the port terminal (boardwalk part 3)

62.3 million BC

so i need to catch an aquatic bus... sounds silly i know, but that's what peter told me. one thing i'm learning quick here this week is to listen to peter. he knows what he's talking about!

for the first hour of trying to find this seabus i thought people were going to think i'm crazy if i asked where to find it. cause hey the idea of a busy driving on water is pretty crazy...

then i was approached by a guy who noticed i looked lost. he asked what i was looking for, and though i hesitated he insisted i tell him... to my amazement he didn't laugh at me or anything. he just pointed to a building on the boardwalk and said it was the port.

i think he meant terminal. cause boats are in ports. buses are from terminals... even i know that!

well i'm definately by the ocean. there were all these cool sea type artyfacts scattered around the place. i'm kinda nervous. i've never crossed the ocean before, and before this trip i'd only seen it on TV...

not sure i feel comfortable crossing it on a bus... but peter said this is a good idea.

well as i got to the port i noticed a old dude in a rowing boat. if i chicken out with the bus at least i have a backup.

so here i am waiting at this "port" and they say the bus will be here in about 5 minutes

the venture pact (agent part 2)

62.3 million BC

okay peter arrrived and it was time to get to business... or at least that is how the saying goes... though neither peter nor i wore a business suit which if i follow what i see on TV is what makes business business (that and being SO boring! which this was not!)


first were the pleasantries...

then down to business! again not sure how, but none the less that's what peter said. (you'll notice how we're both intently looking at true vancouver... well you would if the camera were facing it, and not in front of it, and you were there with us seeing how the camera was on the railing...vancouver is behind the camera okay!)


so peter wanted to talk to me about the "fallout" from the eco centre incident...

he said it did great things for getting my name out there... we just needed to get over this whole "primal savage beast" persona i picked up...

when i told him my plans in true vancouver he said it was a good idea. then he said to me this:

"traumador i think it's great you're looking for your roots. their important. their what a man stands firmly on or rather i guess in your case a tyrannosaur *he laughed* that's besides the point though. you can only look to where you came from for so long. after that the roots they aren't holding you up anymore traumador. their bringing you down. the past is a great thing to reference. just not live your life in..."

i was captivated it was like captain kirk was talking to me!

"it may sound good to live with your own kind, but that then just makes you one of the ordinary people. if there's one thing you don't want in this world traumador is to be normal! if you're normal then people will take you forgranted, and not take notice of you. it'll be easier for them to sweep you under the rug, and make it like you never existed!"


wow he was right. this sounded just like my getting kicked out of the tyrrell!!!


"i know it hits you hard traumador... as your agent it hurts me to have to hurt you. i just want you to realize there is a whole world out there. you shouldn't settle for just anywhere in it! so if and when you find your dinosaur friends there over in V town i just want you to make sure they really appreciate you before you decide to join them permenantly. cause after all as my client you won't be meeting your full potiential as just another old dinosaur..."

well of course they were going to appreciate me when i got there... weren't they. i mean i'm a t-rex king of the dinosaurs. of course the other dinosaurs were going to take me in... just like uh... oh man... hasn't happened yet, but it will... won't it...

well thinking about it i agreed to peter's asking me to keep wandering if vancouver didn't work out...

seeing he'd got me down peter was like

"cheer up kid. you'll love it over there, and see some other dinos will do you good! come on i'll show you how to get over there."

i'm glad he cheered me back up. this trip has been kinda unfun on achieving my goal...

but i think it's about to pay off. i get to take a bus across the ocean!

so much to do! (boardwalk part 2)

62.3 million BC

alright so i've made it to the lower level of the boardwalk, and there a lot of neat stuff down here. haven't even notice the time go by. peter gets here in a few minutes, and i could easily spend the whole day checking this place out!

first there was tommy the tugboat! though have to say it is unfortuntely true that celebrities can be real jerks in real life. i asked tommy like a hundred times for an autograph, and he didn't say a thing to me. finally this guy on the boardwalk is like "yo dude the boat ain't going to talk to you!" how rude! tommy could of at least told me, and not had one of his bodyguards do it!

then there was of course that fountain. i really like the raising triangle in the middle of it. reminds me of a triangle!

