Mostly Minis

Last weekend was interesting. Friday and Saturday night both, I watched for coral spawning, but seems like Monitpora capitata are done for this year.

Saturday, I got a couple pics of Vic working on his truck and Bailey just hanging out. She's good at supervising when Vic does car stuff.

Saturday night, Vic went out with his friend Michael, and I hung out for a bit with my friend Mel. Somehow the boys wandered into where we were for a bit though. Long enough for me to snap a picture anyway.

Not quite sure what Mel and I were laughing about, but it must have been funny.



So all that was great, but Sunday was packed full of goodness! Got up early, as I usually do on Sundays to go teach horseback riding lessons at Therapeutic Horsemanship of Hawaii in Waimanalo, which is an amazing place where kids of all abilities can come to enjoy the healing effects of connecting with horses. I'm always busy when I'm there and never think to pull out my camera, but happily one of the volunteers, Crystal, snapped a picture of myself and Kelsey and Savannah, two of our other volunteers in action doing a field ride for one of our smallest riders.



After THH, I rushed home and grabbed Vic and we went out to Kualoa Beach Park for the end of a Mini Cooper rally. They had started at Kaka'ako Park in town and drove around the south end of the island, past Sandy's, Haunama Bay, Makapu'u and Waimanalo and all the way up through Kaneohe. It was the 50th Birthday of Mini (today I believe), and Friday was the 50th Anniversary of Statehood for Hawaii so their goal was to get 50 Minis together. I think they made it and it was so awesome to see so many Minis all together. I just got mine back in March and, if you've talked to me much since then, you probably know how much I love it. First pic is of mine and its little friend who had actually followed me from Waimanalo for awhile thinking he was going to be the last one there, but then laughed when he said he lost me when I stopped to pick up Vic. So many Minis!













The old Minis were super-awesome to see. Check out the rag top sunroof on the one on the left. So cool!



It was great seeing all the Minis. Not a single two were alike. It was amazing. Equally amazing was the variety of people who were there as Mini owners...men, women, young, old, all races. So neat.

Mini of Hawaii provided burgers and hot dogs and other picnic stuff and everyone hung out for awhile. Super-fun.

Vic even found a tree to act like a monkey. :)



After that we went out with Mary and Ned on their boat to the sandbar in the middle of Kaneohe Bay. Despite many times of attempting to get out there with various groups of people, this was Vic and I's first time at the sandbar. It was super-nice.




Vic has been helping Ned with their boat off-and-on for awhile now. It is an interesting boat that Ned built himself from a kit. It's always fun to hang out with them, but sometimes the boat has issues, so Vic brought his tools along. We were all giggling about it until the boat wouldn't start out at the sandbar. Good thing he had the tools. He fixed it right up and we were on our way.

Checking out the motor...



Finished off the day with dinner at Macaroni Grill with our friends Sam (fidget DJ Sam Ondarox) and his wife Danielle.

Another great day in Hawaii. Woot! :)

Corals and Zombies and Octopi...Oh My!

Wow. Interesting evening. Went out for the Montipora spawn, but today was a holiday, Hawaii Statehood Day, so the island was really empty. Mary was busy and planned to come out on the 9:00 boat, presumably just as the coral would start to spawn. JJ, Mary and I's new fish room manager/assistant (who rocks, by the way!) was going to come out but had been busy with her son's birthday all day and when I talked to her on the phone we decided she would just come help tomorrow. Jackie is studying for her comps, so she stayed home too.

So, I ended up waiting for the spawn by myself. Normally this wouldn't have bothered me, but being out at the point lab during the new moon, it's really dark. On top of that, it was really windy so everything was creaking and rattling. And then, of course, the coral looked like they really could care less that it was time to spawn. So I sat and waited in the point lab. Inside was nice, there were lights and whatnot, but the wind kept rattling the door. In my mind, I knew it was the wind, but they way it rattled, it definitely could have been zombies. Really. Zombies. Regular human intruders would have jiggled the door and then opened it, so I was assured it wasn't a human. But zombies, they might just stand outside and jiggle the door like that. Was creepy. Halfway fun though, reasoning with myself about the wind and the door.

In any case, the coral did not spawn again tonight. I think JJ and I will watch again tomorrow night, but I have a feeling that we're about to call it a season for this year's Montipora capitata spawning. Sigh.

On a better note. Stopped by the octopus tanks again and this time two of them were out swimming around. Woot! One even splashed water up and almost made me drop my iphone. :) Few pics below...

Octopi at Work!!!

Ok, so the coral didn't spawn tonight. Not the end of the world. It is late in the season, and so it can be expected that they might go a day late. Nice to have an early evening. Nice that Mary can get some rest after flying home today. Tomorrow should be a good night for the spawning, I'm sure.

