I've Created a Monster!!!!

Yesterday, I spent a lot of time going through B's inventory of items to sell, doing more research, and posting some of the items on Ebay. I'm holding out hope for ebay, because Gas Monkey and I think this is her best option.
Rummaging around our stuff, I found the baseball/basketball cards that Gas Monkey thinks are worth something. So I started going through them, card by card. Most of them are only worth $1. I did manage to find one that seemed to be worth some money, but it isn't really selling well online.
Here's the monster situation. Let me just remind everybody, when Gas Monkey focuses on a project, it is nearly impossibly to draw him away from it. Gas Monkey came home. Let me just state, our focus right now should not be on selling baseball cards. We need to finish going through our stuff, and putting it into sell, give-away, or keep piles. However, when Gas Monkey came home, I foolishly told him I was having a hard time finding any cards of value. So the boy grabbed his collection, and starts pointing out cards.
"This one used to be worth $50, how much is it now?" he'd ask.
Dutifully, with extreme skepticism, I type in the card online. "$1."
"What?! What about this one? It's a David Robinson rookie card. That has to be worth a lot."
"Nope, $2."
We continued to play this game for an hour. Finally I gave up in exasperation. For the rest of the night, Gas Monkey enthusiastically searched his collection for cards that are still worth something. No luck. A few times the card has a lot of value, but everybody who has it is selling it for $2, unsuccessfully. It is really hard for Gas Monkey to accept that his collection, which he spent a very pretty penny on over time, has failed him. Poor boy. He's in denial.
The problem is, he is now temporarily obsessed with searching through his cards, when frankly, we have a lot of other stuff we need to do. His dad is coming down tomorrow. Our condo is a disaster. What to do, what to do? At least I know Gas Monkey will pull through at the last minute.

Awesome Bat Photos

This link below is to some pretty cool pictures of bats in flight taken in the U.K. (I think). If you've never tried to take pictures of bats in flight, you'll never know just how hard it is. First of all, they are fast. Then, they can turn on a dime. Finally, it is dark. This guy did a remarkable job. The best part is the reflection in the water.

Bats in Flight Photos Taken by an Amateur

Batshit!!!!!

Hey now, I'm not cussing. I would never do such a thing. Apparently the word, "batshit", is officially a word. It was just put in the Oxford English Dictionary. It means to go crazy, similar to "batty." However, this still gives bats a bad rap. They are not crazy. If it comes down to "batshit" vs. "apeshit" in my daily jargon, I think I will still prefer to use "apeshit." Although I am not confident that apeshit is officially a word. Which do you prefer?

New Oxford English Dictionary Words

House Update #2

Yesterday we received our first appraisal. Chase bank, our lender, is requiring two appraisals, so we are still waiting on the second one. This second appraisal came back $8,000 less than the price we agreed to pay. So, on the one hand we will be taking out a smaller loan. That is good for us. On the other hand, we may have to put down an additional $3-4,000 down, sort of as a reimbursement for the closing costs the seller agreed to pay. It is confusing, even to me. Basically, the seller is going to say the closing costs he is paying is a part of the value of the house, in order so he can get a little more money. Gas Monkey is not too worried about it. In fact, he is happy about it. His dad is coming down later this week, and he will be able to look at the house and give us approval. . . hopefully. Anyways, we still have a couple of weeks before closing, so anything could happen.

Bat of the Week: Fringed Myotis

Better delve into the small Myotis species. Unfortunately I did not get to see this species last summer in Utah. But I saw a few in Mesa Verde.

Name: Myotis thysanodes
Common name: Fringed Myotis
Merut's diagnostic characteristics:
- Long, pointed tragus
- Long blackish ears
- Short stiff hairs along the edge of the uropatagium (tail membrane) i.e. the fringe

Merut's reaction: I hope it is a fringed and not a long-eared bat. It is! Yay!


Merut's experience: These bats are not very common. In Utah they are considered a sensitive species, or species of concern. They look very similar to the more common Long-Eared Myotis. For a while, this bat gave me a hard time with identification. Long-eared Myotis also has some faint and sparse hairs on their uropatagium. Thus I went through a phase where I would identify Long-eared as Fringed Myotis. However, as soon as I saw a Fringed Myotis, I realized how easy it is to see their fringe. As far as bats are concerned, it they smaller and calmer than a lot of other species. They are adorable, and provide an unexpected pick-me-up. I kept hoping to see one in Utah last summer, but each time it was a Long-eared Myotis instead. Boo hoo.

