On the road again...

What a week! I managed to convince my bosses that it'd be a good idea to send me to Fredericton for a course on fish research. Only got the final OK on the day before the course, giving me just enough time to find a rental and a place to stay. Left the office an hour early Tuesday to begin the 7 hour drive there, and arrived shortly after midnight after managing to get lost in Freddy (I hate driving in unfamiliar cities!). Woke up to a snowy morning...leading me to wonder why it is that every time I leave Nova Scotia, it snows on me. The course was great--very interesting. Afterward, I got to hang out with some of the biologists in our New Brunswick offices (I so rarely get to spend time with other biologists!), spent a little bit of time shopping (we have no proper bookstores OR coffeeshops here in Sydney, so I always spend time in a Chapters when I have a chance), and hit the road again. Made it home shortly before midnight on Wednesday.

The worst part about the drive was that the CD player in the rental played MP3s, but not WMA files (which is how I store most of my music). So, I had two play-able albums to last me over 14 hours. That was not going to work, so I stopped at the nearest place where I could buy music, and do you know how hard it is to find a music place around here? The best selection I could find was at the electronics section of the Antigonish Wal-Mart. Ugh, I hate shopping at Wal-Mart, but desperate times, people. I grabbed a few CDs of bands I'd heard about but hadn't yet listened to: Weezer, Alexisonfire, Sloan (pretty bad--they're from Nova Scotia and I've never listened to them!)...plus "best-of"s from from Radiohead (had one song that I didn't already have), and Simon & Garfunkel (had a few songs that I didn't). Turns out I enjoy Weezer, Sloan was pretty good on first blush and is really growing on me, Alexisonfire is...um....not my thing at all, but I must say that it's perfect music for driving when you're tired. The Radiohead best-of is great, of course (and since one of my two MP3 discs was In Rainbows, I had their whole career represented), and you can just never go wrong with Simon & Garfunkel. So pretty. However, I didn't put that one on until the return trip--it's much too soothing for driving after dark.

Along with these, I also have a few albums on order based on Che and Jeremy's suggestions (thanks, guys!), so my music collection is finally getting some new blood.

Spending 14 hours driving (actually closer to 16 for me, it was dark and raining most of the way) in a 30-hour period requires a hell of a lot of coffee. I had so much coffee (much of it the extra strong "double-blast" stuff from Irving gas stations) that I had an honest-to-goodness caffiene hangover on Thursday. Even though I was pretty close to falling asleep at my desk, I just couldn't bear the thought of drinking any! Happily, that didn't last.

Upon returing to the office, I got a message that I might be needed for some field work in northern Ontario next month. Wow, never a dull moment....

Happy Turkey Day!

Hey, fellow Canucks--happy Thanksgiving, and hope you all had a lovely long weekend! Me, I can't complain. Two turkey dinners, one with the parents and one with the mother in law, plus we were sent home with an entire pumpkin pie from mom (she makes the best pie ever) and all the leftovers from MIL's dinner (she makes the best stuffing ever). Win-win, baby. Win-win.

Oh, and happy Columbus Day, dear friends to the South....I'm sure that's a fun holiday, too..... *snicker*

*&^%$ politics....

Ugh! Politics. Everywhere, politics.

Municipal elections are on. Bunch of balding old small-town babies who were big shots in student council (if that), wanting to relive their glory days by running for local office. Every freakin' morning on the CBC radio local program, the host is talking to candidates from one district or another, and they all squabble like a bunch of effing children in the mistaken belief that the loudest prick wins. I hate hate hate it. Maybe if one of them could pretend to be capable of holding a civilized discussion, or could argue a valid point as opposed to making some juvenile remark about his opponents, I'd consider casting a vote.

And then, there's the federal election. Frustration. The left is so fractured, it looks like we'll be stuck with Captain Alberta Oil for another few years (or months, at the rate this country has been going with elections, for pete's sake). I don't know who to vote for: I like Dion and his plans for the environment, but don't know if he can win enough support. I quite like Layton, seems like a decent leader and I've heard he's a good debater, but again, not sure if he can pull it the votes. I don't like May, although I do like the Green party platform. Why in the hell they don't just form a leftie alliance is beyond me; it worked for the Conservatives and Reform Party back in the day (*heehee* Any of you Canucks remember the "Conservative Reform Alliance Party," a.k.a. "CRAP party" jokes?), and look at them now. Anyway, I ought to have watched some of the debates to get a more informed stance, but see my objections to municipal politicians. I just get too frustrated at the sniping and yelling and condescending talk to put up with it for any amount of time. Same reason why I despise reality TV. Are there no classy politicians out there? Hell, I'd settle for entertaining ones...whatever happened to politicians choking reporters and clubbing robbers with Inuit art? Ah, good ol' Cretien....

Even if I could escape the local and federal political coverage, there's no escaping U.S. elections in the media. Yeesh, at least there are some interesting characters in the running there, but I will still be very happy to see the end of it (much happier if Obama gets elected, mind you).

Argh! I know I should care, I really really should...but, well, see blog title. I don't. Nonetheless, I do realize that elected officials do have some say in my day-to-day life. I mean, a lot of my work depends on who's in government--the strength of environmental policy has a huge influence on the environmental consulting business, naturally. But...but...I just can't muster up the energy to listen to politicians talking. *sigh* I suppose I'll just have to buckle down and read some newspapers to try to get a feel for who is the lesser of the necessary evils in the federal election. But screw the municipal election--I refuse to be responsible for any of those babies getting elected. There. I said it. *insert maniacal laugh*

Pop Quiz: Who is your favourite lyricist? Show your work!

