Not A Rock Star Tours: 5/29/09 Hold on or ride the waves

Ok so you know how sometimes things take a while to process.....
Yeah while the 2009 tour took some time to process. SO it's July and I'm finally posting about the last week of May. I say it was processing time.
The most memorable thing that happened on the 29th was the trip to the Monterey bay aquarium. http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/

Ria knows people, so we got the backstage tour.

That's Ria next to Brad and Dave our Tour guys, and on the left is this guy she knew from a writing class who apparently wrote an episode for a foreign TV show.
Brad and Dave were most amazing and gave the best tour. if I had posted like oh say three weeks ago I could probably remember all of what they told us but I remember most of it, and some of the good environmental points. I think i mentioned before my friend Jen and her family were traveling across the country visiting places that help make American life more sustainable, and eco-friendly, and her son was interviewing people about it. (http://ourrenewablenation.blogspot.com/) When I went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium I felt like I got a feeling for what that might be like.

We started off at the kelp tank which has to have moving water to keep the kelp alive

The kelp tank is the highest tank in the aquarium so they can use gravity to help pump the water into other tanks, and keep the flow in this tank. We continued in the aquarium proper and saw sting rays, octopi, and various other fish and sea life

Dave told me a story about these fish called California sheepheads. The most dominant fish in the group of females will become male if the male is taken out. There was one fish who was half way transitioned because the male was taken out and then brought back. It kind of made me think for a moment about gender constructs, and transgendered people and how nature already has some precedents exactly for that. Who would have thought?

Then the tour went under the aquarium.
There were three main points to Dave's tour of ecological wonders behind the scene. I remember 2 of them clearly, and I hope I'm not just fudging the third.

The first was sand filters. The basement of the aquarium is filled with giant filters which are basically giant tubs filled with sand. They let sand and natural processes filter out the creatures form the bay so that they get good water for their tanks. They have computer set up to monitor water pressure and back wash the tanks if the pressure gets too high.

Sometimes they have to go in and clean off the machinery

This little baby is something they pull through at times to clear out the pipes.

The second major point of the aquarium underground tour was heat exchange through water.

There are metal mesh things inside these tubes where two pipes are running, and the heat exchange allows them to control the temprature of the tanks and through that of the aquarium using the water they had pumped in. It's amazing what water tempature can do.

I beleive the third point of the tour was filtering out any sea life from the aquarium water before returning it to the bay. The bay does not need exotic life added into it as it could damage the ecological balance that currently exists, so they go through a multistep process to ensure nothign living gets out. Two of the steps include uv rays and oxidizing the water.

Nothing living gets past that.

After our wonderful underground tour Dave and Brad had to get to work so Ria and I toured the rest of the aquarium ourselves. I came across this sign, and it felt like a metaphor for my trip, and it was at this point I decided to ride the waves.

It got peaceful after that.
Of course the jellyfish, seahorses and giant tank certainly added to the peaceful atmosphere.

Please note that the lighter looking fern on the right is actually a seahorse that cleverly looks like plant life. NO I'M SERIOUS. it was kind of bizarre.

I didn't grab a bay shot, because the bay was a little busy, but there was peace even in the bay's business.
After our Aquarium tour we walked the rest of cannery row.

We were attending a birthday party for a girl I had not met before and I found a nice simple birthday gift for her. We also met a psychic who said my aura was spiritual but could be happier. I was thinking "Well it hasn't been the best week, and you should have seen me before I went to the aquarium."
From there we went to Ria's dojo where the first tiem in America someone was testing for the high rank in swordsmanship. So it was a big deal, and a ton of people for the dojo were there for the man's test. It was also a wicked cool show.

this was the guy.
there was group deomnstrations

There was him bringing a live sword within inches of people, butting up vegetables in people's mouths, and cutting up what looked to be old blinds.

And there was some fighting with not live swords.

It was very impressive.
I enjoyed it immensely, and also happened to have a great conversation with the guys partner who is interested in studying how kids and teens can be supported in developing good emotional and social skills, which is something I happen to be working on a group for, and interested in seeing if it can support kids and teens in a mental health setting but also in a more public school setting as well. We had a good conversation, and I will be interested to see where she goes to school and what research she gets into.
Following the demonstration Ria and I headed out to the birthday party, but made a detour to Heather and Dave's house.
Dave is the guy that gave us the tour earlier in the day. He is also a cool musician and his girlfriend is currently studying integral studies. We had a long talk about the project she is working on and how it relates to community building. Heather and Dave at the time I saw them were trying to find the community that fit best for them, and whose values they resonated with the best. I think that is pretty amazing. I think starting in middle school people start longing for the community they fit best with, but at that point still don't know who they are so they muddle around a lot. As adults we do our best to fit in with the communities around us i guess, but someties I think there is still a longing to be a part of community that really fits what we value. When people actually have the courage to go look for it, and stand with integrity in what you believe, that's very cool.
So I am curious to see what they will find