perhaps the coolest thing though was the telyscope! after my confusion at frank's slide with their telyscope this one was easy to make work!

i'm trying to do some prescouting scouting in true vancouver. no 65 million BC yet, but at least i know it is not along the waterline!

that and i'm noticing one boat unlike the rest is landing both on this side of the bay, and the other... none of the other boats are doing that... i wonder what that means?

quite a view (boardwalk part 1)

62.3 million BC

i'm excited about today. the reason... i'm going to true vancouver!!!

now i hear it can be a scary place... which only makes too much sense since 65 million BC lies within it, and we dinos are a somewhat scary lot (if you ask me)... what this means though is that peter has insisted that i check in with him before i leave north vancouver.

though he is doing that to make sure that nothing bad happens to me his client, it works fine for me... i have no idea how to get across the ocean anyway...

we're going to meet at the north vancouver waterfront boardwalk. it's among the few places in north vancouver i haven't explored yet. so i've headed down early to check it out cause i expect once i meet with peter it's off to true vancouver with me...

you get an awesome view of north vancouver from up here! i can see all sorts of places i've checked out this last week! i'm getting why it's called a boardwalk, what with all these boards i'm walking on. as for the waterfront though not sure i get that?

never mind... got it!

i'm liking the boardwalk a lot so far! great high up view of all sorts of neat things. including a really nifty fountain. going to have to check that one out a lot closer up here...

before i do that though. there it is. true vancouver, and somewhere in that 65 million BC...

it's hard to believe that after searching so long that it might actually be over. i'm not saying i'm not happy about it. just after the month of looking it started to feel like i'd never find my goal. looking across this nice tranquilized ocean full of boats and birds i feel like maybe i finally have found what i'm looking for...

cool piles

62.1 million BC

well now that i'm on a paid holiday from the eco centre i figured time to finish scouting north vancouver. the good news i've succeeded. the bad news still haven't quite got to 65 million BC.

one of the cool discoveries i made was in a park...

there were some toe-tim poles! these piles of crazy looking critters that go straight up into the air! how someone managed to balance them all like that i'm not sure?

definately one of the more interesting aspects of these late BCs i've found so far...

speaking of the late BCs i've run out of them to explore here in the realm of north vancouver... after this park there is a big bay full of ocean.

beyond that though lies true vancouver, and in it i suspect 65 million BC! i'm not going to head over there till i meet up with an expert to go over a game plan... though after the funness of a game we should also figure out my exploring vancouver!

so i'm just going to chill out here with the stacked critters of the toe-tim pole, and wait to hear back from peter...

sweet sweet freedom (the centre part 7)

61.6 million BC

well people of the innerweb it's official. i am a pardoned tyrannosaur, but it was pretty touch and go for a while... uh i'm not sure what that saying means actually, there was no touching of anything and definately no going anywhere. more sitting in a cell whistling (they wouldn't give me a harmonica!). they just say touch and go on star trek all the time!

now i don't want to bore you with a lot of details... well actually i'd rather just forget this whole incident... here's what happened in a fast fashion

i went to prison on friday. for all of saturday i just sat in a jail cell... it's pretty boring. not sure if the prison guards knew that or not. they should really look into that. makes jail almost a punishment or something...

anyways sunday was my hearing. now when they asked me who my representation was i thought the answer was pretty obvious. my talent agent peter bond!

turns out they wanted a lawyer... man just when i thought jail was boring. now i was going to be in a real life court show. i HATE lawyer shows. their sooooo boring. no explosions or kung fu or dinosaurs!

well they'd already called peter when they realized i'd asked for my agent. in the midst of trying to find my a lawyer mr. bond showed up, and learning of the situation said for me not to panic. in addition to being a talent agent he was also an attorney at law on the side... you know to supplement his income. he doesn't like to boost this mr. bond...

so the hearing went quick. peter was way cooler then a TV lawyer! before opening statements he leaps up "your honor" (not sure why you'd address a judges honor directly... they look kinda scary with those black robes they wear and the white wigs... and if they have honor it means they fought someone for it!)

