deviantART: by:StringOfLights

deviantART: by:StringOfLights http://search.deviantart.com/?q=by:StringOfLights&section=today deviantART RSS for by:StringOfLights en-us Copyright 2009, deviantART.com Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:00:55 PST deviantART.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://s.deviantart.com/minish/widgets/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png Wildlife Issues in the News http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/28276058/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/28276058/ Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:03:32 PST An update: Good news! The Mexican wolf, a critically endangered subspecies of the gray wolf, got a break when the US Fish and Wildlife Service settled a lawsuit with 6 conservation organizations. FWS (not the same as the Wildlife Services I refer to below) has agreed to stop their "three strikes" rule that removes Mexican wolves from the wild (either lethally or non-lethally) if they kill three or more head of livestock a year. There are only about 52 Mexican wolves left in the wild.

Press release from the Center for Biological Diversity

Also, I submitted my Wildlife Services writeup as a news article.

_______

Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land. By land is meant all of the things on, over, or in the earth. Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left. That is to say, you cannot love game and hate predators; you cannot conserve the waters and waste the ranges; you cannot build the forest and mine the farm. The land is one organism. Its parts, like our own parts, compete with each other and co-operate with each other. The competitions are as much a part of the inner workings as the co-operations. You can regulate themÂcautiouslyÂbut not abolish them.

The outstanding scientific discovery of the twentieth century is not television, or radio, but rather the complexity of the land organism. Only those who know the most about it can appreciate how little we know about it. The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: "What good is it?" If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering. Â Aldo Leopold

With that in mind, here are a few recent news stories affecting wildlife:

Air pollution in Denver impacts lakes in Rocky Mountain National Park

Airborne nitrogen from vehicle exhaust, agricultural practices, and power production is having a much greater effect on high-altitude lakes than previously reported. The nitrogen Â in the form of ammonium and nitrogen oxide Â is accumulated by algae in lakes, reducing levels of phosphorous and other nutrients. This effectively turns the algae into junk food microorganisms, moving up the food web and eventually impacting fish. There has also been a documented increase in sedges (a type of grass) and a decrease in other plants. Similar effects have been documented in Norway and Sweden.

Colorado is currently working to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions, but ammonium is not regulated. The is bad news for RMNP, which was created largely to protect sensitive alpine tundra habitat.

(Full story here.)

Virginia considers reintroducing elk

Elk were extirpated from Virginia over a century and a half ago, but the state is now considering introducing Rocky Mountain elk. This would follow a similar program in Kentucky, which has been lauded as a success. Around 150 elk have already crossed the state line from Kentucky into Virginia. Virginia game officials think an elk reintroduction would draw hunters and tourists. Farmers have raised concern about competition with livestock and disease transmission. However, the Kentucky population has so far been free of disease and had very little if any impact on farmers.

(Full story here.)

M-44s, Compound 1080, and Wildlife Services

Finally, this isnÂt ÂnewsÂ per se, but IÂm pretty sure a good chunk of American taxpayers donÂt realize theyÂre footing a $100 million bill to poison hundreds of thousands of mammals and millions of birds each year on public land.

Wildlife Services, a branch of the USDA, oversees these programs. They operate more or less autonomously and with very little accountability. WS is authorized to kill animals regardless of their conservation status; in 2007 they killed 4 Mexican wolves, the most endangered mammal in North Amer... ]]> =StringOfLights Salisbury Bristol Glasgow the Highlands Edinburgh http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/27639310/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/27639310/ Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:31:54 PDT
I'm nearing the end of my trip around the UK.

Salisbury

After London I headed to Salisbury to spend the better part of two days. I absolutely loved the town. I saw Stonehenge, although oddly enough my first impression was that's really not THAT big. This is of course an idiotic thought, especially when one considers that a third of the stones are underground. Salisbury cathedral was incredible, and I visited multiple times. I visited the Magna Carta twice and climbed the cathedral's tower. The guide for our climb started with a general overview of the architecture of the cathedral, which included a description of the Jurassic limestone it was built from. She then pointed out fossils in said limestone. How awesome is the Church of England? Ha.

(The west facade of Salisbury Cathedral.)

On my way to the Salisbury train station I ran into Alex. Yeah. Thousands of miles from home, quite a distance from the conference we were both attending, and I run into my ex-boyfriend. He looked at me in shock as I said, "Hey asshole, how's it going?" and went on my way. Luckily he was soon forgotten as I continued my travels.

Conferring in Bristol

Bristol was okay. Not my favorite city of the trip, but that probably had a lot to do with the location of my hotel. The conference itself was great. I got there half expecting to give up on paleontology as a career, but right off the bat I had a great conversation with a paleontologist I know. He was so nice (and helpful) that I walked to my first seminar with my eyes brimming with tears. It was mostly uphill from there - lots of great conversation with potential graduate advisors. I think I have a better handle on grad programs for next year.

Attenborough and Me

(No, I'm not a frog.)

By far the highlight of my time in Bristol was seeing David Attenborough speak. I've long been a fan of his, and to be honest I was a little worried that my admiration for him would be shattered by seeing him in person. Too often TV hosts are just talking heads. Not so with Sir David; he is every bit as brilliant as he might seem, perhaps even more so. He was also humble, kind, and genuine. His lecture was brilliant (on Alfred Russel Wallace and birds of paradise, two of my favorite things ever) but where he really shined was in the Q&A section. One of his first questions was about whether governments should intervene and stop population growth. My only thought was that that was such an annoying, inappropriate question for the lecture we'd just seen, but before I'd even formed a cogent thought, Attenborough said:

"Since I started making television programs, the population of the world has increased three times. It's an extraordinary notion. Now can it increase four times? Can it increase five times? The earth is a finite size, so a point will eventually come when we run out of food, when we run out of space, and when we will have destroyed most of the natural world. Ought we to do something about it before that happens? There are people who will say that it is not right to dictate to anybody how many children they should have, and I understand that point of view. But the one hopeful sign that I see is that I know of no instance where women have education, literacy, and the medical ability to control the numbers of their children where the birthrate has not fallen. And thus it seems to me that if we wish the numbers of human beings not to go on increasing indefinitely, one of the first ways to go about that is to spread prosperity and education universally."

How eloquent. Afterward I walked to the front of the lecture hall to find him sitting at a table signing autographs. I stood on line and had him sign my ticket, and exchanged a few words with him.

Me: "I'm sorry this is all I have for you to sign, but I've come a long way - from the U.S."
Attenborough: "The United States, did you say? Extraordinary."
Me: "Yes. And I won't lie: I want your job!"
Attenborough: "Ohhahahaha."

Wow. I made David Attenborough guffaw. Highlight of my life. Seriously, I'm not sure that can be topped.

Watch the lecture in its entirety: [link]

Scotland Rocks

From Bristol I flew up to Glasgow. After a long story I won't bore anyone with (it does involve Barney the dinosaur, though), I met up with my tour group and we headed up to Fort William by bus. A few members of the group had... ]]> =StringOfLights I see London! http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/27266648/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/27266648/ Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:38:53 PDT why the hell am I flying 5000 miles to wander around a city of 10,000,000 people all by myself?" moment. Once I get on the plane and have a blast the entire trip.

The UK Border is helpfully proclaimed by a giant sign and some tens-a-barriers in the airport. I had a momentary scare that I wasn't cool enough to make it to the other side of said barriers. Immigrations officials are often quite nice and ask innocent questions in hopes that you'll reveal more about your plans in the country. At least that's my experience. However, when I handed my passport and entry card to the official he looked at it and said (insert drawn-out English accent here), "Now tell me what exactly you are doing in the UK for TWENTY-TWO DAYS?" His speech was so punctuated it almost sounded like there was a period after every word. Did he think I was some kind of miscreant? I gave him my itinerary, which apparently was disappointingly satisfactory. He stamped my passport, quite grumpily I might add, and I went on my way.

I ended up taking the most expensive cab ride of my life from Heathrow to my hotel. My parents always nag me to take a cab instead of other public transport, and had even given me money to do so (because I don't) - but I really wanted to take the train in. I love trains. We don't use them enough in the US. They're nifty.

Anyway, upon retrieving my bags I discovered that the zipper on my duffel had burst open. I fiddled with it and got it closed again, only to have it pop apart as soon as I picked it up. That really won't work for changing trains in crowded stations by myself in London. I had visions of trying to "Mind the gap" and ending up with my underwear scattered all over the Tube... No, that won't do.

So I took my parents' advice and hopped in a London cab, which I must say are the snazziest I've ever seen. I was in a new generation LTI cab. It was so nice I've recommended *Iamidaho get one for Yellowstone. Heck, we could start a trend. *Nzeman, you in? =Dalberti? I would love to see the national parks in a London cab!

It was quite nice to see a bit of the city and remind myself about that whole left-side-of-the-road dealy before I'm a pedestrian trying to cross streets. Heh. It's cool how quickly that instinct comes back.

I'm in the City of Westminster. The hotel totally works - cheap and great location. I'm in love with this tiny, tiny room. Minuscule even by European standards; the ceiling is higher than the room is wide. There is a huge upside to this: I can't make a mess because there's no room to. There is literally not enough floor space. Of course it's a little tragic to have to put hangars in sideways to get the closet door to close, but I sure got a good chuckle out of it.

Upon disembarking the exorbitantly expensive cab, I dropped my bags off and intentionally got myself lost. When I've got the time to do that (and I know the neighborhood is safe) it's such a great way to discover little hidden gems. I found the nearby main drag with restaurants, shops, and a pharmacy. Then I found the nearest Underground station, and eventually a couple not-so-near ones. I ended up wandering Notting Hill, which I knew was Notting Hill because all of a sudden there were Maseratis, Aston Martins, and other ridiculously fancy cars. Saw some shops there. I like walking around and looking at stuff.

There are a few beautiful little churches nearby. I love old churches. I love seeing reverence and awe and sanctity translated into architecture, even if I don't necessarily believe in the institutions behind them. A couple were obviously quite old; one had burned up most of its facade and had black bricks extending 2/3 of the way up the building. I came across another red brick building with beautiful stained glass and a big, gorgeous rose window. Wow. Then I look at the sign - it's a synagogue! Cool!

I got myself sufficiently lost that I had only a vague idea of which direction to head to get back to my hotel. Upon deciding I probably should go lay down and get some sleep I discovered all these streets are way too similar. Turn left at the row of Victorian townhouses with white columns? What?

And the accents... Oh, the accents. I'm beside myself with glee.

Now I'm studying the money s... ]]> =StringOfLights hold your breath http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/26722545/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/26722545/ Thu, 20 Aug 2009 20:54:42 PDT Tar-Vanimelde again. jenn never changed her password, silly girl.

just writing to say she's out in the middle of the country (not the exact center, but closer to the center than she usually is) hopefully getting some kickass photos. it's very rude of her to abandon me yet again in her jet-setting, travel-bug way, but that's just jealousy talking.

leave her some love for when she returns to civilization and is confused that people are commenting on a journal she didn't know she had

]]> =StringOfLights goggles are the best toy ever http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/26323011/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/26323011/ Sat, 01 Aug 2009 17:46:56 PDT Tar-Vanimelde (jenn was temporarily insane and gave me her password). jenn just got back into town today, so of course i had to invade her house. her sister was here for a bit as well, so it was a party for a while there. after michelle left, i didn't take the hint and leave jenn alone after her long day. i plopped myself on her couch, accepted her offer of opening a bottle of wine, and proceeded to make a nuisance of myself. par for us.

then, randomly, in the middle of a conversation about her time in the bahamas and crazy people, she goes "OH! My goggles!" and runs over to the pile of luggage sitting by the front door, rooting around madly. when she turned back around, she was wearing her goggles, and the happiest out-and-out GRIN i have seen on her in the 5 years we've known each other. with her new hair cut, her striped long sleeve shirt, the goggles and that expression, she looked like an excited, elated 4 year old.

my reaction? to laugh my ass off and try to get a picture of it that actually captured the intensity of her joy. i failed, of course, but the resulting photoshoot did come up with a couple of stellar shots (and by that i mean her looking retarded and/or crosseyed, usually because she was laughing at my laughing at her). i doubt she'll let me share, sadly.

Edit: Yes I will!

it turns out, the whole point of pulling out the goggles was to show me how, when you take them off, it feels like "sneezing with your eyes open". which, on trying it for myself, i can agree with. the suction is incredible. on off. on off. on off. wheeee! who knew goggles could be so much fun??

=Tar-Vanimelde does look like she's having a lot of fun...

but by this point, i had the camera, and her macro lens really is as fun as it sounded when i read her journal. there are now random pictures on there of her dog, her butt, her bird, the couch, the take-out box from dinner, the wine bottle, her luggage... in short, nothing interesting, but it was still fun as all get out. i love the click!

I'm so glad Lari likes my new lens

I really am quite obnoxious.

THIS PARAGRAPH HAS BEEN DELETED, LARI. YOU ARE A TERRIBLE PERSON.

Apologies to anyone who watches my scraps.

]]> =StringOfLights Grammy http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/26258474/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/26258474/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:48:54 PDT
Let's start this way: I was adopted. The day I came home (I was maybe a week old, so don't ask me about orphanages or biological parents) there was a knock at the door. Standing there was a little old lady in oversized glasses who introduced herself as our neighbor and said, "I heard you have a new child in the house, and I thought you could probably use some help!" She was an angel to my mother who, despite having wanted children for years, had been thrust into parenthood rather abruptly. We called her Grammy.

As far as I was concerned, if parents could adopt a kid, a kid could adopt a grandmother. So that's what I did. Family is not about blood or genetics, it's about love, and believe me, she loved me completely and selflessly. What obligation did she have to a little kid who lived down the street? She had a family and grandchildren of her own, yet she would come over and sit with me for hours. She babysat me, read to me, played with me. She spent so much time with me that I learned to read at pretty much the same time I learned to talk. I was a good kid growing up, but I have no idea if it was innate. I just spent a lot of my childhood partying with a septuagenarian.

She turned 90 four years ago. Her family threw a huge party, complete with champagne. Grammy was tinier, but she was still glowing. Amidst the raucous gala, my mother turned to me and said, "Can you believe Grammy's 90?"

I replied, "Can you believe she was 70 when she knocked on our door?"

"No," my mother said, "I really can't even imagine." It was a stunning realization. She had so much energy, to us she was ageless.

A few minutes later someone popped another bottle of champagne open and I got hit just below the eye with the cork. I now stand as the only person to ever get a black eye at a 90th birthday party. It's an aside, but I'm quite proud of that.

When my little sister was born, my parents got the unexpected phone call from a social worker. Actually, my dad got the unexpected call, and he called the grocery store where my mother was shopping, and she got an unexpected announcement over the loudspeaker that her husband was in labor. So Grammy came over at a moment's notice and stayed with me, a fat and mostly bald two-and-a-half year old, while my parents drove up to the hospital.

I was so excited to have a little sister, I can't even begin to explain. I remember sitting on the couch, too nervous to do anything. Every rustle sounded like my parents at the door. When they finally arrived, I did something totally out of character: I jumped over the back of the couch and ran to the door. Grammy was shocked at my behavior. Jennifer jumping over the couch? No, no. That won't do at all.

And so my first memory of my little sister in the house is Grammy making me walk back to where I had been sitting and walk back to the door - and parents and new baby sister - like a proper young lady. I did it, but I wriggled the whole way. My official introduction to Michelle was delayed by a full 15 seconds, but I met her in a ladylike fashion.

Just thinking about it cracks me up.

She did for my sister what she did for me, even though my family moved across town when I was three. It didn't matter that she wasn't down the street anymore; she was always there when we needed her, quiet and kind.

