[Texascavers] Seeking Texas grotto information for the Texas Caver newsletter
Good morning, Texas cavers, Our new editor of the Texas Caver, Jill Orr, is seeking material for the next issue. I have volunteered to seek a couple of paragraphs from each grotto in Texas and have a regular column about grotto "goin-ons". I just dashed out the two paragraphs below about my grotto. Please, would the chairperson of each grotto, or someone delegated by the chairperson or who just wants to do it, send me a couple of paragraphs about their grotto? I'd really like to get these by next Sunday. I'm leaving for a caving expedition to China on Dec. 16 and have a lot to get ready. DFW Grotto The Dallas-Fort Worth Grotto is about 52 years old. It meets once a month at the Dallas REI on the fourth Wednesday night of the month. The meetings last two hours with an hour of it being business, announcements, trip reports, and upcoming caving trips, and an hour devoted to a presentation, almost always a narrated slide show. After the meeting most people go to a nearby Taco Cabana restaurant for fellowship and talk of caving past and future. Members of the DFW Grotto are conducting a project to thoroughly explore and map Spring Creek Cave, Kendall Co., Texas, one of the dozen longest caves in the state. Its members go caving in a multitude of places such as Texas, Arkansas, New Mexico, Arkansas, TAG, Kentucky, Mexico, China, etc. The current grotto chair is Steve Webb, with the chair-elect being Natasha Glasgow. Besides Steve Webb as chair in 2012, the vice chairperson (in charge of grotto programs) was Natasha Glasgow, secretary Charles Goldsmith, and treasurer Diana Tomchick. Other incoming officers are Jay Jordan - vice chairperson, Jake McLeod - secretary, and Diana Tomchick will remain as treasurer. Thanks for your help with this. Cavingly yours, Bill Steele PS - Editor Jill Orr is looking for someone with each grotto to "ride herd" on grotto members to get articles written and sent to her. I'm going to do so for the DFW Grotto. Jake McLeod, if you read this, know that I'm going to ask you to write one about becoming a caver in Texas. You sure have done that over the past six months.
[Cowtown] Seeking Texas grotto information for the Texas Caver newsletter
- Forwarded Message - From: "speleoste...@aol.com" To: Texascavers@texascavers.com Sent: Tuesday, December 4, 2012 7:01 AM Subject: [Texascavers] Seeking Texas grotto information for the Texas Caver newsletter Good morning, Texas cavers, Our new editor of the Texas Caver, Jill Orr, is seeking material for the next issue. I have volunteered to seek a couple of paragraphs from each grotto in Texas and have a regular column about grotto "goin-ons". I just dashed out the two paragraphs below about my grotto. Please, would the chairperson of each grotto, or someone delegated by the chairperson or who just wants to do it, send me a couple of paragraphs about their grotto? I'd really like to get these by next Sunday. I'm leaving for a caving expedition to China on Dec. 16 and have a lot to get ready. DFW Grotto The Dallas-Fort Worth Grotto is about 52 years old. It meets once a month at the Dallas REI on the fourth Wednesday night of the month. The meetings last two hours with an hour of it being business, announcements, trip reports, and upcoming caving trips, and an hour devoted to a presentation, almost always a narrated slide show. After the meeting most people go to a nearby Taco Cabana restaurant for fellowship and talk of caving past and future. Members of the DFW Grotto are conducting a project to thoroughly explore and map Spring Creek Cave, Kendall Co., Texas, one of the dozen longest caves in the state. Its members go caving in a multitude of places such as Texas, Arkansas, New Mexico, Arkansas, TAG, Kentucky, Mexico, China, etc. The current grotto chair is Steve Webb, with the chair-elect being Natasha Glasgow. Besides Steve Webb as chair in 2012, the vice chairperson (in charge of grotto programs) was Natasha Glasgow, secretary Charles Goldsmith, and treasurer Diana Tomchick. Other incoming officers are Jay Jordan - vice chairperson, Jake McLeod - secretary, and Diana Tomchick will remain as treasurer. Thanks for your help with this. Cavingly yours, Bill Steele PS - Editor Jill Orr is looking for someone with each grotto to "ride herd" on grotto members to get articles written and sent to her. I'm going to do so for the DFW Grotto. Jake McLeod, if you read this, know that I'm going to ask you to write one about becoming a caver in Texas. You sure have done that over the past six months.
