online JOURNAL

24 June 07
Hi! I'm back from a week-long diving vacation in the Caribbean. It was mostly good, with a few sucky things thrown in here and there.

One week at CoCo View Resort, Roatan, Honduras:
+ Got to visit a new country
+ Nice place, nice location, good staff
+ The resort is ALL about diving, with tanks available 24 hours a day
+ Good dive sites literally steps away from the resort
+ Boats go out twice daily, for two dives each trip
- Had a sinus infection and wasn't able to dive for a couple days
+ Saw a local doctor and got antibiotics, all for $23
+ Read 5.5 books during the vacation
+ Still got in 10 dives
- Sinuses still not back to normal
+ Took some nice underwater photos with new 100mm macro lens
- Lost the camera & a wide-angle lens when the housing flooded
+ It was insured
+ Had a back-up underwater camera
- It's a piece of crap
+ Flew in the tiniest plane I've ever been in
- Couldn't convince the husband to take a deep-sea (-2000 ft) submarine ride

More photos and stuff as soon as I'm done processing them.

15 June 07
For years now some of my friends have been hiring housecleaners to tidy their homes. And while I always thought this was a good idea I was never able to warrant paying someone to do what I could do myself. But the fact is that no matter how much free time I have, there are just some household tasks that never got done as often as I would have liked them to.

So about a month and a half ago, we got a housecleaner.

It is *wonderful* having a housecleaner! She comes every other week which is just often enough to keep the place from becoming a total mess. Now we're pretty much always ready for people to come over, as opposed to before when I'd need a couple of hours to vacuum and clean before I'd allow anyone in the door. It is well worth the investment.

Now my only problem is finding stuff to do while she's here so that I don't sit arond like a dork while she cleans.

14 June 07
Add this to the list things I never expected to hear coming out of my mouth:

The other day my mom and I were sitting in the Hard Rock Cafe at Pier 39 when in walked several midgets wearing KISS makeup.

7 June 07
For years my eating habits have been becoming more and more environmentally conscious. Years ago, when I first heard about the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch Program I began eating only fish on their "Best Choices" list. Then last year I began volunteering at the Marine Mammal Center, hearing the stories, and seeing the animals. The animals that were injured or killed by fishermen and/or poor fishing practices. And I decided I no longer wanted to contribute to the pain and suffering of these animals by consuming fish, so about a year ago I stopped eating any fish or seafood.

What kinds of things do we see up there? Well, right now there are two California sea lions onsite, one about six months old (photo below), the other a few years old, with severe trauma caused by entanglement in (discarded) fishing nets. Both were neck entanglements, cutting through the skin and blubber layer, all the way down to the muscle.

We also have another sea lion, another pup, who was to undergo surgery on Wednesday to remove an eye which was irreparably damaged from a shotgun blast to the head. And he was a lucky one. In just this past week two other sea lions had to be euthanized after they arrived with gunshot wounds to the head. Sadly, this happens over and over, year after year.

Who is shooting the sea lions, and why? The answer is fishermen, because the animals eat "their" fish. I'm not just pointing fingers here - numerous witnesses have reported fishermen shooting animals, and many arrests/convictions have been made over the years.

So, yeah, I do not eat fish (although the only thing I really miss is tuna sandwiches). It's not much, but it is something I can do. You can help, too, by at least making good choices when it comes to eating seafood.

6 June 07
I often post photos taken up at the Marine Mammal Center, but since I'm the one always taking the pics, I never appear in them. So yesterday I handed my camera to a co-worker who took a couple of photos of me working with a little elephant seal pup.

Here I am restraining "Bravery". The aforementioned co-worker found him on the beach a few days prior looking very sick, and he was rescued.

Bravery is not eating on his own so he has to be tube-fed. Here we are sticking a tube down his throat in preparation for feeding.

These elephant seal pups are about four feet long and weigh between 50 pounds (emaciated) and 150 pounds (fat!), although once they get that big they're ready for release, barring any health problems. I have no problem restraining these guys. Sea lions, however, are a different story. Little 25-30 pound pups are almost stronger than me. The largest energetic sea lion I've restrained was about 50 pounds, but took so much energy and strength to do so that my arms were fatigued and useless for hours afterwards. Luckily(?) most of the animals we have to manually restrain are sick and do not want to move, so it becomes less of a problem.

