I think I’m enjoying diving with other men a little too much.

Don’t get me wrong; I love diving with Jeff. We communicate well, I get to feel useful if I can help him get a great picture, and there’s nothing snugglier than a dive boat bunk after three freezing cold dives.

But I’ve done three or four shore dives with my dive club when Jeff’s been out of town, and I have to say that there are some serious advantages.

First, no camera. This may seem like more of a downside since it means I don’t get any beautiful pictures to remind me of the dive. But you don’t get a lot of beautiful pictures out of shore dives anyway. And if my buddy doesn’t have a big, fancy camera, he makes fewer stops (read: I stay warmer from moving) and has an extra hand free to help me get through the surf, about which I am a huge sissy.

Second, guilt-free bailing on dives. Although I always wind up doing just great on shore dives, I have a hard-wired, gut-wrenching fear of surf stemming from my first certification dive attempt, and I spend most of the drive to the dive site stressing out about what the conditions will be like. When I’m with Jeff, I have the additional stress of worrying that my deciding to bail at the last minute might ruin his day – he has, in the past, gotten just a wee bit grumpy about cancelled dives, especially after driving all the way to a dive site. (To his credit, he’s gotten better about this – the last time we had to cancel a dive, he didn’t mope at all.) When I’m with a big group of random Sole Searchers members, I worry a lot less about what my surf-sissy attitude will do to any potential dive buddies, and only have to worry about myself.

Kaz and gang seem relatively amused by my sissy attitude, since I then march right in everytime and do just fine. But unlike Jeff, they haven’t had to listen to me stress out about it verbally for the entire week leading up to the dive.

Last night, Lars, Kaz, Jimmy and I all drove down to Laguna together in Lars’s monstrous 4Runner. This thing holds four people and all of their dive gear comfortably – at least for a shore dive, when you don’t have to pack for several days on a boat. We met up with three other guys around 6:30pm as it was getting dark, and the mostly-flat ocean put my internal surf-sissy to rest.

Gearing up with Kaz

I triple’d up with Kaz and Jimmy, but all seven of us pretty much stayed together throughout most of the dive – a pretty amazing feat for a night dive, and a beach dive at that! The visibility was decent, probably better than most daytime dives I’ve done at Shaw’s Cove. We scared up an octopus, an enormous (and totally unafraid) lobster, lots of scorpionfish, and half a dozen small stingrays in the sand, plus a larger thornback ray and one bat ray that cruised right over Kaz’s head.

As night dives go, it hardly compares to diving in, say, Kona. But it’s still always pretty darned cool. There’s something incredibly peaceful and surreal about wading into the ocean at night, identifying your dive buddies by the types of lights they use, watching the bio-luminescence in the water stirred up by your fins.

(The part where you’re wading in is made a bit additionally surreal for me thanks to the fact that I have poor vision, so everything’s a bit blurry until I descend and my HydroOptix mask kicks in.)

At one point about three-quarters of the way through the dive, I was getting extremely cold and uncomfortable, and starting to wish we’d be done already. I started to stress about keeping an eye on Kaz and Jimmy, about not running low on air (those two are both air conserving machines), about whether the surf might have picked up between our entry and exit. And I realized how ridiculous it was to be down there stressing over essentially nothing, instead of appreciating the experience completely. Such a small fraction of the planet’s population ever gets to explore underwater like we do; an even smaller fraction gets to see it at night, or bothers with southern California diving. It’s such an incredible privilege to be down there, shining my light on the anemones that are opened up to feed at night, getting my face inches from a nearly-translucent stingray, seeing fish trying to sleep in their crevices.

Round Stingray, about 9″ across

Of course, it also helped relax me when we rose back above the thermocline and I wasn’t freezing anymore.

