First, a bit of history: Marty Snyderman introduced me to Travis Swanson at DEMA last year and told me that Travis was the “Jim Abernethy of the Pacific Northwest.” Howard Hall and Marty had been out with Hydrus earlier come back with fantastic images and video footage of sixgill sharks (Hexanchus griseus) in relatively shallow water. Sixgill sharks are a deep-water shark species rarely seen by recreational SCUBA divers, and I was really intrigued by the possibility of seeing one. Marty’s introduction prompted me to immediately book an exploratory trip with Travis and [Team Hydrus][teamhydrus]. I invited Douglas Seifert (contributing editor, Dive Magazine) and Simon Rogerson (editor, Dive Magazine) along for the trip; I travel with Douglas frequently, but it had been years since I had seen Simon. (read more »)
I’ve been taking advantage of meals to catch up with friends before I leave town again on Sunday. I took a nice walk past Dolores Park to Tartine for lunch with Cynthia Yu today (and her sister’s beagle puppy in tow — that thing is a people magnet!). Evening plans included a dinner with Dave Patchen and Kim Nash, and I was pleasantly surprised to have Vienna Teng pop up on IM to tell me that she was around for the next 12 hours or so.
dave and kim with vienna’s new sunglasses
vienna teng and eric cheng at brothers
We baked ourselves in boiled kimchi and the fumes of wood coal-grilled bulgogi at Brothers, and then hung out up in the loft at my place until Vienna was forced to move her car at midnight.
And now, I have to go shower off the Korean BBQ smell and burn my clothing.
I’d like to share some correspondence between me and my family over the past week while I was at Gatecon. Stargate is my dad’s favorite television show. It shows, doesn’t it? :) (read more »)
In early December of 2007, Paul Brown of Legends Memorabilia invited me to be a guest at Gatecon 2008, a sci-fi convention for Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis fans.
Sea Shepherd with Richard Dean Anderson Can you spot the poseur? Hint: it’s me.
I was introduced to Paul by Kim McCoy, International Executive Director of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Gatecon 2008 was to be very special this year because Richard Dean Anderson (RDA) would be in attendance for the first time in Stargate convention history. “Rick” (as he likes to be called) is on Sea Shepherd’s board of directors, and through RDA and Legends, Gatecon 2008 was set up as a benefit event for Sea Shepherd.
Stargate SG-1 is my father’s favorite show, and he has been talking about it for over a decade. But even though I had heard about the TV show for years, I had never actually seen an episode of SG-1 nor Atlantis prior to my involvement in Gatecon. In the last 8 months, I made it a mission to watch as many episodes as possible to prepare for Gatecon. I loaded up on DVDs before each trip abroad and spent evenings on boats winding down by watching an episode or two. I’m proud to say that I made it through 8.5 seasons of SG-1 (about 175 episodes) in 8 months! I’m now thoroughly invested in the characters, and am sure to finish up the 10 seasons of SG-1 before starting to make my way through Atlantis and the SG-1 movies. (read more »)
My buddy Jeremy Desmon just wrote me about a new online comedy series he is working on. Check it out!
Hey all,
I’m writing to spread the word about a cool new online comedy series I’m working on, called MAN OF THE PEOPLE: The Only-Recently Discovered Secret Political Recordings of Acting Mayor Francis “Woody” Woodson. The writing is really smart and clever and it stars an amazing crew of Broadway folks. This free audio web serial (with a political bent) “airs” new episodes online every Tuesday through Election Day, November 4th.
Please take a listen! Go to www.woody4mayor.com hit the “Play” button. That’s it. It’s that simple. Even better, subscribe to receive weekly emails or have iTunes automatically download each episode as it goes online. And it’s free! From the press release:
“Akin to comedic serials “Prairie Home Companion” or Joss Whedon’s “Dr. Horrible,” MAN OF THE PEOPLE echoes radio plays of the past, while providing an up-to-the-minute, satirical take on the 2008 election through the guise of a heated mayoral race in the fictional hamlet of Daltonville (pop. 1799). Comprised of the “found” tapes of a small-town mayor secretly audiotaping his every political move, this episodic download follows Woody Woodson as he drags Daltonville through a series of political minefields, trudging along his quixotic quest for re-election (and, of course, his place in history).”
Listen (and subscribe) at www.woody4mayor.com!
Enjoy,
Jeremy
ON FACEBOOK? ON iTUNES? GOT THREE MINUTES?
We hope you’ll enjoy the series so much, you’ll subscribe and share it with others over time. But, as we launch, could you please take three minutes to help us spread the word?
(One minute) On Facebook? Go to www.snipurl.com/woody4mayor (it may ask you to login to facebook). Select “Post to Profile” at the top and click the “Post” button. That’s it. This helps us immensely. (Feel free to write a nice comment.)
(Two minutes) Got iTunes? Go to www.snipurl.com/iTunesSubscribe and click “Subscribe.” That’s it. No obligation to listen, but an initial blast of podcast subscribers (that’s you!) really, really helps us get exposure through iTunes rankings. So thank you so much. (Super-Duper-Bonus-Help: Know how to post comments at the iTunes Store? Please, please do, and say nice things!)