[Texascavers] Wake: Call for musicians
Alright, all you musically inclined friends, cavers and associates of Nathan out there- Nathan needs a good lively New Orleans style 2nd line parade at his wake. Whose in? No experience necessary. I can have several shakers, tambourines, kazoos and what not on hand for those who don't have a trumpet on hand, but would like to participate. Contact me off list if you can join the tribute. We'll have a rehearsal next Wednesday Nov 12, which is an off-grotto Wednesday for UT cavers. -Vivian Loftin --- On Mon, 12/3/12, Denise P wrote: From: Denise P Subject: [Texascavers] Wake To: "TexasCavers" List-Post: texascavers@texascavers.com Date: Monday, December 3, 2012, 9:45 PM Hello-There is a wake for Nathan Parker planned for December 15. It's at 6pm at 2100 Metcalfe Road in south Austin. Please pass the invite on to everyone. Hope to see you there. -Denise
[Texascavers] 50 Years of Texas Caving
I have a supply of Carl's 50 Years of Texas Caving book, and I highly recommend it. Along with the recent AMCS things, I'll have a few copies of 50 Years at the UT Grotto meeting tomorrow night for $40, which is a very good price for a 500-page hardbound book full of color illustrations. Books are heavy. It will be nice if some kind soul helps carry what isn't sold back to the vicinity of the Posse after the meeting. -- Mixon A chicken is the egg's way of making another egg. You may "reply" to the address this message came from, but for long-term use, save: Personal: bmi...@alumni.uchicago.edu AMCS: edi...@amcs-pubs.org or sa...@amcs-pubs.org - Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com
[Texascavers] 50 Years of Texas Caving
Here's the review I wrote of the book in 2007. Note that you can now, temporarily, get it for a lower price, as announced here today. -- Mixon 50 Years of Texas Caving. Carl E. Kunath. A&K Enterprises, San Angelo, Texas; 2007. 8.5 by 11 inches, 526 pages, hardbound. $50. (Order from the author at 3720 Ransom Road, San Angelo, Texas 76903. Add $5 for U.S. surface shipping. For other postage, ask carl.kun...@suddenlink.net .) Wow! Five hundred pages. Six hundred illustrations. Two hundred thousand words. Nearly five pounds of heavy, coated paper in a hard cover. Could this be a fifty-dollar book that is actually worth fifty dollars? This book nominally covers the period from 1951 through 2000, but there are some notes from earlier years, and some data from later years appear in tables and elsewhere, including a short epilog. The main chronological section contains year-by-year summaries of two or three pages each. Then there are capsule histories of the sixty-nine Texas caving groups that have existed over the years. Next is a Serious Side section covering things like cave science and conservation, Texas cavers' work in Mexico and New Mexico, cave diving, and accidents and fatalities. A Lighter Side section describes famous parties and recounts humorous tales about things like vehicular misadventures. Finally there is a long section with histories of Texas's ten greatest caves and one cave in Mexico with which Texas cavers have been heavily involved, especially in restoration. The book is to some extent organized around the history of the Texas Region of the NSS, now called the Texas Speleological Association. The amount of research is impressive, with information from the Texas Caver, the archives of the TSA and the Texas Speleological Survey, and many interviews and other sources. Jerry Atkinson wrote a lot of the groups section, and some others contributed portions of the book, notably in the science chapters. Interesting old letters are quoted or reproduced. The illustrations include about 375 photos, two-thirds of them in color. The colors in some of the older photos look a bit faded, but generally the photographs are well printed. A wide net was cast for photos, and we see such things as a yearbook photo of the 1958 members of the Kerrville Speleological Society at the Schreiner Institute (now Schreiner University, where the International Congress of Speleology will be held in 2009). Especially noteworthy are photographs in the greatest caves section, many by the author. There are cartoons scattered throughout, and the other drawings, many in color, include things like posters and newsletter covers. A few of the photos and cartoons have been childishly censored, even to the extent of digitally amputating a middle finger that would have been a whole eighth of an inch long on the page. I had read snatches of the book as I was doing the final page layout following the author's specifications. Before writing this review, I borrowed a set of unbound press proofs while the finished books were on their way from China, thinking that I really ought to read some more of it before I wrote a review. I ended up reading the whole thing straight through. In doing so, I noticed a few redundancies, but this might actually be a good thing, because I imagine most readers will skip around in the book, picking out the parts most interesting to them and, perhaps, never quite getting around to the history of the Central Catholic High School Grotto (1972–1973). While, inevitably, I could quibble with the punctuation here and there, the grammar is exceptional, and everything reads smoothly. I noticed one clearly typographical error in the whole book. (I believe Jerry Atkinson deserves much credit for proofreading, too.) In these respects, this book must be in the top percent or so of cave books. Carl Kunath is a bit of a curmudgeon, and it doesn't take a very close reading to see that he thinks Texas caving, and the Texas Speleological Association in particular, have gone all to hell since the good old days. To some extent, he is justified. Certainly there haven't been any recent discoveries like Caverns of Sonora or Natural Bridge Caverns, which became two of the country's top show caves. The main responsibilities of the TSA, the Texas Caver and the annual spring conventions, have been hit or miss. He doesn’t give much credit for the more popular, if unofficial, Texas Caver Reunions that have been held faithfully for the past thirty years. The book seems to be best about the earlier times, when Kunath was himself more involved and knew most of the smaller number of active cavers. Of course, the older days will be most interesting to the reader, too, because they are less familiar to most of us. Kunath also tends to assess the quality of grottos based on their esprit de
