Dromaeosaur Footprints!

Hot off the press from Laelaps (for whole scoop check out his far superior blog) the first ever confirmed footprints of a Dromaeosaurid (aka raptor dinosaur) have been discovered!

There are multiple sets from the same geologic formation. One of which is very interesting as it shows multiple individuals possibly walking together and in unison... in other words possible pack behaviour.

Interesting to see that their walking as opposed to hopping. Only a bit over a year ago I had a number of Tyrrell Science people flip my world upside down by saying due to an inward angle of the hips that Dromie legs came together at the feet, and thus made them more likely for a Kangaroo type hop.

I guess the paradigm isn't as flipped as I thought. Which is equally flipping as I'd just started to accept bounding raptors... Got to love science!

Mosasaur Rising...

Well it's that time of year again! Crunch time!

Granted I've never had a blog during a proper crunch (apart from previous crunches in this program which just don't compare to this one!). I have so much to do that I have felt like I'm bleeding from my eyeballs. No they aren't tears, but my eyes have swollen twice. Rhonwyn thought I'd been in a fight. That is till the swelling swapped eyes!

What this means is that I've spent roughly 10 hours at my puter today. That is pretty much the whole waking day thus far, except for the 45min X 2 for meals and 30 min for a walk to the grocery store for study food.

Now a tradition of my for such crunches is of course to procrastinate. Before you freak out on me I got that out of my system last week... Meaning I have to pick up for my moderate slacking off now (to be fair I DID get 5 assignments done, and this stuff I'm previewing for you).

On to the slight bit of sunshine in my otherwise depressing modern life, the traffic on Traumador's blog has nearly gone up 150% in the last month. I attribute this to a combination of the current fun and Dinosaur intensive Cousin Larry Visit storyline , and my current targeted advertising.

My system for advertising has been quite ingenious, but sadly I can't boast about it on the open web as I don't want everyone to scam my system (but if you email me I'll let you know if you ask nice).

Keeping up on these two tactics I'm hoping to keep up the increase in Traum's readership. So the foremost is how to keep the palaeo content of his page up? Well you've already seen the Sauropod for the upcoming "the other" storyline. As a palaeo finale to his tenure here in New Zealand I have conceived this...

This was the prototype ad for Traumador's "Taniwha" storyline. Taniwha are sea monsters of Maori myth and often are reptilian in form (other times a BIG shark or whale). They often in the stories sound like they could be marine reptiles from the Mesozoic, and as of such a species of Tylosaur has been justly named Taniwhasaurus.

I figured why not have one come back and pay Traumador and company a visit in Dunedin...

So for a few hours (I'm at the point where modelling something only takes me a couple hours... meaning I waste little homework time on it... just enough to unwind after skool or classes) I tried to model something like this. I love this rendition of a mosasaur minus the tail. I went with the more paddle like tail restoration from Chased by Dinosaurs.

I also tried to base my model as much on skeletons as I could. I'm not sure what clad of mosasaur we have in Alberta such as this one from the Tyrrell, but Mosasaurs for the most part are all roughly the same.

The first rendition of the model. None textured, and frankly a mix between a Pliosaur and a Mosasaur. The one problem is that I have a tendency to slim things down (Peter always critiques me justly on this habit), but with Marine reptiles this means a Mosasaur turns into a Mosasaur.

So I had to come back to the model table and try fattening him up.

I was much more pleased with this overall body. As of such I played around with textures for only 20 min before I produced the final draft. I went with a blue version of a great white shark. Dark on top light on the bottom. Though my light on the bottom doesn't really show in this darker water lighting, but it's there in lighter water lighting I assure you.

The final problem was the head. It was too crocidilian/Icthyosaur (partially due to my not paying attention to tooth placement initially). I had to readjust mostly the top jaw to be more triangular with less angles and curves (though the Chased by Dinosaurs curve into a rather slender snout... I opted for a more robust snout).

This is my favourite render of the Mosasaur so far, and ironically it's from the old model. You'll note how the body is only 1/3 the length of the animal, and it still has the sloping snout. However I'm in love with this lighting (which I can reproduce in other angles... sort of... this effect is caused by the angle of the light shafts) and the sea floor (which is not reproducible... it's actually a flat surface that this exact camera angle has made look like a gently sloped underwater mound).

