online JOURNAL

28 December 09
Today at Cal Academy I used an AGA full-face intercom mask for the second time, the first time being last week. The full-face mask is much larger and bulkier than its scuba mask cousin, and comes with a learning curve. For starters, once it is in place your air supply must be on to allow you to breathe, even above water. Since the mask covers your nose and mouth you would suffocate without an external air source. It has a five-point anchor system (straps at each side of the jaw, each temple, top of head) so once the mask is in place and tightened down it does not come off easily. A diver needs to be able to deal with this in the event his or her air supply is interrupted because it is no longer a simple thing to spit out your regulator and grab your buddy's, or take a breath from above the surface. And then there's the whole breathing through your nose thing.

Every scuba diver is used to the fact that you just don't breathe through your nose while diving. You couldn't even if you tried, as your nose is pinched shut by your mask. But not in a full-face mask. We are taught to breathe only through our nose while wearing the full-face mask, as exhaling though the mouth causes a lot of noise on the intercom microphone, but that definitely takes getting used to.

Then there's the whole idea of a two-way intercom. Diving is usually a quiet sport with minimal communication at best. But with the underwater ear phones and in-mask microphone, I spent my entire second dive talking with my topside dive tender. It's pretty funny having a conversation about random things as I'm scrubbing stubborn algae bits off the glass.

So what were my impressions after these two dives with the full-face mask? In general, it was fine. I never felt uncomfortable, but I'm not yet as comfortable in the full-face as I am in regular scuba gear--that will take a few more dives. I'm very glad that I was just able to wear the mask while just basically doing busywork (minimal cleaning) so I could concentrate on what was and was not working for me, and address the things that were not working. I was slightly overweighted without a BC, so I'll need to take a pound off my weightbelt next time (you need to be truly neutrally buoyant when you don't have a BC to compensate for extra lead).

I'm glad I started diving with the full-face mask. It's a good skill to know, and it certainly is necessary if I'm going to do the presentations from inside the tank. I just hope that once I start doing those I can still do the cleaning dives on scuba, as those are the dives that allow me to explore all the nooks and crannies of the tank.

10 December 09
Some recent conversations have gotten me thinking about this past year: how it went, what did I accomplish, and where did I fall short. In talking about this I realized there has been a lot happening with me and it was worth delving into, so I'm doing that here if only for posterity.

2009 wasn't a particularly good year, but neither was it a bad year; it was the year that just...was. There were some pretty good highs, including: swimming with humpback whales, trips to see family and friends, exploring new countries and places, starting two different jobs at the California Academy of Sciences, getting ever more involved at The Marine Mammal Center, and strengthening and deepening my relationships.

While there were not a lot of lows I can remember, the one that stands out was losing our beloved kitty, Kisa, to kidney failure. She was 18.5 so she was able to lead a long and (hopefully) happy life, but thinking about her still sometimes brings tears to my eyes.

The area where I feel I have floundered, where instead of making progress I feel I have slipped backwards, is taking care of myself. I have been getting very little exercise these last six months or so, and I can tell. I have noticed a loss of strength, less energy, more little aches and pain, and definitely a loss of general stamina. The older I get the more I realize my mortality, and the more I want to stay healthy. One needs regular exercise to be healthy and I know I just have to bite the bullet and get moving again.

---

Going beyond the past year, I have also been giving a lot of thought to the past ten years. 1999 was a turning point in my life; everything changed, from my mindset, to my job, to how I was spending my free time.

I spent the decade of the 90s thoroughly ensconced in the music world, first by working as a college radio DJ, then by DJing 1-3 times a week at San Francisco clubs. My life was centered around nightclubs and drinking, and because the clubs I frequented were full of those people one might classify as "goth," that meant that I was also surrounded by lots of bad attitudes and whiny, complainy, bitchy people. Unfortunately that starts to rub off.

Several events during the latter half of '99 (visiting Auschwitz, going to my first Burning Man, meeting nice people outside the goth/industrial club scene, and more) caused me to have an epiphany and it was like a switch had been thrown--I somehow went from being very angry and judgmental to being genuinely happy, more accepting, and attempting to love more than I hated. Before the end of the year I had quit DJing (with the exception of a handful of events over the next few years), stopped spending all my time in clubs, quit the job I hated and got a new one working with people I liked, broke up with the guy I had been seeing because the relationship wasn't going anywhere, and started meeting different sorts of people.