Post-dive, I started to miss having my usual dive buddy around. We all went to have dinner at Ruby’s, and it kind of felt like cheating. Here I was, having a great evening of diving, followed by cheeseburgers and milkshakes, while Jeff was probably at some sort of work-related function. (Or possibly eating at a delicious Italian restaurant and getting drunk at a fancy New York club. But hey, that’s still less fun than diving.)

When I made it home at 11pm, I really missed Jeff as I began to rinse out the dive gear. Of course, there’s only half as much to rinse, but it just feels like more work when only one of us is doing it.

Well, maybe Jeff can tag along on the next Sole Searcher’s beach dive.

The rest of Lars’s pics, if Jeff would like to see what he missed, are here: Shaw’s Cove 10/22/05.

9:00am, on the garden-ish pathway from the parking lot to IPAC, in light rain.

As I turned the corner onto the walkway that leads to my building, I discovered that it had been transformed into a river of mud. There was quite a lot of rain Sunday night, but the rain gutters on the road didn’t show any signs of being overworked, and I’d never seen quite this level of sludge on the path before even after harder downpours.

The drainage in IPAC’s backyard is a bit of a mystery, as we discovered last year when a sinkhole suddenly opened up between the walkway and the picnic area. It turned out that the track dumped all its drainage into a little “rock river” just behind IPAC, which in turn emptied into a pipe which we all assumed went to the main storm drains. Instead, the pipe dead-ended in the ground below the new sinkhole. Over the summer, they extended the pipe and repaired the sinkhole – again, we assumed the extended pipe now went to some form of storm drain.

My eyes followed the source of today’s sludge to a bit of PVC pipe poking out of the ground near the ex-sinkhole. I guess our walkway is the new storm drain.

1:30pm, looking out my office window.

Angela and I were suddenly struck by how incredibly dark it had become outside. All day long it had been gray and drizzly, or gray and pouring, but now it was dark – it looked more like evening than early afternoon.

Then we heard it: thunk… thunk thunk. Last week, a bunch of workers were repairing the IPAC roof, and stomping around in boots; this sounded a little bit like that, but much more random than footstpes. thunk thunkety thunk-thunk. We exchanged puzzled glances. “Hail?”

The thunks turned into a steady rattling, and now we could see ice bouncing off the street outside and ricocheting off the parked cars – including my own, parked just outside the building. I began to wish I’d parked in the new covered garage instead of just out front, but in the pouring rain at lunchtime the parking spot 20 feet from the front door was awfully appealing.

Half a dozen IPAC’ers careened down the hallway to the front of the building, and stood outside gawking and cursing at the marble-sized pellets slamming into cars. I thought about Anne’s VW Golf, which actually looked like the surface of a golf ball after it encountered some Texas hail. Luckily for me and my Honda, “marble-sized” was as big as it got.

It did put a few dents in poor Serge, though, one of my co-workers who bikes into the office in the early afternoon. From Glendale. At least he was wearing a helmet when the hail hit.

4:45, in the gym locker room.

I thought the gym would be packed on a rainy day, but it seemed like no one wanted to make the walk down here. The weight room and cardio machines were as deserted as I’d ever seen them on a Monday, and when I staggered back downstairs to shower and change, I was the only one in the locker room. While I rinsed the shampoo out of my hair, I could hear thunder in the distance, and thought about how incredibly dark it would be in the locker room if we lost power. I wondered if I could find my way over to my locker again by touch; wondered if I would want to grope the walls of the shower and locker room that much.

The lights were still on as I towelled off and pulled my clothes out of my locker to get dressed, and I was looking forward to drying my hair before going back to work. I pulled off my towel and wrapped it around my hair, and reached for my underwear, when

Talk about getting your pulse up! The only thing louder than a fire alarm? A fire alarm in an echoing, tile-filled locker room, when there’s no one else in there but you.

