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| Tea time with tyrannosaurs: once you've inked, get tentacled. |
September 7, 2015
10:18 am: Back to the splenial of CMNH 7541.
12:15 pm: Lunch.
12:50 pm: back to the splenial!
1:22 pm: Been working on the intercoronoid for some time
now.
1:40 pm: Now working on the prearticular! Three more
mandibular bones follow this…and none can be said to be simple in form.
1:54 pm: Break.
2:57 pm: Back to the prearticular!
~4:00 pm: Brief break.
~4:05 pm: Good grief – I just had the window for email open
and, as sometimes happens, if a window of a different program that spatially covers a word document completely, then that document will become
invisible and it has to be closed and then reopened. I’ve reopened the Jane ms,
but it isn’t loading the entire doc, I have to scroll down with the cursor,
page by page, to get back where I left off, which is over 300 pages down!
Bloody waste of time.
4:30 pm: What a godawful waste of time; I’ve finally
scrolled down to page 401.
5:07 pm: Making my way through the prearticular; time for a
brief break.
9:26 pm: Back to the prearticular!
9:55 pm: Made it to the angular. Brief break.
September 9, 2015
12:17 am: Just completed the next round on the sauropod
project; relaxing with a glass of La Fée, Absinthe
Parisienne.
10:21 am: Back to the angular!
10:57 am: Errand to run.
11:47 am: Errand done; back to the angular.
12:08 pm: Time to eat and then prepare for today’s first class
in Comparative Anatomy – Hennigian systematics.
September 10, 2015
~8:30-9:35 am: Angular, continued.
12:22 pm: Angular.
12:50 pm: Done with the angular; now on with the surangular!
1:00 pm: lunch.
Night thoughts among tyrannosaurs
The skull in the box
With popcorn cheeks
Gorgonizes the mind
& contrabands the heart
September 11, 2015
4:25 pm: Back to the
surangular!
5:44 pm: Time to make dinner.
808 pages reached; revising page 414.
September 12, 2015
4:15 pm: Back to the surangular.
4:55-5:05 pm: quick break.
5:37 pm: Stop for dinner, etc.
9:00 pm: Back at the surangular.
10:40 pm: Time for refreshment – a shot of Kraken black
spiced rum in 12 oz of Pabst blue ribbon.
10:46 pm: Back to the surangular.
10:54 pm: Good grief – feeling effervescent…just like in
Drugstore Cowboy.
816 pages reached; revising page 421.
September 13, 2015
10:40 am: Resuming the surangular.
11:55 am -12:07 pm: Brief break.
12:12 pm: Errands to run.
9:25 pm: Back to the surangular, specifically the joint
surface for the angular.
9:44 pm: Short food break (four-cheese tortellini with
shredded garlic in olive oil).
9:52 pm: Back to work.
9:58 pm: Stop.
Revising page 426 of 818.
September 14, 2015
4:38 pm: Back to the surangular, specifically the glenoid (jaw
joint) region.
5:21 pm: Break.
8:38 pm: Back to it (see how long I last).
9:41 pm: Need a brief break; today’s had a very early start.
September 15, 2015
9:45 am: Resuming the surangular with the lateral scar below
the glenoid fossa.
11:18 am: Time for a brief break.
11:27 am: Stomach somewhat filled; coffee topped off. Back
to the caudal glenoid process.
12:06 pm: Time for a break.
Revising page 426 of 824.
10:31 pm: Late, yes and for a change of pace tonight I’ll add
in my old comments on Gilmore (1946). The comments were made back in 1993, during
my first visit to the CMNH for a week-long marathon of description,
measurements, and photography on CMNH 7541. I stayed at the swish and close-by
Glidden House; I’ve roomed there ever since during my following research visits
to Cleveland.
11:18 pm: 828 pages written.
September 16, 2015
9:03 pm: I’ll continue with the Gilmore ’46 commentary
tonight and pick up the description tomorrow morning when my mind has the
energy.
Music: Beethoven’s
2nd & 4th.
Refreshment: Pabst blue ribbon (neat, Ms. Del Rey), sans Kraken.
9:55 pm: Good grief, flagging before 10:00 pm! Done with
Gilmore, now ready to include comments on Bakker et al. (1988)!
830 pages reached.
September 17, 2015
8:45 am: Back to the joint surface for the articular!
9:37 am: Errand to run.
11:00 pm: Time to add the commentary on Bakker et al.
11:13 pm: Wow – Kraken tastes like smoky caramel.
11:36 pm: Stop.
836 pages reached.
September 18, 2015
9:24 am: Back to the surangular!
10:45 pm: Stop.
Revising page 442 of 837.
9:24 pm: Back to adding comments on Bakker et al.
10:15 pm: Done with Bakker et al.!
Taking a break – 839 pages reached.
