Detritus of Empire - 2018

Much has changed since I started this three times a week project back in 2011.  I've retired.  Become a grandfather.  The kids have all gone off on their own.  I have near total command of my schedule.

Detritus of Empire evolved out of a daily email report I had previously sent out after each day of excavation back at Vindolanda.  Text only. The little rural pub had not only the Worst Quiz in England but the Slowest Internet connection.  I don't think posting pictures was even possible from there a decade ago.  Now you point a "device", tap a few keys and the whole world will see what you see.

Naturally with the Internet being the collective Wisdom of Humanity this makes for a  lot of cute cat pictures.

It looks as if 2018 will have no Roman archaeology trip.  Perhaps ten years scratching at the same spot is enough.  The reasons are various but among them is the realization that every time you go to an old familiar place you lose the chance to go somewhere new. After age 60 you don't know how many more years you can just shoulder a backpack and trek up and down hills.  Ten would be realistic.  In my former career I regularly saw exceptions to this scenario.

For the year ahead I think the "menu" here will not change that much.  Robotics, both FIRST and middle school projects has become a bigger feature in recent years, and that will probably continue.  The Americana category has always been substantial, and with overseas travel presently uncertain a longer summer road trip might be in order.

I don't much like the concept of a "bucket list".  Nobody does really, once they reach an age where you might on occasion look down and say..."huh, what is that galvanized metal water container doing so close to my left foot....?"  But there are places I would like to get to.  And a lengthening list of places that I am unlikely to see in person.

All the great Roman sites of North Africa and the Middle East.  I somehow doubt that the troubles of that region are going to settle down much in the next decade.  That round the world trip with a crossing of Russia on the Trans Siberian railway?  A ridiculous project that never got much beyond the basic research stage.

But I would like to see more of rural Italy.  Maybe Sicily and Sardinia.  I hear Croatia and Slovenia are nice and that all the left over land mines are well away from the main tourist sites.  Actually the Balkans in general would seem a good match for Detritus of Empire...it is where empires have been colliding for thousands of years.

With so much of 2018 still a blank page I can't say just what I will have to say about it...in roughly 180 installments.  So it will probably be as much a surprise to me as it will be to you.