It was still pouring outside, making shorted wires much more likely than an actual fire. But there I was, stark naked and all alone, and suddenly it crossed my mind that I might have to decide between naked humiliation and burning alive. Even if I’d smelled smoke, I think I probably would have done what I did: yanked on my clothes as fast as I could, tossed my deoderant and comb in the bag, and dashed barefoot out into the lobby. I was still pulling my jeans up where they’d snagged on my hips to one side, and untwisting my bra straps, when I joined the entire population of the gym milling about to the loud honking of the alarm until it finally silenced a moment later.

I can’t wait for the next round of thunderstorms to hit this afternoon.

I arrived in Denver around sunset, just in time to miss the hourly bus to Boulder. This gave me an opportunity to catch up some reading, as well as to make some new friends among my fellow bus-travelers, which helped pass the time once we were actually on board and rolling westward.

By the time I reached the Boulder bus station, where Ben and Kathy met me, it was completely dark. I noticed lots of people bundling up in thick jackets, and started to worry that my pile of layer-able sweaters might not be enough. Surprisingly, it turned out to be a pretty warm evening; I didn’t even need one sweater for most of our walking-around, and was even feeling warm enough to have ice cream after dinner. Of course, I’d eat ice cream in the middle of a blizzard.

We drove up to Nederland in the dark, and stopped by Jen’s place for a short visit since Jen and Jeremy were heading out of town for the rest of the weekend. It’s too bad I didn’t get to see her place in daylight, but I was impressed enough in the dark! They’ve had a lot of fun decorating, and the house was beautiful to start with. And I finally met Jeremy! Next time, hopefully I’ll get to hang out with him for more than 30 minutes.

Then it was on to Casa Del Brantley, where I was equally impressed. Nederland has some seriously gorgeous houses, and they’re not exactly small, either. I drooled over the enormous kitchen; Jeff and I might actually cook more often if more than one of us could squeeze into the kitchen without bumping into things. Then I drooled over the space-age washer and dryer. I drooled some more over the balcony with the hot tub on it, though I couldn’t fully appreciate it in the dark. By the time we got to the master bath, I was running out of drool – you could fit four of me in their bathtub!

Speaking of drool, Bonzo was extremely happy to have a new person to bounce around, and even Chaco seemed to remember me this time. At least, he wasn’t constantly backing away and looking nervous, like usual.

Saturday morning dawned bright and warm – after all my fear of freezing, the temperature was comfortably in the 70s for most of the day. We puttered around the house for a few hours, taking pictures in the “backyard” (in quotes because it’s a whole side of a mountain, for crying out loud) and getting some more drool out of my system.

Ben and Kathy had mentioned they had a view, and they were not kidding. Here’s my somewhat shoddy attempt at a panorama, just to give you an idea of what their “backyard” is like:

We had lunch in Nederland, as cute a little mountain town as you ever saw. There was the requisite “Rock Shop,” a supermarket slightly larger than you average Trader Joe’s, and a Nepalese/Indian restaurant that seemed rather out of place. (No bookstore. I couldn’t live there.)

Ben decided to spend the afternoon working on the aquarium plumbing, so Kathy and I grabbed Bonzo and our cameras and went for a walk up at Long Lake. It was supposed to be a short, flat kind of walk; something we could both handle easily (Kathy tires easily since the stroke, and I had trouble with the altitude – just going up stairs had me panting). It turned out to be a little bit longer than she remembered, but still pretty flat and not too hot or cold. There were patches of snow by the sides of the trail in spots, so Bonzo got his first chance to play in (and eat) snow. He seemed a bit befuddled at first, but quickly figured out that snow was fun, and pounced on every patch we passed by as if it was some sort of tasty animal.

Stream running out of Long Lake:

Slightly more than two hours later, we finally finished the circuit of the lake. I was tired from the altitude; Kathy was worn out from the effort of holding Bonzo’s leash, which is a workout in itself as I soon discovered. We decided we’d had enough, and it was time for some dinner and hot tubbing.

