Just a quick entry from a long meeting - Jen Yu had this link on her blog, and I’m pretty sure I’ll see it posted on more than a few office doors before the end of the day. It’s been a while since an Onion article made me laugh this much:

Theory of Intelligent Falling

Jeff’s pics from another dive that I didn’t get to go on (this time because I was coming down with a cold, which has turned out to be relatively mild but is still annoying):

http://gallery.thelaitys.com/uw-20050820_yukon

This one’s my fave:

It’s been a hustle-bustle sort of month, and I’m afraid I’ve let my blogging fall far, far by the wayside. Unfortunately, the longer I put it off, the more I have to write - and then the more reason I have to put it off, because I keep waiting until I have time to sit down and write properly.

So, in an effort to just catch the heck up with myself and be able to go on blogging at a normal rate, here’s my last few weeks in short:

• Nice dives in Hawaii after my work meeting - read all about them here. No video yet, but I might put something short together one of these days.
• Work. Work work work work work. It’s been nutty, and likely to remain so at least until this Big Deal Thingy we have coming up in October, when various folks decide if our project is “ready” for operations. Upside: I like having lots to do at work. Downside: most of what I have to do right now to prepare for the Thingy is fairly dull. I try to pepper my days with a few minutes of the more fun stuff, and remind myself that this job lets me go to Hawaii several times a year.
• To steal a phrase from Jen, I’ve resurrected the ARP with a vengeance. (ARP = Ass Reduction Plan) It’s been going moderately well. I’m not losing tons of weight, but I am losing steadily, and in fact have now reached my lowest weight since shortly after marriage. Mostly, I’ve just ramped up my workouts, as well as including a lot of weightlifting, which is new for me. This has all been further complicated by the above bullet re: lots of work - to get in 1.5-2.5 hours of gym time every day without slacking off in the work department, I’ve become a morning person. Now, don’t misread me; I’m not going to the gym first thing in the morning. That would be insane. But I do have a lovely workplace that is located right next to the campus gym, and a lovely boss who doesn’t mind my taking 1.5-2.5 hours off in the middle of the day as long as that time is made up for at the beginning and/or end of the day. Fair ’nuff!
• On an only-slightly-related note, I’m considering password protecting this blog so I can keep tabs on who’s reading it (or - more to the point - assure myself of who is not reading it). Now’s your chance to weigh in with vehement Ayes or Nays.

That’s life in a nutshell. Hopefully we will soon return to your regularly scheduled blog updates.

Alas, I had neither Jeff’s camera nor Jeff’s photographic skills on my last trip to Hawaii, and so this is the best I can do:

It’s hard to tell since the fish swimming with the shark are also enormous, but that’s a 14′ long tiger shark. (And pretty darned wide, too!)

Here’s another one; sharkie taking a gulp of something near the bottom of the ocean:

She was not a small shark. She didn’t get closer than about 25 feet (if that), which is another reason I got such lousy shots. In the short time she was remotely within video distance, the autofocus on my camera had a hard time getting a lock on her not-too-contrasty figure. Hopefully it’ll look marginally cooler edited into video and shown on a TV screen (where the low resolution isn’t as obvious). Maybe next time I see a shark the size of Jaws, Jeff will be there to get a real photo and really scare the pants off our moms.

I’ve updated the version of Wordpress I’m using for this blog - please let me know if you have any problems reading anything, or if stuff looks out of whack. Thanks!

Why do we dive California? Here’s my fave from Jeff’s Saturday photos:

I was in Hawaii at the time. I love getting the chance to dive someplace warm with amazing visibility - but I’m constantly having to tell people that yes, California has diving, and yes, it’s really beautiful here. We’ve had at least as many memorable critter encounters here as in the tropics.

While Jeff was playing with this cutie, I was trying to get footage of a 14′ tiger shark at 100 fsw outside Honokohau Harbor. Though it was a cool experience for the 30 seconds it took her to cruise by, I think I would have had more fun goofing off with seals for half a dive!