"golphins", evil costumes, and coloring books...
i'll just touch briefly on a few things here since there is somewhat of a diverse grouping of topics for today's entry...
oh yeah, happy birthday (Oct. 26*) to my buddy hal!
first off, you may ask, "what is a 'golphin'?"...well let me tell you:
i mentioned in an earlier entry that we had a visiting professor come to the university from india who has been a guest of our aquatics department and more generally SNRE. well today he gave a (much anticipated - for me at least) talk on the ganges river dolphin (Platanista gangetica). finally a cause i can get my arms around (maybe not literally, but i would try)! the ganges river dolphin is one of about 5 freshwater dolphin species in the world and is in great decline in its limited native range in the large rivers (primarily the ganges/ganga) in india. now, i know this animal is not a fish, but its pretty cool looking in my opinion. look at that elongate snout full of teeth...now what kind of fish** does that remind you of? more importantly, what kind of fish would that remind ME of? if you don't know, then you don't know me terribly well and you can just stop reading these altogether. even if you didnt know right away, i think you could figure it out. anyway, combine that fish's name with dolphin and you get: golphin. no, i didnt come up with that corny name, damon did as we went into the talk and saw some pics. well now you know.
these ancient mammals are in major decline and its estimated that only about 1500-2000 are left on the planet. they are being poached, accidentally killed by fishing gear, and dying due to the tremendous pollution which is going into the ganges (which is of course also a concern to human populations). this is all interconnected, and the visiting professor (whom i have had the pleasure with chatting with over the past week or so) is part of a major environmental organization working to study/preserve/clean up india's major river system, including their most important, the ganges. their main icon for the origanization is this dolphin, for which their main theme is saving the ganges river dolphin means saving the ganges river. they have made tremendous efforts with comparatively (to the US) funding and definitely not the same technology...yet they are making some significant progress where many of our US programs failed. now, i know...usually i'm complaining or making fun of something in the entries (and that is yet to come in this entry) but this was something that was very interesting to me and tied together a lot of stuff...aquatic ecology, india, and getting the heck out of the dungeon. one of the major ways they have been working towards the conservation of this animal and therefore started some clean-up efforts/preservation of the river is by working through local schools and educating the children of the local fishermen and those who live near the river. i must say, although its an uphill and bleak battle, the progress has been impressive. UofM is looking to further work with this organization and help out even more (you can see their current project plans and reports HERE. i know this seems somewhat focused on one animal, and you may ask where the value to the people comes in, but hopefully you have been able to figure that out (the water quality is important to all organisms). either way, its something i'd like to help out with during my time here at UofM...coincidentally the fishes i helped ID are going into an exhibit which will showcase the ganges ecosystem including the dolphin and the efforts to clean up the river for people and everything else as well.
ok, stepping off my 'environmental' soapbox...i know you guys know i don't normally voice much of an opinion about that stuff, but i thought that project/presentation was pretty cool.
well moving right along; after the talk today damon, james and i hit up pancheros (where out of revenge of tios always screwing up my order and getting james' right, i had 'cheros screw up james' quesadilla...well, not really, but i was happy they messed it up. indirect revenge.) man that burrito was good, but aren't they always?
after that james split off from us and went home, and damon went on our quest to find halloween costumes...it was an interesting adventure covering three stores and also involved some red bull, a leprachaun, and a lot of spontaneous brainstorming by myself and d. needless to say, we came up with our costumes, which should be pretty cool, or at the very least allow us to play the part as well as disturb people. thanks to everyone who gave us suggestions...we didn't really use any of them, but rest assured they were carefully considered by a committee (me) before their eventual dismissal. ok, i ran a few of them by damon but we still came up with our own ideas and will keep other suggestions as options for years to come.
now i'll include some interesting stuff about halloween and my family from sarah's live journal, which does get into halloween costumes and other festivities which we definitely didnt participate in back in the day.
===
i did something that i've never done before tonight...carved a pumpkin! now i know what the general reaction from people is "u never carved a pumpkin? what kind of kid were u?". well let's just say my parents were rather strict when it came to the halloween holiday. we were allowed to trick or treat, but we didn't really partake in any other festivities. but i'm not complaining. the only thing that i wasn't allowed to do while growing up around halloween were dressing up as : witches, ghosts, or anything satanic.(and i find it ironic how solo's idea for a costume is to go as 'evil'. i'm definitely telling my parents. maybe i'll become the new favorite.) that and we have never really been allowed to eat count chocula cereal (the rentz were never big fans of vampires). but anyways, the pumpkin carving experience was all right. i didn't like having to take out the insides of the pumpkin, the texture just grossed me out. and carving looks easy, but i think it definitely gave my weakling arm a good workout.
