Needle in a Drumheller

(From the active case files of the Palaeo Central Initiative. Personal log of Palaeo-Prime: Professor Alvar Paradigm.)


This has not been one of my better days.

Despite our successful capture of Case #132-09's poaching racket, my personal participation in the operation was less than ideal.

However today has been the first time I have ever been thwarted in hand to hand combat by two separate combatants!

My second altercation was quite an unexpected surprise however, especially in who I clashed with.


What the hell is Jaden [Spectre] doing here in Drumheller???

The logical conclusion is he was somehow involved in the poaching. That does not make sense though.

He has known about the Vivus egg layer in the Horseshoe Canyon as long as I have. More to the point he would never resort to employing anyone else to excavate for him. He is far to skilled and capable to need hired help. Not to mention his pride!


No, there must be something else behind his presence here, but I don't have time to figure it out now!

Jaden has abducted TMP 2003. 12. 7., known to most as "Traumador". Being taken by Jaden means the Tyrannosaur only has a few hours left, unless I can track them both down!

I think I know what Jaden is up to. Or so I hope. I have made a crucial call to the International Palaeontological Committee publishing house. I am going to need them to rush something through a peer review in the next hour if there is any hope of stopping Jaden.

Naturally Jaden was smart enough to not leave me anything resembling a useful trail. His tracks end at the Dinosaur Trail highway. Meaning he could be anywhere in the greater Drumheller area by now. He is not foolish enough to try and leave the area, as he or his captive might be found if I were to order a road closure.

It has been a long time since the two of us have played cat and mouse in Drum. Nine years, two months, and five days to be precise. His choice of hideouts in the area has altered a great deal in the past decade, and like always I don't have much time to figure out which!


I can immediately eliminate two of his classic haunts from the list. Both the old abandoned Prehistoric Park and Antler Museum sites have been thankfully demolished in the last few year, and thus he can't fall back on familiar ground or the previously installed defences.


At the same time there is no shortage of potential new sites for him to use around town. All Jaden needs is privacy and access to the barest basic utilities and he is fully operable.

[Photo courtest of David Lloyd]

I fear he may yet, one of these days, resort to using one of the several dozen old dilapidated farm buildings in the area. He has never done this in his exploits in Canada, but there is always a first time in this country. Which would prove disastrous, I do not have the time to check them all.

Based on our encounter earlier today though I am willing to gamble he will not be using this tactic today. He went out of his way to ensure I survived our battle, and I have fought him enough to know the difference. No, Jaden wants me to know exactly what he is doing to TMP 2003. 12. 7, and thus he will have chosen a hideout that will be obvious so I can find it.

[Photo courtesy of David Lloyd]

My first stop, Jaden's still standing second base in Drumheller. The Bleriot Ferry. In 1986 during his attempt to illegally break into the Tyrrell's type specimen collection, Jaden used the Ferry's mechanical shed as his base of operations.

However here in 2009 there is no sign that he has been here in the past twenty years.

When Jaden is pulling one of his more showy schemes, he likes to go as grandiose as he can on his venue. Having a flair of theatrical sense, Jaden tends to pick historic sites for these occasions.

You can not get much more historic or flashy then the Atlas 5 coal mine site.

I wagered it 40% likely I'd find Jaden and Traumador here at the mine, it turns out that my 60% reservations were correct.

Clearly Jaden wants to be found, but not too easily. If he is going to attempt what I think he is, then this makes sense. He can not afford me finding him too soon. I need to really get in Jaden's headspace right now if I am to save the Tyrannosaur!

Jaden is very fond of abandoned facilities, for the clear advantages they provide to someone with his agenda. His usual two the Prehistoric Park and Antler museum no longer exist, but as small cities and towns tend to do, Drumheller has produced a few new such places for him to choose from.

A fire last year, rendered the former high school completely useless. Making it perfect for Jaden's purposes, especially since it is right in the heart of the city and very close to electrical and water systems that can be tapped into.

If I gave the Atlas mine 40% likelihood, then the high school was 50%. The boarded up front was almost like Jaden's version of a welcoming mat.

Yet after an extensive search of the building I was astounded to find the high school had simply been abandoned.

Which did not bode well for me or the Tyrannosaur! Those were the only clear places I could think of, and Drumheller was a town I knew particularly well.

A last possible location occurred to me, though I did not bother to investigate it.

The new "museum" being constructed 5 minutes down North Dinosaur Trail from the Tyrrell.

