a personal autograph... yet not so personal

[Production Note: The convention depicted in this post is fictitious and never happened. We are using pictures from various other events Traumador has attended this year which we were unable to post at the time.]

the first ever vivus dinosaur convention is wrapping up, but this last day was not without its excitement.

after all the cool people i've met (or re met :P) here in victoria, today saw me running into one of my all time biggest heroes of the palaeo world... dr. scott sampson! that's right the host of TV's dinosaur planet and the new dinosaur train was here for the last day to promote his new book (more on that in a second)...

of course this being my life i couldn't just run into dr. sampson without some sort of incident!

first a tiny bit of back story. about a year before i started this blog (which was a LONG time ago now!), i briefly ran into dr. sampson at the royal tyrrell museum, when it hosted its big dinosaur provincial park synposium... with the key part there being i briefly ran into him... not that i'd have thought running into a living tyrannosaurus rex would that forgettable...

well turns out it was!

dr. sampson was really confused when i came up all friendly and chummy. after explaining where we'd met, he stated. "don't take this personally, uh my friend, but i saw a LOT of dinosaurs at that symposium. even vivus-ones."

just my luck i'd meet dr. sampson in vivus infested drumheller! there would be a lot of other vivus-dinosaurs to keep track of. i just hoped he hadn't met drumheller's most famous resident (of the time) who also happened to be a tyrannosaur, but of course who would he guess i was?!?

"larry?" dr. sampson ventured, but at least wasn't committed to his answer. of course being called my JERK! of a cousin wasn't what i wanted to hear! i'll give the good doctor this, it was the name of a tyrannosaur. one in my family... just not someone i ever wanted to be associated with. even in name!

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despite this rocky start, we quickly started up a friendly chat, and he even invited me to join him for lunch!!!

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hanging out with dr. sampson for a day, my respect and admiration has sky rocketed to new heights! not only is dr. sampson a big force in palaeontology, but he has branched out into environmental and science outreach + education recently. his biggest push of late is using dinosaurs as a gateway into exploring the overall world of science and nature. something i can totally get on board with!

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the other thing i am totally on board with is dr. sampson's book Dinosaur Odyssey Fossil Threads in the Web of Life, and you should be too!

in this one of a kind tome, dr. sampson elegantly gives us a look into the world of the dinosaurs like never before (in popular literature anyways). rather than proceed down the food chain from the biggest most impressive saurians down, dr. sampson builds the world of the dinosaurs up from the smallest of things (bacteria, fungus, and their like) right along the cycle of the energy from the sun through everything plants, small animals, medium animals, until it finally reaches the massive beasts that were the dinosaurs. it is the most comprehensive and relevant examinations of dinosaurs currently in print, and addresses all the key questions about dinosaur palaeontology, while answering what is currently known, but more to the point emphasising what we still don't know!

it is a must have for anyone and everyone who has ever remotely been interested in dinosaurs. for all you dinosaur lovers out there, this is the perfect gift (especially with x-mas around the corner!) for anyone whose ever asked you that ever annoying question "what useful thing have we ever learned from studying dinosaurs anyways?"

i just can't say enough good things about dinosaur odyssey!

as if getting my claws on this book weren't enough, at the end of our meeting dr. sampson grabbed my copy before i could walk off with it, and personally signed it!!!

with this final note (literally), i think i made off from this whole vivus-dinosaur convention like a bandit!

now it was back off to the OH-lympics... or at least that's what we thought...

to be concluded with a surprise twist to the games...