On a lighter, jury-duty-free note: Jeff and I went to our second Avalon Harbor Underwater Cleanup last Saturday, out on Catalina. Our first one was two years ago, and it was cold and pouring rain all day. This time around, we had excellent weather – and drysuits, to help us stay extra toasty.

We crawled out of bed at the ungodly hour of 4am so we could make the 6:15am ferry to Avalon. Mornings like this really make me wonder why I ever took up diving. It’s a bit of a hassle to get over to the island on cleanup day, since you’re one of about 500 divers – most of whom don’t want to shell out to spend the weekend on the island. The ferry crew must be absolutely sick of us already by the time we’re all on board with all our gear bags, tanks, drysuit bags, weights, and camera equipment. That’s right, Jeff refused to go diving without his camera, even if we were basically just going to go pick up trash. Not that I’m really complaining all that much, since I love having photos. I just don’t love transporting a zillion pounds of gear around, especially when you have to get it all loaded onto the ferry in ONE TRIP. At least when we go on boat dives, we can be leisurely about getting the gear on and off!

There were about 10 Sole Searchers on the ferry with us this year, and the original plan was to all go get breakfast while our gear was transported by truck to Casino Point. Between a shortage of luggage tags and a shortage of gear trucks, a few of us decided it would be easier to just grab a cab. Jeff and I, along with John Marin, gave our extra tags to the rest of the crew and headed on over to the point to grab a spot.

45 minutes later, with not nearly enough time remaining to go get a real breakfast, we were all set up by the Point. The rest of the crew showed up just in time to hear the pre-dive briefing, and before we knew it, the dive was on!

Doing the Avalon Harbor Cleanup is popular with divers because you get to dive in areas that are normally restricted to boat traffic. Our group dived from Casino Landing, which is opposite the Casino Point Dive Park. In other words, we were on the side that did NOT have stairs into the water. Two years ago, I just about aborted the dive when I realized I was expected to clamber down the slimy jumble of cement and boulders that makes up the jetty, instead of being allowed to utilize those oh-so-lovely stairs. With plenty of help, I managed to make it in and out without incident.

This time around, I was a more confident diver in general – however, I had one new disadvantage. Jeff and I, as always, went with our HydroOptix masks for good underwater vision. But on the surface, that means I’m walking around without my contacts in. On slimy, uneven concrete and boulders. In a drysuit that’s too tight since I gained the last 10 pounds.

A random person helped me over the waist-high wall (I can’t quite manage to straddle it, so I have to kind of hop up into a sitting position and then swivel, without letting the weight of my tank pull me over). Then two volunteers had to each grab an arm and walk me slowly down the incline. And if I didn’t feel like enough of a sissy after all that, once I was seated at the water’s edge to put on fins I discovered I no longer had enough slack in my drysuit to bend over far enough to put on my own fins. So someone had to do it for me.

The nice people help me into the water:

So I was an awkward, helpless klutz – but at least I wasn’t terrified out my mind this time around. Let’s say we call that progress.

There wasn’t nearly as much trash this year as the last time we went. I guess 25 years of educating the public and cleaning out the harbor has finally started to have an effect. We picked up a few pieces of bottles, a brass fitting from some bit of boat plumbing, and one side of a metal window frame with shards of glass still attached. That was a bit unnerving to swim around with; I kept worrying that I’d accidentally whack Jeff in the face with it or something.

Don’t mess with me:

We skipped the raffle and award ceremony in favor of lunch, followed by a second dive at Casino Point. This time we got to use my beloved stairs – but it was low tide. LOW, low tide. The stairs ended well short of deep water, so there was boulder-scrambling involved again. I took it slowly, and made it over the rocks without incident, largely because there was zero surf. When the waves are rolling in, you have to worry about where you put your feet – you don’t want to get your foot wedged in a crack and then get knocked over sideways!

We had an uneventful but pleasant dive around the park, and I even found some more trash. First I discovered an empty beer can (and posed for pictures “drinking” from it). By the next time Jeff glanced back at me, I had picked up someone’s mesh bag that must have blown off the point into the water.

Casino Point is always popular with classes and with new divers, which can get a bit awkward if you wind up in the middle of them (or stuck behind them on the steps). On this dive, we were treated to the sight of a new diver literally WALKING on the bottom, kicking up gobs of sand behind him and no doubt smooshing a few sea cucumbers. I’m sure he wasn’t in a class, because no instructor would let a diver get away with that!

We had a few hours left on the island after our dive, so we hung out with some of our Sole Searchers buddies and treated ourselves to ice cream. Lars and Ceci had their baby Max along (only Lars was diving), and I have to say: it is SCARY how well-behaved and cheerful that kid is. I’d say my odds of ever giving birth to such an accommodating creature are pretty much nil, unless we can somehow remove all my DNA and leave only Jeff’s. He was probably a perfect baby.

All in all, we had a great day – but I find myself wishing there’ll be more exciting trash to pick up next year!

More pics are here.

I’ll write something about jury duty soon, but I don’t think I’ll be posting it here. It’s not something I’d ever want to be fully publicly accessible, but I’ll send it to any of you who ask.