Any one of those things on their own wasn't much, but together they caused a huge change in me that even other people could see. And now looking back ten years I see just how important that summer was for me, and how my current life has all grown out of that.

It's really very cool :)

7 December 09
Lately I've found that I've been becoming more and more in tune with my circadian cycles, and the cues that I receive (subconsciously or otherwise) from the sun. I've posted before how my body loves to wake and sleep with the sun and how the switch to and from Daylight Savings Time really messes me up, and I know I suffer from seasonal affective disorder when I don't get enough sunlight (like during foggy San Francisco summers). But very recently something else clicked for me.

We've all heard about celebrations that have centered around Winter Solstice, and if you are like me then you just wrote them off to quaint customs of old-fashioned cultures. But during the past few weeks I've started to look forward to Solstice as it means our days will again get longer, and eventually I'll no longer have to drive to work in the dark. Then suddenly it struck me why people would want to celebrate this day when the sun begins to reassert itself (nevermind that it also marks the first day of winter): In a world where you have very little food during the winter, and even less artificial light, of course you would want to celebrate the return of the sun! And I suppose it also makes sense that I would finally understand this as I realize just how important natural daylight cycles are to me.

5 December 09
You know, there's nothing like trying something completely different to put you in your place when you're feeling pretty confident about something. For me, the "something" is scuba diving, and the "something completely different" is actually two separate things: aquarium diving and drysuit diving.

I am a pretty good and competent diver. I've had a lot of advanced training, my buoyancy is good, and I'm comfortable in a variety of underwater situations. So I was surprised that I was so uncomfortable when I dove in the Steinhart Aquarium.

This past Wednesday marked my eighth dive in the Philippine Coral Reef exhibit and the first time I felt thoroughly comfortable during the whole dive. Time flew when I was underwater, and before I knew it an hour had passed. I swam all around the tank, not only cleaning windows but also exploring some areas I hadn't seen before. I'd occasionally swim through one of the powerful water jets that generate the currents and it was no big deal. A few times I stopped just to admire the view, and more than once I thought, "I'm swimming in an aquarium. How cool!" That dive was exactly what I needed to restore my confidence.

Newly restored diving confidence in hand I headed to Monterey the next day so Frederick and I could get more practice in our drysuits. It was my first cold water dive in a year, and I had about three drysuit dives under my belt--not much, and I was struggling with the bulkiness of my suit and the vast amount of lead I need to carry in order to dive. Add to that my love/hate relationship with cold water diving, and I again was feeling less than confident. I was ready to pack everything up and go home until the moment I descended on my first dive.

Although our two dives were both at the Coast Guard Breakwater, the popular training beach at the south end of Cannery Row, they were two excellent dives, and definitely the two best out of 30 dives I've done at that location. On three occasions we were buzzed by sea lions (it's startling to have something rocket towards you from out of the murk, only to give you a look that says, "What do you think you're doing here?"), we saw an assortment of crabs, some nudibranchs and nudibranch eggs, neon orange anemones, and a halibut that must have been a meter long.

Out of everything we saw, the coolest thing was the cormorants. Once on each dive in about 20 feet of water we had a cormorant dive down and forage in the sand right around us. For a bird that would never let you get close above water, they were surprisingly... bold? tolerant?...underwater. One swam so close to Frederick he was able to reach out and touch its back. I've never seen a bird underwater before so this was exciting!

We'll be back in Monterey in another two weeks for a class. We're taking the Rescue Diver class (well, F is taking it and I am retaking it as a refresher, as it's been ten years) and we'll be there doing our checkout dives. Fingers crossed for good weather conditions.

5 December 09
I like cooking. The more I learn about the food industry and sustainability, the more I want to cook as much of my own food as possible, so that way I do not have to eat any processed food. Because of this I try to make things from scratch whenever possible. All that being said, making an elaborate meal is an effort, and can take quite awhile.

Most years since I was a teenager (or was it early 20s?--that was a long time ago) I've cooked Thanksgiving dinners for my family. This year was a rare exception as we went to my aunt's house in San Jose for a large extended family gathering. It was nice to see people, but at the same time it didn't seem like Thanksgiving because I did not cook.

Last night we had a group of our closest friends over for dinner, and I spent all day making a nice winter-themed meal. I made everything from scratch, the way I would have had I made a Thanksgiving meal. I realized this morning, after waking up and seeing the leftovers, that this really seemed like a Thanksgiving meal--I spent a day cooking, I was surrounded by people I love, and there was plenty of satisfying food around. It was a very nice feeling.

