I dream of Warcraft

So I had this dream last night and I have decided its worth sharing with the rest of you. No, it does not involve raptors, it is not inspired by Oreos, and in no portion does it include an animal pelt made of pure evil. But here it is anyway, submitted for your approval dream #4,568.37.
I dreamt last night that Ryan decided to help me out a little in the gear department by taking my level 51 night elf into a battle ground to get some honor points. I had gone to check on Elaine because we were supposed to be leaving for a trip of our own. She was still chatting with her folks even though we were running exceptionally late. We were running late on a level that leaves you pacing anxiously making little whimpering sounds and nervously wringing your hands. Since we wouldn’t be leaving the house anytime soon I went back to the computer to see how the leveling of my character was progressing. Arriving at the laptop I was horrified to find that Ryan had given up on my character and she was sitting in the middle of an active battle ground doing nothing tagged as away from computer. While I was watching an aura descended around my character accompanied by the text “fear and hatred envelope you” which quite clearly meant in the dream, as it would in real life, that all my teammates were ready to kill me for not helping them out. So I began to quietly fret and then Ryan’s character Sloppy Joe came running up to me all the while texting “Feign death! Feign death!” which really makes no sense as it is a skill Druids like my character don’t have. For some reason though in the dream I can do this and I did, thereby making it look like I got wreaked by the Horde which pacifies my team and doesn’t cost me a death with is pretty good for me. After that I headed out for the enemies base. On this particular battle ground there were a bunch of ambient animals just wandering around. They were the species used by the Draenei race as mounts and for some reason they all were hostile. I went for the base but was bum-rushed by a herd of elephants and had to tuck tail and run. Also the enemy’s base was guarded by a nice colony of Orc NPC’s. (A NPC is a non-character player for those of you with limited experience.) So I gave up on the idea of a frontal assault. After that I wandered around and came across a Troll rouge sneaking up on a Human warrior. I dropped into cat from and stealthed. I hit her from behind before she could go after the warrior and I got one shot off but when I went for my second strike Ryan had changed all the keys and so instead of smacking her I switched to bear form. Now in this situation bear form was exactly the wrong way to go firstly because its crap as strategy and secondly because of Ryan’s nonsensical key changes. On entering bear form I found that all my attack keys had new icons which was the same for each one. The normal icons depicting bear claws doing unpleasant things to a persons stomach had been replaced by a cartoonish image of a pig's smiling face. My attempts to use my attacks only caused a corny piece of country-ish instrumental music to begin playing and my character to hop around like she was having a seizure. The rouge I had been fighting stopped attacking me and emoted a shrug then ran off.

That’s right folks I had an anxiety dream about online gaming, I am the biggest nerd.

Performance anxiety
It’s not just for the bedroom anymore!

Lives

Everyone's afraid of their own life

If you could be anything you want

I bet you'd be disappointed, am I right?

I had just feed the Leafy Sea Dragons and was standing in the aquarium on the public side watching to make sure they all ate and I got to talking to this guy. He was pretty young and on his way back from a two week trip to Catalina Island. He worked at an aquarium store in Northern California. The point of this was that as we were talking it became apparent that he viewed my job and my participation in it as living the dream. It made me feel weird, because though I love my job I don’t feel like I am living the dream. It occurred to me that a good portion of other people would look at this guy’s vacation and his boat he took it on as living the dream. I wonder if to some degree everyone spends much of there life staring at the horizon. The Counting Crows say “If you've never stared off into the distance then your life is a shame” and it’s true but what are we to make of the obsessive focus on the next thing that reduces what we have accomplished to an unsatisfying interim until the next thing. I wouldn’t say it’s a “the grass is greener” thing, it’s more of a pursuing the horizon. This job, that degree all are ends to other things and so are unfulfilling in themselves in the meantime. It’s like we focus so much on the horizon the present is lost. To this guy I am living the dream. I love my job but my mind is full of the next steps to make a job like this a more permanent reality. He sees me behind the tanks working and I see the eventual December. It seems that this excessive forward focus and marginalization of the present is fairly universal. Its either that or people squander their lives by focusing on the immediate pleasure and one day look up to realize that their life is ending with nothing worthwhile or lasting attempted.

It’s scary to think that we could be living the dream, that this reality in the present is what we have to work with. It’s scary trying to pursue your dreams. The more effort you make the greater chance of failure. Apathy and small comforts will ensure a fairly painless and trivial life. I spent so much of my life afraid, and I’ll level with you, I am scared now. I keep moving forward in small steps. I know another more capable person given the same materials and experiences could have fashioned them into something far greater. Maybe the greatest challenge is to enjoy how far we get without becoming prideful or comparing ourselves to some non-existent standard of performance.

Night

Do I divide and fall apart?

Cause my bright is too slight to hold back all my dark

And the ship went down in sight of land

I went for a long walk last night, across Biola and beyond it. I found myself staying in the shadows avoiding the pooled light from the street lamps. I was feeling down, a diffuse sort of black absence that left a dull ache. It came on suddenly, no clue why, just another compelling proof that I am a stranger even to myself. I went for a long walk to help it pass.

I am just a man who knows how to feel.

