Archaeology Friday
It's about damn time that Friday rolled around. This has been one hell of a week.
First thing's first. I don't usually discuss work, but there's one thing that I want to vent about. My company presents professional development hours about once a week, and if five or more people sign up to attend, the company springs for lunch. Awesome, right? We don't get paid for it, but it's a great professional development program, and it's one of the things that really impresses me about the company I work for - and for the most part, I'm extremely pleased with my company. So what's my beef? At the last two seminars I've attended, there's been a woman who apparently works in the building (I work elsewhere, folks in the building are support personnel for company operations) who's showed up long enough to get lunch and sign the roster, then she's left. This really annoys me. Now, I've vented about it.
Carrying on, before I get to the lighter stuff that I promised earlier in the week, there have been a couple of articles recently about the negative impact of khat in Yemen. The BBC has an article titled Kicking Yemen's qat habit, and the Guardian has an article called The curse of Yemen. For those of you who don't know, khat/qat is a natural amphetamine that's chewed in parts of the Arabian peninsula and in the Horn of Africa. You can read more about it at Wikipedia. In addition to being a sort of agricultural and pharmacological nuisance, khat has played a role in some American operations in the CENTCOM region, such as Somalia. Because of its properties, folks like Somali militiamen will chew it all day, giving them energy and a sense of bravado. When I was in college, training with the Marines, we were actually direct an operational plan to coincide with the time of day when the local militia was coming off of their khat high. It's not quite the strategic issue that poppies are in Afghanistan, but any counterinsurgent operation in the Horn of Africa or the Arabian peninsula will have to include the khat factor.
So, these things having been discussed, today's theme is archaeology. There have been a number of interesting archaeological finds announced recently. Beneath a church in Israel, archaeologists have discovered an ancient church. Archaeologists in Turkey have found the head of a statue of Faustina, the wife of Antoninus Pius. Antoninus Pius was one of the "Five Good Emperors", and the adoptive father of Marcus Aurelius. There's also been a fairly interesting discovery in England of a Roman brooch, owned by one of the soldiers associated with Hadrian's Wall. Having written about and researched Hadrian's Wall in college, and having visited the area of the wall myself in September of 2004, I found this particular find to be pretty interesting.
The last story of the day is another story about archaeology... Well, not really, but it's about a fictional archaeologist, and it has the virtue of featuring pictures of a ridiculously hot chick. Alison Carroll is the new Lara Croft. When I was a kid, I never had any of the equipment to play the Tomb Raider games, so I was never the geeky fanboy that other guys were; I'm also not a fan of Angelina Jolie or her portrayal of the character (although she impressed me a bit a while ago by saying that she may vote for Senator McCain. Anyway, with a stone cold fox like this Alison Carroll person getting involved with the franchise, I may finally be compelled to get onboard.
Okay, one last item. Today's a banner day for me: today's the birthday of both my dad (fifty-one) and Triathlon Goddess (formerly known as Law School Goddess, [age redacted]). My dad probably doesn't know what a blog is, but TG checks the blog regularly, so leave her some birthday well wishes in the comments.
Have a great weekend, folks!
First thing's first. I don't usually discuss work, but there's one thing that I want to vent about. My company presents professional development hours about once a week, and if five or more people sign up to attend, the company springs for lunch. Awesome, right? We don't get paid for it, but it's a great professional development program, and it's one of the things that really impresses me about the company I work for - and for the most part, I'm extremely pleased with my company. So what's my beef? At the last two seminars I've attended, there's been a woman who apparently works in the building (I work elsewhere, folks in the building are support personnel for company operations) who's showed up long enough to get lunch and sign the roster, then she's left. This really annoys me. Now, I've vented about it.
Carrying on, before I get to the lighter stuff that I promised earlier in the week, there have been a couple of articles recently about the negative impact of khat in Yemen. The BBC has an article titled Kicking Yemen's qat habit, and the Guardian has an article called The curse of Yemen. For those of you who don't know, khat/qat is a natural amphetamine that's chewed in parts of the Arabian peninsula and in the Horn of Africa. You can read more about it at Wikipedia. In addition to being a sort of agricultural and pharmacological nuisance, khat has played a role in some American operations in the CENTCOM region, such as Somalia. Because of its properties, folks like Somali militiamen will chew it all day, giving them energy and a sense of bravado. When I was in college, training with the Marines, we were actually direct an operational plan to coincide with the time of day when the local militia was coming off of their khat high. It's not quite the strategic issue that poppies are in Afghanistan, but any counterinsurgent operation in the Horn of Africa or the Arabian peninsula will have to include the khat factor.
So, these things having been discussed, today's theme is archaeology. There have been a number of interesting archaeological finds announced recently. Beneath a church in Israel, archaeologists have discovered an ancient church. Archaeologists in Turkey have found the head of a statue of Faustina, the wife of Antoninus Pius. Antoninus Pius was one of the "Five Good Emperors", and the adoptive father of Marcus Aurelius. There's also been a fairly interesting discovery in England of a Roman brooch, owned by one of the soldiers associated with Hadrian's Wall. Having written about and researched Hadrian's Wall in college, and having visited the area of the wall myself in September of 2004, I found this particular find to be pretty interesting.
The last story of the day is another story about archaeology... Well, not really, but it's about a fictional archaeologist, and it has the virtue of featuring pictures of a ridiculously hot chick. Alison Carroll is the new Lara Croft. When I was a kid, I never had any of the equipment to play the Tomb Raider games, so I was never the geeky fanboy that other guys were; I'm also not a fan of Angelina Jolie or her portrayal of the character (although she impressed me a bit a while ago by saying that she may vote for Senator McCain. Anyway, with a stone cold fox like this Alison Carroll person getting involved with the franchise, I may finally be compelled to get onboard.
Okay, one last item. Today's a banner day for me: today's the birthday of both my dad (fifty-one) and Triathlon Goddess (formerly known as Law School Goddess, [age redacted]). My dad probably doesn't know what a blog is, but TG checks the blog regularly, so leave her some birthday well wishes in the comments.
Have a great weekend, folks!
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