For those of you who live within 4hrs of Albuquerque I would like to encourage you to come to the SAA’s for the Free CRM Expo being held at the convention center tomorrow on Saturday 10-4. The expo will have 50 companies represented(*), but more importantly will serve as a gathering place for coming across old friends (and therefore likely preceed an evening of anthropologically observed debauchery). Think of it as an excuse to come to the big city for the weekend for the occasional big shopping trip :-) Knowing SW connections I am sure you can find a couch to crash on in ABQ (Loebig & Silcock are threatening to crash me which will likely create a biohazard environment! Lol). And it’s a good excuse to grab an Olympia Gyro!
Yeah yeah I know it is expensive to go to the SAA’s out of pocket. Yeah yeah, it’s a haul. That’s my life too. But the CRM Expo is a great way to overlap with the attendees and catch up with your far flung peers. It also gives you a new appreciation for The Pecos Conference or the Plains Conference ;-). But seriously, it just an overnighter. Get in touch with your youth and just do it. You might be surprised and the outcome of reacquainting with some of your old peers who were able to scale the narrowing ladder into the ivory tower of academia. Maybe you will be able to use your decades of knowledge and get back into doing some research in other areas you once explored.
So if you live in the highest concentration of archaeologists per-capita in the country (I’m looking at you Cortez folk - Ewa, Paul, Deb, Rick, good god the list is long! etc...) or south to El Paso/Las Cruces (Church? Kludt? Are you out there?) get in touch with your old self that propelled you into the abyss of an archaeology career and do an impromptu road trip. You won’t regret it if you do, but you will if you don’t, and we are getting to old to live with regrets.
ShovelBums 20th anniversary.
(*) I was hoping to have a table set up at the CRM Expo to celebrate ShovelBums hitting its 20th Anniversary this month and hopefully able to meet some of you personally (I was planning on trying to sneak in a keg, but that might not have been very subtle?). Unfortunately without an expense account, three kids plus a foreign exchange student or two, and a wife with a busy work/travel schedule, by time I could confirm I could go the Expo was "Full". So I’ll be wandering around the Expo in a gray/herringbone jacket and a blue shirt (or a Indiana Jones movie VfX crew shirt with the alien Crystal Skull logo a friend who worked for ILM got me: terrible movie, fun shirt), not sure if I’ll have my ShovelBums hat on. So if we cross paths, and ShovelBums has ever helped you out, feel free to introduce yourself and let me know. ShovelBums operates as kind of a (non-photographed) black hole in that when I click "Approve" the messages go out and the rest is in your hands! I don’t know what happens next. All I know is employers keep coming back, they pay their invoices with few issues, and ~50,000 positions from the "ShovelBum" to Project Director have been filled. These jobs would have existed whether ShovelBums did or not. ShovelBums is simply a timely, efficient, modestly well curated tool for your use. It is nothing more than that. But I do know it has proven useful to some of you, which is cool. I am in the middle of a seasonal bronchitis episode and doped up on prednisone, so if we are talking and I seem out of breath, that’s what’s going on. What a PIA! Lol
I hope to see you there!
From the SAA guide:
‘"CULTURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT CAREER (CRM) EXPO
Sponsored by the American Cultural Resources Association (ACRA) and SAA, the CRM Expo will be held on Saturday, April 13 from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm in Hall 4 (ACC). Representatives from CRM firms and programs will be available to chat informally and individually with Expo attendees about their organizations, career paths available, etc. A complete list of Expo exhibitors will be provided on page 291.
You do not need to be registered for the SAA Annual Meeting to attend the CRM Expo. You may register at meeting registration for the Expo on April 13 from 12:00 pm to 3:30 pm that day at no charge. The Expo registration will only admit you to the Expo.’"
Subtle humor in the Albuquerque Journal about the conference. 8
Have you ever drove into the mountains after a bad day of scenic photography conditions, stopped to take a leak, and look up and realize you are at the foot of Sandia Cave? So what do you do if it’s almost sunset? You load up your gear and go for a hike!