The thought of this abomination of an institute feels me with intense rage. Despite the Tyrrell's, my own, and even the International Palaeontological Committee's efforts to block them, the Annex Corporation has been allowed to build this tourism branch in Alberta. I can not even properly express my disgust over this situation. If this is a sign of things to come, than my efforts to combat the company have been for nothing!

`

I digress though. Such a new facility only being partially complete, it would make an ideal temporary base for Jaden. Yet, I can thankfully dismiss the Annex Corp. museum without a second thought. Despite our disagreements in the past, Jaden and I still share an absolute disdain for the company. He would not ally himself with them under many circumstances, and getting back at me through the Tyrannosaur certainly would not be one of them!

`

No, Jaden has to have come up with a far cleverer hiding place then these. I just wish I could think of where the hell it is?!?

To be continued... In the last place anyone would think to look!

the dinosaur infestation

during this whole trip back to drumheller (my old hometown) there is one thing i'm being constantly reminded of...

just how overrun with dinosaurs it is around here!!!

i'm not talking about "true" fossil ones either. i'm talking about us living vivus ones (vivus-fossil is the scientific name for us dinosaurs that somehow survived extinction and fossilization...). there are few places on earth where this many of us exist.



drumheller is the dinosaur capital of canada, and as of such all of us in the country (whether from drumheller or elsewhere in the nation) all flock here hoping to thrive. there aren't too many other places in the world as welcoming of our kind as drumheller, and it is one of the few where we can attain "fame" and "fortune".


yet that isn't saying too much. due to the human insistence that dinosaurs have to live in a museum, whether a normal inert fossil or a living vivus-fossils, has lead to our version of success being a lot more limited then the normal human definition of it.

just to be a center of attention is a big accomplishment. this sauropod, showing off for tourists in town, is considered a real big shot in the living dinosaur community. yet it doesn't have a home or a steady source of income (in dinosaurian terms income just=food). its only claim to success is it is so large and impressive that humans think it is awesome. yet besides this, this sauropod just wanders around town trying to entertain people till it gives it food.

the problem is that the welcome that exists for us here, is a limited welcome.

sure, there are some museums, theme parks, and resorts where our kind can find a home and job, but for every spot such a place might offer there are 5 dinosaurs trying to occupy it! meaning that most of us aren't even as "lucky" as this homeless jobless long neck (as it at least garners attention), and are we are reduced to aimlessly wandering the streets struggling to survive.

i say homeless as there are no proper forests, swamps, or wetlands for us to live in here... human authorities won't let us live in the wild... not that the 65 million year gap in evolution would allow most of us to survive there anyway! the climate, plants, environments, and even continents have all drastically changed since our kind was wiped out...

due to these circumstances, the dinosaurs of drumheller are all furiously competitive with each other!

fights over just attention from tourists can be epic.

like this very typical scrum i watched today. the woman on the left wanted to take a photograph of some vivus-dinosaurs, while a human couple stopped to admire the "cute" smaller dinosaurs gathering around them. however these humans inadvertantely tiggered a confrontation. the two larger dinosaurs (a pachyrhinosaurus and that sauropod... you know i'm not sure what kind of sauropod?) fought for the centre position in the woman's picture, where the tiny dinosaurs all scrambled over harassing the couple for any possible food hand outs...

fun drumheller visitor tip for humans- if you want a none confrontational visit in drum, the first step is NEVER feed the dinosaurs!!!

this competition is just an example of squabbles over "networking" (the hope that tourists will say how much they liked a certain dinosaur around town and thus prompting one of the tourist operators to hire that dinosaur on... it rarely ever happens, but yet they still have to try).

the real struggles those are over survival, and they take place well off the normal visitor's path around town...

all around drumheller's less touristy areas are scenes just like this. places jam packed with vivus refugees trying to stake out their claim against all the rest.

it was bad when i lived in town, but since i left things have gotten worse. the pack of the primordial feather went to a great effort to carve out the royal tyrrell as one of its own venues. meaning any dinosaurs who weren't coelurosaurs were all kicked out (as was i funny enough).

resulting in even more displaced dinosaurs. especially hadrosaurs (like the parasaurolophus, corythosaurus, and edmontosaurus you see here).

with all these roaming dinosaurs, space for them to live in and claim is limited, especially if their genus requires large unoccupied territories!

there is a lot of resentment and jealousy among the vivus community.

those who are thought to be more "attractive" (that is attractive to human interst... due to things like horns, crests, or sharp teeth), or those who used to work at the museum (or other tourist attraction), or are of a none cretaceous time period (as the local albertan dinosaurs are all cretaceous) tend to get picked on (or worse!).

