Visit the kelpforest....

Sent by a coworker - these are a bunch of spear fishermen who happened across a swordfish off Monterey, right in the kelp! i.e. 40' of water.

Swordfish are normally found in open, very deep water. It'd be pretty crazy to see one while you're snorkeling.

You might want to turn speakers down - I haven't actually listened but I guess there's some cussin'. The fish shows up at the very end.

Hope everyone had a Happy 4th (here in the States, that is). Pretty par for the course here. Parade, fireworks. We thought about going to Anime Expo on Sunday, but at least one fry decided they didn't want to go, runsamuck pouted about possibly staying home from his friend Jerry's (they have a standing Sunday video game playdate), and most importantly, I neglected to buy tickets ahead of time, not to mention Angus is no longer in the child ticket range, and definitely won't pass for twelve anymore (I think he's as tall as me now, and starting to get acne and a peach fuzz mustache. Pretty sure he's outgrown the Sesshomaru costume I made for him few years ago). It would have been $170 at the door just to get in for one day, which I really can't justify right now. Maybe a smaller convention later, if we can find one nearby. Angus likes to remind me, "I kept telling you!" Yes, dear...

Also, on Saturday up there, there was a bomb scare, but people seem to be less freaked out by hordes of costumed fans descending on downtown Los Angeles. Although I find it a little odd that these articles were all in the OC Register, and I didn't come across any from the LA Times. Oh well.

( Aquarium... )



( 7/4/2011 )

Good grief, June is almost over. How did it fly by so fast?

The second week of June I had to go to a PFMC meeting in Spokane, WA. If you're wondering why a body having to do with mostly ocean-going fishing meets occasionally on the eastern side of Washington (and sometimes in Idaho), the answer is "salmon." Which I have nothing to do with, but salmon drags everything after it. My flight had a transfer in Seattle and I had a 2½ hour layover between planes. tikistitch was kind enough to come down and meet me at the airport and chat between planes; we got some dinner and I hope I didn't babble at her too much - I really didn't expect that glass of wine to be so big, especially at an airport, and it turns out I'm really a lightweight lately. I brought her a little Stitch something from Downtown Disney she'd mentioned she couldn't find, just in gratitude for all the fun I've had reading her Mythklok stories. Really great to meet you, Pam, and thanks for putting up with me!

( Boring fisheries shtufs... )

( Geocaching, whee... )

Now I'm amused. Half-heartedly hoping Google will find me some images of vintage early 1900's swordfish harpoon boats for the big boss's presentation so I don't have to dig through dusty filing cabinets or do a lot of scanning. I'm getting the odd picture of Spike Spiegel and Jet Black from Cowboy Bebop - probably because of Spike's craft, the Swordfish. Coincidentally, the Bebop of the title itself is supposed to be a converted spacegoing fishing boat, which, working with commercial fisheries like I do, I always thought was intriguing - just how did that work?



phbbbt. I crack myself up. Probably not anyone else tho'.

Also, MARLIN ARE NOT SWORDFISH! STOP LABELING THEM AS SUCH! They're in different families, jeez!

And whale harpoons. Do not want.

Looking for depictions of Native Americans swordfishing for a presentation for work and came upon this story, which is based on the Chumash legend, namely that the swordfish speared whales and threw them on the beach, thus providing people with food.

Swordfish Story

Swordfish seem to be a bit cruel, but then so do a lot of large predators.

Speaking of predators, I see there's a new Pirates of the Caribbean movie coming out - the mouse people just sent me an email alerting me to the fact, but a day or too ago while looking for something else, I stumbled across a year-old blog entry saying that it may or may not be based on one of my favorite Tim Powers books, On Stranger Tides - which is also the subtitle of the movie. Apparently he sold the movie rights to the book to Disney back in the 80's. While this is one of their franchises I've been pretty pleased with, I hope they've adapted the story adequately. While it has none of the same characters, I can see a lot of parallels between them.

Also, I know getting up and walking away too fast can give you a head rush. I just wish it would occur a little closer to my office chair rather than when I'm halfway down the hall to the bathroom...

runsamuck decided to spend part of our tax refund for a new laptop (a fairly cheap one), and until I get the other one fixed, I was putting some programs I use fairly regularly on it. One was Apophysis which I haven't actually used since version 2.something, and it's now up to 7x. I was noodling around with it - I still need to go through some tutorials I've found - but I was surprised to find this rather spiny blue shark hiding within one of the original diffuse, cloud-like flames. Came up on the first mutation click and I liked the original color so I didn't change it. Also saved it with a transparent background so I can use it in something else, maybe.


Blue Shark Flame... by *senoritafish on deviantART

Sackboy visiting the Aquarium, and was trying to tell species of rockfish from one another (there are about 50 different species on the West Coast). In this pic are, a boccacio (brown), about three black & yellow rockfish, and a couple of canary rockfish (orange stripy), possibly some blue rockfish in the background. Also a strawberry anemone and a couple of sun stars.

Aquarium of the Pacific
Long Beach CA
Canon EOS 1000D
27 June 2010

( moar )

My work made me start carrying a work-issued cell phone (so I have to carry around two now :p ). It does have a slightly nicer camera than my own, and I pulled in out while collecting fish receipts. This is the wall outside the door to the reception area of one of the fish receivers we sample from. Left to right, an opah, Pacific pomfret, louvar, and the bill of a small swordfish on the right.

Fish Company
San Pedro CA
LG VX8350 phone camera
20 April 2010

( 90° to the left... )

28. wall ☺
29. ice ☺

Trip to AOP today; this was a new resident I had not seen before. This is a ribbon seadragon.

Ribbon seadragon
Aquarium of the Pacific
Long Beach CA
Canon EOS 1000D
12 July 2009