Recent Whale News

Here is some recent Puget Sound whale news:
http://www.theolympian.com/2010/12/06/1464296/biologists-seek-to-tag-orcas.html
Researchers think injured whale seen in Totten Inlet near Olympia will die - Environment - The Olympian - Olympia, Washington
Interestingly Caleb and Jack have personally meet both Brad Hanson of NOAA and John Calambokidis of Cascadia Research featured in these articles at Whale Trail events over this past year.

Brad Hanson on the Whale Trail

On November 10th, Wednesday, Dad and I took his Corolla down to the Duwamish Longhouse in west Seattle for another one of the Whale Trail's presentations, this one on "Welcome the Orcas" . The last time we went to a Whale Trail convention, we managed to take a wrong turn on the intersection on the way (an easy thing to do on that particular intersection). But this time we came prepared, with our keen eyes and Dad's Droid Motorola with built-in G.P.S., and made the turn with no mishaps this time. On arrival we went to right to work, setting up the sound system, turning on the microphones, and connecting the computer to the projector, and making very sure to deactivate the screen saver (unlike last time). The speaker was Brad Hanson who's a member of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, and researches orcas by collecting samples of their scat, mucus, and regurgitation for analysis. His presentation was on the new findings about the resident orca's diet, complete with a power-point slide show. Brad also had placed a critter-cam on one orca in hopes that he would be able to observe its food choices and displayed it for us to see.Unfortunately the orca didn't actually go foraging, instead it went to the kelp beds and socialized with its pod.

John Calambokidis on the Whale Trail

On June 17, vaguely around 6PM, Dad and I drove down into Seattle, to the Duwamish Longhouse. The Longhouse is the first built in Seattle since the last one burnt down, and is now also a cultural center. One of Dad's former co-workers was doing a presentation for the Whale Trail with John Calambokidis (who conducted the necropsy on the whale beached on Arroyo), and had asked dad to help her with the technical part of it. When we got there Dad and I started with setting up the projector, checking the sound equipment, microphone, and setting up the power cords.After we finished,and all the people came, we took some seats so we could sit near the sound equipment while we watched the presentation. Everything ran smoothly, except once when the computer displaying the logo started to go into screen saver mode (so we had to move the mouse occasionally).
-Caleb

Teaching at Trinity

This past semester was my first teaching at Trinity (formally known as LBI) as an Affiliate Faculty member. A lot has changed since I was a student in the early '80's including the school moving to Everett and offering a number of Bachelor of Arts degrees. This semester I was teaching "COMM205 Digital Design Tools I" covering basic design principles coupled with fundamentals of digital design software programs (Photoshop & InDesign). This was a tremendous opportunity to give back merely a fraction of what I gained as a student.

City church Small Groups

As the City Church started making Small Groups, also known as City Groups, Mom and Dad decided they wanted to be Small group leaders and started hosting their Small group every Sunday at 3:30.The Teaching they used was all about Winning in hard Financial times. They used Kenneth Copeland Ministries teaching and books while also printing out little papers that had stuff about the message.In fact, its pretty fun getting to host a Small group except for the fact that we have to clean the day before. But overall hosting the Small group is very fun. -Emma (10)

CityGroup Adults 11.8.09

Tractor Pulling

I had a big list yesterday. Haul wood down from the red barn, clean out the chicken coop, prune fruit trees, move sawdust from driveway, etc.... However, plans ground to a halt when I circled the red barn with a bucket-full of firewood and sank axle deep in mud. It wasn't that deep to begin with, but with a good effort, our faithful Kubota tractor was fully entrenched. About an hour later, after digging mud away from the tires, sprinkling offerings of gravel into the mud, and finally laying strips of cedar bark into the ruts (these were just laying where we had split wood - I didn't tear the bark from trees), that we emerged triumphant. Caleb became so concerned, that he called Jack on the phone for advice and then brought the phone to me. No secrets among family members. In the end, it was Rilla who came up to ride the tractor out with me, yelling excitedly, "We did it! Good job, Mommy!"

The Tractor c. 2000