i myself have to be very cautious when in these parts of town. as a tyrannosaur i am not only among the most "attractive" (despite the plant eaters repeatedly telling me how ugly and repulsive they think i look! but humans think i'm the coolest... in your face bill mouths!), but i also used to work at the tyrrell (the most sought after gig).

worse still i'm a theropod, and meat eaters aren't tolerated around these plant eater jounts. compounding it i'm a coelurosaur, and despite not having joined larry's pack, makes me very unpopular due to the exploits of my relatives.

it is kind of sad. a real statement to how humans overlooking our plight has lead to some unhappy times for dinosaurs everywhere (at least alive today!).

i'm just glad i have a home back in new zealand (which i picked due to its lack of dinosaurs). if i had to eke out a living here i won't fair too well.

even those who "belong" here find it unbelievable hard...

drumheller's cementosaurs

as i'm only the midst of preparing to look for the lost quarrys of francis slate, for my good buddy darren tanke, there is not much for me to blog about at this exact moment on this front.

however as i walk through town, immediately i'm noticing one thing i promised i'd blog about early...

the still saurian sentries of drumheller... the cementosaurs.

this is the local term for the many many dinosaur statues scattered throughout town that help to attract tourists and solidify drumheller as the dinosaur capital of canada. these cementosaurs vary from some very modern and fairly scientifically accurate fiberglass reconstructions (so not true cementosaurs, but around here their lumped in with the rest), but most are really old and old skool science-wise (if at all!) cement sculptures.

up until the late 1990's drumheller only really had two dinosaur sculptures around the town itself. the majority of the rest that are now in town were originally residing in a tourist attraction called prehistoric park.

they were made here by local artist tig seland , who thought that dinosaurs were really cool and neat. as these ancient beasts were being found in his backyard so to speak he thought it'd be really fun to recreate a whole batch of them.

which he did, and for the 60's and 70's they were one of the biggest tourist attractions around! however by the time of tig's death in the 1980's his park had been dwarfed by the new tyrrell museum. his corny and out of date dinosaurs couldn't compete with the world class cutting edge display. plus the location of his prehistoric park was less than ideal, hidden behind drumheller's ugly industrial area.
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so for a few years these cement dinosaurs just sat there standing guard over an empty lot of badlands... till someone in town had the brilliant idea of buying the statues and moving them out into town for all to see. thus the cementosaurs were given a new life!

all but the poor pterosaur who had to stay behind(and the sauropod's feet, which are still in the ground where he originally stood). if you want to navigate to the old prehistoric park site just look to the southern hills and look for this pteranodon, who is across a coulee (mini valley) from a giant statue of jesus (who was built by tig's creationist neighbor to overlook the whole "heathenistic" park) who is really easy to see from most places in town.

as tourism increased to drumheller some local businesses decided they wanted to attract people with their own statues. so from these efforts we get a few modern style statues that are typically much more realistic than (but yet lack the charm of) the cementosaurs.

so join me on a virtual tour of drumheller's local (non living) dinosaur population...


if you ever make it to drumheller here is a map to follow to see these for yourself (and even just for this virtual tour give you an idea of what town is like). if you follow the arrows i've provided you'll hit all the important cementosaurs in the order i have provided.

if you can't click on this pic to make it bigger here is a link to a big version that definitely works.

i'll point out immediately that i have NOT marked or pointed out every single cementosaur in town. there are just over a dozen or so generic dinos as well. such as these triceratops... genericeratops i call them ;p

and sauropods like this one

there is also a few generic little tyrannosaurids, but i don't have a photo of any of them. all of them are identical minus their paint jobs.

the main reason i haven't included these is that they'd clutter up the map, i don't have pictures of all of them, and you'll see nearly all of them following this pathway anyway (i note the offbeat ones at the end of the post if you HAVE to see them all... but again they all look the same, except in colour).

1.entering drum

now this whole route assumes you're entering drumheller from the south, coming in from calgary. if not don't panic, just take a copy of the map, and you can wing your own tour (order isn't critical anyway).

apart from a few genericsaurus you'll see on the corners of drums first streets, the first true cementosaurs you'll be greeted by are actually recreations of post-dinosaur critters.

my favourite being the giant predatory bird diatrym. however sadly this trip not only have they repainted him an awful bright blue, but he'd gotten the stuffing kicked out of him by vandals... my only complaint about small town drumheller the local teenagers can be punks and trash many of the local tourist attractions, the cementosaurs being their favourite targets...

opposite the diatrym, stands a sabretoothed smilodon.

it is very fitting that the town put these two as the welcoming committee statues. as back when they were at prehistoric park, the mammal age creatures were outside the parks gates (and walls) as a greeting to guests. its just too bad the sabre-toothed tiger was brought down off the fake cement hoodoo he used to be tower on.