First, we had to drive home – and Bonzo was MUDDY. Of course, we’d forgotten to bring any sort of towel, so we just sacrificed my jeans (actually, this was just my sneaky way of making sure I’d get to try out their fancy washing machine). Muddy as he was, he was also extremely cuddly, and I was quickly covered in doggie drool and mud that I told myself contained 99% dirt and surely only a very tiny fraction of poo. (I couldn’t quite convince myself of this, after seeing how eagerly Bonzo would seek out any sort of poo by the trail; I don’t understand why dogs think it’s edible!) Despite the mud, he was awfully cute, and completely exhausted.

Sunset from the Brantleys’ balcony:

Snow was predicted for Sunday, but we woke up to boring gray skies and drizzle. Kathy and I opted for a Gilmore Girls marathon in their TV room (more drool ensued), snuggling up on enormous beanbags with Bonzo while Chaco barked at moving objects on the screen.

A few hours before sunset, the promised snow finally rolled in, and we immediately headed out onto the balcony to snap some photos and enjoy the first snowfall.

Photo by Ben:

Then it was out front to play with the dogs:

We went for a drive in search of good photography opportunities, but I was pretty out of my element taking pictures in low light and falling snow. I think it might be time to shell out for a better wide-angle lens! Ben and Kathy both got some lovely shots, and I came away with one or two that I’ll dump in my gallery, but nothing too special. Guess I’ll have to go back for more practice!

By Monday morning, there was a good six inches of snow on the ground, and it continued to fall.

I like this shot because it shows Bonzo’s enormous ears:

Chaco turns out to be a world-class snowball-catcher. And he never gets tired of it. We all took turns hurling snow and snowballs at him, distracting him so Bonzo could get a chance, and photographing the action. Bonzo doesn’t quite have the hang of catching things yet, and Chaco won’t be giving him much of a chance to try!

Kathy and I started to worry about getting the car out of the steep, snow-covered driveway and up to the plowed road, since we had no snow shovels and no gass for the snow-blower. Ben managed to maneuver it up with minimal slipping, and we headed down the canyon to Boulder for lunch.

It’s too bad I didn’t get a chance to admire the view coming up the canyon, because it would have been cool to compare the pre- and post-snowfall versions. No pictures; the snow was coming down pretty steadily, and we’d neglected to bring plastic bags to hold over the camera.

We had a mellow afternoon in Boulder – well, two of us did. Kathy had several physical therapy appointments, so Ben and I passed the time in a Barnes and Noble. Books for me to browse, and wireless internet for Ben; what more could you ask for?

There was just enough time for tea and snacks at an Indian/British-style teahouse in Boulder before I had to head back to Denver. I said goodbye to the Brantleys at the Boulder bus station, and had an uneventful drive to Denver.

Alas, the airport was slightly more eventful. There was no snow on the ground in Boulder, but as we got closer to Denver there started to be several inches visible on the ground. Sure enough, the first snowfall of the year had thrown the airport schedule out of whack earlier that morning, and everything was running late. I was one of the lucky ones, with only a four hour delay – and plenty of company in my waiting!

Once we landed at Ontario, I still had to get my car and drive back to Glendale. Suddenly, taking a shuttle started to make sense again. At least there’s no traffic on the 210 at 2am!

I think Kathy was worried she wouldn’t be able to keep me entertained enough since she was in recovery mode, but I had a wonderful visit. I’m perfectly happy to do one or two interesting, out-and-about things, but spend the bulk of my time sitting around chatting with the people I’m there to visit in the first place (or even just sitting checking email, watching tv, and petting dogs, for that matter).

I really enjoyed my stay; it’s too bad Jeff’s allergies would do him in if he ever came with me! We’ll have to schedule another Brantley-visit on dog-free turf somewhere so Jeff can tag along, but I’d love to head back to Nederland sometime on my own. Just not to live! Much though I enjoyed the dogs and the snow, they reminded me why I love living pet-free and in Southern California, and I’ll be keeping it that way for a while. :)

More pics here: http://gallery.thelaitys.com/v/anastasia/200510_colorado/

Three years ago, I was incredibly jealous of my coworker Robert Hurt, who happened to have a camera and a tripod handy when the sky suddenly lit up with the colorful contrails of a missile launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base. (See his photos from that night here.) Apparently it’s not too common for these things to happen at just the right time for such a spectacular show, and they never used to advertise them in advance, either.

