Visit the kelpforest....

Drat. I'm beginning to think I'm destined to never see Neil Finn/Crowded House ever again. Don't think I have since VT and I saw him during one of his solo tours at Downtown Disney (which seems like a weird place to see him in hindsight). They're at Club Nokia which is right across from the Convention Center where we went to AX last month, so we could easily do the train thing again. However, Avalon's birthday is on Saturday, and we were saving $ for that, and even though we got full paychecks this month (for the first time in about 18 mos.), it went for other things we behind on; I didn't buy tickets when I had the money available. Oh well. I'm not sure I could handle that horrendous pornstache Neil's grown recently in person anyway; I might get arrested for assaulting his upper lip with a Schick Quattro or at least trying to convince him to grow out something else around it. Don't get me wrong, I usually like male facial hair - runsamuck's had full beards since becoming a stay-at-home dad - but that thing is awful. Well, maybe I'll splurge on the CD when I pick up Big Time Rush for Avalon, as she gets suckered in by any new Nick show.

This Saturday, on her birthday, this is going on right next to the Aquarium. The last time I heard of this in CA it was up in the Bay Area and it looks like a lot of fun. It reminds of when I was a student at Queensland University in 1988, and there was "Birdman of the Brisbane River" Competition. I have no idea where my pictures of this are now, but I found someone's photo set from a year before which brings back a lot of memories. There was someone jumping of a platform on a bicycle with wings attached, another guy with boxes attached to his arms, decorated with silvery "tentacles" - he was a "box jellyfish" - and the engineering students at some school had made a giant orange papier-mache' crab, claws, legs, eyes, and all, that they had all the spectators sign (in the picture set I see a chicken with what looks like signatures all over it, wonder if it's by the same people?). It was about 20' across, and by the time the students had carried it up to the top of the platform, all the legs had fallen off, but they threw it in the river anyway. Heh. I notice the FM 104 signs on the pictures - I still have a mug with the" 'Rockin' Roo"' on it from that radio station sitting on my desk here at work. Someone broke it, but glued it back together for me when I was back in New Hampshire (boy, it's traveled a lot!), and it holds all my writing implements (a few of which are dried up and need to be chucked), a couple of pairs of scissors and a swizzle stick with a fish on it now.

So we might go to that. Break out the sunscreen.

ETA: Brisbane was the first place I saw Crowded House, come to think of it. They played at the Expo, which I bought a season pass to. Saw a lot of good music with that pass - I got pretty spoiled.

ETA2: Just realized they are playing next week at McMenamin's Edgefield in Portland, where we went for dinner during the Council meeting back in April! Damn, that would be a great place to go see them. ;_ ;

To tell the truth, I copied down the mylife_onceaday scavenger hunt list at the beginning of the month, but have suffered travel, stress, Flickr account expiring, lack of computer access (read one computer and 4-5 people wanting to use it) and lack of motivation to keep track of it. Hell with it, let's just say I'm a lazy ass. Given that I did take pics without the list in mind I thought I'd at least go through my April photos and see if any matched up with the prompts.

Angus and I went for a walk downtown; given that I've lived here since being younger than he is, there are a LOT of childhood memories here. The tree above, more horizontal than vertical, is one of several like it I used to climb regularly when my Girl Scout troop had day camp (called Camp Puk-Wudgie) for a week each summer. We'd spend Thursday night in a tent in the park - one time we were kept awake all night by a screech owl in a nearby palm tree.

Ostensibly we were looking for a geocache in the tree, but there were so many people with dogs around we gave up.

Farquar Park
Huntington Beach CA
Canon EOS 1000D
2 April 2009

( other memories, I can't decide... )

14. childhood memory ☺
30. hands ☺
6. damage ☺

Forty years ago? I was six, we had only shortly before moved into this house in this neighborhood. I was going to start second grade at a new school in a couple of months - strangely enough, at the ones my kids attend now.

My parents called us into the knotty-pine paneled den, and we sat on the hard floor, gathered aroung a 12-inch black and white TV. I think there were still boxes around us, we hadn't finished moving in. Grainy, high contrast images. Men putting up a flag, hopping like kangaroos, sipping lunch out of tubes. I was rapt and couldn't look away; I don't remember if my brothers were, being not quite five. Dad worked for one of the companies that helped put those men up there, and we quite understood that this was history. I think one of our parents said this would be something to tell our kids or grandkids about, I don't remember who. Later, we went outside the back door and looked up in the sky, wondering if we could catch a glimpse of the men that were up there; no, said my dad, they'd be way too tiny for us to see.

Maybe this is part of what later fueled my love of science fiction and the idea of other worlds. That certainly hasn't left me. I thought by now the world would be much farther along.

One of Avalon's friends had a skating birthday party Saturday, and the parents were kind enough to invite Angus and Gareth too. I went with, and since none of them had been skating before, I rented my own pair of skates too. It's been roughly 20 years since I've been skating, but the last time was at this same rink in Fountain Valley. Beth, Doug and I (and others) used to go every couple of weeks or so, although it sort of slowed down a bit after Doug and Beth collided on a turnand he landed on her ankle and nearly broke it. I don't think she'd even be able to now, the way her neck is.