2. south dinosaur trail

now as drum is a small town there's only a few ways to navigate it. despite the choice of only two routes off the highway, i was kinda torn which to take you down...

however any other route than south dinosaur trail (which despite its name, is easily the most boring of the two dinosaur trails, north and south, and is easy to skip on a drumheller trip) would have you miss one noteworthy "cement"osaur.

when i was 2 years old one of the local grocery stores built a new building for itself, and included this statue permanently breaking out of its side. if not for the fact the model for this sculpt was my cousin larry, this would be my favourite drumheller cementosaur.

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to get to him you'll have to drive into the grocery store's (IGA) parking lot to get a good look, but it is worth it!

3. into town

now here despite on the map it looks like i'm skipping a section, there is a very good reason. in your car you can't turn on railway ave from 2nd ave (aka main street) due to a dumb intersection.

you'll know your at the dumb intersection, because marking the spot where no one can turn anywhere stands this corythosaur and genericeratops. if driving this you'll only get a momentary glance as you'll have to keep driving, but if you make sure to stop later in the tour (or just walk the whole thing, its a nice 20-30 minute walk around all of "downtown" drum where 90% of the cementosaurs are) you can get a better look than. so we'll come back to them soon.

you know you've hit downtown downtown drum when you see this "trachodon", or more accurately edmontosaurus (the MOST common dinosaur around town in all but cement form!). he has had a rather hideous repaint since the last time i was in drum. a common theme for my return to drumheller so far actually...

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sure things have to change, but in the case of the cementosaurs did most of them have to change to awful?!?

yet another example of ugly is the magic starred centrosaurus? in front of the movie theatre.

now i didn't add that question mark due to my confusion on it being a centrosaur. technically with a single nose horn there is no other choice... it's just when i lived in drumheller he had 2 giant eye horns, making him a clear triceratops. sadly it appears vandals permanently transformed him into a centrosaur... boo.

just across the street from the neo-centrosaur is a nicely coloured stegosaurus. in fact out of all the new paint jobs this guy's is among the few i like more than the old scheme.

4. looping back

okay time to get back to riverside drive that we skipped (which works fine as at some point we'd have to come along to see prehistoric park's formerly most popular resident... sadly himself now out done by many of the newer cementos running around town...).

that is of course prehistoric parks tyrannosaurus rex.

who was the tallest of the prehistoric parks dinosaurs. i mention this for two reasons. 1. it sometimes leads to him having funny paint jobs on account of ladders not being able to get all the way up him and 2. by comparing him to some of the new statues in town get an idea how much has changed since the dinosaur capital of canada thing took off!

5. the missed street

righto, now we're on railroad ave, of which some of the cement dinosaur statues would have been visible from stage 1. on south dinosaur trail. however these dinos here are worth a closer look.

you know you're in the right place when you pass this genericsaur, as he marks a triangle of awesome (he just sadly is the boring tip).

on the dinosaur trail side of the street (you would have seen him from dinosaur trail, but from a distance) is this sauropod, affectionately around town known as mafiasaurus.

the reasons being that, as i mentioned before, this sauropod's feet had to be abandoned in the old prehistoric park. however due to the colossal weight of this statue it needed solid supports on the legs (why the feet were unmovable i guess) so those massive concrete bricks were attached to him...

making him look like the mob is going to throw him to the bottom of the red deer river (not that his neck wouldn't make it out of the shallow river, but you know what i mean). hence the name mafiasaurus, or in latin mafia lizard. i'd personally like to figure out the latin for targeted, and change it to mafia targeted lizard, but it probably won't catch on if i went to the trouble.

opposite both the genricosaur and the mafiasaur is this nice allosaur. its not just a nice sculpt, but a nice new paint job! in fact of all the true prehistoric park dinosaurs this one is my favourite (which the paint job didn't ruin!).

bringing the look full circle is our old friend the corythosaur. though to avoid its crazy turning road, and to carry on with the tour you might want to pull the car over and walk to check him out.

