Author Archives: paleololigo

Scientist (Paleontology, Geochemistry, Geology); Writer (Speculative and Science Fiction, plus technical and non-technical Science); Mom to great boy on the Autism spectrum; possessor of too many hobbies.

The Snouters and Teaching Cladistics

A new species of Rhinograde mammal, Nasoperforator bouffoni, was described last week by a group of researchers at the Muséum d’histoire naturelle, in Paris. This is really exiting news in science, as we often (falsely) think that we’ve found and named all the living mammals that there are.

Drawing of the head of Nasoperforator bouffoni

The Rhinogrades (or more affectionately, the Snouters) were originally described in the book, The Snouters: Form and Life of the Rhinogrades, by Harald Stümpke. The Rhinogrades are a new order of mammals known only from the island Hy-dud-dye-fee in the South Sea archipelago of Hi-yi-yi. They are noted for the incredible adaptations of their noses for locomotion and feeding.

Illustration of Otopteryx volitans

Stümpke proposes a family tree of the Order Rhinogradentia based upon 26 genera of Snouters described in the book. This sort of family tree, more properly called a ‘phylogram,’ is typically based upon a person’s gut feeling about the similarities among different species. It can be based upon a researcher’s experience and can be biased by a scientist’s pre-conceived notions about how things ought to be related. A better, more objective, way to approach relationships among different species is to use cladistic analysis (or cladistics).

Stümpke's phylogram of the Snouters

If you’re remotely interested in paleontology, then you’ve probably heard of cladistics (or cladograms, or clades). Cladistics is one of those things in the science of paleontology that you have to know about. Some folks spend their entire careers focused on cladistic analysis. Others avoid cladistics vehemently. Nevertheless, there’s no escaping cladistics. If you want to know paleontology, you gotta know cladistics.

So then, what is cladistics if it’s so important? For me, it’s a topic that I took a full semester course on as a graduate student. My notes are in a binder labeled ‘sadistics,’ which goes a long way to describe just how I feel about cladistics. (I actually have two binders labeled ‘sadistics.’ The other one is for a class in which I learned about t-tests, f-tests, means, and standard deviations.)

But seriously, cladistics is a tool by which paleontologists (and biologists and botanists and geneticists) can mathematically determine the ‘relatedness’ of organisms. More generally, cladistics is used to determine evolutionary relationships, so we can determine who evolved from whom. It’s mathematical, and thus reproducible and computerizable, and comes replete with all sorts of statistics (the other sadistics) that can be used to support or refute proposed evolutionary pathways.

Fine.

But it’s also a bit of a nightmare.

The analysis starts by breaking a species down into a bunch of ‘characters’ for which there are, in the purest cladistics, only two states. The states for each character are entered as 0’s and 1’s in a matrix. Examples of well-behaved characters are:

Character Character state ‘0’ Character state ‘1’
Antorbital Fenestra (a skull opening seen in some dinosaurs) Absent Present
Palatine teeth (having teeth on the roof of the mouth) Present Absent

Presence and absence characters are great. Unfortunately, not all characters can be broken easily into 0’s and 1’s.

Character Character state ‘0’ Character state ‘1’ Character state ‘2’
Eye color Blue Brown Hazel
Femur length (the thigh bone) 0-10 inches 12-18 inches 20-19 inches

And sometimes, characters obvious in several species are not known from others. For example, eye color is meaningless when considering eye-less animals, but if only one species in your analysis lacks eyes, then you need that character information for the other species. Another problem occurs when (especially in paleontology) an organism is only incompletely known. For example, toe characteristics aren’t helpful when one of the animals in your study is known only from its skull.

In principle, however, one needs only determine all the character states for a suite of characters for each organism in an analysis.

Organism Character 1 (hooves) Character 2 (hair) Character 3 (warm-blooded) Character 4 (bones) Character 5 (scales) Character 6 (4-chambered heart)
Horse 1 (has) 1 (has) 1 (has) 1 (has) 0 (doesn’t have) 1 (has)
Cow 1 (has) 1 (has) 1 (has) 1 (has) 0 (doesn’t have) 1 (has)
Trout 0 (doesn’t have) 0 (doesn’t have) 0 (doesn’t have) 1 (has) 1 (has) 0 (doesn’t have)
Croco-stimpy 0 (doesn’t have) 0 (doesn’t have) 0 (doesn’t have) 1 (has) 1 (has) 1 (has)

And then you use all the 1’s and 0’s to determine who’s most similar to (and thus more related to) whom. In the above case, if we look only at characters 1-5, one can see that horses and cows are very similar and related to each other, as are trout and croco-stimpies. But add character 6, and you can see that croco-stimpies are more similar to horses and cows than to trout, thus, one could infer that trout evolved into croco-stimpies which then evolved into horses and cows.

You’ve already got a headache, and it hasn’t even gotten complicated yet.

Enter the Rhinogrades.