The Final Model

After my retweaking these are the near final version. Let me know what you think! PLEASE!!!

As Traumador won't be heading in the water (right away ;p ) the Taniwha needs to be seen at the surface a bit.

You'll note the new head design. In particular give me feedback on this...

Back view
More of that head. Again comment the heck out of it!

Open mouth. The improvements here are teeth in proper skeletal placement, and skin flaps towards the throat. Feedback important here too!

This and the next shot are finals for the story. The Taniwha comes to everyones notice due to its food source in the present (his typical prey of course going extinct only to be replaced with mammals...)

My favourite of the new models clips

So yeah keep your eyes peeled for "Taniwha" coming hopefully sometime just into the new year. Of course probably later than that. So much of my Traumador ideas have been pushed back. I'd intended to get to Larry in May!!!

Back to the homework for me. I've got 15/70 lesson plans done today... I've only got another 4 days... but these were the harder ones... So hopefully I'll be okay... If not no more blogging for me.

On that not I do owe you a post on my life including such things as my new inhaler and Captain Windo! Only if I get my ass in gear and get crackalacking though!

Turok!

A trailer for a new direct to DVD movie has just come to my attention for Turok. Many know him from the video games, but in those the Dinosaurs he fights are either cyborgs or aliens.

This is based on his original comic book which is more like Last of the Mohicans meets The Lost World.

Looks like it'll be as good as the Hellboy animated movies.

I'm finally in a museum advertisement!

While doing a side none homework web search (helped by the fact New Zealand's Internet is insanely slow! I can get a good 4 minutes of work in while a new page loads...) I discovered the most remarkable thing.

On the official travel Alberta website there is a picture of me delivering Badland's Science Camp infamous Corythosaur skeleton program... Infamous not for it's awesomeness or funness factor. Rather for the frustration felt by kids, and more the point the staff!

Though I love my Corythosaur like my child as I rebuilt it (with help from the guru Marilyn) it was an evil offspring, and never worked properly! Putting it together with the kids was an ordeal as you needed 2 people just to attach a bone, and it could take several minutes to do it right...

the link again is http://www.traveldrumheller.com/royal-tyrrell-exhibits.html

Fun factiod the skull and arm bone you see being discovered at the top of the page is actually the skull and arm of my corythosaur! That is Phil Currie "finding" it, and was taken mere days before I arrived at the lab to claim the Corythosaur for Camp...

The Beginning of the End...

The Deal

So here we are 9 months after my arrival in New Zealand. Though I'm still in the country for another 3 months (I arrive back in Canada December 29th for anyone wanting to plan the parade) things are in motion that will result in the time flying by at warp 9.9.

The breakdown is something like this:

• The next 3 weeks are gearing up for my last posting of this year
• 1 week of posting goes by with things here being "normal"
• The majority of everyone not in teachers college (with the exception of Clare) all leave for their homes. I shed many tears, and am lonely... if not for...
• 3 more weeks of posting that will keep me busy enough
• 2 weeks of wrap up lectures
• 3 weeks wandering New Zealand with my parents

So getting back to that first bullet my major effort to start posting began yesterday with serious intent.

Resulting in me getting my homework game face on. I "love" homework!

Providing an entertaining yet sobering interruption was the final formal dinner of the year. As you'll see it was a fun event, but it caused us all to realize that the finale clock is ticking away unrelentlessly in the background of the next 2 months (for us teacher wannabes... 1 month for everyone else).

Pre-Event

So the lovely lady in my life showed up at my place an hour before dinner to assist me take off my game face. More to the point she came to assist me remove the large amount of excess hair from my removed game face.

Resulting in my new back to skool look (all of my kids today got in a "nice haircut Mr. D... though often followed up by "you look bald"). The beauty is the cut, apart from hair all over my bathroom, was free. The clippers I bought for $20 have more than paid for themselves.

Of course all were looking sharp and spiffy for the evening. Owain taking over Peter's former role as most savy of the lot.