===
i have to agree with her though, pumpkin carving is gross, those insides are just nasty. that and don't worry sarah, you'll have to do a heck of a lot more and i'll have to do a heck of a lot worse for you to become 'the favorite' over me, hahaha. nice try though.
i would finally like to note that when i returned a call to her later this evening and asked her what she was doing, she matter-of-factly answered 'coloring'. i assumed this was for one of her non-auditory listening classes that she takes as a culinary arts major (is that right, or am i still off on what you're studying?) at the emu farm. ok ok, she's communications, but the coloring issue still stands. i hope she stayed inside the lines and made a good picture, but then again, she has more or less always been the rebel of the siblings, so who knows how that winnie the pooh picture turned out. reminds me of the days when i used to be into art/drawing before my parents pulled me out of art II to put me into a computer class (8th grade). yeah, that was useless. the students surpassed the skills of our teacher in about 2 weeks and then we just played networked video games (the 1991 equivalent of halo) for the rest of the semester. at least i still get to draw when teaching...sigh...
ok i'm sure there is something else (actually school related) that i need to do for tomorrow, so i'm going to get moving on to that. for those of you who don't already know, the saw I party is at our place tomorrow evening, and then the group is watching saw II on sunday afternoon/evening. if you need more info, look for the guy wearing a black cape for the rest of the semester and ask him...yeah, that thing is pretty sweet. good night <:><
*i haven't gone to sleep yet, so this isn't late!
**no, i'm not talking about a coelacanth here.
random pic: in celebration of halloween, here is a pic of our family's "little" monster, jeevan -
he used to look like this, now he looks more like 'the griff' (Harry Potter) or 'gamork' (Neverending Story) and is about 85 pounds.
oh yeah, happy birthday (Oct. 26*) to my buddy hal!
first off, you may ask, "what is a 'golphin'?"...well let me tell you:
i mentioned in an earlier entry that we had a visiting professor come to the university from india who has been a guest of our aquatics department and more generally SNRE. well today he gave a (much anticipated - for me at least) talk on the ganges river dolphin (Platanista gangetica). finally a cause i can get my arms around (maybe not literally, but i would try)! the ganges river dolphin is one of about 5 freshwater dolphin species in the world and is in great decline in its limited native range in the large rivers (primarily the ganges/ganga) in india. now, i know this animal is not a fish, but its pretty cool looking in my opinion. look at that elongate snout full of teeth...now what kind of fish** does that remind you of? more importantly, what kind of fish would that remind ME of? if you don't know, then you don't know me terribly well and you can just stop reading these altogether. even if you didnt know right away, i think you could figure it out. anyway, combine that fish's name with dolphin and you get: golphin. no, i didnt come up with that corny name, damon did as we went into the talk and saw some pics. well now you know.
these ancient mammals are in major decline and its estimated that only about 1500-2000 are left on the planet. they are being poached, accidentally killed by fishing gear, and dying due to the tremendous pollution which is going into the ganges (which is of course also a concern to human populations). this is all interconnected, and the visiting professor (whom i have had the pleasure with chatting with over the past week or so) is part of a major environmental organization working to study/preserve/clean up india's major river system, including their most important, the ganges. their main icon for the origanization is this dolphin, for which their main theme is saving the ganges river dolphin means saving the ganges river. they have made tremendous efforts with comparatively (to the US) funding and definitely not the same technology...yet they are making some significant progress where many of our US programs failed. now, i know...usually i'm complaining or making fun of something in the entries (and that is yet to come in this entry) but this was something that was very interesting to me and tied together a lot of stuff...aquatic ecology, india, and getting the heck out of the dungeon. one of the major ways they have been working towards the conservation of this animal and therefore started some clean-up efforts/preservation of the river is by working through local schools and educating the children of the local fishermen and those who live near the river. i must say, although its an uphill and bleak battle, the progress has been impressive. UofM is looking to further work with this organization and help out even more (you can see their current project plans and reports HERE. i know this seems somewhat focused on one animal, and you may ask where the value to the people comes in, but hopefully you have been able to figure that out (the water quality is important to all organisms). either way, its something i'd like to help out with during my time here at UofM...coincidentally the fishes i helped ID are going into an exhibit which will showcase the ganges ecosystem including the dolphin and the efforts to clean up the river for people and everything else as well.