For years, I’ve been handing my students copies of Stümpke’s book, and asking them to do a cladistic analysis of nine species (of their choice) of Snouters. Next time I’ll have them include the new species. The problem is that the students have to come up with their own characters and character states. Students quickly realize how important it is to choose good characters (and character states), and how difficult it can be to determine character states when all they have is an incomplete description of an organism. So, it’s actually a really great exercise (even if the students claim to hate it). The students turn in a cladogram and a list of characters and character states, and I compare their cladogram with the one I’ve devised based off of Stümpke’s family tree.

My Snouter cladogram - based only on Stümpke's phylogram

And when they’re all done, then I tell them.

It’s a hoax. There’s no Hi-Yi-Yi. No Nasoperforator. But it was fun, wasn’t it?

Geology in the Movies: John Carter, Shiprock, and Geo-Farts

Sometimes in movies, the scenery is so fantastical that it clearly must be something spawned from the imagination of an artist. One thing I love about being a geologist is the knowledge that some of these places really do exist. Sometimes they’re as fantastic as they appear to be in the movies, and sometimes, it’s all about clever shooting angles. Either way, it’s always a great opportunity to introduce people to some of the geologic wonders of our world.

John Carter Logo
John Carter (from Mars)

A lot of the movie John Carter was shot in the deserts of the southwestern United States. This is the place where I learned geology, so I smiled a lot through the film as I recognized several of the vistas. Every time I recognized a place, my brain instantly pulled up the old files on the geologic history of that place.

One such place, Shiprock (which only makes a momentary appearance), gave me an audible chuckle. My introduction to Shiprock as a student was one of the things that solidified in my mind that to be a geologist was what I wanted to do.

Shiprock in John Carter
Shiprock in John Carter

Now, when I was an undergraduate, Shiprock actually appeared in almost every single geology textbook (and it still does, really). It was almost always described as a ‘volcanic neck’ or ‘volcanic plug,’ or that which remains after most of a volcano has eroded away, leaving only the core of the volcano behind. This was supposed to be the original channel through which the magma flowed prior to erupting at the earth’s surface.

Well, one of my professors wanted to set that straight. Clearly those idiots writing the textbooks had never actually visited the place. Shiprock is no volcanic neck, he announced. It was better described as a ‘geo-fart.’ Well, this made an impression on me and my classmates, and to this day, I can’t look at a photo of Shiprock without thinking about geo-farts and giggling a little bit.

It is actually a rather apt description to call it a geo-fart. The technical term is ‘diatreme,’ which is a ‘breccia-filled volcanic pipe that was formed by a gaseous explosion.’ Well that’s a mouth full. In regular English, that means that there was a big gaseous eruption – explosive or fart-like, if you will – where lots of angular bits of rock were shot out of a pipe-like structure in the Earth. Rocks fell back in. Things were hot. Some rocks were melted. The end result is this structure, like a volcanic neck, but that is full of jumbled up bits of formerly molten rocks and other bits and pieces all stuck together. (The word ‘breccia’ [pronounced brech-a] refers to a rock composed of angular bits of other rocks all jumbled and fused together.) When the exploding is done, all the softer rock surrounding the newly filled pipe-like structure erodes away, leaving a huge rock that looks a little like a Spanish galleon.

Shiprock, New Mexico
Shiprock, New Mexico. Photo by Bowiesnodgrass

So it must have been a pretty exciting day when Shiprock formed, though it certainly didn’t look much like it does today. It’s really no surprise that something like a geo-fart occurred in the Southwest. There’s volcanic activity everywhere, a lot of which involved lots of gaseous urping and the tossing in the air of lava bits. That’s how all those cinder cones out there formed. (As an aside, one such cinder cone is called SP Crater. Google it and have a chuckle with me!)

Cinder Cone
Cinder Cone
SP Crater
SP Crater, Arizona

OK, but what about those ‘walls’ coming off of Shiprock? Those are real and they formed at or around the same time that Shiprock itself formed. In geology, we have a term for these. We call them dikes (or dykes, depending upon which side of the Atlantic you live on). Dikes are basically walls of volcanic material cut through existing rock layers. You can imagine that while the pipe that later became Shiprock was busy blowing up, that there would be some cracks extending from it. These cracks filled up with volcanic material, forming the dikes. Since the dikes (and volcanic material in general) are more difficult to erode than the softer sandstones that they cut through, they wind up standing like walls and towers after some erosion has taken place. Later, these walls make a great backdrop for a great movie!

Shiprock from ASTER
Shiprock from ASTER

OK, so there it is, the first installment of “Geology in the Movies.” Next time you’re watching John Carter, I hope you giggle when Shiprock appears, just as I did. And when the person next to you asks what’s so funny, you can tell them that you just saw a geo-fart.

Dermont’s Writing Challenge

OK, so this started with a tweet from Rainn Wilson:

Well, I like writing challenges – even if they take me a long time to accomplish. Here’s the challenge:

Write the beginning of a story from the point of view of a first person narrator who refuses to do what he/she is told to do. What will your character do instead? What lengths will your character go to in order to avoid completing a direct order? Why/How does your character make things hard on his/herself?

