After a weekend of university-related work and unseasonably great weather in Madison, WI, I have this to report:
1. Rocks are my passion. Their beauty never fails to appeal to the instinct and intellect. *wistful sigh*
2. To help atone for my absence at last night’s Big Easy Rollergirls championship (Ray was sick and also not there, phew), the Lone Sysadmin introduced me to members of the Mad Rollin’ Dolls! This should help clear up the Dairyland – Mad Rollin’ nomenclature confusion: “MRD is made up of 4 regular season bouting teams – the Quad Squad, the Reservoir Dolls, the Unholy Rollers, and the Vaudeville Vixens. The MRD all-star team is the Dairyland Dolls.” They are members of the WFTA as are our Rollergirls, but didn’t know that New Orleans has a team. Never fear, I schooled them and told Anya Knees to get in touch with SmasHer for the purpose of organizing some New Orleans – Madison bouts. “Rollergirl Public Relations” is my middle name! Here I am with some ladies of the Quad Squad and Vaudeville Vixens:
Clockwise from top left: Harlot Bronte, Maitri, Juggernaut, Princess Die, Anya Knees and Joan of Anarchy
Why am I not a rollergirl myself? This has to do with my other middle name of “Klutz.”
3. TSA and the airlines are hellbent on draining the joy out of air travel. Not only do less-than-3oz. bottles of liquid have to be placed in transparent bags and removed from carry-on luggage for inspection, they have to be in precisely 1 quart baggies. (I’ll bet you Glad isn’t making a profit on these particular bags and made a deal with the feds.) To this end, the TSA agent at New Orleans International attempted to stuff the contents of my gallon bag into one 1 quart bag while I, for the first time in my life, did not sermonize on science, volume and spatial relations, and simply enjoyed the show. And don’t get me started on the American Airlines curbside check-in guy who refused to take my bag unless I tipped him. Lesson: I didn’t tip him and my bag made it to Madison and back. So, whatever happened to American high-speed rail? That’s right, only Europe and the ilk host that kind of resource-and-hassle-saving technology. (Incidentally, the dollar is currently 65 cents against the Euro and 50 cents to the British pound. Gak!)
4. New New Orleans just passed the 600 day mark. That’s six times a hundred days.
Would love to know more about the fossil in the right hand rock!
Me, too! Though my first loves, as far as rocks go, are geodes, agates, thundereggs, and septaria.
For obvious reasons, soft tissue preservation, especially in fossils of some age, is extremely rare and quite a find for the paleontologist / fossil collector. What you see is a complete Trachytheuthis libaotica, a Middle to Late Cretaceous squid with preservation of tentacles and intact ink sac. The matrix is limestone and was found in Hajoula, Lebanon.
Actually your calcs on Dollar to the Euro and the pound are wrong, you would need $1.35 to buy a Euro and basically $2.00 to buy one Pound!
My calculations aren’t wrong; I simply use different semantics of value to demonstrate a one-to-one comparison.
I have a driveway full of gravel from a quarry near Ann Arbor – time to fire up the scanner and see if I can’t get more of the various types ID’d.
My son has been doing geology by smashing some of the gravel into little pieces, and thus can tell a few different rocks apart by how they spinter or mush into bits. Ah, to be six.