The German also looked pretty slick. You'll note the tie. An ongoing bit of humour all year has been both his and mine own inability to tie them right. Even after Owain demoed it for us, Peter got a real pro diagram guide from a magazine, and Rhonwyn and Clare taunted us till we cried still no go. Our brilliant solution: have someone else tie it for us, and we keep them tied up afterwards no matter the cost!

Jack Attack! TM was the centre of gusto and enthusiasm for our group. If the weight and implications of "THE END" were getting you down a simple glance at Jack would snap you back into happy country.

The rest of the Canadian contingent were no less dressed up. The Twitch aka Rebbecca had quite an interesting evening that went well beyond the ball, but I'm not allowed to tell that story...

After a year of doing everything to just fall short of being an actual resident of the hall (which meant just not eating or sleeping here) Andrew was invited to this dinner as a virtual salmonder. His ever presence in the hall did not go unnoticed as you will see.

The other notable presence of the staging up to dinner was the hallwide debut of the late forming "most unexpected couple of the year" of Andy and Qui. Their so cute ahhhhhh.

Formal Dinner

All too sooner due to the inevitable march of time dinner was served.


Some lovely appeys were to be had. This pic was snapped a mere 5 minutes into being seated as me and Rhonwyn demolished the plate to this point.


Rhonwyn thought I was weird for taking such a pic as you can see. Me weird? Absurd!
Owain performs a magic trick with his wine (which as you can see he turned into magic energy lighting!). Also as you can see as of this photo he has perfected his replacement of Peter as most dashing. He should totally use this as his facebook profile pic (might have to start a group LOL).

If only dinner was as tasty as the appeys. These lamb ribs though nice were neither amazing nor most importantly filling. Thankfully due to my previous game face I'd been ravenous and eaten 5 buns and half the Sushi.

Granted I stopped complaining looking over at Jack Attack! TM who gave the meal his glorious approval.

The Master

I had planned to do this post with funny little speech and thought balloon captions of the photos (but due to time constraints had to abandon this ambition). If I had than Bruce head master of Salmond was going to become the arch nemesis of post. Especially since every photo I tried last night turned out blurry. This was the best I managed to snap until...

The coolest photo of the night, and definitely sums up Bruce's powers of non photo takingness. He apparently lives in a world of perpetual blurness.

The "Entertainment"

Though things were much better this time around than last formal dinner it still had to have one downer. That was the musical performance by Salmond residences. Now don't get me wrong. Well okay get me wrong. I don't care if people in the hall can play music or not. Especially free style rap!!!

Most notable rap by none other than blue berry here. I won't state his real name because I never refer to him by it (due to this ridiculous track suit he wears all the time... even to the FORMAL dinner!), and more to he point I don't know how to spell it.

He preformed not only rap lyrics, but "better" than that the music too. Yes that's right we have a musical piece of fruit at the hall, and you can sub him for a early 80's synthesizer (if playing a concert for deaf people anyways)...

Though some tried to put up a brave face I could not...

This was taken a minute into the rap performance. Though not a berry I felt I had at least exacted revenge on a distant relative.

The End of Year Awards

the final event of the evening was the award ceremony.

The big "shocker" was Ben the Gardener winning the Salmond best citizen award. Ben was the face of Salmond social events. If there was an event Ben was going, and more to the point insisting you go too.

Another big "surprise" was Andrew getting an official award for being a virtual Salmonder. Told you it would come up again (if I'd pulled off the comic version of this post this would have been a plot point LOL)


Now we reach the actual surprise component of the ceremony. The first one wasn't a surprise for me, but rather one I beset on Andy. Just as a finishing touch to the Demon Clock caper I nominated Andy for a slightly competed for category. Fortunately my prank won out.


Them German's will believe almost anything. (but I still love you Andy ;p )


The surprise was two fold. Andy was a little unhappy naturally. Qui who you see in photo moments after Andy's return from getting the award thought it was quite funny.

The big surprise (well sort of) was me and Rhonwyn winning an award. Sadly it's not one I can advertise or boast about that alone type the proper name for here. Too bad as they made a hilarious typo on it that removed much of the embrassment from recieving it, but I still can't state this incorrect version...

So from here on we leave the fun part of The End as

The Clock Still Ticks To Year's Conclusion...