My parents left town yesterday, so I went to her funeral alone. At first I thought I had missed it because there were so few cars in the parking lot. There were maybe 20 people there. I saw her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren sitting there, but it hit me that at 94, most of the people she spent her life with were gone.

There was a photograph of her as a young woman, and I had never realized how gorgeous she was. She was leaning back in an oversized chair, wearing a large hat that tied elegantly at her chin, a stylish dress, and high-heeled booties. She was a truly glamorous woman. She had a huge smile on her face, too, like she was happy in a way she knew no one could begin to understand. I may have known nothing of the first seven decades of her life, but I knew that glow.

After the service I went up to her granddaughter, who was once my babysitter but now has a daughter of her own. We hugged, but weren't really capable of talking to each other. She ran and grabbed me a small photo album and said, "She kept this with her. I thought your family would like to have it."

It was a small, unassu... ]]> =StringOfLights Good News, Gearing Up, and a Random Question http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/26172042/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/26172042/ Sat, 25 Jul 2009 14:06:55 PDT
I decided I left all my bad luck in the Bahamas, and it's going to stay there. For real, this is the misfortune equivalent of farting and leaving the room. One day I will write up my last few hours there, because so many things went wrong it's unbelievable. But in the end the clouds in the sky literally parted, leaving a bright blue sliver for my plane to fly into, and I came home.

Now I'm focusing on getting ready for Yellowstone (oh, and work and stuff). There are some things I want, but I'm not really sure how to go about narrowing down my options. Since I'll probably buy most of it online, I've got to get moving to get it here in time. Advice from all you smart people/real photographers would be greatly appreciated.

I'm looking at:
- A new camera bag for hiking
- Filters
- A new tripod

The bag is a biggie. I've got a dinky little case, but I'd like something big enough to grow into if I can ever scrape enough together to get a telephoto lens. I'd also like to fit my other hiking gear into it. So a long sleeved shirt, lunch, small first aid kit. I like to carry lots of water with me too. Basic stuff, no overnight gear. It'd be nice to use it for my trip to the Scottish Highlands, too. Any suggestions? There are a million options out there, and I'm really overwhelmed! The most important thing would be keeping my gear safe and not stolen off my back. The second would be making it as easily accessible. These contradict each other. Sigh...

Filters - it's time to buy a couple polarizers. I've got UV filters on my 75-300mm (a sad little lens

) and 60mm. I haven't been using anything else and yes, shame on me. Anything else I should be looking at?

I've got a tripod now, and I like it because it's extremely light. It served me well through Australia and New Zealand, but it is cheap, cheap, cheap. I've actually never had a problem, but it's cheap enough that some sort of malfunction is inevitable if I keep using it. I wouldn't mind springing for another. Weight matters a lot here.

Here's the deal: I'm on a budget.

And yes, Lari, you must comment even though you claim to know nothing of these things!

Oh, and one more very random question: My dad's birthday is in a couple days (already gave him a present) and it occurred to me that he would LOVE a cell phone ring of me playing the piano. He's about to go out to Colorado, so I was thinking a brief bit of "Annie's Song" by John Denver (I know it's really hokey, but he loves it). The thing is, it is SO hard to record a piano well. Most setups require multiple microphones to get a decent sound, and I don't have that. It'd also have to be on my parents' upright piano, which makes it harder. Has anyone had any success at this? Or even tried? It's a small little thing, I know, but it would make him very happy.

Just kidding, there's one more thing: *hfpierson has had some very good news [link] and =JansonJones has been MIA on dA because his little daughter has arrived, and she's gorgeous. She's also a week old and has already been face-to-face with a moose. How cool is that? My congratulations to Janson, Hugh, and their families!

]]> =StringOfLights Bonding with a bird... http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/26147359/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/26147359/ Fri, 24 Jul 2009 09:26:21 PDT should fear you; it weighs mere ounces and has hollow bones, and humans are heavy and cumbersome. Birds have not been bred (or coevolved) to depend on humans in any way. So when a bird voluntarily flies over and lights on your shoulder, or nuzzles up to you, or falls asleep on your finger, you feel something special. At least I do.

I'm visiting my parents at the moment, and my sister's budgie is here. Michelle is up at school and temporarily lives in an apartment that doesn't allow birds. Monet is canary yellow and, for the time being, resides happily on my parents' porch (it's screened in and bird proofed!). Her cage door is left open, and she zooms around at will, sings the songs of the backyard birds (and the squeaking of the porch door), and altogether leads a happy little existence. Far better than most pet birds.

Anyway, I was outside this morning playing with the little yellow puffball. We have fun together. When she gets excited she makes kissing noises and mimics the sounds of the bells in her cage. We were playing little bird games, which involved a lot of Monet chirping, MWAH! Dingalingalingalingaling! Dingdingdingding! Kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss! She would run up and down my arms, tap my fingernails with her beak, and play with my hair. So cute.

Honey the Westie had managed to squeeze herself out on the porch with me. She hates birds, mostly because she doesn't understand why anyone would waste time with something she plans on eating anyway. No worries, just can't leave them together unattended.

Then the phone rang. I put Monet on top of her cage and tried to run inside, but Honey can not be left alone with a budgie. She hasn't been listening very well, so I jumped right into Mean Jenn Mode and sternly said, "COME!" Silly me - my sister has trained her bird to come when called. She only does it for people she really likes, which usually doesn't include me. Well, today it does! Of course, Honey still didn't listen, so I ended up leaving the dog on the porch and running inside with a bird chirping happily on my shoulder.

It was my father. The connection was bad, so he called about four times in rapid succession to sputteringly tell me that a workman was coming over to work on the A/C unit. Halfway through telling me this, the doorbell rang. The workman was here. I spazzed. Monet did a few swoops through the air and landed on my head. I ran to the door with Monet squawking happily and my father yelling into one ear. Both dogs were also barking madly, because why not?!

I looked through the glass in the door, the bird still gripping my hair with all her might. The poor man was standing there looking horribly confused and a little scared. I indicted I would be just a quick second, hung up on my father, and ran to the porch to shake Monet off my head. She happily obliged, only to zoom back to my head every time I got six inches from the door. We repeated this several times. So, in full view of the flabbergasted man I had just intentionally left locked outside, I waved my arms madly while shrieking, "MONET! NO!" and sprinted inside. Honey happily followed, still barking. The front door had swelled in the humidity and it took a full body slam to wedge it open.

I inhaled deeply, grinned, and said, "Hello! I'm terribly sorry about that. Please come in."

The man replied, "Hi. Mmmkay, I'm here to fix the A/C. You look...very busy." He was quite cordial despite obviously thinking I was insane.

"Oh, no. Well, yes. I guess. I just...was attacked by a bird, I think."

The man looked out to the porch at the adorable little budgie singing happily, narrowed his eyes, and said, "Right. I see." He then went about his business and fixed whatever the problem was with amazing rapidity. After only a few minutes I heard, "Hello? Ma'am?" He was now standing by the front door.

"Yes, sir?"

"Please tell your father the problem has been taken care of." He pushed the door open so easily it was annoying.

"Sure, I will. Thank you so much, and I'm sorry again about that!"

"Oh, it's no problem. Here, make sure you shut this door all the way. And please lock it after me. You know how it is. I don't want anyone strange getting...In?"

Like I said, bonding with a bird is... such a special experience.

]]> =StringOfLights Coming Home Early http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/26069312/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/26069312/ Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:31:17 PDT
]]> =StringOfLights Apparently I'm getting tan... http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/26005077/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/26005077/ Sat, 18 Jul 2009 07:00:01 PDT
Oh my goodness. Wow. WTF. Out of the mouth of babes, right?

I've moved 100 miles south now, we're really more in the Caribbean now. The water is unbelievable. It looks like it's lit from below, and it just shimmers. Today I've got the kiddies to myself and we hiked over to a little beach. They decided to build the Sand Castle to End All Sandcastles, so I put some music on (BlackBerrys work without SIM cards, woot) and admired the view while listening to the Beatles and KT Tunstall. I played with some snails (on limestone, which makes me happy) and took some photos. Then Israel Kamikawiwaole came on and I almost cried. I swear, the water sang with him. Thanks, Braddah Iz.

Then I look down and my thighs had blistered. Not kidding. The sun is quite intense here, to put it mildly. The Sand Castle to End All Sand Castles had been completed, so we went back to the boat and I made the children lunch and we popped in Ghostbusters 2. Their dad is going to have a fit when he finds out we were inside for this long, but it's the most intense part of the day and we could all use a little time out of the sun. Maybe 2 hours out of the sun will have people stop making racist comments about me. lol

I haven't see any more sea turtles

and there is a shocking paucity of marine mammals. I've never been on the water so long without seeing dolphins. Hopefully this doesn't signal the end of the world, Douglas Adams-style.

Anyway, a bird list for those who care, which is probably just me:
- Loggerhead kingbird
- West Indian woodpecker (female)
- Bahama mockingbird
- Mourning dove
- Zenaida dove
- Bahama swallow (I love these guys)
- I heard, but didn't see, a Bahama parrot
- Magnificent frigatebird (Love these guys too)
- White-tailed tropicbird (Looooooooooooove love love these)
- Cuban Emerald Hummingbird (male, and gorgeous)
- Black-faced grassquit, I think
- Stripe-headed tanager, except they've decided it's a separate species and it's called something else now
- Osprey
- Laughing gulls - Ahahahahahahahahaaaaahaaaaaaahaaaaaaaa... Is my impression of a laughing gull. They cackle at my jokes, which normally only Lari does. That's ironic, because I'm pretty sure they're in the family Laridae.
- White-crowned pigeon

Oh, and I gave Lari the password to my account and I am now entered in that APN contest, which highly amuses me.

Hahahahahahahaha edit 7/18: We went to another gorgeous beach yesterday. I put on a little Jason Mraz, sighed, and thought, "Wow, this might be the best day ever. The kids have been great, the weather is perfect, and the beach is stunning. Yes, I think this is the best day ever." And then the 6-year-old pooped his pants. I held it together till I'd, um, solved the problem and gotten everyone back to the boat. Then I curled up on my bunk and laughed so hard I cried. I'm still cracking up.

]]> =StringOfLights Bahamas Update http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/25904906/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/25904906/ Sun, 12 Jul 2009 18:11:33 PDT
Photography is kind of rough so far because I've got to keep my eye on these kids on a boat or at the beach or whatever, and they like to find ingenious ways to scare the crap out of me. The little boy hugged a German shepard yesterday whilst failing to tell me he's allergic to dogs. He broke out in hives and started wheezing so I had to find a grocery store and get Benadryl in him ASAP. Then he got grumpy and passed out for three hours. First aid training is coming into handy. Is that an expression? Coming in handy? Whatever. LOL And we spend a lot of time on a small boat that gets drenched. I got sick of not having my gear, so all my lenses and the camera body are in individual plastic Ziploc bags -oh, except the 60mm is NEVER coming off ever. I love it. Then my camera bag is in plastic grocery bags.

Anyway, yes, I SAW FOUR SEA TURTLES TODAAAAAAAAAAY and I am doing a happy dance. I also saw an awesome ray, all spotted and cute. Lots of wrasses, butterfly fish, angelfish, parrotfish, yellowtail snappers, and more stuff that most people probably think is boring. Soft coral, hard coral, sea feathers, sea fans. Oooooooooh and ctenophores. I adore ctenophores!

I am sunburned. I am exhausted. I am covered in salt. I am so aliiiiiiive!

]]> =StringOfLights Weeee! http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/25820510/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/25820510/ Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:05:49 PDT
Then I'm hopping in the car, tossing the bird in, and driving down to my parents to see Tippy. Then I fly over to the Bahamas for three weeks. Tippy's doing much, much better. The dog is a superhero, seriously. I know I wouldn't be walking around three days after a fall like that, but she's chugging along. So I'm a little less apprehensive about leaving the country now.

I'm psyched about this lens, which I purchased after a glowing review from *fubecando, solicited and highly generalized advice from =Tar-Vanimelde, and plenty of urging from *Iamidaho, although the latter would have also had me buying a kickass telephoto lens as well. Ohhh and it probably wouldn't have been too hard to talk me into it. Who needs food? Food is for the weak.

Getting ready for this trip is a little nuts. It's only three weeks but it feels like an eon. I'm pretty good at packing in general, but I'm paranoid because I'll be on a boat and won't be able to get anything if I need it.

I had pulled out my extra CF cards and was making sure they're all empty when I discovered one card still had about 900 photos from New Zealand on it. Seriously?! I haven't used that card in two years? Huh.

I checked and I've definitely transferred all the photos, so maybe I was holding onto them till I'd backed everything up and then forgot about it. Or maybe deleting them made me sad...? Or the card was stolen by aliens and only recently returned to me? Who knows. LOL

It was kind of cool to see them all again, but I need the card, so, in the words of Homestar Runner... BALEETED.

Some recent

s that make me happy:

]]> =StringOfLights It Keeps Going - But Tippy's Doing Better http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/25751501/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/25751501/ Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:18:54 PDT Tar-Vanimelde that if my dog dies, I fully expect her to visit me in the asylum.

Well, let me start off this way: my dog didn't die.

Rather, my parents were at my recently-deceased grandmother's apartment, and they had the dogs with them. The canines are staying with my parents while I go away for three weeks, and I left them when I visited last weekend so they can get acclimated and not deal with 900 miles of driving in ten days. Well, apparently my parents brought the dogs with them when they drove two hours to clean out my grandmother's stuff.

They were loading things into their car and not watching the dogs very closely. Tipper, my 16-year-old fox terrier, who is mostly blind at this point, apparently walked out onto the second-story balcony and right through the railing. She fell to the concrete below.

Amazingly, she seems more or less okay, assuming I've gotten the whole story. My parents took her to an emergency animal hospital immediately, where she is sedated and on pain meds. They've taken x-rays and nothing appears to be broken. She isn't putting any weight on one of her legs. Her hips and back look all right. They want to make sure she doesn't have a concussion and keep her overnight. She's on steroids to keep any swelling down.

I'm just so grateful that she was otherwise healthy. Her bone density must be good, and her limbs are strong. Her heart is in good shape. She's just blind - and 16. The supplement regiment and fancy food I have her on are incredible. Worth every penny, and then some.

On the way to the vet my mother was crying hysterically, and Tippy licked her hand all the way there. I just can't believe it. She was in so much pain and it still crossed her mind to make us feel better. She never whined. In fact, she was so calm my mother thought her spine was severed.

Now I'm going to drive down to see my little dogs. I waiting till I've calmed down to take off, hence this journal. I'm not crying, but I need to get my wits together before getting in a car; there are enough wretched drivers in Florida already. I'm too dazed to be mad at my parents for letting this happen. When the shit hits the fan there's no time for sadness or anger. So I'm just breathing.

My Westie is probably beside herself with worry. I've seen her when she thinks something's wrong with Tippy. She wails. It sounds human. I can't imagine how upset she is, and so scared. And I know Tippy will be happier if I'm with her. Besides, if the worst case scenario happens, I am going to be there. She's not leaving this planet with any doubts of how much she means to me.

To say I'm a dog person is an understatement. Tipper was the puppy my family got when I was 7. We were best friends within minutes. I remember how much she wriggled in the car on the way home, her little tail going a mile a minute as she frantically licked my face. She curled up with me on my bed the first night we had her.

My parents had said she was the family dog, but Tippy followed me everywhere and we did everything together. One day my mother ordered a dog tag off a box of Milkbone dog biscuits. She gave it to me when it arrived and said, "She's your dog." I looked at it. Tipper's name was on one side and mine was on the other. She was my dog. The 7-year-old me took that as the ultimate oath of responsibility.

Our area code changed, my address changed, but I still have that tag. She's my dog.

