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March 9, 2005
10 Things
Okay, I've resisted temptation up until now, but like Oscar, "I can resist anything but temptation." So my list of ten things most others might not have done:
1. Won first prize in an annual James Joyce writing competition for a poem composed in a composite language modeled on Finnegan's Wake
2. Named a species of fossil after my wife. (It was a compliment not any implication about the spouse.)
3. Had dinner and a knock-down drag-out fight with Stephen Jay Gould over the theory of contingency and whether it properly understood was science or not. (Okay, I admit it, that's an exaggeration. Let us say an animated and lengthy discussion complete with table napkin drawings and other paraphenalia.)
4. Went to a poetry reading (and read) in a State Penitentiary
5. Demonstrated origami for International Children's Days on the National Mall.
6. Assisted in digs on Mount Vernon Grounds and Williamsburg.
7. Helped excavate a mammoth, a dog-faced bear, and a peccary the size of a horse.
8. Went on a field trip to San Salvador, Bahamas to study modern carbonate depositional environments and joined the islanders in an iguana and conch feast.
9. Sat on Sophia Loren's lap in a helicopter shuttle for Kennedy Airport to La Guardia.
10. Presented a paper in a National Geological Convention on the periodicity of Mass extinctions and was congratulated and assisted by no less than David Raup and Jack Sepkoski themselves.
Posted by Steven Riddle at March 9, 2005 7:30 PM
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Comments
Excellent list Steven; I'm amazed at how much other bloggers have done. Number 9 begs to be fleshed out though.
Posted by: TSO at March 9, 2005 8:41 PM
I'd love to see you do a long post reproducing that conversation with Gould.
And I trust you were a child when you sat on Sophia's lap, i.e., not yet old enough to wish the situation reversed.
Posted by: William Luse at March 9, 2005 9:12 PM
Dear TSO and Mr. Luse,
Mr. Luse correctly divined the event--about six.
shalom,
Steven
Posted by: Steven Riddle at March 9, 2005 9:52 PM
Desperately envious here. Okay, not desperately, but experiencing significant feelings of "dangit, I need to get out more."
Posted by: m`lynn at March 9, 2005 11:24 PM
Wow!
Perfect example of why I don't do the list.
I can't keep up.
Posted by: MamaT at March 10, 2005 11:13 PM