Inertia (45)
A very, very long day. But a very productive day.
The weather was good, if you like that time of year when summer is beginning to make way for autumn.
I spent the morning proofing and line editing "Cherry Street Tango, Sweatbox Waltz" for Bradbury Weather. Unlike most of these stories, this one need a lot of editing. Or, more likely, it didn't need editing. It was likely just fine as it was. But I kept seeing ways it could be just a little bit better.
Before the editing, I'd tried to work on MP2, and I did accomplish some things, here and there, but my goal had been to finish writing about the teeth on one of the two specimens, the one with somewhat odd teeth. But I realized my notes and photographs were simply insufficient, and I still have not gotten around to casting them. So, at two p.m. I went into McWane and spent about two hours making notes on every detail of the teeth I could wring from them, mostly especially the crown ornamentation and whether of not there were carinae. Unfortunately, there aren't many teeth preserved with this specimen, only about ten in various parts of the jaws, ten out of something like a total of fifty-six (not counting the pterygoid teeth), and I have to patch together a picture of the animals dentition based on those ten teeth, some of which are badly broken and incomplete. Also, I spent about forty-fix minutes talking with Jun about prospecting new localities in eastern Alabama, in the Cussetta Sand and the Blufftown Formation, looking at fish and shark faunas, but also hoping for mosasaurs and turtles, in a series of very interesting (but hard to locate) indurated sand beds formed by lag concentrations.
Back home, I did three hours of RP, though I usually only do two. Spooky make chicken and potatoes and broccoli for dinner.
I stay busy enough, I can sometimes outrun the anger and anxiety.
So, it was a full day. And tomorrow I am supposed to be in Tuscalooa, to see Sandy Ebersole at the State Geological Survey about a project we may undertake together describing the lithology of the lowermost Mooreville Chalk, from easternmost Mississippi to central Alabama.
Repost: So, yeah, Spooky took the truck in, and it's gonna cost us $2,500 in repairs, and taxes are looming, SO - yes, there will be a major combo Big Cartel and eBay sale to try and cover the tax portion, at least. Or at least a third of the taxes. Whatever we can manage. I will keep you posted. This will happen very soon. I know we're going to offer one of the ultra-rare Centipede Press editions of Houses Under the Sea: Mythos Tales on eBay.
Oh, the photos of the turtle carapace (upper shell) below, that's one of the very first vertebrate fossil I ever worked on, way back in 1977 when I first started as a volunteering at the sadly defunct Red Mountain Museum (all it's collections went to McWane). It was the summer before I started high school. I was only thirteen years old. And now it's on display at McWane. I have spent so much of my life with these fossils.
Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast
4:45 p.m.
The weather was good, if you like that time of year when summer is beginning to make way for autumn.
I spent the morning proofing and line editing "Cherry Street Tango, Sweatbox Waltz" for Bradbury Weather. Unlike most of these stories, this one need a lot of editing. Or, more likely, it didn't need editing. It was likely just fine as it was. But I kept seeing ways it could be just a little bit better.
Before the editing, I'd tried to work on MP2, and I did accomplish some things, here and there, but my goal had been to finish writing about the teeth on one of the two specimens, the one with somewhat odd teeth. But I realized my notes and photographs were simply insufficient, and I still have not gotten around to casting them. So, at two p.m. I went into McWane and spent about two hours making notes on every detail of the teeth I could wring from them, mostly especially the crown ornamentation and whether of not there were carinae. Unfortunately, there aren't many teeth preserved with this specimen, only about ten in various parts of the jaws, ten out of something like a total of fifty-six (not counting the pterygoid teeth), and I have to patch together a picture of the animals dentition based on those ten teeth, some of which are badly broken and incomplete. Also, I spent about forty-fix minutes talking with Jun about prospecting new localities in eastern Alabama, in the Cussetta Sand and the Blufftown Formation, looking at fish and shark faunas, but also hoping for mosasaurs and turtles, in a series of very interesting (but hard to locate) indurated sand beds formed by lag concentrations.
Back home, I did three hours of RP, though I usually only do two. Spooky make chicken and potatoes and broccoli for dinner.
I stay busy enough, I can sometimes outrun the anger and anxiety.
So, it was a full day. And tomorrow I am supposed to be in Tuscalooa, to see Sandy Ebersole at the State Geological Survey about a project we may undertake together describing the lithology of the lowermost Mooreville Chalk, from easternmost Mississippi to central Alabama.
Repost: So, yeah, Spooky took the truck in, and it's gonna cost us $2,500 in repairs, and taxes are looming, SO - yes, there will be a major combo Big Cartel and eBay sale to try and cover the tax portion, at least. Or at least a third of the taxes. Whatever we can manage. I will keep you posted. This will happen very soon. I know we're going to offer one of the ultra-rare Centipede Press editions of Houses Under the Sea: Mythos Tales on eBay.
Oh, the photos of the turtle carapace (upper shell) below, that's one of the very first vertebrate fossil I ever worked on, way back in 1977 when I first started as a volunteering at the sadly defunct Red Mountain Museum (all it's collections went to McWane). It was the summer before I started high school. I was only thirteen years old. And now it's on display at McWane. I have spent so much of my life with these fossils.
Later Tater Beans,
Aunt Beast
4:45 p.m.