Summer reading

This trip to Crete has really kicked off summer reading. The list includes a number of books I brought with me (The Mirrored Heavens, The H-Bomb Girl, Axis, The Prefect) and a bunch I picked up while traveling from the airport, hotel "exchange shelves," and a small bookstand in Rethymo Crete that we found (a good deal: bring in two used books, get one free). The books I picked up along the way included a couple of crappy "physical anthropologist solving crime" type stories - told poorly. But its all good in the summer...

A Painted House- John Grisham - Picked this up at the bookstand in Crete. It is a "slice of time and place" kind of story about a seven year old boy growing up in northeastern Arkansas - Craighead county in the 1950s. The story takes place in the county a bit north of where I did my dissertation research and along the St. Francis. So the landscape he describes I know well (though, its a different world there now). The kid wants to be a Cardinal baseball player when he grows up but he's living in a time where cotton is picked by hand and there is a lot of cotton to pick. An relaxing summer read.

The Mirrored Heavens - David J. Williams - This is one of those hyper-cyber-techno-future type books that is largely derivative of Gibson's work. It is a bit underrealized in terms of technology and characters. Much of the story line hinged on people in fantastical suits doing crazy things with weapons and armor. Nonetheless, it is a good read. I think this was a first novel - perhaps future work will be less ambitious in terms of scope and more detailed.

The Ring - Stephen Baxter - This volume finishes (as far as I can tell) one of the branches of Xeelee series (Raft · Timelike Infinity · Flux · Ring · Vacuum Diagrams · Reality Dust · Riding the Rock) and the Michael Poole series (Coalescent · Exultant · Transcendent · Resplendent). In the story, we finally find out about end of the Xeelee as they engage in megayear battles with non-baryonic matter birdlike entities who are altering the structure of stars to be more stable for their version of the universe. Its a far out story of course, but full of details about the inner workings and evolution of stars as well as implications of anti-particles and the dark matter universe. Geeky sci-fi.

Relentless - Simon Kerrick - I picked this book up in a little used book stand in Rethymo Crete simply as a beach read. That's really all its worth - a hack tale about a guy who is being pursued by some evil dudes who want him for a reason that doesn't become clear until the "surprising" end (which turns out to be his wife who was having an affair with his best friend who was a lawyer for a judge that was involved in a pedophile ring that also involved an evil developer but it also turns out that his wife was having an affair with a woman who worked at the university and was ... well, its a big mess). Hack writing, easy reading.

Written in Bone- Simon Beckett - One of the now-popular tales of a forensic anthropologist who solves crimes. Here, the main characters travels to an island off the Scotland coast to explore a mysterious death that turns out to be a murder - the wrap of this one is hilariously convoluted in terms of the "who dunnit" and involves a twisted maze of characters. Fairly generic murder mystery stuff combined with basic forensic anthropology (mostly focused on the effects of bodies that catch on fire - so lots of gruesome descriptions of heads exploding, limbs curling and meat sizzling). Another easy beach read.

Axis - Robert Charles Wilson - A sequel to Wilson's book Spin about a world that is made accessible through a giant arch that is placed by the "Hypotheticals" - a set of mysterious aliens that no one ever sees. The idea is that these aliens are some vast set of replicators that do odd things like trap the Earth behind a big stasis shell and then let the universe age 5 million years. In this volume, we learn more about the Hypotheticals as their remains rain down on this alterna-Earth and genetically engineered children become communication conduits. Sadly, it's pretty forgettable really - I had to think hard about what the book was about to write this summary.

Odd Thomas- Dean Koontz - I picked this up at the airport on the way to Greece as something really throw away (really throw away.. I never intended to bring it back). It's the story of a dude named "Odd Thomas" who can see the dead (sound familiar?). Anyways, he sees dead people and gets involved in resolving bad things that had happened to them. The main arc of the story is about a big disaster that is coming to a little town that Odd tries to stop (he knows its coming because of some mysterious dark creatures that only he can see that gather before a bunch of deaths). Like most of Koontz's book - its quick read, good for about one cross country flight - but nothing particularly redeeming about it.

Narrow Dog to the Carcassone- Terry Darlington - I swapped one of the other books at our hotel in the hills above Chania, Crete. It's a nonfiction account of Darlington's trip in a crazily long motor boat - 62 feet long, 3 feet wide - that was built to travel the absurdly narrow canals of England. Darlington with his wife and a whippet named Jim motor this tube of a boat across the English Channel - and then across the canals of Belgium and France. It is a funny story, though decidedly British in its humor. I liked it particularly because it reminded me of the Free Spirit and the numerous adventures we had on that old wooden Chris Craft in the Puget Sound.

Raw Shark Texts- Steven Hall - A completely unexpected tale of someone who finds themselves waking up and not knowing who they are but with letters coming to themselves from themselves (ala Memento). But in this story, the protagonist finds himself chased by conceptual sharks that swim the seas of shared ideas. It's a cool exploration in the notion that our ideas of the world form the world and that there can be beasts/replicators that evolve in the information landscape (and prey on generators of ideas). A weird but excellent book that I know Tim Hunt, Mark Madsen, and Mike Pfeffer will love.

The H-Bomb Girl - Steven Baxter - A fun alternative history/possibilities story about a girl who meets versions of herself from potential bleak futures. It takes place in the early 60s Liverpool. Light sci fi.

