Meet the Smithsonian's fossil guy He joined the Smithsonian a year ago - practically a nanosecond in his line of work - and now he's talking to the Loop about his mastery of walrus trivia (go ahead, try to stump him) and his secret musical career. What museum item or exhibit in Washington do you like best and why? The pair of elephant-size giant ground sloths that were collected in Panama in 1955 and are now on display at the National Museum of Natural History. If you have ever seen a living tree sloth, you would be completely surprised that they have such gargantuan extinct relatives. Paleontology is full of surprises. Which Cabinet secretary would you most like to hang out with, and what would you do? [Interior Secretary] Sally Jewell, and we would be excavating fossils on federal land (with a permit). Fill in the blank: People would be surprised to know that I ___________. Have recorded a song about why fossil plant matter called "I Am a Paleobotanist." It's part of an album called "Cruisin" the Fossil Freeway," which was inspired by my book of the same title. The book and the album document the travels of a paleontologist (me) and artist Ray Troll as we drove 5,000 miles across the American West in search of fossils and the people who love them. My most recent book, "Digging Snowmastodon, Discovering an Ice Age World in the Colorado Rockies," tells the story of an incredible dig that yielded more than 6,000 fossil bones in only 69 days. What's your dream job? The job I have now. Running the largest natural history museum and premier science interpretive space in the world. What motivated you to go into public service? A sense that we are at a unique time in human history and a belief that museums can positively affect how we tackle the future. What subject, other than your work, do you know the most about? Walrus. I once saw a herd of 10,000 walrus at a place called Round Island in Alaska, and I have been obsessed with them ever since. Here's an animal with three-foot-long teeth that eats nothing but clams and floats around on slabs of ice. I am a font of walrus trivia. What's the best job you ever had? It's hard to beat this one, but I sure loved being a longshoreman in Seattle when I was 20. We would start the morning with eight guys and a ship completely full of 80-pound boxes of frozen king crab. Eight hours of tossing boxes later, the ship's hold was a huge empty space the size of a gymnasium. It was simple, physical labor, but it was really satisfying to see what we had accomplished in a day. Fill in the blank: I'm scared of ___________. Tiny confined spaces. What's one word you wish people would use to describe you? Compelling. The museum world is all about creating inspiration and catalyzing curiosity. I want to personify that world and support my staff to make amazing discoveries and to share them with our audience. You can draft one person in the private sector to come work for the federal government. Whom would it be, and what would you have them do? Salman Khan of the Khan Academy. This guy basically invented the concept of online education, and it is clear that the Web has awesome potential for museums. I would love to see every kid in the country be a digital member of the nation's museum. Background Check is a Loop feature in which we grill various government types about their lives on and off the clock. Please send suggestions for future subjects to intheloop@ washpost.com. But nothing in a Bradley? Hey, Pentagon, can we borrow some wheels? Turns out the military's got plenty of extra vehicles just sitting around in the Washington area, according to a new inspector general's report. The IG found "511 excess nontactical vehicles, including 89 vehicles driven less than 1,000 miles," meaning that many of the cars and trucks owned by the Navy, the Defense Logistics Agency, the Pentagon Force Protection Agency and Washington Headquarters Services are just sitting in their parking spots. Eliminating these unneeded vehicles would save about $7.2 million over the next six years, the report estimates. That's enough to grind the gears of government-spending hawks. In addition, the report found that the Pentagon Force Protection Agency and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service had no guidelines about how to use 335 law enforcement vehicles in their fleets. Sounds as though they've got rides to spare - and, hey, we promise we'd return the one we borrow without a scratch.