could get our hands on to help make the pages level and flat.  We did this for every page just about and we re-focused every 10 pages.  We did it this regularly because no one in SLC or even Bro. Sanhueza could tell us what the depth of field was for this camera.  If we knew the depth of field (i.e. how many pages could we do safely without having to worry about whether the corners, center or whatever part of the page would be having problems, and then have to re-focus.), things would have worked a lot smoother for us.

If none of this works for you and has been of little or no help to you, then keep in mind a quote from a couple who are now in Ireland doing record capture , "there is little you can do that will please Salt Lake completely.  They are hard to please"

when it is the end of the day, I know that there is nothing sweeter than experiencing the Spirit of Elijah as we work with these records.  these are records of real people and they have descendants who want to know about them and we get to make that possible.  the problems melt away when this happens.

If you need more input - please write.
thanks and God Bless
The Markhams.

They wrote back that we had made their Day…………..well at least we have accomplished something by making someone’s day…………..wooohooo.  the Markham’s ride again!

We only have 22 days left here and we went to Wal Mart today to pick up Bill’s prescription and get a little bit of food – it seems strange to only get a few things – usually we spend at least $100 but we do not want to have lots of food left over before we leave.

We had been contacted by a new couple who thought they may be coming to Augusta to take over where we left off, but Manny says that they are going to be sent to the Vermont records office instead.  I had sent 30 pictures of Maine and etc. to them and they loved what they saw but it will not be their lot to be here.  I am so sad. 

Today Jacob had his first day at Mayo Clinic.  I talked to Sara, amid some screaming and crying children (they are all stressed out because Daddy is at the Doctor’s , as Lyla put it).  She said that the doctor talked to Jacob and they did an MRI of him and took Blood tests.  Tomorrow he has a rather risky procedure to be done, but we are all hoping and praying for his success and for the skills of the doctors at Mayo clinic.  We have his name in as many temples as we can.

The joyful thing for today was when Lyla answered the phone and said , “Hello!  This is me, Lyla”, what a sweetie – it was enough to fill this grandmothers heart to overflowing for the rest of the day.

A normal day?

What does a normal day look like?  Well, the traffic was screaming past our house all night long.  Where do they come from and better yet where are they going in the wee hours of the morning?  Don’t these people ever sleep here in Maine?

There is this motorbike rider that I call 6am Charlie.  Mash had an episode about 5pm Charlie who used to go over the Mash unit and drop bombs made of propaganda materials.  Most of the time he would miss his target but he came at 5pm on the dot.  Well, our 6am Charlie make his presence known one and one half miles from our house.  He starts at the traffic light at Rte 201 and Rte 3.  He rides a high performance motorbike and he leans forward as he rides to provide little wind resistance.  His bike begins the high pitch scream down at the traffic light as he zooms along Rte 201 and you have to keep your eyes glued onto the road or you will not even get a glimpse of him as he tears past our apartment.   He is like a green blur and I would love to know just how fast he is going.  On the other hand, one false move and he is history.  Two days ago a motorbike rider thought he could beat the garbage truck – his funeral is tomorrow.  One minute he is speeding to beat the truck, then he hit the truck full force and he is no more here in mortality.  He was not wearing a helmet either, but I doubt if the helmet would have been of much prevention or protection for this rider.  My friend Jenny passed the accident soon after it happened and she saw the body under the tarp on the side of the road.  If anyone had told him 30 minutes before the accident that he was 30 minutes away from leaving earth life, I wonder what he would have said.  Perhaps he would have just scoffed at the idea and climbed onto his bike and sped off.

I have been sitting now for 3 weeks working on the York county records – either smoothing them out onto paper to dry out flat, or writing them up ready to be digitized.  I find myself thinking about these people who lived 200 years ago.  Right now I am working on the December papers and I imagine that they had to wade through loads of snow to get to the court room to have the case heard.  Did they have a pot bellied stove in the court room to warm it up a little while it was occupied?  Was the judge stern with the people before him?  Did they have family members come with them to support them?  Was there evidence of clear cut guilt or innocence?  There seems to be the same surnames with each court session that leads me to think that Maine was rather sparsely populated 200 years ago.  Anyway, it is fun to try to put flesh on the bodies that are in these court cases.

Around 9.30am the fire alarm went off.  I grabbed my computer (my written life is contained in this computer) and my shoulder bag and off we went outside the building.  Apparently it was just a test of the system because the fire truck did not come like it did last winter.  That was exciting – the firemen all garbed up in their protective gear and running into the building with hatchets drawn.  I wonder who they hoped to scalp when they got in there.

At 10am the second in command of the office was ushered into the break room to inspect the microwave that she had been told was probably the next thing to go up in flames because it smelled funny.  We were all waiting in the break room for her to come in but instead of inspecting the microwave she was the recipient of a birthday card and cake and we sang happy Birthday to her.

For lunch time today, Bill, Anne and I went over to the cafeteria for lunch.  After lunch, and a very eventful morning, we settled down to Bill doing the digitizing and me writing up court cases.

Making progress with the York co. court records

Mary came to the Archives today to help out.  We had a good time together.  Still did not figure out the method or lack thereof, used by the clerks who filled out the docket write up in the books.  So she found the numbers and I wrote the papers.

After Mary left, I finished off the “Continued Actions” that we had been working on and got out the papers for the “new entries”.  I decided to just go from the first entry to the last entry and it worked out a lot better for me to work it this way.  The books have not been written in numerical order or even alphabetical order and it is hard to follow the reasoning.  Therefore, I used no reasoning at all and the entries got documented on paper and pretty soon I will have the whole thing finished.  Perhaps I will be able to get all the flattened out papers done before Jeff returns from his vacation.

In preparation for the new missionaries it might be a better idea to just spend the time flattening out papers than trying to write them up in preparation for digitizing them.  Will have to talk to Jeff about that.

When I got into work today, there was a jar of peaches on the desk.  Anne had left them there.  She said that since I would not be here for my next birthday, that she bought me a jar of peaches due to the fact that I had told her of my wish when I was little to have a whole can of peaches all for myself as my birthday present.  How sweet it this lady?  I will surely miss her when I go back to Arizona.

This evening I went visiting teaching and we visited Rose.  She told us the story of Sheila whom she met in Bangor and brought her home to live with her here in Hallowell.  Sheila is allergic to cats (Rose has 5) and dogs (Rose has one) and so Rose said she had to find another place for Sheila to live.  She called Sue, our Relief Society President and it was suggested that Maria be asked to take her in.  She did.  We met with Sheila last week and told her about the book of Mormon and she said she would read it, so we gave a copy to Maria to take to Sheila.  It always astounds me at the connections that we make.

I am very concerned about leaving the ‘cocoon’ of missionary work and all its protections etc. and go back into the real world.  Did this one time before and it felt like someone had pulled the rug from under my feet while I was standing on it.  I am not looking forward to this experience again.

  It is quite nice and very comfortable doing the work we are doing.  Having to leave it and enter the world again is not inviting at all.