Stupid cold

I have had a weird cold the last few days, so I have not been feeling good enough to work on the blog.

But yesterday I watched the brilliant dinosaur tv-show Planet Dinosaur, and so I thought to write about it today, now that I am feeling much better. So, the Tv-tips page is updated (I also added some pictures to the Walking With Monsters review).

I hope to get going with more stuff soon enough. Until then, enjoy!

Recovered or Omnomnomnomnom...

Now, two weeks after the return from the fell hiking trip, I finally feel recovered from the physical fatigue and the mental laziness. (As I said, it took quite a long time!) I will explain why.

Already from the first day on the hiking, I was dreaming about all the pastry I was going to gobble up when we were back: at least four danish pastries with custard, two regular doughnuts and two ball-shaped doughnuts (I think it is a special Swedish thing) with custard filling. But, on the final day, the store had only one danish and plenty regular, plain doughnuts. Even though my friends were kind enough to let me have the danish, and I had three additional doughnuts (two round, filled and one plain), it was hardly satisfying.

It was not until I had excessive amounts of pastry for two consecutive days – two chunks of pinocchio cake (pastry base, covered with whipped cream and topped with crisped meringue and almond) and a Cuban vanilla pudding the day before yesterday, and three pieces of kladdkaka (a Swedish chocolate cake, the name literally meaning “gooey cake”, because the consistency is kind of sticky; but the taste is glorious!) with whipped cream yesterday – that my subconscious cravings were satiated.

If you are curious about the kladdkaka, there is an excellent recipe on YouTube: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTUfr-if3V0

It is in Swenglish (a mix between Swedish and English), but the Swedish words are quite similar to the English: kakao = cocoa; ägg = eggs; vaniljsocker = vanilla sugar; salt = salt; smör = butter; strösocker = normal, white, refined sugar; vetemjöl = wheat flour; majonäs  = mayonnaise (not an actual ingredient!). Anyhow, it is the method that is important, so observe and learn!

What's so interesting about...?

Yesterday, I had an idea about something new for this blog. I remember vaguely having said that I wanted to write short posts about different types of extinct organisms and concepts and controversies in paleontology, and now know how I want to do it.

I will create a new page called What’s so interesting about…, where I will put all texts, storing them for easy access; I will also make each text as a post on the normal flow, so you can see when there is something new! Otherwise, texts on other pages do not appear among the posts.

For example, the first text will probably be about dinosaurs. Then, I will write a post called “What’s so interesting about dinosaurs?”, and put the same text on the page What’s so interesting about… under the title “… dinosaurs?”. This way, followers can see when there is a new text, and, later, as time goes and subsequent posts make that text tiresome to find, new readers can see it under the What’s so interesting about… page.

The whole point of calling them “what’s so interesting about…” is to give the texts something to focus on: what makes that particular subject fascinating. It should prevent me from babbling endlessly about topics I am too passionate about, and it might help me reflect about what I really do like about these things. 

However, I will probably not initiate this idea yet. I need to focus on writing the fell hiking post, and on my stone collection slideshow. That might easily take most of my time before I am off to Bristol (yay!), and there I expect that there will be a lot to write about in the first month(s). But we’ll see…  

Self-trip III

Again, going through some old photos, I recalled that I made a third “self-trip” about a month ago (the 13^th of July, to be precise), and completely forgot to write anything about it. Therefore, I thought I would write something short about the two main things of note.

First, I found nice examples of “rundhällar” (see Quaternary geology in Uppland) on a slope.

Many even had clear cracks and glacial striations.

Standing downslope, you could almost imagine the glacier ploughing toward you. Scary thought…

Second, I heard two squirrels fighting in a tree, somewhere above me.

I could hardly see them, less take pictures of them, but, eventually, one of them won, and (it seems) the victor stayed put in his/her tree, still enough for me to take some pictures. However, it was very difficult to get any good shots through the pine branches, so I took tons of photos, hoping that at least some would turn out ok by sheer luck.

And lucky was exactly what I was.

My T. rex skeleton model and general dinosaur anatomy

I was just looking through a couple of photos of my miniature T. rex skeleton model I got for Christmas present last year, when I felt a weird urge to dismantle it to rebuild it – this time without the manual. At the same time, I thought it to be a good opportunity to make a blog post related to vertebrates for once. So, prepare for a quick guide through some key features of the anatomy of dinosaurs!

First, I disassembled the model and mixed the pieces into a mess.

Second, I realised the easiest way to make sense of this jumble was to organise the different parts into categories.

The next step was to complete the trunk, or, more specifically, the axial skeleton – i.e. the entire skeleton excluding skull, limbs and limb girdles. I can imagine that this must be the most tricky part of a real skeleton,

Short note

We took our uncles to the forest to pick mushrooms today. We were fairly lucky, and found enough to make a nice risotto for dinner tonight. But, for this blog, I just wanted to show you a few pictures of a find that connects back to one of my previous explorations in the forest – see Self-trip in the forest at home.

Recall that I found several windthrown trees associated with what seemed like ephemeral pools of rain water and came to the conclusion that the forest had mostly superficial bedrock, or thin soil. A tree I found today quite clearly confirms my suspicion.

Fell Fare

The slideshow is finished. Enjoy!!

http://youtu.be/gxfIBqfIqeA

Back

Yesterday night, we returned safely home from our marvellous hiking trip, exhausted, home-sick and yearning for a warm shower and a real bed, but with our spirits resurged.

In time, I will tell all about this adventure, but, right now, I need to recover physically from the fatigue. This might take a couple of days, especially as I have to help out at home with a big clean up for my uncles in Cuba who will visit us in a few days and stay for about two months! In addition, the whole tale is much longer than usual – we were out for a whole week! – and I plan to make another slideshow as well as a proper post(s). Therefore, it will probably take longer than the usual week to write the texts and prepare the material.

However, I will probably work on the slideshow first (having been a whole week without music has urged an insatiable craving for it), even though its purpose will be to set the mood and show the visual pleasures of the place, rather than chronologically account for the events. If I do create the clip first, I might post it as soon as it is finished, so keep an eye open!