online JOURNAL

8 August 10
I sometimes have difficulty reconciling modern world conveniences with simplicity. This is always more poignant after a trip to a poor(er) country, where I have seen people with few belongings and even less money living apparently happy lives. (Most of my travelling is to tropical and semi-tropical locations, and these countries tend to be less affluent, and often third-world. For an explanation of why that is, please read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel.)

Things that I find indispensable, such as an Internet connection, are more and more often found in the most unlikely, remote places. Cell phone coverage is now pretty much ubiquitous around the world, and five bars of coverage may be easier to find than clean drinking water. I can't complain about those--welcome to the future, I suppose.

Then I come home and am surrounded by people who are so caught up in things that do not matter, such as owning the latest this, and having the most popular that. People who obsess over their self-important job selling millions of widgets, but ninety-nine percent of the world has no idea their widgets exist. I hate seeing people go out and use their ATM card to pay $5 for a "half double decaffeinated half caf with a twist of lemon" when I've just returned from a country where the average person makes less than US$100 per week. Things like that leave me disconcerted, and make me sad my own life has gotten much more complicated than I would like.

7 August 10
Over the past few months I've been starting to miss school. I like learning but that process has greatly slowed down ever since I left school. My one semester off has stretched into two years off, and I'm starting to fear I may be losing some of the knowledge I will need for future classes, and who wants to re-take a class they've already passed?

It's funny, the thing that got me thinking about school again is the fact that I will someday want to go back to work, back to a paying job. And in order to get a job I like that pays me a decent salary I will need to have a degree. And what better time to work on that degree than a time when I don't have to work and can instead devote all my energy to learning? Plus, I've had some fun conversations lately with people who are (back) in school and their excitement is contagious.

However, in order for me to go back to school I will need to devote months at a time to my studies. But it just so happens that would interfere with some of my upcoming diving plans. And considering that part of the reason we are doing so many diving trips now is because we want to be able to see undersea life before it goes away, that's a strong argument for postponing the schooling. I have always been a "bird in the hand" sort of person, anyhow.

23 July 10
Three weeks after we caught Kella in our backyard we were finally able to catch her brother! At first we weren't sure that we would keep him, given he was about three weeks older than many sites deemed to be the "easy" age to tame feral kittens, but we figured we'd give it a try. As it turned out, this kitten tamed so easily it was like he had never been feral, and thus little Henry entered our lives.

After a few days of adjustment and acclimatization, Kella and Henry were reintroduced, and now the two are inseparable. And Frederick and I are happy to have the pitter-patter of little feet around the house, even if if means the occasional night of interrupted sleep.

17 July 10
Wow, I just looked at the date of my last post and realized we've had Kella for over two weeks now. We've taken the advice of others, and are keeping her in a small room with nothing for her to get into (the bathroom). We go in there many times each day to hold and pet her, and s l o w l y she's getting to be more tame.

Feral cats survive because they are wary and evade threats, and once ingrained those are difficult habits to break. Which is why it's taken Kella two weeks to get to the point where she's starting to relax around us--she's now stretching out, washing herself, and yesterday was the first day we've seen her play! But this taming process is sometimes two steps forward and one step back and we're still sometimes getting hissed at.

But Kella is incredibly adorable. And a real love bug when it comes to being petted.

3 July 10
We were not planning on having a cat in the house. Sure, we eventually wanted to have a couple of kittens, but we didn't feel we were ready yet, not after losing Kisa last year. And we're planning to move at the end of next year, so we figured we'd revisit the kitten idea sometime after moving.

Then, a week ago, I was looking out the back window into the yard and saw cats. A beautiful, sleek black panther of a mom and two kittens: a black & white tuxedo and a solid grey. When Frederick saw them we looked at each other with that particular sort of recognition--"Kittens!"--and made a plan. After putting food out for the kitties we had first one, then two male cats come by and hang out in the yard as well. Within a couple days the cat population in our backyard went from zero to five.

It turns out the SF SPCA has a Feral Fix program. They loan humane traps and will spay/neuter feral cats for free if you bring them in and agree to release them back into your yard. That was the perfect solution for us as the adults don't need to continue breeding, but they're also pretty much untamable and would only be euthanized (as opposed to adopted) had we brought them in to the pound. We ended up trapping all three adults, getting them fixed, and releasing them.

We also caught one kitten, the little 8-9 week old tuxedo female. We have adopted her and are working on taming her. Poor thing, she is currently going through a traumatic situation as she was separated from her mother and sibling, and then imprisoned in an unfamiliar place with huge scary people. Luckily, she's at the age where, with a bit of patience, she should be able to tame into a housecat, and hopefully this will all become a distant memory. In any case, she has a much easier and infinitely safer life in front of her.

