Greetings all! After the untimely demise of Hobbs (a.k.a. "Hobbes") last week we have been adapting to our two new baby fuzzies - although they are rapidly getting too big for baby status! :) I'm an archaeologist by trade and sometimes work on some pretty interesting, but weird stuff, around the house. Over several weeks this past summer I directed a crew excavating a 2,000 to 5,000 year old archaeological site in south-central British Columbia. Part of "doing archaeology" requires collection of materials which can be radiocarbon dated so we can confirm when the site was last occupied. We often collect animal bones (remains of ancient meals) for this task. To make a long story short - I had carefully removed the larger and smaller bones and fragments for dating. These had all been carefully placed in little paper bags and labelled, etc. Of course, I left all this on top of my computer desk the other morning not realizing that our "wrecking crew" of fuzzies were about to live up to their reputation. I came home later that day to find a trail of large and small animal bones (very old and very dry, not tasty at all!) scattered throughout my office and down the hall as well .... :( This in effect destroys the usefullness of most of the bones, since some of them came from the upper deposits of the site (meaning the last prehistoric occupation), and some came from the bottom (ie. the oldest occupation). Fortunately, I do know where the bigger, identifiable bones came from in the site - mostly mountain goat, bighorn sheep and deer, so I can still use these ones. The rest are a hopeless muddle with almost no scientific validity thanks to my unofficial "helpers". All in all though - I forgive them, it was my fault after all that I put such tempting toys in their path! Stan (wife Rena, brother Bill, boys - Adrian and Tristan) Kalli - the head witch-ferret Calvin - Mr. Mellow TJ - "look, a new place to climb!" Sindbad - "huh, been there - done that already!) Toby - eat, drink, sleep, grow "no-name" - ditto [Posted in FML issue 1351]