Natalie Morales just got sexier, Al just got much cooler...

Matt and Meredith.....not so much.

UPDATE:  The video above is a little confusing in timespace.   Basically it is a few scenes cut from our dive.   The main person on the left (thumbs up dude) is myself, my wife Lindz is to the left of me (right of camera).   She is the the one that gets all the attention from the sharks (probably because she smells good).   The Ga Aquarium has a camera man that will follow some of the dives.  You can purchase the footage from them also (they are non-profit it goes towards their research) I bought the DVD and edited out just a short list of segments that had us in them (seen above).  The DVD that you can buy contains a great edit of all the footage from the dive.   The above is just a small sample that I cut out that included me and my wife. 

The wife and I were lucky enough this weekend to be able to snorkel through the whale shark tank at the Georgia Aquarium.  It was, without a doubt, one of the most memorable experiences I will ever have from the very beginning to the end.

The day actually almost didn't happen for us though (which would have been about the biggest bummer I can possibly think of).  We were supposed to be at the group meet up at 4:00 and we had to be right on time.   We left our house around 2:30 (in Alpharetta area) and started down 400.  When we got to the tollbooth (and not anywhere did it strike me about it within the last 2 weeks) I remembered that there was construction on 85 south through the city.  So we thought, well I am sure it is down below 20 or something and we will make it getting off at the aquarium exit for sure.   As we drove down 400 we started to see a lot of people getting off at the exits and I thought, well this can't be good and by the time we got to Sidney Marcus there was literally a line of people GOING OPPOSITE OF TRAFFIC in the emergency lanes trying to get off.  I made a split second decision to know those people that were doing it had to know something I didn't so we got off 400 and drove over to the Lindberg Marta station and took Marta down to Peachtree Station.  As Marta paralleled 400 and we saw the parking lot that was 85 me and Lindz both smiled fairly large as we both knew that if we had stayed on 400->85 we would have lived on 85 for the next 2 years out of the back of our car.  Regardless, since we had not planned on the 15-20 min walk from the Marta station to the Aquarium we did a mad Home Alone like dash through downtown to make sure we would make it on time.  We got there at 4:06 and learned that other people who were supposed to be there also were stuck in traffic.  It seems like a pretty strict schedule (you don't want to put people in the water when everything is hungry I assume) so we ended up having only 4 of the 6 people show up.  Fortunately though this left 2 slots open and two of the people going with us got to bring their Dad.

The aquarium runs 2 dives a day, or really one scuba dive and one scuba assisted snorkel (sas?) dive a day.  Each group contains 6 slots and is accompanied by 3 divers, a back diver, front diver (divemaster) and 6 other divers who surround the group with 8ft long spearguns  (just kidding about the speargun divers).  When you arrive at the aquarium you meet up with the greeter and another aquarium worker who get the group together, and then you go upstairs through the "Do Not Enter" doors to the staff part of the aquarium.  As soon as we went through those doors I started to REALLY get excited because I knew that we were going to be seeing some pretty cool stuff/tech.  As soon as you walk into the back area of the aquarium you are taken to a classroom.  I think one of the neatest things about the staff areas of the aquarium is that there are literally fish tanks everywhere.  For someone like me (who as my wife calls me an 'aquarium hobbyist') it is quite awesome.  Just within the walk from the staff-only doors to the classroom there were 3 salt water tanks.  One was a fairly large (200gal?) reef tank that contained a normal array of reef fish, a Flame Angel and a couple of other fish.  Inside the classroom was a 45gal with a HUGE assortment of really thriving anemone and clownfish using them as host, and then there is also another 45 gal with a small eel and what looked to be small stone fish inside them.

