"I know they said let it be. But it just don't work out that way." 8
Sunny today, except for the huge-ass thunder storm right smack in the middle of the day. Our high was 89˚F, with a heat index of 96˚F. I think we can thank the thunderstorm for it not getting really hot.
I was awake at 4:45 a.m., wide fucking awake, no idea why, and by 6 a.m. I was working on the character coding for MP 1.2 (or 1.3, I've gotten confused, but it's the one describing the new plioplatecarpus genus, not the one merely describing a new plioplatecarpine species). One day, I'll give you a little crash course in mosasaur taxonomy - halisauromorphs and russellosaurines and mosasaurines and, as the astronauts used to say, the whole smash. But not right now. Right now I am fried. After all the work at home (including proofeading MP 1.2), I headed to McWane to try and finish the character coding on the Yale specimen. I almost finished, but trying to puzzle out the cranial circulation of that poor beasts smashed and distorted skull hit my mounting exhaustion like a freight train. Plus, there were a couple of other things I needed to do. I think I as out of there by 1:30 p.m. I'm not sure. I was fading fast. Basically, all that's left to do is get the character coding to Mike P. and write the "Discussion" section and "Abstract" on MP 1.2 (or MP 1.3?) and get the figures for BOTH papers put together, and then it will all go away to the editors of PaleoBios.
Oh, wait. No. On Thursday or Friday I have to cast the teeth, and the I have to write the section on teeth for the new genus (it's got some weird teeth). I have to do that, too. And I'm tempted to write more about that specimen's splenials and articulars. You are never Really done. On any given research project, there's just a place where you finally have to stop. This makes it all very unlike writing fiction.
Fuck, I'm tired. I think I might have slept five hours. Maybe.
Last night we saw Dan Trachtenberg's Prey, and I liked it a bazillion times more than I thought I would. I have never been a huge fan of the Predator films, but I'd say this is easily the second best, after Predator 2. The redesign of the creature helped a lot, the cinematography is unexpectedly beautiful, and the bear scene...wow. So, two thumbs up. See it, kittens.
Tomorrow, I setting aside the mosasaurs and starting the first of two new vignettes for Sirenia Digest #200 (!!!). If you'd told me in November of 2005 this thing would run to 200, I might have socked to in the gob. And yet, here we are.
My thanks to a couple of people who sent me donations (one via the Big Cartel shop) to help defray the expenses of my research. Toffee Monaghan and your anonymous human, you guys rock. And Josh M., you, too. Thank you. The costs of the mods and casts have been defrayed, with a little left over to buy gas for a much needed research trip to Tuscaloosa.
Okay. I should go. Keep watching the skies.
Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast
1:27 p.m. (RMM 070, a mosasaur that has haunted my life)
I was awake at 4:45 a.m., wide fucking awake, no idea why, and by 6 a.m. I was working on the character coding for MP 1.2 (or 1.3, I've gotten confused, but it's the one describing the new plioplatecarpus genus, not the one merely describing a new plioplatecarpine species). One day, I'll give you a little crash course in mosasaur taxonomy - halisauromorphs and russellosaurines and mosasaurines and, as the astronauts used to say, the whole smash. But not right now. Right now I am fried. After all the work at home (including proofeading MP 1.2), I headed to McWane to try and finish the character coding on the Yale specimen. I almost finished, but trying to puzzle out the cranial circulation of that poor beasts smashed and distorted skull hit my mounting exhaustion like a freight train. Plus, there were a couple of other things I needed to do. I think I as out of there by 1:30 p.m. I'm not sure. I was fading fast. Basically, all that's left to do is get the character coding to Mike P. and write the "Discussion" section and "Abstract" on MP 1.2 (or MP 1.3?) and get the figures for BOTH papers put together, and then it will all go away to the editors of PaleoBios.
Oh, wait. No. On Thursday or Friday I have to cast the teeth, and the I have to write the section on teeth for the new genus (it's got some weird teeth). I have to do that, too. And I'm tempted to write more about that specimen's splenials and articulars. You are never Really done. On any given research project, there's just a place where you finally have to stop. This makes it all very unlike writing fiction.
Fuck, I'm tired. I think I might have slept five hours. Maybe.
Last night we saw Dan Trachtenberg's Prey, and I liked it a bazillion times more than I thought I would. I have never been a huge fan of the Predator films, but I'd say this is easily the second best, after Predator 2. The redesign of the creature helped a lot, the cinematography is unexpectedly beautiful, and the bear scene...wow. So, two thumbs up. See it, kittens.
Tomorrow, I setting aside the mosasaurs and starting the first of two new vignettes for Sirenia Digest #200 (!!!). If you'd told me in November of 2005 this thing would run to 200, I might have socked to in the gob. And yet, here we are.
My thanks to a couple of people who sent me donations (one via the Big Cartel shop) to help defray the expenses of my research. Toffee Monaghan and your anonymous human, you guys rock. And Josh M., you, too. Thank you. The costs of the mods and casts have been defrayed, with a little left over to buy gas for a much needed research trip to Tuscaloosa.
Okay. I should go. Keep watching the skies.
Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast
1:27 p.m. (RMM 070, a mosasaur that has haunted my life)