Stay tuned for the Middle of the End

Dropping the 4th Wall

One of the key functions I'd planned for on this blog was a means of previewing and updating people on my various movie projects. As I haven't really gotten any movie things specifically on the go (though Delta Patrol will resume production once I get back home... and me and Bond do have another project in the planning stages) there hasn't been much of this to do.

I do have an ongoing creative venture in the form of Traumador's blog (now known as the Tyrannosaur Chronicles). I've just decided to drop the 4th wall on my end, and give people the behind the scenes scoop here.

Lately I've been trying to up the quality and wacky quota of his page. In particular, the recent "visit" by Traum's cousin Larry has been accomplished through my 3D program comboed with Photoshop (which I've effectively taught myself this year while in New Zealand) which have produced some awesome and fun effects.

Due to the moderate success this has caused (an increase of 3 people averagely visting per day) I intend on more CG dinos. Fortunently Dunedin has a famous playground known as "Dinosaur Park" which I've been planning for a while to bring into the Traum mythos. I won't give it all away now.

Hopefully these images will wet your appetite though. Any of you palaeo type people out there can let me know what you think (keeping in mind I've only just started on this model... this is a grand total of 2 hours work... I'm getting much quicker and better with this program)

My Great Prank: The Demon Clock

Two posts in two days. Try not to faint out there. This morning saw the end of one of my little pet "projects". Though I hadn't invested a lot of man hours into this little ongoing event it has taken three weeks to come to fruition.

Andy the German living down the hall from me is notorious for leaving his door unlocked when he is not in the room. Those of us who hang out with him have been trying to train him to change this habit for obvious reasons. The foremost of which is his flatting next year with a dozen strangers.

Now efforts up until I really stepped in had been rearranging his furniture, hiding some of his things, and even planting other peoples things in his room (mostly Dinosaurs from my room).

I only partook in these efforts once (apart from letting people borrow my dinos for plantation). Duct taping his ping pong paddles behind the flags on his walls we were rewarded with a good amusing 30 minute search on his part. Now that might seem mean, but I gave the give away clue of search "wall to wall", and I thought giving me away 5 minutes into the search one of the paddles fell out from behind the flag. He didn't bother looking behind the right one at all! I had to tell him where it was...

Well the ladies (these days dubbed Craig's Angels) had been pushing these lessons for about 2 weeks with no real change in Andy's behaviour. One day walking by his room after dinner I checked his door to discover it was, you guessed it, unlocked. Opening the door I would have just been content to report to Rhonwyn or Clare that the German wasn't locking his door still, but something caught my eye.

It must have been the red shininess of the numbers, but I fixated on the alarm clock. A brilliant scheme entered my mind within seconds. I ran in and set his alarm for 10pm. The idea being the alarm clock would startle him. Also in the back of my mind was the plan of repeating this several times, and hoping he'd conclude something rather than someone was behind setting the alarm.

Unfortunately Andy didn't come home till after the alarm sounded (fortunately though I was able to reenter the room due to lack of door locking and turn it off). I did keep up with the campaign of setting his alarm. Now you might feel sorry for him, but in my defense this couldn't have been done if he just locked his door like he should have...

Andy didn't mention a thing about the clock. Leading me to worry he wasn't noticing it or had figured out what was happening.

Where things got cooking was when we were all hanging out in his room a couple days ago. I made an excuse to hit the alarm clock in a joke deliberately trying to bait him into talking about the clock. I was rewarded with him "speaking of the alarm somethings wrong with that clock".

I barely contain my laughter. Andy though thinks that the clock is simply broken, and is going to throw it out... Time to salvage this. I casually in a very me type way "what if it was a ghost?". It's the kind of thing I'd think of and ask anyway, but in this case for true purpose not just imaginations sake.

"I'd never thought of that," Andy replies clearly a little wigged out. He than makes the most critical mistake of the conversation (if you're thinking I'm evil... which everyone now thinks I am MAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA). He informs me this is not his normal alarm clock, and that he'd been given it by a friend who just moved away. Normally Andy uses a dinky little clock I'd never noticed before... Till now!

Yesterday I launch the ultimate arm of this prank. Finding his door unlocked AGAIN (see I'm not pure evil. Only casual. This won't have happened if he'd JUST LOCK HIS DOOR!) I set both clocks. My main one for 10pm, and the other for midnight. My plan unfolds perfectly as you'll see, but try to predict why I set them for different times. Before I'd thought about it I was just going to set them to go off at the same time, but I came up with something way more scary!

