Proud Parent

Proud ParentCan there be a prouder moment for a parent than to watch a child become a young adult and march across the platform to receive a high school diploma?Photo c2009 by Nickers and Ink.All rights reserved.Congratulations, my dear. I am so proud of you. I love you big time, and I pray God's best for you, as always.

My mom is cooler than your mom!

When I kidnapped my mom for my first ford fiesta mission video, we took her to Saltaire, The Momen Tree and the Salt Flats.  We ended up with nearly 40 minutes of footage...which was real hard to cut down to 5.  So we made the behind the scenes video: uncut, what you didn't see! So check it, yo! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiH8yzx_Igs 

Oh, and guess what! This I've picked my second ford fiesta mission video for technology month.  My mission? "THE SKY'S THE LIMIT".  Chose items from SkyMall to use and review!

Jealous? Thought so! 

xo Deena http://www.fiestamovement.com/agent32

fossil of the weekend! #27

a cast skeleton mount of the albertan dromaeosaurid (aka raptor) saurornitholestes, at the royal tyrrell museum.

(Production Note: We're giving another raptor fossil of the weekend to make up for our delay in the ubber exciting action packed conclusion to Raptor Attack. We apologize, due to a prior project commitment our creative team has been distracted from helping Traumador out with his blog. This week they'll be resuming Tyrannosaur Chronicles work, and get Traumador back on track!

Thank you for your patience and for supporting Traumador

Prehistoric Insanity)

First Speaking Presentation

It's a beautiful morning here in California and I just finished my last class for the year. What better time for a blog? Yesterday Dave, Maggie (our wonderful new ride director), and I went to the Los Altos Rotary club for our first presentation on our ride. I was a little nervous going in... there were over 100 people and I haven't spoken before that many people in a while.

It went really well though! Dave and I worked ourselves into a comfortable rhythm talking about the background of Face AIDS, the origins of the ride, and our expectations for the summer. The club was extremely welcoming and receptive to our message which was a big confidence booster on our first run through.

So if anyone from the Los Altos Rotary club ends up following this blog, thank you very much! We loved meeting you all and will hopefully come back next fall to let you know how the ride went. We appreciate the support you have given us!

In other news, the crew team leaves for Sacramento tomorrow morning. We'll be missing class next week (and some finals for some people) and get back on June 6. We've been waiting a while to get up to IRAs and are quite excited to get away from campus, focus our heads, and hit the water. 

Well, I have to go pick up my laundry (laundry rooms, if you've forgotten, can be vicious places in college dorms) so I have to run. Thanks for reading, and check back next week for updates about nationals and final preparations for the ride.

Your friendly Ride Against AIDS team,

Dave and Austin

ARGH

It's hard to have the worlds thickest skin at all times.  

Really fucking hard.  I'm just a person, like anyone else. 

Memorial Day

Burning in Our HeartsWe will not forget the courage and sacrifice of the firefighters and other rescuers who lost their lives in the tragic terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York City. This rhymed poem offers a tribute to the fallen.Memorial Day Poems - Dress BluesMemorial Day Poems - A Rhyme Embossed with Freedom's Cost.On Memorial Day, we honor our fallen soldiers from present days and

Article in the Stanford Daily

Hey everyone, we are under one month to the ride and Dave and I are pretty busy. Whether it's logistics, getting ready for the national rowing championship (we leave in 8 days), or finishing up classes (believe me, it's really hard when its 75 and sunny out....I just want to hit the beach) we are busy 24/7.

