My New Favorite Xmas Carols

There really aren't any words. Go here, and listen to the music samples. Hopefully...you'll laugh like I did because I cracked up. TONS.

-Erin

Pregnant Fossilized Turtle

Paleontologists from Alberta Canada have discovered a 75 million year old fossil turtle that's pregnant. Apparently the female was found in association with another female's nest, but the eggs were found inside the skeleton and are unusually hard-shelled.

Check out the full article here: Pregnant Fossil Turtle

I've got another office pet: a lovely little female black widow I've nicknamed Angel. Her photo, along with a nifty little orb-weaving spider I discovered in the window of my office are above. :)

Photo of the pregnant turtle fossil is courtesy of scientificblogging.com.

-Erin

Goldilocks and the 18

CONGRATS to the U.S. WOMEN'S SOCCER TEAM!!! They've successfully taken the gold medal! Brazil wasn't an easy team to play against, and it was just about the most defensive game I've seen all year.

Here's my story:
Now...I'd told my boyfriend, everyone at work, our roomate...as many people as I could FIND not to tell me how the game went because I had it TiVO'd at home.

I sit and watch the WHOLE GAME. Not too exciting...though there were some great saves, especially by our goalie Hope Solo.

Pass the first half: 0-0

Into the second half: 0-0

Elbows, knees, bodies flying EVERYWHERE! Best thing: hardly any fouls unless they were absolutely necessarily called. I LOVE ROUGH SOCCER!

87th minute: phone call from my mother.

"Hello mother, what's up?"

Before I get a chance to say anything, especially don't tell me about the game, "Congrats! Your girls did it! Took home the GOLD!"

"DAMN IT!"

So...we sit and watch the rest of the game, which by this time, crunch time, was WAY entertaining.

Carli Lloyd...MAGNIFICANT GOAL...boosh. End of game. And, despite knowing they won, I still jumped up and down, woke up the boyfriend, and probably pissed off the neighbors below us. And, it was the United States official 1,000th gold medal. How cool is that?

My ladies did it! The odds were slightly stacked against them but it was FANTASTIC to watch them drive through everyone and beat them all to the finish line.

Can't wait to see them in more games this September! GO U.S.A.!!!!!

Another Mass Extinction?

That what they're saying. According to U.S. biologists and researchers from the University of California-Berkeley there have been devestating amphibian decline world-wide. This event is caused by a virulent fungus that may be damaging to more than our little slimy, bumpy friends.

Seeing as amphibians have been around for, oh, 250 million years and counting, it's hard to imagine what could wipe them out. Still...hopefully we can find something that will help these fun little animals regain their sticky foothold (sorry for all the descriptiveness...I'm in a mood today lol).

I found this story, and many interesting others, at http://blog.hmns.org/


-Erin

O-lay, o-lay o-lay o-lay...

That's right, you know what's coming up? It's time for the Women's National Team to walk away with an Olympic medal!! Be it gold or silver, it's a HUGE testament as to how well these ladies have done!

From getting a 2-0 wake-up call by Norway in the first game, coming back 4-0 against New Zealand, 1-0 against Canada, and finally clinching the final match against Brazil by beating Japan 4-2, it's off to the finals we merrily skip!

Brazil is a tough team, and though we'll be playing minus Lesli Osborne, Kat Whitehill, and Abby Wambach, this team has just persevered through every trial thrown at them and come out of it on top.

Good luck on Thursday ladies! GO U.S.A.!

As a side note, and there are probably fans out there of this sport (none that read my blog), I watched an Olympic event a couple of days ago that was...strange to me. Border-line ridiculous. 20k Walk.

Now...don't get me wrong, I know that it'd be tough to maintain a fast walking pace for 20k, but come on now. We made an event out of something that defines a pedestrian?! Is there really Olympic Power-Walking?! Get outta here! Grats to Russia for clinching the prestige title of Gold Medal Winner for the 20k Men's Race-walk.