Yeah, so... I'm in shock right now, and I've never wished I could teleport so badly. Lari, I'm going to have to cancel Starbucks today. Nate, buying the my ticket has to be on hold for a couple more days. I'm sorry guys.

Edit: So a lot of stuff happened and I've been somewhat of a wreck for the last couple days. I saw the spot she fell from; it's absolutely incredible she survived, much less walked away from it. Most people would have broken several bones in a fall like that. The x-ray the emergency vet took showed a small fracture in her sternum and very severe spondylosis, meaning that the lower vertebrae in her back are fused from arthritis and inflammation. We had always assumed her hips hurt her from regular old arthritis, and no vet ever suggested spondylosis so we never checked for it.

There's good news though - Tippy was brought back to... ]]> =StringOfLights Pondering Lenses... http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/25650006/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/25650006/ Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:41:57 PDT
Here's the dilemma:

I could use a dedicated macro lens for work - those boring photos that dA never sees. I don't get paid for my photography so it's not like I'll earn back the cost of the lens, but I do have to shoot lots of small fossils for my research (i.e. titchy bird bones). I had been using a 100mm f/2.8, but Alex had paid for it and took it with him.

He doesn't know how to use it, so it's a serious waste of nice glass. I'm fairly confident I'm getting the best shots I can out of the 18-55 kit lens I have, and they're okay but not what they ought to be. If I went with a macro I'd get the 50mm f/2.5, because I do occasionally have to shoot bigger fossils and I need to be able to get them in the frame with the lighting/stand setup I have available. It'd also be nice to have in the field, although the kit lens has been sufficient up till now.

However, I would looooooooooove a nice telephoto lens. The other day I went out to some local wetlands at dusk and my lens really wasn't cutting it. Right now I have the cheapest Canon-brand lens out there. Don't get me wrong, I've gotten some nice photos, but it is what it is, and it has some pretty severe limitations. Cost and weight are factors, and I'm thinking my best bet is the 70-200mm f/4L - without IS, because that doubles the cost. The f/2.8 would be better, but I definitely don't have the money for that. There's also the 70-300 f/4-5.6 IS. It has a greater zoom than the 70-200 as well as the IS, but it is definitely NOT an L-series lens. I suspect the focus starts to go soft much past the 200mm range, and it's basically the lens I have now plus IS. The L-series will also hold its value better if I decide to resell down the road. But is 200mm enough for wildlife photography? Would IS be that much more helpful? I'd really like to be able to shoot birds, and 200mm is kind of pushing it.

Of course, this begs another question: Am I even good enough as a photographer to justify dropping the cash on a nice telephoto lens? I kind of doubt it - as my uncle says, a man who buys a camera becomes a photographer; a man who buys a piano becomes a man who owns a piano. If I buy a macro lens I know I know how to use it. If I get an L-series lens and can't get a decent photo I'm going crawl in a hole and cry by myself. The thing is, I have some awesome trips lined up and I don't want to be kicking myself for not having the right gear.

I need to move fast because either way I want the lens before I take off in 10 days. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

]]> =StringOfLights Moving On... http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/25540657/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/25540657/ Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:40:15 PDT
*hfpierson - He was able to say exactly what I was feeling, only far more eloquently. He's also offered wisdom and perspective that I sorely needed.

-

*Alex37 - Told me to go drink a glass of ice water when I told him it was 110 degrees outside. Truly beautiful advice I will carry with me always. He also scrapped a photo of a rather pretty sunset, and I'm featuring it here so the five people who read my journal will see it.

-

=JansonJones - Popped back up after a year off the radar to enlighten me that new beginnings do happen, and they're wonderful. Plus he posts photos of frogs, and who doesn't love photos of frogs?

-

*Iamidaho - He's had many, many kind words. He's also reading up on Aldo Leopold, and - let's face it - combining philosophy and wildlife management takes a special kind of nerd.

-

=Tar-Vanimelde - Let's see. Within 30 minutes of my being dumped, Lari was at my house with tissues, chocolate, Starbucks, and a bottle of wine. She's listened to me whine endlessly, allowed me to kidnap her from her cozy house when I don't want to be alone, sipped probably thousands of lattes while we worked on absurd crafts, and watc... ]]> =StringOfLights From Bad to Worse http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/25381467/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/25381467/ Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:44:55 PDT
Unfortunately things just seem to be getting worse. My dad's stepmom has rejected all further treatment for cancer and is in hospice, on her way out. Their relationship is...complicated and this whole thing is very hard on him and the rest of his family. Don't really want to talk about that, though.

Alex just... can't stop digging the knife in further. Right after he dumped me my boss's grad student, a girl I considered a friend, basically threw herself at him. She weaseled her way into doing field work with him twice a week, started baking him cookies, took him birdwatching. And she's posting it all online, on Facebook in fact, where all our colleagues (and higher up) are members and listed as our friends. I was just dealing with it, because quite frankly they are making asses of themselves to everyone we work with, but then they took a weekend trip to the beach, which I read when I signed on. I was hurt but whatever. He dumped me, so I'm pretty sure I'm always going to be hurt. I don't want to unfriend them because I want to know what is getting out to, say, the curators I work for. I had taken a couple weeks off to get myself together (because I have to see both these people every day) and I was finally feeling better. I really, really have felt the desire to get back to my work. In fact, it's pretty much all I've been wanting to do. Of course, the day I go back, Alex's lovely new girl posts photos of their seaside adventures. Like, 60 photos. They're hanging all over each other.

Meanwhile, Alex has written me two long apologies over the past couple weeks. That he never meant to hurt me like he has, and that he doesn't want me to feel uncomfortable in the museum. He wants me to remember our time together fondly. He doesn't want my forgiveness because he's been so awful (which I figured out on my own, thanks). He will do anything I ask to make it easier for me to work.

I responded and said doing horrible things to me and then writing an apology letter isn't really going to cut it. His actions say much more about his repentance than a letter, and he continues to act in ways he knows will be hurtful to me.

Today I went into work and told Alex that he needs to take the photos of them down. I told him his private life needs to stay private, because I've been raked over the coals enough. I'm tired of my whole life being a soap opera. He can obviously do whatever he wants, but I don't need to see it, and I don't want one more person to pull me aside and ask how I'm doing. I really appreciate it and it really means a lot to me that people are being so nice, but I can't break down on the job and I need to get my work done.

He basically threw his hands up and said he didn't post the photos. Guess what? I don't care one teeny tiny little bit. I do not want my coworkers and everyone else seeing this. I ignored it for long enough, but now I want my life back. I want to be able to heal and move on. The fact that he promised to is really secondary in all this, what with all the broken promises already. He can accommodate me, because I've done nothing but bend over backwards to help him over the course of our whole relationship and beyond. Whoever puts those photos up, this is his doing, and he needs to fix it.

Edit:
So yeah... My grandmother... She's apparently less than 85 pounds. She went into a coma and they thought it was from the morphine, so they lowered the dosage and she opened her eyes, but didn't really wake up. Not in the sense that we think of it, anyway. She was moaning and writhing but otherwise catatonic and unresponsive. She doesn't recognize anyone's voice.

And I'm 300 miles away. My parents told me not to drive home because there's nothing I can do (duh) and they think it will be too hard for me to see her. It's more about being with my family than seeing her. So I don't know what to do.

She never did those things grandmas are supposed to do. Never sent a card on my birthday or when I graduated high school and college. Well, she used to send one card for my sister's and father's birthdays and one for my mother's and my birthdays, then one year we got one card for all four of us, and from then on nothing. I never saw where she spent most of the past 25 years living, and I learned that my father, her son, never did either. I really, I mean I've been sad, but not devastated. But then I learned that the last time she was awake, I mean actually lucid, they gave her some of the blueberries my mother and I picked last weekend. She had no appetite because of the morphine, but she took them and thought they were wonderful. For some reason, that just makes me lose it. It's a 4-h... ]]> =StringOfLights Well Then http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/24118958/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/24118958/ Tue, 07 Apr 2009 19:35:49 PDT
Worse than spending a week within 10 feet of a bathroom is that it looks like I'm going to be rejected from all the grad schools I applied to. All are facing severe budget cuts, and one potential advisor isn't even taking any students. Two rejected me outright and I'm on a wait-list at one, but they only have 10 potential slots (usually they have 20 or more) so I'm not too hopeful there. It sucks because any other year I'd be high enough on the list to be into that program. But such is the nature of a recession/depression, and many are in a similar situation or worse.

Of course, within a week of getting bad news from two programs Alex, my boyfriend of three and a half years, decided to dump my ass. Apparently I "drive him crazy". Never mind all the little hiccups in his life through which I gladly stuck by him. I was camping this weekend, doing some field work, kind of hoping to recharge a little, but people kept drilling me about grad school. One night I got so upset that I ended up crying in my tent alone. I decided I didn't want to be by myself, so I went and got Alex, who told me I was embarrassing him, and he left me to go get drunk. Two days later he took off, after telling me he would have proposed if he thought I would have said yes, then leaving me sobbing hysterically on my couch. I wouldn't treat my worst enemy like that.

Luckily I have an awesome roommate and a super best friend (=Tar-Vanimelde) who brought me Starbucks and a box of tissues, stat. And a good friend from high school has been really helpful in listening to me whine. It's good to feel loved at least a little bit.

So yeah, I'm at just about the lowest I've ever been, excluding when my dad had emergency heart surgery and my sister was shot at by some sicko on the interstate. I'm angry and hurt. Three and a half years and he couldn't help me through this? Is he really that selfish? How did I not notice this sooner? Everything I've worked for literally unraveled before my eyes and he had absolutely no sympathy. He's got some major issues to work out, and it really sucks that I have to be collateral damage, especially right now. I think what is making me saddest right now is thinking about how sad my little Westie will be when she doesn't see Alex again. She really, really loved him. And my fox terrier, too. It's just such a simple thing, the thought of all of us together... Oh well. Such is life.

There were some bright spots, of course. There were lots of kids this weekend. Lots of freaking adorable kids. There was a bubbly little 3-year-old who desperately wanted to help Lari and I with our knitting. We let him cut yarn for us, and at one point Lari decided to frog what she'd been working on, so she pulled the stitches off the needle, handed him the piece of fabric, and told him to run. He took great glee in watching the piece unravel behind him, but his father turned around and yelled his full name and a very mortified "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" We then had to explain that we were in fact encouraging him to destroy our projects.

He got a little bored in between cutting yarn, however, so he was sitting on a bench swinging his legs going, "Knock knock! Knock knock!" I was expecting a knock-knock joke, which would be typical of a three-year-old, but then he said, "Knock knock! Knock knock on Heaven's door!" Too cute.

Edit: The waitlisted school just rejected me.

]]> =StringOfLights Coyote Killing Contest http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/23286487/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/23286487/ Thu, 19 Feb 2009 10:14:50 PST [link]

This is a disgrace.

Edit: I decided I needed to email the Chamber of Commerce.

To whom it may concern,

I am writing in regards to the upcoming contest to kill coyotes at Bent Rod Sports. It is absolutely shameful and completely unnecessary. Coyotes have density-dependent reproduction, and when the population is stressed, females whelp more pups. It is very likely that this hunt will increase the local coyote population. I am familiar with wildlife management techniques, so I understand that hunting is a huge boon to a local economy, but there is no reason to be hunting an animal that is by all accounts intelligent, particularly when such predator control has been proven ineffective.

Idaho has some of the best wildlife viewing in the country. As a biologist and photographer I had been looking forward to traveling throughout the region to observe and photograph the scenery and its inhabitants. Unfortunately I have decided that spending money on such a trip is only going to further activities like this. I spend part of my summers in northwestern Colorado and was planning a trip, but I certainly will not visit a town that condones this. I hope the people of Challis will reconsider attending such a hunt.

Sincerely,

--

Within 15 minutes I had received a reply that said, "Your opposition to the Coyote Hunt is noted."

]]> =StringOfLights Oh My Goodness http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/23232958/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/23232958/ Mon, 16 Feb 2009 10:46:18 PST I'm trying to catch up on messages and deviations. dA changed a lot and it's a bit confusing... The most annoying thing is that the URL to my main page doesn't work unless I include www at the beginning, and quite often my gallery and/or deviations don't work at all. I've reported it before and the response I get is that I'm crazy.

I didn't have much time for photography last semester, but I'd like to get outside with my camera at some point this spring. I did go to Vegas for the new year (a surprisingly long story), so if I can get around to editing those photos I may have a cool panorama or two of Lake Mead. Meade? Mead. The Google says Mead.

I also went to D.C. for Barack Obama's and attended the swearing-in ceremony and the We Are One concert, both of which were incredible and nothing like you saw on the news. Unfortunately security didn't allow camera bags and I didn't want to carry my SLR out all day, so I don't have any dA-worthy shots.

Oh! I almost forgot! If anyone's interested in some research I was a (minor) part of: [link] [link] I helped with the photography and specimen preparation.

]]> =StringOfLights Smithsonian http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/20019108/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/20019108/ Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:09:49 PDT The Smithsonian was a ton of fun and the collections were incredible.

I'll be MIA for while as I move forward on research and get set for the semester. Boo, classes. Nobody likes you.

As such, I leave you with a recent text message conversation with my father:

Me: I got Mom's birthday present at the Smithsonian and the guy working the register had a Ph.D.
Dad: Please tell me it's not in Environmental Science.
Me: No, millipedes.
Dad: Not much call for sick millipedes, huh?
Me: Hey, at least I know I'll be qualified to do something!
Dad: You can always get a job with a paper hat.
Me: Gourmet chefs wear paper hats, too.
Dad: You're right, I met one the other day... at Wendy's.
Me: What if I get a job as a professor and coincidentally happen to like paper hats?
Dad: Might as well go all the way and get a paper route.
Me: Sounds like a good way to get exercise.
Dad: What goes click click 99 times and then goes thunk? A centipede with a wooden leg.
Me: Thanks, Dad.

]]> =StringOfLights My Ethic Minor http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/19846898/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/19846898/ Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:20:36 PDT IÂm excited!

I'm also signed up for two minors. The first one, in Zoology, was wrapped up a year ago. The second one I signed up for last semester. ItÂs in Agricultural and Natural Resource Ethics and Policy. IÂd enjoyed the ethics courses IÂve taken, which are built into the Environmental Science program, but I went for the minor after some big ethical issues came up recently in paleontology. Every science major should be required to take an applied ethics course. Ethics are inherent to what scientists do, but theyÂre often overlooked until someone crosses the line. I ended up talking to a curator who is writing a grant to establish a program that focuses on public outreach, and I pitched my idea that an applied ethics and philosophy course should be integral to that program. I put him in touch with the guy who taught my ethics class and it is now included in his grant proposal.

I went online to check my status and see if the ethics minor is complete, and it turns out IÂm one class short. I emailed my ethics professor, who is in charge of the program, and set up a meeting. IÂve taken several policy and ethics courses, so he said I can use one of those in lieu of another course.

I should preface this next anecdote by saying that I was blessed (if you ask my father) or cursed (if you ask everyone else) with my father's sense of humor.

I told my father about applying to graduate and explained what had happened with my second minor. ÂItÂs funny, Dad,Â I said, Âbecause in a way IÂm ÂcheatingÂ to get a minor in ethics.Â

He didnÂt laugh. I pressed on. ÂDad, itÂs a joke.Â

ÂOh no, I get it,Â he said. ÂCute.Â

ÂOh,Â I said. Well at least I cracked myself up.

He paused and said, ÂSo does this mean you're actually going to get a minor in ethic?Â

ÂUm, yeah, I guess you could say that.Â

ÂItÂs probably good you didnÂt take that last course then,Â he said, Âor you probably would have decided ethics isnÂt for you.Â

TouchÃ©, Father.

