how i got my name...

with all the excitement going on around me during this whole trip back to drumheller i've been forgetting to blog about the most important thing to me here in all of the tyrrell.

that would be this skeleton. known to most as the huxley tyrannosaur, or to the scientific community as specimen TMP 81. 12. 1... but to me it has a much simpler name... mommy.

its hard to think that 65 million years ago, right before the great KT extinction, i had a living and breathing mother... who was probably part of some pack or social group of other tyrannosaurs. a natural "family" for my kind... a thing i've never known in the real world (though i have been part of a group of caring humans you could call my family even if we aren't remotely related!).

i of course never knew her in this form, and never will...

before you ask how do we know if this is my mom, i investigated this earlier in my trip by checking with darren tanke. the short story was that her skeleton was found right over top of the fossilized nest my egg came from. in fact she was buried while on the nest... so unless a complete stranger rex wandered onto my nest, it is a safe bet this was my mother.

based on what we've seen in other meat eating dinosaurs, it looks like she was protecting the nest... and based on her large size this would have been unusual for a tyrannosaur (as she could easily have crushed us eggs... in fact it looks like a couple of my siblings may have been squashed in the cretaceous by mom's huddling on us). what could have been threatening us eggs so much that she'd risk it i wonder?

this is the purely scientific evidence that the huxley tyrannosaur was my mommy. most palaeontologists would say there was a strong chance she was my mom (or dad, as dino genders are impossible to confirm from just the bones), but we'll never know for sure...

speaking from just the scientifically provable angle this is correct. i can't prove to you "properly" that she is my mom. yet at the same time there is no question in my mind that she is my mommy, and not my daddy or other random t-rex.

we vivus-dinosaurs (that's the proper term for us dinosaurs somehow not extinct today) have another way of IDing our long dead kind...

contrary to the common belief of the humans in my life, i don't waste my time in trying to talk to my mom or other extinct dinosaur skeletons. sure they don't strike up a complex conversation, but i have met with limited success in getting answers back from them...

the reason being, somehow all us living vivus-dinosaurs can hear echoes of dinosaurs long extinct. there is no rational explanation, but it is true. ask any of us, and we'll all agree.

no this isn't like a ghost or a conscious entity we're communicating with. in fact the communication is mostly one way. rather we can hear, what seems like anyways, the last thoughts and feelings of that dinosaur before it died. often we can even tell you what killed it because of this echo (if indeed these are the last thoughts being "preserved", mind you).
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now the more complete a specimen the more complete the echo... for whatever reason (which as you'll see in a moment i think i've now, for the first time ever, figured out!). it also seems the more of the skull present the better the quality of the echo. words and "conversations" are possible with a skulled animal (though the conversation on your part just prompts different aspects of the echo. sort of like having a recording of someone and picking different parts of the recording to listen to).

even with the smallest fragments if you listen hard enough (if you're a dinosaur) you can catch a glimpse of an emotion or a word... but the general rule the more of the dinosaur the better the echo, and the more of the skull the more you can understand it.

so we come to my mother. complete neck to toe, but NO skull. even my vivus-dinosaur acquaintances think i'm silly for spending as much time "talking" to her as i do. she is a lot of intense emotion, but no explanation.

i've never figured out what happened to her, but i know what she felt in the last moments of her life...

mom's echo begins with the purest joy and happiness i've ever "heard" in an echo, but it only lasts a short time (she'd probably been feeling it for a while before the "recording" of her echo). this gives way to sheer panic and terror going into a moment of absolute determination (to protect i want to say, but i'm only going with my gut feeling... but it would explain why she was on the nest). it finally ends with intense fatal pain (sadly not uncommon from echos at all!), but her's is very pronounced and fast. dinosaur death's usually aren't as quick or powerful as hers (but usually as painful)...

again i can't tell you why or how any of this happened. without her skull all i can get is a "feeling" off her with no words to explain. however that is not to say nothing of her past self has managed to come through deep time to me...

she has spoken a single word to me. only the once, but this singular communication has been the most important word anyone has ever said to me...

i remember it clearly, which is saying something. it is among my first memories ever, and despite my tiny brain making remembering things hard, i'll never forget this moment for as long as i shall live.

