Happy Halloween from seahorse-land!

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Happy Halloween!

Not since 2006 at Jenna T's have I been able to celebrate Halloween.  It's one of my favorite 'holidays' and unfortunately I haven't been able to celebrate for a while.  When I moved back in 2007 it was in the middle of the Sox World Series run so obviously that took precedent over dressing up.  In 2008 Shannon and I went to the Celtics game since she wasn't a huge fan of the holiday...I know, couldn't swim and anti-Halloween...what was I thinking?  In 2009 I thought there was hope until Rebecca got swine flu.  That was a lot of fun, I'm glad I wasted yet another holiday for nothing. 

Which leads us to 2010. So tonight I met up with some people from work and we had a pretty good time.  I went as Snoopy (vs Red Baron); an idea thought up cause my friend Sam called me Snoopy the other day and I ran with it.  I went to Walmart, the local Halloween store, CVS, and a couple of tourist stores on the wharf.  Finally my costume was complete!

I went out to a few places in Monterey and had a pretty good time.  I'm glad people got my costume and that I wasn't just some creep all dressed up in white.  Halloween is great because people get to use their imagination, pretend to be a kid again along with pretending to live another life.  

I hope everyone had fun this weekend!

CP

Christmas Already!

Can't we get through Halloween first before the Christmas stuff comes out?!

Lessons Learned

Man it can be very easy to get emotionally caught up in what is thought to be a good situation heading in the right direction for all the right reasons until God throws a curve ball and some decisions have to be re-evaluated.  At 29 years, 6 months, and 7 days I'm getting too old to be blindly mislead just because one or two words were omitted from a statement; such as "we're just friends (for now)" or "it's not like that (yet)."  I'm in a really good place right now and these types of distractions need to be gone from my life.  These types of situations need to be avoided and the people causing these problems need to be ignored.  Life is short and I have no desire to be spending it playing mind games or associating myself with people who do.  I'd like to enjoy living in Monterey without stressing over past crappy relationships because here it is time to start making new ones, here it is time to live my life, and now is the time to start turning things around.

Sorry for the rant...I'll now get off my soapbox because I have to go find a Halloween costume!

New Toys

Went to Target today and for some reason every time I go in there, which really isn't very often I spend WAY too much money.  Today was absolutely no different.  I bought some shiny new kitchen appliances that were very necessary and now I feel all grown up having bought them.

I had to buy a microwave, that was #1 on the list...so I found a cool red one.  I also needed a toaster and some new pots/pans  and ended up buying a coffee maker as well. Yes mom and dad I know I don't drink very much coffee but everyone else in the world does so when my crazy coffee junkie friends and family visit (hint, hint) then I can make them happy with some delicious DD or Peets coffee!  I also know that I coulda just bought a french press or K-cup since I'm all by my lonesome but this one was actually the cheapest and least complicated.

Doesn't everyone look so happy to meet each other?  And yes I like the color red.  I also bought some picture frames, towels, and an alarm clock.  Next time I might switch over to Wally World so that even if I spend a lot of money I can at least be entertained by the people-watching.

Little things...

There are things you experience in life that you think is the prototypical way of doing them such as playing slow-pitch softball, engaging in trivia night, or being able to take a shower without any insects or arachnids joining you.  Such is not so true here in California, at least not in Monterey.  As some of you may or may not know I'm a bit of a wuss when it comes to eight-legged creatures that do not live in the ocean.  I'm not sure why or where it came from or who was putting spiders in my bed when I was a little kid, but I just don't like them.  I remember at one point as a kid seeing the largest spider I still think I've ever seen on our back fence; a white wooden broken down fence with this enormous black and yellow spider (if that even exists)...but that's what I remember.