"this case is a farce! not only do you have no authority charging that alone convicting my client, but you are violating the law of the jungle!"

so turns out they can't charge me with murder as i'm not human. this being a t-rex thing is really paying off these days! not only that but in the law of the jungle it is stated that one must eat or be eaten, and as i was the eater i am not only innocent, but i could pursue legal action against the centre...

alright! i thought FINALLY some action! well sadly the judge dismissed the case before any kung fu started. the good news was they released me... wish lawyer shows were over that fast on TV! be more time for star trek then!


peter was happy with the results... but he was even happier with the response outside! there were all kinds of reporters who wanted to talk to me!!! so i told them all about my adventures...

peter says things can only go up from here.

though mike said he wouldn't need me to come into work tomorrow... or ever again, but that he'd keep paying me. so long as i never came near him or the centre again...

isn't that sweet people of the innerweb. i get a paid vaccation!!!

well in which case time to start looking for 65 million BC again!

worst lunch ever! (the centre part 6)

61.504 million BC

okay well the last 24 hours have been a little crazy...

it all started yesterday when mike took my out for lunch to the toefood barn.

it started off really nice and normal seeming. my first clue there'd be trouble... checking out the menu i had no idea what i should order. i asked mike to recommend the most meat like product on the menu. he said the toefood sampler would have something i'd like.

after we'd made the order mike wanted to talk to me about the big opening of the play in the afternoon. he was really counting on us to give a good performance. i was feeling up to it... so long as i had some food in me. man was i hunger

finally they brought us out the appetizers. man were they really gross. each piece of it was jellyfied vegtables... after washing each of them down with lots of water i couldn't wait to get my main course.

well turned out that was the main course! at least i wasn't hungry. i was just the MOST sick to my stomach i'd ever been!

getting back to the centre i staggered through the preperation of the show. barely getting my makeup on, and i didn't even notice the time leading up to curtains up. fortunently i had till the end of act 1 before i had anything to do...

i won't gross you out with details of my not feeling so good. i know they say during a show your supposed to get butterflies in your stomach, but i didn't know that they were killer vampire butterflies!!!

fortuently i felt much better in time for my first lines...

the show was going great. i felt fantastic. act 2 was going incredibely well, and then WHAM! i got hit with hunger...

well rather then tell you about the fun that was, peter told me i should just post this news broadcast about the incident. he said no publicity is bad publicity...



they make it out like i meant to eat them... i was just really really really hungry! though i think i had another instinctive t-rex moment...

the bad news i spent the rest of the night trying to out run the really grumpy police dogs in the woods. they eventually caught me due to a tip from some stupid boyscouts!

now i'm in jail here today, and waiting for my trial. worst part was i wasted my one phone call calling peter who just told me to post the newstory and enter a new post on my blog...

i'm scared about my future people of the innerweb. i've seen what happens to people in prison. i don't want a tattoo!!!

show of the minute (the centre part 5)

61.4 million BC

well here today mike decided that i needed to be kept on my toes... which is a little silly cause we theropods (that is meating eating) dinosaurs always walk on our toes. we're not lazy like you heel resting mammals...

anyways he assigned me to the theatre to help out with the nature shows that we put on here everyday.

so i got to try out acting again! it's been a little while... last time i seriously tried out acting was that time i auditioned for the part of the T-Rex in jurassic park... still can't believe they gave the part to my cousin larry! not my fault i'm one foot tall while he is forty feet long!?!

fortuently this part isn't as stressful. though it's also not as high profile. best i can hope to win with this part is a golden globe...

the show is called "Nature: better then Xbox!"... don't ask me about the title. mike said it was designed to appeal to our child "demoautograph" or something like that... even i know that it is bad grammer though!

i play the part of the pollution-techonology destroyer of the environment span of evil bad humans monster... uh yeah i know. certainly no speilberg script, and i know speilberg scripts when i see them! though tom cruising would fit right in i think...

my coworkers in the show are awesome though. zoe the zebra is the hero of the story "mike"... wait a minute! that is outrageous! i'll have to tell mike to rewrite his script... mike is a boys name, and zoe is a girl... that's just silly have a girl play a boy!

we also managed to cast willy the orca whale in the role of the side kick...

what an all star cast i have to say!

well this morning was spent just practising and rehersing our lines. fortuently mine consist of pretty much roaring and evil laughing all show.

though it is here at just before lunch i hit my first problem here at work. mike came in on our practising and asked

"whose lunch is this? with the meat?!?" he sounded kinda mad

"uh mine. why?" i answered, and well asked i guess.

