The Mesalands Dinosaur Museum and National Laboratory, is a small but very-worth-visiting fossil museum in Tucumcari, New Mexico. One of the things that makes it special is that the local community college has a program for doing large bronze castings, and they've made it specialty to case actually fossil replicas in bronze, from individual bones to whole skeletons. These castings record incredible detail, and more importantly, are often durable enough to be touched by visitors.
Pictured is one of my favorite objects I've ever encountered on Earth, a huge, life-sized casting of an adult Triceratops. Yes, you are free to touch it, and to do so is to experience a dinosaur in a way few people ever have. When I ran my fingers over its bumps and pores, it came to life in a way I can barely explain. This was something that had been ALIVE. A living, breathing, thing. Yes, I knew that intellectually, but to feel it viscerally, emotionally, is something breathtaking.
I've been there several times, I still I'm drawn to it and take something away every time. When I visited earlier this fall, I found a couple of seemingly scraped indents near the edge of the frill, and it occurred to me that they could we have been caused by TEETH. Maybe, maybe not, but it was compelling to imagine some encounter with a large predator from which this animal had obviously walked away.
Not only is this great for everyone, but I especially wish ever sight-impaired person (especially children) could experience in person. If you're traveling through New Mexico along I-40/Route 66, it's a convenient stop, and small enough to see in an hour or two, depending on your interest level (and the enthusiasm of your kids).
In addition to the many fossils and several dinosaur skeletons, there is an educational learning area for children, an extensive gift shop, and you can watch through windows as scientists work in an large fossil processing and study laboratory. #tucumcaridinosaurmuseum #dinosaurs #dinosaurmuseum #tucumcarinm #tumcaridinosaurmuseum #newmexico #route66 #sciencemuseums #mesalandscc 
Just heard about this. If you are in a position to help out a deserving bookstore ...
#bookstores #books Sometimes an object tells a story. Note the filled hinge holes to the right of this corner bathroom cabinet door. It currently is hinged on the left. Note the towel ber in front of it. With the door hinged the other way, at best it would have been awkward to get around the open doors and access the cabinet. But I suspect that the towel rack was installed after the door, and that it wouldn't clear the rack and open at all.
One hopes a worker got a talking to when it was discovered. Let's also hope that the entire building -- or complex -- wasn't done this way, and every apartment had to have their cabinet doors removed and reversed.
#construction #workgonewrong #carpentry #oopsie You're probably seeing a lot of links and notifications for stories like "Super Blue Moon, Not Another Until 2037, Here's How Not to Miss," and this is why you should NEVER click.
Somewhere in the last decade or so the internet discovered that headlines featuring "Moon" with some unusual name generated clicks, especially if they emphasize that this phenomenon is "rare" or "don't miss." But most of these things aren't that rare, and when they are, most aren't that noteworthy. But people click, and that's how everybody's feed gets filled up with trash science.
A super blue moon IS a little unusual, but the only thing interesting about seeing it is the "super" part, and that's a thing that happens every three or four months (good for clickbait, since you get 3-4 "gimmes" per year). A supermoon means a full moon that happens at the closest point in the moon's orbit. The moon will therefore be SLIGHTLY bigger and brighter (see picture) than a typical blue moon. A blue moon is the third full moon in the same season that has four full moons. This happens seven times every 19 years. A super-blue moon is irregular, but on average it's every ten years or so, though it can be as much as twenty.
But a blue moon LOOKS the same as any other full moon. It's of numeric significance, but it doesn't mean you'll see anything special. A super blue moon IS bigger, but no bigger than any other supermoon. And the difference isn't so different that you'd notice without being told. You might think, "hey, what a great moon tonight," but you probably wouldn't think it anything profound.
Look, don't get me wrong. ANY full moon is a beautiful sight, and worth taking the time to have a look. And if you KNOW there's a supermoon, make some extra effort to see it if you can. But if you don't you'll have plenty more chances.
What I'm saying is, don't give these hacks the satisfaction of rewarding their sensationalism with a click. If enough of us did that (yeah, fat chance) they'd stop feeding us trash science, and instead give us... I know, more trash. But look, don't click, just on principle. Go look it up on a legit astronomy or science site instead. You might just learn something. You might find the careless mistakes that I almost inevitably made in this post. And maybe, just maybe, you'll maybe get to see a beautiful full moon.
#science #supermoon #superbluemoon #clickbait #astronomy 
Sorry! I botched the photo download and grabbed a thumbnail. Here are the real originals as more than a few smeared pixels!