Things are still going very well. Here are a couple of updates that might interest our dedicated readership:

1. Housing: Through couchsurfing.com we have met some very nice people who are willing to put us up for a night as we come through their towns. So far we are set for 20 of the 60 nights, so if you have any suggestions, please let us know!
2. Alumni events: We are currently working with the Alumni Center to set up possible events in DC, Philly, New York, and Boston for alumni receptions. Stayed tuned for more info.
3. Getting inked up: No, we are not getting sweet Face AIDS tattoos (yet). But there was a very nice article on the front page of the Stanford Daily about us. Check it out: "Biking to Battle AIDS"
4. YouTube Video: Some friends of ours had to create a video about an organization for a class and they chose to produce one about our cause. The first version is available here: "Ride Against AIDS 2009 Video"

Things are rolling and we are pleased with the progress. Please shoot us an email at rideagainstaids2009@gmail.com if you have any questions or ideas, we love to hear new ideas. Thanks, and hope all is well!

RAPTOR ATTACK!!!

today has been, to put it lightly, a nightmare!

which is "funny" cause i've been having real nightmares recently, but not in my days. up until now.

the reason for my unfun dreams was the scary (but very good) the dinosaur dealers book i read by dr. john long. it confirmed that frightening things like fossil poachers, smugglers, and rogue dealers were all real and threatening us dinosaurs, and not just made up monsters to scare us by the campfire.

in fact, it was my worry about the fossil poaching, currently going on around drumheller, that started off the terrible events of today...

it started with me and tony chatting in the tyrrell museum's staff lounge.

`

me and tony were supposed to head out and continue our fieldwork this afternoon. we'd made a great team so far, and had made a huge find. however, due to my run-in with professor paradigm the other day, i was now reluctant to go out and accidentally run into anymore evidence of the fossil poachers.

`

not only had dr. paradigm implied bad things would happen to me should i stick my snout where it doesn't belong, but his saurian assistiant lance the lambeosaur had outright threatened me should i simply bump into him again. so in general i was not only wanting to lie low, but kinda wishing my trip home would end... yet i was stuck here a bit longer. so i might as well make the most of it.

`

talking to tony about these various issues made me feel better. as tony is such a laid back and fancy free dude, he said i shouldn't let it worry me so much... granted he'd never had any of the stuff that seems to always happen to me occur to him.

`

he suggested that we head out into the field looking for "legitimate" finds, but on the "side" keep our eyes open for poaching activity. my brain was opposed to this (as small as it may be, it has good danger recognition), but my guy was telling me tony was right. i couldn't spend the rest of my time cowering in the museum.

`

it was decided. we would head out just as soon as our third exploring member yumi showed up. i just wish she'd shown up a little sooner...

`

as if we'd headed out of the building even a minute or two sooner none of today's events could have happened.

`

just as we'd decided to head out into the field, i smelt something funny. now i should note as a t-rex i have one of the best senses of smell ever evolved... so when i smell something funny it is usually odd (and not something i smell around me everyday... what you humans rank as funny or gross smelling often doesn't tend to register with me, as i can smell it hanging in the air long after it disperses below what you can pick up).

`

my instincts told me the smell was trouble, but i couldn't put my claw on why at first. when i finally got a good sniff of the odor it reminded me of that albertosaur i ran into a little while ago. yet it wasn't albertosaur, or a tyrannosaurid of any kind. so how could it be worrying me so much? i'd been succeeding in keeping my distance from that big bully.

`

little did i know, but my albertosaur encounter had triggered the events about to unfold, check those events here and here...

`

just as i clued into what it was, there came a terrorifying bark from down one of the museum's many back corridors (it is a sort of mini maze... not one you can get lost in, but there are a lot of long narrow corridors that sounds can echo down...). me and tony recoiled in surprise.

`

we sat in silence for a minute regathering our wits, and using our now fear heightened senses to try and pinpoint the cause of the eerie call. i however had a sinking feeling i knew...

`

breaking the quiet, and freaking me out a second time, tony gasped "what's that doing in the building?"

`

tony pointed to the balcony above the staff lounge. not that i needed to look up to know what he saw. i'd connected the smell and the call now... however standing just a few metres above us was my suspicsions in the flesh.