6. uptown

as we drive up to the riverfront (the most concentrated cementosaur sector) there are two very noteworthy statues to watch for (and a couple genericsaurs here too).

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the first is the dalmationsaur, which of course is in front of none other than the firestation. this cementosaur is one of the few true cement dinos NOT to come from the prehistoric park. he rather has been here his whole existence.

the styracosaur across the street however is a prehistoric parker. his new paint job though silly, with two huge bandaids on his back, is appropriate as he is in front of drumhellers rather large pharamacy.

just down the block from these two you hit the rather dinosaur intense...

7. river front

as you drive along towards the only bridge in town, over which is the tyrrell museum, you'll also hit nearly 1/4 of all of the cementosaurs in town!

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here you get a lot of new age dinosaur statues. all in front of a store called fossil world, that is owned by some people who don't like us at the museum... because "we" don't let them dig for fossils in alberta. which is and isn't true... though i just noticed for the first time (been by this store hundreds of times!) it is an affiliate of annex corp. a company that has been popping up a lot in my recent journeys for some reason...

anyways here you'll see this baby triceratops, which due to the expanding operations of fossil world (aka annex co?) you can now see these in two places. rather than just this one when i lived in town.

inside the store you'll find this nice coelophysis model guarding over the merchandise.

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outside the store just a few metres from the tiny triceratops is this rather modern (but yet not as nice as the old skool cement) allosaurus.

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standing in front of the store you get hit with a whammy of new vs. old, because directly across the street you have...

the oldest cementosaur in drumheller. this albertosaur, who has stood in this very spot at the front of the town's central park since the late 1950's. he for the longest time was the iconic logo for the dinosaur capital of canada, until recent times when he has found himself overshadowed, depending on where the sun is in the sky sometimes quite literally, by...

the world's largest dinosaur... if you don't believe the claim, just compary the tiny humans playing on its feet to the body! it was built just before i was hatched, and has become the new dinosaur statue icon of town, which is hard not to believe since you can see it from all over town!

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personally i like to call this a calvinosaurus, in reference to one of my favourite comic strip of calvin and hobbes. if you don't get the reference, i also call her zilla on occasion after my hero godzilla. not that this statue has the cool invinsibility or atomic breath that make godzilla so awesome, but its at least tall enough.

8. hidden treasures

all the cementosaurs so far on the tour are out in the open, and easy to find even without my tour. however the next two are typcially missed, and if you didn't know they were there you'd be very likely to miss them. fortunantely you have me as your guide ;)

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these hidden cementosaurs come in good and bad news

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the bad news first...

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hidden behind the calvinosaur, is the WORST of the cementosaurs by far. which i'm certain is why it is hidden away.

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not only does this ankylosaur have an abysmal colour scheme (now, it used to have a nicer one when i was a local), but the scuplt is unbelievably bad!

hopefully you can handle looking at your screen long enough to catch the fact it has ears!!!... though please only look long enough to note this feature, and than look away! i don't want to be held accountable for making you blind... (i had to get a new camera after this photo, as my lense cracked... :P)

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okay with the bad news down, onto the good news, and good it is!

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it wasn't till i was 1 year old that i found this cementosaur. it is tucked off in a neighborhood only visible for a moment off the bridge coming into town. so unless you wander otherwise normal streets you'd never find it.

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to get to this bad boy, and his smaller friends scattered along the lawn, all you have to do is cross the road (don't drive, trust me, walk!) from the water park albertosaur and a block later you'll be standing here.

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this is a unique collection of cementosaurs, and were made by the man living in this house. if he is home he's even nice enough to turn on the wings of his made up terrisparridactals, whose wings actually FLAP!!!

9. museum bound

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getting back in your car (otherwise your in for a LONG walk!) drive over the bridge and head out toward the tyrrell. though if you're just on this particular drive for the cementosaurs you can stop halfway to the museum.

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immediately after the bridge you'll encounter this giant ground sloth. he was also one of the guest greeting company at the prehistoric park, but has been put in this area of town all by his lonesome (okay minus a HUGE concentration of genricsaurs... probably the most of them in one area, but again if you've seen one you've seen them all!)

the ground sloth wins the prize for worst NEW paint job. this is a picture of it i stole off the internet, as i refuse to ruin my new camera on its new look! they painted this giant mammal bright green!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! WHY?!?

way further down the road, marking the halfway point to the museum from the bridge, is this rather handsome diplodocus. he is the second oldest free range cementosaur. having been built just slightly after the prehistoric park dinos, but he like the albertosaurus still stands where he was originally built.

