Thursday, September 22, 2011

BT Dub... Run Club

We started a running club at school... It's an unofficial club but we're running nonetheless.

We did our first run yesterday.

We are using a training app that works us up to running all the way.  So, basically, we are running / walking.  But it is a workout!  We went 4 miles yesterday on the Katy trail in just under an hour.  Here's a picture of us around mile 3.25 at the watering hole.  It was so much fun!



YAY!  GO US!

- btw... run club!

Saturday, September 10, 2011

flint and bones

Last weekend was a three day weekend.  I have missed seeing my sister in Austin, and I have a student that has been wanting a full bone skeleton for his AP artwork.  We'd been working with my best HS girlfriend, Heather, this summer, on getting bones to Dallas from Llano.  There had been some mis-haps in the bone shipping department that was getting frustration from both ends.  I figured that I could kill two birds with one road trip.  The solution was to go visit Sister, then go visit Heather and bring the bones (skulls and whatever else we could find) back to Dallas so we could just get on with the art making.  

After spending the night with Sister and her family (more on that next post), I went to Llano on the last hot as hades day of the season (so far).  Upon my arrival, she had her friend, Kreg, come fetch us and take us out to the ranch he's a foreman at to go look for arrowheads and bones.  It's on the outskirts of Llano in beautiful, but very hot and dry country.




Here are Heather and I as we begin our searching.





 Along the ranch road, we find this old, circa 1850 drilling mine.  I don't have any clue what they are mining for, but the remains are really cool... There is a spring behind this outcrop, which is pretty much dried up, save a little water behind it.  Apparently, this was a water driven apparatus with a wheel that did something, what, I don't know... but it's old and neat.







Moving right along... Here is the big granite outcrop that overlooks the road from Llano to Burnett.  It doesn't look very big but it is.  It's the same geological feature that creates 'Enchanted Rock' that is off the road between Llano and Fredricksburg... Just on a smaller scale.  We found lots of flint chips and a few arrowhead pieces in this area... plus a few bones.




It's pretty out here.






More good scenery.



**smirk**



Granite outcrop.



Funny, colorful rock.




Better funny colored rock!

So, after I was about to stroke out (not really, I cooled off with cold water from the cooler that made me scream so loud that Perry, the other ranch hand who was like a mile off, thought I had gotten bit by something), we headed back to Heather's house where we really got to fix some very, very local food!




Local, freshly killed dove!  Dove season had just opened and Heather's roommate, Ernie, had shot these the day before.  He cleaned and de-boned the breasts, skewered them with jalapeno and bacon, and grilled 'em!  OMG!



Heather and I raided her neighbor's garden (she's out of town for the month... so it's not like we took her dinner!) for these greens!  Also on the menu, local pears that Heather picked in San Saba and poached in red wine!  Heather has always been a great cook!  YUMMO!




Here's Heather and Caleb, Ernie's catahoula/lab mix... We were calling him a 'Catalab'!  He's such a sweet doggie!  


The skewering action going on!



...And the finished dinner!  

So, home I came Monday morning with the buckets of bones that magically appeared on Heather's door step that morning from her ranch friends for me!  




Buckets...


Of bones...  And a few deer heads!

Good times! 

-P

Thursday, September 1, 2011

watch your step!

OMG!
Today the funniest, strangest, klutzy thing happened to me! (ok... shut up... I know I'm a klutz... there is a reason one of my mother's nick names for me is 'Grace').

So...  I'm going to school... a little tired as it's been a crazy week with school starting and all.  I've been parking in the 'senior' parking lot because it is an underground parking lot right across the street and covered parking = cool car in the afternoon when you get in your car.  It's still hot as hades, Y'all!  My deodorant melted the other day when I had to park in the faculty parking lot (I go to the gym before work every day, that's why I have deo in my car).

ANYWAY... as I'm walking around the school to go inside by the loading dock, which is by my classroom that I need to unlock, and by the time clock that I have to 'thumb-in' before I walk to my office and proceed with checking school e-mails and get ready for class.  I'm walking behind a student I don't know who is walking pretty slowly.  I've got to clock in by 8:15am.  I cut through the grass around this student when my foot drops a foot in the ground!!!!! I face plant in the grass, dress goes up, all my shit goes everywhere, lunch, purse, computer case, me, all on the grass!!!!!  Cars are driving into the faculty parking lot, who knows who saw me!!!! I then stand up, pull my foot up to find my shoe is sucked into this hole, and I can't see a hole!  Shoe gone!  Grass and mud on my leg... no shoe and no hole!  WHAT????  The young man stops to help me (nice guy) gather my shit, and I start fishing around in the grass to find this huge hidden hole with my shoe in it.  I put my shoe on, gather what's left of my composure, and proceed to school... dignity lost in that hole.

I share my story with some laughs and some unnecessary sympathy (It's funny, y'all... I don't need your sympathy!).  Then it occurs to me to tell the head custodian, Alan, who is awesome, by the way, about said hole.  We laugh about the story and then I show him the hole.  His reaction is disbelief that this huge hole is hidden in the grass for anyone to plop their foot into!  After he placed a cone on it with intentions to take care of the situation, I decided to take pictures of the offending hole!




Here's the pylon over the hole so other people don't step in it...



Here my alien finger is pointing out the hole after I moved the grass out of the way... Danger Danger!




Here's my foot with the shoe that got sucked in.  I'm sure glad I found it... that'd be hard to explain, and harder to teach sculpture without a shoe!

I probably will have a bruise on my other knee that planted on the ground before the rest of my body.  Thank goodness it was on grass and I wasn't hurt further!

Oh well... Makes a good story though!
-P