shouldn't i be the one who is surprised? (homecoming part 2)

now that i'm back at my old home, drumheller, it was time to figure out who'd bought me the rather huge but yet not credited hatching day present that'd gotten me here.

the obvious place to start looking was the royal tyrrell museum, as that's where most of my canadian friends (both human and dinosaur) worked.

almost immediately after walking in the front door i ambushed from behind with the most powerful hug you can imagine... i seriously thought i'd being hugged by a bear (again).

of course it was no bear, the museum doesn't typically hire them (unless their of the rare cave variety anyway ;p ), rather it was someone with a big enough heart to mimic the hug of a bear!

it was my old buddy krista. so my mystery gifter had reveled themselves first thing into the museum. that was way easier than i'd expected...

of course that would have made it too easy. sure krista was really psyched to see me again, but she hadn't been expecting too on any level...

in fact based on her initial reaction it became really clear that who ever bought me the plane ticket hadn't been advertising the fact. not only did she no idea i was coming, but she couldn't think of anyone around who might have. well that was making things a little less easy than i'd hoped, not that my list of suspects was that long.

catching up with krista was awesome! tons of stuff had happened to both of us, and though i wanted to hear more about what she had been up too, we ended up talking about all my adventures right after my being fired, especially my BC quest (as krista is from BC... uh the province not the time period!), and of course my adventures down under in new zealand and australia...

it was funny she was insisting my life had been way more interesting than her's, but i'd never thought it was. heck how could an unimportant dwarf tyrannosaur like me compete with a full on human. i mean you biped mammals out there have a run of the whole world. me all i can hope for is a slightly better opening in a museum... not that i mind museums!

after a nice catch up with krista we both realized it was time to get back to business. krista was still technically on shift, and me well i had a hatching day ticket buyer to track down.

that run in was just me stepping foot in the front door of the museum. i was now going to direct myself to specific parts and try to track down key people.


since my first gig had me as a helper in the education and interpretation department, that was my first destination.

sadly there was no one i knew present when i showed up... in fact it turned out that most of the old gang from here was no longer with the museum, and the few i did know were out doing programs and tours.

there was a really nice girl named megan attending the office. which was a little odd. apart from lunch time everyone education-wise should have been out with the public, and not in the office. it was handy though.

she was interested to hear that i'd worked at the museum long ago, and seemed nice enough despite being distracted. not that i can blame her. working in ed during the seasonal rush can be really full on.

i noticed she was working on something with the regions stratigraphy. that is a fancy word for geologic layers.

"oh yeah," she said taken aback. i must have embarrassed her. "just a project i have going this summer."

cool! i thought. i missed seeing and getting to help with everyone's projects around this place. before i could ask anymore questions, megan got me back on my main task by asking if she could help me find someone else.

it occurred to me where the likely "culprit" would be. it had to be one of the camp team EXTREME! of the museum's badlands science camp...

megan was very helpful in helping me figure out roughly where they should be at this time of day. i thanked her, and as i started out of the education office i realized something. megan looked of sort of familiar, like we'd bumped into each other once long ago, but only briefly. she thought about this suggestion, and said she couldn't think of anywhere at moment. though if she could remember she'd let me know.

well that was a nice enough encounter. good to see the new people around here are still as nice as the ones from my time. the question that remained were the dinosaurs any nicer?!?

it didn't matter. it was time for me to track down some badland campsters. as the title implies the best place to do that is in the badlands!

with a rough idea of their timetable of the (and also having worked their 2 years ago) i was able to track down some of the blue t-shirted campers pretty quickly.
_
as i got closer the kids grew excited, which caused one of the staff to turn around to see what the their commotion was about. if amy was a little confused by the kids noticing "a small dinosaur" approach them at camp she was dumb founded for a moment to see me strolling up to camp!

not that she remained speechless for long! amy was es tactic to see me again!

once again it was all questions about me... which was cool, i wasn't used to being the centre of so much interest or attention... but only for a minute.

when you're at camp the kids come first, and as she was supervising the whole lot of campers i would have to wait...

at the same time amy got me excited. she said first thing when camp was out we'd have to meet up for a proper catch up! AWESOME to the max!!! i'd really missed amy. she was always really nice to me.

i did manage to quickly ask her if she'd been the one to buy me the plane ticket. she had no idea what i was talking about. big shock there. oh well. she had an idea of who it could be...

this guy right here, my main man while i worked at the museum tyler. now tyler used to run camp, and here was helping out by cleaning the ever famous badland broom (you've heard of the badland broom right people of the innerweb?!?).

these days though tyler, having been promoted to, an assistant of THE museum director is now a pretty big roller... meaning if someone from camp could afford to fly me out for a surprise, it was him.

only he hadn't, and of course he was astounded to see me wander up to him at camp.

no go. again.

catching up with tyler was most excellent! yet again my exploits were the main focus, though i did get tyler to talk about his own big deal promotion. it was funny back in my days here, it always felt like i was taken for granted, but now that i'd been out on the world i suddenly seemed to be way cooler in people's eyes!

tyler couldn't think of anyone who'd buy the ticket. i tried to help him out by rattling off everyone i could think of that i used to hangout with. tyler thought them all highly unlikely.

i'd run out of people when it hit me! of course. who was the one guy i'd spent more time with here (well other than my very missing legal guardian craig)... my old roommate dan!

tyler said there was a chance of that, but he seemed unsure. i asked tyler what was up and he said it wasn't really for him to say. just i should try to track down dan as quick as i could.

well that settled the matter! i was going to go see my old roommate, and craig's best friend... if anyone would want me back for old time sake it would be him. right? no wait i just thought about this. would he? please tell me yes people of the web wide world?!?

