So, How Long IS That Reef??

If you've been following my blog and recent application video post, you might be wondering (like Mandy from the video) just how long that reef really is!! Or even WHAT it is (like Constance).

So I thought I'd be kind enough to answer these two questions for all you curious types.

But first check out this awesome footage from Tourism Queensland. You can find out a lot more info by checking out the media section at their site Island Reef Job.com

So the answer to the first question - "Where in the world IS the Great Barrier Reef?", as you've seen in previous posts, is the great country of Australia. Now to be more specific, it borders the northeast coast of the state of Queensland, Australia.

The answer to the second question is a bit more tricky. How long IS the Great Barrier Reef? I guess it depends on where you begin counting coral. Now if you wanted to you could really start counting at the southernmost tip of New Guinea and work your way down from there.

But even if you started in the far north at Somerset, Queensland, Australia and ended at Bundaberg, Queensland in the south, that would be 1480 miles (or 2387 KM for all you people in the rest of the world).


However, most estimates range in the mid-1200 mile range. But when you're talking about a living organism, things are in constant flux. I mean, if you got a big hurricane in it might pull up huge chunks of the reef, and well, then you've lost a few miles...

Then there are the Crown of Thorn Starfish, which eat up coral with gusto. They say as much as 30% of the coral has been digested by these critters. So then, do we count living reef, or dead reef? Dunno.


To all that coral I want to say hurry up and grow already, because the more the better, right? But you can't rush pure wonder...

Stay tuned for some outtakes, some more pics, and some more deadly VPC bios...

WOO HOO THE ROCKET HAS LEFT THE PAD!

I am extremely, deliriously happy to announce (in-between sloppy typing and nodding off) that the video is entering cyber-space as I write. Now I don't want to get too happy because it's only half out of the other computer in the room as of now, and the little wheel of death has been spinning for some time at the queensland servers - SO, crossing my fingers that the pipes don't go down while this little gem is en-route.

After a day like yestertoday (not that's not a typo), anything could happen. Do I dare begin explain...well sure, why not, I've got nothing better to do....oh wait, yes i do (snooooore....)
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Ok, It's now nine hours later. 9:56pm to be exact. I'm feeling slightly rejuvenated after a CiCi's Pizza run (love their buffet!), and a five hour nap. I feel a little bit like I just came out the other end of Willie Wonka's chocolate factory, but I guess it's good to experience that every now and then.

Let me pause here to say for all you "get to the point" people that YES, HALLELUJAH! the video is d-o-n-e, and I'm going to try to catch up on some sanity!! Now carry on...

So, yesterday, I was going to put together my video. I had all the pieces shot, and just needed to weave them into a complete whole. Little 15 second intro, few photos, video clips, some interviews, no problem. Until I found out that my Final Cut software was screwed up on my laptop. Which meant I had to use my desktop. Fine, except I had all the files on my laptop. Well, that's easy, you say. Just use a flash drive, or a CD! But my desktop is ancient. 7 years old, so, uh, it doesn't have USB 2.0, and all the newer external drives won't work with it. And of course, I forgot about the CD option...duh.

So, I figured I'd go to the store at about 10a.m. to get a thumb drive and resolve the issue. Easy transfer, BAM - done! But when I got there, I realized that there aren't any fire wire thumb drives, or portable hard drives for that matter - not at the stores! (of course, the two that would carry such things are no longer in business...)

Solution number TWO. Buy a large external drive which would be firewire, and which I could use to tranfer all those files from my laptop to desktop and vice versa. So after some running around that's what I did. Only when I had finally gotten the drive hooked up, files loaded, and tried to put it on my desktop - unt uh. No dice, nope, nada. The drive, while recognized in the flow chart, wouldn't show up on my computer.

It was now noon, and I had to be done by 4:30pm. Starting to get frustrated, I figured I could use an old external drive to do the job. SO, I got the NEW drive, put it back on my laptop, and proceeded to transfer ALL 200 gigs of info onto it from my old drive via the USB 2.0 port. But after "processing" the files to prepare for copying for like 10 minutes, it said it was going to take 87 hours to complete the transfer. EIGHTY-SEVEN HOURS. ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND??? I DON'T HAVE 87 HOURS. I have FOUR, and counting!!!!