[Texascavers] Re: 50 Years of Texas Caving special offer
Carl Kunath's special offer of $40 for his book 50 Years of Texas Caving is a great deal that would make a long-lasting Christmas present for your caver friends and/or yourself. As a bonus, anyone who orders the book can receive a free set of all available print copies of The Texas Caver magazine from 1970-1999 (approx. 100 back issues still in print). The set weighs approx. 5 lbs and takes up about 12 inches of shelf space. _If requested_, one set will be shipped free (in U.S.) for each book ordered. Contact me for further details. Logan McNatt 512-462-9581 Austin, TX 78745
[Texascavers] Ezell's Cave clean up
Cavers, A reminder that we need your help! The Texas Cave Management Association (TCMA) will be having a work day to spruce up one of our properties, the Ezells Cave Preserve in Hays County. We plan to prune limbs, cut weeds, haul off junk, and just generally make the property more attractive. We need people, saws, loppers, weed eaters, gloves, and maybe even someone with a trailer willing to carry all the debris to the landfill. Bring your own drinks and snacks for the work, but TCMA will treat all volunteers to pizza and drinks after we are done. The date is Saturday, December 8, 2012. The time to meet is 9:00 am. Meet at the 1500 block of Brown Street, San Marcos. Cell number for the day: 512-797-3817 (Ron Ralph). If anyone wishes to enter the cave after the work is completed, the Preserve Manager has agreed to that. All visitors to the Preserve will be asked to sign a liability waiver. Please give Ron a call if you get lost or would like more details. Thanks for your support! Directions to Ezell's Cave Preserve Roughly 1500 Brown Street If coming in on IH 35 from the north or south, take exit 202 (Wonder World) and turn west passing the Valero and over the railroad tracks. At the traffic light, turn right on Hunter Road or FM 2439 (north), then left on Dixon (across from Jack's Road House), then jog right on Blevin and go past the Habitat for Humanity houses that back up to TCMA property. Turn left at the next street (Clara) and left again at the next intersection (Brown). Ezell's Cave Preserve is the first jungle on the left.
[Texascavers] FW: Interdisciplinary-Hydrologist/Soil Scientist Medford Program Lead
If we have any interdisciplinary-hydrologist/soil scientists looking for a permanent/full-time job (a rare commodity at this time in the federal gov't), here's an opportunity. Good pay and benefits; beautiful and historical part of the country; lotsa places for all kinds of outdoor activities including hiking the Pacific Crest Trail; rafting the Wild & Scenic Rogue and other nearby rivers; and yes, we have caves and active grottos. And the beaches are just a few hours away through the Coast Range. Also, bird watching; hunting (birds, elk, deer, etc); fishing, snow skiing, etc. We also have active art and theatre communities. COME ONE, COME ALL! The following vacancy can be found on USA Jobs after the opening date below. OR Merit-2012-0048 Interdisciplinary-Hydrologist/Soil Scientist GS-1315/0470-12 Bureau of Land Management, Medford, OR District Permanent / Full-time Open: Tuesday, December 4 2012 Close: Monday, December 17, 2012
[Texascavers] Seeking Texas grotto information for the Texas Caver newsletter
Good morning, Texas cavers, Our new editor of the Texas Caver, Jill Orr, is seeking material for the next issue. I have volunteered to seek a couple of paragraphs from each grotto in Texas and have a regular column about grotto "goin-ons". I just dashed out the two paragraphs below about my grotto. Please, would the chairperson of each grotto, or someone delegated by the chairperson or who just wants to do it, send me a couple of paragraphs about their grotto? I'd really like to get these by next Sunday. I'm leaving for a caving expedition to China on Dec. 16 and have a lot to get ready. DFW Grotto The Dallas-Fort Worth Grotto is about 52 years old. It meets once a month at the Dallas REI on the fourth Wednesday night of the month. The meetings last two hours with an hour of it being business, announcements, trip reports, and upcoming caving trips, and an hour devoted to a presentation, almost always a narrated slide show. After the meeting most people go to a nearby Taco Cabana restaurant for fellowship and talk of caving past and future. Members of the DFW Grotto are conducting a project to thoroughly explore and map Spring Creek Cave, Kendall Co., Texas, one of the dozen longest caves in the state. Its members go caving in a multitude of places such as Texas, Arkansas, New Mexico, Arkansas, TAG, Kentucky, Mexico, China, etc. The current grotto chair is Steve Webb, with the chair-elect being Natasha Glasgow. Besides Steve Webb as chair in 2012, the vice chairperson (in charge of grotto programs) was Natasha Glasgow, secretary Charles Goldsmith, and treasurer Diana Tomchick. Other incoming officers are Jay Jordan - vice chairperson, Jake McLeod - secretary, and Diana Tomchick will remain as treasurer. Thanks for your help with this. Cavingly yours, Bill Steele PS - Editor Jill Orr is looking for someone with each grotto to "ride herd" on grotto members to get articles written and sent to her. I'm going to do so for the DFW Grotto. Jake McLeod, if you read this, know that I'm going to ask you to write one about becoming a caver in Texas. You sure have done that over the past six months.