Although we tried, we were unable to catch her fluffy grey sibling. The last time I saw him was last weekend, before we caught any of the cats. I really do hope he is okay; maybe he has adopted some people for himself.

As for us, well, we now have the pitter-patter of little paws around the house. Or more accurately, alternately hiding underneath the couch and the spare bed. Her name is Kella and as soon as I can take some photos of her I'll post them. She is a very cute kitten :)

18 June 10
Hey, look at this, I've finally redesigned my website! The last time I did so was January 2002, so it has been way overdue.

I've also added new content in the way of a travel journal talking about my recent Cocos Island research trip. Check it out!

10 June 10
Do you remember some years ago when cell phones became popular? As groups of friends got their first phone we'd call each other from across the dinner table, giggling at the novelty of it all. Now that phones have become ubiquitous the cross-table calls have given way to what seems like an obsession with some folks.

Today's "smart phones" with Internet service and countless applications can certainly be useful, but too often I see people ignoring the world around them, instead intently focused on their phones. Who knows if they're reading email, chatting with friends, playing games, or what have you, but for some reason it bothers me that these people are not paying attention to the world around them. They seem to be ignoring the here-and-now for the virtual world in their hands. Yes, I know I am in the same boat as I sit here in front of my computer, but I do see a difference between purposefully sitting at my computer in the privacy of my own home, versus being out in public and concentrating on the computer in my hands.

I'm not sure why this sort of thing bothers me so much. I guess it's just part of "modern life" wherein humans tend to separate themselves from nature and the real world. Although I don't always do it myself, my goal is to be present in the moment and live for today, rather than always waiting for some future situation or event. When I see others not present it doesn't feel right; how much are they missing by not paying attention?

14 May 10
The first week in May was the date for our annual group scuba trip, and we had a blast. For the fourth year in a row we organized a week-long diving trip with a bunch of friends, and this time we returned to CoCo View Resort in Roatan, Honduras.

Our group consisted of ten people: Jen, Aneel, Jenny, Cary, Mona, Bahman, Chuck, Marisa, Frederick, and me. All of us except Marisa were diving, and Cary completed his open-water certification during the first days of the trip. Not a bad place for your first ocean dives!

I did 19 dives in six days which may seem like a lot but I really felt like I wasn't diving that much. On Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday I did two dives each day, Monday I did five dives, and Tuesday and Thursday I dove four times each. But that schedule gave me a little bit of time to relax and enjoy being on vacation, which is something I really needed, so I didn't regret it.

My favourite dive was the dusk dive we did on Tuesday. We headed out from shore after the sun had set, but while it was still light out. I swam to and past the wreck of the 140' Prince Albert with my dive light turned off as dusk descended around us. It was an eerie, slightly spooky, but incredibly wonderful feeling! Big thanks to Aneel for suggesting that timing.

Looking back through my dive logs I realized this was the first warm water dive trip I've taken since July 2008, egads! No wonder I've missed it so much. (Well, I was actually there in Roatan last October, but I had some sort of sinus congestion issues and wasn't able to dive, so it doesn't count.) Last summer our group attempted to take a warm water trip to Loreto, Baja California, but we were there too early in the season and the water was 68F, brr.

Since most of the diving around CoCo View is fairly easy and low-stress, it was the perfect place to try out my new underwater camera kit. I shot with my 100mm macro lens for the first several days, and with my 16-35mm wide-angle lens the last few days. There was a definite learning curve involved, especially since all the macro photos were shot on manual, but I downloaded and reviewed my photos at the end of each dive day, critiqued them, and attempted to correct what I did not like the following day. Sure, I took hundreds of crappy shots that I immediately deleted, but I felt like I was doing okay, all things considered.

If you like, check out my full set of diving photos from this trip.

1 April 10
Two weeks ago I started the Couch to 5k running program. The basic premise is you do three workouts each week, alternating running and walking, and gradually increase the time/distance you run until you reach 5 kilometers/3 miles, which will take about 9 weeks.

My first week was easy enough, but I had to cut short the second workout of the second week as my hip started hurting too much. (Sadly it seems to be true--the older you get, the more everything starts to hurt.) It just so happened I had an appointment with my personal trainer later that morning so I mentioned the hip pain to him and he taught me how to run correctly so that wouldn't happen again. Who knew one had to learn how to run?!

I did another workout this morning, time flew by and nothing hurt. In fact, it felt so good to run that I did more than 1.5 times the regular workout! I've got a little bit of soreness now, but it's the good kind of sore that means I've been exercising. I'm looking forward to reaching that 5k goal!