Bit of Irrelevancy...BeachStyle!

So I got to go to the beach in Galveston, Texas, for the first time yesterday. It was a shell-searching escapade, as I'm not big on swimming period, and you'd be hard pressed to get me into water I can't see the bottom to. That's a big no-no in the Jack world.

But the shell search was a fabulous endeaver, and while one of my hip-bags now smells like ocean, I found some fabulous things. The thing that stood out the most was my Whatamajig--something my mom found! Here are some pictures of it.

My mom's holding it here--pay no attention to the pelican behind the curta..in the back ground--and is it weird or what?

The structure itself isn't too strange, there was a lot of strange "strung together" shells on the beach made by something under the sand that was spitting something out. I'm not really sure what it was or how it was being caused, but tiny holes that covered the beach were almost continuously shoving sand out, and some of them shoved this sticky substance holding shells together out.

While this is a lot bigger than those--even if we found one that was almost six inches long!--its made the same way...just...sturdier and older. The "sticky stuff" on this one was looong solidified, and almost black.

Here you can see a bit more what really confused me about this thing. See the black structure? We think its some sort of fossil! The material itself is natural, and you can see an almost spongey texture to it where the lines have been worn away. Its cool to the touch and while its impossible to tell how much it weighs with the rocklike thing attached to the bottom, its still fascinating.

I've been researching it since we got home last night--somewhere around 12am, and I stayed up for a while afterwards--but I still can't find any photographs or even sketches of a fossil like it. The closest thing I can find are the section of bone that connects a stingray's body to its fins and crinoids(sea lilies).

However, after a closer look into some other alleys, I've found an astonishing similarity to some species of fish gills...sorta.

Its not exact, and as much as I looove fossils, I'm no paleontologist and no expert, but that's what it resembles most.

Check out these tuna gills. See the white part? Looks an awful lot like my little mystery structure, doesn't it?

I'm going to try and get an expert to at least take a quick look of a picture of this thing, and maybe later be able to get someone to tell me if it really is a fossil or is something else completely.

Its awful close to that though. -stare- Too bad I can't find any images of "fossilized gill plates". For some reason, the most I can find is from a basking shark. Go figure.

No matter what it turns out to be, I'm still really fond of it. Its absolutely fascinating, and really fun to look at! Oh, and that bottom "rock"? Turns out its actually a black shell covered in what I think is coral! And the big mollusk has tiny barnacles.

I think its the greatest find since the pencil. Srsly.

Beach discoveries aside, I've actually been being good and working away at finding pieces for my Colonello cosplay as well.

After a long search through several toy guns stores, I actually found an assault rifle that was pretty much perfect!

Unfortunately, they were sold out of the model, which with only a few modifications--taking out the trigger and the "loader"...a bit of paint and some extensions--was ideal. So the hunt was on again...and this one was even harder. Having found something so good for the role, I was hard pressed to accept anything else. I did eventually find the closest thing to ideal at a completely different place.

While the coloring is really off, and the fact that it fires darts isn't ideal, the price is right at $11 and the shipping isn't bad either. The fact that I can't find it in stores seals the deal, and it'll be a top priority to get this and the wig ordered.