[Cowtown] Seeking Texas grotto information for the Texas Caver newsletter
- Forwarded Message - From: "speleoste...@aol.com" To: Texascavers@texascavers.com Sent: Tuesday, December 4, 2012 7:01 AM Subject: [Texascavers] Seeking Texas grotto information for the Texas Caver newsletter Good morning, Texas cavers, Our new editor of the Texas Caver, Jill Orr, is seeking material for the next issue. I have volunteered to seek a couple of paragraphs from each grotto in Texas and have a regular column about grotto "goin-ons". I just dashed out the two paragraphs below about my grotto. Please, would the chairperson of each grotto, or someone delegated by the chairperson or who just wants to do it, send me a couple of paragraphs about their grotto? I'd really like to get these by next Sunday. I'm leaving for a caving expedition to China on Dec. 16 and have a lot to get ready. DFW Grotto The Dallas-Fort Worth Grotto is about 52 years old. It meets once a month at the Dallas REI on the fourth Wednesday night of the month. The meetings last two hours with an hour of it being business, announcements, trip reports, and upcoming caving trips, and an hour devoted to a presentation, almost always a narrated slide show. After the meeting most people go to a nearby Taco Cabana restaurant for fellowship and talk of caving past and future. Members of the DFW Grotto are conducting a project to thoroughly explore and map Spring Creek Cave, Kendall Co., Texas, one of the dozen longest caves in the state. Its members go caving in a multitude of places such as Texas, Arkansas, New Mexico, Arkansas, TAG, Kentucky, Mexico, China, etc. The current grotto chair is Steve Webb, with the chair-elect being Natasha Glasgow. Besides Steve Webb as chair in 2012, the vice chairperson (in charge of grotto programs) was Natasha Glasgow, secretary Charles Goldsmith, and treasurer Diana Tomchick. Other incoming officers are Jay Jordan - vice chairperson, Jake McLeod - secretary, and Diana Tomchick will remain as treasurer. Thanks for your help with this. Cavingly yours, Bill Steele PS - Editor Jill Orr is looking for someone with each grotto to "ride herd" on grotto members to get articles written and sent to her. I'm going to do so for the DFW Grotto. Jake McLeod, if you read this, know that I'm going to ask you to write one about becoming a caver in Texas. You sure have done that over the past six months.
[Texascavers] Wake: Call for musicians
Alright, all you musically inclined friends, cavers and associates of Nathan out there- Nathan needs a good lively New Orleans style 2nd line parade at his wake. Whose in? No experience necessary. I can have several shakers, tambourines, kazoos and what not on hand for those who don't have a trumpet on hand, but would like to participate. Contact me off list if you can join the tribute. We'll have a rehearsal next Wednesday Nov 12, which is an off-grotto Wednesday for UT cavers. -Vivian Loftin --- On Mon, 12/3/12, Denise P wrote: From: Denise P Subject: [Texascavers] Wake To: "TexasCavers" Date: Monday, December 3, 2012, 9:45 PM Hello-There is a wake for Nathan Parker planned for December 15. It's at 6pm at 2100 Metcalfe Road in south Austin. Please pass the invite on to everyone. Hope to see you there. -Denise
[Texascavers] 50 Years of Texas Caving
I have a supply of Carl's 50 Years of Texas Caving book, and I highly recommend it. Along with the recent AMCS things, I'll have a few copies of 50 Years at the UT Grotto meeting tomorrow night for $40, which is a very good price for a 500-page hardbound book full of color illustrations. Books are heavy. It will be nice if some kind soul helps carry what isn't sold back to the vicinity of the Posse after the meeting. -- Mixon A chicken is the egg's way of making another egg. You may "reply" to the address this message came from, but for long-term use, save: Personal: bmi...@alumni.uchicago.edu AMCS: edi...@amcs-pubs.org or sa...@amcs-pubs.org - Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com
[Texascavers] 50 Years of Texas Caving
Here's the review I wrote of the book in 2007. Note that you can now, temporarily, get it for a lower price, as announced here today. -- Mixon 50 Years of Texas Caving. Carl E. Kunath. A&K Enterprises, San Angelo, Texas; 2007. 8.5 by 11 inches, 526 pages, hardbound. $50. (Order from the author at 3720 Ransom Road, San Angelo, Texas 76903. Add $5 for U.S. surface shipping. For other postage, ask carl.kun...@suddenlink.net .) Wow! Five hundred pages. Six hundred illustrations. Two hundred thousand words. Nearly five pounds of heavy, coated paper in a hard cover. Could this be a fifty-dollar book that is actually worth fifty dollars? This book nominally covers the period from 1951 through 2000, but there are some notes from earlier years, and some data from later years appear in tables and elsewhere, including a short epilog. The main chronological section contains year-by-year summaries of two or three pages each. Then there are capsule histories of the sixty-nine Texas caving groups that have existed over the years. Next is a Serious Side section covering things like cave science and conservation, Texas cavers' work in Mexico and New Mexico, cave diving, and accidents and fatalities. A Lighter Side section describes famous parties and recounts humorous tales about things like vehicular misadventures. Finally there is a long section with histories of Texas's ten greatest caves and one cave in Mexico with which Texas cavers have been heavily involved, especially in restoration. The book