Begin with one of the following phrases:

  •  I was supposed to. . . .
  • My father insisted I . . . .
  • Don’t tell me what to do. . . .
  • Everyone always wants something from me. . . . .

Here’s my entry. This is written from the perspective of Hanna from “Knights of Herongarde.” Let’s see if I have the nerve to actually post it on the website, like I’m supposed to…

—–

I was supposed to be the one doing the defending here. I was the one with the order from the King.

“Hide woman! No place for you,” cried Donnel’s guard.

This was getting old. Typical male egos telling me to run and hide like the pretty girl. What? Did these idiots think I carried around this sword just for show?

“But I—,” I tried to argue, but the guard blew me off again.

“Hide!” he demanded, and gave me a shove toward the wagon.

I stumbled a bit in the direction of the wagon but stopped. Donnel’s guards were running around, trying to insure the security of the wagon, in which Lord Donnel himself hid.

Lord Dean still sat atop his horse, glancing around, barking orders. He had a legitimate right to be bossing these other guards around. He was a Mark-Bearer of Herongarde – a special defender for the King. I should have that same authority. But I don’t bear the Mark. And I’m a woman.

I looked back at the wagon. There was no way I was going to hide in there. I was charged by the King to act as if were a Mark-Bearer. Plus it was my job to ensure that Lord Trey was kept safe.

“Hide! Woman!” I heard a call from behind me. I rolled my eyes and without looking back jogged around the wagon to the front of the short caravan, to where the main problem seemed to be.

Trey was standing on the front wagon. “Release him at once!” he cried at the people who had stopped our travel. The road was blocked by what seemed to be about ten men. They all looked road weary. Then I noticed that they wore the crest of Falgarth on their clothing. These weren’t ordinary mercenaries. They were the enemy of Herongarde.

And here everyone thought the war was over.

Our own men were lined up facing the Falgarth insurgents. Four were Donnel’s guards, and among them was Lord Balayn. For a moment I wondered where Lord Orrin was, then I saw him.

One of the men of Falgarth held him captive, a sword to his throat. Orrin feigned strength and indifference in his predicament, but I saw fear in his eyes. His neck was bleeding already. He was in trouble.

This simply would not do.

“Hanna! Get back!” shouted Trey. I looked up at him as he glared furiously at me. “Back, woman!” I didn’t move.

“My Lord, I feel that you should accept defeat!” called out the man who held Orrin. Trey returned his attention to the battle line drawn before him.

“We’ll not submit. These lands are of Herongarde!” Trey returned.

“Hah!” shouted back the captor.

This was a stalemate, I realized. It was going to get ugly before it got better. I wondered if I could do anything. A distraction, maybe. I started walking toward the lines of men.

“Hanna,” I heard Trey say. I ignored him. He should know better.

As I walked toward the men, I unbuckled and slipped off my sword, carrying it behind me, so that maybe it would not be obvious that I carried such a weapon.

I walked up beside Balayn. He looked at me, startled to see me. “Hanna, get back. Tis dangerous,” Balayn said.

Really? I thought. I rolled my eyes at him. “Hanna,” he growled.

“Hold this,” I said, pressing my sword belt into his left hand. “I’ve got an idea.”

I wondered if I was lying. It wasn’t much of an idea, but it seemed that these men of Falgarth had been away from civilization for a while, and well, if it had been so long, maybe the appearance of a woman would be sufficient to shake their attention. It had worked before.

I ran my hand across my thigh. That dagger that Trey had given me was still there, though hidden in the folds of my dress. At least I had some weapon, though I did feel a little vulnerable without the sword.

“Hanna,” hissed Balayn, “What are you doing?”

“Not sure,” I said as I stepped forward. I leapt a little, as if I had been shoved out of the crowd. I stopped and put on the most surprised expression I could come up with.

“Hanna!” shouted Trey from atop the wagon. “Get back!”

The man holding Orrin looked over at me. I had his attention. Now what? I thought.

I took a hesitant step toward him.

“HANNA!” cried Trey again.

Orrin’s captor began to grin. I looked around at the other men a Falgarth. They all were looking at me, several of them wearing similar, lusty, grins.

I looked back at Orrin’s captor. I took another step toward him.

“Aye, woman,” the man sneered. “Come closer.”

“Hanna! Go no further!” cried Trey.

I skulked toward the man. I had his complete attention. I hoped that the defenders of Herongarde would have the sense to take advantage of this. I was worried about what would happen if they didn’t.

Suddenly, I found myself standing right beside Orrin’s captor. I could hear Orrin struggling to breath calmly, his captor’s blade cutting slowly into his neck. This was not good.

But I still had the captor’s attention. He was looking at me as if I were something delicious to eat. Every time Trey called out to me, the captor’s grin and lustful expression grew deeper.

I looked the man in the eye and gave him the most sultry smile I could manage. “You’re a bold man,” I whispered to him.

“Aye,” he replied.

“Man all the way down, I’d bet.”

“Oh, aye, woman.”