Other notes:
- Weighs about 5-7 grams
- Wingspan of about 27-32 inches
- Ear length 16-20 mm
- Most common in oak and pinon woodlands
- Produce one pup

Some of the data taken from Bats of the Rocky Mountain West by Rick A. Adams

House Update

We had our inspection last Wednesday. The inspector spent four hours on our little 1,000 square foot house. Luckily there were not any huge surprises. The roof needs to be certified (and possibly replaced), the water heater is 14 years old and needs to be replaced, and a lot of the outlets are not grounded. Those are the big issues.
Our realtor talked with the seller. He is going to replace the water heater (Gas Monkey wants a tankless water heater, so we may be paying the difference to get that). Also, the seller is going to have the roof looked at. He is not going to take care of the grounding. He claims it is original with the older house. Not so sure, but of the three issues, that is the least important. We'd much rather get the roof taken care of. We still have not had the appraisal yet, that is the next step. In short, things are still moving forward.

The Cat's in the Bag

Gas Monkey finally completed his bag. He made it out of an old pair of jeans and an old polo shirt. He is as proud of it as can be. Though it is definitely not the best piece of work either of us have made. We are calling it the ghetto bag. After testing it can hold at least 8 pounds of cat.

Friendly Competition

When it comes to Gas Monkey and I, there are many things he is better at than myself. He's more creative and imaginative (a little redundant but doubly true). He thinks he can do anything, and he is more patient (a useful quality when you think you can do anything). Well, today while Gas Monkey was sorting through his office junk, I, having already finished my laborious junk sorting last week, decided I was going to make a bag out of Gas Monkey's unwanted shirts. From the moment I decided to do this, to the end of my project, a whopping twenty minutes later, I had a new bag (the twenty minutes should be a clue as the quality, but hey it looks ok and is functional).


Gas Monkey has wanted to make bags out of shirts for a long time. Using myself as inspiration, he grabs a pair of unwanted jeans and a shirt he does not like. He starts cutting. "Don't you want to make some stencils or something?" I ask him, dubiously. He quips, "I know what I'm doing." Ok then. After he has hacked all his pants and shirt up, surprisingly, it is not going to work. After listening to my reasonable advice, he is now making himself a stencil out of trace-paper. He searched around for all the serious tools, a fancy ruler, a piece of board to cut on, trace paper; it's serious. I know he will be successful. He's definitely the kind of guy who will not be bested by some old fabric and a sewing machine. Quite admirable. The ironic thing however, is out of his two closets of shirts, he only has one he can sacrifice. And yet he forgot he had the whole other closet until last week. . .

The cats are always willing to help when there is fabric and string involved.

Garage Cleaning and Old Friends

This past week has been quite hectic. First, our bid on the house was accepted, after some negotiating. Now we are both thinking, "What the hell did we just get into?" I'm sure every new homeowner goes through this mental process. The real crisis, how are we going to move out of this giant condo, and into a house with only 1,021 sq. feet? Any suggestions? Luckily, my crap is mostly furniture and books. Gas Monkey's crap . . . well, I'll be nice. I'll just understate the problem and say, he has some sorting to do. A lot of sorting. B came over and decided we should have a garage sale. A garage sale? I'm very excited and curious about this proposition. I've never had a garage sale, because my mother was more than willing to continuously throw away my toys and "precious things." Case in point. "Merut, do you use this." "Well mom, I might in the future." "Trash," as she would unforgivably throw my valuables into a large plastic bag. A little sad, but I have rarely had those moments in the future where I thought, "I wish I still had this or that." Thank you mom for heading off any hoarding habits head on (nice alliteration, I know you are thinking).
Ok, so garage sale. It took me five hours, maybe, to sort through my stuff and throw it away or put it in the for sale section. So now I volunteer helping B and Gas Monkey. I can only hope my own callousness towards my high school treasures and softball trophies and Egyptian books is an inspiration towards those two. I am keeping my first softball trophy, because I am still so damn proud of it, rightly so. The garage sale won't happen for a couple more weeks, since they still have plenty of work to do.

Last Friday I went to the Denver Zoo to see a presentation by my favorite CU professor, Professor C. He recently came back from 11 months in Vietnam studying the Tonkin Snub-nosed monkey, a highly endangered primate, among many in Vietnam. I was a little nervous about going, partly because I hadn't seen my professor in 2 or more years, as well as seeing the old Zoo Conservation biology folks again. It was like I had just showed up from the dead. All of the congratulations and excitement. I'm really glad I went. I need to set up coffee with my professor, because I really enjoy talking with him.

Recently my legs have been super bruised. It almost looks as if Gas Monkey has been beating me. But really, I just don't know how to walk. Going through the garage I scraped myself against some of the copper piping he had been storing for years, in order to "recycle." Needless to say, that copper is not in the garage anymore.

First House Offer

Today Gas Monkey and I put down our first offer on a house for the first time. Apparently there is already a bid on the house, so it seems doubtful we will get it, but here is what we were thinking.

Bat of the Week: Spotted Bat

Might as well start off with the creme-de-la -creme of the bat species, since y'all have been deprived for a couple of weeks now.