One of the more routine things I do at work is algae scrubbing. This job consists of taking a sponge and wiping down all the interior tanks surfaces with it thereby removing algae. The task is simple, easy and almost guaranteed to soak at least part of your torso, particularly if you are trying to clean the jewel tanks. These are a set of four small tanks that are gorgeous but their placement in a surrounding mass of pipes and low walls makes cleaning them a shirt-soaking series of awkward body contortions. The thing that blows my mind about the job is that everybody loves it. No sooner do I put my hand down in the tank with the sponge then the tank begins to flash as people on the other side begin to frantically take pictures….of my hand…holding a sponge. I remove my hand and the flashes taper off. The same effect is scene when I use the gravel vacuum. Sometimes I go out into the aquarium proper to view the tank from the public side to make sure it looks good. Sometimes I get stuff like this:

I walk out and look at a tank to make sure I got all the algae off.
Lady with two small kids: “Was that YOUR hand in that tank?”
Me: “Oh, yeah. I was just getting rid of some algae.”
Lady with a sense of wonder: “Boys come here. That was this guy’s hand. That hand you saw in the tank a second ago was this guy’s hand.”
Ladies son giving me a big eyed stare: “wow”
Me embarrassed: “Yep…that was me…well you folks enjoy the aquarium I am going to go and tend more tanks.”

Yes folk’s aquarists are rock stars…accept not really.

Surrender, surrender, but don't give yourself away

Now most of you probably have a further question following my description of work. I hope you enjoyed the intermission provided by the 4th of July party picture I posted. The question you most likely have now is this; “But if you only work about 16 hours a week, what the hell do you do with the rest of your time?” The answer ladies and gentleman is simple. Let me give you a bit of background. I am writing this after taking a break from World Of Warcraft which I was playing with Eric. He is now playing Guitar Hero 2 beside me while I type this and Ryan is on his laptop in the dining room. What I have been doing can be best described in terms of accomplishments.

1. Last night I beat Halo 3. Ryan got it two days ago. Eric, myself and him have also played a ton of vs. rounds.
2. I began a new game of Fable.
3. I got Ryan the game Viva Piñata and really enjoy watching him build his garden.
4. Almaarea (which means blessed in elfish) my WOW night elf character is now level 51 and a half.
5. I bought Crimson Sky and I am half way through that game.
6. Eric, Ryan, and myself have play Starcraft at least 3 times a week.
7. I have watched the first two seasons of Venture Brothers.
8. I have failed countless songs on Guitar Hero 2.
9. I am about halfway through season one of Futurama.

Does anyone see a pattern? That’s right I go to work, play videos games, and spend a ton of time just screwing around with Ryan and Eric. It’s fun and relaxing. Stay up late sleep in late etc. I do my job, I do my best there and stay late if they have work for me and when that’s over I indulge in my hobbies. It is a good life. I just wish my wife were here.

Shimmering like a penny out of reach in the subway grate

"A camera, pool and a trampoline equals fun." - Jared

The first degree was a riot

What I do in California...the work segment

"another uninnocent, elegant fall into the unmagnificent lives of adults"

So you might be wondering “What has Jeff been up to? How is his job? What does he do all night? Does he sleep anymore?” I’ll attempt to answer those questions now.

I am an intern at the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific. I work four shifts during the week. My shifts are 8 am to noon on Tuesday and Wednesday and 1 pm to 5 pm on Thursday and Friday. The aquarium consists of three main wings (Southern California and Baja, the Northern Pacific, and the Tropical Pacific.) and an outdoor portion consisting of Shark Lagoon and the Lorikeet Forest aviary. For this internship there is an intern assigned to each of the wings as well as an intern for shark lagoon. I have been tasked to the tropical Pacific portion.

Each day of the week I work I serve under one of the four different main aquarists who manage different sets of tanks that are all contained within the tropical wing. I spend my entire time back behind the scenes doing routine tank maintenance and animal care. Things like cleaning protein skimmers, changing filter bags, performing water changes, cleaning the insides of tanks and scraping algae, preparing food and feeding the animals, hydro-vacuuming tanks, and checking temperature gauges and observing animals to ensure health. I am still learning the more complicated portions of the job but everyone I work with has been really encouraging and helpful. They have even given me the opportunity to do a little bit of work in shark lagoon and suggested that I might be able to go with them the next time they go to the wholesaler to buy more fish for the aquarium. (The wholesale store is a vast warehouse filled with tanks of saltwater fish. It’s an aquarists toy store….I am so excited.) The job was stressful at first but as I have worked more into the habit of my activities I am feeling more comfortable. I like my job a lot. It’s great. The water quality testing and large scale maintenance (for the huge sand filters etc.) are farmed out to specialty portions of the aquarium staff. After I have learned more of the aquarist end of it I hope to be able to learn a little about their jobs. In my job I thankfully don’t have to deal with the public. Last week I ended up having to go into the public areas for a short time to observe a Bonnethead Shark to see if it was feeding. It went like this.

Visibly upset lady: “Are you a volunteer?”
Me: “Well, I’m an intern so not exactly...”
Lady interrupting: “Well you work here. Fine. I come here a lot and one of your seahorses over there is lying on its side. I think it’s sick.”
Me trying to talk to her and keep an eye on the shark: “Oh well thank you for telling me I’ll head over there in just one minute to check it out.”
Lady snorts in irritation and storms off.

That’s just one more reason why I am glad that I don’t work with the public on a regular basis. The sea horse was of course fine, when I got over there it was holding onto sea grass laying on the bottom looking around to see if there was anything interesting to eat.

On any given day it works like this:
1. Arrive and find the aquarist I am working with.
2. Change filter bags, clean protein skimmers
3. Prepare food and feed
4. Clean up after food prep
5. Hydro clean tanks, maybe algae scrub
Etc. etc.

Interesting things I have done at work:
1. Hand feeding Burrfish (a type of small puffer fish)
2. Standing in waders inside the Stinging Catfish tank to scrub algae
3. Feeding Stonefish
4. Helping move a sea turtle out of a tank so the vet could treat it.
5. Feeding Black Tip Reef Sharks and Zebra Sharks.