it was the first time my legal guardian craig brought me through the museum's galleries (he'd taken me to the labs and collections many times, but this was my first public side tour). most of this i can't recall for the life of me (but if you compare this old photo of me and him there in 2003 to the modern one of my below taken this year in 2009 you'll see there are many differences!), but i certainly recall being brought into range of my mother for the first time!

as craig carried me before her, i was hit with the echo unsolicited (which never happens normally... we vivus-dinosaurs have to listen or probe to get something out of the fossils). at its conclusion, in the usual haunting whisper manner of a fossil echo i heard my mother say "traumador." i knew immediately this was my mother, and that this was her name for me.

i wasn't just imagining this either people of the web wide world! i didn't just take some random name thrown out by a fossil skeleton, and decide this was my 65 million year old name...

despite the fact i grew up like a human, and often behave more like one than a tyrannosaur, i have strong saurian instincts deep within me. this is one of the most baseline. the bond of a coelurosaur chick with its mother. we normally imprint on our mothers, but as i had extenuating circumstances preventing me to do that, this was as close as i was going to get to such an event.

this was the echo of my mother knowing me, somehow, outside of my egg... despite having never seen (or smelled, a very important sense to us tyrannosaurs) me in her lifetime, yet i tell you matter of factly, that was what she'd done. somehow, i was the most burning thing on her mind when she died...

as of such i've always felt a deep and emotional connection to my mother. we never really met, but yet we still have a bond across 65 million years. it makes me feel like in some way as a dinosaur i fit in somewhere (cause it sure isn't easy in the human world being a vivus dinosaur!).

the funny thing about it all is i said it aloud right after my mother, and craig assumed i came up with this out of thin air, and figured it would be the name he'd give me (up till then it had been "little guy" or "rex"... so i'll give him credit for still being on the market for something to call me, and not stick me with one of those!).

once i was old enough to explain where i'd gotten the name from, craig didn't entirely believe me. he thought i'd wanted so bad to "hear" my mother i made up a memory of her talking to me when i was a hatchling.

after all she hadn't ever done it again, right?... well that was true. until today!!!

today as i experienced mom's usual emotion echo, something bizarre, but sadly far from a new thing happened to me...

i suddenly felt uncontrollably dizzy. my mother's skeleton (even the cast skull attached to her) began to glow. it was another magic episode! ever since i'd overdosed myself in mystical gradient radiation (the scientific name for magic) i could detect magic (at least according to professor paradigm's findings so far i could). a long story to be sure, click on some of these links for the full details.

the general gist is that if something magic happens around me, i know about it. magic according to everyone i know has something to do with dimensions beyond our 4D world... i don't know something to do with the stringed up, or no wait, string theory. point is stuff from beyond our height, weight, depth, and time dimensions somehow get into our reality, and i can see them (where many others might miss it).

which might sound far fetched, like dinosaurs hearing echoes from our dead... only today i figured out the two are connected!

professor paradigm said after examining the magic's effect on me, he suspected we dinosaurs absorbed mystical gradient energy and retained it, unlike humans who simply get coated in it. i think this difference explains why we hear our dead ancestors, and humans can't.

prehistoric dinosaurs communicate through magic!!!

i'm not sure how or why, but that's what i sensed when my mom's echo triggered (i tested it again on a few other skeletons and the same thing every time! they triggered magic sensing episodes in me, complete with dizziness and glowing).

unlike the maori magic though, this new "fossil" magic didn't keep making me feel sick or dizzy for long. i'd only feel it for a moment, and then the magic felt more natural... dinosaur magic? as opposed to human (which may not be the case, but this was more pleasant then that other new zealand magic!).

well my mom's usual emotional barrage washed over me (in more detail then ever before... an effect of the magic i wonder?). then an odd silence. not as in the echo finishing (which it normally did after her pain) more like a blank space on a recording...

after a few minutes i started to think i was imagining the difference in the ending, and as i'd spent my time with mom for today, i turned around and began to walk away.