Luckily, that’s no longer true. I was totally jazzed yesterday morning to find an email from another co-worker, forwarding information about the first twilight launch in three years – scheduled for Thursday evening. I had plenty of time to read up on the phenomenon (Viewing Vandenberg AFB Launches, Photographing Vandenberg AFB Launches), and to run home for my camera and tripod.

Jeff drove up to Pasadena around 6:30, and we cruised around campus looking for the best spot to see the trails. We settled on the parking structure on Holliston, as it had the most treeless space around it, and relatively dim lighting.

I started with the telephoto lens on, thinking that it would be good for focusing on small parts of the action. That was a mistake! We kept reloading the countdown page on Jeff’s PDA, until we saw that it was good to launch in 90 seconds. We were looking off to the northwest when I suddenly saw a thick streak of white racing upwards and south, almost due west. I dragged the tripod over to a better viewing position, snapped a couple of shots of the first-stage burn, and hollered at poor Jeff to grab the wide angle lens instead.

Got the wide-angle on in time to shoot the stage separation:

After the second stage separated, I lost track of the actual missile zooming onwards and upwards, and concentrated on photographing the glowing contrails left by the first stage. Lots of water and fuel particles are left floating in the air, and the winds of the upper atmosphere quickly wrap them into a corkscrew shape. The sun had set about 40 minutes earlier from my position, but sunlight was still reflecting off those particles and easily visible from darkened Pasadena.

Nifty contrails:

Unfortunately, the whole show only lasted about 10 or 15 minutes, barely enough time for me to get my photographic bearings. Hopefully it won’t be another three years before the next twilight launch!

The rest of my pictures are here: Minotaur Missile Launch.

Sunday morning, I emerged from our stateroom on the Great Escape to a spectacularly beautiful day in Southern California. The seas around Catalina were calm, no clouds blocked the sun, the air was warm enough that I didn’t bother with a sweater, and – best of all – I’d slept the whole way out to the island without getting seasick. Thank you, Triptone.

But we didn’t seem to be at our expected destination: Farnsworth Bank, on the far side of Catalina. Instead, we were approaching the familiar white pinnacle near Two Harbors, Bird Rock (not because it looks like a bird, but because it’s covered with birds and bird poo).

This makes us 0-for-3 on Farnsworth attempts, but I couldn’t be too disappointed on such an obviously beautiful morning. The only reason we’d be on the near side of Catalina was if the far side had looked too rough, and I’d rather have a pretty dive by Bird Rock than a yucky one at Farnsworth anyway. It was also going to be my first California dive with my video rig, so I was happy enough to be parked at a less advanced dive site.

To make up for the last-minute switch, Captain Time had anchored on the north side of Bird Rock, a spot he hadn’t dropped divers at before. Jeff and I were some of the first divers into the 65-degree water (toasty heaven!), and dropped down onto boulders in sand at about 70 fsw before heading towards the “wall” that is Bird Rock.

Even better than the warm temperature was the amazing visibility, which seemed to surpass 80 feet in spots. I couldn’t have asked for better video conditions! It also made it easy for Jeff and I to give each other lots of room to work without losing sight of each other. (The more we venture into photo/video, the more I think about signing up for a Solo Diver course.)

The wall on the north side of Bird Rock was simply spectacular. The farther east we ventured, the more sheer the drop-off became. At one point I found myself at a totally vertical wall that was covered with gorgonians, and yet kelp rose around me (presumably anchored at some outcropping deeper than I could see). Straight down was nothing but blue water; all around me were waving sea fans, while above the sun shone through the kelp and scattered in waves on the surface.