September 19, 2015
9:52 am: Back to the surangular; I’m making sure that the
adult condition has been included. At times I run ahead with description of
Jane, and later have to backtrack to make sure that all of the comparisons are
made.
11:48 am: 845 pages reached, revising page 424.
3:05 pm: Resuming the surangular.
3:28 pm: I’m done with the surangular, a deceptively
simple-looking bone; next in line is the articular.
3:57 pm: Break.
9:45 pm: Resuming with putting all of the dentition
descriptions together under one section.
10:21 pm: Looks like I may be done with the articular…I
suppose I’ll start a comparison between the overall form of the reconstructed
skull of Jane with that of CMNH 7541.
10:48 pm: Losing focus; 848 pages reached.
September 20, 2015
4:56 pm: A late start. I have several primary
accomplishments to make on the manuscript: (1) make all of the corrections
marked in the hard copy; check the manuscript against -and make any and all
comments - (2) Gilmore, 1946, (3) Witmer and Ridgley, 2010, (4) Larson 2008, (5)
Larson, 2010, and (6) Holliday (2009); (7) take care of any remaining loose
threads in the descriptions; and expand and revise the (8) summary, (9)
discussion, and (10) conclusions; and (11) include my recent notes on CMNH 7541.
Figures, index, etc. follow all of that. For today, I’ll continue with the
comparison between the reconstructed skull of Jane with the Cleveland skull,
and a representative adult. I’m considering writing a description of the
reconstructed skull as a single unit, functional structure.
5:12 pm: Dinner’s ready!
6:16 pm: Back to it!
7:19 pm: Break.
9:00 pm: Back to the skull comparisons!
9:42 pm: Comparisons made. Moving on to the red ink for a
while – that’s the most arduous task, and I’ll feel much better once it is done.
10:00 pm: Done in by this already.
Revising page 372 of 851.
September 22, 2015
9:52 am: Back to making the red-ink revisions! I am sick
today (head cold).
10:56 am: Short break.
12:11 pm: Continuing, briefly; have done the fixes for the
angular and surangular, now resuming with the prearticular.
12:32 pm: Done with the prearticular, now moving on to the
angular. Have to leave for the museum soon to continue identifying, sorting,
and cataloging the fossils we collecting during this last field season. It’s a
lot of fun to set aside fossils that will appear in the second version of our
field guide to fossils of the Hell Creek Formation. Whoops – OK, I’ve already
done the angular; I’m working my way backwards, not forwards! OK –
intercoronoid, now.
12:36 pm: On to splenial!
12:49 pm: Splenial’s done – time to get to the Dinosaur
Discovery Museum (DDM).
7: 11 pm: Resuming the revisions; starting with the dentary.
8:34 pm: Phew – done with the dentary; now, on to the
dentary teeth! Have to make sure I’ve taken all of the tooth measurements
following Smith, Vann, & Dodson. Have to pull out Edmund (1962).
Reached the end of the dentary teeth, now reading Edmund
(1962)…
11:17 pm: Just completed a bunch of Edmund eruption diagrams
for Jane, CMNH 7541, and AMNH FARB 5027 – there’s a pattern! I should add LACM
28471.
11:51 pm: After a pause, I’m starting to write up the tooth
eruption pattern results.
12:12 am: Wrote up the maxilla tooth replacement
patterns. Stop.
September 23, 2015
~9:30 am: Back to the tooth eruption section; I have to
draft the dentary eruption for the adult, and then write up the results for dentary
eruption for the growth series.
10:30 am: Stop.
Revising page 489 of 853.
10:06 pm: Resuming with the tooth replacement section –
reading Edmund (1962) in detail.
11:09 pm: Added some text on tooth replacement in T. rex; 855 pages reached.
September 24, 2015
9:43 pm: Late start today; bad headache – I thought I could
get away with skipping lunch. I will set Edmund (1962) aside and instead focus
on incorporation my red-ink revisions.
9:59 pm: This damn headache has bested me…
September 26, 2015
9:37 am: Back to the tooth replacement patterns; I am
revising the figures, where I’m replacing the spindles with shapes that look
more like teeth and I’ve combined the premaxillary and maxillary eruption
series. After that, I’ll revise the text and add some more observations that
will make this more comparable to what Edmund (1962) did.
11:52 am: Lunch time.
~2:30 pm: I resumed with Edmund (1962) and just finished the
task; now on to making the red-ink reivisions for the cervical vertebrae.
3:46 pm: Hunger gnaws; time for a short break.
4:02: Back to work!
4:14 pm: Good grief- hunger again.
9:38 pm: Back to polishing up the cervical series!
~10:40 pm: Stop. Reached the introduction to the axis and
postaxial cervicals. Revising page 502 of 862.
Night thoughts among tyrannosaurs
The omenless sleep of
Bowheads in coal cars
