These are photos taken with dives in November. Some are at La Jolla Shores, and some are from the boat's maiden voyage out to sea, where we did a dive at Train Wheels, finally finishing the voayge we started in May when the old boat decided to fall apart.
Shauna, Chris, Moses, Mosus Jr. and I joined in on the Dive Animals trip to Two Harbors. It was a great trip. We did 5 dives, 2 night at shore dives at the point, one during the day, and boat dives to Ship and Bird Rocks. The current on Ship Rock was REALLY strong, so that took away from what we were hoping it would be, but we had a good time anyway. Lots of cool sightings on those night dives and at Bird Rock!
These are some photos taken while diving or surrounding dives in Oct. They were taken at all random times of the day, and mostly on dives at La Jolla Shores.
Tony organized a trip to the P-38 on the Marissa. Turns out there were just a handful of us - Chris, Roee, Dan, Megan, Tony and myself. We enjoyed a great day out - dolphins on the way to the wreck, a nice dive on the wreck - first airplane wreck! Then we went to God's Rock and I finally got to dive it for real this time, unlike with that other dive op that tried to kill us the last time.
We had this trip planned for a couple months, so since Mom hadn't started treatment yet, we went anyway. Went to visit Ann and Jim and went to see the butterfly exhibit at Golden Gate Park. It was a nice, relaxing weekend away from all the madness at home.
Our summer trip to Catalina got pushed into the fall, but we still made it happen and had a great trip. We hit Santa Ana winds which created a lot of wind chop and some whitecaps in the park on Saturday and Sunday, but we still managed to get in 6 dives over the weekend. I think my underwater pics from this trip aren't that great, but some are posted anyway. I was using a new instance of the old camera since I destroyed the old one on the bike. Perhaps that was some of it because this one just didn't want to focus as readily as the old one...either that or I've forgotten how to take pictures, which is possible too. We celebrated Chris' birthday and discovered the accomodations were a lot easier than camping this time. Great trip all, let's do it again!
Rich organized a great tour where we took Amtrak to Santa Barbara and rode back. The customer service on Amtrak is just awful (as in the conductor on the train needs a lesson in how to talk to people), but other than that idiot we had a great time. We covered 76 miles to Malibu on day 1, about 66 miles to Newport Beach on day 2, and 65 miles back to Solana Beach on day 3. I never realized just how many miles of huge, wide beaches are up in the LA area. How do they fill all those over the summer?! We had to deal with some headwinds, some rain, some flat tires, but everyone had a great time and it was a big success. Thanks to Rich for organizing and to everyone for making it such a good trip!
We celebrated Bill's birthday with a dinner/bonfire at Mission Bay on Saturday, then a group of us rode from Oceanside to the San Clemente pier in training for the upcoming Santa Barbara to San Diego ride. This is the ride where I managed to hit a bump that dislodged my camera and sent it crashing into the ground at 35mph. So the last picture in this album is the last picture taken by that particular camera.
Roee, Chris, Shauna and I drove up and did a hike in Santa Barbara (Inspiration Point) and walked around on the pier before heading back to Ventura where we met up with Tony and Abi for a day trip to Anacapa Island on the Raptor. We did dives at Cathedral Cove, Outer Winfield Scott, and Landing Cove West. Vis was decent, we saw very aggressive sheephead, huge lobsters - I thought one was going to kill us when it shot itself around the cavern like a missle, bouncing off everything in sight, a friendly seal, some nudibranchs, lots of the other usual kelp critters...was a fun day in the water, good company, and of course, we had to finish the trip with the traditional stop at an ice cream shop.
Roee and I went out on the Marissa to the Hogan and Yukon. It was our first dive on the Hogan, and we had a great time. We found a couple wolf eels, saw some large fish and nudibranchs, and in general lots of life on the wreck. We spent our dive on the Yukon swimming through the wreck through the open compartments. Fun day out at sea!
Charlie, Catherine and I made a dive trip to the Florida Keys and we lucked out with our timing, just after Tropical Storm Fay and before Hurricane Gustav made noise out there. We met in Ft Lauderdale - I started off my trip with a short stopover in Vegas. We did 10 dives over 2 and a half days, some deep wrecks, some shallow reefs and some stuff in between. It was a good time, filled with adventure, like where we learned what bad fuel does to a diesel engine. We did the traditional stop at Cafe Cubano, and finished our trip with a night at Mallory Square in Key West. On the way back I stopped in New Orleans, which is where just a week later Gustav really made some news, and I saw some interesting weather over Arizona.