`

a dromaeosaur, a deinonychus or adasaurus i would have guessed at that moment based on the size. or as the movies have popularized them, a raptor!

`

i panicked... this couldn't be good. this couldn't be good at all!!!

`

there was no way this guy wasn't part of the pack of the primordial feather... my cousin larry's coelurosaur only club. a club i'd royally ticked off when i declined to join it (something very few other bird relatives have ever done and survived).

`

i immediately realized it was not only here because of me (after all deinonychuses and adasaurs aren't native to alberta, and the museum didn't have any on display), but that call we'd heard earlier was a hunting call. it had been sent to alert the other pack members that prey had been spotted...and i had the terrible feeling i was the prey.

`

as quickly as it had appeared, the large raptor (a deinonychus it turns out... so i'll call it that from now on) disappeared. i turned to tony and blathered as much of the story of the pack, larry, and myself as i could. i don't think he understood a word of it, but tony caught that this deinonychus was not good news for me.

`

i wanted to run, but before i could make good on this plan tony seized me by the neck, and assured me "i have an idea," as he proceeded to stuff me into his backpack!

`

it was about as much fun as it sounded, and it was a very tight squeeze. my knees were on either side of my head and my tail wrapped up over the top of my head and down the back of my shirt (very itchy!). yet i fit. i can't believe i'd never thought of this before!

`

i am perfectly backpack sized!!!

`

tony's plan was brilliant. with me hidden inside his pack we'd just walk out past this deinonychus and any other potential pack member's...

`

interupting the euphoria of this discovery and tony's scheme, from up on the balcony there was a shrill hiss... dromaeosaur laughter (tony didn't realize this, but i did. as i speak a spattering of dromaeosaurench). that cheeky deinonychus had simply ducked out of view, and hidden, had

seen what we had done.

it knew where i was hiding! before tony could make good on the escape part of our plan suddenly the deinonychus lept the whole storey down to our level of the staff lounge.

its 3 meter body landed gracfully on the couch right in front of tony (and where i'd just been sitting!). the cushions helping absorb the landing to the point that the cat like theropod didn't even feel the jump.

tony didn't need me to translate from inside the bag to tell him the snarl the raptor was making was a hostile one. not that i'd risk making a sound, i was staying quiet on the slim chance the deinonychus hadn't caught onto tony's ploy.

man was i going out on a limb on that hope... the deinonychus made a (half hearted) lunge at tony. it was more then enough to scare him despite its lack of effort...

`

to be fair had it been me i'd have chickened out a lot quicker... though where he had bravery, tony sure was lacking on the speed. i wish i was carrying him on my back. my long and powerful juvenile tyrannosaur legs would have outrun this dromaeosaur easily (as unlike jurassic park their not super humanly fast).

yet despite his mammalian limitations tony got away, and bolted into the nearest corridor. aiming desperately to get us into a more public part of the building (the back end can be next to empty at certain parts of the day).

sadly for us this was part of, desdemona i found out her name was, deinonychus' plan.

as she got tony running into the bowels of the tyrrell, desdemona let out a new battle cry. i recognized it as trouble. mega trouble... it was a cue to any other raptors that the hunt was now on...

`

as tony burst into a T junction, our situation got more complicated. we nearly ran over yumi, who had final made it to meet up with us (for our now cancelled fossil hunt).

"what?!?" yumi yelped as tony instinctively grabbed her. before she could protest, there were several more raptor barks through the corridors as the pack corrodinated their movements (and possibly pinpointing us through the noise yumi had just made). yumi instinctively now wanted to run, and let tony guide her along.

we headed towards the backdoor of the museum...

however rounding the bend we were startled to nearly run into a true velociraptor (not a deinonychus pretending to be one like in sooooo many movies). our surprisingly small (compared to said movies) adversary put up a very threatening warning. it looked ready to pounce.