10:05 comes and I get a disturbed knock at my door. Opening it Andy stands there "it happened again!". Knowing it would be him I keep my game face, and come to inspect the clock with him. I do nothing but objectively talk about it being a ghost, and for the most part deny ideas the German hasn't even thought of. The best way to plant ideas in peoples minds: That's a tip kids.

Then I setup the real life twist for Andy, and the reason I set the clocks differently. I suggested I take the clock to my room to see if it'll repeat its behaviour in my room. Andy eagerly agrees. I joke that the "demon clock" won't get me tonight as I leave... Well aware that'll be a key line of logic Andy's going to be left on with the clocks.

Midnight and some minutes while dozing off to sleep I'm awoken by... the demon clock?!?!?!? no my cellphone! with a message from Andy "it happened again!". As the "evil" son of a bitch I am I laugh myself to sleep.

This morning I'm rewarded by the German seriously freaked out. I'm faced with a morale conundrum. Do I keep the prank going, and possible drive him mad. Or do I take this as a victory, and salvage the argument I'm not actually evil.

So telling the German I'm rewarded with an embarrassed laugh from him and punch.

All things considered though it was worth the 20 seconds a day and a bit of planning for three weeks to get to this point. Sadly that climaxes the pranks I can pull this year at Salmond (but with only 5 weeks left to normal uni I guess that's alright).

The Last Break

Having passed my posting, and the primary school term ending there was only one thing to do this last week. Take a break!

Now in all honesty I probably shouldn't have taken it as off as I have been. I have a TON of stuff I need to get done for a month from now, but I have at least started to look for resources and such.

The big highlight of my one week holiday (the last holiday before the end of the year) was a fishing expedition south to the Catlins with Scott, Shannon, and Courtney.

Our destination was Cannibals Bay an estuary me and Scott have fished at before.
Fun was had by all. Whether partaking in the fishing or simply wandering and enjoying the beauty of the area...

There was just a major problem fishing. There were no fish! The reason; at least we believe, is this. The area has been completely smothered in slit and fine grain washout. So much so that at one point Scott just about sunk into it. In a spot that last time we were here was a nice rocky beach.

The floods of a couple months ago probably are to blame. Washing all this stuff in here. The change on the ecosystem is clear. The only species of crab still alive are of a kelp cameo variety. There is no kelp at moment, and they stick out like a sore thumb. I figure the fish have left for the moment due to a lack of proper food.

We even shifted to the other end of the bay in an attempt to catch something. Even a nibble (of which we had 2 all day). No go...

So instead we went on a sight seeing tour of the Catlins. With views of stuff like this!

It's also lambing season in NZ so everywhere we went there were heaps of "cute" new born lambs. Their mom's can be really protective. This mom head butted our car when we stopped to look... Well okay not really, but Scott assured us it does happen.


The big highlight of the day for me was the stop at Curio Bay home of New Zealand's Petrified Forest. It is among the only such fossil sites from the Jurassic (I'd never heard of a pet forest from the Jurassic before in fact!)

It was cool just in that the fossils were located along a rocky beach. I've never looked for fossils by or in the ocean before!


Not that they were hard to find mind you. There were two types of fossil trees. Still standing stumps like this one.


Or fallen over dead logs like this. The logs of course were the more impressive to look at. This one for example was among the longest at about 4m. The stumps more cool because you got an idea of the layout of the forest when it was alive.

Did I mention that they were in the water to? There's 3 different fossil trees in here. Can you see all of them?

As the sign above said these were all buried in a volcanic eruption. Which explained the lack of animal fossil remains... Not that I didn't look for any!


Wrapping up our out of Dunedin excursion was a stop at "one of the best fish and chip shops in New Zealand". Their specialty blue cod. Which I can say theirs was very very VERY tasty!

Enjoying this lovely weathered day (almost forgot to mention the weather yesterday was exceptional) with a finale late lunch by a tidal lake it's back to the world of school and kids next week.

In the meantime I need to get back on the ball, and get some work done here today and the rest of the weekend.