Here in Cali I have moved into the penthouse for creepy-crawlies and even though I've killed at least 30 of them they still seem to be multiplying right in front of me.  How is this possible you ask?  I have no friggin idea!  There are two different kinds too, one that almost resembles a daddy longlegs and one that is small, prickly and fast as hell.  I saw this one crawl up a wall, across the ceiling, and repel down in the amount of time it took me to look down and take a bit of my dinner.  Seriously?  I even had one crawl across my hand while I was watching a movie, needless to say the lights didn't turn off the rest of the night.  I know, I sound like a six year old girl right now but don't worry I have absolutely no trouble killing the little buggers.  Some common household items that are useful in the rapid extermination of your popular arthropods are the broom, a cup and or glass, a vacuum and a baseball cap as a last resort (preferably a Yankees hat).

Oh you want to know about the shower???  Besides the occasional spider singing the itsy bitsy spider, I guess I also have crickets.  I opened up the shower last night after my track workout and there was a cricket, a big friggin cricket.  How?  Again...no idea.  The shower door was closed so it's crawling in from somewhere.  Luckily I don't have any problems with crickets or grasshoppers so I used one of my handy household tools (a cup) and set him free.

After my run tonight I walked down to watch the aquarium softball team, the Claspers and immediately had a couple of questions.  Question #1: Me: "Why is Kacey pitching for the other team?"  Andrea: "They pitch to their own teams."  Ok that's strike one in my book. While I can see the benefits of being able to get better pitches and not having to worry about the occasional jackass that tries to put "spin" on the ball, I still think you are at more of a disadvantage from a defensive standpoint (if the ball touches the pitcher that batter is out).  Whatever, just different rules...Question #2 while pointing in confusion to the runner sprinting behind the catcher avoiding "home plate" which was just an astroturf mat: "Where is he going?"  Andrea: "They can't tag home, if they tag home they're out. It makes sure they don't run over [the catcher]."  "Are you kidding me?!"

Do they play this way in anybody else's leagues??? If so please let me know.  After the game we went to the London Bridge Pub, I had a burger and a salad with some peeps from the team but it was also trivia night, or quiz night.  I've been to a few trivia nights in Boston and they all worked the same way, you answer a certain amount of questions and usually wager a certain value while bringing up each answer to the DJ while s/he tallies up your scores till the game is over.  Here there were 51 questions and after each ten you swapped papers with an opposing team, yup just like when you were in 5th grade and they corrected your answers for you.  I have no problem with this, it was just different.  The other difference was that each person, not team, put in a dollar so the winner got over $100.

Just a few things on my mind...some new discoveries if you will!  Go Rangers!

The Real Thing

This is one of our many seahorses that we hold behind the exhibits.  We have around 15 different species of seahorses and relatives of, that we either exhibit or grow up behind the scenes.  We grow them from tiny little seahorse babies all the way through adulthood.  The exhibit is called the Secret Lives of Seahorses and is easily the best seahorse exhibit I've ever seen.  

I'll keep taking more pictures of these guys along with some of the babies we've got and the exhibit animals as well but if you want an idea of what is there check out the Monterey website  (SLOSH).  

As you can see the Monterey Bay Aquarium sits right on the water at the end of what is called Cannery Row.  This was a big sardine cannery area and the aquarium sits at what was known as the Hovden Cannery, the last one to shut down in this Row.  When you look out onto the water you see huge kelp floats supporting all kinds of life.  You always see sea otters and cormorants and an occasional harbor seal and sea lion. There have been stories of people seeing molas, whales and orcas off the back wall as well.

This week was a pretty good one overall.  I'm now officially responsible for the seahorse gallery on Sundays, Mondays, and Thursdays.  Wednesdays I'm in jelly land and once I start getting more projects and responsibilities in there I'll be pretty busy. We might end up using Wednesdays as 'field' days because we have a decent amount of jellies staff and will have the time to take the boat out for collecting.  

Some cool things about this week; I got to watch and participate in the dissections of several yellowfin tuna, I saw a man walking a rabbit (and nobody here was surprised), last night I hung out with work peeps for the first time and got the chance to meet some new people, and this morning I picked up my first check!  Unfortunately it was not direct deposited so I have to wait until the money clears but still, I'm pretty psyched that things are finally moving forward.