Our defendant was the driver in a drive-by shooting, which is the same as being the shooter as far as the law was concerned. After two days of deliberation, we found him guilty on all counts, including 2nd degree murder. I hope I never again have to see someone’s face when they’re being convicted of a crime that (as we later learned) carries a minimum penalty of 15 years without parole. I made myself watch him the whole time, but I couldn’t even stand to glance towards his parents while the verdicts were read.

Jury duty usually ends at 4, so I’m often home before 5. I thought this schedule would leave me several useful, productive hours each evening: time to catch up on the work that I’m missing, or even just work on things around the house. At the very least, I thought I’d spend time writing about my jury experience, even if I can’t publish it until later.

Instead, I find myself completely wiped out each evening. I don’t feel physically tired; just unable to put my mind to anything. Spending all day concentrating super-hard on the testimony of not-necessarily-interesting witnesses just fries my brain a little, I guess.

We start deliberations this Friday. The judge has tentatively extended our schedule through next Tuesday, but I honestly have no idea how long it will take to reach a verdict. I have a sneaking suspicion we’re going to be surprised by how differently all the jurors think about this case, but we’ll see.

I just added a movie with lots of sea lions to the Underwater Videos page.

Just a quick heads-up for those who are interested; you can now get Quicktime videos of my underwater movies here:

www.thelaitys.com/uwvideo.html

After two long months with no diving, Jeff and I were itching to get back in the water. We picked a free weekend at random and called up the Spectre in Ventura, a favorite boat of ours for the short ride (little over an hour to Anacapa), the good food, and the hot tub. Unfortunately we don’t enjoy the hot tub like we used to; now that we’re dry suit divers, I don’t usually even have a bathing suit with me. But the food was still good, and the dive site selection was outstanding as always.

Our first stop was at Underwater Island, around the backside of Anacapa. It’s basically exactly what the name says: a big rocky hill with plenty of walls and drop-offs all around, and a crevice-filled plateau up top. We plopped into the water and discovered zero current and 40 foot visibility; excellent conditions for this site.

I was unpleasantly surprised at what a difference two dry months made in my comfort level. (And also what a difference 5 Christmas ponds made to getting in and out of my drysuit – ouch!) I spent most of the first dive just remembering how to deal with my drysuit and my video camera. I finally just gave up on getting any decent footage and enjoyed the view: lots of fish, plenty of spanish shawls all over the place, and a couple of fighting lingcod near the end of my dive added a little bit of excitement.

Dive number two was near Underwater Arch. Incidentally, Jeff and I have never actually found the arch for which this site was named – we tend to get distracted en route. This time we didn’t even try to find the arch, thanks to the swarms of sea lions in the neighborhood. The captain turned on the underwater recall for a few minutes prior to opening the gates, and the noise attracted dozens of sea lions eager for some diver company. By the time we hit the water, we were totally surrounded.

We spent 40 minutes pretty much camped out on the sand, occasionally wandering off if we followed a particularly interesting batch of pinnipeds. Other divers came and went from our field of view, and we often found ourselves totally alone in the middle of a sandy plain, in what would have been the world’s most boring dive if not for being surrounded by 30 sea lions at play.

And there was no shortage of play! Sea lions nipped and nuzzled at each other, scrounged in the sand for food or toys, picked up rocks or kelp bulbs in their mouths to chew on and eventually spit out, stuck their noses in the cameras, nibbled on strobes, blew bubbles in mimicry of divers, and generally kept us (and themselves) entertained. We were sorry to leave!

Our last dive was a mostly unremarkable cruise around the rocky reefs of Cathedral Cove. I say “mostly” because I was hugely entertained by an enormous lobster that was out and about. I’ve never seen a lobster crawling around outside of its hole in broad daylight, but here on the “no-take” side of the island, I guess he’d grown old and bold. I chased him around with my video camera as he trundled across rocks, over sand, and through schools of fish. Halfway through his journey, he suddenly got annoyed at all the fish and started jumping at them – and then squirting away if they fought back.

Of course, as I followed Mr. Lobster, I managed to lose Mr. Photographer (my husband and buddy) off in the murk behind me. By the time he caught up, a class of students had descended on the sand in front of the monster lobster and scared it off, so he missed all the excitement. But at least he found his buddy… We have this problem more and more often since I got my video rig; it’s probably time we bought ourselves some pony bottles and quit even pretending to pay attention to each other!

After three dives, we were wiped out and getting pretty chilly. Yes, we felt like big sissies – I mean, we were in drysuits! How did we ever do four dives in a day wearing WETSUITS? (Well, we didn’t; at least, not in the winter months.) We decided to go easy on ourselves and do dive #4 down in the bunk room.

More pictures are posted here.

I was in the first batch of people summoned to a courtroom for jury selection. At the end of the day, I was the final juror accepted into the panel.

I’ll be going back every day for most of the next three weeks, with occasional days/afternoons off (there are two defendents and two juries, so we don’t have to all be there for every part of the trial). The court also observes a bunch of extra holidays, Feb 13, 17 and 20, so I can squeeze in a few days of work to accomplish truly crucial tasks.

