Relaxation Day is a Very Dangerous Day (Doctor Who Edition)

My G+ friend Sue finds the most awesome stuff. Lots of it is geology (and when I get off me arse, I’ll be bringing you some of her delights, as well as pure yum sent in by other readers – you guys have a good eye for sweet rocks!). But occasionally, she finds other things that delight the geek heart that beats within this chest.

Case in point: this Dalek relaxation video.

Dunno about you, but I don’t find that very relaxing. Not because it’s a Dalek shouting “RELAX!” at me, but because it gets me all wound up for Series 7. I don’t want to wish the summer away, but… why can’t it be fall?!

Other fun bits: Lockwood sent this to me the other day, and it made me feel rather glowy inside.

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Relaxation Day is a Very Dangerous Day (Doctor Who Edition)
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An Open Letter to Mount St. Helens on Rosetta Stones

Sorry about the lack of substantial posting round here today. I meant to write up something last night. But the cat was in an extraordinarily cuddly mood, and as she is old and moods like that are rare, we lounged in bed with her perched happily atop my tummy whilst I read papers on Mount St. Helens and sometimes just basked in a silence filled with purring felid.

I did try to post something, but WordPress decided it hated the Kindle, and the computer was out of reach. So it goes.

For your reading pleasure, there is now a letter to Mount St. Helens posted on Rosetta Stones. It’s a silly little something, but I thought it would be a fun way to begin an in-depth series on the volcano, and it was something I could write on me lunch break.

Enjoy! And if you have any special memories to share about Mount St. Helens, feel free to add your say in the comments below.

An Open Letter to Mount St. Helens on Rosetta Stones

Streetside Geology: Unexpected Delights

On Saturday, the glorious weather extracted me from my house and sent me on a quest to some Bothell-area parks I hadn’t seen before. The parks themselves weren’t terribly exciting. They were postage-stamp sized places on the edges of wetlands, with virtually zero geology, although I’ll enjoy showing you the birds and flowers a bit later. But I found geology in a quite unexpected place, right beside the road on 228th Street.

What first caught my eye was this:

Olympic Mountains viewed from 228th St

It’s not often the Olympics are on such spectacular display. And it’s pretty rare to see them so clearly from the east side. So I parked at the bottom of the hill and hoofed it back up for photos.

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Streetside Geology: Unexpected Delights

Floral Interlude

It’s been a craptastic day. Therefore, rhododendrons. Sometimes, you just need to stop and look at enormous flowers while classic Doctor Who plays in the background and life sorts itself out.

Good thing my intrepid companion and I went to Rhododendron Park on Sunday, then.

So the park was full of people celebrating Mother’s Day, and none of the rhodies were clearly marked as to what sort of varieties they were, and we had to park blocks away. It was still beautiful. And free. I like free.

Not to mention beautiful.

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Floral Interlude

New Rosetta Stones Post: Explaining Why Geologists Break Rocks

I have, after a week’s hiatus, taken fingers to keys and pounded out a little something for Rosetta Stones: When You’re Doing Geology, You’ve Got To Break a Few Rocks. It’s got Evelyn and fresh surfaces and a lakeside geologists’ lair. Enjoy!

New Rosetta Stones Post: Explaining Why Geologists Break Rocks

I Do Not Trust Edwina Rogers to Represent Our Interests

I’ve sat out the Edwina Rogers fiasco since the Secular Coalition of America announced they’d chosen her as their new Executive Director, waiting to see if my initial revulsion would pass. It hasn’t. I read the transcript of the interview she did with Greta Christina, and the entirety of her Ask Me Anything on Reddit, hoping she could somehow allay our fears and prove she’s capable of representing us effectively, despite her sordid history in Republican politics. But I didn’t have high hopes. Put it this way: I’ve learnt over the last decade that when one trusts Cons not to kick them in the teeth, they’d best have an excellent oral surgeon on speed dial.

Edwina’s managed to meet expectations: she outright lies, she avoids the hardest questions, she babbles nonsense in reply to most of the questions she deigns respond to without bald-faced lies. She is exactly what I suspected she was when I heard some absolute morons had chosen a Republican operative neck-deep in the Bush administration, yammered on Faux News, and who has donated generously to Rick bleeding Perry, to become executive director of the Secular Coalition of America: an unmitigated disaster.

Not all atheists are liberals, and I suppose it could be a good idea to get some secular conservatives on board at times – if they don’t end up compromising the values held by the vast majority of us. As several people have noted, a Republican lobbyist as part (not head) of the SCA isn’t such a horrible idea. And I rather think it would be nice to give the Rabid Right something to worry about from within its own ranks, so the idea of developing a coalition of secular Republicans and siccing them on the fundies actually tickles me. So no, I have no objection per se to having a Republican working with the SCA.

But surely, surely, the SCA could have chosen a better Executive Director than this Bushie. She can’t reach across the aisle to elected Republicans – the bunch currently in office here, there and everywhere are, overwhelmingly, theocratic freaks frantic to install god as our ruler. They’ve already demonstrated that they’ll abandon their own policies if a liberal expresses approval. And I cannot dismiss the fact that she actively supports some of the worst of them.

Not to mention she thinks she can pull a fast one on skeptics by outright lying to them, thus demonstrating a spectacular inability to understand the people she’s supposed to represent.