]]> =StringOfLights Counterculture http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/19714624/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/19714624/ Fri, 01 Aug 2008 08:33:45 PDT
You're at a showing of an independent foreign film in a small, intimate theater/playhouse. You've spent the night hanging out in the lobby with friends. You're all wearing skinny jeans and have moppish haircuts that are styled with beeswax so everyone knows you buck the norm. You're indie. Counterculture. Covered in piercings and random tattoos of dinosaurs and band logos that you definitely won't regret in 30 years. The thought of buying a CD at Best Buy nauseates you.

You enter the theater to watch this movie, which is in French and has subtitles with typos. This makes you cooler than everyone else, because you understand its deeper meaning, man. You get it.

I'm there, sitting in the back of the theater sipping tea. How droll of me. I'm tired, ready to relax and enjoy this film. Five minutes into it, a green glow pops up. Then another, then another. I see frantic thumbs on scroll wheels.

Guess what, you unbelievable tool? The hours you've spent at thrift shops to prove how much you eschew society's trends, the money you spend on microbrews to prove your beer snobbery, the skinny cigarettes you roll because your coolness makes you immune to emphysema and lung cancer, the thick-rimmed glasses you wear even though you don't actually need them... are completely and utterly negated by the fact that you can't put your damn Blackberry down for TWO HOURS in a dark movie theater.

Please get over yourself. Oh, and have a great day.

]]> =StringOfLights So Random http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/19697771/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/19697771/ Thu, 31 Jul 2008 10:47:24 PDT Tar-Vanimelde's journal made me chuckle ( [link] ), so here it goes (mine won't be nearly as amusing):

- Choose a singer/band/group.
I chose Guster and KT Tunstall.
- Answer using ONLY titles of songs by that singer/band/group

Guster:

1. Are you male or female?
Mona Lisa

2. Describe yourself.
I Hope Tomorrow is Like Today

3. What do people feel when they're around you?
Happier

4. How would you describe your previous relationship?
So Long

5. Describe your current relationship.
Great Escape

6. Where would you want to be now?
Rocketship

7. How do you feel about love?
Barrel of a Gun

8. What's your life like?
Happy Frappy

9. What would you ask for if you had only one wish?
X-Ray Eyes

10. Say something wise.
Come Downstairs and Say Hello

KT Tunstall:

1. Are you male or female?
Mothgirl

2. Describe yourself.
Hopeless

3. What do people feel when they're around you?
Beauty of Uncertainty

4. How would you describe your previous relationship?
False Alarm

5. Describe your current relationship.
Suddenly I See

6. Where would you want to be now?
Other Side of the World

7. How do you feel about love?
Throw Me a Rope

8. What's your life like?
Gone to the Dogs

9. What would you ask for if you had only one wish?
Another Place to Fall

10. Say something wise.
If Only

In other news, my Westie had her teeth cleaned and ended up having to have two teeth extracted. I'm sitting home with her, hence this long entry. She's drugged up on pain pills. She's also furious with me. Last night she was so uncomfortable she didn't want to lie down, but she was so tired her head would start drooping and she'd jerk awake right before she fell over. The poor dog. Tipper is thrilled to have her Westie back, and is as hyper as a 15-year-old dog can be. Too bad Honey's zonked. lol

I'm also chameleon-sitting for the week, and he hates his tank with a passion. It's too small, but his owner hasn't gotten a big enclosure for him yet (he was caught running loose in Central Florida so there wasn't a whole lot of advanced notice before he showed up). I've taken him out a couple times so he can climb and stretch and I swear, trying to get him back in that tank is like putting a six-legged cat in a bathtub. It just doesn't work.

Alex got a macro lens for my SLR because we're headed to the Smithsonian to take photos of tiny fossils. lol It's a Canon 100mm prime. I will have access to it, and I am THRILLED! It's supposed to arrive today. I can't wait to try to get some shots of the cham!

Also, if anyone knows who Randy Pausch is, he died on Friday. If you haven't seen his "Last Lecture", called "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams", I highly recommend it. It's gotten a lot of hype the past few months, and I can say that it exceeds that. [link]

]]> =StringOfLights Wallpaper http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/19006436/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/19006436/ Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:25:21 PDT
I don't know if I've mentioned this, but my job is to screen wash dirt collected at a fossil site in north FL. That is, I pour the dirt over a couple stacked screens of varying size and spray it with water, washing away the dirt and leaving the fossils behind. It's very relaxing work and requires just enough manual labor. The problem is that I work in a room with no windows and terrible fluorescent lighting, so I basically stand there and stare at the paint peeling off the bare concrete walls. I combat this by taking frequent breaks and listening to podcasts. I love podcasts! It's very satisfying to be learning and thinking while I work. Lots of NPR stuff, mostly the environment and science. I get podcasts from the journal Nature. And Stephen Fry's "Podgrams". He's a British icon whose work I've enjoyed - and he's wonderful to listen to.

I recently went through his third podcast, and it was one of the most illuminating monologues I've ever heard. Really. It took one of Oscar Wilde's seemingly frivolous quips and used it to explore a worldview. When I say it it sounds really cheesy. lol

You can listen to it here: [link] or read it here: [link] (scroll down a bit to find the transcript).

PS - Why can't I change the mood on my journal? Apparently I'm bewildered.

]]> =StringOfLights Going Green http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/18956858/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/18956858/ Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:22:24 PDT
But I digress... I use reusable grocery bags. I cut up all my old plastic bags and made them into yarn to make a purse. I recycle, take public transportation a lot of the time, and walk when I can. I got tired of throwing away Starbucks cups, so I bought a super awesome clear plastic tumbler (that is selling for $30 on eBay - why? [link] ).

Of course, there are pitfalls. I love to travel, which means flying a lot. I also drive an SUV. It gets about 25 mpg overall, ~30 on the highway, which is about 85% of my driving, so it's not too bad. Plus I put an environmental plate on it, just for irony.

According to [link] (see also [link] ), this year my lifestyle will emit 16.86 tons (or 15.43 tonnes) of CO₂. 1.8 tons of this are actually a trip to Hawaii that is in the works but not for certain, so it could be less. Even with all the travelling I do it's better than the US national average (22.5 tons/yr or 20.4 tonnes/yr), but that doesn't say much. Besides, I'm an environmental science major. I should do better.

I decided to look into buying carbon credits to offset my emissions (lol, doesn't that sound like I just eat a lot of beans?). The best resource I've found is from the Environmental Defense Fund [link] . I don't have a whole lot of money, but something's better than nothing, right? Since my car emits about 4.7 ton of CO₂ a year (holy crap!), that seems a reasonable amount to offset. Through a group called AtmosClear I can offset 6 tons for $45. It's all my driving plus enough to cover the Hawaii trip. That actually drops me to lower than the average for industrial countries.

Sold!

More info on carbon offset:

Hooray for my Agricultural and Natural Resource Policy class! This is complicated and simple at the same time. Essentially, I'm financing a project to reduce emissions, like tree planting, renewable energy sources, or methane collection and combustion. AtmosClear traps gas being emitted from landfills and uses them to generate electricity.

There are issues with offsetting emissions like this. It is hard to verify the offset actually happens, hence my going through the EDF. I'm still trying to look into the group a little more before I buy.

When I offset my emissions by burning methane from a landfill, I'm actually converting each combusted methane molecule into CO₂. Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO₂, but it remains in the atmosphere for a much shorter time. It ends up with a "global warming potential" 23 times that of CO₂. This math makes my eyes roll into the back of my head.

Planting trees is a well-known way to offset CO₂ emissions, but it has its controversies as well. A tree planted is guaranteed to reduce atmospheric CO₂ by a certain amount, but that is over the lifetime of the tree, making it difficult to guarantee or even measure. Sometimes the trees are invasive and not ideal for the environment in which they're being planted.

Isn't this fun?

There are companies that buy and sell carbon credits, not unlike a stock exchange. The Chicago Climate Exchange is the big one in the US, and is used by companies like DuPont and Ford. They actually control ~4% of the US's CO₂ emissions. There's the also the European Climate Exchange, which is owned by the same company as the CCX. My power company even has a program where you pay a little more for renewable energy. Not directly, of course, because that would be too simple. It pays to generate renewable energy for someone else. My electricity still comes from a coal-fired power plant.

At the end of the day I need to do whatever I can to reduce my emissions directly, because there is no substitute for that. However, I'd like to do more when I can. In the words of a Maori proverb, He iti hoki te mokoroa nÄna i kakati te kahikatea: even the tiny grub c... ]]> =StringOfLights A Big Ole Cup 'o Crazy http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/18917728/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/18917728/ Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:37:41 PDT
Berkeley was beautiful, despite the 120 earthquakes while I was there. Only 8 were minor quakes, the rest were microquakes that are impossible to feel. But yeah, I didn't feel a single one. I'm honestly a little disappointed. I mean, if there's going to be a minor quake I don't want to find out about it on Google News! The first one that was big enough to make the news literally lasted two seconds. I'm so clumsy that I probably attributed it to my idiocy.

I love San Francisco. I love it even more than the last time I was there. I wish the whole Bay Area weren't so completely unaffordable. I think if someone was visiting the US and could pick one major city, I'd say SF. New York and Boston are great (and historic, beautiful, wonderful places) but so much about SF embodies what I think the US is - or should be. And holy cow, the food. Oh the food.

Anyway, to change the subject: Do I have a blinking neon sign following me around with an arrow aimed at my head that says, "ARE YOU CRAZY? STOP BY AND SAY HELLO!" Because I feel like I do. I went to Target today, happy and chipper because 1) I remembered my reusable grocery bag and 2) I loooove Target. I wandered around for a while, splurged on some bath stuff for myself. Then I went back to my car. It was sprinkling outside.

I have a routine when I leave a store like this:
- I have my keys out of my purse before I enter the parking lot.
- I unlock my car when I get to it, load my stuff, and relock the car while I return the shopping cart.
- I unlock only the driver's side door, get in, check the back seat, and lock it.
- I leave.

So - I did this. Mostly. I looked in the back seat (btw, I've been paranoid the last few weeks - long story) and was considering getting my jPod going so I could continue my NPR Science Friday segment on Prochlorococcus when I heard someone calling, "Ma'am! Ma'am." I looked up and saw one of the scariest looking women I've ever seen standing right outside my car. She was dirty, with stringy brown hair and an old shirt with flowers on it. She had round glasses; her eyes were sunken and red-rimmed, and she was very skinny. And shrunken. She tapped on the glass and tried to smile. Her teeth were widely spaced apart, like some were missing, and they were brown with decay at the gums. They were all crooked and some were broken. My first thought was, Oh God, meth mouth.

"Ma'am!" She rapped on my window. "Can you help me? I'm out of gas! My car is out of gas! Ma'am!" There was a gas station maybe 100 feet away. There's no way her car ran out of gas, and if it had she could see the gas station.

"I can't help you, I'm sorry." I had my car in drive, and I pulled out. As I left I saw her walking towards the edge of a parking lot, carrying a wrinkled plastic bag that certainly hadn't come from Target. She walked stiffly, her movements spastic.

The whole thing happened in maybe 15 seconds. I was in my car the whole time, although I admit I didn't see her until she started calling to me, which is disarming. I don't know what direction she came from. The scariest thing was her appearance, and the fact that I didn't see coming. I called my mother just to talk to someone and hear another voice, and she told me I should call the cops. So I did.

It's strange, my phone has a 911 mode that I never noticed. As soon as I dialed the numbers an icon popped up on the screen, a little ambulance or something. The call also doesn't show up in my recent calls list, probably to prevent accidental redials.

Asking for gas money is a very common ploy here. I've gotten outrageous stories from people, once even right outside my house. A man told me he was going to sit on my front doorstep and wait for me to go find him "gas money". I called 911 then, too. But when a police officer arrives the person slips away, off into the many woods in the area, or into a store, or a crowd. They're almost always not homeless, and very often drug addicts.

When the sheriff arrived the woman was gone. I called maybe 3 minutes after leaving the parking lot, and I actually saw a sheriff driving towards the store as I left, so he got there right after I called. She wasn't stranded.

So yeah, this is just another incident that leaves me feeling completely unsafe. A couple others were much worse, but the fact is that I'm truly scared. It's so weird, like my rosy outlook on life has just been shattered. I still think the vast majority of people are good, but it just takes one person, one out of a mil... ]]> =StringOfLights brb http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/18600630/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/18600630/ Sat, 31 May 2008 21:22:25 PDT
Crazy stuff has happened the last couple of weeks. Everyone's okay, but... It's amazing how a random act of violence can change everything in under a second. It's also scary how life goes on. Sometimes you just want the world to stop till you're back on your feet, but instead you're left scrambling to pick up the pieces and carry on. Also, when did I become the sanest person in my family? Oy. I will say that having wonderful art waiting for me when I come online has been nothing short of therapy.

I love that when I cry, Honey parks herself in my lap and looks at me with a face that says, "This better help, woman, because after this I'm shit out of ideas." Tipper curls up next to me and is very affectionate, but the best the Westie she can come up with is to sit stoically on top of me - as if to say that there is no greater expression of love than a terrier sitting still for more than 12 seconds. It's so stupid it's brilliant, soothing and funny at the same time.

Anyway, in lieu of all this, I'm sorry that I'm behind on dA stuff, but I'll be MIA a little longer till I get back from my trip.

Oh, and a couple of really cool books are:
- 1491 by Charles C. Mann - It's an amazing history of the pre-Columbian Americas. Really, it will change your perception of Native American origin, culture, everything.
- The Wild Trees by Richard Preston - If you never had the urge to hug a redwood, you will now.
- How Dogs Think by Stanley Coren - I still don't understand why my Westie eats dryer sheets, but I was finally able to teach her to sit after nine loooong years.

My summer goals:
- Get two papers written, one on a fossil croc and one on a fossil bird.
- Learn some Maori (and Hawaiian - they're incredibly similar).
- Restring my little guitar for a lefty and give it a go (yes, upside down).
- Win the lottery (that I've never actually played. Harrumph).
- Get my house clean. (Note: This may be harder than all of the above combined.)

]]> =StringOfLights So Fla, So Good http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/18244936/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/18244936/ Fri, 09 May 2008 16:23:38 PDT
There are no plans for the foreseeable future to check my grades. Heh. I finally have some time to read, knit, take some photos, and practice the piano. I don't even really know where to start, except that doing all three at once didn't work.

I am thrilled to see my little dogs again. It's so hard not having them during the semester. They're just little furry blobs of joy that make every day a little happier.

Tipper looks great. At 15, she's old for a dog, but her personality shines through like an atomic bomb. Seriously, terrier sass is awesome. Her goals in life are still to chew the squeakers out of all her toys, drink water out of the pool every day, and kill the vacuum cleaner. Oh, and get belly rubs. The dog has her priorities in order.

I hope I age as gracefully as Tippy. She's basically blind (she can see light/dark contrasts, but that's about it), but she very rarely bumps into anything. She knows where all the steps are in the house by where my mom places door mats. She knows how many steps out the back door she has to take before there are two steps up in the deck. I could go on. I'm just amazed at her ingenuity.

Tippy's been sleeping on the pillow next to me every night, sighing happily in her slumber. She has dreams more often now, and it's not unusual for her paws and ears to start twitching as she woofs and growls in her sleep. I've seen her chase things and swim. And I still can't figure out how a 15-pound fox terrier takes up a queen-sized bed.

Honey the crazy Westie still has a huge potbelly despite the minimum 2-mile walks she takes with my mother daily. What an utterly ridiculous, absolutely wonderful animal. She's been sleeping on my feet at night. Or I'll wake up to find her curled up in the crook of my knees. She is completely devoted to Tipper, and watches her constantly. Sometimes she gets this sad look in her eyes, like she knows Tipper is aging and it breaks her heart. If I sit down next to her and give her a hug she buries her head in my arms and then looks at me with what I would swear is a sad smile. I wish I could tell her I understand what she's feeling, but I think she knows.

