31 May - Dry Tortugas

The first full day has been interesting.  There are already some people I don't fit with perfectly and others that I would work with on any project.  It's funny though because I seem to have been wrong about a handful of them.  Some I thought I would struggle to relate to are turning out to have the most in common whereas others I thought would be great to be around don't seem to have as compatible personalities as I thought.  I get along well with everyone but as I'm sure you all know, there's a range: people can fall anywhere on the spectrum.
Overall I would call this first day a success and I'm looking forward to the days to come.

30 - Dry Tortugas

My first research cruise has officially begun.  After a weekend of being sick and not getting much done, today has been a total whirlwind of craziness.

My day began at 5:45 when I awoke to rent a ladder from Home Depot so I could install my motion sensors on my outdoor floodlights.  It doesn't make sense to leave them on for 10 straight days while I'm away so I wanted to get it done before leaving.  I struggled to fit the components into the existing fixture so to make a long story short all I did was replace the bulbs with energy efficient ones and left the 4 by the corner/backyard on.  While up on the ladder, I noticed a serious accumulation of leaves and muck on the roof of the screened porch, likely the culprit of all the leaks I've noticed below.  I decided to clean out the roof of all the debris then decided the grass had already gotten out of hand and needed to be cut so I quickly took care of that.  After showering, paying my cable bill, and finishing up the last of the packing, I headed out to return the ladder, pick up a few things from CVS, fill up my car with gas, and drive to RSMAS for a meeting.  Afterwards, I rushed off to the post office, picked up lunch, returned to RSMAS to eat and fix an inflator hose for the trip.  We got away late but reached Key West by 7pm.

I have been introduced to the crew, several of the divers, and the boat.  After an hour and a half briefing, we were able to take some time before the 11pm departure during which time my carpool (Steve, Nathan, and I) got dinner.

We watched the end of game 2 of the Heat-Celtics playoff game where the Heat won in overtime.

Now I've climbed into my bunk below deck and am being lulled by the slow steady rocking of the boat cutting through the calm waters on a clear night on our way to the Tortugas.  It's been a long time since I've slept on a boat (and Passion, the yacht I sore didn't hardly rock anyway) so it's nice to feel the calming sensation again.  I write this at 12:30 in my bunk tucked away below deck behind my curtain nestled up against the wall under a dim, almost flickering light thinking to myself that I'm finally on another grand adventure.  I'm excited to see what this new experience brings.  As for now, I've earned my sleep.  Goodnight.

Dry Turtles

I meant to post earlier about my upcoming trip.  This is really my last opportunity to put anything before I go.  Tomorrow I leave for the Dry Tortugas, an area about 70 miles west of Key West, accessible by only sky or sea.  I'll be spending a bit of time out there doing what are called Reef Visual Censuses.  I'll be doing working dives about 5 times a day where the entire dive is devoted to surveying the sites by identifying and recording fish species, recording the amount of each species present, minimum, maximum, and average lengths of each species.  The census also includes a plethora of recordings for the benthic habitat: type of substrate, hard/soft coral species, vertical relief, slope, visibility, temperature, cross-sectional area at several heights above the base depth, and a number of other sightings such as trash, lionfish, urchins, conch, etc.  It's going to be a lot of work, but from what I hear of the diving, it's some of the best in nearly the entire Caribbean.  The Dry Tortugas is an area whose regulations are very strictly enforced, thus keeping people out.  Boating, fishing, swimming, and diving are highly restricted and the paperwork required to bring a boat into it keeps most of the world away.  This means that many of the fish that I will see out there have never seen a diver before.  Many of the reefs are potentially unexplored.  I'm anticipating that the amount and the variety of marine life is going to be rivaled only by the Philippines and the Red Sea (of the places I've dived).  Yes, I know my hopes are high.  I don't honestly expect the diving to be as good as either of those two places but I do think it will be the best I've seen since Egypt.

I desperately need some sleep because I'm waking up tomorrow at 5:45 to take care of a long list of tasks that need to be finished before I leave at 1:30.

P.S. there's no internet or cell reception on the boat so you'll have to wait until I'm back to find out how it went.  Peace!

