Lesson #1: The plural of octopus is octopuses. NOT octopi. It is a Greek word, hence the weird ending. I will have to correct my freshman biology teacher.
Hi. Hello.
Sad, but true. I am writing this blog entry on a Sunday… at work, while most of my co-seagranters are going hiking somewhere in the Oregon mountains. Oh, the price you pay to play with octopuses.
This week was very productive. I had Monday off, which is a pretty cool thing because everybody in Hatfield is working, which allows me to really relax, or do work. I did both that day. And almost finished my interpretative panel (fancy word for poster) design. The entire days of Tuesday and Wednesday, I worked on my panel content. I tried to be all Mr. Graphic Designer, by using my Word program to design a panel, for which I ended up spending way too much time on, just to have the actual graphic designer tell me all I needed was text content. Here is what the first draft looks like:
1st Draft of my Interpretative Panel
Some of the titles will change, as well as the text content. The cool thing about this, that won’t be noticed until the end product is done in November, is that the skeleton on the top right corner will be an actual Steller sea lion rib-cage!
Thursday was a big day. We had a focus group moderator host a focus group for my panel. Seven people sat down and tore it apart, giving me a lot of good feedback and a direction in which to take the panel design. I am very grateful of this event. I almost forgot to mention that the visitor counter in the entrance marked over 2400, which is the largest group of people I have witnessed in the VC so far. I didn’t even get a chance to eat lunch until 3 pm on that day! Later on, we went to Cafe Mundo for open mic, where Betty Mujica, a fellow Sea Grant Scholar, got on stage to play her ukulele for the crowds for the first time ever. Did I mention she rocked it?
Betty and I on stage!
Friday, I had off, and Betty and I drove to a hatchery in Netarts Bay. I spent the morning hanging out in a bar in Netarts bay called Schooners, which I recommend to anybody. Later on that day, we went to the TIllamook cheese factory, a thrift store, where I paid 5 dollars for a pair of really nice rubber boots, and in Depoe bay to look at the beautiful Pacific Ocean.
Saturday… work! I gave an estuary tour to a couple of folks who kept me a bit longer, but they were so interested that I didn’t mind (what an information broker I am growing up to be!). The day went by a bit slow, because I spent the whole day working on my panel content again, which was starting to get redundant, since I felt I had finished on Wednesday, but now I had a lot of notes on how to fix the panel. I am currently about a third done with that!
Today… work! I will try to finish the text content, work on my curriculum design for the kids, and enjoy a Louisiana style fish fry later on tonight!
thank you thank you thank you for making the note on “octopuses” vs. octopi! yay!
Please post an audio clip of you and Betty. Does your band have a name? I suggest Octopi. I like how you are piecing together your experience. Did Dr. Horning share the findings of the sea lion entanglements project OSG funded?
your welcome Lauren. and thanks for the ride to freddy last night.
eric, thanks for the band name. we will use it from now until forever. no audio yet. Dr. Horning has shared a lot of info to me, he did mention something about lose the loop and some more, but that’s about it.
PS: I play Bomb’s Away on August 3rd. Octopi might show up as well…
So can you share some of the data from your poster? What’s the coolest thing you’ve discovered while researching the project? Thanks for posting photos!
I don’t have any data yet! I’m waiting on the final poster to be printed and set up, so that I can go after visitors to see how they feel about it! From that, I will formulate a list of FAQs that will be answered by the PIs in a cool interactive video.