is to some extent organized around the history of the Texas Region of the NSS, now called the Texas Speleological Association. The amount of research is impressive, with information from the Texas Caver, the archives of the TSA and the Texas Speleological Survey, and many interviews and other sources. Jerry Atkinson wrote a lot of the groups section, and some others contributed portions of the book, notably in the science chapters. Interesting old letters are quoted or reproduced. The illustrations include about 375 photos, two-thirds of them in color. The colors in some of the older photos look a bit faded, but generally the photographs are well printed. A wide net was cast for photos, and we see such things as a yearbook photo of the 1958 members of the Kerrville Speleological Society at the Schreiner Institute (now Schreiner University, where the International Congress of Speleology will be held in 2009). Especially noteworthy are photographs in the greatest caves section, many by the author. There are cartoons scattered throughout, and the other drawings, many in color, include things like posters and newsletter covers. A few of the photos and cartoons have been childishly censored, even to the extent of digitally amputating a middle finger that would have been a whole eighth of an inch long on the page. I had read snatches of the book as I was doing the final page layout following the author's specifications. Before writing this review, I borrowed a set of unbound press proofs while the finished books were on their way from China, thinking that I really ought to read some more of it before I wrote a review. I ended up reading the whole thing straight through. In doing so, I noticed a few redundancies, but this might actually be a good thing, because I imagine most readers will skip around in the book, picking out the parts most interesting to them and, perhaps, never quite getting around to the history of the Central Catholic High School Grotto (1972–1973). While, inevitably, I could quibble with the punctuation here and there, the grammar is exceptional, and everything reads smoothly. I noticed one clearly typographical error in the whole book. (I believe Jerry Atkinson deserves much credit for proofreading, too.) In these respects, this book must be in the top percent or so of cave books. Carl Kunath is a bit of a curmudgeon, and it doesn't take a very close reading to see that he thinks Texas caving, and the Texas Speleological Association in particular, have gone all to hell since the good old days. To some extent, he is justified. Certainly there haven't been any recent discoveries like Caverns of Sonora or Natural Bridge Caverns, which became two of the country's top show caves. The main responsibilities of the TSA, the Texas Caver and the annual spring conventions, have been hit or miss. He doesn’t give much credit for the more popular, if unofficial, Texas Caver Reunions that have been held faithfully for the past thirty years. The book seems to be best about the earlier times, when Kunath was himself more involved and knew most of the smaller number of active cavers. Of course, the older days will be most interesting to the reader, too, because they are less familiar to most of us. Kunath also tends to assess the quality of grottos based on their esprit de
[Texascavers] Re: 50 Years of Texas Caving special offer
Carl Kunath's special offer of $40 for his book 50 Years of Texas Caving is a great deal that would make a long-lasting Christmas present for your caver friends and/or yourself. As a bonus, anyone who orders the book can receive a free set of all available print copies of The Texas Caver magazine from 1970-1999 (approx. 100 back issues still in print). The set weighs approx. 5 lbs and takes up about 12 inches of shelf space. _If requested_, one set will be shipped free (in U.S.) for each book ordered. Contact me for further details. Logan McNatt 512-462-9581 Austin, TX 78745
[Texascavers] Ezell's Cave clean up
Cavers, A reminder that we need your help! The Texas Cave Management Association (TCMA) will be having a work day to spruce up one of our properties, the Ezells Cave Preserve in Hays County. We plan to prune limbs, cut weeds, haul off junk, and just generally make the property more attractive. We need people, saws, loppers, weed eaters, gloves, and maybe even someone with a trailer willing to carry all the debris to the landfill. Bring your own drinks and snacks for the work, but TCMA will treat all volunteers to pizza and drinks after we are done. The date is Saturday, December 8, 2012. The time to meet is 9:00 am. Meet at the 1500 block of Brown Street, San Marcos. Cell number for the day: 512-797-3817 (Ron Ralph). If anyone wishes to enter the cave after the work is completed, the Preserve Manager has agreed to that. All visitors to the Preserve will be asked to sign a liability waiver. Please give Ron a call if you get lost or would like more details. Thanks for your support! Directions to Ezell's Cave Preserve Roughly 1500 Brown Street If coming in on IH 35 from the north or south, take exit 202 (Wonder World) and turn west passing the Valero and over the railroad tracks. At the traffic light, turn right on Hunter Road or FM 2439 (north), then left on Dixon (across from Jack's Road House), then jog right on Blevin and go past the Habitat for Humanity houses that back up to TCMA property. Turn left at the next street (Clara) and left again at the next intersection (Brown). Ezell's Cave Preserve is the first jungle on the left.