Since it was my first time taping California critters, I found myself completely fascinated by every garibaldi and blacksmith, normally near-ignorable fish. I also took advantage of the clear conditions to get as much footage as I could of the sun in the kelp, and the waving sea fans.

We did two dives at Bird Rock, and then moved to one of our favorite sites: Eagle Reef. We’ve always experienced stellar conditions there, and it’s basically a big pile of rocks full of fun crevices to poke around in. Today we parked over another fairly steep wall, and were treated to more amazing visibility and warm temps. The highlights of my video footage here were a few bat ray swim-bys and some fun chasing down a giant kelpfish in the well-lit kelp. (Maybe I’ll figure out how to post some little QuickTime movies here later!)

Captain Tim of the Great Escape posted a message on the local diving bulletin board about how one of the divers on the boat complained bitterly about the change in destination, and was demanding his money back, since he’d dived the frontside of Catalina so many times before. This sort of attitude always baffles Jeff and me. We can dive the same site over and over and find something new every time – and we know no dive destination is ever guaranteed, since the weather and ocean conditions are changeable. I’d rather have a beautiful dive on the frontside of Catalina than be throwing up all the way to a murky Farnsworth. I’d rather dive, period, thna get turned around and head back to harbor! I certainly have no complaints about such a beautiful day, with two fantastic dive sites.

More pics here: Catalina 08/28/2005

Dive logs: #181, #182, and #183.

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.

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!

Once again, I found myself required to make the five-hour flight to Hawaii for business. We’ve been having more face-to-face meetings than usual with the Keck half of our team (building an archive for one of the Keck instruments), because two months from now we’re undergoing an “Operational Readiness Review” which should be buckets of fun. About two-thirds of the time, the Keck folks come to LA – but we get our fair share of trips to Hawaii as well. Sometimes, we’re even forced to stay at fancy, expensive hotels. And it’s completely unavoidable that our meetings tend to fall just before or after a weekend, making it nearly impossible for me to not tack on a little vacation.

While our 2-day meeting up in Waimea has been, well, work (go figure), the days as a whole have been pleasant and almost as relaxing as full time vacation. It probably helps that I actually enjoy spending time after hours with my fellow travelers: Bruce (my boss) and David (project scientist, who does a really good drunken rendition of my Hamper Story).

The three of us all arrived early in the afternoon on Wednesday, several hours before we could check in to the Hilton Waikoloa (the aforementioned “fancy, expensive hotel”). The trip was a breeze, no doubt due to the fact that I somehow scored a first class ticket. (Beside the fantastic amount of elbow room, I think my favorite part was being served a warm chocolate chip cookie with milk, on a fancy little tablecloth carefully placed over my tray table.) We picked up one of our rental cars and headed to Kona for pizza and beers at the Kona Brew Pub, where I drove David completely bonkers by pointing out every cat, lizard, and mongoose that I spotted in the brush next to our outdoor table. (Yes, I said mongoose. This island is so cool.)

After killing a sufficient number of hours, the boys dropped me at the airport to get the second car, and we met up again at the Hilton. The drive from the airport to the Hilton is absolutely gorgeous – wide open spaces covered with black lava rocks or waving silvery grass, intensely blue skies, and an unending variety of cloud shapes entertained me on the drive up the coast. By the time we checked in, I was totally in the island mood.

My first few visits to the Hilton had left me rather unimpressed. It wasn’t because of any lack on the Hilton’s part – they have boats, trams, spas, lagoons, pools, waterslides, turtles, rocky beaches, funky statues, exotic birds, and for crying out loud, a dolphin-populated pond. It was the sheer sense of overkill that did me in, and the hyper-resort atmosphere created by the crowds of sunburned teenagers and japanese tourists.

