Progress Sucks

Sometimes at work, I look around and despise the capitalistic nation I live in. So much beautiful land is being overtaken by strip malls that offer the same overpriced crap that you can get another 5km down the same road. All the houses look the same -- way too large, with like one tree on the property -- and there are too many damn cars everywhere. It's sad for me to remember childhood Sunday drives with my parents when all the land that I now work on was still farmed or forested. In fact, there are very few landmarks left for me to even recognize the places we used to go to. I am so glad that Ontario implemented the Green Belt legislation last year, even if it seems a bit too late. At least something is going to be preserved. Yesterday, we did a surface collection in this beautiful little meadow in Aurora and the land owner came out to talk to us about what was going on. I seriously wanted to throttle him because he first asked if we had found any money and then asked if we had a native site. I mean come on, get your history straight! And even though artifacts that are 150 years old are young in the history of the world, they are pretty old for Canada, but his dumb, foreign ass came and bought the land so he could make a fucking buck or several million bucks by putting a disgusting crescent of homes into this neighbourhood which is still relatively pastoral. 'Progress' SUCKS! OK, that's my rant for today. Moving on...

Katie is in Ireland this week, so I have been reassigned to KC's crew at a site that I had the 'pleasure' of field walking last year. It consisted of two of the most brutal days I had all last summer. The plough furrows were absolutely huge and very tiring to walk over, and the land happened to slope a million different ways. Most of the walking also occurred going up hill. It really bit the big one.
Anyways, KC's crew is now working on feature excavation at the site, called Walkington II, and I can't say that after all of last year's walking, that it turned out to be a very large site. As far as they know, there is only one long house and some other small random features. It was a pretty relaxed day today but I would still rather do historic stuff. They made me throw away a historic ceramic when I came across one in my screen. It made me feel sad :( I mean, we collect lithics if we find them on our sites. You'd think it would go the same way especially at a place where a historic site was also found. But I guess it doesn't matter that much. It was just some shitty pearlware.

Last week on one of our lunch breaks we went for a drive around Markham and found the Historic Markham Village which consists of a little neighbourhood of historic houses that have been moved from their original sites in Markham and restored for people to live in. It was one of the coolest neighbourhoods I have seen around Toronto. I mean I never thought Markham had such character. I normally think of it as a big sprawling industrial mall extending from Toronto. I guess I was fucking wrong. Even the main street of the town is quite charming. I secretly have a dream of living in a historic house that is remodelled with modern wiring and all the good stuff that is useful to a modern home even though you would never be able to tell, because it would be craftily concealed. However, to make a dream like that reality, you have to have money, and that just won't be happening any time in the next decade. The only problem is that transit from Markham to the city and vice versa would be a nightmare, hence one must own a car to enjoy the pleasures of living in Markham. Maybe the province will hurry up on finalizing that big awesome transit pass that is going to link York, Durham, the GO train, and the TTC together. It's going to be a great day when that pass is issued. Hopefully it won't cost $200 a month to use either.
Anyhow, I have to go make a lunch for work tomorrow so I guess it's time to sign off here. I know I have to get better at updating more frequently but work is still kind of keeping me tired at the end of the day, so it's hard to find the energy to do more than just check my email. I promise I'll try harder. Goodnight Moon.