"traumador we are trying to teach environmentally friendliness here at the centre. part of that is not eating fellow earth passengers." he said steerly.

"but mike. i'm a carnivore." i replied


"no traumador. that's just what corporations and the media have taught you. you have to let go of this barbaric habit..." he said while throwing out my lunch!!! "today you're in for a treat. a vegetarian baptism! i'm taking you out to the best place ever! the tofoo barn."

well i guess i'll forgive him for throwing out my lunch. getting taken out by the boss on only my third day of work. that's exciting. i've never done this well at a job before. that alone in my first week.

just wonder what "toe food" is. maybe it's like chicken feet. i LOVE chicken feet...

getting bugged at work (the centre part 3)

61.4 million BC

well today was the first day of actual work. mike assigned me to the insect corner. my job is to monitor our monsteriously enlargened insects, and make sure they don't hurt our guests.

the point of the display is to teach why humans shouldn't apply science to mad applications like growing things to unnaturally bigger sizes (well that and splicing them together... you know like paris hilt-is-on). there were a number of educational documentaries made in the 1960's, and for a while the number of giant insect attacks declined. in modern years though with the lessons of the past forgotten more and more insects are getting mutated to larger sizes!

wait a minute. aren't we contributing by growing these bugs ourselves? huh have to talk to mike about that...


i like the giant ants. their hardworking, superstrong, crafty, and all women. everything i want to have when i grow up!

these guys can be dangerous though if they get out. they'd start building super anthills, and tear down human cities to do it! worse yet sometimes one in every few thousand enlargened ants gets smart and learns to talk, and then all they do is walk around demanding the formula that did it in the first place!

okay it won't be work if everything was fun like the ants. mike decided that the display needed a bit more reinforcment. ants were dandy to grow in the 1950's but this is the new millenniumfalcon, and mad science won't settle for giant ants anymore.

so to illustrate this mike has grown giant mosquitoes. now i thought after this summer at badlands science camp that they were annouying (man there was a TON after all the rain last year. you'd turn black if you stood still for 20 seconds!). try one the size of your head! i'd rather fight dracula (and he is REALLY scary! but only one of him, and he's not as noisy at least... all i heard all day BUZZBUZZBUZZBUZZBUZZBUZZBUZZBUZZ)

the worst of all though... i suspect mike went a little frankenstien (not the monster who is also SCARY!!! but the sciency dude) and made the worst large insect of them all... the giant wasp!!!
okay so i admit the small ones scary me as much as vampires and big reanimated monsters... i've been stung on the nose a few too many times.

mike's super wasps were too much... i kinda ran away from them whenever i went to check the cage. fortuently they haven't figured out how to open doors yet... or i mean glass cases...

i'm just going to go make sure mike hide the formula well on my way home...

first day (the centre part 2)

61.4 million BC

alright people of the innerweb i just started work here today. man this is going to be fun!


so today mike has given me the task of learning the exhibits of the eco centre. we've got some pretty cool stuff. among my favs are the things in the glass tubes... very sci-fi movieish.

there's a whole bunch of shrunken worlds just like the one with the teepees (oh and there is THIS one with teepees!!!).

the birds in a tube (i wonder if that is like a barrel of monkeys?) are really nice. its good to have relatives close by if i need anything... that and they eat termites... which are a possible threat to my place of work!

okay but the coolest thing we have is the anatomy corner where we have tons of skulls and bones from all kinds of animals... makes me feel right at home. just like the tyrrell... can't wait to greet guests as a traumadeer...

get it! i mixed my name with deer... they'll love it. you can't get writing much better then that from hollywood... uh or at least in a george lucas film...

beginning of a beautiful friendship (agent part 1)

62.4 million BC

so i had to venture to the very edge of west vancouver here tonight... all that seperated me from main vancouver was a bridge...