On the up side: it’s bound to be an interesting case, the judge is personable and my fellow jurors seem likable and easy to deal with.

Down side: THREE WEEKS. And “I have a business trip planned to Hawaii” in no way counts as a financial hardship as far as this judge is concerned (I didn’t even try after I saw him shoot down the third person who had an “important conference” to go speak at).

Further down side: Just when I was back to working out at the gym every day, I got sick and now this. Rrrr.

Obviously I can’t really talk about the case, so I don’t imagine there’ll be much going on here in my blog for a few weeks (oh wait, I lied; I’m also diving twice and traveling to Columbia during this period). Expect a rundown of the experience once it’s over and I’m allowed to talk.

At 5:01pm today, I got the slightly unwelcome news that I have to show up at the LA courthouse tomorrow at 7:45am for jury duty. There are three possible scenarios now:

1. I sit in the courthouse until 5pm and never get called, and then I’m done with jury duty for at least 12 months
2. At some point during the day I get called into a jury, subsequently dismissed, and am done with jury duty for at least 12 months
3. I get called into a jury and they like me, and then I’m stuck there for an indeterminate number of days.

I’m kind of hoping for #2, actually. It would be fun to go through a bit of the process, plus I’d get dismissed before 5pm and would beat the horrible crunch getting out of the parking lot. #3 would suck for a lot of reasons, mostly having to do with how incredibly busy I am at work these days. Caltech pays for 10 days of jury duty, so that’s not the problem; it’s just that I’ll probably wind up working nights and weekends to keep from falling behind. I’m not really a fan of working outside office hours; I prefer to sit on my ass and vegetate.

To celebrate my impending doom, I got a library card. As I stepped inside the Glendale Public Library, I suddenly realized that I hadn’t even been inside a library since college. And I hadn’t been inside a non-school library since… umm… I’m not sure, but an embarrassingly long time.

See, I always buy my books. I don’t know why, when there are perfectly good library books sitting around that you can pick up for free. I got into the habit when I was young and living in South Carolina, and the library didn’t carry much in the way of science fiction and fantasy – after all, only heathens read those books, and the South Carolina libraries weren’t big on sending their readers to hell.

But books get expensive, and also take up a lot of space. So, with the possibility of a 9-hour day sitting in a courtroom with nothing to do looming over me, and being out of already-owned books to read, I decided to make good on my promise to myself to quit throwing away money on books.

Sadly, the library only had one of the books that I wanted, so I went and bought the other one. (New hardcovers tend to have long waiting lists at the library, so I guess it’s still no good for those super-long fantasy series when I have to have the new book RIGHT THIS SECOND.)

The book I checked out of the library was Listening to Prozac, which I can’t believe I haven’t already read. As I was checking it out, the girl in line next to me noticed the title and asked me if it was actually about Prozac. She announced that she was on Paxil. I was a bit thrown – I mean, I’ve always been very up front about the fact that I’m on Prozac, and I don’t think there’s anything to be ashamed of, but this was the first time I’d ever had a stranger tell me what psychiatric medications they were on. Either she’s part of a new enlightened generation, or she’s just really neurotic (after all, she is on Paxil).

Somehow, I doubt tomorrow will be nearly this interesting.

It’s amazing to me how quickly December zips by each year. I swear, it feels like we just did Thanksgiving, and now New Year’s is already upon us. Craziness.

We’ve packed the month with our usual Christmas shennanigans, including the annual Laity party. And yes, we do celebrate “Christmas” here, not “the holidays” – I’m a total heathen who just happens to love the secular aspects of Christmas and doesn’t mind that it also happens to be named after a religious figure.

Sadly, I have yet to manage any decent pictures of our apartment decorations, but we did come away with a pretty nice picture of the two of us by our tree (that’s a snorkeling Santa on top in place of a star):

My frantic party preparations included a lot of baking; about three times as much baking as the turnout really warranted, I would say. Luckily, my officemates were more than happy to help polish off the leftover cookies at work.

I’ve also created a webpage with all my Christmas Recipes, which currently just includes cookies (with pictures!) and cornstarch ornaments.

We spent four days in Phoenix for Christmas with Jeff’s family, during which time I also finished editing some more underwater videos. So some of you can expect a DVD in the mail early next month. Don’t worry; it’s short!

In other news, Jeff’s bookshelves are still beautiful. Seriously, I have to restrain myself from licking them every time I walk into the room. I hope he hurries up and builds the boring desk soon, so we can get to the fun project: the coffee table with Catalina tile insets. Oooooohhhhh.

I will never use a chat client while in a meeting, EVER AGAIN.

I use Trillian, which just shows text like this:

alaity47: Boo
jlaity88: boo back

Jeff has his set up all fancy, however, with icons and speech bubbles and whatnot.

One particular exchange, made during a meeting after I’d devoured an ungodly amount of cookies, made me chortle aloud when I should have been paying attention to the meeting instead, but we managed to continue on. Then Jeff sent me a picture of what the exchange looked like to him, and I completely lost it. The two people I was meeting with both insisted on seeing what was making me crack up so hard, and my public humiliation was complete.