On another note, however, walking down to the point where the corals are in their tanks, I passed a normally empty tank and it is now housing...OCTOPI!!! So neat. Took a couple iphone pics, not the greatest through the water, but will do for now. Not sure what is going on with them, but you can bet I will go check on them a lot.




Super-woot for the Octopi!

Gyu Kaku and Friends

So my good friend, Seth aka Grym who runs Onset, a weekly DnB night in Seattle, Washington, has been in town this week. He came out last minute with a (girl)friend of his to use up some free tickets and we had him come through Broken Liquid. He played a really amazing dubstep & dnb set in the front room that was beautifully dark and trancey. He's a great dj, hands down, and he brought it like he always does. Got to see him and Liza briefly at the beach Sunday and then last night for dinner.

We took them to Gyu Kaku, as we tend to do with folks who are in town. I think this was Seth's 3rd time eating there and he was specific that that's where we needed to go. If you've never been there, then you must not go out to eat with us much and/or you haven't come to visit us in Hawaii.

Gyu Kaku is definitely one of my all-time favorite restaurants. It's a Japanese chain that I first went to years ago in Japan. It is Korean Yakiniku style, meaning that there is a little grill in the center of your table where you get to cook your own food, but with Japanese-style food. At first it can seem a little gimmicky...Japanese seem to love themed restaurants I have noticed...but once you eat the first bite of food, you realize there's no gimmick to it, it is just amazing food, plain and simple.

It's great to take guests to because it makes for a very entertaining meal and we can almost guarantee the everyone will get something they like, a lot. Almost every DJ we have ever brought in to town has been there to eat. We go there for welcome home dinners, farewell dinners, birthday dinners, anniversaries, random Fridays, random Wednesdays, anytime really and it never fails to disappoint. It's nice to have a spot where we can absolutely know that we are going to have a good time with good friends when we go there. Thanks Gyu Kaku! :)

If you've never been there, you should go...there's a few in Southern California and one in NYC too, although I can't vouch for them...but check it out:
Gyu-Kaku.com

Motipora capitata spawning tonight here at HIMB, so getting ready for a long evening on the island. Fingers crossed! Aloha!

Home Sweet Hawaii

Since I'm not in Puerto Rico anymore, thankfully, I got to come home. I've always enjoyed where I have lived, but never felt more close to an actual place than I feel to Hawaii itself. Whenever I leave here, I feel a little sad, even if I'm going somewhere neat. When I come back, I feel myself relax as I get off the plane and am instantly happy. I love it here, to say the least. It suits me. The climate is the climate I can remember wanting my whole life. The ocean is so close. Everything is lush and green. People here are open minded and friendly (at least to me, most of the time). I'm always thankful that I get to live in this amazing place, but whenever I go away, I get a nice extra reminder and am always so stoked to be back.

Vic picked me up from the airport Friday. I had missed him a lot and it was great to see him. We went to see District 9 at the little theatre right by our house. It was very entertaining, but not the greatest movie ever. I would recommend going to see it though as I imagine a lot of people I know would enjoy it.

Saturday we had Broken Liquid. I slept good Friday night, but after breakfast Saturday morning, the sleeps were overtaking me again, so I slept all the way up until we had to set up. It was good because I really needed it. Had a great night at Broken Liquid. Long-time Pacific Jungle friend, Grym from Onset, Seattle flew in last minute for a little holiday and played a really amazing dark-trancey dubstep & dnb set. Quite impressive. Vince and Gonzales laid down some nice reggae vibes in the back. Sounds like Billy got some good pics, so will post a link to those when he gets them up.

Sunday, Vic and I braved the crowds in Waikiki, and I do mean CROWDS, to hang out with his good friend Christina who he's known since high school and her husband Chris who were here on their honeymoon. Vic went to the wedding in Vegas the weekend before, but I was in Puerto Rico. It was nice that they came here for their honeymoon so that I got to see them as well. Christina is a beautiful person and Chris reflected that nicely. So lovely to see such beautiful happy people.

Was amazed at the mass of people in Waikiki. Good though to think that the tourism industry might be doing better? We usually avoid Waikiki at all costs, and certainly never in front of the big hotels, so seeing all the people was quite a trip. Check it out...





And a few funny pictures of Vic and I on the beach...





That's all for now. I'm off to bed. Still absolutely beat from my trip. They say you can't catch up on sleep, but I sure am trying...Aloha!

Not in Puerto Rico Anymore

Not quite the same ring as "not in Kansas anymore"...So yeah, I'm not in Puerto Rico anymore, but want to post of a few more pics. Some of random stuff, a few more of sciencey things. In any case, here ya go...