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this was always a childhood favourite of mine.

next we come to the only "cementosaurs" that are totally brand new to me. all the others were around when i was in town, but out here towards the tyrrell, annex co. has begun to build their own museum. wonder what that means?

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anyways just like their store in town, this site is now surrounded by a bunch of newly purchased dinosaur models. like this descent stegosaurus.

and this life sized camarosaur, which is now the second largest dinosaur model in town.

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which brings you to an end of the main cementosaur tour.

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10. off the beaten path

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if however you're craving more, and you don't care if the sequel is no where near as good as the original. you could always head out of town towards east coulee and the wonderful atlas coal mine (which you should visit anyways! this is just a good bonus for the trip... as the outside of town dinos don't hold up on their own... honest!).

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before you leave drumheller (meaning these are still worth seeing, remember i said out of town is useless) you'll encounter these inbetweenasaurus in front of greentree mall.

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i say inbetween because they aren't as big or impressive as the other main cementosaurs in town, but they also aren't tiny of identical to any others like the genricsaurs. if anything these are the transition form of genricsaurs evolving into proper cementosaurs ;p

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they are just worth seeing, as they're tall versions of the genrics, and seem to be what the generics were modelled after. yet they are not the coolest of the cool.

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making them worth the stop are the fake cement hoodoos that keep them company.

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i'll warn you though that because they are off the beaten path these two get trashed by vandals a lot, and are often out of commission for parts of the summer...

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if you keep going to rosedale, you'll be "rewarded" with three genericsaurs. identical in everyway (minus paint job) to those in drumheller, their only novelity being they're not in drumheller...

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so hope you've enjoyed your so virtual it felt real tour. also if you do end up hitting drum and following my path could you let me know if it was of any help to you?

6 random things from my pre-blog life...

alright so it seems to be meme season here on the innerweb right now, so make sure you get your shots!
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i got tagged by not one, not two, but three people!!! you have etrilobite, raptor lewis, and the crazy harper to thank for this post... though i was going to be getting around to these stories eventually while back here in drumheller.

so the meme goes something like this:

Tag Rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they were tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

however as i'm finding blogging time scarce enough at moment while visiting here back at home, i'm going to not pass it on. as contacting people is time consuming.

i did a similar 8 random things about myself meme a while back, but i couldn't think of any new random things about me (due to the small brain and all). instead since i'm home, and am surrounded by things and memories that predate my starting this blog, and my downfall at the tyrrell, i figured why not 6 things from before this blog.

so here's a few things you probably didn't know about me or my past.

1. my first friend

despite my having some troubles making friends in the post tyrrell era of my life, i did used to have a few (many of my human ones you've met in other posts)...

back when i was first discovered and hatched i was quite the popular little hatchling! not only was i the cutest, shiniest, and newest vivus-dinosaur on the block, but also the first vivus-t-rex to show up in the new millennium.

despite all the artificial attention my being the newest hatchling in town brought, i managed to see through the hordes of admires and attach to one who stuck with me beyond this cute phase... whether i was the master judge of character in a time i don't even remember i can't say. my legal guardian craig assured me that's how it worked though... point is i met my best and most important childhood friend in the first few weeks of my life.

that was this affectionate guy in the photo, zendin the troodon.

we used to be inseparable! we hung out almost everyday back in those days!

craig used to say it was good i adapted a brother as sensible as zendin (i now think he met as opposed to any of the other coelurosaurs, who of course were part of the pack of the primordial feather...).

man almost all my early adventures involved zendin somehow. we got into everything from trouble to out of trouble... as friends do.

we were quite the funny pair. me with a tiny brain always hanging with the rather capable large brained zendin! i used to wish i'd grow up to be as smart as him someday... which sadly i never have... back than whenever i didn't know something or need help figuring out stuff, zendin was the guy i'd goto for help, and he ALWAYS knew the right answer...

i still remember the day zendin went away. up until i was fired from the tyrrell, that was the saddest day of my life. partially because it just happened out no where. the day before his 4th hatching day we were planning big things, and than the day of his H-day he just disappeared. i was devastated. on so many levels too. probably the worst part was not knowing why...

craig at the time wouldn't tell me, and only told me that when i turned 4 i'd find out. the thing was he looked sadder than me. i assumed that meant the worst that zendin was dead...

now i know what happened. as they do with all vivus-coelurosaurs, the pack of the primordial feather came to take zendin into their ranks that day... i think craig was so sad because not only because i was now without my constant friend and companion, but he knew the future in store for zendin, and that i too would share it someday myself (though when the time came i pulled a fast one on him and the pack!)

i never did hear from zendin again... nor do i expect too now. everyone around here is asking ME if i've heard from him. which isn't a good sign, as of course i haven't, and drumheller is my last link to him...

so that's one random thing that makes me sad.

on to one that is less sad.