But this time, the place has finally won me over. I think it started when I discovered the balcony of my room here in the Lagoon Tower overlooks DolphinQuest, where for $175 per person you can spend 20 minutes being introduced to dolphins. (You also have to make reservations several months in advance.) I can never decide if I feel sorry for the dolphins or if they’ve got a good deal going, but it was definitely fun to be able to watch them cavorting just outside my window.

Our first order of business after settling in was hitting the pool. The Hilton scored some more points with me when David and I discovered the waterslide. I can get some serious momentum going on these things – with occasional unfortunate consequences where my bathing suit is concerned, upon landing in the water. Ahem. Luckily, any sudden adjustments I had to make were hidden from public view by the enormous amount of splashing and foam generated by my landing.

Despite the fact that we were all subjected to the sight of each other in bathing suits/trunks, it was a darned nice way to spend a few hours. By the time we finally pulled ourselves away from the pool, it was basically time for dinner and a collapse into our beds.

I’ve been so good with my workout schedule lately that I was determined not to screw it up on this trip. Since the gym here at the Hilton has funny hours and costs $20 a pop, and the pools aren’t really designed with laps in mind, I only had one viable option: jogging. (Insert snort of laughter here.) And it gets worse: I was scheduled to meet my colleagues at 7am to head up the mountain for our meeting, so this jogging thing would have to happen really, really early.

So please forgive me if I take this chance to gloat: two mornings in a row, I got my ass out of bed at 5:20am and WENT FOR A JOG. (Where is Anna and what have I done with her, you ask?!)

First I tried jogging around the Hilton, but the paths around this place are a total mystery to me, and I wasn’t a big fan of tripping and sliding on wet flagstone, either, so I finally left the complex and headed along a bike/jogging path that leads back up towards the main highway. And I have to say, after years of making fun of people who go jogging at 5:30 in the morning while apparently on vacation, I think I finally understand the appeal. It was a stunningly beautiful time of day to be out and about, and the agonizing pain, labored breathing, and gallons of sweat actually seemed like a fair price to pay for the experience. I think if I lived here, I’d do this every day. All kinds of funny little birds were scurrying around, and the few people I bumped into were friendly and smiling through their sweat. The air was cool and breezy this near the water, and the sun just barely starting to peek over the mountains to the east.

This morning (the second day in a row that I woke up at 5:20 and WENT FOR A JOG), I had an additional half hour before I had to meet Bruce and David, so I decided to top off my jog with a stroll over to the dolphin lagoon. It seems like 6:30 or so is when the dolphins are most awake; they were goofing off and chattering at each other, and one was rolling around in the sand in the shallows. You can’t get too close without paying up the nose, er, that is “reserving your Dolphin Encounter,” but it was still an awfully nice view to enjoy while stretching the cramps out of my legs.

This evening was even better, if you can believe it. Bruce drove David to the airport to catch a red-eye, leaving me on my own after 6pm. I’ve been kicking myself the last few days for not packing a camera, but this evening I grabbed the video camera (which can take stills) and went for a stroll all the way to the far end of the Hilton in search of a good spot to wach the sunset. I finally found the perfect location back near my end of the place: there’s a stairway down to the rocky beach, and you can walk out onto the lava rocks and watch the surf roll in. There was also plenty of tidepool action to amuse me while I waited for the sun to get lower in the sky. Hermit crabs of all sizes were crawling all over the place and chasing each other, and I even spotted a funny little goby (my favorite kind of fish) darting around between rocks.

Pics (or some sort of screen grab) to come – I just discovered I didn’t pack the FireWire cable for my video camera, so it’ll have to wait til I’m back in SoCal.

I finished my evening off with more strolling around the Hilton, some chocolate cake, and a boat ride back to my building. The sky is totally clear tonight, and in the pockets of darkness between buildings and lit pathways, the view from the back of the boat is phenomenal: we have Total Milky Way Visibility here.

And so ends the business part of my trip. (My job doesn’t suck, huh?) Tomorrow I kick off the “real” vacation; two days of diving down in Kona. In other words, it’s JUST GOING TO GET BETTER. Somebody pinch me.