More Moving

Full car load during move-out

Don't worry, I'm not moving.  This time it's Christina.  She's finally getting out of her apartment and away from the landlord who only invokes horrible stories from her about how he tries to rip her off all the time.  Anyway she never has to deal with him again and I'm happy about that.  Getting back to my point, a friend who now lives about a mile away is leaving her room in a shared house for the summer and Christina is subletting her room for the next 3 months.  Since her internship is for 12 months, this first quarter of the year will be beneficial in deciding what she wants in terms of housing (particularly location) for the following 3 quarters, i.e. whether or not the commute is worth relocating away from civilization.

During the process, she is also working full time 8:30-4:30, 5 days a week as well as studying for her comprehensive exam for the masters program.  I came over to help her move and managed to fill her car with nearly her entire apartment (there is a hybrid bicycle under there).  One of her possessions that gave us the most trouble was my Valentine's Day gift to her: a wisteria plant that has grown a surprising amount.  In fact it has shown so much growth that it required us to build a support structure for it out of bamboo and sewing thread.  The only place in the car that it would safely fit was at my feet.

Driving with plants

Moving help came in an unexpected way

From there, we loaded up the car and brought everything back to my house since her friend has not yet left for the summer so the room is unavailable at the moment (she's staying on the couch until the friend has left in about 10 days).  When we made it back to my house and started moving her things inside, Christina spotted a cute little kitten and we've now both fallen in love with it.  We refuse to feed or house it but it is the most precious and playful little thing I've seen in a long time and it's nearly impossible to just walk away.  We haven't named it (at least not yet) and I'm kind of actually hoping that it just disappears.  I am not in any position to have a pet, not with my crazy work schedule where I'm hardly in Miami for half the summer.  I know I can't handle a pet right now but I haven't chased it away from the house with a broom and I don't think I will.  It hasn't been doing any harm by sleeping on my front porch and until it does start causing harm, I don't mind this friendly little visitor.

Recently

The academic year has come to a very sudden end.  I didn't see it approaching but finals week is nearly over by now, marking the end of my second full academic year in Miami, the end of the first full academic year of teaching.  One year ago marked the last time I was a student.  Since kindergarten, the longest streak I've ever had of not being a student was my year abroad (the reason for starting this blog) and in a few months when this summer is over I will have tied that streak though this time it is evident that I'm going to continue the streak.

In the news (of my life)...

I have moved out of my parent's house completely.  All of my remaining belongings are in a pile ready to be picked up by a moving truck and will be here in less than a month.  It's certainly a weird feeling and I do feel significantly grown up.

Christina has started her internship at Biscayne National Park.  It's a year-long internship that's located about 45 minutes to an hour and a half away (depending on traffic).  I'm excited that she's going to be within driving distance for the next 12 months.  I don't know if I mentioned it before but I was concerned that she would end up in an internship that was outside of southern Florida and we would rarely see each other but realistically we'll share each other's company on a fairly regular basis especially since she's living within a mile of me for the entire summer.

For someone who makes a living out of diving, I don't dive all that often these days.  This is why this week is looking so exciting.  Monday: help on a checkout dive.  Tuesday: 2 nitrox dives for our students from this past semester.  Wednesday: dive with.... actually, I forget now.  Thursday: practice dive for the reef surveys I'll be doing over the summer for a few weeks in and beyond the FL Keys.

If you don't count orchestra which was 3 hours a week, I'm playing about as much viola these days as I did back at Denison.  Okay, so maybe that's even still an exaggeration but I play an average of 30 minutes a day, so frequently in fact that I haven't even put my viola in its case for the past 2 weeks.

Swarming Season

For anyone (such as yours truly) unfamiliar with March and April with respect to termites, let the records show that those two months are termite swarming months.  Although I didn't kill any today, I've found and killed about 50 over the past 3 days.  I've found a significant amount of ants outside the house but very few inside yet.  I have come across 2 dead cockroaches, one in the laundry room and one in my bedroom although that one wasn't entirely dead as it turned out.  I have a trivial leak in the Florida room ceiling and fairly serious but inconsequential leaking into the screened-in patio.  They are first world problems, yes.  However, they're still things that demand my attention as well as a long list of other things.  This has been a mentally demanding process, this buying a house thing.

Next weekend I'm flying up to Ohio to flag any furniture of mine in the basement which will be sent down to Miami for the new place.  It is going to be a lot of work sitting around in the basement sifting through two full storage shelves of things ranging from 1st grade writing assignments up through furniture.  At least I'll be able to see my family.