(Advanced Web Folks Only) On StumbleUpon? Reddit? Something else? Please use your web savvy to help us spread the word! Go to www.woody4mayor.com, click “ShareThis” and work your magic. Thanks!
kim mccoy, paul watson, me, an asgard, and linda, the asgard’s keeper
lord watson rules from lord ba’al’s throne
“it’s an honor,” richard dean anderson says when he meets me. i reply with the same! (photo: adam lau)
amanda is a budding ocean conservationist!
I’m having a lot of fun here, and the Stargate fans in attendance seem to be really excited about the ocean and finding out what they can do to spread awareness of conservation issues.
Wetpixel Quarterly, Eric Cheng Photography, Shark Angels
We arrived in Vancouver today and set up our booths at Gatecon. I’m hoping that the tenuous connection between me and Stargate fans1 will be enough for them to be interested in my work. :)
My first log splitting. It was actually quite satisfying! Thanks, Adam for the video. There is a still image of me at the moment of splitting, and my expression is bizarre. (read more »)
The sunset here is really pretty. Everything stopped today when the sun hit the mountains, and we hustled out onto the back deck to snap some photos.
Yesterday’s sunset was reported to be even more spectacular, but Matt and I were underwater at the time. We surfaced to an absolutely flat ocean below a fiery red sky, which was quite an experience.
I’m in the Puget Sound off of Seattle diving with sixgill sharks(Hexanchus griseus). We just finished our first evening in the water, and had fantastic luck (we started at around 9pm). Matt Segal and I dropped in and had four female sixgills come in on the bait almost immediately. I felt tremendous privilege being in the water with them because they are such elusive animals; our habitats simply don’t normally have any overlap.
a sixgill shark in Seattle (Hexanchus griseus)
During Simon’s rotation, he saw a large sixgill (12 ft long, estimated) eating crabs. We’re told that this behavior has never been seen before, and hope to be able to capture it on video tomorrow night.
I always thought ratfish (Chimaeras) were rare (I photographed some in Alaska, but there were literally hundreds down at the bottom today, along with about a billion dungeness crabs. If you want to photograph ratfish, there is no need to fly off to some exotic place and descend down into the depths. Fly to Seattle, chuck some bait off of the side of your boat, and shoot as many photos as you need!
On the way up from the dive, we ascended through an algae bloom. I looked over at Matt while we were hanging at our safety stop, and the slight oscillation of the ascent line caused his body to throw off literally thousands of sparkling lights…
six-gill shark — count ‘em. there are six of them. :)
Continue reading for video updates from the field. I’ll be uploading video as time allows for the next three days. (read more »)
At the talk I gave last week, there was a guy there who seemed to exist in a different plane of existence, and he managed to thoroughly confuse (and annoy) pretty much everyone he encountered.
My experience with him wan’t so bad: all he did to me was monopolize my time and ask me to get him a spot on the Sea Shepherd boat (uhh, ok).The only damage I suffered was collateral — a missed opportunity to talk to other people.
Graham Abbott has been in town here in San Francisco for weeks, and has been loving it! I do believe we’ll be seeing him more frequently on this side of the Pacific.
For those of you who don’t know Graham, he is dive guide extraordinaire in Indonesia, and will be helping us to find rare critters during the Wetpixel Ultimate Indo trip next March/April. Graham has shuttled me around Bali more than once, and I owe a lot of my enjoyment of the island to his generous hosting. If you’re headed over to Bali and want to do some diving, Graham is your man!
GG came back through San Francisco on her way back to Sydney from Wyoming. Coincidentally, we were in San Francisco at the same time (again) and were able to hang out one more. GG thought it suspicious because although I claim to be out of town a lot, I always seem to be in town when she arrives. Suspicious, indeed.
Some of my prints are on display (huge!) in the lobby of 50 Fremont, San Francisco.
The show is called Wetpixel: Marine Visions, and will be up from August 9 – October 14, 2008. If you’re interested in the photos, please contact Michaela Brockstedt.
I don’t have any proper images of the exhibit yet, but I hope to get in there to take some when I return from my next trip.
I continue to have 10-15 second freezes on my iPhone when I bring up the contacts list in attempts to make calls. It is really quite infuriating. Why can other phones handle hundreds of contacts without locking their users out?
To make me feel better, I’ve decided to collect iPhone fail screens.
what good is 5 bars of coverage if you can’t make a call?
I had a ton of failed calls when I was down in San Diego (as you might remember from my torrent of angry tweets), but that was before firmware 2.0, and I was unable to screenshot the fail screen even when using the jailbroken screenshot app.
UPDATE: At the moment, my iPhone doesn’t show up in iTunes when I plug it in. My Apple Bluetooth headset also now refuses to pair with anything. Massive Apple failure.
UPDATE: I reinstalled iTunes 7.7.1, and it works again.
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