Found some doodles tonight that I'd made on while at a writer's workshop a couple years back. (They were done on the back of pages from a Golden Nugget Casino message pad). This one I like. Doesn't look so great blown up, but at the original size (a couple inches tall) it almost looks like somebody with ability did it.
The sketch was done from memory of a favorite toy I had when I was a small child. It was a set of tiny, plastic, alien figures, molded in various colors and poses, and each about an inch tall. Small as they were, I lost them, one by one, or maybe in bunches as I left them some place. I was very sad when they were gone. But I never forget them. And mind you, I'm pretty old. I remembered them for almost SIXTY years at this point.
All things considered, pretty good likeness. The suits are less robotic, the antenna more like TV rabbit ears, there are rivets around the eyes, there's no real chest pack, and I completely forgot those jug-handle ears!
I finally tracked down what they were. "Giant aliens," "Giant" in this case being the name of the plastic company that made them, not the size. The photo is cribbed from an EBay listing. I'd love to have at least one of these guys, but apparently a lot of other people are obsessed with them too (and there aren't many left). They seem to go for around $25 on the collector's market. The photo listing is for a lot of nine figures, and the asking price was $250! That's over $330 a foot! Too rich for my blood.
But I have my drawing, and now I'm thinking about expanding my Blender skills and taking this as a project to design one (probably based on my drawing, not the original) in 3D, so maybe I can print my own.
(Edited to correct wrong version of the photo being uploaded, and to add alt-text to the pictures).
#aliens #popculture #toys #toyfigurines #giantaliens #nostalgia #memory #blender #3dprinting #arttoys #ufos 
We've been doing some major resetting in our house, and it's a chance to work on our "Brag shelf" (pictured). "Brag shelf" is what my wife (Christina F. York, who writes mystery as Christy Fifield and Christy Evans) call our collection of our published work. That means we've touched pretty much everything you see here (the bottom two shelves are mostly duplicates). Not everything is a novel. Some are anthologies or magazines, so we only have a short story or novella in there. But it's OURS, and that's important. Some days when I'm down and feel I've done and accomplished nothing, I look at this and go, "Huh. I guess I've done SOMETHING..."
I think every writer should have a brag shelf as soon as they publish. Even if it's one book or anthology or magazine, put a copy in a place of pride, so you can look over on the hard days, and so you can grab it to show off. You're a published WRITER, damn it. Be proud!
(BTW, this is the problem with epubs. You have nothing to show for it. If you're indie, try to do a paper edition as well as ebook, even if you think nobody will buy one. You need it for YOU.)
#writing #writers #writingadvice #indiepublishing #creativity #bragshelf #creativework #encouragement 
In the upcoming "Secret Wars," Robert Downey Jr. and Benedict Cumberbatch return to the MCU as -- Sherlock Holmes and -- Sherlock Holmes! (With a special surprise cameo from the Ang Lee Hulk film!)
#MCUNotTrueMaybe
#SecretWars #Marvel #MCU #Hulk #SherlockHolmes #FakeMovieRumors #HashtagGames My yard is a never ending battle against vines. First morning glories, then blackberries, and now ivy. The good news is, the wildlife loves it, and we have deer, humming birds, songbirds, crows, and jays here almost every day. They'll like it just as much though if I can keep it relatively under control. (And no, I almost never use poison or gas powered equipment. Electric power tools only.) The ivy was fine in the yard where it mostly ate a fence, but someone (I suspect BIRDS!) transplanted it to the front corner of my yard, and it's trying to choke out other shrubs and is headed for my mailbox...
#yards #ivy #morninggloryvine #blackberries #vines #yardwork #lawns Hello, Calckey! I've been using Mastodon since the E-train derailed over at That Other Place. I like it, and I LOVE the idea of the Fediverse, privatized social, and no F-ing algorithms run by advertisers and agendas. But I'm also frustrated by some of the limitations over there, especially low character limits on posts. So, I'm trying this. At the very least, it should give me some perspective on that the Fediverse really means.
Anyway, love to follow and engage with interesting people. Especially interested in meeting other writers of all kinds, mystery, science fiction and fantasy readers, indie publishing, folks interested in film and TV (especially genre), science and space folks, makers, and folks that know more than I do.
Maybe I'll do something interesting you'll like too. Follow if you want. Be warned, when I publish something I'll talk about it, and that happens regularly. An my wife is cozy mystery writer Christy Fifield, and I brag on her stuff too. I'll try never to be a jerk about it.
#introduction #newuser #freshmeat #askmeanything #helloworld #hellomynameis 