`

unlike the deinonychus, this velociraptor sounded like it meant business, and would very well have caused us some harm...

tony didn't give it a chance too though, and veered down a new corridor. it was the best avaliable route as it headed away from the backdoor and staff lounge. it even had a perfect left in obstruction for pursurers in the form of a janitor cart... though it was set up perfectly to slow us down too...

poor tony and yumi were running on pure aderniline and instinct, and didn't have the ability at moment to think through out situation. i on the other hand, immoblized and stuck in the bag on tony's back, had nothing to do but think through out situation.

i may not be the most elegant of thinkers, but even i knew (possibly helped out by my deep inner predator) something was up with the raptor's antics...

`

why hadn't desdemona simply pursued us? she probably could have easily caught up too, and incapacitated tony...

`

oh well, i tried to assure myself. it didn't matter. we were a single small hallway away from the exit into the museum's public galleries, and then we'd be out in the open. if the raptors were still planning on harassing us they'd have to do it in front of hundreds of witnesses!

`

as we rounded the bend this hope was dashed by a dromaeosaurus standing guard on the gallery exit...

`

okay things had gone from terrible to uber dangerous!

`

not only had the raptors perfectly cut us off from all (but one) means of escape from the building, but they were now sounding like they meant business. the deinonychus' efforts in the lounge had simply been to get us out into the "open". the staff lounge was the busiest part of the staff only end of the museum, causing carnage there would get noticed quickly. elsewhere in the bowels and it could be hours before it was discovered...

`

around this exit was a terrible spot for them to do anything dirty either though... so they'd placed the perfect sentenal to ensure we didn't linger here so close to help...

`

the dromaesaur made an attack rush at the lot of us.

`

i'm glad tony wasn't feeling brave enough to stand his ground. the dromaeosaur might be half his size, but it was a 100% percent killer. tony would never have stood a chance.

`

yet i couldn't help feel alarmed when we escaped this encounter yet again unpursued or mauled. sure the dromaeosaur had chased us away from the public side of the building, but why not follow us? it wasn't like we were going to be able to get around it.

`

tony and yumi were in total flight mode. they clearly weren't thinking about where we going... which is when i realized what the dromaeosaurs were doing... we were being herded, and there was nothing we could do about it.

`

even if tony had stopped to think about it, we had no other option. the only corridor and exit so far not covered was the loading bay.

`

at the same time i knew there had to be a reason the raptors were driving us in that direction...

`

my theory on their plan gained a lot of evidence when we hit the final corridor to the bay. we picked up our first offical pursuer, a saurornitholestes.

`

it lazily chased after us (for a dromaeosaur. had it wanted to it could have been on yumi or tony in a few seconds), prompting my two human friends to blindly sprint towards the loading bay exit.

`

instinctively it must have seemed to them like escape, but they didn't have the luxary of being able to analyze the situation like i currently did...

`
just like a bunch of naive hadrosaurs we rushed right into the trap. tony and yumi were cut off moments of emerging outside. the velociraptor we'd run into earlier lead this blockade, and it wasn't allow.

`

for a moment i was confused. how could the dromaeosaur and saurornitholestes we'd just left behind us a minute ago have swung around in front of us?

then the rest of the pack made their presence known!

`

this was why we'd be driven to the loading bay. it was an open space where the raptors could overwhelm us with superior numbers. even better at this time of day the bay was totally abandoned. so no witnesses. whatever they did to us here won't be found by anyone else till tomorrow!

`

yet as they closed there was a noticable gap in their formation... a mistake on their part due to over anticipation of the kill?

`

yumi thought so, and seized the oppurtunity to sprint through past the gather raptors, and try to dash to safety...

only tony had figured out it was a trap (i would have, but i couldn't see what was going on outside the bag, and it all happened so fast), and screamed at yumi "stop!!!"

yumi ran on though. her animal instincts falsely told her safety was just around the corner.

in reality the corner hid imminent danger. another dromaeosaurus whose job i'm sure you figured out.

unlike its companions in the museum, the dromaeosaur pounced...