“More than him?” I asked, nodding toward Orrin.

“Easily, woman.”

“Or him?” I nodded toward Trey.

“He is a child.”

“Perhaps you can show me, aye?”

“I would love to,” he smiled. His teeth were rotten. I tried not to be repulsed by them. “But I might tear you asunder!”

I leaned close to him and whispered directly in his ear. “Sounds wonderful!”

“Mmm,” he responded.

Orrin gasped, and I realized that the time to act was now. I slipped my hand down my leg and withdrew my dagger. I stuck it into the small of the captor’s back.

“And now you’ll let him go,” I hissed.

The smirk disappeared from the captor’s face, but he didn’t release Orrin.

“Hm,” the captor grunted.

“Now,” I growled.

I probably should have just stabbed him in the back and dropped him then, but I kept thinking that maybe there was some hope that this conflict could be resolved with no more blood shed.

I was wrong.

On Introspection and Writing

This last year has brought a lot of change into my life. Call it a mid-life crisis if you want, but certainly I am changed over who (or where) I was last year.

In April of last year one of the most significant events of my life occurred. That was when my son received the diagnosis of PDD-NOS. What’s that, you ask? In a nutshell, it means that the boy has autism (or is autistic, or whatever is politically correct). He’s a high-functioning autistic, but does not quite fit the diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome.

Anyway, what’s important here is that this diagnosis, while disappointing and sometimes difficult to cope with did help me accept that my child’s strange behavior is not due to any failure of my own. My parenting is fine. The boy is just different. I hadn’t realized it, but the feeling that the boy’s ‘differentness’ was somehow my fault had been weighing so heavily on me that it affected everything. I was depressed. I gained weight. I faltered at work. I faltered at home, with my marriage, and everything. I felt like a failure all the way around.

Everything changed with the boy’s diagnosis. I did go through an initial stage of mourning: the boy would never be the person that I had originally thought he might be. But once I got past that, things improved.

I suddenly dropped fifteen pounds of weight. I just quit eating as much. Apparently, I am a comfort-eater. Yeah, I am. Yum. Candy. This then turned into me beginning a regular fitness program. At this point, I have lost nearly thirty pounds, and am fitter than I was even as an undergraduate athlete.

My relationship with my husband also improved. Sure we still have some rocky moments, but that’s natural. We celebrated ten years of marriage last year. And we still like each other. That’s pretty good.

Somehow, the boy’s diagnosis enabled me to allow myself to take time for my own interests. I discovered that I really like sewing, and have now made for myself, my husband, and the boy several costumes with at 14th century flair. I’m working on new costumes for the Ren-Faire circuit this summer.

What’s perhaps the most substantial revelation I’ve gotten in the last year is that I actually like to write. Yeah, who new. I’ve hated writing for years, or so I’ve thought. The truth is, I hate technical writing. It’s stale and stunted. It’s all posturing and jargon. (And I’m not the only one who’s realized this!) It’s not my natural mode of communication.

Last November, I joined the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and started, for the first time ever, to write and share with others one of the many stories I’ve had drifting around in my head. Well, I easily met the 50k word goal of NaNoWriMo, but the book was (and still is) hardly complete. With this writing, I discovered that I absolutely loved writing. Just not technical writing.

Well, I’m still working on the book (Knights of Herongarde), and still costuming, and feel great for it. Recently, a blog post inspired me to do more writing. It seems that there is a call for scientists to start making their work accessible to others, and blogging seems to be the best way to do this. So, I’ve started adding blog posts about my research. I hope that readers here have enjoyed them. There will be more.

I’m about to embark on another project that will involve a lot of writing. Writing in my preferred style, not the stunted, formal style of technical journals. It was suggested to me while in California that there does not exist a popular-press book on the basics of geology. Given my preferred style of writing, I might be the person to prepare such a book.

There are books on the geology of specific places, but nothing like “Geology for the masses,” semi-technical books that a person could grab and take with them anywhere where rocks are exposed and get something useful from it. Well there are a few out there, most notably one in the “For Dummies” series. Many are geared toward children, and far too many (the prettiest and glossiest and the ones that are on top of the Google search for “Geology book”) are creation science books touting the 6,000 year-old Earth. *gasp*

This is in marked contrast to books on dinosaurs, for example, where you can choose from any number of great titles, written at a level accessible to both children and adults, all written by prominent authors and scholars. These books mix technical jargon with pretty pictures and fantastic facts that attract scholars at all levels. I myself have several of these books on my own shelves and refer to them when teaching about dinosaurs in my own classes.

So why don’t such books exist for the science of geology? Maybe because it is a very broad topic? Maybe because most geologists don’t consider promoting their science to the general populace necessary? Maybe because the average person thinks that there’s not much to geology, so a whole book devoted to it would be pointless.

Well, that last person is missing out on a fantastic science. A lot of people are. So I’ve decided to take on this project. And I think my personal style of writing and the use of this blog lend themselves to the greater project. My goals in doing this work are the same as they are when I teach “Introduction to the Geological Sciences”:

1) To leave the reader/student with basic knowledge that *wherever* they go, whether rocks are exposed or not, there will always be something geological for them to recognize and enjoy.

