Bird Rock Dive: Catalina Island

In Advanced Scuba Photo, we have two cameras, the Beast and the Mother of the Beast, Canon Rebel T2is with monster underwater housings, complete with strobes, flashes, macro and wide-angle lenses.

My partner, Ben and I were using the Beast at Bird Rock, a tiny island off Catalina, which is a fantastic dive spot.

I’ll admit, we had already been down several times and I had pretty shoddy pictures.  I wasn’t expecting anything miraculous to come of that dive.

It was the coldest morning of Session 62, the water temperature at the surface was only about 57 degrees.

But once we were down we saw the most amazing things.

The freezing water made for incredible viz, crystal clear.  The first thing I saw was a large snail suctioned onto a piece of bull kelp.

Not 20 feet away, lay a delicate maroon sea star, nestled down between two rocks.

Then there was this very flashy garibaldi that kept swimming in front of the camera.

He even came back around after I’d swum away.

I thought he had the most magnificent eyes I had ever seen.

There was a clam down near the kelp beds, and he was lovely.

I was using the macro lens so I zoomed in very close.

I found my first abalone that day too, chipped but still beautiful.

There was another star hiding in the surf grass with marvelous spotting.

The kelp itself was pretty amazing too.

It was by far the best dive of Session 62.

The Avengers: Review

I haven’t written in two weeks because my mind is so completely and utterly BLOWN.

I expected The Avengers to be funny, action-packed and epic.

I was wrong.

So very, very wrong.

I FOUND MY NEW FAVORITE MOVIE!

Three.

I saw it 3 times in 24 hours.

Is that too much?  Probably. Do I think it’s too much?

OH HECK NO!

I went once with my sisters, once with my friend, theycallmedame,  and once with my parents.

It was HILARIOUS.

EXPLODING with action.

BEYOND epic.

And over all, just MARVELous and absolutely MAGNIFICENT. 

As each second passed, I died a little with happiness.

I saw it again last Saturday for theycallmedame’s birthday. Bringing my views up to a grand total of 4.

I’m very proud. I am exceedingly happy about how well it has done critically and in the box office.

Rotten Tomatoes is famously picky.  Despite the pickiness,The Avengers earned a 93% approval rating from critics and a 96% approval rating from viewers, dubbing the film “fresh.”

The box office reflected its success even better.

The Avengers broke the record for biggest of opening weekend of all time, domestically earning  $207,438,708 million dollars in three days.  The record was previously held last year’s summer blockbuster, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II, which earned $169.2 million.

After just 19 days in theaters (only 10 days in the U.S.) it passed the $1 billion dollar mark, making it one of only 12 movies in the history of cinema to reach that enormous sum.

It also claimed the record for biggest opening week ($270,019,373 million) of any film ever and biggest second week ($103,052,274 million), beating Avatar‘s second week ($75.6 million) by a landslide.

I have to admit, I got a Tumblr just so I could look at Avengers-related photosets and gifs.

Bottom line:

GO SEE IT!!!! YOU WON’T BE SORRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WARNING: SPOILERS:   -Click here for trivia about the movie.

The Avengers

I can’t even tell you how excited I am for The Avengers to hit theaters!

When I was a little girl, my parents took me to vacation at the family beach house in Ventura.  The bedroom I slept in had a chest of drawers and in the bottom drawer was a mountain of original Marvel and DC comic books.  There were Spiderman and Batman, Justice League and Avengers comics piled so high that the drawer barely closed.  I used to sit on the floor at the foot of the bed for hours, reading and rereading all these strange, colorful stories.

And so I became enamored of the Marvel Universe (Batman was a separate favorite).  Naturally, I went to see all the Marvel movies when they came out.

I absolutely adore Robert Downey Jr.  The first movie I saw that he starred in was Iron Man.  It is one of my very favorite movies, Iron Man 2 was better though.

I saw The Incredible Hulk, Captain America and Thor.  

And those movies were good.  Really good.  I love action movies, attractive people and super heroic snazziness.  And Marvel movies have those three things in spades.

My sisters are on their first backpacking trip, and they get back Friday.

They’re super cool and they like all the same actors and actresses as I do, so we’re going to have a freak-out party in the theater when we go to see it the night they get back.

Oh yes, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth (not a fan of Liam but Chris is amazing), Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner and Samuel L. Jackson all in one movie????

It is going to be magnificent.  I can’t wait!!!

Featured Band: All Time Low

There’s always that one band you listen to in your early teen years that you never forget.

When I was 13, I discovered All Time Low and fell completely in love.

I usually like one or two songs by a band.  Four songs TOPS.

But All Time Low…they were different for me.

To date, they’ve recorded 4 albums and one EP.

The Party Scene (2005)

This album is no longer available. There are only 1,000 known CD copies.

EP: Put Up or Shut Up (2006)

So Wrong, It’s Right (2007)

Nothing Personal (2009)

They also released a “Straight to DVD” album of a live concert in New York City in 2010, along with a full-length DVD about their lives backstage and on the road.

In 2011, they released their latest album Dirty Work.

The album cover was also released in red.

They are the only band I’ve ever listened to that I have liked every single song they’ve written.  Well almost every song, I’m not a huge fan of three songs.  But other than that, I love all their music.

Until Dirty Work came out.

One thing I thought was absolutely fabulous about All Time Low, was that they never used autotune, except for one song (a version of “Coffee Shop Soundtrack”) that was CLEARLY supposed to sound super strange and synthesized.

Their latest album featured autotune and it was much more… pop that they used to be.  The lyrics were still pretty dynamic and poetic.  But they took on a co-writer for some reason.

Their three original albums are absolutely brilliant.  The lyrics make me want to laugh out loud they’re so beautiful and strange and wonderful.  Frontman Alex Gaskarth is truly a spectacular composer and lyricist.  So I have faith in him and I’m sure their next album will be back to their original marvelous magic.

Anyway, I’ve loved the band for a long time.  The music is catchy and fresh without being too pop.

And Alex just has the most magnificent, smooth, gorgeous voice.

Sunsets

No enhancements were made to these photos.

I love sunsets.  They’re in bad romances and lame, angsty teen novels, unforgettable movies, and great literary master pieces.  Artists and poets have colored miles of canvas and thousands of pages depicting and describing their radiant beauty.  Twilight (ironically the unfortunate name of another angsty teen novel) is an enchanting hour.  It is the time of day when all three of the great celestial entities exist together.  The sun sets, the moon rises and the stars just begin to emerge.

I took this in Kona, 2003:

Outrigger Keauhou Beach Resort, 2003

I’m lucky enough to live by the beach.  The bay we live near faces south instead of west, so the sun never sets in front of my house, except for a short time in one season.  All year, I look forward to winter sunsets.  As December rolls around, the sun inches slowly south on the horizon, sinking into the sea right over the Channel Islands.

Watching the sun drift below the horizon is something magical.  Magentas and violets, gentle oranges and golds twist and swirl around each other in and endless tide of brilliant color.  The water reflects the clouds and shatters their image in its turbulent surface, scattering the light and magnifying it by a thousandfold.

As nice as these pictures are, they don’t do a sunset justice.  In fact, this website dims their color and decreases the awesome clarity, the sharp, severe lines.  But even the full quality pictures do not compare.  If you have a free night and a full tank of gas, head down to the beach with a snack and a blanket.  Go, watch the day die in a magnificent show of luminescent color and blazing light.