These first two are of these two houses I like that are run down as you go into downtown Rincon from the houses we rent each year. The houses are just so adorable and look like they would be easy to fix up, a little cleaning, paint the concrete some cool colors and they would be really neat little houses.





Here's an octopus that Mike took a picture of for me during one of their dives. If you don't know about my octopus obsession, I will likely explain in a future post. ;)



Mike and Brian and Eric put together a homemade protein skimmer for the larvae which was quite impressive.



During one of their daytime dives, Mike got tons of pics of a little group of squid. Here's just one pic of a few of them by an Acropora palmata colony (the coral we are trying to help).



Here's another pic that Mike took of some spawning palmata. You can see the bundles rising up off the surface. Pretty amazing!



This is another pic Mike took of one of our collection cups with bundles safely inside. The cups are fitted onto nets which fit over the colonies and float above to collect bundles from an individual colony.



A picture of me actually doing science, thanks Mike. I enjoyed the last two years with the SECORE workshop, but was busy helping run the workshop, so didn't get to do much hands on science. I was very happy this year to be able to focus on our cryopreservation research.



Mike being funny about this little pipe stand they had had in the larvae pool. :)



The last night as we were packing up the lab, just to make things a little more interesting, we were inundated with a termite swarm. We have termite swarms in Hawaii, but I've never seen such a large one. They were all over us as we packed the lab and all over us as Mike and Brian and I were packing their larvae. It was an absolute mess. You can see them on the ceiling of the yellow house and then in a pile as Brian had to sweep them off the ceiling and walls and floor multiple times the last night we were there. Quite disgusting really.





I'm not sure when this picture was taken, but this pretty much sums up the end of the trip. We were all very tired.



It was a short trip really, but we got so much accomplished. We had a good group of SECORE folks and cryo folks and I thank all of them for their hard work. We had a great time, but I think everyone was happy to get home to rest, get their larvae going (in the case of Brian, Mike and Eric) and get ready for the next coral spawn (in the case of myself and Mary). In fact, Mary is still traveling and may get off the plane here Thursday and come straight out to Coconut Island for a Montipora spawn. We just don't stop...

Packing Up

Getting the lab packed up now and just to make it a little more fun, we got a swarm of termites around us as we did so.

One last round of experiments last night thanks to some more spawn from Iliana's group. They now have a ton of larvae in their kriesels which is great and means that our SECORE guys can have a few more to take home.

We leave bright and early tomorrow morning. Mike and I both took a bunch more pictures, but not sure I will have time to post them until I get back to Hawaii.

Aloha for now.

A Little Bit More Spawn

Well, another night, a little bit more spawn, but not much. Didn't get sperm quite as concentrated as we would have liked, but were still able to do some experiments and some banking. Didn't get as much as we would have liked for Eric and Mike and Brian, but have a little bit for them. Will know more tomorrow when we see the fertilization rates.

Megan leaves tomorrow morning bright and early (I get to take her to the Mayaguez airport at 5am, un-woot! really but will get to use the ride back to listen to some tunes I'm trying to weed out for my mix I'm working on, so that's ok). Sad to see her go. She was a nice addition to our cryo team this year!

Jason and Michael will leave later tomorrow afternoon as well, so we took a group photo tonight as Jason pointed out I think we forgot to last year, at least we didn't get one of the cryo-team all together.



Not the greatest pic ever, my camera is not doing well with night photos, but it will do for now. Wishing Megan, Jason and Michael safe travels home. You all contributed so much to our research this year. Thanks for being a part of it! Much Aloha!

With that, I'm off for a nap before it is time to drive to Mayaguez...

What a Crazy Night!

Wow. That was crazy! Much more spawn than last night, but then we had unmotile (bad) sperm and then we had good sperm and my vials were full and then they had to be drained and refilled and sperm got banked and experiments got done and it's 4:30am. I think I must go to bed.

Many thanks to all the volunteers who helped us again tonight. There were some very inquisitive students who stuck around and asked some great questions about our research. I think Eric was talking to them for a few hours even.

Brian makes a great assistant and made my life way easier for the second night in a row. :)

Hoping that the larvae for Eric and Mike and Brian are better later this morning than yesterday morning. We shall see in a few hours when folks get up.

Hope to find time to post more pics tomorrow. For now...
...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.......

Been Busy!

Please excuse the lack of posting details last night and today. We have been busy, which is, of course, good. :)

Spent most of the day today counting larvae in my experimental vials. We have data! Yay! More details to follow when I have more time, but want to post a few pictures for today while I eat a sandwich before it gets all crazy again in about a half hour...

This one is titled "Eric Does Science".



Some of our great volunteers checking out Mary and Megan's work with sperm motility on the microscopes.



Off to wait for the spawn. Aloha!