suddenly from behind me. "traumador," i heard in my mother's voice. the most glorious voice i'd ever heard (again). i spun around. unbelieving. in all my years seeing my mother she'd never said my name since that first time. i won't lie, occasionally i'd wondered if craig was right and my tiny brain had imagined mom giving me my name. now i knew for certainty it was true!

just before i could savour that happiness, my mother continued. "my dear sweet little traumador," mom sounded like she was talking to me now, but yet it clearly it was an echo. she had thought or said this in the cretaceous, but yet it was addressed to growup me. "be on your guard my little, danger soon shall stalk you..."

okay that was an ominous. why was my mom thinking i was in danger. more to the point why did the echo give me the distinct impression she meant for me to have this message well after i was out of my egg? i had to be imagining that interpretation (afterall echoes aren't science), she must have been thinking of me in the egg (but me above all my other unhatched siblings? why was i so special?) as the ancient danger she was protecting us from destroyed her.

that had to be it, i thought. it was the prehistoric horror that had consumed her so fast all those eons ago.

what danger could i possibly be in right now?

Elsewhere in the Museum...

(From Layla Oviraptor's personal journal)

Concealing my presence here at the Tyrrell has not been easy thus far, but what choice do I have?

The runt is still here at the museum, and has clearly been nosing around. His timing is far to convenient for his presence here to be anything but a direct affront against the Pack [of the Primordial Feather]'s operation here in Drumheller. Especially given his close ties to the "crate".

As if I needed any further reason to be concerned, but Professor Paradigm has also made his presence known in the region. If there is an organization I do not want interfering in our project it is Palaeo-Central.

Bringing matters to a head, Professor Paradigm confronted the runt yesterday, and I fear they may now be collaborating against us. If so I and the operation may be in grave danger...

I had been contemplating abandoning this whole endeavour, but that would have me returning to the pack in defeat. Something that would greatly undermine my lofty position as lieutenant to the royals [In pack lingo royal= Tyrannosaurid].

However today the tide had shifted against the runt. With such weight, it was unlikely he'd have fathomed it... Until it was too late, in any case.

My secret weapons had arrived, heralded by Desdemona Deinonychus seeking me out in the museum.

I typically do not have a fondness for Dromaeosaurs, but this was one of those rare instances where I felt great pride in knowing they were closely related to me. They were among the best of our hunters [in coelurosaur terms hunter=warrior], and definitely our most subtle. In this dire situation I needed foot soldiers of Desdemona's caliber, and now I had them.

I quickly briefed Desdemona on the development in events since I'd summoned her. Unlike me, who worried about the possible disaster that could follow a failure on our part, Desdemona kept the cold focused demeanor of a raptor prior to a hunt.

"You worry to much Oviraptor," she calmly assured me. Her eyes narrowed in focused anticipation. "This just makes my presence here all the more appropriate!"

I could not help but worry at her excitement over this delicate situation we were currently both overlooking. That was the way of the predator I suppose, to see opportunity in adversity, thrill in carnage, and to revel in overwhelming odds. It was not for me however, and I couldn't help worry I'd made a mistake bringing Desdemona in to help me.

As I followed Desdemona deeper into the museum my fears disappeared.

The rest of the Crimson Talons were restlessly gathered, ready for my and Desdemona's orders. Clearly they were antcipating the hunt as much as their matriarch.

I could see that Desdemona had brough her second in command Valor Velociraptor to assist her carry out the attack. Backing them up were a number of local Dromaeosaurus and Atrociraptors. Clever of her to not bring in too many noticible outside Dinosaurs. A nice clean local job. One that would hopefully be carried out quickly and quietly.

With a task force of raptor's poised ready to remove the runt, and any threat he represented how could my fears be anything but a thing of the past?

Next: Attack of the Raptors!!!

(Production Note: The clues in the fossil of the weekend have now been realized... "Danger soon shall stalk" Traumador indeed. For a better view of his potential danger click here.)

camping away from... no wait, at home (homecoming part 4)

after the more than somewhat depressing results of my efforts to figure out who bought me the plane ticket back here to drumheller for my my 5th hatching day, i was kinda wanting something fun to happen...

well this afternoon it did happen, well in a way. i'm starting to find this whole coming home thing to be a mix of coolness and unfortunately some sadness.

as she promised the other day, my old coworker amy tracked me down after this week's session of summer camp was done. man i haven't seen amy in a long time!

it was awesome catching up with her. though like everyone around here she thought my having ran off to the other side of the world was more interesting than her life... i should tape record the story. i've been having to tell it a lot!