For the record, this was the menu:
Leek, red pepper, and cheddar mini-quiches as a starter
Roasted butternut squash, carrot, and leek soup
Sweet potato, ricotta, and parmesan gnocchi served over a bed of spinach sauteed in a scallion-butter broth
Roasted gingered beets and onions
Buttery dinner rolls
Molten chocolate cake topped with vanilla whipped cream

4 November 09
For quite some time now I have been working to improve my diet. Not only do I pay attention to what's good for me, I also look at the impact my food choices have on the environment and seek to lessen that impact whenever possible (hence my being a vegetarian). On that note, I made the decision a couple years ago to switch to using margarine instead of butter. I found a good organic spread made with canola oil, but without any hydrogenated/trans fats, and have been using that. It tastes fine and unlike butter, it has no cholesterol, and buying it did not support the commercial dairy industry.

However, a few days ago I was cleaning up some stuff in the garage and came across a box of empty plastic margarine containers. A lot of plastic containers. The fact that I was buying a product that came packed in plastic had been bothering me, but seeing all of that waste made me realize I need to actually do something about it, so I am. I will now no longer buy margarine (or butter) in plastic containers.

Now the big question is, do I buy the vegan margarine in stick form, even though the sticks are wrapped in a foil-type paper that may not be recyclable? Or do I support a highly regarded, local, organic dairy and buy their butter, which comes wrapped in a compostable waxed paper? Butter is better for baking, but it has cholesterol and isn't suitable for vegan meals. But I'd rather support quality local farmers than a faceless company.

Decisions, decisions!

25 October 09
We got home last night from our trip, and boy am I glad to be here. I'm not doing a lot today besides mundane tasks like laundry, but at least I'm doing them in the comfort of my own home.

Honduras is a sensible country which does not use Daylight Savings Time, so I was used to it being light by 6am and dark again by 5:30 or 6pm. This morning it was still dark here at 6:30 when I went out in search of breakfast; have I mentioned lately how much I hate *$&#% DST? It makes no sense, and only serves to confuse people and circadian rhythms.

My head and sinuses are still congested, which isn't good, but at least it confirms that I did the right thing by not diving this past week. The pressure caused by being underwater can cause real problems if you dive with a head cold. Unfortunately this means I still won't be able to dive for another couple weeks, minimum. Guess I'll be working topside at the Steinhart Aquarium instead :(

Lest I forget, I did upload some photos from our trip. This bat caught in mid-sip is my favourite:

bat at the hummingbird feeder, with bonus gecko

22 October 09
After 2.5 solid days of rain that dumped over 20 inches of water on this island, we're finally experiencing some pleasant weather here in Roatan. The sun began tentatively peeking its head out yesterday, and by last night things were back to normal.

The northern storm front that moved in over the weekend brought with it a mass of water so immense it increased sea level by about six inches. When the front moved on, sea level dropped by maybe four inches overnight, and another inch or two the following day. I find that incredible.

The weather here now is warm, maybe mid-80s, and slightly humid, but much more tolerable than it is during the height of summer. Water temps are in the low 80s. Since it was so nice out today I started my morning with an after-breakfast kayak paddle. Then I decided I would rather spend time in the water so I donned my snorkel gear and spent the next 1-1.5 hours floating around and looking at critters. It's amazing just how much life you can find in 2-4 feet of water, a literal stone's throw from the resort:

Last night we watched bats feeding! There were probably a dozen bats (although it was impossible to be sure) each taking turns sipping nectar from the hummingbird feeder. Each bat was the size of a large mouse with wings. I've never seen that sort of behaviour before, and had never seen bats so up-close before either. I loved it! This morning the hummingbirds were at the feeder and I think I got some good photos of them. I'll bring the camera out tonight in case the bats return.

The resort has a new pet since the last time we were here: a sleek orange tabby named Neeno. Apparently he was "hired" as a kitchen cat, but when a 7.3 earthquake last May brought all the pots and pans down around him, Neeno ran out of the kitchen and hasn't been back since. Neeno is very friendly and I love having him around. We first arranged this trip after our kitty passed away earlier this year, so Frederick thinks it makes perfect sense for us to have a surrogate kitty keep us company while we're here :)

20 October 09
Last July we had reservations at one of our favourite dive resorts in the Caribbean. Unfortunately, a few days before we were due to leave, I hurt my back pretty badly. Luckily I was able to get a note from my doctor saying I was unable to travel, and the resort allowed us to reschedule our trip.