2) To turn the reader/student into an informed citizen. Far too often, geology is given short-shrift in the media, and the average person is entirely unaware that within geology are important answers to questions related to climate change or other environmental disasters (like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, or last year’s earthquake in Japan). My goal is to demonstrate the relevance, so that when policy decisions must be made, people can choose appropriately.

The ‘book’ will be written section by section, topic by topic, where each section is sufficient for a single blog post. In the end, the book will be put together by stitching each of the sections together in the correct order.

This accomplishes two things. One, it lets me take my time writing the book. I can write a section or two a week, but a whole book in a year is a little daunting. Two, by using the blog it allows some peer review and more importantly, open access, which is a huge topic in the sciences these days. Read about it. Maybe I’ll blog about it. Eventually.

 

Eye-Tracking the Geological Experience

One question that is often asked, especially in advertising, is is “what draws the attention of the consumer?” More basically, we sometimes wonder what people are looking at, anywhere. Twenty people can look at the same scene and notice different things about it. What captures a person’s attention?

Such questions are often addressed using a technique called eye-tracking. This involves two cameras, usually worn by the subject. One camera takes a picture of the scene that the person is observing and the other films the motions of the subject’s eye. With careful calibration, it is then possible to project upon the image of the scene, the actual point at which the subject is looking.

Eye-tracking technology has changed over the years. Originally, eye-trackers were cumbersome and seldom left the laboratory. Recently, eye-tracking has become portable, and new questions can be asked and answered. I’ve been fortunate to be associated with (as a participant and as an assistant) a different type of eye-tracking study.

This study goes beyond simply asking what people look at. Instead, the goal is the understand how geologists learn their trade, and the distinction between what a novice geologist (an early-career student) and an expert observer (a professional geologist) notices when looking at an unfamiliar landscape. The study is investigating what’s called “perceptual learning,” and is a joint venture between geologists, brain and cognitive scientists, and imaging technologists at the University of Rochester and Rochester Institute of Technology.

The result is a nine-day Spring Break field trip to California for about 20 students and researchers. In many regards it’s a typical geology field trip involving a caravan of 12-passenger vans stopping regularly at convenient road cuts and scenic overlooks where everyone piles out of the vehicles and the instructor shows the students what is significant about that particular place. Then the students take a bunch of photos and everyone climbs back into the vans and off they go again.

A typical geology field trip caravan

 

Lecture on the rocks

But this trip is different as well. At two to four of each day’s stops, the eye-trackers come out. By the end of the trip, it takes about 15 minutes to suit up. All the students mill around, intentionally ignoring the scenery around them, waiting for the go-ahead to finally look around. Sometimes, they’re forced to face a wall, waiting for everything to be in order. When all is ready, the students are led to a spot, lined up, and asked to observe the scene looking for evidence of geologic events, specified by the instructor. They look around for a minute or two, then the stop becomes like any other: Question and answer, followed by a detailed explanation offered by the trip leader. Then the students take their photos, the eye-trackers come off, and the caravan moves on.

Adjustments

 

Adjustments and Calibration

 

Calibration

 

Facing the wall, waiting for permission to peek.

 

Tracking...

 

Post-tracking discussion

 

This eye-tracking, geology-spotting venture has been going on for three years now. I myself have been on two of the trips, once as an “expert,” and once as a driver/wrangler. As yet, no major publications have come from the work. It seems that the study has generated so much data, that new methods had to be developed to deal with the data. But conclusions are beginning to arise. For example, we’ve learned that it matters how the question is asked, as to whether or not the students begin looking in the right places. There’s a difference, you see, between “look in the valley” and “look around the valley.” Who knew.

For me, I just think it’s damn cool!

For more photos of the shenanigans that is the California field trip, visit my Flickr sets for 2010 and 2012.

John Carter – An Incredible Success

The truth is, I’m not a movie aficionado. In fact, I don’t watch movies that often at all. It’s not because I don’t enjoy watching movies, but rather that I’m usually busy trying to keep my life in order. I use up my time among keeping my job, raising my autistic son, and trying to carve out a little ‘me’ time to exercise and occasionally get some sleep.

With that, you should understand that it is a big deal when I decide that there is a movie out there worth seeing that I’m actually willing to pay to see at the theater. It’s an even bigger deal when I decide that the whole family should come. It’s a big event in our household.

I had seen a few previews of John Carter and decided that it was a movie I wanted to see in the theater and that it was a movie that the whole family would enjoy. So we made our plans and off we went.

We did all enjoy the movie. It was excellent. Sure, it’s not Schindler’s List, but it was a really great romp on a foreign planet based upon a classic book. It wasn’t the same-old fare – a replicate of Avatar, or whatever. It certainly wasn’t a flop like Water World. It didn’t follow the usual formula. It kept me guessing and wondering where the plot was going to go. I was engaged.