[Texascavers] FW: Interdisciplinary-Hydrologist/Soil Scientist Medford Program Lead
If we have any interdisciplinary-hydrologist/soil scientists looking for a permanent/full-time job (a rare commodity at this time in the federal gov't), here's an opportunity. Good pay and benefits; beautiful and historical part of the country; lotsa places for all kinds of outdoor activities including hiking the Pacific Crest Trail; rafting the Wild & Scenic Rogue and other nearby rivers; and yes, we have caves and active grottos. And the beaches are just a few hours away through the Coast Range. Also, bird watching; hunting (birds, elk, deer, etc); fishing, snow skiing, etc. We also have active art and theatre communities. COME ONE, COME ALL! The following vacancy can be found on USA Jobs after the opening date below. OR Merit-2012-0048 Interdisciplinary-Hydrologist/Soil Scientist GS-1315/0470-12 Bureau of Land Management, Medford, OR District Permanent / Full-time Open: Tuesday, December 4 2012 Close: Monday, December 17, 2012
[Texascavers] Seeking Texas grotto information for the Texas Caver newsletter
Good morning, Texas cavers, Our new editor of the Texas Caver, Jill Orr, is seeking material for the next issue. I have volunteered to seek a couple of paragraphs from each grotto in Texas and have a regular column about grotto "goin-ons". I just dashed out the two paragraphs below about my grotto. Please, would the chairperson of each grotto, or someone delegated by the chairperson or who just wants to do it, send me a couple of paragraphs about their grotto? I'd really like to get these by next Sunday. I'm leaving for a caving expedition to China on Dec. 16 and have a lot to get ready. DFW Grotto The Dallas-Fort Worth Grotto is about 52 years old. It meets once a month at the Dallas REI on the fourth Wednesday night of the month. The meetings last two hours with an hour of it being business, announcements, trip reports, and upcoming caving trips, and an hour devoted to a presentation, almost always a narrated slide show. After the meeting most people go to a nearby Taco Cabana restaurant for fellowship and talk of caving past and future. Members of the DFW Grotto are conducting a project to thoroughly explore and map Spring Creek Cave, Kendall Co., Texas, one of the dozen longest caves in the state. Its members go caving in a multitude of places such as Texas, Arkansas, New Mexico, Arkansas, TAG, Kentucky, Mexico, China, etc. The current grotto chair is Steve Webb, with the chair-elect being Natasha Glasgow. Besides Steve Webb as chair in 2012, the vice chairperson (in charge of grotto programs) was Natasha Glasgow, secretary Charles Goldsmith, and treasurer Diana Tomchick. Other incoming officers are Jay Jordan - vice chairperson, Jake McLeod - secretary, and Diana Tomchick will remain as treasurer. Thanks for your help with this. Cavingly yours, Bill Steele PS - Editor Jill Orr is looking for someone with each grotto to "ride herd" on grotto members to get articles written and sent to her. I'm going to do so for the DFW Grotto. Jake McLeod, if you read this, know that I'm going to ask you to write one about becoming a caver in Texas. You sure have done that over the past six months.
[Cowtown] Seeking Texas grotto information for the Texas Caver newsletter
- Forwarded Message - From: "speleoste...@aol.com" To: Texascavers@texascavers.com Sent: Tuesday, December 4, 2012 7:01 AM Subject: [Texascavers] Seeking Texas grotto information for the Texas Caver newsletter Good morning, Texas cavers, Our new editor of the Texas Caver, Jill Orr, is seeking material for the next issue. I have volunteered to seek a couple of paragraphs from each grotto in Texas and have a regular column about grotto "goin-ons". I just dashed out the two paragraphs below about my grotto. Please, would the chairperson of each grotto, or someone delegated by the chairperson or who just wants to do it, send me a couple of paragraphs about their grotto? I'd really like to get these by next Sunday. I'm leaving for a caving expedition to China on Dec. 16 and have a lot to get ready. DFW Grotto The Dallas-Fort Worth Grotto is about 52 years old. It meets once a month at the Dallas REI on the fourth Wednesday night of the month. The meetings last two hours with an hour of it being business, announcements, trip reports, and upcoming caving trips, and an hour devoted to a presentation, almost always a narrated slide show. After the meeting most people go to a nearby Taco Cabana restaurant for fellowship and talk of caving past and future. Members of the DFW Grotto are conducting a project to thoroughly explore and map Spring Creek Cave, Kendall Co., Texas, one of the dozen longest caves in the state. Its members go caving in a multitude of places such as Texas, Arkansas, New Mexico, Arkansas, TAG, Kentucky, Mexico, China, etc. The current grotto chair is Steve Webb, with the chair-elect being Natasha Glasgow. Besides Steve Webb as chair in 2012, the vice chairperson (in charge of grotto programs) was Natasha Glasgow, secretary Charles Goldsmith, and treasurer Diana Tomchick. Other incoming officers are Jay Jordan - vice chairperson, Jake McLeod - secretary, and Diana Tomchick will remain as treasurer. Thanks for your help with this. Cavingly yours, Bill Steele PS - Editor Jill Orr is looking for someone with each grotto to "ride herd" on grotto members to get articles written and sent to her. I'm going to do so for the DFW Grotto. Jake McLeod, if you read this, know that I'm going to ask you to write one about becoming a caver in Texas. You sure have done that over the past six months.
