Cookouts, label copies, and championships!

Since that last post left something to be desired (trying to post it a zillion times made me lose my patience), Here is what I have really been doing for the past few days.

I've been busy at work making sure that my signage proposal is in perfect order to be turned in to John again at the end of the week.  It's coming along really nicely and once I get everything from Jake put in it will finally be done.  I'm getting really excited about seeing the final product and I've decided that as soon as the exhibit is installed I'm going to come back and see it.

Last night there was and HCF cookout at the Siebels house.  It was really fun for me to meet some new people and for me to introduce Wes to the people I've been working with.  I also enjoyed seeing everyone outside of work and getting to know everyone a little better.  Possibly the highlight of the night was meeting Brenna though.  Fielding has been trying to get me to meet her pretty much since I got here because guess what, she's from IOWA!  Both she and her husband are from Iowa and met during biology class at the U of I.  It was great to get to talk to them about their favorite IC hangouts and to have someone to complain about the SC heat with :)

Lets see what else....

Last weekend Wes and I made a day trip down to Charleston.  First we went to the old powder magazine.  It is the oldest building in Charleston and every time we've been to visit it has been closed so it was really fun to get to finally visit.  The curator working there was awesome.  Since we were the only ones there most of the time he took the time to show us certain aspects of the exhibit that he particularly enjoyed and to tell us stories about the building.  After the powder magazine we went to one of our favorite restaurants for lunch.  Amen Street is a fantastic seafood restaurant in heart of the historic district.  We started with a low country favorite, She Crab Soup.  Any of you that come to visit me (or just make it down to Charleston) have to have this soup.  It's amazing.  Then I got a flounder po boy that was the size of my head which was equally amazing.  Amen Street never fails at being DElicious.  Next we hit up the old slave market and some of the more touristy shops that we had never been in.  I have always enjoyed the market.  It's fun to see people weaving sweet grass baskets and to sample some of the treats that are being sold.  My favorite are the benne seed wafers.  They're the perfect combination of sweet, salty, nutty, and crunchy.

After doing some touristy shopping we headed to Folly Beach.  This time we went to the far end of the beach near the lighthouse rather than down the other direction closer to the pier.  It wasn't as crowded which made it much more fun.  When we were finally hungry again we made our way to a place called the crab shack where there was live music and got peel and eat shrimp.  This being my first time peeling my own shrimp I have to say that I'm quite good at it.  I only squirted shrimp juice on Wes once :)  Next we headed out for ice cream and then took a walk down the beach at night.

You would think that after a full day we would be pooped and ready to head home to sleep but instead we decided to check out Isle of Palms beach.  I think we may have a new favorite beach to visit the next time we head to Chuck Town.  It is exactly what I've always pictured when I've thought of a Carolina beach.  From the dunes to the seashells to the amazingly soft sand.  Everything about it is pretty  much perfect.  If Monica and G&G want to see the beach at all while they're here we're taking them there for sure.  Hopefully we'll have enough time to do everything...the list is growing by the minute!

Since my computer was being so wonky with the last post here are a few pictures of some of my favorite places in Cola. and my adventures in the south.

 The people that parked next to us in charleston were from Pottawattamie county Iowa!!!

 This place not only has awesome coffee but also a fantastic name! 

 Meet my grandmothers heaven.  Chocolate Nirvanna has amazing cakes.  It's a little expensive but REALLY good.

 Cafe Strudel's hangover hash browns are what dreams are made of.  Seriously though.  Amazing food and their sake cocktails are delish!

 So this isn't really all that exciting unless you're from Iowa City where parking is a nightmare.  All of the parking meters are color coordinated!  Blue is 5 hours, green is 2 hours and red is a half hour.  SO SMART!

 The South Carolina state house.  Wes and I love to walk the grounds of the state house.  Its especially pretty at night.  Yesterday was the first time we had gone inside and I now know just how seriously these South Carolinian's take their confederate past.  The writ of secession is engraved in on the wall in the entry way.

In honor of the USC gamecocks winning the college world series, the USC flag was flying atop the state house.  "GO COCKS!"

So I've been trying to post this for days now...

As I'm sure you have all been wondering, I never found a job.  Other than meaning that I have been doing my best to spend absolutely nothing while Wes spends more than he had bargained for, this means that I will be cutting my internship short.  I now have two weeks left here at the Historic Columbia Foundation and I am very sad to see the time slipping so quickly away.  I have learned so incredibly much during my time here and have gained so much from the experience that I'm realizing just how much I'm really going to need to savor my last two weeks.  

This week I have been continuing to rework my signage proposal and get everything in perfect order.  I have also been familiarizing myself with the USC library which at times makes me feel like I never left Parks at ISU.  Something about being locked away in a cubical at a library makes me focus...maybe its because there's nothing to look at other than what I have brought to work on...or maybe its because that's what everyone else is doing (or at least trying) around me.  Either way, I'm becoming very proud of the work that I have been doing.  This proposal has been at times frustrating, confusing, and at times produced almost as much writers block as my term paper for 396C last semester, but it will no doubt be some of the best work I have done in college.  Who knew that would happen in Columbia SC and not Iowa!

Since I am leaving Columbia earlier than planned I'm not going to get to do any real work with the Woodrow Wilson Family home.  I just wont have time to split between both projects.  The time I've already spent with the project (meetings, background research) was great.  I learned a lot about a very influential president and an era that isn't taught a lot in school. 