The things I particularly enjoyed include:

1) The four-armed critters were actually pretty convincing. As a vertebrate paleontologist, I’m always disappointed when the alien species depicted really couldn’t function.

2) The characters seemed genuine, especially John Carter himself. I could totally get why he was so jaded with life.

3) It didn’t feel like a totally CG movie, though I realize that there was a lot of CG in it. Oftentimes, I find too much CG a great distraction, but I wasn’t troubled by it in John Carter. Was it because the technology has improved? Maybe. Equally likely, the movie was conceived in such a way that it’s success wasn’t entirely dependent upon CG. The new Star Wars movies overused CG so much that I can barely watch them.

4) The landscapes and backdrops were home to me. This is a double-edged sword, of course, since I recognized some of the vistas as places I have been. But, seriously, Shiprock is awesome, and the perfect place to stand in as Mars. It was in the Southwest where I learned my trade (geology and paleontology), and love to see my old stomping grounds.

5) And naturally, James Purefoy, who is one of my favorite actors to watch and who seems to have stolen every scene he was in. (Sigh.)

When I heard that John Carter is being described as the “Biggest Flop Ever,” I was dismayed. It’s a perfectly good movie. How could it flop? The fact of it is that Disney seems to have not bothered to advertise the movie in the US. When I think about it, the only reason why I knew about it was that I enjoy cyber-stalking Mr. Purefoy (I’m an adult, I can do that) and I found out about the movie from one of his fan websites. My husband, who watches considerably more television than I do, knew absolutely nothing about the movie. He hadn’t even heard of it. What’s up with that, Disney?

I’m disappointed – seriously – because there’s one other reason why I really liked John Carter.

WHY I LOVE JOHN CARTER:

I mentioned my autistic son earlier. He’s not horribly autistic, some would call him ‘high functioning.’ In the medical parlance, his diagnosis is PDD-NOS, which puts him on the autism spectrum, but not the type of autistic that you might have seen in Rain Man. Nevertheless, to get the boy to a theater and get him to sit through a movie is difficult. It’s something new, something different, so he fights. He could start peeping and acting out during the film. As we were going into the theater he was screaming about how he didn’t want to go and that he would cover his ears and shut his eyes the whole time. We’ve had some poor movie experiences because of his autism, and I was a bit apprehensive. But I was convinced that he would like the film.

The boy sat still and quiet through the whole movie, start to finish. Amazing. And as we left he said, “I guess that was a pretty good movie after all.”

Success.

How can John Carter be a ‘flop’? My boy liked it. It was incredible!

25 Days of Writing – Day 17

Day 17: Your character has fallen in love. With who? Is it serious? Are they in a relationship with this person? How did they meet? Write a scene of your character either contemplating this significant other or directly interacting with them.

——

Trey was overwhelmed. Each of his arms was gripped by at least two men. His sword was wrenched from his fingers. A blow came from behind and he dropped to his knees. His arms were pulled back painfully. He bent forward, trying to fold over and protect his exposed belly. The mail coif covering his head was torn off. It caught his ear and he felt his flesh tearing. A huge fist then gripped his hair and yanked him backward. He was forced onto his back, with his legs still bent beneath him. He felt his thigh muscles stretching. Firey agony radiated from the older stabbing wound to his leg.

He cried out, as he continued to struggle. He managed to twist his legs out from under his body, but was immediately restrained once he tried to push up with them. The weight of at least one man crashed down across his knees.

Trey cried out again. He heard the men laughing. He tried to pull his arms free and felt the sole of heavy boots crush his hands. Bones broke. He stopped fighting. Stillness surrounded him.

From afar, he heard the sounds of a sword fight, and the grunts of the opponents grappling in mortal battle. One of the fighters was a woman. It was Hanna. He could tell from her voice that she was struggling. He heard her cry out. Her opponent’s sword had met its mark. A couple more clangs of steel on steel and she screamed. There was a distant thud of a body falling. There was silence.

She was dead. Trey screamed for her. “Hanna!—” He was cut off by a sharp kick to the neck. He remained still for a moment, regaining his senses.

“And good riddance,” commented one of his attackers.

“His sword, my Lord,” another voice.

“A man of the Mark, aye? Is this true?”

Trey felt his hands being crushed further by heavy boots. The sleeve of his right arm was pushed up and his flesh twisted to expose the tattooed Mark on his forearm.

“Aye, indeed.”

Trey felt a boot stomping down on his hair. It pulled painfully. A slap came across his cheek. His eyes snapped open. A filthy grizzled old warrior bent over him, sneering. “Mark-bearer, aye? See? You are nothing.”

Trey renewed his efforts to escape the grasp of these men, but it was futile. He couldn’t move. Trey cried out in frustration and shut his eyes once more. He listened as the men moved around him, discussing his fate. His mind wandered to Hanna. He realized he was crying.

Hanna was gone. Really gone. She didn’t believe in the afterlife, so she was gone forever. Trey found himself praying. He prayed to God; he prayed to Rosaline. Please, take her in and keep her safe.

