Bears, Logos, and T-rex, oh my!

I was making a list of all the random crap on display in the Space Junk room. I'll need to type that up into some kind of comprehensive list, but trust me when I say that if I haven't mentioned it by name...even I'm not sure what the doohickey is.

Anyway, as I was doing this, I ran into John, who wanted to tell me about something he'd been scouting out for the rock room. He wants to tie the rocks and fossils and meteorites together in the most logical possible: With a tyrannosaurus rex. Possibly a cast of this tyrannosaurus.

From Wildcat313, wikimedia commons

Hear me out! For a start, in the modern horizontal position, he or she would probably fit in the room. Or, at least, John knows the dimensions of both and doesn't see an issue here, and I assume he knows the dimensions better than I do. (I'm measuring stuff in floor tiles, for crying out loud.) He travels a lot and has located ways to acquire a t-rex. Maybe. He wants to, anyway, because of how thoroughly cool that would be.

Second, how do you link dinosaurs and the biggest collection of meteorites I've ever seen on display anywhere?

Like this. I mean, none of our meteorites caused a mass extinction. They didn't even land on anyone. But it only takes one to do away with Ivan the T-rex. (He mentioned another specific T-rex cast and/or model, but I forgot that while I was trying to figure out what the heck one of our unlabelled bits of space junk actually was so I could include it in my list.) And... have you ever actually seen a museum link those two areas of science? I sure haven't, probably because most museums don't have a whole lot in the way of meteorites--one or two, if any, certainly not a bleedin' wall of them and more not on display. Hopefully, I'll be able to talk more with him later about this and do up some sketches because as a dinosaur enthusiast, this sounds so freakin' awesome. 

Also hopefully I'll be able to talk more with him because he is our official curator, at least of rocks and fossils and meteorites and so on. Which means I should definitely be working with him on anything I design related to that room, partially because he has stuff he's got a loose plan for--there's a reason I've mostly been sketching stuff for the space junk room so far. 

The sketching, by the way, has been officially sanctioned. I showed my sketchbook and completed illustration of the proposed timeline to Steve today and he got...rather excited, let's say. There was some jumping up and hurrying to the gallery to point out a specific window and vantage point involved, as well as general enthusing. I'm not sure I think a Prezi is the most...effective? way of presenting anything, but I've also been OK'd with a powerpoint as a final product--as opposed to an official and slightly stuffy plan of renovation. I wonder if there's a better way of scanning 11x14 illustration paper... probably. The plate scanners are overkill, but I can always just photograph things and clean them up in photoshop. It's probably also good that I'm getting the hang of LayOut. I can't say I highly recommend it for creating floorplans, because I can count on one hand the number of times I've needed to create a floorplan for something that wasn't The Sims, but it's solid enough. And, hey, it's free and will happily export to PDF or JPEG or something. 

(If I can seriously convince people that the things we turned in as projects in middle and high school are actually valid formats for producing things In The Real World, I don't know whether to be gleeful or mildly disenchanted. Seriously? A prezi as a serious presentation? Of anything, ever? I don't even know my login, I haven't used it since junior year of high school. I'll probably just use Powerpoint or Keynote, since those are a little more professional. Probably Keynote, since I'm conveniently working with the only other mac user at PARI. Geez.) 

Prezi: A good way of dynamically presenting a slightly disorganised jumble of stuff.

Also, a more concrete short list of where I'll be visiting next. Good news, Mom: It'll either be *very* close to home, or the Space and Rocket Centre. (I emailed them today. I neglected to mention that we're a two room museum with a loosely three person crew dedicated to those two rooms.) Steve apparently knows some people at the Schiele Museum in Gastonia, which is probably my favourite museum ever. The third option is Discovery Place, but since their redesign, I think I'll learn much the same from them as I did at Life and Science. He had a suggestion for a few more questions I can ask during my visit, to go with my revised list of seven, about the use of graphics in exhibits and how to keep them from overpowering things. Which is valid. So I have about eight questions and mostly just need to walk around and talk to somebody better versed in design than yours truly.

I also learned today that we will, in fact, have another room. The library--a room John Sinclair described as "kind of a mess", which given that his office looked kind of like a rock explosion kind of terrifies me--will be taken over by the museum. Good news, y'all! We're not a two room museum! We're a three room museum! Moving up in the world, I tell you, truly. 

I would also like to comment on something I saw last night. No, not the bear--I posted that to Facebook. (I saw a bear. We scared each other. We ran in opposite directions. I am mildly embarrassed to admit that, since I had been reading a 1920s children's fantasy book, with fairies and mildly prim-and-proper Christian undertones, my expletive of choice was "Oh my!" and not a scream or swearing or anything. The bear's expletive of choice presumably translated to something more colourful, given the speed of its retreat and the way I heard branches crashing for several minutes. I did yell an apology, but I think the damage was done. Alas, I didn't get a photo. We were both a bit too shocked.) No, I get questions from visitors about the 26 meter telescopes and whether or not they still work. I think people assume that, since we're a museum, we can't also do active science. Or something. Anyway, I don't know why Ben chose to move 26 West last night, but he did and I photographed it. 

Hallo 26W whatcha looking at

Maybe they're just celebrating the new logo. (We have a new logo.)

The dish is no longer at "birdbath" or parked pointing straight up. They were going for a more dynamic feel. We also have a new website, which also went for a more dynamic feel. Check it out!