Sunday, November 18, 2007

Work

Spent the past week working at East Carolina University. Most of my time was spent at the Medical School.

Rather typical week but I did get to see some neat stuff at the West Campus. West Campus is the old Voice of America site. The VOA used to broadcast radio to Eastern Europe from here during the Cold War. The facility is about 600 acres out in the middle of nowhere with an operations / studio / broadcast building and an antenna farm plus a couple of small warehouses. At one time there were 100+ antennas out there. Most of them have been dismantled and used elsewhere. About 20 or so remain.

The facility was turned over to the State and ECU after VOA ceased operations at the site. We now use the site for agricultural medical research and it’s also the location for the Queen Anne’s Revenge archeology project.

Here’s an interesting room inside the VOA building. It’s made of copper and is a radio wave suppression room. I’m not exactly sure what it was used for but I have my guesses. I noticed a bunch of Cracker Jacks secret decoder rings that were left behind.



Blackbeard

The Queen Anne’s Revenge artifact research and salvage / restoration takes up the storage / garage area of the building and a separate storage warehouse.

Everybody likes the cannons since they are large and cool to look at.


In the past month a couple of really neat items were brought up. This is the rudder of the ship. It still has the depth markings on it in roman numerals. Quite a find and in remarkable condition.


And here’s something that is really spiffy. Back in the day, the captain of a ship might have a small brass cannon. Not really useful in warfare, they’re more like the small replica cannons that people have today and shoot off at football games and such. Think of it as an executive toy.

This little number was mounted on a pivot that fit into a hole in the ship’s railing. This was probably Edward Teach’s personal little play toy.



The old safe room in the VOA building is now used as an x-ray room. Here, a plate has been x-rayed before clean up.


Check out the detail.


Pretty neat, huh?

Football

Nuke and I went to the State at Wake Forest game yesterday. The Pack lost 38 to 18. It wasn’t quite as bad as the score indicates but WF did beat us pretty soundly.


The Pack helped beat itself with 3 interceptions, one of which was run back for a touch down. Another interception was in the end zone negating a sure touchdown drive for State.

Also, we recovered a fumble at the WF 30 yard line and came away with zero points. Add to that 90 yards in self inflicted penalties – well – that’s the way put yourself in a hole. If our offense hadn’t kept shooting itself in the foot, we would have very well won the game.

Still, this loss not withstanding, you can see this team can move the football and play some awesome defense. Tom O’Brien has taken a team that was 3 and 9 last year and started out 1 and 5 this year and is turning the program around. Without a single recruit of his own.

I honestly felt that except for Wake Forest’s quarterback, Riley Skinner (phenomenal!), State had the better overall team on the field.

Wake Forest should win out over Tulane next weekend and finish 8 – 4. Last year’s Wake's ACC Championship was no fluke.

It was a nice way to spend a football afternoon and evening. The drive to the game took about 3 hours including parking and traffic. While a long day overall - about 9 hours total – it was not that tiring. With the game breaking up the driving – it didn’t seem that long. I’d guess it’s a lot like when Dave drives up from Wilmington for games.

State fans easily made up ¼ of the crowd. Even with their football success the past couple of years, WF doesn’t sell out their stadium. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jim Grobe isn’t lured away to Nebraska or Arkansas or somewhere that’s more of a traditional football school.

Thanksgiving Week

Short week at work coming up. Then Thanksgiving at Kure beach with the sister family unit. State’s final football season game is next Saturday. Then, exactly a week from today – I’ll be on the deck of a cruise ship having a pina colada. Yaaaay.