With all the problems we were having with the boat, we finally were able to buy a warranty replacement. It showed up in a box, and we were able to blow it up and swap it onto the trailer and take the old one off. Hopefully, we'll be ready to go again soon.
Suzanne and I went to check out the Marissa since we're bring the UCSD advanced classes over. They're a great op and we had a good time, met some fun people, and saw some nice dive sites. We went to Anchor Management, Lazy Days, and 7 Fathoms. It took 10 years and almost 650 dives, but I finally saw a mola mola! Some of the pictures are horrible, but I'm posting them anyway.
Kori came out to San Diego for a few days - we went to Coronado, the zoo, she learned to surf, went to the Gaslamp, and hiking at the park at Torrey Pines. Most of the pics are from the zoo since we didn't take too many elsewhere. It was a fun week!
Charlie and I went to USD's Torrero Stadium to watch the US women's national team play Brazil in the last international friendly before the Olympics in Beijing. It was a great, competitive game and the US won 1-0. Looking forward to seeing how they do in China!
Garnet, Roee, Dave, Shauna and I went to Monterey and had a great time. We managed to dive Whaler's Cove at Pt Lobos twice, North and South Monastery, and Butterfly House. I met up with my family who came down to the aquarium and we met for dinner, and then we went to the aquarium too. Logistics are pretty simple, lodging was a great value, and we made a nice budget trip out of it. Underwater life in many regards very similar to what we have here in San Diego, but we noticed the huge anenomes and lack of garibaldi, and large numbers of rockfish among many other cool things. A really enjoyable time...maybe the 1st annual? Time will tell.
Garnet and I bought and put together a house for the boat. It was pretty easy to put together and fit nicely by the house. Now we just need a functional boat to live in it...(soon enough we'll be out on the water again we hope)
I went up to pick up a tank I bought with Kevin up in OC so decided to go do a dive. We did an 89 minute dive at Montage, which had quite the walk to the entry and back to the car. It was a nice dive, with a big moray, rocky terrain, and some cool batrays. Afterward, I met with Dave and we went to Balboa, Balboa Island, the Newport Pier and the Wedge. A whole day in the sun, good company, and fun times. Now I have to get up there to do some more diving.
Rich organized a group of us to backpack to a campsite in the San Jacinto Wilderness. We picked probably the hottest weekend of the year so far, with it being about 90 degrees at the trailhead at ~6000ft, but we went up to about 9700 ft before coming down to 9100 ft to camp for the night. We had a great time and saw great views. We decided the peak was out of the way for what we wanted to do, so we skipped it this time around, but the views where we went were still spectacular and we were very happy with the route we picked.
These are the handful of pics I have from Marianna's birthday dinner in Gaslamp - happy birthday!
Chris and I went out to Tech Ed in Orlando. These are random pics of the hotel, the convention center, the AT&T developer party that I went to, Univeral Studios, and whatever else I felt like taking pictures of while I was there. They served so much food, and the fresh baked cookies between the afternoon sessions were awesome. Good trip, tiring as it was. I learned a lot - maybe someday I'll even use that knowledge?
No, I didn't run! But Bill and the band (Big Fellas) were playing at mile 7.8 so I went out there to watch the race, listen to music, cheer on people, and oh yeah, ran up parts of the 163 3 times...the part of the course I hated the most every time I actually ran it. Why did the band have to get stationed right there?! It was a fun morning though. Jodi and I even managed to run along parts of the course before the race.
Here are a bunch of random photos from dives in the Spring of 2008. They are from La Jolla Shores, Marine Room, Scripps Canyon, the Pt Loma Kelp Beds, etc.
Here's a collection of pics from dives so far in May. There are pics from Scripps Canyon, the North Wall of La Jolla Shores, Lobster Shack and Key Hole at the Coronados, the Yukon, Ruby E, the Main Wall at La Jolla Shores, and another dive at Scripps Canyon.
Roee and I flew up to Fullerton one weekend, then Torrance the next to see some new airports we hadn't been to. We didn't find too much special at Fullerton, though flying over Knott's Berry Farm was kind of cool. Torrance has a ton of stuff around it - no restaurant on the field, but lots nearby, along with a cool museum. They have an F-86 there. It was fun to check out the plane that my dad flew.