Okay, opinion time. Give me your favourite songwriters. Not necessarily your favourite artists, but the folks who writes the words to the songs that speak to you the most. Provide examples. Win me over--I need to expand my musical horizons!

Since this is my own little patch of the interworld, I'll go first. Hands down (and Jeremy, I'm sure you won't be surprised)--Ron Sexsmith. He's a Canadian artist who isn't nearly as well-known as he should be, in my humble opinion.

Exhibit A: Hands of Time (from Time Being)

"From the moment we are born,
We’re in the hands of time
As drunk on life as death is sober
When we say goodbye.

Though it hurts to lose a friend,
May it help remembering
For every door that closes in
One’ll open to the other side,
Opened by the hands of time"

(I find comfort in these words. Might need that comfort soon. Wishing and hoping that I don't.)

Exhibit B: Gold In Them Hills (Cobblestone Runway)

"But if we'd only open our eyes
We'd see the blessings in disguise:
That all the rain clouds are fountains.
Though our troubles seem like mountains,
There's gold in them hills"

(All sweet and optimistic, and kind of clever to boot.)

Exhibit C: Ship of Fools (Time Being)

"Life is not a parlour trick;
There’s no slight of hand.
Just tryin’ to save this sinking ship
And there’s no sight of land "

(What can I say? I'm just a sucker for wordplay.)

Okay, so that's my vote. People, please weigh in! Who rocks your world with their words?

The Slack-ass Naturalist Chronicles 1: Those naughty seabirds.

Okay, so I've alluded to my shady past as a puffin voyeur. Well, this little snippet seemed to intrigue some of my adoring fans (come on guys, stop snickering and let me dream!), so I've decided to give the people what they want. Or am I just using any excuse to indulge in my own geekery? You decide.

Back in my grad school days, I spent large stretches of my summers in a small shack on an island with fellow students. There were three to four of people on the island at any given time, usually all girls. Now fellas, before you get your imaginations all in a tizzy, I feel I should point out that there was no running water on this island. Yes, folks, I once went five weeks without washing my hair (word to the wise: keep it in pigtails or, better yet, braids--keeps it from getting too greasy). As for "showers," believe me, baby wipes are god's gift to field researchers.

My research focused on two species, the Atlantic Puffin (which most of you are familiar with), and its larger and less colourful relative, the Common Murre (which looks like a small penguin). Some basic info on these birds: they often mate for life, and they return to the exact same site year after year to breed. They are quite long-lived (30 years or so) and only raise one chick per year.

My work consisted of sitting for long periods of time in a cramped blind, and recording the behaviours of known individual birds. The sexiest research was on the Murres, because they breed out in the open, on a rocky cliff ledge, and our blind was seriously right at the edge of the colony. The one-way mirror that we sat behind was about two feet from the nearest birds, and there were about thirty marked pairs within about 6 metres of us. (Catching the birds to put colour-coded leg bands on them was an ordeal in itself, involving a fishing-line noose at the end of a pole. We had to try and sneak the noose around the neck of an unsuspecting bird, then drag him into the blind, much to the confusion of his onlooking neighbours.)

What sort of behaviours did we observe? Well, there were greeting displays when one's mate returned from feeding at sea (it sounds something like "AAAAAAAAGH-agh-agh-agh-agh-agh;" that sounds much better than it looks in type...ask me to do it at a party, after a few drinks....). There were weird and inexplicable behaviours, such as allopreening (which more often than not involved preening one's neighbour than one's own mate) and footlooking (which is exactly what it sounds like--the bird will just sit there looking at his/her feet for a while; it may have something to do with remnants of a bygone nesting instinct, because Murres just lay their eggs on bare rock...or maybe they're just introspective?). We recorded dates of egg laying and chick hatching, and we took note of when parents brought food to their chicks.

Oh, yeah--and we watched seabird sex. Lots and lots of seabird sex. These guys and gals got busy pretty frequently in the spring, and it was quite the process: Mrs. Murre would crouch down and tip up her tail, and Mr. Murre would hop on her back and rub his cloaca (naughty bit) back-and-forth in a fanning motion over hers. Another term for this activity is "the cloacal kiss." Très romantic. We would time the length of the event (usually in the 10-20 second range) and record who was involved. Typically, sex was between a mated pair; however, there were a number of what we tactfully referred to as "extra-pair copulations" or EPCs. Interestingly, if a couple did not sucessfully rear a chick the previous year, one or both partners would be more likely to engage in EPCs.

A final feminist thought, conventional wisdom in seabird biology held that female Murres were frequently subjected to "forced EPCs" (again with the tactful terminology), as a male strategy to pass on his genes without the hassle of taking care of the chick. Well, the ladies in my lab and I observed several of these events, and we never observed a successful forced EPC--if the lady Murre wasn't interested in the Murre-man, she just didn't tip up her tail. No unwilling copulations on the female's part = no successful sneaky fertilizations by the male. Take that, old male seabird biologists and your silly male-centric theories. Neat, huh?