Name: Euderma maculatum (hence my blog site: euderma.blogspot.com)
Common name: Spotted Bat, Skull Bat, and according to Wikipedia, the Jackass Bat
Merut's diagnostic characteristics:

• Long. long pink ears that slightly curve
• White belly
• Black back, with three large white spots, two on top, and one on the rump area - hence the "skull face"
• Truly one of the easiest bats to diagnose

Merut's Reaction when she sees on in the net: Yippeeeeeee!!!!!! Awesome!


Merut's Experience: This bat is "rare", meaning researchers rarely catch them, and they are not sure if that is because the species is rare, or they are just hard to net. Either way, the first Spotted bat I mistnetted, was on a night when all the other technicians were doing insect sampling, and I was netting with a couple of USGS folks. I took out the bat, immediately knowing what it was. The USGS dude said, "I hope you appreciate this. Most bat biologists will never see one. So don't tell them. They might be extremely jealous." So it was a proud moment for me. I have mistnetted 3-4, and seen about 5-6. So I'm very lucky. In terms of radio-tracking them, they are very difficult. The only one we could find was roosting in one of the sheerest areas of Mesa Verde, and therefore nobody could pinpoint the roost.


Other notes:

• Spotted Bats may be more common than previously believed
• Weighs 16-20 grams
• Wingspan is 13-15 inches
• Occurs in the desert, as well as open ponderosa pine woodlands
• Their echolocation is audible to humans (which is not true of all bats)
• They are a sensitive species in Utah
• 

Information acquired from the reputable Wikipedia and Rick Adams' Bats of the Rocky Mountain West

Brew and the zoo and guest too

Gas Monkey's friend from Seattle came down for the weekend. He would like to go by Ivel. It was fun meeting him, harassing him, and watching them do their "man talk". Friday we went to Brew at the Zoo, which was mostly beer and less food this year. The best part was riding a black bear on the carousel with a beer in one hand and a pole in the other. The animals on the carousel even looked a little tipsy.

Imagine my shock at getting Gas Monkey having this much fun riding a drunk zebra. He looks the same as he did as a baby! See the resemblance?



Surprisingly, I managed to out drink Ivel, even though he is a "beer connoisseur". My training at high altitude is finally paying off. As Ivel flew to Denver to beer taste, we spent Saturday in Boulder, brewery hopping. More like getting lost in that crazy maze. It was fun, but I've eaten enough nachos and drank enough beer to tie me over for awhile.

Best moment of the weekend: looking at the website http://peopleofwalmart.com

Worst moment of the weekend: watching the Broncos game. Always the longest 3 hours of my week.

House Hunting

Kill me now. I only wish I was quite as gung-ho as Gas Monkey. We've been to 8 houses thus far, some potential, but still not "home." It's hard to imagine moving out of here, especially since I've lived in this area since I was 5.

The Art Piece

As Spanky Bottoms so eloquently put it. She artfully said it was less of a ring and more of an art piece. And I think that is a good description. These pictures do not do it much justice. But I know a lot of you may never see it, or not for a long time.


Everything in this ring has meaning:

Red Simpel - the red stone symbolizes our love
Tsavorite - the green stone symbolizes our joint dedication to the environment (although it is smaller than our love)
The bat on the side - does not represent my love of bats. That would be silly. But it does represent Gas Monkey's acceptance and encouragement of my career plans, bats or not.
The texture on the side - Gas Monkey just thought it is cool. He took one of the pictures of bats I took in Mesa Verde (pallid or spotted), and blew it up, and took the texture off of one of the ears. So it is not obviously a bat ear, but it gives the ring more complexity.

It is pure white gold, and big enough to be a self-defense weapon (not intentional). What more does a girl need?

Merut - the Happy Homemaker

Being home has been busy. Here are the "highlights", if you can call everyday life a hightlight.

Last Friday, Spanky Bottoms came over to learn how to crochet. I have only seen her two times in the past year and a half. I saw her once when I was in Aspen. I came home from Aspen, then she went to New Zealand for 6 months. She came back from New Zealand, and I went to SLC. So I was excited to see her. She had crocheted a couple of times prior, so she wasn't entirely a novice . I think she was intending to crochet a square, but by the end, I told her it looked like half a panty. By the way, I loath the word "panty." Gas Monkey thinks most women hate the word "moist", but I enjoy a moist salmon, for example. There is no way to make "panty" sound good. So if anybody uses this word in front of me, you will evoke a cringe and maybe a sarcastic comment. Even "thong" has more balls. (I remember when my aunt had her two boys calling there underwear "panties". Now that is cruel and unusual parenting). After crocheting, Spanky Bottoms decided we should walk to Walmart, a good fifteen minute walk, and pick up a bridal magazine. I loved this idea. It was a double whammy against Gas Monkey. He hates both. And now that I'm home, my main entertainment is teasing Gas Monkey. The bridal magazine (Martha Stewart, of course, one of Spanky Bottoms' idols, sad to say) was completely absurd. I mean, come on. Do I really need to torture my bridesmaids (or let's be honest, bridesmaid)?