Now we are here on the Honduran island of Roatan in the Western Caribbean. I was all set to do a week of as much diving as possible. Sunday morning we went down for our first dive and when I ascending I was hit with an excruciating headache, a non-subtle way of letting me know my sinuses were congested and I cannot dive until they clear. So much for my tropical dive vacation.

Here's where the details of the trip begin to define the word "irony": I have a week off. I'm at a great dive resort in the Caribbean, one of the few places where you are able to dive as much as you want, on your own schedule. The water is warm and there are a lot of pretty fish and invertebrates out there. But I am inside because I cannot dive. It's been raining for the better part of a day and a half, and while that doesn't interfere with diving, it certainly means I can't sunbathe, or even go for a pleasant walk. Snorkeling doesn't even sound fun in the gloomy weather. Blah.

So I'm just spending my time hiding from the rain and hoping for sunny days and clear sinuses. And wondering how to be healthy for future dive trips.

12 October 09
An article about sea lions ran in the most recent San Francisco Weekly: To Cute To Shoot?. (Article opens in a new window. Go ahead and read it; I'll wait.)

I find this article to be controversial. There are many facets to the issues surrounding sea lions, and the author seems lean towards the point of view of one anti-sea lion extremist. Plus, he/she does not take the time to thoroughly inform readers, and is actually spreading misinformation. The article prompted me to write my first-ever letter to an editor:

I feel the need to respond to the article "To Cute To Shoot?" in the October 7-13th Weekly. The issue of the burgeoning sea lion population is multi-faceted, however, author Ashley Harrell only presented a limited viewpoint.

The article makes multiple references to "seal bombs," but fails to describe them. They may sound cute, but seal bombs are an incendiary device, usually an M80, which is essentially a partial stick of dynamite. These bombs are capable of serious damage, and are used to (illegally) kill fish in many parts of the world. If bombs are used to chase seals away from the Hyde Street Harbor, there is no guarantee that there will be no collateral damage; fish may die, boats could be damaged, and other marine mammals including the endangered Steller's sea lion may be injured or killed.

Harrell goes on to say, "When there are too many sea lions, it's bad for the marine ecosystem," which in fact is true, although the author neglects to mention there are currently not too many California sea lions. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), "there is no evidence that [the California sea lion] has reached its optimal sustainable population (OSP) level which is the management goal mandated by the MMPA [Marine Mammal Protection Act]." Sure, there may be too many individuals spending time on certain docks, but the overall population still requires protection.

Humans have been causing havoc on ocean ecosystems to the point where scientists estimate that all the world's fisheries will completely collapse by 2050. This shouldn't come as a surprise: the once booming Monterey Bay sardine industry collapsed in the 1950s due to overfishing, and the North Atlantic cod fishery, which previously brought in up to 800,000 tons, collapsed in 1992 for the same reason. Closer to home, California's salmon fishery closed in 2008, citing "astonishingly low" populations of chinook salmon. And currently, up to 100 million sharks are killed each year; because of this shark populations are estimated to have dropped 90-99%.

Sharks are one of the major predators of sea lions, and they are going extinct. It is very possible that the recent increase in the population of sea lions is not in fact due to healthy numbers of the pinnipeds, but rather, an ecosystem out of balance resulting in unhealthy conditions in the oceans. Rather than treating a symptom--grumpy harbormasters who "opted not to spend money on precautions [on sea lion barriers] in the construction of the Hyde Street Harbor"--we need to instead treat the disease by attempting to save our dying oceans.

I did not want to make my letter longer than it already was, so I was unable to address other problems I had with the article, such as questioning the wisdom of allowing people to shoot rubber bullets at animals (the bullets can easily blind an animal, ricochet and hit a person, or kill a smaller, unintended animal). The author writes about a person who had been bitten by a sea lion "and had to take antibiotics to prevent a nasty bacterial infection called leptospirosis." That statement is incorrect. Leptospirosis is spread through an infected animal's urine, not through bites. If a person was bitten by a seal or sea lion, you would need to take antibiotics--doxycycline is recommended--to prevent a bacterial infection known as "seal finger."

