Fire From the Sea

This morning I woke up, and had to run to the local CVS to pick up some Tylenol cough syrup for my pregnant/sick wife :S. Anyway, when I got home, I got the coffee make going, and decided to sit down and read the new on my iPhone.

The last story that caught my eye before I decided I had seen enough news was a local story out of Newport Beach. The title read, "Huge fish dragged out of Newport surf", intrigued I clicked. The article is about a video taken by a guy who was at the beach and who swam out to help bring in the fish. He sent the video in to the Orange County Register, and explained what he did in a short commentary. Rob Cavanaugh of Anaheim stated (as quoted from the OC Register article)



“I was on shore skimming when a boat came close to shore with what looked like a seal caught in ropes, so I swam out to help. The guy who caught the fish was swimming out with me. I didn’t know it was a fish, or who the guy was swimming out with me …

“I don’t know how long the fish was. Nobody measured it. They were in a hurry to remove the hook and get it back into the water. (I’ll say it was 5 to 6 feet long, weighing more than a person). The guy who caught it said they brought it ashore because he didn’t want to snip the line from the end of the pier and leave 20 feet of steal leader to wrap around the fish.

“When they returned it back into the water I swam out with the guy who caught it to help revive the fish. We spent 20 to 30 min(utes) keeping it upright and trying to push it through the water to feed O2 thru the gills.”

In later comments he states the fish did not survive, and was covered in parasites, which is most likely why it was caught right off the pier, it had come in to die.
There were California Department of Fish and Game officials on scene, and local police who ruled that the fishermen did nothing wrong and did not fine them or cite them. I agree with this decision.

I watched the video, and aside from the whole posing to take pictures in the sand, I think they did what they could to help release the fish which is a protected species (listed as critically endangered). Maybe a picture taken in the surf would have been sufficient. Anyway, following the story was a cascade of comments, some insightful, some funny, others were educated and polite, but many were insulting, some even down right ignorant.

I was simply amazed, how such a insignificant thing could spark such an cascade of these types of comments. Especially when the video is seen with this point of view for reference as stated by a user who called himself "olsrfbum".

He said, "One fish caught legally, wildlife is being pouched(poached) every day all over the world. The response to this article, with the exception of few, is typical of people who really know very little about the preservation of wildlife. One dying black sea bass hooked off the pier will have no affect on the future outcome of wildlife on Our Planet."

So very well put. The following banter between him and another user in my opinion were the most well said and polite comments of the entire board, actually, I can't remember the last time I read comments and replies that were so polite in the midst of such a negative atmosphere.

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The article and video can be seen here...

You say Hello...I say Goodbye....

Have you ever noticed how the telemarketing industry spends so much effort in trying to make the sales people who call us at home seem nice, clean cut and approachable....sort of like this...



Our own perspective however, is generally to despise that 5:30 phone call, and our vision of who is on the other side of that line is more along the lines of something like this.....




So how can you avoid talking to these crazy spinning furry devils on the other end of that line?

Well besides adding yourself to the National Do Not Call Registry, relying on telemarketers to honor your request to be placed on an in-house "do not call list", and screening your phone calls through caller ID, I discovered something recently that you can add to your "Anti-Telemarketers defense kit".

I'm sure someone out there besides me must have noticed this already, and have probably written about it in a blog, or obscure news article or something, but I didn't read it, and this is what I found. The last few times I noticed that the telemarketer on the other side doesn't come on until you say your initial phone greeting, twice.

That's it, it's that simple, if after the first compulsory "hello" at the beginning of the call, if no one responds, its a good chance that it's a telemarketer calling through an automated system. Of course, there's a chance that it could be "old" Aunt Helen who is hard of hearing, then again, if it is her (or someone else besides a telemarketer) they will call back. This is just a means to try and thwart the automated systems they use to avoid answering machines, but still catch a live person at home. Now you can fool em ;).

I've tried this several times when I didn't notice an incoming number. I answered the call saying "hello", and after waiting for over 5 seconds said hello only to hear an audible click and a spoken script to follow.

Try it out for yourself, next time you get a call from a mysterious number, just say hello once and wait. It's harder than you'd think, to remain silent like that, we're so used to saying "hello" repeatedly to an apparent dead line to make sure no one is there, and they have exploited that.

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A Glass Half Full

My winter vacation from school is half over, well more than half, but I just realized this morning that I only have a week left, and I'm merely reflecting on my time off. I've had a few good lazy days, a few hectic, a couple of good recreational days, including a drive yesterday through the Cleveland National forest with my dad, which is something I haven't been able to do for a long time.


(A view of Orange County and the coast from Modjeska Peak)

I am glad though that this time off is almost over. In my time in school, I've found that I retain many of my good study habits if my break between classes is a short one, but that on extended breaks, I get bored and lazy, and can find it difficult to get back in to a good study routine. Of course that's merely my feeling on the matter, and I'm sure there must be students out there who benefit from a longer break, I'm just not one of those. Im also happy that my semester is staggered a bit by having one of my classes start in February and ending in June, that will extend my semester a bit and bring me right up to the start of summer classes, with you guessed it, just a short break between classes (if that). And of course the end of that class will signal the start of my application process to all the local Community Colleges with a Nursing program, and all the testing/stress/running around involved, which I'm sure will be fun.....well, at least it should keep me busy.

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