So after arriving into the classroom you are greeted by the host/greeter Ed Ryan. Ed was a really nice guy.  I am about 99.999% positive he was in the Navy at some point in his life because he reminded me of about every Navy scoutleader or  counseler I ever had at scout camp.   He was EXTREMELY knowledgeable about 'public aquarium  dives' (which is a term I totally just made up for public hosted dives in aquarium exhibits) having worked at the aquarium down at Disney for the past 8 years.  He mentioned that down there they had put about 48 people in the water a day at the aquarium at Epcot, so he sounded like he knew his stuff and knew how to keep everyone safe at the same time.  We met with the other divers in our group of 6 who included a girl maybe a few years younger than us who lived in midtown and did pharm sales,  and the family I mentioned before that were also from Alpharetta, a father and his just-turned-16 son (this was his Bday present) and his sister who was probably about 14 or so who seemed a bit nervous.  The father's name was Bob and seemed like a nice guy.    After introductions there is a fairly extensive walk through about getting geared up.  I had assumed that wet suit would be in play, but I assumed we would be using regular snorkels.  I was completely wrong and I am 100x happier that we didn't.  I have scuba dived some and snorkeled a bunch, but never have I snorkeled with a regulator.  It was REALLY a nice experience.  The BC keeps you afloat so you literally can just glide and the tank/regulator give you the ability to really see around you sooo much more than a snorkel that you have to "haukblow"-clean everytime you dip your face under more than 90deg.

Ed described to us how to get all the gear situated, how to get the wet suits on  with minimal water seepage, and how the dive team would help us out after getting in the water.  We also watched a short video about how to suit up and how to enter the water via the little pier/bridge that is at the top of the tank.  There was only one problem, the pier/bridge was up for maintenance so we were using the alternative which crosses over 'Alice Alley' and we would be instructed how by one of the divers.  I will talk about that more in a sec.

So after the video I looked around and saw that everyones faces had just come to the realization that we were about to get in what is probably the world's largest fish tank and and get to see some incredible animals right up close.  I don't know if anyone realized just how close though.  One thing that we learned about in the video and from Ed was when the whale sharks were approaching we were to use the 'superman' position.  (No, not that one) the version that the aquarium uses whereas you pretty much lay yourself flat until the whalesharks pass you by.  So Ed then introduced us to Patty Eberheart who then took us up to the top of the large tank.  The top of the tank just looks pretty much like a big indoor football field, with a field of water and a catwalk that spans it at about the 20 yard line on one side.  Patty mentioned that they bring educational tours through this area and that they get to go across the catwalk which would be pretty cool.  So then Patty showed us how to sanitize our shoes and we walked across the deck of the pool to the locker rooms and got suited up.  The aquarium puts everything you will need; wet suit, booties, towels and everything in that locker marked with your name.   You literally just need to bring your bathing suit.  After getting suited up (and starting to get REALLY REALLY excited) you then get back on the deck and get to meet the dive crew you will be diving with. Our lead diver was David Adams (who was an extremely charismatic guy), Anne Lewin (Lewis?) who was having just as much fun as David and a cinematographer diver Jim McAlister (who has the coolest beard in all of Atlanta - I think the fish know this and this is why they don't mess with him and he can get such great shots).  They gave us some more instruction about the superman position and also about certain hand signal communication we would need to know in the water.   All three were very personable and honestly made you feel very comfortable on the dive.  I kept glancing at the young girl on the trip and I think these three divers made her a little more at ease, which is worth it's weight in gold when you are about to get in a really large swimming pool with 4 bus sized whale sharks and countless other fish that if seen in the wild might cause alarm enough to call off a dive (hammerhead, black tip etc.).

So we proceeded to get suited up and in line to get in the water.  As I mentioned before the normal water entry pier structure was under maintenance, so we were going in on the alternative route which was pretty much down 2 ladders into Alice Alley.  They call that certain edge of the aquarium Alice Alley because Alice (one of the larger female whalesharks) likes to cruise through here on her rounds.  For those that don't know the Whale sharks are pretty much in a constant figure 8 motion around the aquarium (it was built to support this).  I am going entirely off memory from the window placements I remember from being underwater and the order in which we saw them, but I think the below pic is pretty close.  The pathway the sharks circle in (most of the time) is in black, and 'Alice Alley' is in yellow.  Pretty much since the pier-esque entry ramp was closed we had to go down 2 ladders, the only thing is that we were pretty much playing a big game of Frogger so we didn't disturb the sharks swimming patterns.  So 2 people would get in the water, wait for a whale shark to pass, then 2 more etc etc and we would swim out to group up about 20 feet off the wall until all 9 of us were in the water.

