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.