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| On borrowed time. |
June 8, 2015
9:23 pm: My goal tonight for the description, is just to wrap
up the joint surface for the jugal; anything else is icing.
Stimulant: ¾ cup
(measured out) coffee, vanilla caramel creamer, half & half.
10:00 pm: Done for now with the postorbital; I’ll check the
hard copy to take care of any last loose threads tomorrow morning. Tonight I
managed to write up the joint surface for the jugal and complete the section on
the jugal process and orbital cavity; small but significant successes. I’ll
sneak ahead to the squamosal to summarize the condition and completeness of
each bone in BMRP 2002.4.1, and also that for the comparative specimen, CMNH
7541.
690 pages reached.
Evening refreshment:
three olives, one relatively generous glass of retsina in an ornate goblet.
Music: Beethoven’s
7th and 8th.
10:40 pm: In terms of red ink, I made it to the mandibular
ramus! However, I am starting to flag.
June 9, 2015
9:52 am: This morning’s goals are to make sure the
postorbital description is done and to make headway on the squamosal.
10:30 pm: Back to the squamosal description! It’s been an
emotionally hurly-burly night, with issues cropping up around the schedule of
this summer’s field season. Ergo, the retsina’s ahead of schedule.
11:45 pm: I’m starting to flag, even after today’s late
start.
11:47 pm: Yipes, Word just spontaneously crashed – luckily I
had just saved the Jane ms! All’s O.K.; I just checked the section I added and
it is still there!
695 pages reached.
June 11, 2015
5:21 pm: I’ve a bunch of other commitments that have pulled
me away from the Jane ms. I have a sliver of time today to resume the squamosal! Stopped at ~6:05 pm.
10:22 pm: Back to the caudal process of the squamosal!
Dammit – Word is acting up, each time I save a document the spinning ball
appears and I wait minutes for the operation to end. Time to back up all of
this on the external hard drive. Good grief – now I can’t move from Adobe
Reader to Word without the spinning ball – I’ll have to restart the computer
once the backup’s done. I’ve been waiting for days to return to this!
June 12, 2015
10:32 am: Nothing accomplished last night owing to issues
with backing up onto the hard drive. I had to force the backup to quit this
morning, and then restart it – twice – before running a virus check that took
at least and hour and a half. Right now I’ll try to back up the computer again.
Hopefully it’ll take a few minutes and not all day.
10:54 am: Finally – order restored!
12:54: Resuming the squamosal while I await a data set for
another project.
June 14, 2015
9:49 am: Back to the ms after several days of working on a
tyrannosauroid phylogeny project with a collaborator.
Stimulant: McCafe
breakfast blend, half & half, vanilla & caramel creamer.
Music: Beethoven’s
9th.
10:08 am: Done with the squamosal, now on with the
quadratojugal!
12:30 pm: Making excellent progress on the quadratojugal
(I’ve made it to the lateral surface of the squamosal process), but it is time
to break for lunch.
700 pages reached; this increase in page length will level
off once I’m past the axis.
9:52 pm: Back at it!
10:57: Cleared pas the squamosal process, shaft, and lateral
foramen. Time for a quick break!
Refreshment:
retsina, three garlic-stuffed olives.
Music: Beethoven’s
5th et 6th.
June 15th,
2015
9:05 pm: Back to it! Tonight’s goal is to wrap up the
quadratojugal, only the jugal process and the ventral quadrate process to go!
10:09 pm: Nearly done with the quadratojugal (aside from red
ink in the hard copy)! Time for olives and retsina!
10:33 pm: Taking another breather from the quadratojugal.
June 16th,
2015
10:48: Another unacceptably late start; this morning’s goal
is to complete the last few loose threads of the quadratojugal description.
Shouldn’t take all that long.
11:09: Done with the quadratojugal! Now I move on to the
quadrate.
12:03 pm: Time for lunch.
708 pages reached.
June 17th,
2015
9:16 am: Yesterday I was early to wake, which left me
exhausted by the time the night came on and so no work was done. However, I now
have the entire morning to forge ahead with the quadrate.
Music: Mozart’s
Requiem.
9:29 pm: I am very tired, again; I’ll try to inch the
manuscript forward.
9:36 pm: 714 pages reached.
10:17: Just drafted a preliminary sketch of the eruption of a
‘lateral’ tooth of the maxilla (9 steps) and the dentary (8 steps) in Adobe
Illustrator; on the face of it, similar with some key differences. However, I
need to double-check this against the actual specimen.
Earlier today I worked on photographic plates of the hemal
arches.
I’ll red-ink the hard copy after I get some refreshment…
Refreshment: the
usual.
Music: As earlier.
10:25 pm: Resuming the mark-up of the hard copy ms.
10:40 pm: I’m getting worn down from this. I’ve made terrible
progress today, but it is more than nothing.
10:53: Made a list of candidate bones for 20 color plates.
No night thoughts among tyrannosaurs
No Antarctic halo’d brow
No spectre fount
No worm from the well
The night harpooned & flensed of
hours;
Starry seconds spangle
The sarcophagus
That panic lids
June 18, 2014
10:24 pm: Another terribly late start, which does not make
me optimistic for my progress. Writing description requires energy that in these
late hours I struggle to muster. I’ll start with the hard copy of the ms.
11:04 pm: Lost steam.
To bed, to bed, O Hell to bed.
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