my task as assigned by my new employer to meet up with a special talent agent. to do so i had to meet him at a bar... though not sure why they call it that... more of a place people goto buy drinks... oh well.

arriving for my appointment i was meet by steve. he told me to take and seat, and i have to admit i was kinda nervous. this guy is going to be in charge of my future success now on...

well turns out steve wasn't actually going to be my agent. rather he was waiting in line to see the prospective agent too... steve teaches english to people. i thought that was a pretty super thing to do... he even offered me some lessons... see what nice guy... though he must not have liked our waitress. he didn't offer her any...

after a few minutes steve got called by the agent for his meeting. so they went and sat at a different table. leaving me all by myself. it was sitting here on my own i started to get REALLY nervous. what if i wasn't talented enough? or what if he has too much agentness? or i'm TOO special?

after what seemed like an eternity, or is that intern? steve walked by and wished me luck. no like not just luck he said i was REALLY going to need luck... which didn't help my panicing...

suddenly there was a hand on my shoulder, and a voice from behind "traumador the tyrannosaur i presume?"

all i have to say is i didn't panic, i didn't freak out, or get extremely scared. i definitely retained my cool... i CERTAINLY didn't scream like a little girl or anything... though if you ask anyone in the bar about it they probably got me mixed up with someone else...

i followed him of to his table where he got me a drink (of water no less... what a classy guy i thought!), and introduced himself.

"i'm special talent agent bond, peter bond." he said

with that we got right into what he does, and what he can do for me.
basically peter's job is to watch over and manage his clients talents... he helps them "hone their skills and crafts"... he "endorses and promotes" them in anyway he can to help them "achieve their maximum potential"... so far sounds like an educator i thought, but then turns out there's more that he does.... lastly he "watches over and manages ALL of the profits..."

i don't quite know what half that stuff meant, but it sounded very important and official. i asked if there was any chance that he was interested in managing my talents...

he took a look over my resume, and thought it showed some "possibilities" or come to think of it did he say "anythings possible...". i can't quite remember...

peter was much more interested when he saw i was going to be getting a "four digit number" working for the ecocenter... not sure what math has to do with MY talents? maths more like my untalent ( to which peter said "your getting better and better as a prospective client")... but who am i to question the biz after all he's the expert

so peter asked me some legaly type questions to finalize the deal. it was just like a movie he asked to see my creditals. though i can see the similiarity, i didn't know that creditals meant my credit cards and bank account information. peter said he needed it to make sure that not only could he get his fees, but so he could manage my "assets".

he gave me a contract that said he'd be my agent for the rest of my life... not sure i like that wording, but peter insisted that it was "pretty standard" wording... the bonus being that for the small price of something called "power of attorney" (not sure what a superhero lawyer has to do with this though?) peter would be my manager even if i left the eco centre... not that i'm planning on that...

well this sounds like it's the perfect situation for me! peter said he'd even help me find 65 million BC if the other dinosaurs were going to be as easy of clients as me.

not sure why steve said i'd need luck...

i'm not going to worry about it right now. i think there's something wrong with this water. it tastes funny, and the more it feels like that time i ate too much rum cake...

the test... (the centre part 1)

61 000 238 BC

unfortunetly i spent too long exploring the other side of the bridge last night, and it got dark while i was mucking around in the forest. so i had to camp out in the forest overnight...

i thought it'd be scary, but it was unusually calming. it was like this is where i'm supposed to be...

i felt the vibe of the arboreal abode as the inhabitants switched to their nocturnal means (WOW did you just read that! i'm even using big smart sounding words to describe it, WEIRD!!!). i had no trouble sleeping. the one time something seemed to be sneaking up on me i just knew to roar and it ran off into the woods... i think i had my first instinctive t-rex moment!

can't wait till i find 65 million and tell all the other t-rexes

so getting up this morning i resumed checking out the forest. after a little while i discovered a cool tunnel that led up to a plant covered building...

the north vancouver eco centre said a vine covered sign outside it. as i was here i figured i might as well check it out... you're not going to believe what happened next!

so getting inside i was amazed. it was just like a museum (again!). only in here they'd stuck with brad's rules of museum interpretation! such good displays all about nature and the environment... my marvelling at this hidden ancient museum of the BCs brought me to the attention of mike the centre's director.

he noticed that i was wearing a royal tyrrell uniform (the only human clothing i owe... and till i get to 65 million BC i think i should try to blend in. people around here probably know how furious us t-rexes are. unlike naive albertans!). he had visited drumheller before, and really like our museum. when i said they'd laid me off mike got interested.