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i sort forgot how funny amy was (i didn't really forget, but because it's been a while i wasn't used to it anymore if you follow what i mean...) it was really enjoyable being reminded of it!

our catching up was the biggest highlight of the trip so far. i really enjoyed the afternoon.

yet at the same time it made me a little sad. talking to amy reminded me of when we used to "hangout" in the old days...

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the times when we both worked at camp!

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the royal tyrrell museum's badlands science camp to be precise!

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the most dinosaur and fossil packed summer camp you'll find anywhere. that and one of the awesomest summer camps anywhere too... well that's what craig said anyway, and if anyone would know it's him. he's worked at few camps.

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back than i was one happy camper... well okay staffer. i might have hung around camp alot with the kids, but i wasn't really camping officially speaking. i was merely an employee (slash resident) of the museum (and being a resident it kinda felt like i camped at the museum... all the time hehehehe).

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the job was so fun though that with my small brain i'd forget sometimes. so even though i might have been wearing a staff shirt (like always!) i could just as easily have been wearing one of the kids' orange hats!

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so what was my job at science camp you might ask? well it's not an easy one to answer.

my old job at the museum had been to hangout in the cretaceous garden as a saurian part of the greenhouse, and educate/entertain visitors. what that amounted to really was me pretending to be a statue. from management's point of view that made sense.

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due to my ability to speak in english and that i usually did so without thinking much about what i said the higher ups, well, they thought it was best i didn't talk to the tourists. of course due to my small brain size i often forgot these instructions, and well the boss dudes they got sick of it, and decided to stick me somewhere the people i talked to might appreciate it. even if i didn't often know what i was talking about...

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which is why i ended up at camp. the big cheeses thought that kids won't mind a pea brained t-rex getting stuff wrong all the time... on that count they were wrong. kids can be way smarter than adults a lot of the time... that alone tyrannosaurs!
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at the same time kids LOVE me... i wish it was them running things instead of adults. than we dinosaurs would get some respect in the human world!
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anyways, i was one of the science camp educators. which meant i was supposed to help out the camp staff lead educational programs and activities... i say supposed to, because well, often i didn't actually get what we were doing or what i supposed to talk about right...
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like for example here where the idea was me talking about what science is... i tended to have to get everyone else working at camp to correct me before i'd get it right... man how embarrassing.
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one of the guys i worked with a lot was strong-man the strongest dude on earth. don't believe me? just look at his colossal muscles!

we used to tag team on leading stuff in the fossil lab. there were all kinds of cool things the kids would get to do there. here we were leading fossil casting. the kids got to make replicas of actual fossils and take home the copy!

lucky ducks. i never got to keep anything from work... oh right, they weren't working...

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now strong-man ,he was a lab expert... well okay except for his wearing shorts and open holed shoes in the lab... otherwise a real expert (besides the fossil lab was the lab for the public and not very dangerous... as for the real prep labs in the museum. well me and strong-man weren't allowed in them for various reasons. broken fossil reasons. me on account of being less than smart. strong-man on account of accidental crushing a few things with his HUGE might!)
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i on the other hand was... well, not so much of an expert!
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i was entertaining though! the kids loved me, and the only thing they loved more than me was my dr. phil currie puppet!
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man i love puppets. they crack me up, and the kids thought like me... which is funny cause again they're usually a lot smarter than me. how could we be thinking alike with such different sized brains?
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sadly strong-man didn't like my dr. phil currie puppet as much as the kids.
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he also didn't like it when i took things too literally... which i don't get. when you're talking shouldn't you mean what you say, and say what you mean?
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like this time when strong-man said fossils tell stories about the past just like books tell stories. i thought that was silly. books don't tell stories. they don't laugh. they don't sing. they don't do anything! they just sit there and go like this... well that in the picture.
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i get what he meant now. though i stand by my confusion back than. you read stories from books. they don't tell you them. the effort is up to YOU!
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anyways sadly our lab sessions almost always ended in strong-man losing his cool at me... which is too bad as he is a real cool dude. just not when he's angry. i really don't like him when he's angry. the angrier strong-man gets the stronger strong-man gets!... which kinda bugged me. it wasn't my fault...
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not that it bugged the kids. they thought it was funny! which i guess it probably was. i just at the time didn't think so. i kinda thought at times they were laughing at me...
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fortunately it wasn't all stuff i had no clue about. i also got to do the dinosaurs of alberta talk. if there is one thing i've always known a lot about its dinosaurs!