After depositing my check I splurged on food at Safeway and even though I somehow always manage to spend too much on food, today it feels justified because I picked up a Demolition Man/Over the Top DVD combo for only $5!  Only 41 more Stallone movies to go until the collection is complete.  Meals of the week: Jambalaya (because I miss Dad's classic take on it) and my own chicken salad w/apples, grapes, and celery.  Wish me luck on both!

Oh and today when I came back from Safeway there was a package waiting for me.  It was a pumpkin fruit basket!  Thanks Jackie, you are way too funny and I miss your humor.

Runner's High

Endorphins shooting though the roof, pushing your body to limits you know shouldn't be crossed, this is a runner's high.  It doesn't happen every time out but you know it when it does.  It's that run that you are just feeling flow through your entire body and even though you are cramping up, tired, dehydrated, and aching you continue on because these types of runs don't happen every day.  There's usually something triggering such an event such as a competition, a personal goal, the weather, your mood, whatever it is it's a great feeling.

Tonight was one of those runs.  Each Wednesday night the running club meets up next to Pacific Grove High School at this laundry place and are called the Wednesday Night Laundry Runners.  Most people go six miles, some eight, a few newer people might only go four and every now and then you'll get some people that stretch it out to ten.  I had only been going six miles the last two times I'd run it.  The first time out was a pretty nice pace with this girl I've been running with.  Last week was a bit slower and the legs were feeling a bit lethargic.  This week though I came in knowing I wanted to run further.  I didn't know how I was going to feel or how fast I was going to cruise but I knew I wanted to go 8 miles.  I didn't expect too much because after my hike at Garrapata my legs haven't been feeling too great.  The track workout on Monday, even though it wasn't a tough workout, was hard and I wasn't anywhere near the times I should have been at.  My legs were feeling really heavy and I couldn't seem to get them off the ground.  I also didn't get to warm-up or stretch which obviously didn't help.  I ran an easy three miles last night to stretch the legs out and get them ready for tonight.

When I got there I was pretty fired up and ready to go and was in a great mood for a longer run.  Outside of running the half-marathon when I got here I hadn't run more than six miles in a long time.  Tonight was the night though.  I brought my camelbak with me and I was ready to go.  These runs all start off the same whether you are going six or eight and everyone meets up at a track after three miles, does two laps on the track and then stretches and figures out who is going what distances.  Camille, the girl I've been running with, and I cruised up the hill through the trails and over to the track.  We got a good stretch in and I was ready to finish out the eight miles.  Camille was only going six but there were a few other people going the full distance.

There is one runner though, this crazy Russian guy Sergei who always goes eight miles and takes off faster than all of us.  When he passes us it's like we're standing still and initially I didn't think there was any way I'd be able to catch him, nevermind stay with him.  Today though Camille was pointing out how she thought he only goes that fast to get a decent distance ahead and then slows down to a "normal" pace.  When we all took off from the track there Sergei went with his short little legs kickin' up the dust in front of us.  And then it hit me...she was completely right.  You could see him slow down after he had a good amount of room between everyone else.  So I said screw it I'm gone and I took off, leaving the group.  Initially when we left the track I just wanted to keep him in sight but now I had another goal and that was to catch him.

I took off ahead of the group and over the next three miles I slowly gained on him step by step.  Around mile six I was on his heels and every time I would get closer he would pick it up just a bit more so I couldn't catch up.  Finally, maybe a half mile later I caught him.  The crazy Russian that everyone shrugged off as being impossible to run with was there right on my left making up excuses about how tired he was because he had been kayaking for two hours this morning.  I asked him if he knew how much further and he thought 1.5 or so and even though I started cramping up and my left toe started shooting a pain up my foot I didn't slow down.  I stayed with him all the way until about the last 1/4 mile when we hit the last hill and he took off.  At this point I didn't care though because it was still a victory in my mind.  I may not have beaten him but I caught him and I stayed with him and he only beat me by 15 or 20 seconds.