A kick in the ribs brought him back to his situation. The men stood over him and laughed. Trey’s eyes rolled. He would be dead soon as well. He must pray for his own deliverance.

But his mind traveled to Hanna again. He realized that he had wronged her. He treated her so badly. She had never done anything but care for him and he treated her like a dog. He had forced this situation upon her, and she had died. It was his fault. That was two women he had killed. Another cry escaped his lips.

Oh, to have the chance to make it right! She had trusted him. He had killed her. His tears flowed freely. He knew now that he had loved her for a while – maybe since the moment they had met. It all made sense to him now. He had held her that whole night after she killed the man of Falgarth and had discovered the plans for this battle. Of course! Why else would he have held her so? He had ignored his feelings, though. He blatantly refused to love her. He lied to himself and he treated her like garbage. He was worse to her than ever after that. Maybe.

He did give her that necklace, and the coins she needed for a new dress. His desire to do those things had surprised him. The clues were all there, but he denied them.

And now she was gone. He wanted her safe. He regretted dragging her into this war. But she served her duty. Valiantly. And she was dead. He killed her.

He prayed again. He prayed that he would see her in the afterlife. That she and Rose would know each other and be friends.

Suddenly, he could not breathe. A great weight was upon his chest. His eyes snapped open. The old warrior stood over him, with one foot firmly in the middle of Trey’s chest. The man held Trey’s own weapon, dangling it over Trey’s face.

“Too fine a weapon for the likes of you, boy,” grumbled the man. Then he laughed. The others around him laughed as well.

“Tis fitting that your own weapon shall be the one to kill you, aye?” laughed the man further.

Trey groaned and tried once again to pull away. It was to no avail.

“Let’s see here,” growled the man. He pressed the tip of Trey’s sword to Trey’s cheek. “Who do you belong to?” The man cut into Trey’s flesh, starting to carve out the letter ‘F.’ Trey jerked his head to the side. The blade cut his cheek to his ear.

“Damn!” exclaimed the man. “Hold him!”

Trey’s head was turned and held in place by a younger, brutish warrior. The old warrior began to carve into Trey’s other cheek. Trey lurched, and the blade slipped again, this time not just cutting into his own flesh, but into that of the man holding his head. A minor victory.

The old warrior pressed more of his weight onto Trey’s chest. Trey found he couldn’t breathe. The tip of the blade was pressed against Trey’s throat, just under his chin. “You die anyway boy,” the man growled.

Trey squeezed his eyes shut. He felt the blade digging into his neck. He knew that it was sharp enough that if the man simply let the weight of the sword press on his neck it would pierce his throat. He was dead.

His head swam. He searched for prayers but thought of Hanna. Please God!

“Please, don’t,” an angelic voice said. Trey cried loudly. In his mind he begged for swift passage into the next life.

“Please don’t kill him. I love him,” said the angel.

Those words echoed in his ears. He recognized the voice. It was Hanna. He was relieved. The weight on his chest lifted. He knew he was dead. But she was with him, and he was happy.

Creating one’s personal brand…

We were on a long ride today, and for some reason, I was thinking about this concept.  I mean, do I have a personal brand? What is it? What do I want it to be? Do I even want one?

Let’s see what components of my brand that I think most people would agree about:

  • One who laughs a lot.
  • Maker of bad puns.
  • Tweaker of unruly mass spectrometers.
  • Purveyor of paleontological geochemistry to the masses.
  • Educator.
  • Parental-type person.
  • Athletic (-ish)
  • Artist (as in drawing, mostly).
  • Occasional writer.
  • Possessor of far too many hobbies.

So then, does that make a brand? If so, what?

25 Days of Writing – Day 16

Day 16: Your character is going on a trip. Where to? Who with, if anyone? Why are they going on a trip? Write a scene of them either getting ready or departing on their journey.

——

Trey walked into Hanna’s chamber. Lord Dean sat with her, staring confused at the needle and thread he held in his hand. Hanna wore a weary smile. Trey felt his heart warm. It was good to see her smile. She looked up, noticing him in the doorway. She continued to smile, but behind her expression was pain. Trey smiled back, softly.

“Aye! Lord Trey!” exclaimed Dean. “Come you to relieve me of this struggle?” Dean held up the sewing he was attempting to do.

Hanna glanced over at Dean. “Real men can sew,” she muttered with a slight smile, then turned her attention to her own hands.

“Aye?!” roared Dean. “Then I am not a man!” He laughed loudly and was joined by Trey.

“We are only men by your graces, my darling,” said Trey. His smile faded. He bored heavy news.

“Aye Dean, I do bring you respite from your stitching,” Trey said. “His Majesty sends us to Taryn. We depart in the morning.”

“Taryn, my Lord?” asked Dean.

“Aye, Dean. Lady Marta has passed. Lord Donnal retires his seat to his eldest son and requests to spend his remaining days here in Herongarde serving his King. We travel to Taryn to deliver Donnal safely to his new home.”

Trey turned his gaze to Hanna. She was looking up at him, gaping in shock. “You must leave?” she whimpered.

