Ross Cooper’s blog

The non-adventures of Ross, Sally & Boo

And the T.Rex is related to...

Fantastic story from Wired. 68 million years ago a T.Rex died. In 2000 a paleontologist dug up its femur. In 2003 scientists started analyzing it, and by 2007 we had machines powerful enough to track 7 samples of protein in the ancient fossilized femur. 5 of those samples closely matched bone collagen of an animal alive today. And what is the T.Rex's most likely descendent???

The humble chicken :-D

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Shakesperian Arachnids

Two highlights of the day so far. First I was in an Apple store way out east in Santan Village, looking at headphones when suddenly a giant light brown spider comes crawling out from under the display racks. It was a good 4" around with it's legs all curled up! I resisted the urge to scream like a little girl, and pointed it out to a nearby staff member, who promptly did scream like a little girl ;-)

Secondly I discovered a cool new English pub called Shakesperes. So far Im liking it, sat here blogging and enjoying a Malibu & coke while waiting for my curry to arrive. If it wasn't sunny and hot outside I could almost be back in blighty...

Later Addendum: The curry was good, really good. Like 'couldn't finish it so got a to-go box for the rest' good, something I never normally do. Yum

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Boo 2

So we've had Boo for 4 or 5 weeks now and he's totally settled in and basically owns the place. He's grown a lot, maybe 1.5 times the size he was when we got him. He loves watching the washing machine, as you can see in this picture. He's inseparable from me, in fact he's sat on my lap right now as I try and type this, and I usually wake up in the middle of the night to find him curled around my shoulder with his little head on the corner of my pillow. He still doesn't meow like most cats, instead making little chirping noises like the mogwai from Gremlins. Awww...

But amongst all this cuteness, there's a dark evil side. A Gollum to his Smeagol if you will. First, despite owning more toys then Sally & I put together, he'd much rather smash our stuff. In an ironic twist, my expensive wireless Apple mouse was the first casualty, but I'm sure it won't be the last. In fact the Xmas decorations may not last the month! Secondly, and perhaps much worse, his farts & poo stink like the sulfur of hell itself. OMG this cat is powered by evil, and it smells bad :-) Luckily the combination of flush-able kitty litter, and an army of candles in the bathroom minimize the duration if not the intensity of it. I think for xmas Sally & I are buying clothes-pegs for our noses, and maybe some extra large tic-tacs for Boo's butt!

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Boo!

If you read our my previous post you know we went to Tempe Marketplace last night. As we were leaving, I noticed they had a PetSmart and I managed to talk Sally into dropping by to take a quick look at the pets. Being dumb I thought they might have dogs, but they just had cats, which of course got us talking about wether the time was right for a new cat?

Well it wasn't yesterday, but today we found ourselves checking out some more places, and straight away we met this little 5 month old kitty above. We were good though, we drove around some other places, we went for lunch, we even came home and talked about it and decided this was the cat for us.

We're working on a name. So far our favorite is "Boo" because it's Halloween, and he's all black except for a little white spot hidden under his chin. Having just watched Psycho though, we also kind of like "Norman". He ran around the house like crazy for a while, getting his bearings, but later on he spent an hour just alternating between Sally and I getting all the love he could get, so I guess he's settling in nicely. When he's happy he makes little gurgling chirpy noises like Gizmo from Gremlins.

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Wildlife World Zoo

Today we headed way out to the west edge of the valley to the Wildlife World Zoo, which you can read more about on their website here. We had loads of fun there, and there's a photo gallery of some of the animals here.

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A Sad Day

Long time readers of this blog will be familiar with the exploits, and occasional blog entries, of our beloved little cat Mo. Sadly Mo passed away last night at the ripe old age of 16. She hadn't been doing too well the last couple of weeks, and although blood tests a week ago had all looked great, yesterday evening she had a minor episode that had us racing to a nearby emergency clinic. A quick x-ray later we discovered that cancer had taken one of her lungs and was starting to attack her other one. The vet on call was really great with us & Mo, even getting a second opinion on the diagnosis without us asking for it, many thanks to her. Mo was the light of our lives and we'll miss her more than words can say...

Some Mo photos are here.

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Hammerhead Jacks

On a recent trip to Cave Creek, we stumbled dying of thirst into a place called "Hammerhead Jacks Boardwalk Grill and Desert Beach Bar", and what a find it is! Great food & drinks - our recent visitor Lee will be glad to know I managed a foot long hot dog (Lee really wanted to try Alice Cooper's 2 foot long hot dog, ahem!) - and a decor that was like a crazy tribute to the movie Jaws.

Around the bar there where tall chairs like a lifeguard might sit in. At one end of the place there was a giant, maybe 30+ft boat with inflatable dolphins all over the deck. But the piece de resistance was at the other end - a mechanical shark surrounded by bras?!? Yep if you find mechanical bulls too easy, come ride the shark...

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4 Years and Counting...

Today was our 4 year anniversary - yay! We started our evening by dropping by our new favorite uber-healthy restaurant "Mack Daddies". I know it the name sounds lame, kinda fast food-ish, but it's actually named after the owner, Mack Newton who has trained in the Martial Arts for over 63 years. He was head coach of the USA Taekwon-Do for a few years in the 80's, and 'conditioning coach' for the Oakland A's and Dallas Cowboys and numerous other other sports celebrities. He also loves jazz music and has a great picture on the wall of him getting guitar lessons from George Benson! The food is ridiculously healthy too...

From there we headed over to Papago Park for their evening flashlight tour. You get to wonder round unescorted with just a flashlight as your guide. As it's cooled down a bit in the evening, all the animals start coming out again, plus they had a few displays dotted around the park with snakes and scorpions, bull-frogs & screaming toads, and lot's of scarily large insects. It was a lot of fun, walking around in the dark until the snake exhibit - I hate snakes! They had a King snake on display, which apparently they have many of roaming around in the grounds because they are immune to most snake venom, and so eat other snakes and keep them out of the park grounds - ingenious!

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Otter Attack!

I recently sold my Folbot kayak on craigslist. Funnily enough I sold it to a girl (Dee) who lives in Portland, OR of all the places :-) Over the couple of weeks it took to sort out the details of getting the kayak to her, we chatted over email about Portland and scooters and all kinds of stuff really. I guess it's the modern equivalent of having a pen-pal, all thanks to email and Craigslist. Anyway, Dee sent me a great couple of photos from a recent kayaking trip she did in the Bay area, which I thought you'll all enjoy, and she's let me share them with you. Check out this sea otter that they ran into out on the ocean, he actually climbed up onto her kayak and hung out with them for an hour!

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Portland - Mo

Long time readers may remember that once in a blue moon, our cat Mo writes an entry for the blog. It's been a while, but she's back with a vengeance...

Usually I like to spend my days lazily napping around various spots in the house, but I'm constantly interrupted by my eternal tormentors Sally & Ross. Sure maybe they were sat on that warm spot on the couch, but if they leave to get a glass of water or something, that spot is mine! How dare they kick me off when they return. So when I saw the suitcase and the plane tickets I thought "Heaven!" I had my days all planned out with some sleeping, some snoozing, maybe a little Animal Planet now and again...

After a couple of days I was just settling in nicely to my new routine, when blow me they come walking back in the door again, mysteriously looking much paler then when they left, hmmm? Sally came running over, picked me up and hugged me - bleargh! - and the best I could do was get all hissy with them when she put me down. Yeah I showed them.  'Course then they try bribing me with treats and chin scratches, etc but I held out... for about 30 seconds. They still smell a little weird though, reminds me of a place I used to live that was all fir trees, Starbucks, emo kids and damn patchouli oil hippies...

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