ok, stepping off my 'environmental' soapbox...i know you guys know i don't normally voice much of an opinion about that stuff, but i thought that project/presentation was pretty cool.
well moving right along; after the talk today damon, james and i hit up pancheros (where out of revenge of tios always screwing up my order and getting james' right, i had 'cheros screw up james' quesadilla...well, not really, but i was happy they messed it up. indirect revenge.) man that burrito was good, but aren't they always?
after that james split off from us and went home, and damon went on our quest to find halloween costumes...it was an interesting adventure covering three stores and also involved some red bull, a leprachaun, and a lot of spontaneous brainstorming by myself and d. needless to say, we came up with our costumes, which should be pretty cool, or at the very least allow us to play the part as well as disturb people. thanks to everyone who gave us suggestions...we didn't really use any of them, but rest assured they were carefully considered by a committee (me) before their eventual dismissal. ok, i ran a few of them by damon but we still came up with our own ideas and will keep other suggestions as options for years to come.
now i'll include some interesting stuff about halloween and my family from sarah's live journal, which does get into halloween costumes and other festivities which we definitely didnt participate in back in the day.
===
i did something that i've never done before tonight...carved a pumpkin! now i know what the general reaction from people is "u never carved a pumpkin? what kind of kid were u?". well let's just say my parents were rather strict when it came to the halloween holiday. we were allowed to trick or treat, but we didn't really partake in any other festivities. but i'm not complaining. the only thing that i wasn't allowed to do while growing up around halloween were dressing up as : witches, ghosts, or anything satanic.(and i find it ironic how solo's idea for a costume is to go as 'evil'. i'm definitely telling my parents. maybe i'll become the new favorite.) that and we have never really been allowed to eat count chocula cereal (the rentz were never big fans of vampires). but anyways, the pumpkin carving experience was all right. i didn't like having to take out the insides of the pumpkin, the texture just grossed me out. and carving looks easy, but i think it definitely gave my weakling arm a good workout.
===
i have to agree with her though, pumpkin carving is gross, those insides are just nasty. that and don't worry sarah, you'll have to do a heck of a lot more and i'll have to do a heck of a lot worse for you to become 'the favorite' over me, hahaha. nice try though.
i would finally like to note that when i returned a call to her later this evening and asked her what she was doing, she matter-of-factly answered 'coloring'. i assumed this was for one of her non-auditory listening classes that she takes as a culinary arts major (is that right, or am i still off on what you're studying?) at the emu farm. ok ok, she's communications, but the coloring issue still stands. i hope she stayed inside the lines and made a good picture, but then again, she has more or less always been the rebel of the siblings, so who knows how that winnie the pooh picture turned out. reminds me of the days when i used to be into art/drawing before my parents pulled me out of art II to put me into a computer class (8th grade). yeah, that was useless. the students surpassed the skills of our teacher in about 2 weeks and then we just played networked video games (the 1991 equivalent of halo) for the rest of the semester. at least i still get to draw when teaching...sigh...
ok i'm sure there is something else (actually school related) that i need to do for tomorrow, so i'm going to get moving on to that. for those of you who don't already know, the saw I party is at our place tomorrow evening, and then the group is watching saw II on sunday afternoon/evening. if you need more info, look for the guy wearing a black cape for the rest of the semester and ask him...yeah, that thing is pretty sweet. good night <:><
*i haven't gone to sleep yet, so this isn't late!
**no, i'm not talking about a coelacanth here.
random pic: in celebration of halloween, here is a pic of our family's "little" monster, jeevan -
he used to look like this, now he looks more like 'the griff' (Harry Potter) or 'gamork' (Neverending Story) and is about 85 pounds.
posted by Solomon at 2:07 AM
1 Comments:
i came here in hopes to make a clever and witty rebuttal to your verbal assualts on my coloring episode. but then i realized, i got nothing.
i was in fact coloring just for fun...and now the world knows it because of your blog. well all ur readers anyway. oh well.
i guess i was just having high hopes in thinking maybe i'd hit golden child status. i think the 'older' thing is going to bring me down in the end.
ps- i think it would've been humorous after your whole golphin schpeal (sp.?) if you said something like "if you or anyone you know is interested in helping the golphins...here's a 1800 number"...or something to that affect. okay, i need to actually go to my classes today. and its communications. although a minor in culinary arts would be SWEET.
Post a Comment
<< Home