The one where Jeff saves a shark.

Today I saved a Bamboo Shark from an ill-advised, but brilliantly executed, attempt at escape. The lid to the tank for the sharks is a big flimsy plastic plate that has a line of very small ventilation holes at the front of it, apparently on rare occasions the sharks find a way out. Now the shark in question was about half the length of my forearm and this hole, as priory stated, is small. So this shark had to get the momentum to clear the water and had to angle to go through the hole just right after breaking the surface. Basically this sharks little maneuver required physics at a level that is frankly beyond me. (I know this from personal experience as my second term of physics at Portland State can be accurately described as a complete rout.) But thankfully I saved the little guy. So here is the story on its unabridged format.
I was going around today to begin my second feeds and when I got to the Bamboo shark tank I was startled to see this shark sitting on top of the tank lid looking fairly dry and as much at peace as a shark can look. I thought at first that the shark had exited this life and been placed on the lid by someone while they went to get the paperwork for it. I think I can summarize my thoughts like this. “Ooohh poor little guy. I bet Jen was really bummed….wait why isn’t it in a mortality bag?....HOLY SHIT the gills are moving!!!!! It’s still alive!!! It’s not supposed to be out of the water at all!!!” So I picked up the shark and put it in the tank, supporting it with one hand. I held it there and it sat quietly on my hand and it occurred to me that I didn’t want to just let it swim off in case Jen wanted to keep it under observation and then I further realize that I hadn’t seen Jen all day. So I stood there for a couple minutes holding the shark with no where to put it, I got a net which I used as a quarantine compartment until I was able to find Jen. We watched the shark for a bit but it was fine so we let it go back and mingle with the others. And that is the fairly boring story of how I saved a small shark form a tragic fate.

The one where Jeff eats himself to death.

Big trouble losing control,

Primary resistance at a critical low,

On the double gotta get a hold,

Point of no return one second to go,

No response on any level,

red alert this vessels under siege,

Total overload, systems down, they've got control,

There's no way out, we are surrounded,

Give in, give in and relish every minute of it

Freeze, awake here forever, I feel a weakness coming on.

I am beset by dessert, soda, and lethargy. My folks sent a cheesecake, Rachelle bought anther and a cookie mother lode for a party thingy she threw and there is so much soda there is room for little else. I have been…..unwise perhaps in pacing myself as far as eating the dessert before it expires. Tonight I shot the cheesecake moon and lord, it could be fatal. The last two days I have spent effectively dead watching friends when not at work and eating mind-numbingly high sugar meals. Let’s just say, even in this short of time, I can tell I am losing my lean, malnourished looking physique in place of something a little more reminiscent of my junior high self. (I apologize to my wife.)

paper boats

A funeral for Ultimate Frisbee

Today since Eric was not attending the bible study I usually accompany him to I decided to take the time and join a pick up game of Ultimate Frisbee. It is a game I love, and I haven’t been able to find a game for the last three years. I used to play every Sunday while I went to Biola University and I was pretty good. I was a little better than the average player but wasn’t spectacular or anything. So since they still have pick up games on campus I decided to give it a go. I would rate my experience on an embarrassment scale of 1 to 10 as a 7.8. I played for one painful hour and I was horrible, I could catch and throw just fine but I couldn’t run worth anything and as a result my attempts to guard other players were little better than a joke. I attended a funeral for my Ultimate Frisbee pick up game experience. I just have to remember being back in this place steeped in history that all those things I tied in my mind to the places are all dead and gone. Ultimate Frisbee today joins the ranks of the buried and I won’t try to resurrect it again. Maybe another time and place with equally informal players I will create a new thing but what I remember so fondly is dead. I bailed as soon as I could from the game without seeming like a quitter though I am sure everyone was happy to see me go. I was passed from team to team like the fat kid in a pick-up game of basketball at a junior high and I don’t blame them for doing it. I got back here to find the house empty and everyone gone. I wish I would never have went to the field today…and besides my legs and pride are sore now.

Yeah, we're stubborn and melodramatic,

I am a socially awkward person. If you know me you are probably cocking an eyebrow and wondering how this could possibly be some kind of new revelation. Yes, you all already know. But my conversational difficulties result from an overly analytical mind with a nihilistic bent. My awkwardness was driven home to me two days ago at work as I waited for the unaccountably slow freight elevator with another female associate who works as an aquarist in a different part of the aquarium. (As an aside….was that sentence of legal length? I don’t have Elaine here so we are flying solo without a proof reader………….please assume crash positions.) At any rate we’ll just keep moving along with the story, run-on or no. So I was waiting at this elevator and the minutes just start ticking by. We are both standing there avoiding eye contact, pretending the floor has an interesting tile mosaic rather than mere stained concrete and I realize I can’t think of a thing to say. Well to be fair I could think of something to say, a single line of completely obvious banality. “Man, this elevator is slow.” But it’s a conversational dead end isn’t it? I mean what is there to respond with other than “yes, yes it is a slow elevator.” If she was unusually chatty the best it could evolve into is a discussion about various elevators we’ve ridden and their relative speeds and let’s be frank, does anyone really want to have that conversation? Elevators are poor story material. I heard an elevator story from a camp speaker back in high school that was funny but that was because it involved a little bit of unintentional public nudity and a little bit of that can make any story a bit funnier. I don’t have a single memorable elevator story but I have a fair repertoire of situational nudity stories. * And furthermore what would be the ultimate point of said elevator conversation. Now most of you are probably thinking “well forget the elevator, you both work at the aquarium you could talk about that.” Here’s the thing though, yes the elevator is long but it will arrive within five minutes and we will arrive at our destinations a mere three minutes after boarding. The ground we could cover in the time allowed would be so minimal I just couldn’t see the point. Lets, just for kicks, play out a conversational scenario. The portion in red contains actual words spoken.