of course there were lots of other fun activities that the campers would do that i wouldn't have to do much for, cause none of the staff trusted me with anything serious.

i really liked the canoeing. we got to reenact how the old time palaeontologists explored this area. back than they didn't have roads to drive around on. the only easy way to get into the heart of the badlands was by the river that carved them.

which was the sort of trip we'd go on with the kids. including some authentic fossil hunting on the shore! in the middle of no where (the best place to find fossils)!!!

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okay i liked the canoe trips... sometimes the poor camper stuck on the boat with me didn't like it as much. i wasn't the best navigator... sure i'd been canoeing a lot by the end of my camp summers, but you try paddling with arms as small as mine and we'll talk okay!!!

the kids also got to see lots of stuff the normal museum visitor wouldn't be allowed to. like tours of both the collections AND preparation labs.

i learned a lot about real palaeontology while hanging out with the kids on these tours. learning from real scientists and technicians, like my pal caleb (whose now training to be a real palaeontologist... i'll have to look him up while i'm here in canada!)... though the campers sometimes complained cause i asked more questions than them, and sometimes didn't stop when it wasn't my turn anymore...

still me and the campers were buds by the end of any day. again unless the staff needed me to do something in particular, i was just like one of the kids and hung out with them mostly.

doing all the stuff they did... which come to think of it, with the amount of arts and crafts i did you'd think i'd have learned to draw or paint or something cool like that!?!

i think it was doing all that stuff at camp that started to make me grow up a bit. when i began working at camp i was 2 years old, and i left just after my 3rd hatching day (yeah one year on the calender, but TWO whole summers at camp). in t-rex years that had me going into "teenage"dom (though as a t-rex making it to your teens makes you OLD!).

everyday at camp was full of adventure, and you were always doing some different and new. even if you worked there all summer! i'm serious, at the end of a summer after 6 separate camps doing roughly the same thing, it never felt like the same thing! that and i worked it twice, remember people of the web wide world. it WAS different everytime, even if on paper they were all the same!...

the thing i miss the most about working camp though was it was the first time i was treated equally by humans. i wasn't just a specimen or display at the museum. i was part of a team, and depended on by the camp team EXTREME! (that was what we camp staffers used to call ourselves).

amy noticed me zoning out into the past, and brought me back to the present. after i told her i wanted to work camp again she sympathized. amy had just come from helping take camp down. the kids had all gone back home, and camp was done for the season.

ah nuts...

though don't get me wrong people of the innerweb. it was super awesome to visit with amy. we had fun going over old memories and stories, and remembering all our camp friends who'd since left drumheller.

sure it was sad to think those days were over, and they were never coming back, but it reminded me that new adventures must be just around the corner.

which i guess i was going to need to find. with no sign of who ever brought me back here, and everyone i knew around town leaving what was i going to do? i had a lot more time in drum to kill this trip, and it seemed i was fast running out of people to catch up with. amy was leaving after this catch and and heading home too...

though an idea was occurred to me people of the innerweb. sure all the people of my past weren't sticking around, but my past itself can't go anywhere. i'm thinking maybe i should look into it!

what do you think?

the check up (with a flashback!)

i think (my boss) ms. rhonwyn needs a lesson on how to throw a surprise...

don't get me wrong. the first part of her surprise was brilliant. setting up my first encounter with lillian the albertosaur for the first time in 2 years. that's a really good surprise! i got my first date ever out of it!!!

the problem is she added a second unrelated activity onto it. she also reintroduced me to professor paradigm. a palaeontologist who examined me right after i hatched nearly 5 years ago (my hatching day is this week wow!). the reason for our reunion: him doing a medical check NOW!