Such a great feeling and I wish every run could be like that...I love this town.

Big Sur

Holy crap I love this state!  Just got back from a run/hike down in Big Sur at Garrapata state park.  I have no idea how high up we got but we took about an hour or so to go up and come back down.  On the way over there I saw whales not too far off which was pretty cool.  I'd never seen whales while driving along the coast.  The initial hike up was very steep so the three of us decided to put a halt to the running and walk for a bit in between.  The view from the top was unreal and unfortunately I did NOT take any pictures but I'm pretty sure I'm going to be going back soon, maybe even next week, so I'll take pictures for everyone then.  The run down was so much fun and somewhat risky because the descent was just as steep as the climb and it was a lot of soft sand and gravel.  It's crazy how fast you can get going and even crazier how hard it is to stop!  I felt like a kid running down the hill and it made us forget how tired our legs got climbing up.

Afterwards we drove further down the coast and eventually stopped to grab some food.  We got burritos to go and headed back to eat at a beach in Carmel.  We just missed the sunset but it was still somewhat light out.  Once the sun completely went down the stars started coming out, brighter and brighter and we eventually saw a couple of shooting stars and a bunch of satellites.  I need to brush up on my constellations though because the only ones I could find were the Big Dipper and Cassiopea.  It was definitely the best day I've had here so far and I cannot wait to go back and take some pictures...but like the guy I was with said "You live here now, you're not visiting."  Good point...

These shoes were made for walkin'!

And walking is all I did this past week.  I had no car from Friday thru Tuesday due to some overpowering on a tire change that led to broken lug nuts, no garages open on Saturdays, and not getting it towed until Monday night...good times.  I'm thinking it's about time to retire the Focus, maybe I'll get a brand new car like Betsy (my fav sis) just did!

Being so close to work is great when I am in a situation when I have to walk.  It's been pretty cool (temp wise) in the morning and it's a great sight to wake up and look out over the water, see all the lights on the hills, and then watch the sun come up over the mountains.  

Saturday I took a nice stroll down to Trader Joe's since I was completely out of food.  It's right down the street and conveniently located next to a Peet's coffee place which blows Starbucks out of the water.  I went in, grabbed my coffee and headed to TJ's to get only as much food as I could carry with me back up the hill!  Food of the week: Soft tacos with chicken, rice and guac!

Monday night I had my first track workout at Monterey Peninsula College with my running club.  The run there was a great warm-up but after the workout (15 x 300m) the run back was not as much fun.  The workout went really well and I did ok for an old man!  There were two people that beat me on the first two but after I was warmed up and ready to go I never looked back.  The guy running with me dropped out after the 10th lap claiming he hurt his calf but the woman I was with stayed strong for the rest of them and we got a really great workout in. 

I was in a rush to get home because the Pats were playing on Monday Night Football and over here that starts at 5:30.  By the time I got home I had already missed the entire first half and it didn't seem like the Pats were doing so well.  I got cleaned up and headed to Peter B's for some horrible service!  The game was great thanks to our special teams, no help from Mr. Randy Moss and the Pats squished the fish (no mother they are not really fish).  I sat there for over 30 mins though with only one water and no food.  I finally went up to the bar and asked for some food, mentioning that I hadn't seen a menu yet so eventually the server came over.  There was no reason for me to tip this guy but I'm a sap and did anyway.  Time to find a new place!

Tuesday I finally got to pick up my car and after my daily walk home I ran the 3.5 miles to the garage.  Of course the guy asked if I actually ran there and I responded with "yeah, you stole my car and I don't know anyone to drive me."  Not even a smirk!  Finally in possession of my vehicle I cruised home to a new (yet used) futon that a coworker gave me for free and delivered while I was out.  It's much nicer than the one that came with the place.  No, I'm not sleeping on a futon but it's nice to have in case I ever get visitors (hint, hint) and now I have two so the more the merrier!