[Texascavers] Wake: Call for musicians
Alright, all you musically inclined friends, cavers and associates of Nathan out there- Nathan needs a good lively New Orleans style 2nd line parade at his wake. Whose in? No experience necessary. I can have several shakers, tambourines, kazoos and what not on hand for those who don't have a trumpet on hand, but would like to participate. Contact me off list if you can join the tribute. We'll have a rehearsal next Wednesday Nov 12, which is an off-grotto Wednesday for UT cavers. -Vivian Loftin --- On Mon, 12/3/12, Denise P wrote: From: Denise P Subject: [Texascavers] Wake To: "TexasCavers" List-Post: texascavers@texascavers.com Date: Monday, December 3, 2012, 9:45 PM Hello-There is a wake for Nathan Parker planned for December 15. It's at 6pm at 2100 Metcalfe Road in south Austin. Please pass the invite on to everyone. Hope to see you there. -Denise
[Texascavers] 50 Years of Texas Caving
I have a supply of Carl's 50 Years of Texas Caving book, and I highly recommend it. Along with the recent AMCS things, I'll have a few copies of 50 Years at the UT Grotto meeting tomorrow night for $40, which is a very good price for a 500-page hardbound book full of color illustrations. Books are heavy. It will be nice if some kind soul helps carry what isn't sold back to the vicinity of the Posse after the meeting. -- Mixon A chicken is the egg's way of making another egg. You may "reply" to the address this message came from, but for long-term use, save: Personal: bmi...@alumni.uchicago.edu AMCS: edi...@amcs-pubs.org or sa...@amcs-pubs.org - Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com
[Texascavers] 50 Years of Texas Caving
Here's the review I wrote of the book in 2007. Note that you can now, temporarily, get it for a lower price, as announced here today. -- Mixon 50 Years of Texas Caving. Carl E. Kunath. A&K Enterprises, San Angelo, Texas; 2007. 8.5 by 11 inches, 526 pages, hardbound. $50. (Order from the author at 3720 Ransom Road, San Angelo, Texas 76903. Add $5 for U.S. surface shipping. For other postage, ask carl.kun...@suddenlink.net .) Wow! Five hundred pages. Six hundred illustrations. Two hundred thousand words. Nearly five pounds of heavy, coated paper in a hard cover. Could this be a fifty-dollar book that is actually worth fifty dollars? This book nominally covers the period from 1951 through 2000, but there are some notes from earlier years, and some data from later years appear in tables and elsewhere, including a short epilog. The main chronological section contains year-by-year summaries of two or three pages each. Then there are capsule histories of the sixty-nine Texas caving groups that have existed over the years. Next is a Serious Side section covering things like cave science and conservation, Texas cavers' work in Mexico and New Mexico, cave diving, and accidents and fatalities. A Lighter Side section describes famous parties and recounts humorous tales about things like vehicular misadventures. Finally there is a long section with histories of Texas's ten greatest caves and one cave in Mexico with which Texas cavers have been heavily involved, especially in restoration. The book is to some extent organized around the history of the Texas Region of the NSS, now called the Texas Speleological Association. The amount of research is impressive, with information from the Texas Caver, the archives of the TSA and the Texas Speleological Survey, and many interviews and other sources. Jerry Atkinson wrote a lot of the groups section, and some others contributed portions of the book, notably in the science chapters. Interesting old letters are quoted or reproduced. The illustrations include about 375 photos, two-thirds of them in color. The colors in some of the older photos look a bit faded, but generally the photographs are well printed. A wide net was cast for photos, and we see such things as a yearbook photo of the 1958 members of the Kerrville Speleological Society at the Schreiner Institute (now Schreiner University, where the International Congress of Speleology will be held in 2009). Especially noteworthy are photographs in the greatest caves section, many by the author. There are cartoons scattered throughout, and the other drawings, many in color, include things like posters and newsletter covers. A few of the photos and cartoons have been childishly censored, even to the extent of digitally amputating a middle finger that would have been a whole eighth of an inch long on the page. I had read snatches of the book as I was doing the final page layout following the author's specifications. Before writing this review, I borrowed a set of unbound press proofs while the finished books were on their way from China, thinking that I really ought to read some more of it before I wrote a review. I ended up reading the whole thing straight through. In