now i may have a brain the size of a peanut, but i STILL remember this first encounter with paradigm...

it was not pleasant. in fact to be honest people of the innerweb i hated it!

now the thing is i know why medicine and proper check ups is important, but at the same time i really really REALLY don't like getting them!

i think part of the problem is my tyrannosaurian instincts. i don't like giving up control, and more the point having things stuck in my mouth or hide. i'm supposed to be inflicting that sort of thing on other stuff not receiving it!

i also remember paradigm was rough, mean, and did not have a very nice bed side manner. he was quite aggressive on his check up 5 years ago. so much so that i've never had a check up since. my legal guardian craig tried to persuade me to get more when we still lived in canada, but i refused. than as you know since arriving in new zealand things have been a little too hectic for such activities.

so when it came to today's check up i was not for it one bit. paradigm on the other hand was equally stubborn, and was determined to examine me. it was a standoff worthy of a movie or something.

"why is it always the theropods who are the most..." paradigm grumbled just over his breath. he brought his hands to his waist in a show of massive annoyance. i matched his pose to show i wasn't giving any ground.

"i won't do it," i stated. "its too personal."

"i beg your pardon?!?" asked in a very cold manner. as though the fact i had feelings about what he'd just asked me to do was the most far fetched thing he'd ever heard. don't get me wrong people of the innerweb, most palaeontologists are really cool (in fact some among the most cool of the world!), but paradigm was coming off as one of those science above all else sorts...

"ms. rhonwyn didn't say anything about this to me," i declared. "so sorry for wasting you a trip, but i don't give you permission to examine me anywhere... that alone where you just asked!" that should put an end to this i thought... man i thought i was so clever.

"i'm not your doctor traumador. i'm a doctor of vertebrate and invertebrate palaeontology! second of all you're not human. you don't get those sorts of rights!" paradigm retorted angrily.

man this was the first time i'd dealt with the guy (last time i wasn't able to speak or even fully comprehend the world... i was only a few days old after all!) and i didn't like him at all. normally palaeontologists were among the nicest to us living dinosaurs. we're their only definite link to the past millions of years ago. this guy i could tell just thought of us as another specimen like any common fossil (technically fossils aren't common and are really amazing in that only the tiniest number of them survive into the present).

"for ceratitic lobes of the prolecanitina!" paradigm cursed... i think? "it's not like i'm asking to see anything embarrassing traumador!!! just open your mouth. that's all i need to see!!!"

"no!!!" i insisted covering my mouth with my hands.

paradigm's arms shot straight in fury. "you will open your mouth right now!"

i shook my head holding my jaws tight.

"i'm only asking you, nicely," he had to think about saying nicely too much for it to be sincere. "one more time."

i didn't yield.

suddenly paradigm lept forward, and grabbed a pressure point on my snout. he did it in a manner identical to how craig and dan used to do it in the old days funny enough.

i won't lie it hurt a lot! i can see why kung fu people use these pressure point things in combat. instinctively my jaw opened in an attempt to relieve the pain.

paradigm then thrust out a strange star treky looking device and held it in my now open maw. it made some funny noises for a few seconds, and nothing happened. maybe i'd been a little paranoid about this. than suddenly it made a humming sound, and i felt really really REALLY dizzy. just like whenever something magic had happened on the museum quest...

the professor muttered to himself in response to whatever readings he was getting. "how is that possible?" he seemed to stare at me in disbelief not that i could really see his eyes through his massive void tinted glasses. he changed something (i assume a setting) and the dizziness got so bad it hurt. the room spun, and i had flashes of random maori things... though for the life of me i couldn't remember any of it when he stopped. kinda like how you know what a dream was about but can't put your claw on it...

"i'm letting go of your jaw now," paradigm informed me. he than cautioned. "don't even think about nipping me. i know far more painful spots on a tyrannosaurid than that."

"what did you just do to me?!?" i demanded to know as the professor let go.

"i was attempting to ascertain what the effects of that massive mystical gradient raditation exposure were on you," he answered matter of factually.