Then she goes and barfs up a dryer sheet or something. Dogs rule.

]]> =StringOfLights Let it be known! http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/18078155/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/18078155/ Mon, 28 Apr 2008 20:51:19 PDT
Double integrals and resonance structures can kiss my butt. Is there really any point in studying? Really?

I have a sneaking suspicion that chem will be so impossibly difficult that I'll jab my pencil into my eye because it will be less painful than the pretentious crap the prof will fill a ten-page exam with. I'm getting ready to make soup and spike it with DNAPLs and polychlorinated biphenyls, with a garnish of tetrachloroethylene. And I'll top it off with a frothy glass of propyl bromide!

Here's to impossible subjects taught by unrealistic professors and calc teachers who think it's fair to give students an 8-problem calculus exam to solve in 50 minutes without a calculator!

]]> =StringOfLights Whoa http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/17715073/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/17715073/ Sun, 06 Apr 2008 12:16:27 PDT And we found some really great fossils. We were looking where they're widening the canal. The forest was clearcut and they're slowly blasting everything and hauling it away. It was weird to be standing on land that won't exist by the end of this year.

I've been keeping busy describing the bones from a fossil bird. It was described 50 years ago based on a fragmentary chunk of bone, and lots more has been found since. I'm describing it as part of the Panama class. On Friday I go to a dig and give a presentation to volunteers who are camping out at the site for a weekend. It's going to be really neat, but I'm kind of nervous.

I really like working in Ornithology. Hmm....

There's a family of cranes that I've been passing on my way home every day. I'm trying to get lots of photos so I can watch how they grow. They're behind a chain-link fence, however, so photos are tough. I'm so thrilled to get to see them!

Anyway, I'll be around dA. I just don't know if I'll have time to update this for awhile.

]]> =StringOfLights Crazy Fun Time http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/16919925/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/16919925/ Sat, 16 Feb 2008 20:06:46 PST
I did finally get my new laptop (a tablet PC), which is AWESOME. I love it. Which is why this little exercise/doodly thingy (from *CatharsisJB see: [link]) is so much fun...

How to play:
1. Save this template to your computer! [link]

2. Post the following (or similar) in your journal:

First ten people! Reply with ONE word. Something you want me to doodle. Just one word. Not hyphenated-to-be-funny-and-include-more-words, not allruntogether. Just one word, like "tree" or "penis."

[Insert your own example words. Hurr hurr, 'insert.' ...no, not the tree what is WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE.]

3. Use a computer program to draw the first ten words people give you,* one to each square. Write or type the word you were given somewhere in the square. (By the way, you can be silly or serious with this!)

4. Post to your dA and post a link in comments here so we can see!

*Optional but possibly fun-killing: Attain friends that know how to spell the words they are typing at you

Obviously I'm discarding that last asterisked rule so as not to eliminate my dear =Tar-Vanimelde.

]]> =StringOfLights A Jenn, A Plan, A Canal... http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/16399606/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/16399606/ Mon, 14 Jan 2008 08:32:59 PST
Yes, a very incredible series of events occurred, and I am now part of a fossil expedition in the Canal Zone of Panama. For brevity's sake (and because I need to work on organic chemistry homework), the insanity occurred as follows:

1) I learned that the curator of Vertebrate Paleontology was considering a class that ran a semester and offered a week in Panama over spring break. I told him I was interested, and he said there were only 6 spots and they were filling up fast. To earn funding for the trip, students would have to work for grant money. I already have another job and nowhere near enough money to fund myself.

2) I went ahead and registered for my classes this semester, assuming I wasn't going to be able to go. I then learned that the Panama course would be 4 hours a week and my schedule conflicted with two of them, so I definitely wasn't going to be able to go. I was really, really bummed.

3) The assistant curator told me he assumed I was going and had signed me up. Now I knew they wanted me on the trip, so I emailed my advisor to ask if I could drop the conflicting course, and I was told I could not. I had to told the assistant curator I couldn't go, and he found a grad student to fill my spot.

4) Everyone started talking about how awesome Panama was going to be. I was upset, and the assistant curator started saying, "Well, you know we'd love to have you, but blah blah blah." I felt even worse, especially thinking about how a stupid forestry class was the only reason I couldn't go.

5) I was told I had to add an 8:30 AM calculus course to my schedule, and my advisor suggested I drop an intense ecology course. I realized that if I was taking this crazy calc course, my advisor could NOT give me crap about dropping the conflicting course. I also learned I could add a wetlands course that was offered online. I had thought it was full, but it turned out to be department-controlled, and they had to add me. I dropped ecology and the forestry course that conflicted with the Panama class.

6) I told the assistant curator that, ironically, now that my spot had been given away, I was able to fit the Panama course into my schedule. He told me to talk to the curator. I had less than 12 hours to drop the conflicting course if the curator would let me go.

7) I learned that the curator was spending the day with a film crew from the American Museum of Natural History and would be unreachable.

8) I got really bummed and made Alex go to lunch with me in the Union.

9) As we were finishing lunch, the curator walked past with the film crew. They were holding take-out. I ran after him, waving my arms and yelling, "Bruce! Bruce!" He didn't notice me. I followed the group into a bookstore, and overheard one of the crew saying she wanted to buy something, and the group stopped. I caught up to the curator, who was staring at me with an open mouth, and said:

"Okay, I have to ask you this even though I know what the answer is going to be. Jon told me to talk to you... I was able to change my schedule around and now I can fit the Panama course into my schedule. I know you said you only wanted 6 people, but I would really, really like to go and Jon said he was fine with an extra person going if it was okay with you."

The curator glared at me like he couldn't believe I had actually just sprinted after him. He looked slightly impressed and entirely horrified. "Uhhhhhhhhhhh...Why do you want to go?"

"Because it looks amazing!"

"Okay. When do you need to know by?"

"Umm...Midnight."

He blinked and twitched for a while, so I blurted out, "I don't need funding!" Except that I do need funding. I really, really do. I mentally bitch-slapped myself.

He looked at me and and said, "Ahh. You don't? Yeah, why not? We'll just wing it. We'll have to rent an extra vehicle, but I thought we might have to do that anyway. Just tell Jon to add you."

I squealed, did a little dance and said, "Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou! Oh, I would totally hug you, but - you're carrying stuff."

"Hahaha, all right. You're welcome."

10) I'm going to Panama! I'm going to Panama! And today he came into Alex's office and told me he doesn't want to discriminate against me because, well, because I'm a seventh wheel, so if I work for him he'll cover my plane ticket. Score!

That really wasn't that brief, was it? Oh well.

]]> =StringOfLights I'm MIA http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/16299517/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/16299517/ Mon, 07 Jan 2008 11:19:07 PST
1) My aunt learned the meds controlling her rare abdominal cancer have stopped working. She recently had 1/3 of her liver removed.

2) My dad's stepmother was diagnosed with uterine cancer and had an emergency hysterectomy. This is further complicated by the fact that my father does not get along with her, but she's the closest thing he has left to a parent. Talk about family issues.

3) My little cousin lost 30 lbs, which is a lot for a 10-year-old. He ended up in the ICU, where we learned he has juvenile diabetes. He had absolutely no genetic predisposition.

4) My mother's entire family came down from Ohio to spend a week with us. That's 17 people in all, shlepping around in a crazy caravan of cars and eating around giant tables. Oh, and playing cards. All the time. Hearts and euchre. Yeah.

The middle of December was the first time since Thanksgiving that I haven't had a relative in the hospital. It's been chaotic; I'll be catching up slowly. I'm absolutely drained, mentally and physically.

Some good news: I finally ordered a new laptop! No more stealing Alex's computer. It's a Toshiba Portege M700 Tablet PC, custom built to include: an upgraded IntelÂ® Core 2 Duo Processor (2.20GHz, 4MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB), 2048MB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM (1024MBx2), 160GB HDD (5400rpm, Serial-ATA), and BluetoothÂ® Version 2.0 +EDR. I'm so excited! I really went all out on this. I'm so excited at the idea of editing photos by drawing directly on the screen. I should have it sometime in the next two weeks, hopefully sooner rather than later!

AND I officially switched from a BA to a BS in Environmental Science because I took calc and they're no longer punishing me. Well, they're still punishing me: I have to take Calc 2 this semester... at 8:30 in the morning. I also officially added Zoology as a minor! I'm also looking at doing a study abroad over the summer, sort of my last hurrah.

That about covers things!

]]> =StringOfLights guesswhatguesswhatguesswhat!!!! http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/15881819/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/15881819/ Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:29:07 PST
However:

I GOT AN A IN CALCULUS. 405.7/450 points = 90.2%... I made it by 5.7 points.

WAAAAAAAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOOO

Take that, 6th grade math teacher who told me I was dumb!

Okay, so it's not official yet, but my grades for exams and stuff (homework, quizzes, online homework, etc.) throughout the semester are posted online. Some stuff was missing when I added it up yesterday, including the free response portion of the last exam I took. I felt like I did poorly on it, but I actually ended up getting a 74/80. Not quite sure how that happened.

I had figured I could miss 5 questions on the final and still get an A. When I got home the key had already been posted online, so I made Alex grade it while I tried not to pee in my pants. I missed 6 problems. We graded it again. Still 6 problems. Graded it again. Still 6 problems.

I went back and checked my grades, and the TA had added the missing stuff. It boosted my grade about 10 points, which means I GOT THE A!!! WEEEEEEEEE

]]> =StringOfLights Here It Goes Again http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/15292748/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/15292748/ Tue, 30 Oct 2007 19:57:49 PDT
I've been working for Alex for a year and a half, helping him describe a new genus and species of an extinct line of crocodilians. It's cool stuff, and I've had fun. I've travelled to three states with him to look at specimens, take photos and measurements, and code characters in a matrix to do a phylogenetic analysis to see how this new croc is related to other members of its family. I've helped define some of those characters, or offer backup opinion on what he shows me. I've tried to make ecological inferences, although that's pretty difficult with the specimen. I've basically had a hand in everything except actually writing the damn paper (but I've edited it). I've done all his photography, and I fleshed out the skull and drew a reconstruction of the croc. I've translated scientific literature from Spanish, and abstracts and small excerpts in Portuguese, French, and Italian. I dug through a book with Latin names to come up with a species name (after Alex refused to name it tipperi).

People have done a lot less and still ended up authors on a paper.

I've been paranoid about this. Maybe I knew it was coming, or maybe I'm jaded enough these days that it's second nature, but I've been insisting on credit from the beginning. At the very least my work merits an acknowledgement at the end of the paper, which is customary when someone offers cursory input. A few months ago a museum staff member person who is very sweet and kind mentioned that I've done enough to be third author on the paper, after Alex (first author) and his advisor (second author). Alex said he'd talk to his advisor. I bugged him about it, but kept pushing it off. He finally brought it up today. Know what his advisor said?

NO. And not just, "Ehhhh.... no." According to the advisor, there are two possible scenarios:

1) I did absolutely no original research at all whatsoever in any capacity, and therefore will be acknowledged in the acknowledgements at the end of the paper and be damn grateful for it because I am more or less an inanimate object who holds things for Alex while he does science.
2) I did do original research, in which case I did Alex's work, and he is deep shit because this is part of his PhD dissertation.

There's no in-between. Nothing, no gray area. Either I did too much work or none at all. There's another pervasive possibility in there: I'm dating Alex and am trying to weasel my way in. The advisor actually said that. Right, and I'm dating a grad student because I'm a gold digger.

Okay, you know what - he wants to credit Alex and Alex alone (and himself, of course), that's fine. But you know what else he's considering? Putting a couple people on as authors for "political reasons" (his words). You know, like the guy who got them into the mine in Colombia where they found the fossil. This guy's never even seen the prepped-out skull, let alone done any work on it. He knows nothing about it. Hasn't seen the manuscript, either.

I am about ready to put my fist through a wall. Right when things get better, they fall apart. A two-minute conversation reduced my efforts over the past 18 months to nothing. ItÂs unbelievable.

]]> =StringOfLights Fossils and Existential Crises http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/15066981/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/15066981/ Mon, 15 Oct 2007 00:20:24 PDT
Now it's three years later and I'm still involved, despite some circumstances that should have pushed me away a long time ago. When my favorite professor left I was kind of ignored (I think intentionally) by other museum staff, so I went to work for Alex because the kid needed it. Now things are looking up, I've gotten some credit for work I've done, and I'm working my way up to a legitimate presence in the museum. Relatively speaking. After the conference I'll be screen washing fossils for 7-10 hours a week, with a decent hourly salary. I'm lucky to have landed that, which was really a very nice person recommending me, although it's possible it's because I keep showing up in her lab looking for something to do. Onward and upward as history repeats itself.

Maybe the bad times are there to remind how good the good times really are?

This next week could change my life completely. I'm at the point where I need to decide if I want to pursue this for my career. If I do, I need to start looking for graduate advisors. In a perfect world I would work with the prof who got me started in the first place. He's an amazing paleontologist, functional morphologist, and the best bio teacher I know, and I want to be good at all of those. That's a long shot.

I've always been environmentally conscious, but the few dedicated enviro sci classes have kind of bored me. I don't like getting mired down in loopholes and lobbyists and endless policy papers, and that's what seems to happen over and over again. I like sitting and pondering what it means to be looking at an animal that lived millions of years ago. I like reconstructing how and where it lived, what it ate, and how it evolved. It's fun and profound at the same time. It's also very important to me to teach, and paleontology needs to be an integral part of any bio course. Nothing in biology makes sense without a temporal context. Why do we have five fingers? Two bones in our forearm?

But do I want to do that for the rest of my life? My roommate already told me she thinks I should do "something more useful". "Useful"? Paleontology is essential to understanding life, to understanding our place in time and space. It's essential to know why things died out or why they didn't. Want to know what happens during rapid global warming? Check out the Paleocene-Eocene boundary and the extinction associated with it. And how fast is "fast"? People try to counter global warming today by saying that the earth goes through natural warming and cooling events. Yes, it does. Very rapid climate change is 50,000 years. Fossils helped us understand that continents drift. Is it useful to know why earthquakes occur? How did our eyes evolve? Where did our species come from? There are so many questions to be answered, and half the time we don't even know what we're asking.

Paleontologists can travel the world, and do some good in it. I know people who go to South America to look for fossils and then spend a few weeks at a camp for children with diabetes. Or they help set up education programs where they're working. Or they teach a great class, and inspire someone to go do something bigger and better than they could have done themselves. Or they promote eco-tourism and bring money and conservation to impoverished areas. Of course, this doesn't happen every day, but it happens.

I would have to justify the utility of paleontology for the rest of my career. I'd have to be very competitive to make an impact. It's a pretty tight field, and I'm worried I don't have the drive to out-compete the next guy. Does that mean I'm in the wrong field? I don't know. But I'm guessing I'll find out pretty soon.

]]> =StringOfLights Going South on Main Street http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/14562900/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/14562900/ Sun, 09 Sep 2007 14:37:19 PDT
Game days in my town are insane. The town is flooded by half-drunk alumni and completely drunk college students. The alumni come in droves of RVs that choke the campus. These people step off the sidewalk into the street without looking, park anywhere that doesn't have a NO PARKING sign (think front yards and hedges here, not parking lots), shove you out of line at the store, and sit through green lights on busy streets. They think they own the town, and the university lets them as long as they donate enough money to the football program.

I've started treating game days like hurricanes. I make sure I have enough food and water to last several days, fill my car up with gas, and hunker down till the storm blows over. Or I get the hell out of town.