What good is she? How can she possibly represent our interests?

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I Do Not Trust Edwina Rogers to Represent Our Interests

Unidentified Flying Dinosaur: East Coaster

I swear to you, birds mock me. Even the East Coast birds are in on it, so I assume some of their West Coast cousins passed the word along: “Hey, this chica with a camera’s coming your way. She needs birds for her UFD thing. So what you’ve gotta do is, show yourself for a split-second, then fly into the bushes and sing at her really loud. She’s hilarious when you do that!”

At one point, in Massachusetts, I caught a glimpse of some little brown birds nibbling on things in the path, so I abandoned Evelyn and left her marking dinosaur trackways whilst I hared off after birds. And the fuckers flew off into the bushes the instant I approached. All I got was the arse-end of a robin.

I despaired. I could hear them everywhere: little songbirds, and woodpeckers, and even mourning doves, which I haven’t heard since living in Phoenix. There was some weird bird Evelyn mentioned the name of, made a really bizarre sound, but I can’t remember what it is now. Why? Because I never bloody saw it. All I saw was fleeting glimpses of perfect candidates, and bold robins puffing out their red breasts at me, because they know I don’t need robins.

Then came the day we sat on the deck in the afternoon sun with cheese and crackers, the dog flopped down beside us, the lake sparkling gently in the breeze, and behold! A bird!

Mystery Bird I

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Unidentified Flying Dinosaur: East Coaster

Two Women in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)

I must first swear you to secrecy: If Cromm ever finds out I went kayaking with a dog, I’ll never hear the end of it. And if my cat realizes I spent time with a dog and liked it, my life is forfeit. So keep this on the down-low.

Evelyn’s a champion kayaker. The cabin we were staying at is right on a lake. And so, she said, we should go kayaking. And I had immediate flashbacks. The last time I tried to do something in a rowboat on a lake, it involved chasing an inflatable raft as it bounced end-over-end down the beach in a high wind. We never even got the thing in the water. And, yeah, I had a little canoe – when I was two. I have this theory about rowing: it’s something that happens to other people. I have upper body strength: equivalent to a 98lb weakling (which is pretty much what I am). I could envision what would happen if I attempted a kayaking adventure: after dumping myself in the water and overturning the kayak, I’d proceed to paddle in a circle near the boat dock for about ten minutes, then I’d go into the drink again, and the adventure would be over with Evelyn trying not to laugh hysterically.

So I said, “Oh, hell, why not? Let’s do it.”

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Two Women in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)

Saturday Song: Utah Carol

One thing among many that I love about adventuring with Dr. Evelyn Mervine is this: much like the Doctor, she loves goofy fun and doing things on a whim. Even when we’re doing serious geology, we’re not doing it seriously, if you know what I mean. When we needed items for scale, we ended up with plastic dinosaurs and a knight. When we wanted to have a look at minerals, we went to a rock shop that doubled as one of those kitschy tourist traps, complete with duct-taped dinosaurs. And she encouraged me to find twu wuv.

I can’t pretend I’m serious all the time, either. So the two of us sort of caused… escalations. When you’re a ripe 37 and running about with someone who just became a doctor, that’s glorious.

So there we were, in the rock shop, and Evelyn discovered the children’s section. They had plush dinosaurs from the Natural History Museum. The dinosaurs had protofeathers on. Not as many protofeathers as they should, but still, an effort was being made. Educational and accurate! Evelyn picked up a good-sized velociraptor, and then found a wee little thing, which she thrust my way for an assessment of its relative cuteness.

Adorable tiny dinosaur plushie with protofeathers on

“It’s a Utahraptor!” she said. And I allowed it was the cutest Utahraptor ever, and she should totally get it, because then she could name it Utah Carol. I’d have to explain later why naming it Utah Carol would be so appropriate.

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Saturday Song: Utah Carol

Wuv, Twu Wuv

Substantial posting will resume shortly, but today, I want to talk about wuv. Tw wuv. The kind that “will fowow you foweva…”

Wuv wiv wex

The rock shop is a place where one can fall in wuv several times in an afternoon. So it’s interspecies. Don’t judge me.

Wex was just a fling, though, a passing fancy, two ships passing in the night (one with rather larger teeth than the other). Twu, enduring wuv can be found with a bodiless reptilian head, granted. But there’s something to be said for someone who can do more than bite.

I wanted to introduce my latest love interest.

I don't know what species he's supposed to be, but I wuv him.

I know he’s no fashion plate. But he’s certainly manly. And who can resist a skull-topped stick held together with duct tape? Very chic.

So happy together

I’m afraid this romance shall be short-lived, however. Now that Obama has admitted that same-sex marriage is not an abomination (do you see what I did there? This is how humorous I am when I’m still discombobulated), I’m afraid I’ll be leaving him for another woman. Nothing personal, it’s just that the rabid right assures me that love, marriage and civilization itself are ending because two people of the same sex have been told by the President of the United States that he doesn’t mind if they make their love official, and who am I to question their judgment? So I’ll be haunting kitschy tourist traps looking for that special someone, a cavewoman after my own heart, so that we can get gay married and help move America “one step closer to becoming like secular, post-Christian Europe.”

I’m so sorry, Grog, but I want America to become more like secular, post-Christian Europe, so sacrifices must be made. But I will never forget the special times we had.

Wuv, Twu Wuv