Currently reading and still on the stack..

The Prefect - Alastair Reynolds

The Line War- Neal Ascher- Neal Ascher - I started this one and right off the bat is a great extension of the Cormac series.

House of Suns - Alastair R - Alastair Reynolds

Saturn's Children - Charles Stross - Charles Stross

The Execution Channel - Ken Macleod

Blimpin'

Today was a good day to blimp. The first flight of the morning was over the acropolis - cool stuff. The second flight was likely good but ended in nothing since the battery on the camera died almost right away. Crap.

But the shots from the first part of the day are great...

More blimp photos

Yesterday morning was a great time for blimpin'. The wind conditions were perfect (none), the light even and the results great. We got a series of photos from the excavation area down the valley including new areas that Christofillis want's to acquire. Below is excavation area showing the architecture and the folks working in the units.

Unfortunately, the afternoon was less successful due to failure of the rig to trigger the camera. We had great shots of the slopes of the acropolis and a large part of the acropolis itself. But no photos. Damn.

This morning, the winds were up and gusty. Since the areas we wanted to cover were close to the acropolis (up wind) there was no way of really flying the blimp. So we bailed and came back down to the hotel for some writing time. We are hoping to put together a list of projects that would be integrated into the collaborative teaching class this fall/spring and then lead to student projects in the summer.

Field Photos

Spent the day working on the blimp. Oddly, the blimp didn't have much lift today. I suspect this is because of the heat of the sun warming the air so that it is less dense and thus lowering the helium effect. But it seems about as hot as it was in Guatemala, so I am not sure. The weight of the rig is the same as it has been, so its not a problem with the payload. Tomorrow, we will start flying the blimp @ 6:00 so we can get cooler air. Perhaps that will help. We really need to get this much higher. I also will use the .5x wide angle lens. That should help significantly but not add any weight.

Another issue is the picavet system -- when the blimp is floating in no wind and the camera hangs straight up and down, the rig tends to be tilted. I am not sure how to fix that yet - it causes spin as well. You can see a bit of the tilt here in the photo above.

Above: Will Gilstrap (CSULB grad student), Christofillis Maggidis (Director, Dickenson College) and Paul Scotton (Director of Hellenistic excavations, CSULB). For the record, Paul is wearing a Huntington Beach Hawaiian shirt. Will is wearing a hat he found in the trash.

The day ended on a bit of a bummer note when an unnamed (yet pictured above on the left) person opened a freezer (yes, there is a freezer at the excavation site!) and ripped a large gash in the blimp. We repaired it in the afternoon using gorilla tape from a remarkably prepared graduate student named Joe. Hopefully, that will enable us to fly this morning (its 12:30 AM right now).

Mycenae - First Blimp Mosaic

Flew the blimp today and took some photos of the excavation areas that are in work this summer. This is the new "lower town" that was identified via aerial photos, gpr and magnetometry. The walls are just centimeters below the surface -- all Helenistic stuff. The bronze age material is below that. Here's the first mosaic from this morning's work. We will be doing more tomorrow morning (early, 6AM) and then up to the citadel on wednesday. There is a japanese news crew here so I suspect they will love the blimp.

Mycenae, Greece

Made it to Mycenae yesterday after a long-ass flight from JFK to Athens. The allure of international travel is truly gone - that was an 11 hour domestic flight with the same # of amenities (none) and leg room (equally lacking). Oh well. We arrived in the airport, zoomed through customs, and met a taxi guy who drove us down to Mycenae. Why are taxi's in european countries usually in car brands that we can't afford in the US-- this was a mercedes benz, like most of the taxis around here. Sweet ride.

Got to the hotel and I passed out. I probably shouldnt have but I just couldnt keep my eyes awake. Forced myself to get up around 6 and went to find the students and other CSULB folks. We drank some beverages, ate some pork, pita and tzatziki (and terrific greek salad) -- then I passed out. I woke up at three but forced myself back to sleep (well,that wasn't really that hard). Got up at 7 and ate some bread, drank coffee, and began the day..

View of Mycenae acropolis and the new "lower town" excavations below. View across the plains...



drinking greek bear with chris lee, paul scotton, and leo.

Off to Mycenae, Greece

Got up hideously early to catch a plane to Athens this morning (n.b. why do you "catch" a plane when you've booked it weeks in advance, have at the airport hours in advance, sit waiting to let you board it, and then it sits there for what seems like hours more before leaving? Planes seem to catch us more than anything. I suppose for argument sake this word comes from jumping into a trolly ("catching it") and maybe once upon a time one was able to look at a schedule and speed to the airport in the nick of time to duck in the door before the air hostess closed it [just before serving the fresh lox, orange juice, bagels and coffee)]. I really find no pleasure in getting up at those early hours - despite the cultural pressure (or maybe its just the crap I read) to "enjoy the quiet early hours before the hubbub of the day..." Anyways, its not for me - let me sleep.

The plane to Atlanta is full to the gills, folks are stacked in here like one of those japanese hotels where they slot you into a drawer. Except for here, of course, you dont get to stretch your legs out and the seats make it impossible to fully open a laptop (i have mine tilted at some crazy upward angle so I can reach my fingers around the case to type). Ah, the joys of travel and the jet set. Cattle cars of the air. Moo.