Nevertheless, this is one of my favourite parts of my job as it means I'm literally working hands-on with wild, potentially dangerous animals, which is what I really like doing :)

3 June 07
My current favourite food is mieng kam (sometimes spelled "miang kum" or similar, as it is a phonetic translation from Thai). It is super-delicious, doesn't require any cooking, and you all should go out and make some so you can enjoy it too.

Take a large-ish spinach leaf (you'll need to use bunch spinach as the bagged baby spinach is way too small). Place some small, thin slices of red onion, lime (peel included), ginger, and jalapeño (or Thai, if you can find it) pepper inside. Add a couple of cashews, a bunch of toasted coconut, and top the whole thing with sweet chili sauce. Roll up and stuff into your maw.

Mieng kam is a mix of textures - soft, firm, and crunchy - and a blend of flavours - sweet, spicy, sour - that go so wonderfully together! Authentic ones contain dried shrimp, but those are icky so I leave them out. When you can find this dish in an American restaurant they usually use peanuts, but when I had it in Thailand they used cashews; I think the cashews are both more authentic and better tasting, but your mileage may vary.

Enjoy!

31 May 07
The more I've learned about food and nutrition, the more I've tried to better my diet. But even when I'm eating an otherwise exclusively healthy diet, I always started my morning with a Diet Coke. Everyone's got to have a guilty pleasure, right?

I don't know exactly when or how it started, but for as long as I can remember, probably for at least 15 years, I've drank two Diet Cokes every morning. A couple of years ago I cut down from two cans to one a day, and just left it at that. And when they came out with the Black Cherry Vanilla flavour it became my new favourite, and I've been drinking that for the past many months. Recently I've been increasingly less happy about "having" to have a D.C. in the A.M., but always rationalized it (I'm good at rationalizing things to my benefit) as being so much better than the coffee obsessions/addictions of others.

About a week ago I was running low and went to the store to get more soda. Much to my chagrin, the shelves contained no Black Cherry Vanilla Diet Coke. I went to another store, and they were out as well. A peek at the D.C. website reveals that there are currently six flavours, and B.C.V. is not listed as one! Oh dear, my favourite drink has been discontinued!

Well, I will use this as my reason/excuse/sign from the deities that I no longer need to drink soda in the morning. If I can't have the flavour I really like, I'll just stop buying it altogether. It's been a few days now and I miss the taste of it just a little bit, but it's not so bad. I think I'll live.

30 May 07
Ooh, what a nice day. For the first time in at least a couple of weeks I had a day where I did not have to do anything. Nothing. Nada. And it was quite appreciated. I (mostly) caught up on emails, paid some bills and the like. And since the weather was overcast and poopy, I didn't even feel guilty about not leaving the house.

I need to get back into my gym routine. It's been a few weeks since I've been so I'll need to work on increasing my stamina for running. I only started running a few years ago (I never even exercised until after I turned 30), and the furthest I've run at once has been two miles. But even on the days I'm not good for one long stretch, I really enjoy running intervals (a few minutes running, a minute walking, repeat for 30-40 minutes).

Yeah, exercise. It'll make me feel better. Plus, it'll help me wear off the beers and desserts I've had this past week...

27 May 07
I came home this afternoon after spending the last couple of days in Portland, OR. Susan and I flew up there Friday afternoon to see Angela's band play a show that evening. Angela moved away from San Francisco some number of months ago and we don't get to see her very often, so when she mentioned she'd be on the Left Coast for a concert we thought, "Hey, why not?!" Plus, Susan and I have another very good friend, Shelly (who introduced the two of us many years ago), now living in Portland, so we planned on seeing her, too.

The only catch: Deathline International, the band we wanted to see, was playing at the Convergence festival, a "gothic conference" I really didn't care about. Anyone who knows me also knows my feelings about the whole über-goth scene - mainly, it's pretty damn silly, and some of those people take themselves way too seriously. While I did see a total of two pretty Victorian-type dresses, I also saw way too many instances of bad haircolor/clothes color combinations, crappy makeup, and plain ol' poor fashion sense. Face it, it's just a bad idea for grown adults to have spider webs drawn on the side of their cheek.