Once we got out to the gather point everyone made sure were were all feeling good about our gear and instructions and we were off.  One of the things that the divemaster and the videos etc are VERY clear on is that you do not in any way actively touch, go after, or motion towards any of the fish and follow the rules or else your dive can be cut short.  Me and Lindz were in probably the best roller coaster position of the dive.  You are paired up and everyone uses the rules of 5.  Stay 5 feet from any animal, 5 feet from the wall, and within 5 feet from your partner.  David was right in front of us (yellow fins in the video).   Anne was in back (red wetsuit) and Jim was pretty much all around us (with a big camera in his hands that looked like dumptruck headlights coming right at you).  Me and Lindz were on front row, her on the inside me on the outside.

Once in the water and moving for about the first 5 mins I really kept my eye on Dave I was still getting a feeling for being in the water and also to make sure we followed his lead and didn't get off track.   He stayed about 10 feet in front of us and continuously had his hands on his head (which I think meant, all is good - continuing to move forward).  Once we got about 20 yards from where we began we started to see the whale sharks around us.  I cannot begin to describe how surreal it was when the first whale shark passed us.  Since you are on the surface (where the whale sharks tend to stay) and within their pattern they just glide right by you.  At the beginning of the program it sounded like they would tend to stay away a little bit (this program just started on June 1st I believe) but as they have gotten more used to 6 or so people being in the water once a day they have started to get more inquisitive.  Before we got in the water David was telling us about how they would sneak up on you all the sudden.  Of course I thought oh he is just being funny, this is a 25+ long fish, they don't sneak up on anything, but in all honestly they really would just suddenly appear.   If you don't belive me look at the video above at about :55 seconds in.    That is the 16 year old diving with us who didn't realize the shark was so close to him.  During the dive I would look up, David would be giving us the superman signal and then out of no where less than 5 feet from us this massive (AND I MEAN FREAKING MASSIVE) fish would glide right under you.  It was absolutely one of the most surreal experiences of my life.  You can feel the tug as they glide past you, but it is silent and the water is almost still.  Honestly, just totally indescribable.

After the first pass by one of the sharks (I think Trixie) I started to really just be beside myself, it was so awesome.   Then I looked up and saw the guitarfish swimming underneath us.  I never at any point of the dive felt threatened at all, however since I had Lindsey with me I was always keeping myself alert to any fish within our area that could create a bad situation.   There were two points at which I kept my eyes on two specific fish, 1 was the guitarfish (I think a Skate/Ray) that swam about 5 feet below us and then another was a hammerhead shark that kept wanting to get a good look at us towards the end of the dive.  The guitarfish looks a lot bigger when it is swimming underneath you than it does through the aquarium windows.  I shouldn't really say bigger, just longer.  I had always assumed it was about 4 to 5 feet in length when it honestly looked more like 6-7'as it swam RIGHT underneath us.  I don't think they are an aggressive fish, and he was probably just checking us all out, but it still was pretty wicked.

One of the other neat inhabitants of the tank were the peeps in the tunnel.  I couldn't really see all that well in the windows, but I could see into the tunnel really well and it was pretty fun also to wave at the little kids in the tunnel who would get so tickled at you when you would wave back.

Pretty much continuously as you swim you have whale sharks gliding past you.  You could tell when they would come up beside you that they were definitely trying to figure out what was going on with you.  It was almost sometimes a little comical because they would get almost eye level with you and then turn away.  There is one instance in the video above at about 2:40 in front of the home depot window when Alice (I think) came up right beside us and tagged Lindz. (she is the one right in front), there was another instance that actually happened later (but sooner in the vid above) that one of the males came right at me.  I was laying flat, but honestly kept looking at David in a WTF do I do look on my face, because when you are staring at this massive creature going literally less that 1 foot below you and a 6 foot tall tail headed strait for your face you really don't know what to do.  Fortunately the whale sharks are pretty adept at the whole swimming thing and although I barely notice it, they know they are going to get just deep enough not to hit you.



The entire experience was absolutely the most awesome thing in the world.  Seriously.  If you have the ability to do this, it is honestly worth 3x what they ask for it.  I pretty much came out of the water speechless and thanked myself every min afterwards that I was on the website the day it was released that we got spots.  I am 100% positive Lindz loved every minute also.  One thing that I really thought was great about the whole experience was that the staff honestly wanted to share this experience with you.  Every single person honestly loved what they did, and I think the only thing they might have loved just as much was being able to take people like me and Lindsey on experiences like that.   I cannot say enough about the Swim with Gentle Giants Program (shit this is already probably the longest post I have had in years).  If you can, do yourself the favor and sign up and take someone you love with you.  I also would suggest NOT doing the dive program, but doing the swim program.  Just for the sheer fact that the 4 whalesharks swim more on the surface than they do on the bottom.   I honestly can say I think they are undercharging it.  Not just because of the experience itself, but also because of the staff that cares sooooo passionately about it and they honestly want to share that with you.  You could tell these guys loved it just as much as we did and they were probably doing it for the 1000th time.