Wednesday started off a bit rough, just having one of those mornings especially after waking up to the news about Randy Moss becoming a Viking with NOTHING in return except a draft pick...we better get a solid receiver in return for that.  Anyway, I was also dealing with a lot of outside issues that shouldn't be causing me anymore stress in my life but unfortunately I brought those feelings to work and I was noticeably cranky all day.  Mother, I don't need any emails about this...Thankfully I was able to find myself listening to Pandora and watching the MLB playoffs because Monterey has wi-fi and I have a brand new Ipod Touch (thanks Mike) so that helped me get through the day.

It was a very busy week at work and I'm starting to get more responsibilities and become comfortable with my job.  I got to inject a couple of seahorses, perform my own necropsies and tonight I even got to help move dorado (aka mahi-mahi) that were caught in the San Diego/Mexico area and brought up to be put in the open ocean tank next summer.  I also filled out my first time card so this time next week I'll be in a very good mood!

This weekend I'm finally going to be able to do laundry and get out of Monterey.  I'm heading down to Big Sur to go on a hike/walk with a friend from the running club and one of her friends.  It's supposed to be amazing and it'll probably be more of a hike than a run but I'll make sure to take a lot of pictures and tell you all about it next week!

GO PATS!

If anyone reading this is NOT on Facebook and wants the link to all of my pics from my road trip let me know and I'll send you the link!

How many lives do you have?

view from top of street

That is what the doctor giving me my dive physical today asked me...I responded with "I think I'm on my 5th."  He said "well I've only got one so why not make the best of it right?"  I couldn't agree with him more.  I continued to tell him how I was starting my life over here in Monterey and when he asked if it was that big of a move I told him it was pretty huge leaving everyone I knew, friends and family to come to a place where I didn't know anyone.  He said that wouldn't last too long because I'm a good guy and I work with a lot of good people which was very reassuring.  

Pacific Grove

I'm starting to settle in out here in this beautiful environment.  I haven't been doing too much outside of work except running and playing on the computer but I joined a running club which should be fun.  We ran on Wednesday.  It is just a small group of people of varying ages and levels of running so it's a good mix.  I found one girl to run with so we kept a pretty good pace for 6.5 miles while everyone else except for this one crazy Russian guy, were running behind us.  After the run we all went out to a bar downtown but I didn't stick around for too long but probably will next week.  We meet again on Monday for a track workout!

Local beach

Work is going well so far.  I'm going to be working mainly in the seahorse section but will also be involved with the jellies on Wednesday and Thursday.  They've gotta get me all trained up in just a couple of weeks and them I'm in charge of the seahorses on Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays.  There's a lot to learn in a short amount of time but most of it is very repetitive, you just have to pay attention to a lot of very minute details.  My second day was amazing.  I got to go out on one of their boats (they have 3), it is a 19' Boston Whaler and we went out in search of moon jellies (Aurelia aurita) along with other species if they looked good enough.  We went out probably 15-20miles in 6 foot swells that were covering up the horizon and cruising along in thick fog searching each slick we could find.  Just outside of Moss Landing we started seeing the moons we needed and then they were everywhere!  We easily got two tubs full of jellies and grabbed one Pacific sea nettle on the way.  I saw a purple-striped jelly and an egg yolk jelly that were both twice the size of my head, it was unreal!  We also saw sea lions, sea otters, and one harbor porpoise...this place is amazing.



The week went pretty quickly and was somewhat exhausting trying to learn everything and find my way around but it's going to be a great place to work.  The people seem cool so far but it's only been a few days so we'll see how that goes down the line.  And now that I finally got my dive physical done I will be able to start diving soon (hopefully).  Until then though I'm going to keep up with the running of which I'm going on 30+ miles this week so that's exciting.  I may also start running with another group on Saturdays that do a fun run in Pacific Grove.  They only go 3-5 miles so if I run there and back I can get a good 8-10 in each Saturday.  


Oh and good news to the fam, I might be able to come home for Christmas but I'll let you know for sure soon!


GO PATS!