So, on Friday night, Susan & I met up with Mattbot and watched DLI. I ran into a couple of other friends at the venue and had a chance to talk with them for awhile, which was nice. After Angela was done performing we left to avoid the horrible second band, and to get a drink & a bite to eat. At some point we realized we were all too tired and lazy to go back to the venue, and Squiddles and I were back in our hotel room and asleep by about 2am.

Saturday we met up with Shelly, and she and Angela had a chance to talk and get to know one another. I love it when friends get to know other friends, thus drawing my social circle just a little bit closer. We made a trip to Powell's (aka the best bookstore in the known world) where I got away with only an armload of paperbacks, then ate delicious Thai, and critiqued the decor of the hotel room - three kinds of stripes, three different circular patterns, giraffe print, two toiles, at least one other pattern, and colors ranging from chocolates to lavender to orange, red, blue and more, all in two rooms!

Now it's time for a lazy Sunday evening at home. Luckily, we've sprayed for goths so I can just sit back and relax.

24 May 07
As of a few hours ago, I'm done with school for the summer! I turned in my last test, my final final, this morning, and I will not be taking any summer classes, so no more school for me until the end of August.

This morning's test was a take-home final for my Organic Chemistry class. About half the questions on it were lifted from previous exams, but there were a number of truly difficult problems, mostly having to do with reactions. Had this been an in-class exam I would probably still be sitting there, scratching my head about a couple of questions. But luckily I had a week at home with my books to refer to. Then I went to school this morning to drop off my exam and there is this guy sitting in the hall outside the classroom, working on his test. Something tells me that if you're the type of person who waits until literally the last minute to complete a take-home exam, you're also the type of person who won't have those O Chem reactions memorized.

I was able to sign up early for a couple of fall semester classes, and I am happy to report that I will finally be able to take the Biology class I need! Yeah, it only took me three semesters to get in, but now I can begin studying what I came to this school to study.

In the meantime, three months of ~~slack~~ doing all sorts of stuff I didn't have time to do before! Some working on the house, some diving, some photography, some seal rescues, etc., etc.

17 May 07
This semester at school is drawing to a close. I've considered myself to be in "the last few weeks of school" now for at least a month, and this last part is always the hardest for me - I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I can't stop working until finals are over and done with lest the whole semester be for naught. So I plug away, just for "another couple of weeks."

Imagine my surprise when I looked at my calendar yesterday morning and realized it was the last day of classes! Only three finals (one of them is a take-home exam), one paper (which is more than half complete), and some homework and studying to go. It'll all be over in a week.

I've got my fingers crossed that I'm able to get into the classes I want for next semester.

26 April 07
Have you ever noticed that, in general, the less you see of people, the more superficial your conversations when you do see them? Even when you get together with a good friend you never plunge straight into the heavy conversational deep end; you have to ease into it with small talk.

I have friends whom I don't get to see as often as I'd like. And when I do see them it's usually at some sort of party or get-together that is not conducive to in-depth talks. Because of this I feel like we never really get to talk, and therefore, our conversations are left hovering in the superficial area:

"Hey, how're you doing? What's new?" "I'm fine, thanks. Not much."

I'm not sure how to get past this. I mean, this is not untrue by any means, it's just not exciting conversation. But is talking about school any better? All of this conversation stuff was easier when I used to drink a lot more - I guess I just thought about it less.

I've always envied the sort of person who could just strike up an interesting conversation right then and there. I think I'm missing that gene.

13 April 07
Recently I bought a bunch of CDs in my ongoing attempt to find digital copies of everything I have on vinyl. My purchases include two wonderful songs (even better than "Roly-Poly Fishheads", if you can believe that).

Because I love you, I will share them with you.

[Once in awhile at work I find myself cutting apart kilos of fish before putting them in the blender to make fishmash for our seal pups. Doing this, I am left with a cutting board full of fish heads. And inevitably, "Roly-Poly Fishheads" starts going through my head.]

5 April 07
I've just updated my reading list with quite a few things. Now I'm going to go read some more!