"do you need a job?" he asked

i hadn't thought about it, but yeah i was going to need a job here in the BCs... odds were good that at 65 million they were probably still living in the stone age, and thus i wasn't going to be making a good living there. i'd need a job in the outside world. (especially considering the debt i racked up in dinotown i REALLY am going to need some money!)

mike was pleased to hear this as the centre needed staffers. before he could hire me though he was going to test me to see if i had what it took to be an interpreter...


so the only way to do that was of course have me go through the centres displays and prove i knew some museumy type stuff... well the first exhibit ironically is just like the tyrrell's first... mike thought that i didn't know what a globe was cause i was a little confused. i told him i knew it was a globe of the earth... just that it should be i don't know a bit bigger or something...

"good answer!" he exclaimed, and checked off something on his list.

cool. first question right! guess he's been meaning to upgrade the size of his globe to tyrrell size.

next we came up to a tiny world trapped in glass. wonder how they got shrunk?

anyways i noticed a group of teepees in there... badlands science camp i thought! cool i couldn't wait till it was my turn to be shrunk. working at camp that's a job i know how to do!

mike asked what i was so concerned about.

"the teepees" i said.

"very good eye!" he replied, and yet another tick on the list.

last stop was a display on my buddies the fish. this one had a bunch of cool tube lights in glass... man i love tube lights!

when you hit different buttons different light strings lite up. man that was fun! i was playing out a cool disco version of take me to the paradise city in my head when suddenly mike interupted my fun...

"so what's the signficance of this display?" he asked.

okay i had to think quick (which of course you people of the inner web know is hard for me with my brain the size of a peanut)... i had just been the fish hatchery. they do excercise up watery stairs where they'll meet their mates... not sure why these austrilian fish don't just stay down under. wouldn't canada be a pretty far vaccation to take if you have to swim?

oh man. see. this is what i mean. i can't think good under pressure (or anytime really). i also tend to think out loud too...

"the red lights are bad" i said.

"wonderful!" mike said all happy. "that's three for three! you know your stuff alright!"

wasn't sure what he was talking about. the red string lights had some burnt out bulbs and were thus bad strings... i found out reading the display later that the red lights are supposed to represent pollutants that kill fish, which are bad... man i have good luck!

proving that even more... i got the job!!!

can you believe people of the innerweb? i sure can't! looks like this trip to the BCs was a great idea after all.

now mike won't let me start work till tomorrow. he says that no one can work at the nature centre till they have a talent agent. he thinks because i didn't have on in drum that's why they could let me go. with an agent though i'm covered he said.

so i'm off to meet my agent here tonight in TRUE vancouver!!! i'm kinda excited. journeying into a new realm of vancouver, and this one might be in fact 65 million BC!

keep you posted people of the web wide world...

bridge of TERROR

61 4oo oo1 BC

so after wasting a bunch of the afternoon trying to bypass that fence i found out it isn't keeping in dinosaurs. rather keeping people from falling off a REALLY big cliff!


i did just come across a suspension bridge that crosses said cliff which is part of a valley (there is actually a whole other cliff on the other side helping make this valley... fun factiod for today!).

it seems to be pretty popular as you can probably tell from the picture. lots and lots of people going across it. back and forth side to side...

IT LOOKS SCARY!!! i don't trust a bridge that swings around like that. it's almost breaking the laws of gravity by moving but not falling!

however if one is not willing to take risks then they won't get anything... and i like getting stuff! so i closed my eyes and went for it...

oh man it was ununmoving. the bridge swung as i walked. then i looked over the edge. this thing is HIGH up yo!!!

i might have screamed a little (anyone who says a lot is uh lying to you... yeah lying to you!)...

then i noticed the cool view, and well kinda forgot that the bridge was a death trap...

there was a might majestic forest down there, and a real nice waterfall. i am still loving the waterfalls. have to make sure to add them to my list of favirite things beside fountains... cause their just to cool!

well i'm now telling you this trying tale safely on the other side of the bridge. what lies here on this side i'm not sure. i'll let you know shortly...

just like before!