doing so, I noticed a few redundancies, but this might actually be a good thing, because I imagine most readers will skip around in the book, picking out the parts most interesting to them and, perhaps, never quite getting around to the history of the Central Catholic High School Grotto (1972–1973). While, inevitably, I could quibble with the punctuation here and there, the grammar is exceptional, and everything reads smoothly. I noticed one clearly typographical error in the whole book. (I believe Jerry Atkinson deserves much credit for proofreading, too.) In these respects, this book must be in the top percent or so of cave books. Carl Kunath is a bit of a curmudgeon, and it doesn't take a very close reading to see that he thinks Texas caving, and the Texas Speleological Association in particular, have gone all to hell since the good old days. To some extent, he is justified. Certainly there haven't been any recent discoveries like Caverns of Sonora or Natural Bridge Caverns, which became two of the country's top show caves. The main responsibilities of the TSA, the Texas Caver and the annual spring conventions, have been hit or miss. He doesn’t give much credit for the more popular, if unofficial, Texas Caver Reunions that have been held faithfully for the past thirty years. The book seems to be best about the earlier times, when Kunath was himself more involved and knew most of the smaller number of active cavers. Of course, the older days will be most interesting to the reader, too, because they are less familiar to most of us. Kunath also tends to assess the quality of grottos based on their esprit de
[Texascavers] Re: 50 Years of Texas Caving special offer
Carl Kunath's special offer of $40 for his book 50 Years of Texas Caving is a great deal that would make a long-lasting Christmas present for your caver friends and/or yourself. As a bonus, anyone who orders the book can receive a free set of all available print copies of The Texas Caver magazine from 1970-1999 (approx. 100 back issues still in print). The set weighs approx. 5 lbs and takes up about 12 inches of shelf space. _If requested_, one set will be shipped free (in U.S.) for each book ordered. Contact me for further details. Logan McNatt 512-462-9581 Austin, TX 78745
[Texascavers] Ezell's Cave clean up
Cavers, A reminder that we need your help! The Texas Cave Management Association (TCMA) will be having a work day to spruce up one of our properties, the Ezells Cave Preserve in Hays County. We plan to prune limbs, cut weeds, haul off junk, and just generally make the property more attractive. We need people, saws, loppers, weed eaters, gloves, and maybe even someone with a trailer willing to carry all the debris to the landfill. Bring your own drinks and snacks for the work, but TCMA will treat all volunteers to pizza and drinks after we are done. The date is Saturday, December 8, 2012. The time to meet is 9:00 am. Meet at the 1500 block of Brown Street, San Marcos. Cell number for the day: 512-797-3817 (Ron Ralph). If anyone wishes to enter the cave after the work is completed, the Preserve Manager has agreed to that. All visitors to the Preserve will be asked to sign a liability waiver. Please give Ron a call if you get lost or would like more details. Thanks for your support! Directions to Ezell's Cave Preserve Roughly 1500 Brown Street If coming in on IH 35 from the north or south, take exit 202 (Wonder World) and turn west passing the Valero and over the railroad tracks. At the traffic light, turn right on Hunter Road or FM 2439 (north), then left on Dixon (across from Jack's Road House), then jog right on Blevin and go past the Habitat for Humanity houses that back up to TCMA property. Turn left at the next street (Clara) and left again at the next intersection (Brown). Ezell's Cave Preserve is the first jungle on the left.
[Texascavers] FW: Interdisciplinary-Hydrologist/Soil Scientist Medford Program Lead
If we have any interdisciplinary-hydrologist/soil scientists looking for a permanent/full-time job (a rare commodity at this time in the federal gov't), here's an opportunity. Good pay and benefits; beautiful and historical part of the country; lotsa places for all kinds of outdoor activities including hiking the Pacific Crest Trail; rafting the Wild & Scenic Rogue and other nearby rivers; and yes, we have caves and active grottos. And the beaches are just a few hours away through the Coast Range. Also, bird watching; hunting (birds, elk, deer, etc); fishing, snow skiing, etc. We also have active art and theatre communities. COME ONE, COME ALL! The following vacancy can be found on USA Jobs after the opening date below. OR Merit-2012-0048 Interdisciplinary-Hydrologist/Soil Scientist GS-1315/0470-12 Bureau of Land Management, Medford, OR District Permanent / Full-time Open: Tuesday, December 4 2012 Close: Monday, December 17, 2012