The article goes on to describe a woman who walked on to the Hyde Street Pier and laid down next to a sea lion to have her photo taken. A sea lion adversary was quoted as saying, "You want to get rid of this before someone seriously gets hurt." What, you want to get rid of sea lions because someone was stupid enough to lie down next to a top-level predator? Would you say that about lions if someone laid down next to a lion on the Serengeti? No! Let people take responsibility for their own actions.

I will admit that too many sea lions in the wrong place can be a problem. Heck, too many of any animal in the wrong place can pose a problem. However, this article was poorly written and if anything, seems to justify the use of violent and dangerous means to chase sea lions away. Just the fact that there are people out there chomping at the bit for the chance to harm the animals means that the sea lions still require our protection.

5 October 09
One of the things I really liked about my recent vacation was my sleep schedule. We were in the sub-tropics which meant the days and nights were close to twelve hours each, with the sun rising about 6:30am and setting somewhere about 6pm. Our activities were tied to daylight, so it made sense to tie my sleep schedule to that as well.

I found myself getting up with the sun, rising just before it actually peeked over the horizon. In the evening, dinner would be after sundown, we'd socialize a bit, then I'd go into our room about 8 and read for an hour before finally dozing off around 9pm. It was a wonderful 9 hours sleep each night and I never needed to use the alarm. As a special bonus, each of the ten nights we spent on the boat I was gently rocked to sleep by the motion of the waves which made for an incredibly restful sleep.

It's hard to believe that until fairly recently I never wanted anything to do with mornings. Of course, I was also staying out quite late on a regular basis as well so I really needed to sleep in. I remember thinking that if I could sleep until noon on the weekends then it was a good day--my how things have changed!

The only problem with a get-up-and-go-to-sleep-with-the-sun schedule is our variable day length. If I did that here during the summer I wouldn't get enough sleep! Ah, well, I suppose it's another reason to enjoy my trips to the tropics.

4 October 09
Part two of our Southern Hemisphere trip took us on a 1.5 hour flight east to Fiji. I had heard a lot of good things about the shark dives in the Beqa Lagoon area of southern Viti Levu, Fiji, and this was a good opportunity to check it out.

We did four days of two-tank boat dives with Aqua-Trek in Pacific Harbour, the company that started the Beqa shark dives. It's been ten years since I was last in Fiji, and I had forgotten just how spectacular the diving was there. Two of our dives were reef dives--although only average dives for Fiji, they had much more coral and fish life than most dives I've done in the Caribbean or the Sea of Cortez. In fact, the Nai'a (our liveaboard in Tonga) is actually a Fijian boat, and we vowed to return to Fiji and dive from the Nai'a.

Each of our shark dive days had the same schedule: one dive to 90 feet for 25 minutes, then the next 20-25 minutes spent on a 30 foot reef; one hour surface interval; second dive to 70 feet for 25 minutes, and finish the dive on the same shallow reef. Six dives in total, with no shortage of sharks! There were numerous nurse sharks on each dive including the largest nurse I had ever seen--a 9' male with an immense girth--and it was like being surrounded by puppydogs. They swim around your legs looking for fish scraps, and do not mind if you reach out and pet their rough skin.

Our first shark diving day I left my camera behind as sometimes it's nice to be able to move around unemcumbered. Of course that was the day I saw my first tiger shark (from in the water; in Hawaii I saw two tigers from the boat). She was a solid 10' long, confident, and gorgeous with her eponymous stripes. I was sitting at the right end of a line of divers watching the feeding area in front of us when the tiger approached from my right, at eye level, and at the last moment changed depth ever so slightly so that she swam directly over my head. Like the whale looking me in the eye, these one-on-one encounters with such incredible animals are what I live for.

There were bull sharks on every dive as well. For a shark that is supposedly the #2 or #3 most dangerous shark in the world, they are surprisingly shy and never got close to us. I saw as many as seven bulls at one time, all 5-7' in length, including one hugely pregnant female, and another who unfortunately had an entanglement around her neck and gills.

On the first dive of the last day I saw my first silvertip, a 6-7' female. I was away from the main group of divers, on the far side of a group of 3-4 photographers (I always try to position myself as far from people as possible, in order to get the best view of the sharks), when she came in. Like the tiger, the silvertip was acting very bold but not aggressive, and swam towards and around me several times. I didn't even realize there was a safety diver behind me until he jumped out to push the silvertip away, ruining an otherwise excellent photo.