Note for next time - the kid's skates run small. I asked for their shoes sizes and and all of them had their toes jamming up against the ends, needing the next bigger size. I tried to demonstrate on the carpet how to keep your front foot going straight and pushing off with your back foot, but really, it's something you have to do to figure out how to do it. Angus and I did a lap first; he wanted to cling bodily onto my arm, and his feet were going all over the place (imagine one of those cartoons where the character's arms or legs have speeded up into fans). We got around once and I needed to rest a bit before the next one. Whew! Avalon was easier to pull around, and Gareth seemed to be ok too, although were pretty wobbly. Angus kept going around next to the wall by himself; good for him! Seems like he's getting better at doing stuff by himself, and not freaking out so much when he can't see me.

Then the PA called the birthday girl's name, and pizza, cupcakes and ice cream were served in the snack bar, then everyone was off and skating again. Angus and Avalon gamely tried to do the Hokey-Pokey, making wobbly circles, but not doing much about the body parts, which was fine. Soon after that, the two youngest crashed and burned - Avalon on her butt a couple of times, and then Gareth fell down forward and did a face plant (well, he bumped his nose, anyway). They were done, and swore they would skate no more forever. Angus could have kept going, but they were all getting pretty tired and thirsty, and trying to get a drink of water from the fountain was an exercise in contortion. For some reason the damn thing was mounted about two feet from the floor and with skates on I think I was at least six feet tall. We'll have to be sure to bring a bottle of water if we come again.

Anyway, I'd forgotten how fun it was. Only thing is I thought I at least got a few pics of feet in skates, but all I have is the fry stuffing their faces with pizza. ;p

(To the tune of My Grandfather's Clock - words by Garrison Kiellor)

My grandmother's cat was too big for the shelf
So he slept every night in a bed
He was almost as big as Grandma herself
'Cause three times a day he was fed
He was fed tuna scraps as he lay in Grandma's lap
On his back with a big napkin tied
He ate as much as he could hold
'Til he got too wide.

( Goldie, and my grandmother, and us... )

... or so a few old friends who found me on Facebook asked? I shall attempt to summarize...

(I wrote this up, yeesh, back in November, and then was too lazy or shy to actually post it...I've been reminded that I did, though...posted here at LJ because it'll show up there, or at least it's supposed to...)

( You may skip if you already know - the last eight or so are right here... )

Dream:

We were all in the park at the end of my street, flying kites, late in the afternoon (note:in real life, this park is not all that great a place to fly kites; there are too many trees, and a couple of buildings for them to get stuck on the roof of). I think even my dad had come. Instead of flying them from west to east, the normal wind dirction, we were flying them from north to south, so we were actually standing in the street and the kites were in the air in front of the scout cabin. Our kite was pretty small and plain. Another man showed up and began setting up a series of figures in a semicircle on the grass in front of the scout cabin. The may have been cartoon characters or political figures or flowers, I don't remember, but we wondered why he was taking such care with how they were arranged. Then he came back to where we were standing and began sending a black kite up in the air. By this time, it was after sunset and it was getting fairly dark, so the rest of us were working on reeling our kites in. Once we had gotten them down and put away, we heard a BANG BANG BANG, and look up to see the man had set off series of fireworks along the string of his kite. They traveled up the string, and when the sparks reached the kite, it burst into a fan-shaped fountain, which burned for a few seconds. This of course burned up the kite as well, and it turned over and nosedived to the ground, crashing right in front of the figures set up on the ground in a shower of sparks. This set off lines of incendiary to each of the figures, of which the outlines flashed into flame from top to bottom. Wow. We all stood and clapped, as he smiled quietly and began to pick up all the remnants of his display.

This may have been triggered by commercials for Making Fiends running on Nickelodeon lately. where evil Vendetta brings a kite to fly alongside her would-be friend Charlotte's kite.

Charlotte: "Oh, you have a kite too Vendetta?
Vendetta: "Oh yes, it's a very special kite!

And then her black kite sprouts tentacles and teeth, growls, and grabs Charlotte's kite and eats it.

(I actually started watching these as web videos a couple of years ago before Nick started airing the series)

I was thinking about this dream when first got up (actually I was ( TMI! )), and it segued in my head to the the little kite I'd gotten once as a prize on the bottom of a Slurpee cup, and how free prizes in kids products used to be so much better than they are now. Cracker Jacks (a brand of carmel popcorn snack) used to have actual toys in them; I remember when I was about five, getting a tiny plastic elephant (assembly required) that had some kind of rider (a monkey or a mahout, I don't remember) that fit into a slot on its back. You pushed down the elephants tail, or maybe its trunk, and the rider went flying off somewhere (and you were lucky if you ever found it again). Nowadays, you get a sticker or a temporary tattoo. My father used to save Planters Peanut wrappers for me because you could send away for free stuff with them. I think I still have a Mr. Peanut bank out in the garage somewhere. Nothing on the backs of their wrappers now. I notice the Dums-Dums suckers my kids got in their Halloween candy have a "save wrappers for stuff" thing, but you order from a website and the wrappers only get you a discount.