Jeff: “So do you work with the marine mammals?”
Girl: “Oh yeah I do. Are you with fish?”
J: “Yeah I am an intern over at the tropical wing.”
G: “Oh that’s cool. Do you like it?”
J: “Yeah I do my names Jeff by the way.”
G: “I’m (insert name here). Good to meet you.”

G: “Yeah, I know its only one floor but the stairs get tiring after having run them all day.”
J: “Yeah, it’ll do that.”

G: “See you later.”
J: “Have a good day.”

Now wasn’t that just deliciously worthless? I myself would go for the short awkward bit of silence which is exactly what I did. If we were both at a party and I had time, I might go for the chat just to pass the time.

* This story contains a significant portion of my bridal party, the groom’s dinner, a brunt out headlight, and a police officer.

and if anyone can correctly identify the picture they get a cookie.......(Daniel Webster I am so sorry, I know not what I do.)

I spent my whole life blaming the piano

I have decided, as per Elaine’s suggestion, to begin to write a series of short stories encompassing some ideas I have. My thing is ideas; I have created two universes one more based in science fiction and another more fantasy themed. I have given each its own history, races, and ecology. It’s the thing I bemoan the most probably. I have these ideas, I am continuously expanding them. The thing is I am not a good writer, I never have been. Maybe I should rephrase that a little. I am not a good enough writer to be even close to satisfied with my own creations. For my whole life I create things in my mind and lacking expression they are eventually lost. So I am going to try to remedy that. I have given it some thought and if I could emulate or absorb the skills of various writers this would be my top five listed in descending order.
1. Steven King; for his range of topics, amazing character development (i.e. The Dark Tower Series) say what you will the man is gifted.
2. Nick Hornby; I love his books, his characters are excellent and I love the way he does his dialogue.
3. Susanna Clarke; is another excellent creator of characters, plotlines, and settings. The thing in particular that makes me hold her in such high regard is the use of footnotes that cite other books, fictional legends and histories that she makes up in such a way as to create a comprehensive world in which her novel is set. It always bothers me when you read a sci-fi and the characters are discussing a book published in 1994 when the story is set in 2257. Did they just stop writing books in 1995 or something? Seriously, just make up some novels for your characters to read.
4. Douglas Adams/ P.G. Wodehouse; their humor and grasp of comedic timing have yet, in my opinion, to be matched.
5. Dan Simmons; this one may come somewhat as a surprise but the thing about his writing that got me wasn’t his characters (though they were quite interesting but not necessarily stellar) and it wasn’t his plotlines (though they were original). The reason Dan Simmons makes this list is because when I read the book Hyperion he was so good at describing the terrain I could almost see it. The book is interesting and definitely worth reading but what I wish I could do with my writing is make the audience see what I see. When I imagine my stories I see them as a movie in my mind. When I write about the guy walking back to his house on the edge of the marsh I see the tall grass and the low lying fog with a few small motes of bioluminescent insects. I don’t know how to describe it and sometimes it feels like these images and these places are trapped inside my mind.

So that’s my list of authors whose skills I wish I had. I could do the same thing with artists. Because I would make field guides to the biology and ecology of all my worlds in which my stories and novels were set. But that’s the thing isn’t it. I am lazy and a part of me doesn’t even want to start because the outcome would disappoint. Elaine is right though, something is better than nothing. I don’t know it’s late and I should be asleep but I am sitting here still. I see clearly in moments how I hold back from action in fear of failure. I guess in a way giving up is merely aiming for small comforts and letting myself fall backward into the void that has pursued me my whole life. The only way to keep from falling is to keep moving. Tomorrow I will call PSU and get the ball rolling on my Master’s and I will start looking for jobs for December. I will plan my stories and write them simply because it is in me to do so.
….and who knows, getting published was always on of those dreams for me that was equitable with the whole Monday Rising post-punk band daydreams.

"So what's the deal with wisps?" - Eric

Well I know it’s been awhile but sadly I have nothing much to report. My prior employment provided fodder for humor courtesy of the stupidity of others. This job is more dealing with animals and so there isn’t quite as much to use. After all “today I wiped the algae of the sides of a tank….a catfish bit me….it was like being pinched by a very weak child….and then I put my hand in a sea urchin” just doesn’t cut it, does it. Maybe I should stylize it a bit.

Jeff vs. The Sea Urchin and its Mercenary Catfish forces

So a week ago I went to set down a hose and it fell on the handle spraying me in the crotch with an obscene amount of water just before I had to do a feed in the public part of the aquarium on a busy day. I mean it soaked through the pants, and the area of effect for this particular attack included the lower portion of the seat of the pants. As far as unfortunate hose accidents this one was epic. I remember thinking “someday I’ll be able to look back on this and laugh….but defiantly not right now….or maybe even next week.” The next day another hose (which was turned off) let a liberal spurt of water directly into my crotch “What?!! Oh COME on!!” I could stylize this story and name it.

Jeff and the Day of Errant Hoses

Just for kicks I think I’ll select a few of the events which have achieved title status and throw them out there.
The Spider Caverns Incident
The Sourdough Incident
Jeff and the Slippery Boots
Jeff vs. Bryan Chan
The Field Trip, The Roommate and the Pack-out Sandwich
Ryan Fills a Love Cup

Well I will call that a post. Remember folks, if an event is worth remembering, it’s worth a moniker.