2. dinner doesn't always have to be food...

zendin wasn't my only childhood friend. he also wasn't the only one of my friends to be an unusual match with me (as in my being stupid compared to his being a genius). it was me and my friend norman that most people around drumheller would point out as the original odd couple.

me and zendin never stuck out as we were both meat eating theropods. seeing theropods together was an everyday sight in drumheller, and the average person won't take a second glance. only the expert would know that a t-rex and troodon are a little strange mix...

however norman, well most people couldn't help but gawk when the two of us were chilling together... the reason being, well you see norman was a...

ceratopsian. a centrosaur to be precise... that was also his last name as a quick aside. a centrosaur. norman a centrosaur. which made him unique on his own, as the majority of us living dinosaurs have the middle name "the" (making guessing our names easy on the middle section). not norman. his discoverer had a sense of humour, and on account of centrosaurs being extremely common in dinosaur provincial park, gave him the middle name of "a"... but i digress.

of course why me being friends with norman was SO unusual is that, well, ceratopsians are us tyrannosaurids' favourite food (well okay apart from albertosaurs and asian tyrannosaurids. albertosaurs on account of being specialized to hunt duckbills, and the asians not have any proper ceratopsians to hunt). which is true, i LOVE eating ceratopsians. however, i met norman before i knew this.

he was too young to know this too, and much to the horror of "the herd" we both started playing together as hatchlings. (all the vivus-ceratopsians of drumheller hangout together in a huge mix match herd... unlike the mesozoic when they'd have separated into their own kinds. as there isn't enough of any one kind [except maybe centrosaur] to do this in the present they make do with each other).

those were the best times ever. you couldn't have asked for a better friend to play t-rexes and triceratops with!

me and norman's friendship wasn't as simple as mine with zendin. there was an awful lot of tension on account of our coming from different sides of the food chain. especially once i started occasionally eating ceratopsian when i got older.

at the same time we were able to see thorugh each others niche's (as in me the monster butcher, or norman the delicious steak on legs) to the good dinosaur inside . when we got older we used to have really deep meaningful discussions about our place in the world, and the expectations put on us different dinosaurs.

in fact it was these talks with norman (plus zendin adding his big brain's worth to the issues) that really started my being aware of the tyrannosaur sterotype. the three of us also banded together against dinosaur oppression in the modern human world.

speaking of the three of us, those were some of the happiest days of my life. when it WAS the three of us. me, zendin, and norman. the world seemed a happier and safer place.

of course zendin disappeared, and my childhood ended then as a result. norman stuck around drumheller longer, and we remained good friends despite the lack of our troodon trickster.

yet things were never the same. we were both getting older. i was having to eat more and more meat due to my growing metabolism (though it soon leveled as i stopped growing!). norman on the other hand was getting lots of bullying from his own kind for hanging with a carnivore.

than about a month before i started this blog, and i was going to be fired, the museum decided to send a local dinosaur to calgary to act as an ambassador/advertisement there (as a lot of the tyrrell's visitors end up passing through calgary at sometime).

i'm planning on looking up norman a centrosaur when i head back into calgary after my trip here in drumheller. it has been too long...

3. speaking of not speaking too...

i wasn't sociable with all the dinosaurs in town, for a number of reasons (as you'll see).

however at the same time there was one type of dinosaur that i have never, ever spoken to. not one word. i don't even know if they can speak (though i assume they can)...

those would be my close relatives the ornithomimids...

i'm not sure why i didn't ever speak to one. there were a few around town. it's not like they were scary or anything, and we'd have plenty to talk about as not only are we both coelurosaurs and ancestors of birds, but we even speak the same language coelurosaurian (in theory... again i've never heard one speak).

at any rate even though i tried a few times to pluck up the courage to go try and talk to some (sometimes on a bet made by zendin troodon) i never carried through with it (like in this photo zendin snapped of my failed attempt to approach these struthiomimuses).