Thank you David Adams, Anne Lewin (Lewis?), Jim McAlister, Ed Ryan, Patty Eberheart of the Georgia Aquarium for making this one hell of an experience.

Swim with Gentle Giants @ The Georgia Aquarium

This is a very interesting read.  I checked both AJC and 11alive and I didn't see any mention of it:

[Quoted a lot for context, the entire article gives a lot more info though]

Stephen Spoonamore is the founder and until recently the CEO of Cybrinth LLC, an information technology policy and security firm that serves Fortune 100 companies. At a little noticed press conference in Columbus, Ohio Thursday, he discussed his investigation of a computer patch that was applied to Diebold Election Systems voting machines in Georgia right before that state's November 2002 election.

Spoonamore is one of the most prominent cyber-security experts in the country. He has appeared on CNN's Lou Dobbs and ABC's World News Tonight, and has security clearances from his work with the intelligence community and other government agencies, as well as the Department of Defense, and is one of the world’s leading authorities on hacking and cyber-espionage.

In 1995, Spoonamore received a civilian citation for his work with the Department of Defense. He was again recognized for his contributions in 2004 by the Department of Homeland Security. Spoonamore is also a registered Republican and until recently was advising the McCain campaign.

Spoonamore received the Diebold patch from a whistleblower close to the office of Cathy Cox, Georgia’s then-Secretary of State. In discussions with RAW STORY, the whistleblower -- who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation -- said that he became suspicious of Diebold's actions in Georgia for two reasons. The first red flag went up when the computer patch was installed in person by Diebold CEO Bob Urosevich, who flew in from Texas and applied it in just two counties, DeKalb and Fulton, both Democratic strongholds. The source states that Cox was not privy to these changes until after the election and that she became particularly concerned over the patch being installed in just those two counties.

The whistleblower said another flag went up when it became apparent that the patch installed by Urosevich had failed to fix a problem with the computer clock, which employees from Diebold and the Georgia Secretary of State’s office had been told the patch was designed specifically to address.

Some critics of electronic voting raised questions about the 2002 Georgia race even at the time. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, who was five percentage points ahead of Republican challenger Saxby Chambliss in polls taken a week before the vote, lost 53% to 46%. Incumbent Democratic Governor Roy Barnes, who led challenger Sonny Perdue in the polls by eleven points, lost 51% to 46%. However, because the Diebold machines used throughout the state provided no paper trail, it was impossible to ask for a recount in either case.

Concerned by the electoral outcome, the whistleblower approached Spoonamore because of his qualifications and asked him to examine the Diebold patch.

   
So when will the LOCAL Atlanta news atleast mention this?


GOP cyber-security expert suggests Diebold tampered with 2002 election

Microsoft didn't just land an A-list RPG... they landed THE A-LIST RPG.   Me and a coworker were trying to follow the keynote as best we could, but once I heard that the SQUARE-ENIX President was closing the show, it really got my hopes up. 

Sure enough.

Biggest Surprise of the day by far.  I actually contemplated getting a PS3 specifically for this and 2 other games (MGS/GT5).  I played Prologue and wasn't impressed with it compared to my current favorite after-Ava-and-wife-go-to-bed-beer-drinking-funtime-game GRiD, and now with the announcement today FFXIII is coming to the 360 I am a very very happy camper.  If I didn't already have the 360 playing  Netflix streaming movies via the Media Center hack I would be just as happy about the new integration of that service with Xbox Live also.  Will certainly be nice to have an 'official' version though.

UPDATE: I also gotta give huge props to the Fallout 3 trailer.  Very well done and I admit, it made me pee a little in my pants.