An exception lately was the alarm clock from a box of Poptarts, which you needed to have several coupons from a box to able to purchase. It has pictures of a the little dinosaur from the commercial on the hands, and when the alarm goes off, it says:

"Get up. One of us has to get up, and it ain't gonna be me. Get up or I tell all your friends you wear jammies!"

It also runs backwards, so it takes a bit of squinting to tell what time it actually is.

I should make a pattern for that kite. It always amazed me that it actually flew. What do you remember getting out of a box or sending away for when you were a kid?

... or so a few old friends who found me on Facebook asked? I shall attempt to summarize...

(I wrote this up, yeesh, back in November, and then was too lazy or shy to actually post it...I've been reminded that I did, though...)

Graduated from Humboldt State University in June of '87, but actually finished classes in December '86. In between, I worked two stints as a foreign fisheries observer (this was when the US still allowed foreign vessels to fish in our waters), first for a month on a Japanese Longline vessel fishing for cod in the Bering Sea, then for two months on a Polish factory trawler fishing for hake (whiting) off Oregon and Washington. Following that (and working temp jobs in between), I applied to grad school at CSULB, was accepted and spent my first year studying marine biology at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia as an exchange student. That was wonderful and I have always, always, wanted to go back.

When I returned to the States, I visited the CSULB campus fully intending to continue grad school (as I'd always been told I'd never get a job in marine biology without a graduate degree). However, that day they were having a job fair on campus and I began talking with a guy who worked for the California Dept.of Fish & Game, who needed a scientific aide. I had bills to pay, so I filled out an application and got the job. Scientific aide jobs are temporary, and only supposed to last for nine months; however, they found other stuff for me to do during the three months I was supposed to be off. I did that for about three years, then took a short break for about 8 months and worked again as a fisheries observer, only this time in New England on much smaller gill net boats. I lived on my own in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, living for the first time somewhere it snowed in the winter and also experienced my first hurricane (both were fairly mild, although it was a bit nerve wracking being out at sea in a small boat, the nets clogged with dogfish, about 12 hours before the storm made landfall-I finally gave up on the sampling I was supposed to be doing and helped them pull dogfish out of the net - that fishery is not doing too well nowadays).

I visited home over the holidays that year, and at the same time, interviewed for a permanent position with the Department. They hired me and I've pretty much been here ever since. I've spent most of my time on a project monitoring commercial fisheries for what's called Coastal Pelagic Species - that is, small schooling species like sardines, mackerel and squid, that are caught by purse seine vessels. Our main focus is collecting biological data about them for use in biomass assessments, i.e. how much fish is actually out there, so we can tell the fishermen how much of it they can catch without overfishing and leaving enough for the other wildlife that needs it. I also ran a shark tagging program for awhile; however, the powers that be cut funding for it about eight years ago. About a year ago, I got a promotion and now I serve on a interagency team with other West Coast federal and state biologists managing the fisheries of Highly Migratory Species - those are the big fish like tuna, swordfish and sharks. I don't get to actually see the critters I work with much anymore, but I get to contribute to their still being around for future generations. I did get to go out on a two week federal shark tagging cruise last year, which was wonderful.

On the personal side, after putting him off for a very long time (he was very persistant), I wound up marrying the chef who worked next door in the UC Chancellor's Office (you can read more about that here, if you want). We've been together for 13 years now. My mom passed away in 1994, and following that, my father asked us to move in with him - he's never lived alone in his entire life. He's 83 now, so we're sort of his default caretakers - not that he needs much,he's in good shape. As a friend tells me, I'm the only person he knows who still has the same phone number she had in high school.

We have three kids - Angus, who's 10 and loves Ancient Egypt and drawing comic books; Gareth, who turned 9 on Halloween and is interested military history (Granpa got him into that - they like to watch the History Channel together) and an aspiring pilot; and Avalon, who turned 7 in August, is a very girly girl (unlike her mother), but nevertheless likes bugs, reptiles and gets dirty regularly. John decided to be a stay-at-home dad for them and does a lot of woodworking on the side as well. I can't believe so much time has gone by, that they've gotten so big, and I've gotten so gray - not that I mind, I sort of have racing stripes. I'm now closer to 50 than 40, but I still like alternative rock and science fiction, although I've gotten into anime a lot lately, and I'm as weird as I always was.

And what have you been doing for the last 20 years?

Snack - when I was a kid, my dad got a package of these out of the machine every afternoon. He'd save all the wrappers and bring them home for me because they all had offers on the back. You could send away for free stuff for postage and certain number of wrappers. I had a stack of them about three inches tall before I finally sent away for a plastic Mr. Peanut bank. Now, they're three times as much and no free stuff anymore. Sigh.

Work
Los Alamitos, CA
Sharp VE-CG30
14 August 2008