UPDATE: Since posting, the termite count seems to have dropped considerably.  I have only found one in nearly a week.  I know that they're not gone just because I haven't seen them in a while but it is a sign that swarming season is coming or has come to an end.

Life Changes

 It is rather amazing how much has happened since I last updated this blog.  It’s mind-blowing actually.

Screened-in porch

Living room, with view of dining room, Florida room, and bed/bathroom

There’s no sense in beating around it so I’ll just get to the point.  I finally bought a house!  Yes, it is true.  I have officially become a grown-up.  It is a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom single detached home in Coral Gables and it is perfect for me.  I’m including a few pictures that speak for themselves.

It has been a long time coming, or at least it feels that way.  Realistically it’s only been since November since I started searching but it felt like it couldn’t come fast enough.  It has a screened porch out back by the small backyard and then a smattering of trees and bushes in the front yard.  A couple owners ago was very much into horticulture and has a menagerie of plant species throughout the yard among which include a coconut tree and two mango trees.  I’ve spent the past week moving and settling in.  I’m not close to being done despite the few belongings I own, but I’ve been making progress.

Master bedroom

I’ve had the time to settle in but I’ve been keeping busy elsewhere because I don’t want to have my whole life sucked into the house.  Instead, time has been spent rock climbing, diving, seeing friends, and hanging out with Christina a whole lot.  I weeded almost the entire front yard today and trimmed most of the bushes.  There’s one that appears to be taking over some others but it’s spread so much that it’s hard to tell what’s supposed to be there anymore.  I cut it back and maybe in a few weeks I’ll cut it back even more until I can make sense out of what’s going on.

Living room

Kitchen

There are rumors about my job changing for the better but I won’t believe it until I see it.  Everyone gets the impression that the upper administration, since they are non-divers, see the diving program as something they could turn into a money maker.  They don’t see the benefit in giving it a little bit of a leash and letting it expand to the point that people would come to Miami specifically for diving.  Since the two head people of the Business Office have been fired for losing a 7-figure amount of money, there have been committees going through each part of RSMAS collecting information and presenting their suggestions to the dean.  The committee luckily has come to see the importance of the diving program and would like to expand our resources and realize a little more of our potential.  I say I’m not going to believe it until I see it because the administration still has to consider and approve/deny all of the committees’ suggestions.  I’m not hopeful. 

Hunger

I finished a book today in nearly record time.  Today is Wednesday.  I began on Monday.

The Hunger Games is a riveting science fiction novel where North America has been divided and ruled with a bit of an iron fist by The Capitol.  Food is scarce and much in this world is heavily regulated and watched.  One boy and one girl from each of the 12 districts are forced to be pitted against one another to survive.  The idea of the game is simple: if you're the last one alive, you win.  Character development is great, and there's never much of a dull moment as the book naturally beckons you to keep turning to the next page.  Now I'll have to see the movie.

As for my life otherwise, it's still great.  I was able to visit family (Margie, Karin, Mandy, and parents) over the weekend in Naples, then some of them (parents and Mandy) came to visit me in Miami.  Today Rick left right after class for 2 and a half weeks in Australia which means that I'm in charge of the diving program.  After class, my visitors took Christina and I out to lunch on Key Biscayne which was fantastic after which we dropped her off at RSMAS and I drove them around a bit before they left.

The housing process is still under way.

Yikes!

I'm getting seriously behind again!!!  Since my last post:

We took the class to Little Salt Spring
I turned 25 (woot!)
I found over 30 shark teeth on a single dive at Venice Beach
We all came back to Miami
I ended up on ABC for a few seconds
Christina and I have hung out a bunch
The housing process is making progress
I sat in on a meeting of the Diving Control Board
Rick got me excited about what our diving program could and hopefully will be in a couple years
Some family is coming in to Naples and I am heading over there to meet them tomorrow

I promise I'll update for real sometime soon.  As for now, I need some sleep.

Spring Break 2012!

I'm off to Little Salt Spring with the diving class for spring break.  I will not be taking my laptop there so I will not really be updating but stay tuned afterwards.  Hopefully I'll be able to get caught up on my parents being here as well as fill everyone in on spring break upon my return.

Also, tune in to ABC this Saturday morning to "Ocean Mysteries with Jeff Corwin" (check local listings for times).  I will be on for a few seconds!

Also I can't believe my birthday is in 2 days!