What I have been doing: Not Solenopsis

Well, I haven't even looked at my Solenopsis. What have I been doing? I'm not sure. I felt like I was really busy but somehow nothing seems to have gotten done. Here is what I have done:

Boxes up all of my Attines and sent them off to Ted Schultz at the Smithsonian. Ted has graciously offered to identify my Attines for me and I wanted to send them off as soon as possible. This makes me feel like I am accomplishing something, even though I am not really.

Ted also inquired about my subterranean probe, which I then started to obsess about. I'm supposed to be working on a paper to publish the results of my probe study, but have been so involved with everything else that it has kind of gotten pushed aside. Now I am starting to think about it more and feeling the need to get cracking on that. So I spent some time reviewing wat I had done so far and thinking about what I needed to finish. I feel like I really need to finish the Solenopsis first, though, before I forget what I have already done and need to start over again. I did manage to do some data entry (long and tedious) updating the Solenopsis specimens I had already identified and creating new fields for the new species, etc. That took forever.

I also have been spending some time updating my webpages. I finally feel comfortable enough with my Gigantiops Destructor Store website to start telling people about it. I sent an email to The Ant Farm's Reading Room, and was able to get my site listed under "Ant-Related Items to Wear." Cool! And I sent an email out to basically everyone I know to go and check it out. And then of course I had to figure out if anyone was actually visiting my site, so I decided I needed to download a site tracker. This, of course, took several days of research to find the right one. My criteria -- it had to be free, accurate, useful, easy to use, and not result in me being inundated by ads and other crap. This was surprisingly hard to find. I ended up with Statcounter, which I have so far been happy with.

So.... I guess now would be the time to get back onto those Solenopsis. I'll get on that right away... But first, there was an NPR story this morning (and the past couple of days) about Tiputini! Check it out: Article: The Hidden Language of Insects; Audio: A Journey to the Edge of the Amazon; Audio: The Wilderness Chorus; Audio: Radio Expeditions. Not about ants but still cool. Tiputini is so awesome!