I just noticed that Amazon has book buybacks.¹ In this case, it would be like a 4-month rental for $2.06! That’s a great deal.

Hello, readers! If you have a moment, can you leave a comment wherever you first see this message, or where you feel most comfortable submitting a comment?

I’d like to get an idea of the % readership from my journal, from Twitter, and from Facebook. I’ll post the results. Thank you! :)

hydroponics rule.

Baby steps, right? :)

Unrelated: I’m upping my standard journal photo size to 600 pixels wide. Only photos posted via Flickr will be 500 pixels wide (their default).

One of our fellow passengers in Coiba was a 70-year old French guy named Louis-Michel. In the beginning, none of the non-French knew his name, and we all started calling him Cousteau, which stuck. Cousteau restores antique watches and clocks for a living, and seems to be slightly crazy. He wears stylish Hugo Boss (prescription) sunglasses, and is in fantastic shape for his age. He is also never satisfied. For example, the crew brings out large thermoses of coffee and hot chocolate, and Cousteau responds, “I prefer tea.” Marcelo makes amazing mojitos, and Cousteau fishes out the mint leaves and makes a funny face. His steak is not rojo enough, and the chicken has too many bones.

Neither Heidi nor I were in Cousteau’s boat, but from conversation with his dive-mates, I gathered that he was a handful in the water. Essentially behaving like a remora, Cousteau chose Andrea as his host, which was incredibly entertaining for everyone else. On one dive, Andrea looked ahead, behind, to the left, to the right, and below him, and concluded that he had lost Cousteau. He prepared to do an underwater victory dance, but then paused for a moment and looked directly above, only to discover Cousteau floating there, impossibly close! Hilarious. And if you happened to find a critter? Cousteau would be there instantly. (read more »)

Vienna Teng, Bill Rivard, Natalie Chang, Aaron Logan, Victor

Tonight, I hosted the first of what I hope to be a series of presentations / performances by my community of talented friends. I gave a 2-hour slideshow about my recent adventures documenting Operation Musashi in the Southern Ocean. It was an intimate crowd; about 13 people showed up, which was just about the perfect number.

“Remote” app on iPhone controls Keynote ‘09

It was my first time using Keynote ’09’s new Remote app for iPhone. It worked perfectly, but I wish it had an option to go to the beginning of a presentation. The photo above shows the presentation on a plasma screen, but I actually gave it using the projector — everything looked fantastic, except that my Mac Mini couldn’t play 720p H.264 video upres’ed to 1080p within Keynote. Poor computer…

Hey guys! I’m in Brisbane now, and my assistant’s Canon 1D/1Ds Mk II charger has burned out. We are leaving port on Wednesday. Does anyone have a used charger to sell us? We’d love to order one, but we’re afraid that we don’t have time for a delivery.

Or, we can go into town and buy one from a camera store (have recommendations for who to call?).

Please let me know via email if you can help! Thank you. :)

I’ll get your message if you send one on Tuesday (in Australia) at: http://echeng.com/contact/

For some reason, the ViewLevel plugin for Wordpress has started showing lock icons on all posts after I upgraded to WP 2.6.5 from 2.6.1, so I’ve removed the icon altogether from post titles. Hope to fix this when I return.

Until then, please be sure you are logged in to read the latest updates (if you have an account, that is). :)

Yap stamp detail

I have been stressed out for the past few weeks because I shipped my Seacam underwater housing (with ports, arms, strobes, chargers, and more) back from Yap, Micronesia rather than haul it home via Dave and Kim’s wedding in New York . After a month and a half, it had still not arrived. I insured the package, but my receipt from the Yap post office simply said, “Stamps: $140,” and this did not inspire confidence in the package’s traceability. (read more »)

I was hanging out with a friend the other day (one I don’t know very well), and she asked, “so what were you doing when you were living in New York?”

I answered, succinctly, “I was writing options trading software.”

She replied, “Oh. That doesn’t interest me at all.”

Silence.

You can imagine that I wasn’t as excited for additional dialog.

Since I don’t have TV, I streamed election coverage on MSNBC after having dinner in the Castro during the actual announcement of Obama’s win — the streets went wild!. Animal Planet is doing a bit advertising push for Whale Wars; MSNBC played the trailer 4-5 times during the course of my 30 minutes of watching speeches.