I have mixed feelings abour shark feeding dives. I would really rather see sharks in the wild and not under artificial circumstances. But this is quite difficult as sharks are becoming increasingly rare, with some species endangered and facing extinction. Plus, most sharks avoid people, so it would be hard to see them up close even if they were in the area. So sometimes a reputable shark dive is the only way to see them. I'm just happy to have had the experience.

More photos: Beqa Lagoon, Fiji on Flickr.

4 October 09
My biggest news of late was our trip to the South Pacific in August and September. It resulted in some of the most unique and incredible experiences of my life.

We took off from SFO one Tuesday afternoon, transferred planes at LAX, and headed southwest, over the equator and across the International Dateline. Thursday morning, after a 12-13 hour flight, we arrived in Nuku'alofa, the capitol city of the Kingdom of Tonga, on the island of Tongatapu. Although Nuku'alofa was not our final destination, we stayed there for about 24 hours which gave us a chance to see a little bit of the area.

The following morning our real adventure started as we boarded the 120-foot sailboat Nai'a for an overnight voyage north to the Ha'apai island group in central Tonga, where we would be swimming with humpback whales. This particular population winters in Tonga, where they mate and calve, then returns to Antarctica's Southern Ocean* to feed during the summer. My journal from our first full day on the water reads in part:

"Lunch was cut short when we saw whales off the stern. Spent the next three hours on the pangas. There were at least three separate groups of whales with 2-4 in each group. Got in the water with them a couple of times. Saw as many as three whales together underwater. Heard some whale song!"

Most of the following nine days were like that--wake up with the sun, eat breakfast, see whale activity all around us, and swim with the whales. I've lost track of the number of breaches I've seen (some individuals would breach 12 or 20 times in a row!), and even the number of whales I've swum with! It's hard to say how many humpbacks there were in that area, there may have been 20 or there may have been 100, it was impossible to tell.

Day Four was our most spectacular day, starting with a sighting of a mother and newborn calf. Although we jumped in the water with them, moms are very protective and she and her baby quickly moved away. We saw another mom and calf with two escorts, but did not get in the water with them. Then we came across two adults who did not leave when our small skiff approached. We slipped in the water and proceeded to spend almost two hours with them! Time went so quickly as we watched them "dance" with one another--slow, fluid movements of the body, fins, and tail. I never would have thought a 40-45 foot behemoth could be so extremely graceful. Together, the whales were like two ballet dancers twisting around one another and moving their pectoral fins about as if they were arms. And incredibly, each whale was always aware of where all parts of their body were, and never accidentally bumped against the another. The Nai'a crew said in all their years of coming to Tonga, this was the most incredible whale encounter they had seen.

Words cannot describe the experience I had with the humpbacks during this ten-day trip. Magical, phenomenal, spectacular, and other superlatives begin to cover it, but how do I relay the feeling I got when a 40 ton animal swam by me, turned on her side, and looked me in the eye?

I've been whale watching before and have seen greys and humpbacks as they come to the surface and breathe. But now that I've been a guest in their underwater world and I've seen just how much goes on below the surface, I fear I've been forever spoiled and will no longer be satisfied merely seeing the whales from the boat!

More photos: The Kingdom of the Whales on Flickr.

*It is sad and depressing to have to mention this, but Japan still conducts annual whaling trips to the Southern Ocean under the guise of "research." They kill approximately 1000 whales each year, in violation of the terms set by the International Whaling Commission. Most of the whales they kill are minkes, however, they do take some endangered humpbacks illegally. It is very possible the very whales we have swum with may end up for sale in the markets of Japan. Please speak out against whaling, and against Japan's questionable whaling practices in general. Supporting the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is another way to directly prevent the killing of whales.

3 October 09
The hardest part about writing a journal entry after not having written for ages is: where to start? My life continues to be busy. I have several different jobs and responsibilities between The Marine Mammal Center and the California Academy of Sciences. I work not only on-site for those organizations, but with TMMC I find myself doing more and more work at home. This is causing me to adjust my work style because I have gotten quite used to using my computer at home as a way to pass the time, meaning I am no longer used to sitting at my desk and getting work *done*. I am just so easily distracted when in the vicinity of an Internet connection.

I am glad to see friends continuing to post on LJ and I enjoy reading their updates. I don't want to abandon this forum either. I've got so many things I want to write about--work, travel, photography, marine mammal strandings, etc. but I can't do it all in one post. For now just know that life is good, even if this entry is brief.