A Prehistoric Invasion!

I have always loved writing, but blogging is not my favorite form.  There is something impersonal about tapping keys and watching the letters magically appear.  That's why I love doing these things the old fashioned way.  Feeling the ink flow out of the pen and onto the paper somehow makes it feel more like a labor of love than a task on a to do list so here's what you've been missing for the past few days.

I've mostly just been working on my draft proposal for the Mann-Simons site, and the draft that I will be turning in to John will be the 4th draft I've written even though It will be the first time he's seeing it.  John has been out of the country for two weeks on a mission trip with his church and I'm really excited to hear how the trip went.  Hopefully everything went well and he'll have lots of stories to share, after he digs his way out of a zillion emails that is.  The proposal is coming along really well and short of a missing date and some images that need to be reworked, it is close to being done.  To get it to this point I've been working a lot with Jake.  He has been really helpful in reworking things so that they flow the way they need to and making sure that the images are the best representation of the site.  I'm excited for John to see the proposal and see what he thinks of my work.

Other than working I've been enjoying pretty much everything in Cola.  I'm finally starting to feel like I live here.  I'm finding my favorite places to get lunch, coffee, snacks, and groceries.  It doesn't feel as strange to call everyone "Ma'am" or "Sir".  Being called "Ma'am" is still a bit weird for me but I'm finally getting over it.  I am trying to get the most of this experience and so far that has included food.  So far my favorites are Cafe Strudel, Pawley's Front Porch, Palmetto Pig, Yoghut, Liberty Tap Room and Grill, and Pita's.  Palmetto Pig and Pita's came courtesy of everyone at HCF and they were fabulous recommendations.  I can't wait to take Monica and G&G to a few of them while they're here.

The only bad thing I can find with Cola, other than constantly being just a touch too hot (its 101 here today), are the stupid palmetto roaches.  I've never really been scared of bugs.  At least not to the point of shrieking and running away but I cant even get close enough to kill the suckers!  Even if I did get close enough some day the stupid thing probably wouldn't die.  A tour guide in Charleston said it best "They're leftovers from the  prehistoric era with exoskeletons like plate armor and no matter how many times you hit them they just dont die!".  They're DISGUSTING and EVERYWHERE!!!  Its a good thing Dr. Hilliard told me about them before I left or I would be having a kiniption.  No matter how clean you keep things, or how nice and new your apartment is they always turn up.  Currently there is one that made its home in the dishwasher and the garbage disposal which has become seriously crippling for my cooking abilities.  Hopefully while I'm at HCF today it'll come out of its hiding place and Wes will kill it so I don'st have to see it again.  Blech.  I never thought I would miss the june bug invasion at Camp Shalom every summer or the box-elder bugs that coat screens in Iowa but let me tell you...those suckers are TAME!

(This is where I was going to put a picture of one of the giant nasty things that plagues this city but as soon as I started looking for a picture I had that feeling that they were crawling on me and I couldnt do it....so just imagine it...or google it if your brave!)

I don't have any great pictures to send you off with but I promise I will next time!

Storms, Scans, and Signage

Thunderstorms have always been one of my favorite things and last night we had a doozie!  The lightning was incredible and it was even easier to see once we lost power.  Luckily it came back on quickly because otherwise Wes and I would have been forced to eat half a container of chocolate chip ice cream, the last of the chocolate chip cookies, and everything in the fridge.  Granted that's not much but, it would have been a lot at 10:30 at night!  The storm was worse in other areas of Cola and John even said he had some trees down.  By the time we were going to bed everything had settled down considerably and by this morning blue skies were out again.  It is supposed to be another rainy thunderstorm filled day but so far all I've seen is sunshine so maybe we'll be enjoying another night in the dark tonight.

Friday has finally (I tried really hard to make yesterday be Friday.  Imagine my confusion this morning!) come and I'm busy as ever.  I have been scanning the book John and Jake got from the housing authority since yesterday and am currently about halfway through.  I should be able to get it done today and then burn everything to a disk for safe keeping.  After I get everything scanned I am going to be photoshopping each page to make sure the levels are correct and everything is crystal clear.

This coming week I will be creating a draft of all of the signage for MS for submission to Fielding and Jake.  They will be reviewing my work before I submit it to John since he will be out of the country for the next two weeks.  He is going to South America on a mission trip with his church.  It sounds like it's going to be a pretty amazing trip provided he comes back relatively bug bite free.  Once he gets back and caught up on all of the zillions of email's he'll be getting I'll submit my MS signage to him and turn my focus to the Woodrow Wilson Family Home (WWFH or WW from now on).  I will be making 4-5 signs for this property and as of right now I am almost clueless as to what they will be about.  Reinterpretation on at the WWFH is still in the very beginning stages so I am looking forward to what signage I will be working on.

After a couple of weeks of working at WW I will be getting some hands on curatorial work with Fielding and some archaeological work with Jake.  I am really excited to get my feet wet in these aspects of museum work.  I'll be so much more sure that this is really where I should be focusing my time, energy, and trust fund when I'm done with this internship.

On a less business-y note, Monica, G&G will be getting here in five weeks and two days and I can't wait!  I'm really excited to show them Charleston and where I have been working her at HCF.

I don't have any exciting pictures for you this time...but here is were I work?

 Scanning central

 My desk

 It's pretty empty

 The view over my left shoulder while I work

The view to my right