I’ve been getting emails from acquaintances who live abroad, and there seems to be near universal joy outside of the U.S.; likewise, all of my close friends are ecstatic at the prospect of change. The only downer is that more than 50% of voting Californians seem to be bigots. It will be really disappointing if Prop. 8 passes. I thought we lived in a little oasis here, but it appears that the oasis only encompasses the coast.

When we were walking to the car after dinner, a homeless man shuffled by with a shopping cart, muttering, “I don’t care about any of this shit. I don’t care.” Yeah, I suppose the ramifications of an Obama victory might not matter so much compared to finding food and a place to sleep.

More of my friends are making it into reality TV! Alissa is going to be featured in a new series on the CW called In Harm’s Way.

Me ‘n alissa, self portrait in San Francisco

Alissa will be in the “War Photographers” episode:

They may not be soldiers, but war photographers risk their lives each time they set out to grab the headline-making shots that chronicle military conflict. In this episode, Hunter Ellis takes viewers into battle with two war photographers on the job in Israel’s West Bank and Gaza Strip, as they cover the region’s tense and tumultuous events.

UPDATE: The episode is on Hulu.

Angel Island fire, San Francisco, October 12, 2008

I saw a tweet from @ravenb tonight about the fire at Angel Island, and rushed out of my house at 11:30pm for a quick view up in Diamond Heights. I hope no one was hurt in the fire, and I hope they get it under control soon. As of 11:15pm, it had already consumed more than 100 acres. (read more »)

I’m going to load my Kindle with tons of books before I leave for extended travels this coming November, and I’d like to get some recommendations. What should I read? :)

Since everyone I know seems to be on reality shows these days, I thought I’d push another show. This one will be on NBC.

Shark Taggers follows a bunch of marine biologists as they tag sharks in Brazil (and other places). It just so happens that that marine biologists are led by Dr. Samuel Gruber and a bunch of the people I spent time with at the Bimini Biological Field Station back in 2003.

Back at PIT 2003: Mangroves at night! bug jackets! sharks! fun!

Anyway, I am excited to see both Whale Wars and Shark Taggers! And this, from someone who doesn’t like reality shows. :)

Animal Planet premiers Whale Wars this coming November 7, 2008 (Fridays at 9 PM)! I will be around to see the first 2-3 episodes air¹ before leaving for… uh…

Crap. Am I supposed to tell my parents the whole story?

Anyway, you might recognize this girl from some recent posts. Hey, I know someone who is on TEE-VEE!

I had lunch with Kim and some of the folks working on Whale Wars at the Animal Planet building in New York last week. It was really exciting to get to go into the editing room to see a sneak preview.

Kate Devaney, Eric Cheng, Al Vinjamur, Kirk Kazazian

I stayed in New York for a few days after Dave and Kim’s wedding to catch up with friends and to represent Wetpixel and Sea Shepherd at the LUSH press event.

I was excited to get to hang out some with Ella, Peter and Karine’s daughter. She is a smart one.

Special thanks to Al Vinjamur for letting me stay at his place again. Here are a bunch of photos from the week…

Kim at the Sea Shepherd booth, LUSH press event

Kim McCoy and I manned the Sea Shepherd booth at the LUSH press event at the Hudson Hotel in New York a couple of days ago. I had never before in my life been surrounded by soap people and members of the fashion/fitness press! The female to male ratio was at least 10:1 (which is always nice). (read more »)

Kim McCoy in New York

I spent most of the day fighting with encryption on the Mac. Yargh.

I did, however, get out for meals. I went to Candle Cafe 79 with Kim today, and had some really fantastic vegan food. She hates being in front of a (still) camera, but I’m trying hard to get her used to it. Met up with Tony, Scott, and Ai-Jen for dinner at Josie’s, which was also delicious.

Wedding @ Cipriani — incredible venue

I have never been to a wedding quite like this one. It was really, really well organized, and everything was pretty much perfect. There was a 12-piece band and the most insane spread of appetizers. Congrats, guys! (read more »)

My Dad wrote over email that he was proud of me for “walking through the Stargate (to another planet in a far away Galaxy).” Obviously, it was impossible for me to take photos of myself on stage at Gatecon; luckily, others in the audience were there to snap a few.

Here you go, Dad — two photos of me on stage at Gatecon! (read more »)