Georgia Aquarium

I'm a bit biased towards the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Afterall, I live just over an hour away from it and think it's phenomenal. So the Georgia Aquarium wasn't on my priority list of things to do in Atlanta. But the Sunday we were there, I had a late start to my day because Jimmy's conference didn't start till 12:30 and it ended earlier than the previous days, so I had about 4 hours to myself for exploring. I had already toured World of Coca-Cola, CNN Center and Olympic Park, so unless I wanted to get on MARTA (Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority), all that was left to explore within walking distance was the aquarium. It was a great decision because the aquarium far exceeded my Monterey Bay Aquarium biased expectations.

I never woulda guessed it, but the Georgia Aquarium is the world's largest aquarium. According to their website, it "features more animals than any other aquarium in more than eight million gallons of water" and after visiting, I suppose I can believe it. The Monterey Bay Aquarium feels bigger, and perhaps it is by is by square foot, but GA has more gallons and more creatures in perhaps a more compact space, although according to wikipedia, MBA has more species, 600+ to GA's 500ish. No matter what all that means, I really enjoyed my visit to the Georgia Aquarium and saw creatures I haven't seen at the MBA.

Again, instead of featuring my many photos one by one on my blog, I did a video slide show. Experimenting. Not sure if it's something I'll really get into, but it's fun to play.

World of Coca-Cola

One of my many, MANY vices is drinking a lot of soda. My soda of preference is a diet coke or diet pepsi. And Atlanta is home of Coca-Cola and in 2007 they opened a 60,000 square foot exhibition-attraction of all things Coca-Cola. It was both fantastically and grossly entertaining. Fantastic because the exhibits and movies - a 3D show and a cute animation, were well done, funny, colorful and carefree. But it was slightly gross, too because of how easily we (I) can be drawn to the sugary caffeinated addiction found in a 12oz can or 20oz bottle.

Admittedly, I really enjoyed my tour at the World of Coca-Cola. Not only do I drink Diet Coke, I also love pop culture. Throw in lots of colors and a couple of cute shows and I'll certainly consider it $15 well spent. But I felt guilty, too. Because I believe it's a problem how much we drink processed, sugared, caffeinated drinks. And I am so very much a part of the problem. So I may ask myself, 'what am I doing to address my guilt?' Um. Unfortunately, very little. I drink soda 3-5x a week, almost always over 12oz each time. I've tried only drinking it at home and not ordering it when we go out to eat. I succeeded for about 4 months, but once I fell off the wagon, well. You know that lack of fortitude I've talked about before? Yea, sticktoitiveness is not my strong suit. The only thing I can say I consistently do and have for a couple of years is that I never buy soda in plastic bottles. But that's another issue not to be discussed at this time. :)

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The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog

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GleefullyLine dancing obsessed

You may have clued in on one of my personality traits - that I can be a wee bit obsessive. If I find something I enjoy or like, I'll become so focused on it that it consumes my every waking moment.

My current obsession is line dancing. And the TV show Glee. And posting Youtube videos.

I found this song through various website jumping and realized I could dance the "Cruisin'" dance to it quite nicely.


And if you haven't seen Glee, here are a few other videos with some fun snippets.



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Crafts take 2nd Stage to a Drunk Ewok on the Today Show

It's a few minutes long, but if you stick with it, i guarantee you will be cracking up by the end! Not that I need to prompt you, but pay attention to that little brown Ewok. Tooo Funny!!
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EepyBird and Maker Faire

You may recall my chatter about the Maker Faire here and here?

And of course, everyone by now knows about the mentos and diet coke experiment. Those peeps did the post-it note thing I blogged about a few months ago.

Well, here's a little video they did of this years Maker Faire.

You all need to come to the bay area and check this out. But wow, look at all the people that were there just watching the experiment. It looks like there were twice as many people there as the year before. Fun though...gotta experience it! Bay area friends: go if you haven't already. You have no excuse. Next May - save the date!
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This was the calm and smooth section

Here's a quick (17 seconds) video of our boat ride in San Francisco. You'll have to read my previous post 3 Hour Tour to understand better, if you haven't already.

You may notice how much the boat is rocking up and down? This was nothing, in fact, this was the calm part. It was a lot worse on the way into SF as I, eh hem, alluded to a yesterday.
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No talking or texting while driving...

but what about shooting video?

I know it sounds terribly dangerous, but I really was paying attention to the road. Much more than if I were talking on my cell phone. The freeway wasn't very busy at all. I wanted to capture the cool looking sky - I couldn't...it was so much more interesting in person than on the vid. I was driving home after a 3 day visit in Southern California. When I left S.Cal, it was in the 100s. You may have noticed in the video that it was 59 degrees in Salinas, a small city on the 101 Freeway a little over an hour away from home. Salinas is the hometown of John Steinbeck.
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Boating on Beardsley

short little video when Drew and Sly were visiting and we took the boat out on the lake.
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Sticky Notes

EepyBird's Sticky Note experiment from Eepybird on Vimeo.

ya gotta admit, that's pretty cool.

-brought to you by the mentos/diet coke guys.

So I just figured out this has been out for 10 months...i'm a little slow. Maybe a couple of you haven't seen it yet, either.
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Jimmy got a new toy

and by Jimmy, i really kinda mean we. Because I'll enjoy the heck out of it just as much as he will.
Here's Jimmy backing it off the trailer for the 1st time. We headed up the mountain for our first ride, near Eagle Meadow. We've been up there before in the car and knew the dirt road would be more suitable in the Rhino.


Our 1st water crossing at Long Valley Creek. and my fist youtube vid.

A stop to enjoy the view of Three Chimneys in the far background.

He went out again on Monday with the neighbors. I wasn't feeling well, so I decided to sit this one out.The cool thing is that one of the neighbors is a retired Forest Service employee so he knows the forest like the back of his hand. He took them by a grove of pine trees that he had planted over 40 years ago when the area was burned in a forest fire in the early 60s. They also rode on a trail that was covered with wild lilacs.
I hope Jimmy can remember how to get back there so he can show me, too.
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donkey talk

ok, i don't know what i'm doing. i've never uploaded my own video before, so please forgive me if it doesn't work or doesn't look right or isn't fancy. But here's some more animal talk. I caught him mid-sentence because I wasn't prepared and didn't have the camera w/ video ready.
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