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Month: December, 2006

Tong’s

31 December, 2006 (18:30) | Aquarium, Photography | 3 comments

Yesterday I took Jess up to LA to see Pan’s Labyrinth. On the way up we stopped at Tong’s which is renowned for it’s display tanks. Since we had the camera I snapped a few photos. I’d like to take all the credit for these, but Tong’s makes it reeeeally easy to take pretty pictures. The tanks are just astounding in person and taking photos is pretty easy.

Dive #60: Lake La Jolla

31 December, 2006 (17:44) | Dive Reports | No comments

Date & Time	2006-12-31 @ 1:30 PM
Visibility	5 - 20 ft.
Max. Depth	88 ft.
Min. Temp	60° F
Bottom Time	32 min.
Air Info	Missed it

Since Santa must like me we went out to the shores to take the housing down. Since this housing is untested (by us anyway) we took it down with a 2 lb weight wrapped in a towel. If the housing leaked, the camera would be OK.

So we got our stuff together and headed out to La Jolla around noon. There was parking, and it wasn’t very crowded. I love diving in December.

After gearing up we headed into some MONSTROUS 5 inch surf. On the long walk out we saw a leopard shark that was about four feet long swimming by. Awesome, good omen. I wish the camera was actually in the housing.

We swam out for a while with no current and no swell pushing us back. Dropped in to about 18′ of water and headed for the canyon. There’s been a lot of talk on the Divebums email list about an avalanche or other large disruptive event in the area. It’s awesome. There’s clay debris everywhere. The clay feels exactly like the stuff I used in my ceramics class at UCSD. It looks exactly like rock, too. That’s probably why some people thought there were 10 - 15′ rock walls. Still, after all that must have happened there was virtually no life out. We saw some very juvenile señoritas, some catalina gobies, and a few other miscellaneous fish. Exploring all the carnage is very fun.

In the wreckage I found a big snail shell (which we took) and a D cell battery (which we also took).

I managed to get down to 88 feet. I think the housing made it down around 90 with the hand-strap and such.

On the swim back in, around 8 - 10 ft of water we came across a decent amount of life. I got to see a baby bat ray with a wingspan of about 9 - 10 inches. I also poked a few shovel nose guitarfish that were hiding in the sand.

Then we came across it. An enormous school of sardines making their way south. There were hundreds. They were eating. It was amazing. I swam in a little bit more until my computer decided my dive was over when I was in about 4 feet of water.

So, our last dive of the year was a pretty good one. I’ll be taking the camera down from now on and will post any decent pictures we manage to take.

TANK OF DOOM v3

27 December, 2006 (23:37) | Aquarium, Photography | No comments

Jess decided to get uppity with me and bash me over the head until I went into the garage and took photos. Below are the results. We tried to get a photo of each fish but that’s really hard. Once we’ve accumulated a complete collection I’ll put up a composite.

… and finally, Jess wouldn’t let me out of the cold until she had a few full-tank shots to show off with.

High resolution

Santa Must Like Me!

26 December, 2006 (11:50) | Diving, Photography | No comments

… because she brought me <Rod Roddy Voice>AN UNDERWATER CAMERA!</Rod Roddy>

The camera itself is pretty small and very nice. An Olympus 8080, it’s highly desired amongst (San Diego, at least) underwater photographers for it’s amazing macro functionality. Testing this thing out was a blast, you can put the front element of the lens on something and it’ll focus if there’s enough light!

The housing on the other hand, is immense. Rated to 40m (130 ft. the recreational diving limit) it has to put up with a lot of pressure and not leak. The camera sits on a sled which is inserted into the housing on rails. Everything stays nice and stable like that.

You put a little packet of silica (several included) between the bottom of the sled and the housing to prevent fogging. Very nice. There are then two latches that seal the housing shut. Two o-rings go all the way around to provide a nice seal. All of the controls work very well and are easy to press. There’s a trade-off with these controls; they should be easy to press, but shouldn’t be activated by the ambient water pressure at depth. This looks like it’ll work.

Hopefully this coming weekend the surf will be down enough that we can take the housing down with a lead weight, to see if it leaks. We’ll do that a few times before we trust it with the camera. After that, I can’t wait to get some photos. I think there are one or two people reading this blog that don’t believe I actually go diving. Now I’ll have proof!

Here’s some more photos of the camera/housing set up.

Here’s a few photos taken with the Olympus. The first two are outside the housing and the last is within. I think I got better focus on the last one because I could set the massive housing on something to hold it steady!

Its Christmas Time

15 December, 2006 (08:44) | General | No comments

… and that appears to be bringing out the worst in people.

About an hour ago, just before Jess and I headed out to work there was a knock on the door. A woman told me that she’d seen a package with some car visors in it and our address on it a few blocks away. As she took me to it she mentioned that she thought somebody had been “relocating” items. She also mentioned that a friend of hers had ordered some side mirrors and had them stolen, to the tune of ~ $300.

As I approached the package I saw it had been opened and the visors were sitting on top. It was in some ice plant with the label facing down. Picking it up I could see both visors were still there. Jess bought these from eBay a week or so ago. I noticed the seller had written the address on the box, and UPS had the address printed on the label. We’ll check the tracking information later to see where and when it was delivered.

This incident leads me to understand just how hard Christmas can be on some people. You look around your neighborhood and see packages being delivered every day. You expect some will be presents, some will even be valuable and so you decide to take them. Luckily the package of ours they took had something with relatively little value. At the same time we have items being delivered next week that will have much higher monetary and sentimental value.

Jess is going to talk with the post office and UPS today. In the future we’re going to have packages shipped to our respective offices. I’ll probably call the cops later today or tomorrow and file a report. Part of me wants to plant a decoy and hide in the bushes with a baseball bat. The bleeding-heart side of me feels bad that people will stoop to that level.

It’s sad all around and I don’t like it.

Review: The Fountain

10 December, 2006 (23:10) | Pretentious Criticism | No comments

Thefountain L200607211427 The Fountain: awful, horrible, lame, “I want my two hours back!” Seriously. Apocalypto might be more fun. There’s ancient peoples in that one too. Plus, I hear a cougar eats a guys face off.

Also, if you go into this one like we did, expecting a terrible plot but a pretty movie, I have further bad news; you saw all the pretty parts in the trailer. Yup. All of them. Sorry.

To be fair, I’m totally willing to concede that I’m not sophisticated enough to fully appreciate The Fountain. I did like Jackass and Borat, after all.

December 2006
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Month: December, 2006

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