New Years Strikes Again

New Years really could be one of my favorite holidays. It has great potential. Fancy clothes, music, dancing, drinking, smooching... But the last really good new Years I had was 2003-2004, and it has been a downhill slide since then, punctuated with dissapointment and even disaster. I really thought I had outsmarted New Years this year. Our tickets to Egypt had us scheduled to land in Cairo 2 hours after their midnight. Wonderful. I don't have to worry about making plans and I get to celebrate New years in multiple timezones with free airplane beverages and a friend!
But New years thwarted me again. Just before I pulled up to the curb at the Detroit airport Meg called me to say that Northwest randomly canceled her flight from St Louis and she was getting rerouted on two different airlines through New York! So much for meeting up in Amsterdam. So much for having a friend to toast with. So much for arriving in the country together.
And now Meg, on her first time out of the US, has to arrive in Egypt and negotiate customs alone, and I have to try to find her at the airport. Will her flights actually have her new reservations? Will she make her connection? Will she have diarrhea of the mouth going through passport control? Will I get a taxi that is far enough on the functional side of broke-ass that I make it to pick her up from the airport before her brain explodes? Will my hotel let me check in at 4 in the morning and sleep? A few more hours and I will find out what else New Years 2007-2008 has in store for me.

*Happy New Year!*

Making of the Tags

The goal was to get all 2,000 tags stamped and ready to go before excavation in Aswan begins. As of leaving the US for Cairo 1,000 were compleated. So it goes.
Here is the process for creating the tags.
First a blank tag is removed from its bundle of 50. Then it is stamped twice with the basic information:
Site:
Area:
Square:
Level:
Date:
Excavator:
Material:Next the unique sequential number is added. ex 000721
Then the tag is perforated between the two identical info sets so we can easily separate them in the field.Finally the tag is re-bundled in sequential order in groups of 50.
When we use the tags during excavation we will fill out the prompted questions (which helps with keeping standardized and complete records), tear off the bottom portion of the tag and put it inside the artifact bag, and attach the top portion of the tag to the outside of the bag. A list will be made in the field of all of the tag/artifact information for that day, and in the evening all of the information will be added into a database.

Thanks to all the people who helped in the creation of the tags (in order of appearance): Anne Seidlein, KC Austern, Martha Schewe, Carrie Birney, Heather Terry, Larry and Jennifer Hart (AkA Mom & Dad).
And Thank You to the people who have donated to the cost of the supplies: Sarah and Bob Waltz, Diane Birney, Velma and Willis Perry (AkA Grams and Gramps).
If you would like to donate, the cost of the supplies is not yet covered, we still have $138 Left to go! Just use the paypal donate button to the right!
And if you want to help with making the last batch of 1000 and are in Cairo in the next two weeks, just let me know. (That means you Meg!)

17 days until Meg and I leave for Egypt, and we finished working in central Illinois snowy mush mass.