Dammit...

[senoritafish]

(Yes, I know - it's properly spelled "Damn it" - but that's not how I say it, and when I see it spelled "Damnit" my brain sees it as "Dam Nit!" - which would be appropriate if the school sent my kids home with head lice. But they haven't. )

I made a bunch of replies to comments here yesterday through Gmail, but silly me, I ignored it when I got a little pop-up blocker warning from the Google toolbar. On looking at my page later, I realized none of them went though. Grrr, stupid Google, blocking its own email. Gah!

Hopefully, finishing up the semi-annual IFA report today - had to do it all myself, but KO usually only contributed a couple of paragraphs anyway, so not that much more. However, I just realized that while I got a new computer recently, the program I had done all the previous graphs in (Sigmaplot) isn't on it, so I'm hunting around for the installation disk. Wonderful. I can do it in Excel, but it just makes ugly graphs that aren't as easy to manipulate. Blah.

And I am way behind in reading mackerel otoliths; I have about 60 samples (1500 pairs!) to read in the next couple of weeks, so once I'm done with this report, I'm going be spending a lot of time in the microscope room. La Jolla is going to need them for the biomass assessment soonish.

Here's an mackerel otolith for you:

Can you guess how old it is?

My 'scope setup:



Oh, and lots of time out at the docks in February, too. More on that later.

You know, I am really looking forward to menopause. Or at least afterward.

Comments

[angelsmum.livejournal.com]

Not to sound dopey , but what IS an otolith?

[martianmoons.livejournal.com]

5 or six years old? You count the rings, like on a tree, to determine the age? Just a guess! :)

[dipster.livejournal.com]

I like how when you're looking at the comments to this entry, the title bar of the browser says, "Visit the kelpforest dammit"

[(Anonymous)]

Otoliths are the earbones of fish, which are often used to estimate a fish's age. They have rings on them like a tree, although they're not always easy to see.

[senoritafish.livejournal.com]

Oops, that was me...

[senoritafish.livejournal.com]

Right for the method, but you're overaging a teensy bit.

It's two years old, going on three. I'll add some notes to the Flickr.com image so you can see where they are.

[senoritafish.livejournal.com]

Heh, heh, I did that on purpose, didn't you know? ;p

I used to have a sign in my planters out front that said "Grow, Dammit!" Swearing is always such a good motivator. :D

[angelsmum.livejournal.com]

OH ok! thanks :)

[aliki.livejournal.com]

Two years??

[(Anonymous)]

If you click the picture through to Flickr, I added notes to show where the annuli are; just hover your mouse over the picture.