Yesterday was a relatively quiet game day, only a Category 1 or 2 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, meaning there was no real damage to building structures, although there was still damage to unanchored mobile homes, shrubbery, and trees. Alex and I went to a nice out-of-the-way pizza place, then back to his apartment. I was making him switch out the CDs in his car for the first time since the beginning of summer.

There are dozens of feral cats around his building, where they live and breed because people feed them. When we were leaving I noticed there were no cats around. Alex shrugged and said, "Maybe it's an omen."

Once we were in the car I said, "Don't go right, you'll hit all the game day traffic."

"Well what do you want me to do?" Alex asked.

"Let's go South on Main Street!" I suggested as I put the All-American Rejects into the CD player. Alex turned on Main Street and we went south until it ended at an intersection.

"Which way?" Alex asked. I told him to go right.

We did, and we drove through pastoral farmland and cows until we hit the next town over. Florida is filled with sleepy little towns that time and the interstate forgot, which makes road trip so much fun. We turned right and drove through more farmland and cows until we hit another tiny town. "Too bad we don't have a map," I remarked.

"I think there's one in the glove compartment," Alex said, and I began rummaging through it. There was indeed a map there. I opened it up and traced my finger along my route. It took me a while to find where we were, mostly because we were pretty damn far from where we started.

"Holy shit," I said.

"What?"

"Nothing." I quickly folded the map back up. Alex looked slightly terrified, but we kept chugging along, and pretty soon the road ended at an intersection with a huge road. A highway by comparison, in fact.

"Now which way?" Alex asked. With lots of uhms and erms, I flipped the map open and tried to figure out how to get us less far from home. "There's a car coming behind us," Alex said, "You have to decide in about five...four...three..."

"Right!" I said, "Turn right!" Alex turned. I had no idea which way to go, but hell, I had a fifty-fifty shot.

Soon enough we came to another little town (the Dollar General was having a sale!). This town was big enough to have its own stoplight, which of course was red. We sat awkwardly at the intersection, which had a big sign showing the distances to the nearest towns.

"Now which way?" Alex asked again. Then he saw the sign. "WE'RE WHERE?!" he cried. We were 30 miles from the west coast of Florida.

I winced. "We've come this far, right Alex?" I said, not knowing what else to say or do. He shrugged and turned left: towards the coast. The CD was now looping, so I took it out and put in OK Go.

As his little Civic rolled along I looked at him and said, "How did we end up here?"

"You wanted to go South on Main Street. And now we're almost at the beach."

"Oh, right. Well, we avoided game day traffic, right?"

The farmland gave way to pine scrub, with turnoff after turnoff for various preserves and parks. Dead ahead I could see what looked like a big, thick branch stretched across the road. Alex and I strained to see what it was, and as we got closer I realized it was a snake. A rattlesnake, dead in the road. Alex centered his car in the lane and barely missed rolling over it. The snake was as long as the axle of his car.

"That's so sad," we both said to each other. "It probably crawled onto the road to get warm," I added. The poor snake. "I've never seen a snattlerake before... ]]> =StringOfLights Earthquakes and Elvis http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/14274641/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/14274641/ Tue, 21 Aug 2007 15:24:55 PDT Let's wok/ Eveybody let's wok/ Eveybody inna-whole-bale-bok/Dancin' oo-ahh-bale-bouse-wok. Add that to a bunch of drunk baby boomers dancing like there's no tomorrow, and you get a rocking good time.

Alex and I didn't pay too much attention to Elvis, though, because we were too busy staring at our friend Dana, who just returned from Ica, Peru.

Unless you've been living under a rock (Lari's dream home, I know), you've heard about the earthquake in Peru. He's back and unharmed, mostly due to a stroke of luck.

Dana is a paleontologist who was working in Peru. He was in Ica to meet with a man about a fossil. A megalodon tooth, actually. Upon arriving in Ica he learned that the man wasn't home, but had travelled to Lima. Rather than wait for the man to return, Dana set off for Lima ahead of schedule somewhere around noon.

Dana and the other paleontologists he was travelling with had settled into their hotel in Lima and had sat down to have a cold beer when the earthquake hit. The table started vibrating, and everyone looked at each other in shock. They were on the fourth floor of their hotel when it started shaking. Dana says it sounded like a huge truck in low gear, just a huge, grumbling sound.

Once they realized what was happening, they ran downstairs and out into the road, just in time to watch plaster start crumbling off the hotel. The street was undulating in huge waves, and people were running outside and shrieking. A huge crack snaked up the side of the hotel, to the side of the window in Dana's hotel room. The quake went on for about two minutes. It hit Lima at about a 6.0 on the Richter scale.

Dana and his group lucked out. Had they stayed in Ica, which is much closer to the epicenter of the quake, they would have been stuck. It hit at an 8.0 there, more than 900 times stronger than in Lima. Government facilities all but shut down, and parts of the Pan-American Highway dropped 3 meters, making it impassable. They would have had no way to fly out of Ica and no way to contact anyone.

Luckily, they left Ica about 5 hours before the quake. The hotel was apparently safe enough to stay in, and went to dinner amid the aftershocks. We received an email from Dana the day after. The first line said "We are all alive." They were able to fly out a day after that, and Dana returned in time to make the Elvis concert. Talk about a close call, huh?

_______________________________________

PS again - I've never done this before (it's not like anyone cool reads my journals anyway

), but I promised ~Shadyufo I'd spread the feature lovin' around...

The first ten people who reply to this journal and tell me that they want a spot will have me go through their gallery and pick three deviations, which in turn will be featured in this journal.

The catch is that to qualify, you MUST post a similar journal, this gives us an opportunity to really appreciate and support this lovely artistic global community we've got going on here.

If ten people don't respond to this journal, I will cry. A lot.

And I'll just feature Lari ten times.

Features:
1) =Tar-Vanimelde (or your name here)
2) =Tar-Vanimelde (or your name here)
3) =Tar-Vanimelde (or your name here)
4) =Tar-Vanimelde (or your name here)
5) =Tar-Vanimelde (or your name here)
6) =Tar-Vanimelde (or your name here)
7) =Tar-Vanimelde (or your name here)
8) *Osa-Art-Farm

<... ]]> =StringOfLights Re-acclimation http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/14146489/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/14146489/ Mon, 13 Aug 2007 09:31:22 PDT
I came home to find my power surging strangely. It's seriously like a poltergeist moved in while I was away. The lights randomly flash and dim, some lights go on and off for no reason, and my TV makes strange whirring noises at odd hours of the night. My electric bill doubled from June to July, which makes no sense because no one was there.

I called the utilities company, and they were kind enough to take my call just before the hold message drove me insane: "We thank you for your patience during this, the busiest time of the year. From July somethingth to August somethingth, we will be extending our office hours as we welcome back more than 15,000 new students!"

I sat there gritting my teeth as the woman's gooey voice repeated this ad nauseum, although I always lost it towards the end of her diatribe, because HOW CAN YOU WELCOME BACK NEW STUDENTS? THEY'RE NEW!

The nice electric company man told me it's possible they've been misreading my meter, and my bill was supposed to be higher in June, but there's no way to check because it that involve them going back in time. That's actually what he told me. So basically, barring time travel, they can say whatever the hell they want and I have no way to verify it.

I drove down to see my parents, where there's a lovely ocean breeze and no poltergeist. If I had been worried about having withdrawals from the shocking lack of sheep in Florida, my harried nerves were assuaged, because I was greeted at the door by two little lambs. Except they barked.

You see, normally I shear the dogs at the beginning of each summer. Terriers don't have fur, they have hair, so there's no calming their coats, just staving off the influx of wool till the cooler months. They're like Chia pets, except they bark and poop and stuff.

My mother did not shear them, and as such they are as wooly as ever. Honey, the Westie, usually looks like an ottoman when her hair gets longer, but she's way past the ottoman stage. I think the winter she spent in Gainesville made her undercoat grow in with a vengeance, because I have never seen such a wooly Westie.

She now looks like a combed sheepskin. In fact, when she's lying down, the only way you can tell she's not a rug is by her pink ears, coal-black nose, and little pads on her feet. And now even the ears are being swallowed up by the wool.

Tipper is less refined. She actually just looks like a miniature sheep. Her hair is in those thick, poofy curls, a side effect of the Florida humidity. I can totally relate to that. Her face is a generic ovaloid shape that looks vaguely canine. Apparently my sister tried to comb the little dog, because she has a 'fro. A full-body 'fro.

I'm hesitant to shear them now, though the idea of spinning my own yarn sounds pretty nifty. I just don't think they'll be wooly enough by the time it cools down. It's happened before and I've ended up with dogs that have to sleep on a heating pad or they'll shiver all night.

I may just trim them up myself, because I want people to know my Westie has legs and I'm not just dragging her around outside on her potbelly.

Other than that, I just have to figure out why the university has a hold on my records without them returning my calls, prepare for the classes I canÂt register for, fix my poltergeist-broken internet connection, and take care of the eye infection Honey acquired while I was away. Oh, and exorcise the poltergeist.

PS y'all - I've never done this before (it's not like anyone cool reads my journals anyway

), but I promised I'd spread the feature lovin' around...

The first ten people who reply to this journal and tell me that they want a spot will have me go through their gallery and pick three deviations, which in turn will be featured in this journal.

The catch is that to qualify, you MUST post a similar journal, this gives us an opportunity to really appreciate and support this lovely artistic global community we've got going on here.

If ten people don't respond to this journal, I will cry. A lot.

And I'll just feature Lari ten times.

Features:
1) =Tar-Vanimelde (or your name here)
2) =Tar-Vanimelde (or your name here)
3) =Tar-Vanimelde (or your name here)
4) =http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/14008993/ Fri, 03 Aug 2007 23:37:01 PDT
I think it would be appropriate to do a brief recap (relatively speaking) of the trip.

People visited/imposed upon:
- =Tar-Vanimelde
- My Aussie
- My friend Larisa

Places visited (probably not all-inclusive):
- Townsville/Magnetic Island and surrounding areas
- Kelso Reef in the Great Barrier Reef
- Paluma, including the rainforest and not the rainforest
- Brisbane
- Beerwah, including the Australia Zoo
- Sydney, including climbing the Harbour Bridge and a play at the Opera House
- Dunedin
- The Otago Peninsula, including the Royal Albatross Colony, Penguin Place, Glenfalloch, and Larnach Castle
- The Southern Scenic Route, including Curio Bay, Slope Point, Invercargill, Fortrose, McCraken's Rest, and some nice lady's house where we asked for directions
- Te Anau, including glowworm caves
- Milford Sound/Fiordland National Park
- Queenstown
- Pukerangi and the Oteiri Gorge. That's right, I went to Pukerangi.

Notable wildlife seen (also not all-inclusive):
- Sulfur-crested cockatoos and some other kind
- Lorikeets
- Echidnas (twice!)
- Laughing kookaburras
- Blue-wing kookaburras
- Sea turtles
- Gigantic sea cucumbers
- I found Nemo
- Giant clams
- Comb jellies
- Wittle baby parrotfish
- Rock wallabies
- Possums (Australidelphians, not Ameridelphians)
- Frangipani, which smells nice
- Kites
- Huge geckos!
- White ants in my pants. Literally.
- Green ants
- Myna birds
- Little blue penguins
- Yellow-eyed penguins
- A fiordland crested penguin
- Keas (twice!)
- New Zealand fur seals
- New Zealand sea lions
- Glowworms
- Royal albatrosses

]]> =StringOfLights You know what's crazy? http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/13727398/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/13727398/ Sun, 29 Jul 2007 17:42:27 PDT
Oh, and I SAW AN ECHIDNA!

Edit (16 July):
Two echidnas!

Edit (30 July):
And penguins! And royal albatrosses! And beaches with black sand and fiords and mountains and lakes. And Lari!

]]> =StringOfLights Livin' it up Down Under http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/13610747/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/13610747/ Wed, 04 Jul 2007 17:47:11 PDT
I'm psyched and surprised and still don't believe I'm going. I'm also a little overwhelmed with packing right now, so I'll be MIA for the remainder of my time in the US and probably most of the time I'm gone. I've got to set Alex up with my dogs and new turtle (thanks a bunch, little sister) and make sure everything's in order for my roommate to move back in.

Since I'm going just about as far as one can go without leaving the planet, I've splurged on a new 4 gig compact flash and a tripod that weighs less than a pound. It's not the sturdiest thing out there but I know I'll have no problem carrying it around, and it has a handy quick-release. If I have to toss it along the way, no biggie. I wish I had an extra $1000 to go for an awesome lens, but if I did, I wouldn't be going. Oh, I also invested in some solid clothespins to securely attach my shirt to my trousers and my pant legs to my socks - because I'm going to be upside, you see. One can never be too careful.

]]> =StringOfLights The Nature of Canines http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/13375213/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/13375213/ Sat, 16 Jun 2007 23:49:26 PDT
I've often wondered why it is that humans bond so strongly with dogs. The answer is simple: it's how we evolved. Sometime between 15,000 and 100,000 years ago, our ancestors domesticated our dogs' ancestors. The relationship was mutually symbiotic. Humans had dogs for companionship, protection, and help hunting and herding. Dogs received food, a warm bed at night, and maybe a nice chin scratch or belly rub. Who knows?

Dogs today still help humans in much the same way, with similar benefits, only we've honed the process by selectively breeding for traits. We've created hundreds -- if not thousands -- of breeds of every shape and size, for every job imaginable. We've also honed our skills in caring for our dogs. We bathe and groom them, feed them gourmet treats, and take them to doggie daycare. A lot of it is for the dogs, but most of it is for us, to feel better about the role we play in our dogs' lives, and repay them for they joy they bring us.

The novelty of owning a dog has never worn off for me. I adore my 14-year-old fox terrier today as much as I did when I first saw her. She's going deaf and blind (but still plays fetch, oddly enough) and isn't the sprightly puppy she was when I was seven, but there is nothing more rewarding than having an old dog curl up next to me and take an afternoon nap, snoring like an old man.

My Westie is amazingly dumb, but she's charmed and endeared herself to people for her all nine years of life. We took Honey home after she came skidding around a corner behind the rest of her littermates and peed on the floor. Then we stopped at a friend's house on the way home with her and she peed on the floor there. The friend bought a Westie the next day.

The dynamics between the two dogs are changing drastically as they age. Honey is heartbroken that Tipper won't chase her around anymore. She cannot get enough attention from her older pal. They've started curling up together more often, just a big fuzzy pile of dog. That is, until Honey rips a fart and sends Tipper off running in desperate need of a long drink of water.

Tipper is possessive of her food, and Honey eats everything she can stomach (and a lot she can't). The result is that Honey ends up locked in a small room to eat. Several weeks ago Tipper choked a little while eating. Nothing like Honey or Lari choke, just a little cough and she was done. I was sitting with Honey when it happened, and she stopped dead and looked at Tipper. Tipp coughed again, and Honey took off towards Tipp at full speed. She stopped a couple feet away from Tipper's bowl and started at her with eyes wide and ears pointed. The poor Westie was scared out of her mind that something awful was happening to her better half. Tipper looked up at Honey, glared, and growled. That lack of display of affection convinced Honey that Tipper was, in fact, fine. She breathed a sigh of relief and trotted off.

So not everything changes.

Today I drove the 300 miles from my house to my parents' house. The dogs ride shotgun. They usually curl up together on the seat, although after a while Tipper kicks Honey off the seat and Honey sleeps on the floor. They were still laying side-by-side when Tipper started sniffing the way she does when her sinuses bother her (yes, my dog has allergies just like me). Honey woke up and touched her nose gently to Tipper's muzzle, then set her head in Tipper's lap and fell asleep with her head pressed against Tipper's chest.

Honey may not be the brightest crayon in the box, but she knows Tipper is old, and she cannot spend enough time with her. The dog's devotion and loyalty is astounding.

