Research and More

March 17, 2007 at 8:50 pm · Filed under Life

Research and More in pictures.

Two weeks ago, Spence and I skipped a few days of school to get some research done for our crazy history book writing project. The grand plan was to leave Wednesday, spend the night at Bolt’s apartment in Duncanville, spend all day Thursday in Austin at the State Archives, spend all day Friday in Ft. Worth at the National Archives, and then go birding with Bolt on Saturday morning. Surprisingly, everything went pretty much as planned, and we got even more information than we were hoping to get. Of course, there were a few surprises along the way.

First Day
Our findings at Austin were not spectacular, but they were definitely important. After finally figuring out the maze of one way streets that lead to the particular parking garage we needed to use, we headed to the State Archives.

The thing that surprised us the most was that very little had been done to preserve the items we were after. Instead of scanning through microfilm like we were used to, we handled the originals! We carefully paged through newspapers and governor’s correspondence from the 1860s, trying not to damage them any more than they already were. One highlight was being able to see an original copy of a letter President Grant wrote to Governor Pease. We also looked at some old Freedman’s Bureau records; these were thankfully on microfilm. Handwriting from the 1860s is really hard to read!

We had so much to get done that we didn’t even break for lunch, but I think it was worth it.

Second Day
The second day of our trip was a little more exciting. Apparently Spence was a little bit to comfortable with the one way streets of Austin. On our trip to the National Archives, he decided to turn into the closest lane of a two way street. After a few yells from me (“This is not a one way street! This is not a one way street!”) and one very surprised truck driver (Spence claims the truck driver was calm the entire time) we got back into the correct lane.

The next silly mistake was mine. While we were getting clearance from the guard at the entrance to the government center that housed the National Archives, I spotted some Monk Parakeets in the road up ahead. Bolt had told us about these the day before, so I wanted to get some pictures. While Spence was talking with the guard, I was getting the camera out as quickly as I could. The guard noticed and rather firmly asked me to refrain from taking pictures (“Turn it off! This is a federal installation!”). Oops.

The folks at the archives were very helpful; we were effectively attacked by people wanting to help us find stuff. However, at the beginning, we didn’t find anything of use. Just as we were about to give up, another guy whom we hadn’t talked with before asked us what we were looking for. We said we were looking for some Post Returns from Jefferson during the 1860s, and he got a little gleam in his eye and started mumbling “Post Returns, mmm, Post Returns…” over and over again. The next thing we knew, we had more information than we could possibly sort through! Luckily, they let us take 12 microfilm reels home.

Postscript
The next few weeks after trip have been busy too. Immediately after I got back from Duncanville, I gave a presentation at Hope Fellowship about my upcoming Wycliffe trip to Africa (complete with an amazing “pie chart,” thanks to Michaela). Spence, Ludwhig, and I performed “Yongy Bongy Bo” at Common Grounds one night. I spent approximately 5 bazillion hours laying out a PCB for Microcomputer Design. For Spring Break, I went to Spence’s house so we could begin writing our book that we did the research trip for. And, now I’m in Kansas so that tomorrow I can present about my Cameroon trip to my home church.

Hard to believe the semester is as close to being over as it is.

Research and More in pictures.

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Birding with Bolt

March 17, 2007 at 8:43 pm · Filed under Birding

Two weeks ago, Spence and I skipped school to do some research at the State and National Archives in Austin and Ft. Worth. Lucky for us, Bolt lives in Duncanville, which provided a convenient place for us to stop between our trips. Bolt and I had been trying for a while this semester to get together and do some birding, so my staying at his house proved convenient for that purpose as well.

All three of us got up early on Saturday morning and got ready to head out to Joe Pool Lake. While we were still in the parking lot outside Bolt’s apartment, he pointed out some White-winged Doves, a first for me.

When we got to Joe Pool Lake, we discovered that the weather had turned surprisingly chilly. Despite the cold, we managed to see Coots, a Great Blue Heron, a Yellow-rumped Warbler, some Juncos, a Carolina Chickadee, a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, several Savannah Sparrows, and a Downy Woodpecker. We also saw a good number of birds I was more familiar with like Robins, Cardinals, and Turkey Vultures. We tried to walk across the dam, but the bitter, cold wind finally turned us back.

From there, we headed over to a small pond in a nearby subdivision. At first we thought there weren’t any birds on the water, but then we saw one! After straining at our binoculars and discussing what kind of neck and markings it had, we reached a conclusion: it was a beer bottle.

After that, it was off to Cedar Ridge Preserve. I was happy to go there because I had gone there several times this summer without much luck, so I hoped that with the help of Bolt, we’d be able to make some good sightings.

Unfortunately, the most exciting thing we spotted during the first leg of our journey was June’s house. She lives close the preserve, so we decided to go visit her. While we were at her house, I got to see some House Finches, which I had never seen before, at her bird feeder. After a pleasant visit, we went back to the preserve.

Our next few hours were very productive. We got several excellent views of a Northern Harrier. We also got close to a Bewick’s Wren several times. We never got a really good view, but by mentally piecing what I did see together, I think I have a good idea of what they look like.

When we got back to the entrance of the park, we also got to see a Brown Thrasher, but he was quite a ways back in some brush, so we didn’t get a good view. We also saw an Eastern Phoebe in a tree next to the entrance road.

From there, we made one final stop at a park to try to find some Monk Parakeets. We were successful in that and got to see some Cedar Waxwings as well.

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Wycliffe Trip to Cameroon

March 6, 2007 at 11:28 pm · Filed under Wycliffe

Well, it looks like I couldn’t stay away from Wycliffe for very long! This summer, I will be traveling with a small team to Cameroon, Africa for about a month and a half. We are being sent by Wycliffe’s international communication office to gather information about the ongoing Bible translation work for the Bantu family of languages.

This trip will be quite a bit different than last summer. Last summer, I did programming all the time; this summer, I will be doing journalism. That may seem like a strange change, but I’ve been interested in writing and journalism for a while now, and I spent the last two years here at LETU working as a staff writer for the school newspaper.

My support letter has all the details of the trip.

I’m really excited about what God has in store for me this summer!

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