"so?" i urged him on. i actually wanted to know. was i in danger?

"well its hard to say," he stalled for a moment. i couldn't tell if it was because he was going to lie to me about my condition or he just didn't know. "there have been no documented cases of an archosaur, that alone a dinosaur, being exposed to anywhere near this amount of MGR. if you were a human you'd no longer be in this dimension of reality. you'd have been transposed to one of the gradient realities. though which one, i'm not qualified to say. string theory is well outside the field of palaeontology."

"if i had to guess from what i've seen, which i hate to do without first thoroughly going over the data, you appear to have absorbed and metabolized the radiation. which is very odd," he paused as i think he was telling himself as much as me. "in mammals mystical gradient energy simply coats our outer surface. meaning we rip right through the 4th dimensional walls of our reality as we move, and thus release the contents of the upper and lower dimensional stacks."

"you on the other hand, have somehow internalized this energy, and thus have your whole body mass to disperse and buffer your MGR load. based on your accounts of what happened when a outer dimensional activity was in your proximity, i'd suggest that this makes you something of, well in terms you'd understand, a mystic detector rather than conductor which a human would be in your situation."

i simply stared at him dumbfounded. so what he was saying is that a human would have been eaten by whiro or worse disappeared into that green light like tane did. instead i'd gotten something like a spider magic sense?...

"again i can't say any of this for sure till i analyze the results," paradigm cautioned me. "now i'd like to do a quick physical examine to ensure you are healthy otherwise."

"how are you going to know if i'm okay or not?" i challenged. i hate being hit, poked and prodded. why let this guy do it, since no one is really an expert on us living dinosaurs!

"don't be insulting," paradigm retorted. "i specialize in vivusly preserved fossils," i looked at him blankly. "by the temporal fenestra of a synapsid!... the eggs you and the rest of your kind have been hatching from."

okay so something good came out of this check up. i learned the scientific term for us living prehistoric critters. vivus-fossils. i looked it up. it means (in latin. the language of science!) having dug up a living thing [vivus=living fossil=having dug up].

i also learned that paradigm's specialty was therefore, me... and all the other dinosaurs running around today. maybe that explained why larry was so freaked of this paradigm guy when i mentioned him during my cousin's visit?... i wonder now. seriously who is this guy? i'd just been pretending to know paradigm. the mere mention of his name kept my cousin from making a single bite snack out of me...

with that thought i also realized i should cooperate with the professor. i didn't want to find out first hand why a full grown t-rex could be scared of this guy!

as paradigm saw me relax a bit (i still was stressed by the idea of probes, needles, and instruments) he sounded a bit less grumpy. "good," hit some buttons on his device. "now this should only take one second."

he pointed his doohickey at me. "where's the other stuff," i fearfully inquired.

"what other 'stuff' ?" paradigm was confused.

"you know the medical thingies," i answered. not that i didn't mind the time he spent pointing this thing at me. it meant the bad part wasn't here yet.

making me hopeful he actually laughed. "oh no, no. silly dinosaur. things have been modernized since the last time i looked you over. my multi-spectrum scanner here envelops the functions of almost every test i might need to perform. now it is important you hold still for a moment."

i actually felt at ease. maybe i had been to hard on this whole modern medicine thing. all of it in one tool, and it didn't have a pointy or hammery bit to be seen. just a purple light that turned on and off. what could i possibly have to fear?

"good now don't move a muscle," paradigm commanded as he finished lining up his pen sized scanner gadget. i froze as best i could. the light on the end of the scanner turned on...

nothing. i let out a sigh. that was easy!!!

than suddenly the device made a whirring sound... and was followed by one of the most intense pains of my life. i let out a great "OWWWWWWWW!"

"the discomfort is normal," paradigm stated matter of factly, not caring about my suffering. "what do you expect from simultaneous blood works, x-ray, cat-scan, erm, mri, bone scans, and dental scans?"

with that he started to walk out of the room. "i'll go over these findings, and than bring you and ms. rhonwyn a report of your final results." with that paradigm disappeared out the door.

i simply stood at the examine table unable to move. my whole body was in pain...

and that people of the web wide world is why i STILL hate check ups!!!