61.4 million BC

okay so my exploration of vancouver goes on! today i've continued my journey through the foresty realm of north vancouver. man i need to learn if there are elves or something living in here...

i came across something again here today! who knew? you get out and explore the world and this seems to happen to me at least once a day... what's up with that?

it was a big fence, even more hardcore then the one around dinotown... it said people had lost their lives on the other side. it was easily thick enough (compared to those ninny fences outside dinotown) to hold in a theropod! the resemblence to jurassic park is just stupid, and considering how close i am to 65 million could this in fact be my goal?

did they put up this fence in the lands of vancouver to hold in the primal rage that is my kind? or was their some other explanation?

well i can't tell you at moment. though this fence is signficantly more sturdy then the dinotown one it is way less electricy, but MAN does it have a good lock. i've been tugging on this for 30 min and it isn't giving!

boy was i turned around! (fish part 4)

60 125 005 BC

okay to start off i just want to make a commentary on the old saying "sleeping with the fishys". everytime i've heard this adage it is made to sound like a bad thing...

that was one of the best night sleeps i've had so far since i got kicked out of drumheller. the fish are quiet during the night (all the time really), and they make nice soft pillows! though a little on the slimy side... but what a fragrance you wake up with!

well it stopped raining at some point in the night, and as of such i was able to explore the area outisde the fish museum today. i made an interesting discovery...


turns out this wasn't a fish museum at all! rather it is a fish hatchery. it's a place where humans help fish make more fish so that they don't disappear. i think that's super!

it also explains why this place wasn't presenting a lot of information about the fish... you were supposed to know it was a fishery before you visited. stupid rain!

i guess brad missed a very important rule to museum interpretation:

4. make sure it is a museum

when i get back to drumheller i'll make sure they add that one to the training manual.

looking around outside i made a relieving find. turns out my fry buddies down in the tank aren't alone. out here they have giant ponds FULL of other fry. they take turns in the tank, and then the rest of the time hanging out with several hundred friends learning what it is to be a fish. wish the tyrrell had done something like that with us dinos...


also found out what that watery staircase was for. turns out that salmon and trout are SUPPOSED to go up those every year for a big social gathering in the fall. must be to mark the end of summer. the sign also said something about them mating. i had no idea these fish were australian!

yeah i may have got the wrong idea about this place jumping in with wet feet (cause it was pouring yesterday), but very glad i checked it out. it sure is a real popular spot already the place is filled with people all coming to check out the cool fish of the capilano hatchery

unethical excercise! (fish part 3)

60, 125, 001 BC

well this museum just gets weirder and weirder. so first we have the case of fish with next to no signs in it. then the tanks of fish with only a name label. now here i am in the place's basement and the weirdest thing i've seen yet.

it is a stairway full of water...

seriously i'm not making this up people of the innerweb. it is a giant staircase full of water that they've put a glass tank around it.

you want to know the really sick part though... they make fish run up it!

i know! this is a monsterious. what kind of museum do they run here? fish torture? the iron fish? fish fat camp?

i never heard of such a morally questionable display ever! well okay apart from the creationist museum i went to in 2004...

the really scary part was how popular this display was. within moments of my getting to the basement (and taking the picture up above) a huge crowd formed around the window, and these people sat there just watching those poor fishys struggle their way up the staircase.

now i can handle watching fish swim normally for hours, but this is not them doing their fishy thing. this is just wrong. that'd be like making me dig up fossil all day at the tyrrell... wait a minute! that happened more then once!!!

i couldn't handle watching that for long so wandered down the hall. i found where the staircase lead. into a really big creepy, but neat tank. in there were tons of grown up salmon. boy were they big. their almost as long as i am!

they didn't seem too upset by the ordeal they'd just been put through on the staircase. then again based on how their younger coworkers were being raised upstairs this hardly surprises me. they have no idea what the world out there holds...