With hearts so pure and intentions so innocent, how can anyone abuse a dog? How can they exploit their character? I can't fathom why.

Despite my love for dogs, I don't believe in animal rights; I believe in animal welfare. By studying philosophy, I've found that I believe my dogs are more than entitled to the love and care I show them, but I'm not lobbying for their right to vote, either. They're not human. That's a good thing.

ThereÂs no denying we love our dogs. We love them because they make us laugh, love life, and live longer. They keep our priorities in line and remind us that sometimes a belly rub really does make things all better. They lick tears off our faces and curl up with us when we're cold. We love them becaus... ]]> =StringOfLights Silly Westie http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/13284397/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/13284397/ Sat, 09 Jun 2007 23:38:56 PDT
Like all good stories, it all started with a haircut. Honey, my little Westie, recently got the hair on her face and ears trimmed up; she had started to look like the offspring of an ottoman and a Swiffer duster. The dog squirms like nothing I've ever seen before, so it was a wonder she let me go near her with scissors. She tolerated this primping better than usual, probably because it was making it harder for her to see.

Despite the drastic improvement in her appearance, Honey still looked like she was on the wrong end of a run-in with a lawnmower. I definitely missed little tufts of hair here and there.

Today =Tar-Vanimelde was over causing trouble, like we do, when I pointed out the spots I'd missed on her face. Naturally, that bugged the ever-loving crap out of Lari. She grabbed scissors and cleaned up Honey's ear, then we noticed we'd missed a clump near her eyebrows, so Lari shaped that. Honey finally wriggled away, right as Lari decided Honey's chin needed a trimming.

There was no way Honey was coming back for more preening. Knowing the key to Honey's heart is through her potbelly, Lari cheerfully called, "Cookie?" Honey cocked her head to the side. "Cookie?" Lari reated. Sha-zam! The dog went ballistic. I grabbed a dog treat, which measures about 2.5 inches by 1 inch, and tossed it to Lari. Honey lunged for the treat and inhaled it -- literally.

I knew she was choking because she opened her jaw so oddly, it was obvious she couldn't breathe. I grabbed her, and her belly was rock hard from the gagging. Her hardest coughing couldnÂt dislodge the obstruction. Watching my dog choke was one of those things that happened incredibly fast, but every second felt like a minute. Could a dog die from choking on a dog biscuit? Was the biscuit too far down for her to clear it herself? How long could she go without breathing? What could I do to help her?

I set her on the floor, wrapped my hands around her abdomen right under her ribcage, and gave a quick, hard squeeze. Because her stomach was so tense, it felt like the squeeze didn't do anything. I was ready to stick my fingers down her throat to get the obstruction, but no sooner had I released my grip on her potbelly then I saw the biscuit fly out of her mouth.

Honey coughed a little, then barfed. She kept gagging, but now I could hear her breathing. "Where's the treat? Where is it?" I said.

"It's still in her mouth, isn't it?" Lari said. But I had seen it go flying. I swung around and found it on the floor. It was completely whole. I had about two solid seconds to gawk before Honey ran over and ate again. No hard feelings, eh Honey? What else could I do but laugh?

]]> =StringOfLights Florida's Chupacabra http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/13094553/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/13094553/ Fri, 25 May 2007 22:24:51 PDT
Then I noticed the duck had no head. Thoughts of a chupacabra came to mind as I stared morbidly. Then I saw eyes. Huge, black, round eyes. A headless duck with eyes? Then I saw the big, gaping mouth, the warty back, and the fat limbs. It was a cane toad. A cane toad the size of a duck.

In the 1930s, some bright soul decided to introduce Bufo marinus to agricultural areas, specifically to control the cane beetle. The toads were introduced to the U.S., Caribbean, Australia, and even southeast Asia. They are native to the Central and South American rain forests, where they eat bugs to grow big and fat - making them the biggest, fattest toad in the world.

Great idea, right? Well, it turns out that cane toads don't really hop all that well. They're too big, and cane beetles fly and live higher than the toads are willing to go for a meal. Instead, these toads feast on everything from other insects and toads to rodents and small birds.

The toad also secretes a milky white poison from parotid glands on its neck, right behind the shoulders. One lick and you'll croak: bufotoxin can cause skin and eye irritation, vomiting, diarrhea, seizures, and convulsions. Cane toads have killed countless numbers of animals, including dogs, cats, raccoons, snakes, alligators, and crocodiles. Every stage of the toad's life cycle is poisonous, and they're prolific breeders, with reports of females laying upwards of 50,000 eggs. Tragically, cane toads have been linked to human deaths in Southeast Asia when people misidentified the strings of slimy eggs and accidentally cooked them in a stew.

I have been to the vet more times than I can count. The first time we had no idea what was going on. The second, my dad let Tipper get a toad because didn't listen to me say it was toxic. We started walking the dogs cautiously at night, then they rooted out toads during the day. I've found that if I rinse the dog's mouth out right away and massage her gums with a damp rag, I can usually take care of the problem. As far as they're concerned, a cane toad is a blubbery ball that bounces itself. Now we've freaked out enough times that they don't lunge for them too often.

Before last night I hadn't seen a cane toad this season, and about a minute before I saw the behemoth I thought to myself, "You know, this drought may have staved off the cane toads this year." Yeah right. I stared in disbelief at the massive toad in the grass, and then watched as it turned and clumsily hopped off into the darkness.

]]> =StringOfLights Curious Incident http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/13019399/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/13019399/ Sat, 19 May 2007 23:02:29 PDT
But that's not what I want to talk about.

Tonight I let my little dogs outside for a walk before bedtime. I have two terriers, a wire fox terrier named Tipper and a Westie named Honey. I had nothing to do with naming the dog Honey, but it fits her personality: it's sweet and stupid. And short.

Tipper is fourteen, has cataracts and is deaf, but she still plays fetch, swims, and goes on 2 mile walks with my mother. She's smart as a whip (is that an expression?) and absolutely loves life. Honey possesses the very same verve -- after all, it is the terrier way -- but she is dumb as a post. She was the runt of her litter, so she's bowlegged, has a crooked tail, and sports a fantastic potbelly even if you can see her ribs. Although she's nine, I've still been unable to teach her to sit. The one thing she always does for me is come running (thrilled, I might add) when I call or whistle. But only to me.

We had just come home from a graduation party, and I was dressed to the nines in nice slacks and a sweater. Because my dogs follow me and my parents' neighborhood isn't crowded, I let the dogs out without leashes. They live on a small, quiet road, and there is a slightly busier road running along the side of the house. We were ambling down the sidewalk, walking away from the main road, when Honey bolted. She shot towards the street at full speed just as cars were driving by from opposite directions. Honey only does this when she sees something she wants to chase; it's usually a cat, but she'll chase squirrels or birds on occasion. Never has she taken off like this, though.

I panicked. I saw my dumb little dog running at full speed towards a road with cars, probably following her instincts and chasing something with no regard for the rubber and steel monsters that wouldn't see her until it was too late -- and it would be my fault. I shrieked, "HONEY! STOP! HONEEEY!" with a pitch and timbre I didn't know existed, and took off after her.

Well, when this little dog runs her fastest, she's pretty dadgum fast. I sprinted after her. To my relief, she turned the corner to avoid the road. Instead ran along the side of the house, where we have a large hedge. As soon as I went around the corner, I accelerated to what is probably the absolute fastest I can humanly run, and I caught up with her. I have no idea how, because she was flying.

To my surprise, the little booger did a u-turn around the hedge into the yard. She skidded to a halt and flattened herself on the ground. I flipped around, now yelling in the angriest voice I could muster, "Honey! You come here RIGHT NOW!" She looked at me with her big brown eyes, her tail between her legs, and her ears flat against her head. That was when I realized the dog hadn't chased anything. In fact, she was actually terrified. "Come on," I repeated, and Honey stood up, quaking.

Then she sniffed her butt, and I realized what had panicked her.

She had farted.

Yes, my dog ripped a fart that was apparently so terrifying that she took off and ran several hundred yards as fast as her little legs could carry her. I mean, she's scared herself with farts before, but never nothing like this. This was beyond absurd.

She followed me back around the house. I leaned over to pat her, and she dropped her head and laid down in submission, still shivering. I petted her and told her she was okay, and she threw herself at me, a wriggling ball of fur. She started to trot back to the house, but there was no way this walk wasn't getting its "happy ending", so I called her back to keep walking.

I turned around and realized Tipper had frozen in the middle of the sidewalk, tail down and ears up. She barely even blinked. Incapable of seeing in the dark, the old gal had no idea what had happened! I walked over and gave her a hug, at which point she relaxed and went about her business.

Honey did an about-face when I called her. She ran out to the grass, squatted, and ran back inside. As soon as we set foot in the house, she farted again.

]]> =StringOfLights Nothing Says Feminism Like a Knit Uterus http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/12915770/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/12915770/ Thu, 10 May 2007 20:15:33 PDT Tar-Vanimelde and I are up to no good. As our last hurrah before she goes travelling the world, we decided to get together and knit nautiloids. Why? Because who wouldn't want a Paleozoic cephalopod? After a night of knitting nautiloids, Lari informed me that I was not allowed to knit my nautiloid without her. I was forced to find an alternate knitting project.

I settled on a pair of twinkletoes for my madre, seeing as Mother's Day is right around the corner. Meanwhile, Lari set about knitting a uterus. We went to the yarn store and picked out some yarn in a great cotton blend for our respective projects, hers in pink and mine in taupe. They had mislabeled the price. Lari let her hormones do the talking and managed to get our yarn for just about half of what it normally costs. Lari looked up the uterus pattern on knitty.com, which incidentally is fantastic. Anyone who knits and wants great contemporary patterns would love this site. Anyway, the pattern calls for size 8 double pointed knitting needles, which Lari doesn't have, so she just used what she had, needles that are probably a size 5. They're a few millimeters smaller, nothing too bad.

Today Lari came over and said, "Which do you want to see first: the tiny uterus or a nautiloid with only two tentacles?" Giddy with excitement, I chose the uterus. She whipped it out of her bag, and -- I never thought I'd say this -- it is just about the cutest thing I have ever seen. It's complete with a cervix and Fallopian tubes. I love it! It's just about actual size, in fact. Or maybe travel size, for those times when you just need to leave your big uterus at home.

Lari also showed off her slightly-demented nautiloid. It's cute as can be, much better than mine, in fact. It just, well, it looks like a deprived snail. They're both mollusks, so at least she wasn't too far off, phylogenetically speaking. Now I can only imagine what mine is going to look like. (Am I allowed to knit it without you, Lari??)

I love the thought of a couch where the decorative pillows include a uterus and a nautiloid! Or a nice stuffed uterus adorning a well-made bed. What could be better than that? However, I am of the opinion that the little uterus is too good to sit at home, PMSing all by its lonesome. I suggested Lari take it with her in her travels, and even let it look out the window on her flights around the world. That way it will be a womb with a view.

]]> =StringOfLights Ash me no questions http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/12893842/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/12893842/ Tue, 08 May 2007 22:32:43 PDT
For the past week or so, every time I've walked outside I think I smell a barbecue. The clouds have been brown and hazy, and the sunsets have been way more colorful than usual. In fact, it looked like LA. I knew there were fires on the Florida-Georgia border, so it wasn't too surprising.

Now the fires are 15-20 miles away, to the north and east of where I live. There were initially two fires, but on Monday night they merged to form a 16,000 acre behemoth of a wildfire. They've been evacuating people from areas nearest the fires, and people are being told to stay indoors with the air conditioning running. As far as anyone can tell, the fire started with a lightning strike in some very dry conditions. It's impossible to contain, so basically they're trying to prevent structures from being torched and letting the fire run its course.

There are more fires south of here, including a 1000-acre fire two counties away, near where my boyfriend's grandparents live.

Today I walked outside and I couldn't see the sky. I can look up and stare at the sun. Little flakes of ash float down like sparse snowflakes. The temperatures never got above the mid-80s, which is very unusual for this time of year; under any other circumstances, I'd turn off the air and open the windows. If I do that now, my house will smell like a charcoal grill for a year.

Get this: they're telling those at risk, like the elderly, children, those with cardiovascular disease, asthma sufferers, and smokers to stay inside. Yes, smokers, stay indoors or you'll ruin your lungs!

I spent most of the day inside, but my eyes and throat burned from the time I spent walking from my car to wherever I was going. Alex is coughing. I haven't seen my roommate, but she has asthma so I'm a little worried. I may just take off and head down south, where hopefully the conditions are a little better.

I haven't been this close to a forest fire since I was at the Biosphere 2 Center and nearby Summerhaven burned about 5 miles away. At night we'd sit on a ridge facing the mountains and watch trees explode. It's pretty intense. It was then hazy and rained ash, but for whatever reason, the conditions were much better they are now. Now people are walking around with surgical masks on.

This is what happens when we suppress natural fires. Pine scrub habitat, which makes up a good part of central Florida, HAS to burn, or the fuel builds up. Couple that with some an extreme drought and you get a very hot, fast-burning forest fire. When the fire burns through the crown of the trees, it destroys the ecosystem instead of helping it. Everyone loses.

When will we learn?

UPDATE Wed. morning: The Santa Fe Swamp fire went from being 35% contained Tuesday morning to 20% contained Tuesday night to 30% contained this morning. Over two-thirds of the swamp has burned, and the fire has spread to about 18,000 acres. Because the fire is in a swamp, it's been difficult to treat. There are over 200 firefighters on the scene, some of whom have been on the scene for over 24 hours. Federal resources have been released and five strike teams from other counties in Florida have been dispatched.

A separate fire started that burned about a thousand acres. That is now 70% contained (as of 8PM last night). Another smaller fire burned but was allowed to run its course.

Current weather conditions are conducive to fires, and the entire state of Florida is under a state of emergency.

The skies here look slightly clearer than yesterday, in that the sky is no longer a solid greenish-brown, but mottled with greenish brown clouds against a brownish-blue sky.

]]> =StringOfLights I'm DONE! http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/12822493/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/12822493/ Wed, 02 May 2007 23:27:56 PDT It was a good day.

The paper I finished was actually 6 questions, and it ended up being 16 pages long. It's for an agricultural and natural resource ethics class, so basically a crash course in philosophy and its application to things like GMOs, pollution laws, sustainability, animal rights/welfare etc. It's stuff that's right up my alley, and I've been enjoying writing for a change. Sometimes you just need to expound, y'all.

Yesterday I was on a roll when for some unknown reason, my laptop crashed. Yes, I got the Blue Screen of Death. Twice. Then I got it up and running, but the mouse didn't work at all. I finally had to use the keyboard alone to get my paper off my defunct laptop so I could finish it on Alex's computer. Of course, this happened a few hours before I was supposed to submit the paper online, and it took me that long just to get my laptop to CTFD.

The website we submit to checks for plagiarism. It's pretty hardcore, I've had some lab reports come back 40% "plagiarized" (because scientific writing is so drab, and there are really only so many ways to describe a protocol...). It checks the submissions against published articles and books, newspapers, websites, and every paper ever submitted to the database. Hell, it probably scans people's brains to see if they've ever thought of what we've written.

Anyway, I did get the paper off my laptop and I tried to submit late-ish, but the stupid website wouldn't let me. I emailed the professor and said I'm an idiot, Murphy's Law had struck again, my laptop imploded, and I missed the deadline. He didn't email me back, which was a little scary, so I went in to talk to him when I dropped off my paper today. The conversation was as follows...

Me: Did you get my email? My laptop crashed. I'm really sorry.
Prof: I know, don't worry about it.
Me: Do you want me to submit my paper still?
Prof: Nope, it's not a problem.
Me: Oh, okay... (grins stupidly) I didn't plagiarize anything.
Prof: (chuckles/wheezes) Yes, I know.

