Aquarium Revisited

December 19th

We made it back to the Monterey Bay Aquarium on a less busy day.

 A big fish in the Kelp Forest.

 A Leopard shark making its rounds.

 Giant Pacific Octopus.  At least it's not mushed up in a corner.

 This one was actually pretty active.

This one, however, was mushed up against the glass.  Octopus-loaf.

 So many suction cups!

 It was very kind of this crab to be sitting right next to its replica.  

I think it's for visually impaired visitors.

 This guy looks so done with everything.

 The sharks in this exhibit were on the move.  

 Flat fish are weird.  The one in the corner would hide better if it put its head down.

 A sturgeon.

 Possibly a Boradnose sevengill shark.

 Some sort of anemone. 

Ducks don't use their wings to swim. Just awkward foot flapping.

 Purple-striped jellies.  These guys are around the size of your head.

 Comb jelly - about the size of your hand.

 Tiny cross jellies - about the size of a half dollar. 

I don't remember what this one is called, but it has weird hair-like tentacles.  

I'm not even sure they're tentacles.

But it's a disco rave on top.

A hammerhead lurking in the dark of the Open Ocean exhibit.

Recycled plastic art by Sayaka Ganz

Bigfin reef squid.

Another Bigfin reef squid.

A mimic octopus or Wunderpus.  These guys are amazing.  Google a video of one.  

Also, they're like only 9 inches long.

I'm not sure if the is the Common or Day octopus. 

It was very pale.  We have that in common.

Nautili are weird.  They don't seem like they should work.  

But they do, and have, for like 200 million years. 

Stumpy cuttlefish!  These two are...mating maybe? Or just hugging it out.

Flamboyant cuttlefish can also be subdued.

This one is my favorite.  Common Cuttlefish.  He's like the size of a football.

All hail Hypno-cuttlefish! I could watch this all day.

This concludes our adventures for today.

Graduation

December 16th

Today our Bulgarian friends had their graduation from their program.

Dan and I are very proud of Angel and Orlin.   

Tomorrow we take them to the airport and send them home.  

We will miss them.  We had a great time.

Jack's Peak

December 11th

This morning, Tantalum and I decided to go explore Jack's Peak.

 Jack's Peak is a county park that's only 10 minutes from our house.

 It has some great views down into the Monterey Bay.

 Enhance!  This is Fisherman's Warf, and in the bottom corner, part of the La Mesa neighborhood.

 Tantalum pulled me through much of the hike.

 And there was a lot of poison oak.

 This view looks down into Pacific Grove.

 Oaks and pines!

 A fungus!  

 A shiny fungus!  And poison oak.

 Cathedral pines!

 Oooooh!  More fungus!

 Oh hey, my camera has a macro zoom.

 Droplets on leaves.

 ZOOOM!

You can even see the reflection of poison oak in the water droplets.

 Water droplets in moss!

 The trails were pretty nice, but this tree hadn't been cleared yet.  

Ta and I managed to go under and over it respectively.

 A few dewey fuchsias.

A different fungus!

I really like this macro zoom.  It's fun!

Ta and I enjoyed our hike through Jack's Peak and I enjoyed getting to use my new camera.

This concludes our adventures for today.

The Great Dickens Christmas Fair

December 4th

"The Great Dickens Christmas Fair is a one-of-a-kind holiday adventure into Victorian London; an elaborate party with hundreds of costumed players performing and interacting with patrons in over 120,000 square feet of theatrically-lit music halls, pubs, dance floors, and Christmas shops."

It's like a renaissance festival/fair but Dickens themed!

This is a Dickensian Inventor.

I just got my new camera, and was still figure out how to use it - so this photo is blurry.

It turns out many of these vendors are also vendors at the local renaissance festival.

The fair had funny pockets of overlapping smells.  

There'd be roasted chestnuts mixing with meat pies and cinnamon on top.

A map of the Dickens Fair.  It was pretty cool.

Unrelated.  This boat outside of the bar we do trivia at was decorated for the holidays.  

I thought it was pretty.

This concludes our adventures for today, plus a random other day.