hmmm couldn't figure out why i was getting so hungry. of course! i've been trapped here all day! have to look into getting out of here soon. especially since i ate... or uh did more indepth learning one of the exhibits...

ah man it's still raining out there, and i've had enough swimming for today (that is watching it... i feel that is close enough!). i'm going to camp out here since they haven't made any annoucements about the place closing. come to think of it this place didn't have any doors when i got in here... how would they lock up?

well catch you tomorrow people of the innerweb. i'm off to sleep with the fishes...

deep fry (fish part 2)

60.125 million BC

okay this is a weird museum i've found. it has practically no signs anywhere. i can't tell what it is a museum of other then something to do with fish. mostly salmon and trout, but i only know that from the name plates under all the statues in these glass cases.

this is a pretty poor show. even i KNOW more about making a museum, and i have the brain the size of a peanut!

the three rules of museum interpretation are:

1. "have a clear educational mandate or objective then clearly structure your museum's information to convey this".

2. "Traumador pay attention!!!"

3. "don't talk about museum club"

and brad thought i didn't learn anything from his tyrrell training...

though they have some live specimens. that is cool. really cool i love watching fish swim! i can do it for hours... in this case 2 hours so far

according to the name plate here these are chinook salmon fry. i think they are amazing. not only cause their cool water animals swimming around, but cause they can survive that hot oil!
according to a webbedsite i found on the innerweb (which again is bad museum management... i shouldn't have to use my toplab here to find out more about their displays!) these guys are just babies. then i realized that this was a really cool display!

it was supposed to make you look at what it is to be a fry... these guys are so new to the world (they must have been just put in the tank cause there were 3 other empty tanks around them). innocent and isolated (by the big glass tank around them). they struggle to explore the world around them (cause there's not much to check out, just the 4 walls, pebbly bottom of the tank, and the waters surface... real boring if you ask me). waiting to see what the world around them was going to do (they were all watching the top of the water for food to be dropped in).

looking at them for so long i realized that they were going to growup to be like me... and no i don't mean to be t-rexes who like to eat steaks (though man i could go for a hadrosaur right about now)

their whole childhood is going to be spent growing up in a museum! here everything they will learn about will be human. their growing up in a setting that humans think is best for them (well okay i can't think of a better place for them then a fish tank right now... i'm not the smartest guy after all... but out in the ocean they could get eaten or something! maybe a fish sphere tank?). the only contact they'll have is with people, and thus rob them of their fish heritage...

i hope this place doesn't get too many fish later down the road, and lay these guys off... i don't think they can go on a road trip to find a new home like me. well at least not without fish type space suits full of water anyway... "this is one small flop for fish kind?"

umbrellas don't make you fly (fish part 1)

60.12 million BC

so i had asked the accordion player (man who knew playing an instrument was so much like driving?) to let me know where any cool places were, and to let me out of the band (cause not only were we in a accordion, but there was a dude carrying a guitar in there with us, and some lady with earphones singing).

well we pulled up to a nice forested area very much what i expect from middle earth... or i mean vancouver... and the accordion player said i'd very much like this place. before i could ask him what it was though the accordion drove away...

so i walked down a long pathway through the woods. ever on the lookout for dinosaurs or other prehistoric critters cause i am of course getting ever closer to 65 million BC...

well of course knowing my luck... it starts to rain. now don't get me wrong. i love the rain. it's like nature's giant surrond sound fountain... i just don't normally enjoy a fountain by jumping into it. you get wet.

to think after all those umbrellas i've bought i didn't have one handy. guess i should have listened to dan when he insisted i couldn't float off the roof with them...

fortunently i seem to have a bit of luck left... that or i'm just good at running! i came across a cool little building the kept me out of the rain. wasn't sure at first what it was, but it beat being outside...

inside the building though i was blown away! it had museum looking display cases full of model fish. cool! fish are so cool. i wish i could swim like one (and right now i guess i'm wasting a perfectly good oppurtunity to practise outside...). man the accordion player was right i am going to enjoy exploring this spot. a fish museum.

well i've spent enough time drying off here. time to put the toplab away and check this place out. talk to you soon web wide worlders!