SO, I cancelled the operation. I thought maybe it would be faster via fire wire - since my new drive is so fancy, it has USB 2 AND firewire! So I plugged in my firewire port and dragged the files again to my hard drive. NOW it was even slower!! What the HECK was going ON!?

So I cancelled THAT operation, too, and the wheel on my screen kept spinning for longer and longer periods of time. FINE, I thought I'll just THROW SOME STUFF AWAY - like all my OS9 stuff. Who needs that anyway?

Well, all this dragging files back and forth, out of the trash, cancelling operations was apparently not well-liked by my hardware. I ejected my NEW drive from the laptop, and it went away. But THEN it magically reappeared. Why? Um, yeah, I forgot to unplug it from the USB port, so this whole time I'd had it plugged into my computer via USB AND Firewire. I don't think that's a good idea...

Just ask my OLD hard drive. Because it crashed. Hard. And now I'd managed to buy a new drive that didn't work, and crash 200 gigs of information on my old drive.

All for 15 seconds of video.

And I was just getting started! Finally, 6 hours after I started this whole compatibility circus, I finally realized I could just burn a CD...

Call me whatever you want at this point. I deserve it. At this point I had accomplished absolutely ZERO on my editing, had spent $250 on new equipment, and had to go teach my evening class. My roommate walked in just at that moment and said,

"So, you STILL working on that video?" Insert the expletives here because I'm ashamed to say they were running thick in my mind. I let him have it for a few seconds minus the potty mouth words, and then ran out the door to class. Yesterday, it was 75 degrees here. Today it was 25, except I forgot so I left without a jacket. All fine and good. Until I got to my car at 8:30pm, without a coat, and discovered that, whaddya know? My battery was dead!

Well, a few phone calls and one good friend later, my friend BEN's big Bronco was next to my car in the street. Only, uh, his hood wouldn't open. Now this would all be fine in 80 degrees. But it wasn't 80, it was 25. And I had no coat. By now, I was just laughing...a strange, deranged sort of laughter that makes you afraid when you hear it in the movies...

No really, it was becoming really funny. Either you laugh or cry. Laughing is easier. So, finally the hood was jimmied open, the car started right up, and I was on my frozen way home. Now I figured I'd better just start editing when I got home because I only had one day to finish everything before the deadline. And that's what I did.

I put together 15 seconds of video - all night long...I saw the sun come up - it looked so beautiful stretched across the golden fields outside the window. I saw it every few seconds in-between my micro - naps I was now taking. Finally, by 1:30pm, TWENTY-SEVEN HOURS after I began this madness, I compressed the final copy, and heard the angels singing. Or maybe that was delirium. At any rate, that five hour nap did a world of good.

HOORAY!! It didn't matter that the island reef job website wouldn't take my video after 10 tries, or that I had to use three different computers to get a browser that worked properly. All that mattered in the END was that I had accomplished the goals I had set out for myself when I first decided to do this crazy thing.

I DID THE VIDEO!! And it is now a great joy for me to annouce that STAGE ONE of my journey to the Big Reef is now FINISHED.

Welcome to stage TWO. The next phase is mostly waiting, networking, blogging, and building exposure, all while praying I make it into the top 50. Hope you guys stay with me on the journey!!!

And please feel free to make any and all comments or suggestions on the site. OH, and, check out the VIDEO and pass it along!! In the next few days, I'll be posting some out-takes.

Blessings.

Announcing our first Man on the Street...

Ok, so it's on the porch, and it's two women, not one man, but all the same...

So the last couple of days, I've been carting a video camera around asking people two questions:

1) Where is the Great Barrier Reef?
2) How long is the Great Barrier Reef?

The biggest thing I want to do in my videos is convey a sense of what people know (or don't) about the Great Barrier Reef, and to provide answers to the above questions. They are simple questions, but (as you will see) not always common knowledge. And, uh, I don't write this stuff folks. I just shake hands and turn on the camera...

At any rate, I'll be posting various clips giving you guys a glimpse into what's going on upstairs with our fellow citizens. BTW, don't be too hard on them. After all, when did you really know the answers to these things... OH-kay!?

Hope you enjoy! =)