4. not everything was safe and friendly

well if ornithomimids proved difficult to approach, there was one type of dinosaur i found impossible!

this was in part due to a "slight" fear on my part (though you'll note i used "s to show the sarcasm in my saying that. i was TOTALLY scared of these guys!). unlike many of my fears this one had a very solid foundation, and when i say solid i mean solid, especially at the back end.

these dinosaurs were even slower and dumber than me. they basically had three modes. eat, sleep, and try to kill theropods. no matter which of these they were in they were always grumpy about it.

these were the tanklike armoured ankylosaurs. the tyrannosaur banes!

when i made that list of my fears a few years ago, i forgot these guys (on account of my brain size again), but they sure are on my list!

as you can see in the picture. when i saw one even across the street i'd run away. there was even this one time i ended up running in a circle when four of them happened to all wander down different ends of the same street... man did the locals laugh hard at me... like to see how they reacted if instead of us meat eaters, the tankosaurs were hardwired to take out people instead!?!

_

5. i stood my ground with some

when i said earlier i wasn't sociable with all the dinosaurs in drumheller i wasn't kidding. it was way over half of them who didn't like me. part of this was because i was a theropod, and most of the dinosaurs in town are plant eaters. so you can kind of see why i wasn't their favourite on that end. making it worse though...

it was also partially due to the competition we dinosaurs are put into by the human world. only those of us that attract attention, which is just a nice word for saying being popular enough for people to pay to see you, had an easy go of things. despite my not being well off like most of the other dinosaurs in drumheller (there was and still is, too many of us there), but because i was a tyrannosaur i was perceived as being one of the chosen ones who had an easy life...
_
which couldn't be further from the truth! as a dwarf tyrannosaur i had it nearly the worst off of us all. i was seen as a wasted chance. another tyrannosaur to bring in thousands of tourists who grew out his cute hatchling state, and got stuck at a small theropod. who wants to see them in the first place. that alone a tyrannosaur version. if not for craig being in town to back me up, i would have been in really rough shape (isn't funny how i was fired 3 weeks after he left town!).

despite my lack of true success, the fact i had a job at the museum (due to craig) brought out a lot of hate and resentment from my fellow dinosaurs. in particular the boneheads (i mean that in both a literal, and insulting sense), more commonly known as pachycephalosaurs, took it upon themselves to try and bother me on a daily basis. in particular the small stegoceras who hung out on the outskirts of town centre.

now i'm not the bravest tyrannosaur at the best of times, but i wasn't going to let a bunch of dinosaurs with brains smaller than mine (they're the smallest brained dinosaur family of us all) push me around. or at least that was the theory. sadly due to the battering ram that is their head i occasionally was bashed around a few times that i stood my ground (which is worse than being pushed).

zendin helped me come up with a few traps for them though. i'd dodge them at the last second, to see them run into something embarrassing (or as naught was it was painful!). sadly when zendin left so did these great tricks, and my encounters with the stegoceras typically ended in pain.

even a broken rib or two. oh well, i guess it is for the best. among us theropods such things are seen as badges of honor... though if you ask me it is dumb. there must be a far more enjoyable ways to be cool than scares and broken bones.

6. the true bully

of course i couldn't stand my ground all the time, and in fact i usually didn't. especially against one certain dinosaur. who you of course already know for his mean spirited nature, but i thought i'd show you a little of how it began...

that was of course my JERK! of a cousin, larry. who earned his title way back in these early days. he was just always so mean to me...

the thing is i'm not sure why, but it has something to do with my mom the huxley t-rex and her sister, larry's mom, black beauty (both now are fossil skeletons at the tyrrell). i'm not going to go into it too much this post (but a later one shortly), but there was something about my mom when she was alive in the cretaceous that makes larry feel inferior to me...
_

not that something 65 million years ago should matter. the point is here in the present, larry has always been a JERK! to me!!!

back when i worked at the museum he won't just contain his bullying to my life. he'd also extended it to my human coworkers. especially that last year at the museum, at badlands science camp. there were a few really bad incidents.

the worst had to be during the heat wave. larry decided to time his daily swim in the red deer river perfectly with our canoe trip. normally the kids were thrilled to have a visit from a dinosaur...

not that day. fortunately for us he didn't actually hurt or kill anyone (it'd be bad for his movie career). at the same time he terrified and capsized many of the kids canoes (which was GOOD for his movie career. as a dinosaurs star you want a rep as being scary... just not a real killer or no one wants to be in scenes with you...).

there are soooooo many more stories i could relate and tell. after all it was a whole chunk of my life without a blog. however i have things to blog about that are going on right now (and i have lots of pictures of these... unlike those days before i owned a still life rendering machine).

so that's 6 random things about my past.