On my way back from the gym, I noticed Caltech has put tape up around the new sod that covers the soccer/baseball field (atop the new underground garage). They must have run out of yellow “CAUTION” tape, because they’ve used red “DANGER – DO NOT CROSS” tape instead.

Oooh, I’m scared. Will I succumb to a fatal dose of grass stain if I cross the tape? Or maybe the sod is covering up an enormous sinkhole to the center of the earth? Is campus security hiding an alien spaceship under the new soccer field?!?! Oh, the possibilities…

I knew last night would be surreal, but it surpassed all my expectations.

My dive-club buddy Carol invited me to join her to the Hollywood Bowl’s annual “Sound of Music Sing-Along.” It’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like: they play The Sound of Music on an enormous screen in front of 18,000 people, with the words to the songs displayed so everyone can join in.

But the most surreal part of the day was before we even found our seats. We arrived at the Bowl around 5, and the pre-show wasn’t until 6, so we grabbed some food and parked ourselves on a bench for dinner. Suddenly, a familiar face strode by, and I found myself being greeted with a big hug – it was one of my sponsor-group hallmates from freshman year at Pomona. This was a bit out of the ordinary on several counts:

1. I haven’t seen this guy since Pomona, had no idea he was in LA, and we weren’t really even very good friends after freshman year
2. Carol is also a Pomona grad (we discovered this just last December)
3. But I was really confused, because I thought this person was in jail. He had a psychotic episode his senior year, and stabbed a teacher in the neck.
4. He introduced me to all of his “church friends,” which also confused me because the guy I remember from freshman year was not remotely religious (though he was into philosophy)

Turns out he spent two years stuck in a prison hospital (I’m glad it was that and not normal prison, or longer – he had been clearly not in his right mind at the time of arrest, and I’d always liked him). After a little Googling around, I found his blog which describes how he became a Christian while stuck in the normal jail waiting for his trial.

So, that was a bit out of the ordinary.

Then, a few minutes later, we spotted actor Jeffrey Jones – who also happens to be a convicted felon.

Good grief – were we ex-con magnets?

We took our seats in time for the great-grandchildren of the “real Captain Von Trapp” to come out and sing a few numbers (most from the movie), and then sit through a very, very, very long costume contest. The contest featured lots of entries dressed up as “My Favorite Things,” quite a few transvestite Marias, far too many very small children who were dressed up simply as “Cute” as far as we could tell – and the winner, a carbeurator. That’s right: part of a car engine. Why, you ask? Don’t you remember the scene where the nuns steal the parts out of the Nazi’s cars at the end of the movie?

The carbeurator won a 7 day cruise to the Mexican Riviera. Nice!

Finally it was dark enough for the movie to begin. I’ll try to describe some of the more bizarre highlights:

• They gave everyone little bags of “stuff” to use during the show – kind of like a Rocky Horror Picture showing. We had little poppers to set off when Maria and the captain first kiss; fake edelweiss to wave during the song; little pieces of curtain material to wave at Maria and yell “Look behind you!” when she’s trying to figure out play clothes material, etc.
• The participation went beyond singing along. Everyone cheered at Maria, hissed at the countess, booed at the Nazis, made barking noises at Rolf (?), and yelled “Wheeee!” with Liesl after her first kiss (very loud!)
• Lit-up cell phone displays have replaced lighters as the thing-to-wave of choice. Looks very cool.
• People who aimed laser pointers at the screen were very annoying, and got yelled at by 18,000 people. Except for when they aimed the pointers at the countess; then it was funny.
• We sat next to about a dozen nuns. Not real nuns, of course. They brought rice krispies to throw into the air at the wedding scene.

I didn’t make it home until about 1 in the morning – I was EXHAUSTED, having been up since 5:30am for a 2-dive trip to Catalina! I guess I’d better blog about that later; in the meantime, here are Jeff’s pictures.