The prof was pretty chill and it all worked out in the end. He was amused, actually. Go figure.

When I got home today, I decided to turn on my laptop, just for kicks.

It works fine. WTF.

]]> =StringOfLights It's the little things in life http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/12760048/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/12760048/ Fri, 27 Apr 2007 21:28:29 PDT According to all sources, my garden's the place to go
Cause tonight for the first time
Just about half-past ten
For the first time in history
It's gonna start raining... lizards!

Isn't that how the lyrics go? Something along those lines. It does indeed rain lizards in my garden! I thought it was a freak occurrence when the little anole landed on my shirt from above, but it's become commonplace.

I think it's because I really don't use pesticides or spray-on fertilizer. I have a bottle of an all-natural pesticide, but the lizards do a better job of keeping everything in check. My garden has become a haven to local herps, and I want to keep it that way.

The lizards fling themselves off the surrounding pines, the roof, and the wall of my neighbor's and my homes. I knew the buggers could jump, but we're talking leaping off hundred-foot pines and a two-story building. I'm so flattered! Now that I have two blueberry bushes with nearly-ripe fruit,
20 tomato plants
and as many basils,
rhubarb,
corn (now 3 feet tall),
beans,
some volunteer mint that I think I planted when I moved in two years ago,
radishes,
carrots,
pumpkin,
watermelon,
and onions,
(not to mention my pentas, lantana, golden shrimp plants, and clematis)
my little back patio area looks like a well-kept jungle. In pots.

The tomatoes have gotten eaten up a little, as have the large-leaf basils, probably because they're milder than most basils and mints. Something was absolutely ravishing my rhubarb, and then was when I brought out the pesticides and doused the attacked leaf. I was so distraught by the thought of a lizard getting a dose of the stuff that I put it away. Once I did, I realized that my squamate friends are so much more effective than chemicals. I haven't noticed any new damage in a while. Not since all the lizards moved in, actually.

I couldn't figure out what had dug the little hole in the radishes till I saw a fat toad curled up one night. She gets a home, and I get bug-free radishes. What a deal!

When I water the plants, lizards soar out from under leaves and look at me sideways till I'm done. There are always about two dozen lazing out in the sun. They love my little "greenhouse" - a metal cart with a clear plastic cover.

The closest thing to a bug in sight are the big, fat bumblebees that zoom in and feast on my flowers. I have no idea how those things stay airborne.

Tonight when I walked outside there was a gorgeous anole stretched out on a trellis, without a care in the world. His eyes were closed and his little feets were hanging off the sides of the wood. I would have taken a photo but... That would mean I'd have to wake him up!

I love sitting out there and watching the lizards scramble up and down the corn stalks and sun themselves on the blueberries. The next time someone dares to ask why I'd plant corn in pots in my tiny backyard, I'm going to tell them the obvious reason: for the lizards.

]]> =StringOfLights :( http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/12723832/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/12723832/ Tue, 24 Apr 2007 21:29:53 PDT Tar-Vanimelde needs a hug... two if you can spare 'em.

]]> =StringOfLights interesting amalgamation http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/12610372/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/12610372/ Sun, 15 Apr 2007 19:15:05 PDT Tar-Vanimelde reporting here from s-o-l's townhouse. i'm not sure why, but she's decided she's going to be feeding me tonight. first was a recipe from her 'the little book of ketchup' book- a scrambled egg dish that was, in her words, interesting. it tasted fine, but was a shocking orange and a little strange of texture. however, the second course, a pesto with angel hair pasta, was lovely. her garden yielded the basil, which is always cool.

she's unlikely to tell you this, so i will on her behalf. jenn recently rearranged her bedroom, swinging the bed around and changing the layout so it's much more navigateable (and yes, zvi, that is now a word). she has a HUGE bed, so it was quite an indeavour. the best bit, though, is the large-bulb christmas light strand that's been zigzagged on the wall above the headboard. very cool (and copying moi, i add- my canopy has christmas lights. i recommend them in a bedroom- it's a very cozy glow, and brighter than one might think. go with a single color, though- white is the obvious choice).

she gave me a gold star, too. i think it's cause i brought 15' of copper wire partially wound on a knitting needle into bubble tea and sat there in the cafe winding it. she took over for a time, and therefore can now truthfully say she's helped make chain mail!

we've now decided that being nude except for socks is only out-weirded by being nude except for sneakers- without socks. and no, this was not by trial and error.

i'll stop graffiti-ing her account now

EDIT: I think I'll go ahead and add onto this. Thanks, Lari, for talking about my bedroom. That's just weird. And I've had strings of lights decorating my house for quite some time now, if the user name ~StringOfLights didn't give it away. The ketchup-egg thing was gross, it was even more disgusting than =freakette's peas in a can ( [link] ). I swear, a few months ago my dog barfed up something that looked exactly like it. And she may have eaten a crayon beforehand. The worst part is, Lari willingly ate all the ketchup-egg I gave her, including a second helping of the stuff. The whole situation is just too bad, because I made awesome thousand island dressing and a killer turkey reuben from that stupid little book.

I had to redeem myself after the Ketchup-Egg Incident (as it shall hereafter be named), otherwise I think I'd be too scared to ever cook again, so I made pesto with basil from my garden. I love how sweet basil, mammoth basil, spicy globe basil, and lettuce leaf basil all have slightly different aromas. Add in some fresh sage, cracked pepper, lime juice, dried Italian herbs (I don't have oregano, rosemary, or thyme just yet), and fresh garlic, and you've got some awesome pesto.

Oh, it wasn't the copper wire that earned Lari her gold star. Lari's just... special.

]]> =StringOfLights Knitting a Möbius Strip http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/12516742/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/12516742/ Sun, 08 Apr 2007 21:01:13 PDT Tar-Vanimelde and I tried to knit a Möbius strip (the umlaut doubles the coolness factor and is thus required). We thought it'd be easy, just knit in the round with a twist. Hahahahahaha. Der. No, no way it'd be that easy.

But we didn't figure that out right away. I'd decided that I wanted a Möbius strip shawl, so I cast on 230 stitches to make a wrap-around, off-the-shoulders shawl. Then I got cold feet (if I messed up after casting on 230 stitches...

), and Lari decided to knit a test Möbius using some hideously ugly burnt umber/slime mold orange yarn. That's right, if burnt umber and a slime mold had a baby, it'd be this yarn. A couple rows into it she pronounced the experiment a success, and I started knitting. Out of sheer macabre determination, Lari opted to continue her ugly Möbius.

After about, oh I don't know, an hour and a half, Lari looked at me and said, "Is this a Möbius strip or just a strip with a twist in it?"

It was a strip with a twist in it. I frogged my shawl. At first we thought Lari had gotten a little excited and twisted the yarn too much, but what if she hadn't? We opted to look it up online using Lari's dial-up, which was installed sometime during the early to mid Cretaceous.

To get the half-twist, one actually has to knit from the bottom and end up with twice as many stitches. Then the Möbius strip grows from the middle. We knit another test strip using the ugly yarn. It's awesome! Unfortunately several factors proved the logistics for making a seamless Möbius shawl really don't work.

Now I'm knitting another attempt at the Möbius shawl, this time just knitting it straight. I'll put the twist in when I attach the two ends. I have to admit, I don't think it's quite as cool as knitting a seamless Möbius shawl, but I'll make do. I'm using a light-orange and peach ribbon yarn, and I have to say, it's kind of ugly.

I like to think of it as a homage to Lari and my first knit Möbius.

Well, my Möbius, and Lari's... orange ugly twisted tube.

]]> =StringOfLights ^_^ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/12136320/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/12136320/ Sat, 10 Mar 2007 20:41:38 PST
I'm in New York as we speak. I spent the day at the American Museum. I got to see the collections. We met up with a grad student here who gave us an AMAZING tour of the collections. I saw more holotypes today than I've seen in my life (holotype: the original specimen from which the description of a new species is made).

A bonus was running into an old prof of mine who now works there. Ironically, he's driving down to FL. He'd said in an email he was leaving as early as possible, but we caught him when he stopped to get a drink out of a water fountain in front of an elevator we were on just as the elevator doors opened. The little bell went "ding!", and he turned around and jumped about a mile. Muahahaha! Just when he thought it was safe!

After gallivanting around the collections and eating some NY pizza (complete with a complimentary rude New Yorker) we explored the exhibits for a while. And by exhibits I mean fossil exhibits. Not that I mind. Besides, I have to give a presentation on early tetrapods in a week, so it was good to see some freaking awesome fossils of them. I can't wait to say, "Since we're talking about tetrapods, I thought I'd head up to the AMNH. You know, just 'cause."

]]> =StringOfLights Off to New York http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/12116154/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/12116154/ Fri, 09 Mar 2007 09:22:28 PST

]]> =StringOfLights I am insane! and other obvious remarks http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/12007736/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/12007736/ Wed, 28 Feb 2007 23:34:22 PST
Actually, I was salivating at the thought of some yummy heirloom tomatoes, so naturally I made it a topic of conversation with almost everyone I talked to. To my utter dismay, most of the people I asked had never had heirloom anything. I'm sorry, but you don't know what a tomato tastes like till you've had an heirloom tomato! I started looking at seeds online, and ended up buying some tomato seeds. Actually, two types of tomatoes. And cucumbers and bell peppers.

Then I realized I needed some gardening supplies, so I headed over to Home Depot to pick up some pots and such. I already had some stuff, as well as some old seeds. While I was there, I noticed they had heirloom seeds, which is awesome (heirloom is en vogue these days). They had heirloom sweet corn. I thought, I love corn, and I've grown it before, so why the heck not? So what if my "backyard" is about 12x10 and most of that is concrete? Bah! I was growing corn.

Let's just say I got a little excited about this whole garden thing. When I got home and inventoried my seed stock, I found I had:
- Heirloom tomatoes (Brandywine, Arkansas Traveler, Yellow Perfection, Nebraska Wedding, and Old German)
- Heirloom cucumber (Lemon)
- Heirloom watermelon (Moon and Stars)
- Pumpkin (Casper)
- Parsnips (for =Tar-Vanimelde)
- Radishes (Cherry Belle)
- Basil (Cinnamon, Spicy Globe, Mammoth, and Heirloom Lettuce Leaf)
- Carrots (Little Finger)
- Heirloom bell pepper (California Wonder)
- Onions (Rare Newburg, Sweet Spanish Yellow Utah Jumbo)
- Heirloom sweet corn (Country Gentleman)

I think that's it. Actually, that's just what I planted. I'll probably plant some spinach in the little bit of ground that I do have. I have other stuff that I'm not planting, mostly non-heirloom varieties that I don't want cross pollinating with the heirloom stuff.

Oh and blueberries! I bought two blueberry bushes at the farmers market!

Today I dragged Lari around Lowe's for an hour so I could use a gift card and ended up with this mini-greenhouse/trolley/shelves thing that's perfect for my little plantings. So what if it's held together with zip ties? I think it's awesome.

I now have easily over a hundred plants, lots of seedlings in little balls of peat. Everything's going to be in pots, because I plan on giving a lot of them away. I have to set up the corn in a grid so it pollinates, so it has to stay in pots. Besides, I know my parents will love them, as will my grandparents and aunts and uncles. One of my professors even asked me for some tomato plants.

I'm excited, and I'm telling people because hopefully that will motivate me not to let the whole thing fry in the Florida sun!

]]> =StringOfLights nerdy nerd nerd nerdy nerd http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/11805684/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/11805684/ Tue, 13 Feb 2007 21:35:54 PST Pachycephalosaurus) on the planet (and =Tar-Vanimelde). Questionable Content, a webcomic, recently started selling a shirt that says "Evolution Kills". On the shirt, it has a lizard-looking tetrapod, a pelycosaur with a big sail on its back, a dinosaur, an Archeopteryx, a chicken, and a delicious roasted chicken [link] . Funny stuff.

Alex looked at it and flipped out. Problem is, pelycosaurs aren't related to dinosaurs. It has to do with fenestrae (or holes) in the skull, blah blah blah. Basically, pelycosaurs (including Dimetrodon) are synapsids, while dinosaurs are diapsids. Pelycosaurs gave rise to mammals.

Of course, once I saw that, I couldn't let them print hundreds of shirts with a pelycosaur and a dinosaur! Oh no. I IMed QCMerch and told them.

me: I apologize for the nerdiness of this, but the "Evolution Kills" t-shirt has a mistake on it. The animal between the little tetrapod and the dinosaur is a pelycosaur, which is a synapsid. Early synapsids gave rise to mammals, and are unrelated to dinosaurs.
Auto response from QCMerch: Hi! You have reached the Questionable Content merchandise query line. I am working and I will answer your question as quickly as possible after you message me. (I may be briefly away from my computer so please be patient.)
QCMerch: hah
QCMerch: i will alert Jeph, but I don't think it will cause a major issue

me: no... I said it was nerdy :-\ other than that, it's an awesome shirt
QCMerch: thanks!
me: no worries!

Quite proud of myself and yet slightly embarrassed at what a nerd I am, I relay the conversation to Lari. Her reaction?

Lari: you ARE a loser
Me: hey, there's no need to confuse people on the point!
Lari: still a loser
Me: OHSHUTUPYOUWOULDHAVEDONETHESAMETHING
Lari: that does NOTHING to help your case!
Me: WELL THAT'S TRUE

]]> =StringOfLights Whew! http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/11780157/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/11780157/ Sun, 11 Feb 2007 23:16:49 PST
I did do some minor editing, but adding the "EDIT: Added frame blah blah blah" on every deviation slowed me down, so oh well.

The advantage to this is that now I have all my uploaded photos saved in a file on my computer, and re-uploading them in the new upload thinger lets me change the size, etc.

It was really nice to go through and see how I've improved over the last year, and every so often I found a decent photo that made me smile. Happy accidents.

I'm so glad I joined dA! I've definitely delved farther into photography than I would have on my own, and the comments and advice I've gotten have really helped.

Seeing the quality of art here sometimes makes me whimper, but I've learned from it. If you'd asked me what an f-stop was a year ago, I may well have told you it was a curse word. Or maybe position on a trombone slide. Or maybe a convenience store chain.

I don't really want to ask people to go through my gallery again, but if anyone is feeling generous... I would greatly appreciate the feedback. Thank you - I want to keep learning!

I've currently hit somewhat of a dry spell, probably because I've gotten so swamped this semester with school and life. It has been a wild ride. I can't wait for another excursion like the Alligator Farm!

]]> =StringOfLights What's going on? http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/11598342/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/11598342/ Sun, 28 Jan 2007 10:46:05 PST

But I'm a little confused... dA is doing some very strange things. I just checked my devwatch, and a bunch of old messages/deviations are back. Somebody cue the Twilight Zone music!

]]> =StringOfLights Conundrum http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/11488425/ http://StringOfLights.deviantart.com/journal/11488425/ Thu, 18 Jan 2007 23:00:23 PST
Most everything looked good, or not too bad, but a few looked either oversaturated or whacked up contrast or just too dadgum dark.

I ran AdobeGamma and did some serious tweaking, but I don't know how much of this is my monitor and how much is the crappy photo printer. I may go somewhere else and print some more, but that's more money and I'm going to end up with superfluous prints.

I need some honest feedback! Do my images appear dark and oversaturated? Is the contrast too high? Are my colors just... off? Am I completely neurotic?

Okay, I know the answer to that last one. I haven't uploaded the photos that definitely looked weird, but I think I'm also talking about [link] and [link]

If there's no problem, I just reset my default settings. Otherwise I'll give this new scheme a try or run Gamma again.

Thank you! Your help is most appreciated!

The good news is that Alex is thrilled with the photos I game him.

]]> =StringOfLights