Shots from The Battery

Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve been by to check on our website.

Now that we’ve waded through the mountains of spam in our comment moderation box (mostly bots linking to .info sites), I thought it might be nice to make a post to update anyone who is curious as to our whereabouts & might still be subscribed to our blog.

We are both still enrolled in college and are working towards finishing our degrees. Things are progressing nicely, and we’ve managed to maintain the 4.0 GPA’s. We had a lot of fun last semester antagonizing helping our creationist classmates in survey of anthropology… so much that I decided to change my Major to Anthro! Di’s steadfastly plodding along with the biology, too. At the current pace, we should be able to begin graduate studies by fall of 2011.

We’re still managing the sheds, as our boss has been incredibly flexible and understanding enough to allow us to modify business hours to our school schedules. A return to college would have been more difficult if not impossible without his cooperation.

Di had back surgery a few months ago, and they pulled this out of her:

That is part most of the disc from in between her L4 & L5 vertebrae.

The unrecognized herniation had been causing problems for years. She had to have the disc removed because it had herniated completely out, traveled up her spinal column, and wrapped itself around a nerve cord, which caused excruciating pain in her lower back and legs. Any of you that may have met us over the years may have noticed that she had some slight mobility problems, but now they are no more. For the many commenters who responded to the post about her undiagnosable pink spots last year, we now have at least a theory on the cause. The spots appeared within weeks of the onset of intense pain, which was probably the original herniation. We now believe the release of spinal fluid/matter resulted in an inflammatory response that caused the petechia and purpora on her lower extremities. Anyhow, since the surgery she’s fully recovered, the doctor said she has almost no chance of recurrence, and she’s lost 35 lbs in less than 4 months!

We recently spent a few days in the field digging with Kimberly Pyszka, Maureen Hays and the CoC archaeology field school students at the old St. Paul’s Stono Church ruins. I think I’ll probably throw up a separate post about this experience… so much to share.

We’ve also taken an interest in amateur archaeology and fossil hunting. We bought some equipment and have been planning day-trips to some favorite spots, mostly in the Aiken area. SC has an ample amount of places to find historic and prehistoric artifacts and interesting fossil specimens, plus it’s a cheap and healthy outdoor activity. (We aren’t robbing graves, are in full compliance with federal and state laws, dig only on private land with permission, fully document anything we find, and will donate any significant “discoveries” to an appropriate museum for curation. We are not hoarding collectors or seeking any profit… it’s just a fun hobby.)

We also adopted a new member of the NaD canine family. We’ve had little George for a few years:

but now she has a companion named Ringo:

Ringo was a shelter dog that was rescued from an evil puppy mill. We adopted him from Pet Helpers, which is a really awesome group that runs a no-kill shelter down here. If there are any locals reading this who are looking to adopt or contribute to a worthy cause, we highly recommend you talk to them.

We’re planning on attending Dragon*Con again this year because it was so much fun last time. If you are planning on going, and have not yet booked your hotel, I would highly recommend that you do so…NOW! All of the host hotels are completely booked up (unless you want to pay $460 for a suite at the Hilton), but there are still a few rooms left at some of the over-flow hotels.

Other than that, it’s just been the same old same old. Work, class, eat, sleep… repeat.