It's Friday night, and I'm better for knowing more about SURINAME. My pal Evan says his blog tells him that he lives there, so we looked it up on the CIA factbook. I, for one, didn't know there was a city named Longview, in a state called Texas, in a country called ESTONIA.

Amy and Ben are watching Troy. Ben and I watched The Island last night. Good show. Ewan McGregor is the man, beyond being the venerable and slightly pony-tailed Obi-Wan Kenobi.

We're still in Texas. We had our Christmas celebration this morning, since tomorrow will have much packing and visiting with friends. Then we drive to Indiana. I have a link for the current weather on the side bar... should be rather frozen and snowy.

My one hope is that a fresh clean snow falls so I can enjoy more than the dirty snow that's a few weeks old.

Apparently, Antarctica has no natural vegetation, to speak of. That seems rather obvious, until you start wondering what DO all those animals live from. Mosses and rock-growing lichens of varying colors apparently.

Antarctica also has the same number of radio stations as Suriname. That fact should substantially better your wellbeing, though I won't trouble you with the exact number.

Yesterday I bought a plane ticket to Johannesburg.

Currently, the game plan is to fly out of Indianapolis, fly transatlantic to Heathrow a la Chicago, spend several hours seeing London in an all day layover, then fly direct to South Africa. Then bus to Makhado and four weeks of varied archaeological work. Should amount to just under three solid days of travel.

The preparation and packing has gone on all week, so I will enjoy Indiana as essentially closing the door on major packing and just chilling for 3 weeks. I cancelled my beloved Rhapsody account and cell phone service. And for when I return in the fall... check this. I will very likely go The Way of The Penguin this fall. Rhapsody's new web-based service means I can get to it online in Linux. Yessssss. Makes me happy.

And now for a picture.