That, to me, is a bit of a silly sport. And yes, being the hypocrite that I am I watched the whole damn thing. 1 hour, 18 minutes of race-walk.

Go U.S.A., no matter what silly gold we're going for! (But especially our soccer stars!)

-Erin

Annonymous Christian Strikes Again

You know what bugs me? The fact that everywhere, and in just about everything concerning prehistoric life, those of the faith seem to desire martyrdom. As I did a pass through our 800 square foot dinosaur museum out here in Colorado, conveniently placed on a hand-on interactive table were a couple booklets called, "Big Daddy?".

The entire booklet can be read here: http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0055/0055_01.asp

Why am I angry you ask? Would it be acceptable for me to go to the Creation Museum, get out a small soapbox and begin speaking on the origin of the earth according to actual scientists? Absolutely not. And, in fact, I disapprove of any person that has the audacity to openly enter a public place and begin ranting to volunteers and workers, or even visitors, about how everyone and everything in the room is incorrect and against God or against evolution.

But...where would we be without confrontation, right? We'd be hopelessly lost in the bliss of understanding...that's where. I've seen this little...trend as it were begin to blatantly make itself known to the general population. Rarely do I see Christian scientific papers published that hold any merrit. Rarely do I have a Christian come and ask me an honest to god (no pun intended) scientific question...and if they do, rarely do they take the time to listen to the answer.

Too often I see little things like this booklet appear in scientific museums as if they sneaked into the exhibit hall on their own. Too often do I take note of Christian "science" groups attacking volunteers and workers at museums (including the one where I work...so I'm not just pulling this information from my bum).

How rude can ya get?! How completely paranoid do you have to be?! Why must Christians be in your face about just letting you know that "hey...by the way, I don't believe in evolution. Just to let you know,"? Can't you just say it like that? Like I say, "hey..you know...I'm not Christian and I don't really believe in your god."

It's not an open friggin invitation for you to walk in and ask me why...it's none of your damn business. A scientific museum isn't an open invitation to come right on in and begin spouting off what people have done wrong because it's against your belief system.

You know what a scientific museum is for? Learning. Learn, and then make an objective decision. But don't come in and do some sneaky (as our president would say) Al-queida shit, planting your tools of terrorism and then scamper off hoping you've just "enlightened" someone to the ways of your religion. You know what? You religious folks have your own museum now...get the hell out of mine.

-Erin *grumpy*

Shit, Fuck, DAMN!

So, as if it couldn't have gotten worse by having Kat Whitehill out from the Olympics from the US Womens Soccer team...one of the leading scorers and probably top players in the WORLD (luckily we had her), Abby Wambach, broke her leg in a friendly against Brazil July 16th and is out of the Olympics.

I love my girls and I hope for a quick recorvery from Abby so she'll be able to get back to the field after the Olympics. I've been a HUGE womens soccer (soccer in general) fan, but none more than when I saw them win the GOLD in the Olympics last year. And almost win the Womens World Cup last year.

For stats on Wambach or any of the other girls that represent the USA (oh, and they're 21-0 right now...woot woot) check out www.ussoccer.com.

All the fans can say now is... shit, fuck, damn. Hopefully the team will still pull through! I have faith in my ladies! Get it done girls!

-Erin

Little Bit of Music and a Whole Lot of Diggin'

So it was a great Thaw weekend! Amazingly enough, Wyoming is even greener than Colorado. This year alone, while conserving water by putting buckets and empty bins and trash cans underneath the drains, my dad and step-mom have collected almost 400 gallons of water. Pretty neat. We had the usual thunderstorms (pic above of some lightning I managed to snap during the Sunday night thunder boomer), but other than that the weather was nice.

I found some nice native tool chips, not quite what I was looking for, but the guy that lives down the way from my dad's place came up and told me about a place he'd scoped out with bones lying in the ground. He'd gotten permission to have them, but didn't really want them since they didn't have an arrowhead in them and weren't mammoth, so he said he'd help me dig them out if I gave them a home. I got out about 20 nice verts in a row after taking pics and measuring them.