`

yumi let out a scream of sheer pain and terror and the raptor gracefully delievered a jump kick with its giant foot talon...

`

however the dromaeosaur didn't make it a death blow or even a serious wounding slash. rather it simply embedded its claw in yumis back, which not an overly life threatening place for it, was extremely painful. yumi couldn't move without intense pain, and thus was perfectly immoblized.

yet the raptor made it dead clear it could end yumi's life if it choose to by grabbing her head and pulling it back to expose her neck...

`

perhaps the only reason she lived, was the backpack on tony's shoulder... me.

`

desdemona reemerged, and spoke to tony in dromaeosaur... not that he understood it, but i did (this is when i learned her name and species)... not that tony needed to understand her. he already knew what they wanted, and more to point what they were implying would happen to yumi if he didn't cooperate.

with extreme guilt (i would know, i could feel his back tense up real bad) tony reached for the backpacks straps and slowly removed it and me from his back.

"i'm so sorry," he whispered to me with great shame... i tried to forgive him, but my mouth was pinned between my tail and my chest.

i understood why tony was giving me up. it's not like he had a choice. the many raptors around him could tear him to pieces in just a few seconds anyways. that alone what the dromaeosaur up ahead could (and certainly would) do to yumi...

i wasn't about to ask either of my friends to give up their lives for mine... especially since they'd done nothing wrong. i was the one who'd taken on the pack 2 years ago, and "known" what the consequences might be... though i'd never imagined this...

tony began to hand me over to desdemona, and her legion of raptors. just in time to be witnessed by some wandering vivus hadrosaurs.

stupid duckbills. no doubt they were some of the many vivus dinosaurs that wander town looking for work and a home. most of them make stops at the tyrrell many times a week looking for work. only this time their timing was worse then usual (i say their timing sucks partially cause they never get work out of these non stop check ins, and also i'm frankly in a very foul mood... what with my life about to end and all!!!).

it made me even angrier that my end was being watched by a bunch of dumb duckbills. it'd be like a human going out in front of their steak. at least i could take minor statisfaction at some of the onlookers sharing my fate... given the growing excitment in the pack as i was being surrendered to them, the dromaeosaurs were very likely to hunt down a duckbill or two for a celebration meal...

not that it mattered...

the pack of the primoridal feather had promised retribution against me, and they were about enact it.

to be continued???

fiestamovement mission #1 Complete!

Finally, I can reveal the long awaited, highly anticipated "YO MAMA: Kidnap your mom and take her someplace she's never been!" That was my first mission for the fiestamovement! I could tell you how it went...or you could just see for yourself! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEWhVcig4nY

Official Agent Page 

http://fiestamovement.com/agents/view/32

Behind the scenes photos 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/beanerlarue

Tell me what you think!

Deena Marie

It's almost OPENING!

Pic above is from filming my first mission for ford fiesta, 

details coming soon!

All pics having to do w/ford can be found at flickr.com/beanerlarue

Opening night of "Infantry Monologues" is almost here! 

Final dress tonight, preview tomorrow & opening friday! I'm so excited! As always, going through the rehearsal process you have moments of love, hate, frustration, etc.  By the end, it always comes together and you wonder what you'd been so worried about.  It's a hell of a role.  I've always said I've wanted every acting experience possible.  I've been lucky to be able to keep checking things off my list.  This is the closest thing I've done to a one woman show.  Nearly four minutes of me, all me.  It's amazing how fast it goes by! Sure doesn't feel like 40 minutes! When I walk off stage it is such a rush! I'm sweating, I'm emotional, I feel like I've run a marathon.  

This kind of show is definitely an experience that doesn't happen very often.  I want to relish every minute of it.

Deena Maire

my cousin of the week #9

a paradise shelduck chick i saw in christchurch. so cute and cuddly...

Great Graduations