Video of SCUBA diving in Monterey

Last weekend Scott and I went for a couple of dives in Monterey (where else!). We left really early in the morning in order to dive Lover's Cove, which has an 11 am cutoff time for divers. We entered the water at beach #3, intending to swim around the big rock outcropping to beach #2. The conditions were better than great - 40 foot vis and no swell - however, a couple of fishermen perched up on the rock deterred us from swimming around it. Don't want to become ensnared in fishing line or get hooked!

I had disconcerting issue with my BC the first dive - it didn't inflate fully and I was having to work pretty hard to stay on the surface. It was difficult to keep my head above water and think of what the problem could be at the same time. It was the first time I've been seriously tempted to ditch my weights. Turns out manually inflating the BC the rest of the way did the trick.

For our second dive we took it easy and just did the Breakwater wall. I brought my camera along and shot some short movies. When I got home I started pasting the footage together in iMovie and had so much fun I decided to compose some music for it too using the GarageBand software! Pretty basic techno, but I like the way it turned out. Enjoy!

Cut and Paste Graphic Arts Competition

This weekend I got to see a very cool graphic arts competition courtesy of my friend Mickey who helps direct the show. It's called "Cut & Paste", and it features several top-notch graphic artists specializing in 2D, 3D, and animated art. Each contestant is given a theme in advance of the show which they must represent graphically within 20 minutes live and onstage. This is not a lot of time to draw, so the pace is frantic. Each person's work is projected onto several huge screens so the audience can watch their use of the graphics programs. In the background a DJ played some dance music, making the atmosphere like that of a hip club. It was fun to watch each piece emerge in sometimes unexpected ways. In one instance a woman started off drawing an elaborate squiggle and spent half of her time decorating it with roller coaster cars and balloons. In the last five minutes of the contest she drew a giant deer head underneath, connecting the two. It then suddenly became apparent that the deer had antlers which doubled as an amusement park ride.

In the 3D contest the theme was "Double-Edged". One competitor started off drawing a very realistic-looking pistol. Midway through his time he flipped the plane of the barrel such that it pointed backwards relative to the trigger. In other words, anyone firing the gun would shoot themselves. When this sort of trick happened the crowd went nuts. Are you reading this, Marc? You really should try out for this event, or at least catch a show. Check their touring locations.