At first I wasn't going to excavate since I couldn't get them all out at once, but I took as many as I could when he said he'd over heard that the man that owned the land was going to use this particular spot to store extra rock he would be using for patching holes in the road up to his house. So...unfortunately, some got left behind. Maybe I'll be able to get the rest out later this year or next.

Above are some photos of the trip!

Pic 1: One of the many verts that I discovered at the site.
Pic 2: Koko, my step-mom's dog. The sweetest dog ever that loves to play fetch - but we used all of her sticks to build the fire so she just looked longingly into the flames.
Pic 3: Lightning over the barn where we played music for the locals.
Pic 4: Fire pit in the front yard
Pic 5: My dad (guitar) and uncle (stand up bass) playing away during the gig we played.

Anywho, it was a hoot! Lovely this time of year. If you EVER visit northeastern Wyoming (Devil's Tower is visible from her doorstep if you need a reference), please do it in May or early June. Before everything browns and catches on fire. And if you're ever up there the weekend after Memorial weekend, come to Gilette or Moorcroft and look for posters and information on The Thaw (our spring concert).

:)

More later!

-Erin

N.V.G.A: Supercon

Huzzah to our Colorado Cutthroat Connection (C3) boys (and girls) that went to the National Video Games Association's Supercon in New Mexico!

Colorado took just about everything there: Virtua Fighter 5, Guilty Gear, Halo 4 v. 4, Smash Bros., Eye of Judgment, and probably something else that I've forgotten about.

New Mexico needs to step up their game. I was a bit bummed that I didn't get to go to compete in the Call of Duty 4 part, but seeing as I'm leaving for Wyoming tomorrow, I probably couldn't have taken two weeks off for a video game tournament as well as taking a half a week off for my Wyoming trip. Oh well.

Wish me luck in Wyoming! We're doing our annual spring concert for the people of Pine Haven (you'll have to look it up) called the Thaw, so I'll be there from Weds until probably Monday. Hopefully I'll be able to do some fossil hunting while I'm up there. The guy that owns property just farther up the hill from where I'll be staying has a plesiosaur in his front yard, so that's cool.

-Erin

"It's pining for the fijords!"

This is a nifty article on a newly discovered parrot fossil from Scandinavia, probably the oldest fossil of a parrot (possibly, from only one bone they say it could have been an ibis).

Anywho, check out the article.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/05/080523-oldest-parrot.html

-Erin

Outing

I was out at a few sites where I work called Triceratops Trail, Dinosaur Ridge and the I-70 Road Cut taking some photos of trampled dinosaur trackways for our exhibits and had a pretty good day. Despite the tornadoes that ravaged north-eastern Colorado yesterday, the foothills were breezy and about 65-70 degrees with just a bit of rain.

Here's some pics that I took yesterday. Those geo and paleo fans may find them interesting. Pics of some ornithopod trackways from the South Platte Formation (Dinosaur Ridge), a small wild lizard (non-dinosaurian), a lovely look at the green/gray/maroon siltstones of the Morrison Formation, neat vertical banding in mudstones from (I believe) the Lytle Formation, and a trampled track area from the Laramie Formation (probably Triceratops and a species of hadrosaur, most likely Edmontosaurus as the formation is aged to 68 MY).

-Erin

A Frogamander!

Howdy! For those that are interested, check out this National Geographic post on a new, 290 million year old amphibian they think may be the missing link in that particular family tree.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/05/080521-frog-fossil.html

So, nifty stuff! I know NatGeo doesn't always publish the "newest" of materials, but I hadn't read this on before.

-Erin

Oh the Joy of Blogging

So, since everyone else in the world (wide web) has a blog...I figured that MySpace doesn't really count and created one here. I'll probably be focused on science, video games, paleontology and geology, since those are things I'm pretty passionate about.

So...hope you all enjoy! Please comment as you need, good or bad, but if you don't leave a name at the bottom of an anonymous post it'll probably be deleted. Just so you all know. :)

Happy blogging!

-Erin