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.

Lolli-polyps Make for Sweet Reefs

So I've been running around like crazy the last few days, aarrrrrgh! I'm sure you can relate. The list of things to do is like dryer lint. No matter how much you get rid of, it just keeps growing. So it's about time to do some video taping. I think maybe this weekend...

Anyway, there really is no such thing as a lolli-polyp, but there are coral polyps (which you sure as heck don't wanna lick). They belong to the phylum Cnidaria, as do jellyfish. And they have stingers like jellyfish - hence the no licking rule.

So, thousands of polyps grow hard shells all attached using calcium carbonate from the sea water. Millions and millions of these shells together make up reefs, essentially huge structures made out of limestone, housing a cornucopia of polyps of every shape, hue, and color. At the Big Reef there are over 400 species of coral - brain coral, fan coral, branch coral, coral soup, coral gumbo, breaded coral, coral and beans...

Oh, yah, and they're carnivorous. Fortunately they're usually only a few centimeters big, so not to worry, they don't eat too much, mostly plankton, algae poop and stuff like that. And they can reproduce (asexually) by splitting in two or (sexually) by spewing millions of eggs and sperm into the ocean. These connect and hatch tiny new polyps, which then swim down onto the coral reefs to start their own shell domiciles. If they don't get eaten first. By whales. Or fish. Or other corals. Can you imagine if they all survived? I mean, for crying out loud, the Big Reef is already 1200 miles long (well technically, it's over 3000 smaller reefs. Either way you can still see it from space).

So there you have it. The world of the "lolli-polyp". Sweet.

flickr.com - Brian Daniel Eisenberg

















Toadstool Leather Coral - this is a whole colony of polyps, and is so named because it feels like leather to the touch.



wikipedia.com
















Sea Nettles, a type of jellyfish, free-swimming relatives of coral. Did you know they have no respiratory or excretory organs?

Wonderful World of Wonky Holes

Ok, hope y'all are doing well today after the disappointing loss at the Superbowl. I guess it just wasn't in the Cards for Arizona to win (get it? In the Cards? geez...what can I say, I inherited my humor.)

Anyway, I've recovered fairly quickly from the loss since it was only the second game I watched this season... yeah, I'm more of a "do" guy - would rather be playing football than watching it.

SO, question of the day: (Another drum roll, please)

What in the world is a Wonky Hole?

a) the flabby anus of a Rockfish (no lie, I didn't make that line up...)?
b) A volcanic vent in the ocean floor spewing hot gasses?
c) The Aussie term for a small beach pub where the locals hang out?
d) A fresh water spring in the middle of a coral reef in the ocean?

Ahhhh, I'll let you ponder that for a minute. But before I answer, I've got just a couple of things to clarify about the blog -

THING #1! - There are 5 stages to becoming "caretaker" for the Big Reef.

Stage 1 - submitting a video.

Stage 2 - getting into the 50 video pool.

Stage 3 - getting into the short-listed 11 video pool. This consists of 10 folks chosen by the Queensland tourism peeps, and ONE wild card video voted on by the world.

Stage 4 - getting interviewed for a week in the wonderful state of Queensland

Stage 5 - packing the bags for six months and heading (woo hoo!) to the land of polyps.

(BTW, Here's a picture of a bunch of polyps all together in a colony - good thing they're not bigger, cuz they're meat eaters...yup. more on that later.)








photo from Wikipedia









At any rate, we are now in STAGE 1, so stick with me for the ride, and we'll see what happens...

Ok, thing #2 to clarify! I'm giving away a free DVD during each stage to ONE someone who's following this blog and makes at least one comment or contribution during that stage. Hope you like movies based around Australia...

Thing #3 to clarify! The photo at the top of the page is not from the Great Barrier Reef or even Aussie Land. If you guess where it's from, I'll put your name in my blog title for a WHOLE WEEK, lol!

FINALLY, what the heck is a Wonky Hole? In case you haven't guessed it by now, a Wonky Hole (sorry mr. rockfish) is the Aussie term for a submarine fresh water spring on the sea bed in the middle of the BIG REEF. They can be found as far as 60 km offshore.

They were first discovered by local fishermen. Apparently their nets kept getting snagged in spots and almost capsizing their boats. They realized that this was because the irregular coral growth around the submerged springs was causing rough bottoms that were snagging the nets - so, they called them wonky, or topsy-turvy, off-balanced holes. Lots of nutrients, great fishing, hazardous navigation!

Wonky holes are located along riverbeds which existed in the last ice age ending about 11,000 years ago. At that time much of northern Europe and North America was covered by ice sheets up to 3 km thick; the water tied up in the glacial ice lowered the sea level more than 120 m. Less water, more land.

When the ice began to melt, the waters rose, and what was land was covered with seas.

The sediment in the submerged river beds from that period have been covered with coral in many places. Since the sediment is more porous than the surrounding materials, it channels fresh water to thin spots in the coral, creating the fresh water springs and voilá .

A Wonky Hole!

If anyone has a pic of one, feel free to contribute!! And, as always, if I make it down there, I'll be sure to post a pic of my own for you all!

Thanks, Wikipedia for your help on that trivia! Yah, what a cool place the GBR is!!

I used to want to date a mermaid...

Hey, folks! 20 days left til the app. is in. Still contemplating what to put on the video...

Been a crazy weekend here, what with the Super Bowl, ACDC in town (as witnessed by thousands of peeps with little flashing red devil horns wandering around Nashville last night), and some serious Salsa dancing!! Gotta get in shape for the big reef adventure, you know!

So I promised I'd show you a picture of a mermaid, and uh, drum roll please - HERE SHE IS!














image: october_lee photobucket.com








Well, uh, ok, so the REALLY real ones look like this...








photo: Paulyd - flickr.com


Yeah, and, they're also known as sea cows, not exactly a flattering term to a mermaid...

But more realistic for sure. Actually these mammals, which breathe air and eat grass on the sea bed in warm waters (hence the name "cow"), are credited for the inception of the mermaid legends.

Sailors apparently, seeing them from above slipping through the waters, mistook them for half women and half fish (maybe a little too much rum??), and reports of them from the far seas began to trickle back to the civilized world. These mammals are also known as Dugongs (the Tagalog word for the sea cow).

There are a few thousand Dugong along the Great Barrier Reef, but they are found all over the world in temperate/tropical waters - where it is warm enough for sea grasses to grow. They belong to the order Sirenia and are related to Manatees. They live as long as humans, and can grow up to 9 feet long and weigh up to 880 pounds - so much for the vegetarian diet...

Aaannd, yep, some folks still believe in real mermaids. Check out the link below for the REALLY REALLY real photos of a mermaid (where are all the mermen, I wonder??)

http://www.jacksdivinglocker.com/new/mermaid.htm

SO, if you make it to the Great Barrier Reef, be on the look out for the legendary creatures - you might just find Ariel down there eating some leafy greens...

And if I make it down there, I promise to track one down for you and get a real-live photo of my own for ya!

NEXT TIME: What in the world is a wonky hole?