NEXT: The News of the Old Roommate

xmas tickles

well i may not have gotten my old job back, i still don't have a clue what the future holds for me, and being in drumheller is bringing up all sorts of memories...

at least i'll get some free turkey before i leave!!!

the museum was nice enough to at least invite me to their xmas party.

i've never really gotten what xmas is or what it's about. all i know is that the trees get really bright and pretty, and there's a lot more food about then normal.

the party was at the new place in town the quarry... the COOLEST name ever! though to be fair it is the farthest thing from a fossil dig i can think of. staffed by adam and his excellent crew, we tyrrellers were in for a night we won't forget soon... well unless their like me and have a brain the size of a peanut anyway...


i got to sit with my good buddy cam for dinner. i was really glad we'd sorted out that whole him being the one who fired me thing. it would have made things kinda awkward.

at one point cam went to put his arm over my shoulder for a picture. by accident he found my ticklish spot. everyone thought that my laugh was really funny...

it kinda set the tone for the night...

during my hanging with kirsta she interrupted the conversation we were having to make me laugh again...

before that we were having a chat about where other people from the museum were or what they were doing...

dan decided not to come to the party. mostly cause i was coming, and he was still mad at me for trying to eat richardo. have to make sure that i patch things up with him. me and dan go back a long way... i don't want him to stay mad at me forever.

craig had left the museum to head back to calgary to prepare to head overseas to new zealand. kirsta was really surprised i hadn't heard anything about this... i had been in BC for the last few months, and in exile before that... how was i supposed to know. though i wonder why he hadn't told me. he is kinda like my legal guardian and stuff...

krista thought my tickled laughter was very funny though, and that's as far too catching up on other museum people as i was going too.

lastly i caught up with brad... well brad 2. he's just not brad 1 is why i make the distinction. brad 1 was nice enough to give me my job 4 years ago, but then he left the museum (some said he just couldn't live with himself for some reason... i never did find out what it was cause people would always suddenly glare at me in the middle of the story... not sure why they'd do that... i didn't know the end of it!!!)

anyways brad was having a good time. like me he doesn't work at the museum, and was just there for the fun. he had heard about my "not being with the company" anymore... though that was a weird thing to say as it's a museum. not a company!

i told brad all about the events of my return. how i had no idea what i was going to do. it was becoming clearer and clearer that i needed to find a place without any dinosaurs so that i could be the only deal in town. everywhere in canada i'd been there were dinosaurs, and they were all trying to immigrate to drumheller which seemed to say that things were even WORSE elsewhere around here.

i told him about how while looking at the badlands the flatness of the prairies reminded me of the ocean for some reason. he said that was pretty obvious why... i just looked at him... then he remembered my brain size.

"well traum it's pretty simple. i think you were smarter just then, then you think you are. there's got to be a place over the ocean that doesn't have any dinosaurs."

wait a minute! brad was right!!!

there has to be somewhere over the BIG ocean that dinosaurs haven't been found or put in museums... but where???

just as i realized who i was going to need to see to help me figure out a new possible home for me suddenly brad reached over and hit my laughing spot.

"sorry man." brad apologized. "your laugh is just too funny."

The Return

well i know that i said i'd post a vlog every 25 posts... well this is techincally in that limit. just a little sooner then i figured. alot of stuff has happened this week, and the only way to communicate it easily i found is through a vlog.



in spite of everything that has happened i'm going to hang out here for a few more days. the museum is having it's xmas party, and cam and krista have invited me to join them at it. so i figure i might as well go. i have no where better to be at moment...

100th post!!!

holy smokes people of the web wide world... i've already made 100 entries in my blog!!!

it seems like just yesterday i started this thing, and now here i am a true veteran of the super information highway.

now i figured i'd do something special for this entry... well okay. my talent agent peter figured i should...

since i've been on the innerweb all i've talked about is what's going on in my life thus far... i thought this would be a good entry to take a look back at where i came from. this also seemed very fitting since i'm currently on route to drumheller to see if i can reconnect with this past.





hope now you have a better idea of why i'm in search of my dinosaur roots. i also hope that after all i've seen and done in my journeys these last 4 months they'll take me back in drum. now i'm a super qualified dinosaur...

i'm also planning on doing this "vlog"s more often then every 100 posts... hopefully like every 25 from here on in.

catch you in drumheller people of the innerweb!