Saturday Gas Monkey and I went to his Aunt B's house, and I helped "can" 21 jars of peaches. A new skill! I'll be the housewife who knows all the housewife skills! Maybe I'll make a resume of all my domestic skills and give it to Gas Monkey: Looking for a nice home to be a homemaker. Skills include cleaning, crocheting, knitting, cooking, scrapbooking (actually this is giving me more credit than I deserve), jarring peaches, organizing, harassing my fiance, sleeping in, saving water (i.e. not showering everyday), and sitting around on the computer. I'd say I'm more than qualified. It was pretty cool to get a little dirty in B's garden.

Sunday we went to my parents house for an "engagement brunch." My parents went through a lot of effort. We got there and they were cooking pork ribs and chicken (which my mom rarely does since my dad is allergic). My mom even learned how to make mimosas, which she had never had before. After the first taste, her reaction was "meh", even though she encouraged Gas Monkey to continually refill her glass, much to my father's chagrin. Afterwards, we played "Oh Heck", which involves putting a dollar in to play, and then the loser pays the winner an extra dollar. Gas Monkey won twice. It is the only game my mom can win, and the only game my dad can't win.

Monday, Labor Day (thank you, you crazy Canadians), Gas Monkey and I went to the Rockies game. First row, along the first base line. I brought my beloved left-handers catcher's mitt. I even received a comment of adoration from a stranger. A left-hander's catcher's mitt is a rare thing indeed. I love love love that glove. Rockies won, but I was distracted by the heat. I kept looking around for mercy clouds. Mercy clouds let me down, often times by missing the sun, by mere "inches."

Now I'm home during the day. The honeymoon is over. That's what we always call the first week home after field work. Yesterday was the first day I started being down. I'm liked a caged animal. I get restless pretty quickly. I spent a lot of yesterday playing Pokemon on my Gameboy color, and watching reruns of America's Next Top Model (I blame that addiction on B, as I would never have started watching the show otherwise). The sorry thing is, I've seen all the seasons of ANTM, many times. I did manage to do all my daily studying for the GRE and doing laundry, but still. It feels pathetic.

Toilet Lid Wars

As I have spent the past 5 months away from home, Gas Monkey has taken to leaving the toilet seat and lid up. Unless, of course, it is in his best interests to put the seat down. My momma raised me to always put both seat and lid down. Her strategy to make her own new husband (a.k.a my dad) learn proper toilet etiquette, was to constantly nag him to the bathroom to put the lid down. This strategy is lost on Gas Monkey, who is more stubborn and catches on more quickly. After two years of being drawn to the bathroom on false pretenses, the boy has caught on. After last night, I developed a more aggressive strategy.
Right before we left for today's Rockies game, when Gas Monkey was preoccupied with his computer, I saran-wrapped all four of the toilet lids and seats in the house together. I.e. I used a hella lot of saran wrap, and tied the lids and seats together, so when it was in Gas Monkey's best interests to use the seat, he would be more than a little inconvenienced. Needless to say, I was tickled with myself. On the way home from the Rockies game, he was eager to use our facilities for his dirty business. I continued to feel even more tickled with myself. We arrived home, and Gas Monkey rushed to the nearest bathroom. All I heard was a brief verbal lashing before the sound of quick ripping of saran wrap. It took him a whole second to undo my thoughtful efforts. Hardly an inconvenience. To top it off, afterwards he mentioned that he needs to teach me how to properly saran-wrap toilets. Damn him. So my method did not work. Any other suggestions?

My Best Dog in the World

Mandy, my puppy since I was in the 6th grade, was put to sleep today. She was awesome, and I have felt bad ever since I started my own life by going to college. A German Shepard/Chow mix, we rescued her from Table Mountain Animal Shelter as a puppy. She was more than 12 years old.

I remember begging my parents for a dog since I was in the 3rd grade. My mom finally gave in after I printed off 50 pictures of different breeds, wrote names on the paper, and then pasted them on my bedroom wall while talking to them all daily. I feel bad I couldn't be there for her, but that would have been very hard. I only hope my parents are doing alright. When I left for Utah, she was relatively healthy looking for her age. However, over the summer, her stomach bloated really bad, and while she recovered, it was all downhill. The last couple of times I saw her, she looked emaciated, every bone showing, she couldn't stand up (because as a German Shepard, she inherited a degenerative disease where her spinal cord lost all feeling towards her rear), and since she couldn't feel anything, she licked all the fur off of her tail until it looked raw. Let's hope our other dog, Scout, can recover. When Mandy was in the hospital for the stomach bloating, Scout did not eat anything. Doggy heaven? In honor of my dog.