Trey sighed. “His Majesty’s order is that I, Dean, Orrin, and Balayn travel to Taryn on the morrow and return as quickly as possible.”

Hanna looked away, tears filling her eyes.

Trey sat beside Hanna. “His Majesty also instructs,” Trey spoke softly into her ear, “that you should travel with us.”

Hanna turned and looked at him. “He does not make an order. It is your choice,” continued Trey. “However, should you travel with us, His Majesty does order that you carry your weapon, and serve Herongarde as you have in the past – with steel if needed.”

Hanna looked at Trey in silence. She was uncertain how to respond.

Dean moved awkwardly. He realized that he should probably leave. Hanna and Trey seemed quite oblivious to his presence. He stood and set the sewing he was holding onto the table. “My Lord. Hanna,” he said politely as he prepared to leave.

Trey looked up. “Aye Dean. Prepare for the journey.”

Dean bowed and left.

Trey turned his attention back to Hanna. She sat hunched over, with her face buried in her hands. “My darling?” he said to her. “It is with heavy heart that His Majesty gives this order.”

Hanna nodded.

“Lord Donnal is Rose’s Father, Hanna. We are kin.”

“I know, my Lord,” Hanna muttered.

“I would have you with me.”

Hanna sighed, and nodded again, turning to look at him. “Then I will travel with you, my Lord.”

Trey smiled faintly. “Please, my love. Call me Trey.”

“It has been a trial.”

“I know, love.” Trey paused. “You— You will travel with us?”

“Aye,” said Hanna “I will.”

Trey smiled, more broadly this time.

“My love,” whispered Hanna as Trey wrapped her in his arms. They sat in that embrace for a long time, sitting in silence, breathing in the scent of the other.

Shuffling in the hallway broke the silence. Their embrace broke and they straightened up to look at each other. Trey kissed Hanna softly on the lips.

Balayn cleared his throat. He was standing in the doorway. Trey looked up. “My Lord Balayn,” Trey greeted.

“Lord Trey. Hanna,” greeted Balayn in return. There was silence as the men looked at each other.

“Balayn,” said Trey, “Hanna will travel with us to Taryn.”

Balayn, bowed slightly and smiled. “Excellent, my Lord. We will enjoy her company.”

Trey nodded.

“I come to ask for how long of a journey I shall collect provisions? Also, I suppose, I might as how we might arrange camp?” asked Balayn.

“Ah, aye,” said Trey, still sitting with one arm around Hanna. “We will make haste on our travel there. I believe we can make the journey with only one night spent camping – though it would be wise to bring provision for two nights.” Trey turned and looked upon Hanna. “For sleeping, well I know not. Perhaps it best to conserve heat and all share a single tent.”

Hanna shrugged. She had spent many nights camped out, sharing bedding with Trey and Jason or Karrick, and most recently with the King himself. It didn’t bother her too much – as long as the men weren’t bothered.

Balayn nodded. “Aye. T’would seem most reasonable. I have spoken with Lord Orrin, but not Lord Dean.”

“I have informed Lord Dean of his duties myself,” said Trey.

“Excellent. Then we leave at first light, my Lord?”

“As soon as we can, Balayn.”

“Then I shall attend to the preparations, my Lord.”

“As should I,” said Trey. “And you, too,” Trey said to Hanna.

Balayn bowed. “My Lord,” he said, then he left.

Once again Trey turned his attention to Hanna. “Then gather your things, my dear.”

“I fear I may be ill prepared for cold weather,” Hanna said softly.

“Speak of this to my mother,” Trey said. “Surely, she can offer help.”

Hanna rose, then squatted beside the bed, reaching beneath it. “I guess I’ll need this,” she muttered as she withdrew her sword, in its scabbard attached to its belt, from under the bed.

“Aye, Hanna, you will need that,” said Trey. “I would that you would hang it proudly, rather than hide it shamefully.”

Hanna looked at the sword, drawing it partially from the scabbard. “I despise this thing,” she muttered. “And yet, I continue to bear it. It is like a sad addiction.” She sighed.

Trey stood up beside her. “You are a swordsman – er, swords-woman, I guess – but you are good and should bear this weapon proudly.”

Hanna shrugged. “Maybe one day.” Hanna set the sword on the table beside her sewing and scratched her head, looking at the disarray in her chamber. “What a mess,” she grumbled.

Trey came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders, leaning forward to speak into her ear. “Gather your things. Speak to Mother about preparations for the cold. Provisions will be gathered by Lord Balayn. You need not worry about that, aye?”

Hanna looked up at him over her shoulder, smiling slightly. “OK.”

“And polish that sword,” Trey said. “We will meet to ensure all is in order this night before we rest, aye?”

“Aye, my Lord.”

Trey frowned. Hanna smiled. “My love,” she said. “My Trey.”

Trey smiled. “My darling.” He kissed her then bowed deeply. He turned smartly and left, with a smile on his face and a bounce in his step. She would come with them. He was happy.