Just yesterday we met up with the Harrimans for dinner at a BBQ place in the middle of Alpharetta called Smokejack (which in all seriousness has the absolute best pulled chicken BBQ sandwich I have ever had the pleasure of eating - but only on their lunch menu) so I was going to show Carr a few of the public places to park near the downtown Alpharetta area, there are a few places to park around the restaurant that are close (they also have a small child, so the closer the better) so I went on to Google Maps and made a marked up/annotated map showing the area where the parking was pretty easy.    Carr mentioned that he didn't know you could mark up maps and send it to people and I proceeded to tell him you could not only do that, but also if you want to get deeper into geo-visualizations of data you can mess around with the xml/layering in Google Earth (stand alone app) you can actually dynamically create the xml/layer files on the fly via code which creates dynamic overlays on the google earth.  I IM'd him this link, which shows Nine Inch Nails showing a visual representation of who all downloaded their album The Slip which was released a few weeks ago, and true to form Trent Reznor was cool enough to share their data (along with Top Spin, the company that handled the distribution) with the world and allow people to see it graphically on Google Earth.  This data was not only great to see just out of curiosity for me, but it also does give you a sense of how the band decides where they want to stop on their tour going on right now (Aug 13th at Gwinnett Arena for all you Atlanta peeps - see you there) and how data like this (and of course the ability to gather it in real time) effects decisions like tour stops.   Here are a few thumbs of some of the data as it is displayed in Google Earth:

  

also you can grab the KMZ file if you want to dl Google Earth (free).

Now comes the cool part that I read about this morning.  Suddenly yesterday a point showed up on the map that you are seeing above outside Burbank, the coordinates didn't say anything except 'under a rock' and that was it.  Someone then went out to this lat/long and their found a rock and low and behold picked it up and found, what else?  tickets to the NIN Los Angeles show.    From as I understand it these points are now popping up all over Cali and the treasure hunt is on.  Here is a description from an another article I read this morning:

On Monday night, I trespassed in Griffith Park, ran from men with flashlights and retrieved a valuable envelope hidden inside a drainpipe.No, I’m not a secret agent. Just a Nine Inch Nails fan.To kick off the band’s upcoming tour, they are hosting an exclusive concert in Los Angeles on July 19. Spots on the guest list go to the craziest fans, and I’m on it.The band posted a file to its website with concert tour locations a couple weeks ago that visitors could download and open in the Google Earth software. Last Friday, a mysterious place marker appeared on the map, labeled “under the rock,” that pointed to a location in Burbank. Beneath that rock was an envelope giving the lucky discoverers entree to the show.

The author of this article and his brother found another point via Google Earth and set out to it, low and behold the coords led to a drain pipe with tickets:  

(photo by Mark Millian)
 

Just read about IndyMac and it reminded me of something I saw and marked..

 Saw this the other day and saved it to delicious.  It is the timeline of a house purchase in California.  Click to read more about specific house here.  The time line is what is interesting:

If you click the link you can see they are trying to sell for ~675k (~80k under from property debt).   The first thing that comes to my mind is past the first HELOC, who extends loans like this?  I mean what do you have to secure for the bank to offset a loan like the 2nd and 3rd HELOC ($188k! - almost 1/3rd the value of the house!)

And we wonder why Freddie and Fannie might be looking for a gov't bailout...  which sucks because that means all of us who don't have 1/2 the "value" of our home wrapped up in outstanding LOCs paying a small part to bail out a company who decides to loan out stuff like the above. 

From the post:  One interesting note: the second mortgage being wiped out is listed as being insured by either Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae.

In High School me and a few friends didn't really have a band, but would get togther at a warehouse one of my friends mother had for her floral business and just get together to play.  There was a a 'Battle of the Bands' type thing put on at South Gwinnett HS and I always had dreams of 'ET & The Rockafire Explosion' jumping on stage.  Unfortunately, we made a song called 'Images of War' for a literature class project that was pretty much a 4 track full of suck so I don't think it was in the cards at the time, but still the band name would have kicked ass.

We drove through Phoenix City this weekend, had I only known I might could have found Chris Thrash (shown below) and shown my daughter one of the coolest things I remember about all the pizza/token/trade-a-million-tickets-for-cheap-prizes/bday parties I had the privilege of attending growing up in suburban Atlanta:

The Rock-afire Explosion Movie Trailer from The Rock-afire Explosion on Vimeo.

This is a must see for me.