Garnet took Roee, Stacey and I on a tour of the Midway. We walked the majority of the ship and heard great stories from former pilots of planes on the Midway - it was fun!
Garnet, Ray and I went to watch the Warbirds in Action Airshow at Minter airfield in Shafter. It was really, really windy but they put on a great show. They managed to get off almost everything planned. We had a good time - the second time I've been up there, and hopefully will get back up there again next time too!
Chris, Shauna, Neal, Tolga and I joined the Dive Animals trip to Two Harbors for the weekend. It was a blazing hot weekend that set temperature records. We had a fantastic time, enjoying 4 dives into the still frigid waters. Shauna and I actually coordinated on our century dives which was kind of fun. We all enjoyed some hiking, watching the bison roam, roll over and scratch itself, and keep roaming. It was a great weekend to catch up with old friends and make new ones. Thanks to John Leek for organizing the trip!
Rich proposed this idea at Tour de Palm Springs in February, and we decided to go for it. A group of us gathered at Rich's place in Cardiff, and started a 2 day, 93 mile journey that took us along the coast to Oceanside, out east along a really nice river bike path which eventually ended the flat riding and the climbing began. We went out through Bonsall, and up and down into Valley Center. I finally learned where that bridge I always see from I-15 goes and how to get on it because we rode over it! We had a lot of great views as we went along, eventually reaching a bombs away 9% downhill for 3 miles at Cole Grade. That took us into Pauma Valley and to the Lazy H Motel, our stop for the night. We caught parts of the Final 4 NCAA tourney on TV and had a nice dinner before turning in for the night. Our Sunday return took us through Rincon and past a couple of the Indian gaming casinos. Then we rode past Lake Wohlford, where we had breakfast. We ended up coming down into Escondido and riding through town to Del Dios Highway and back into Rancho Santa Fe. We looked at million dollar homes, wondering if really rich people live there or if they are just in really bad debt. We eventually ended up near the coast where we climbed a whopper of a hill that took us to the final peak where we came back down to Rich's and ended a fun weekend bike tour. What did we say was next, 3 days from Santa Barbara to San Diego?! Thanks Rich for the planning and leading the way!
Shauna, Garnet and I went to Diver's Day at the Long Beach Aquarium. It was a good time and there was a lot to see. It's too bad not too many of the photos from inside the aquarium came out!
Roee, Stacey, Deana, Shauna and I went to Mammoth to ski for a long weekend. We had beautiful weather and good conditions. We enjoyed lunch at Eric Schat's in Bishop. Good stories, good times, lots of fun!
My sister, Bill, Jodi and I went up to San Francisco for the weekend. We stayed at Fisherman's Wharf, enjoyed seafood, went to dim sum with the family on Sat after a nice morning run along the waterfront. We walked up Lombard, then met up with Deana and friends Saturday evening. We wandered around Pier 39, then went to dinner and went out for St Patrick's day. Sunday we went to Alcatraz, Ghiradelli for dessert. It was a quick, fun weekend. We tried out Virgin America - neat interior, but they were late on the way up!
We had a dinner at my place to look at pictures and videos from our trip to Bonaire. It was fun to relive the trip. We also celebrated Shauna's birthday.
Roee and I flew out to Camarillo for the afternoon. We spent a lot of time in the clouds on the way there and back. We had a good lunch at the restaurant on the field, then got to check out a brand new little jet, a Japanese WWII Zero, among other warbirds based at the field.
I flew out to NYC for President's Day weekend. I got to see Times Square, the Empire State Building, rode the Staten Island Ferry by the Statue of Liberty, saw Ground Zero, the financial district, and Central Park among other things. Thanks Jenny, Sharon and Kevin for letting me stay with you guys and showing me the good places to eat! It was a great weekend, and it wasn't too cold!
Jodi and I drove out to Palm Springs and met up with Rich and Lindy, and then Juerg and Sudi. We enjoyed the 55 mile ride through the desert, looking for sandwiches and fig newtons at the aid stations. It was a beautiful day and a fun time.
It was pouring rain, but since people had reported lots and lots of squid, Shauna and I were crazy enough to go out anyway. I'd never seen so many squid before. We just found a spot in the middle of them and hung out for the entire dive in one place. It was fun.