Happy Hanukkah for those who observe it . . .
PLUS ONE WEEK TO GO UNTIL CHRISTMAS - Look for a special (and short) holiday TWARS next week.
SPECIAL HOLIDAY E-MAIL CARD - For those who like this sort of thing - and I think you all know that I certainly do - Elf Yourself is running again this year. You can create free elf-themed videos to send to friends through this website:
https://www.elfyourself.com/
ZOOM SEEKERS LAST WEEK - In case you missed it, I was the speaker and we tried to focus on post-processing (aka "tweaking") your pix to take them from good to great. I may have gotten a bit into the weeds on some of the editing programs and we certainly could have spent a lot more time on details, but I covered both a simple - and free - HP program as well as showed some of the features of Adobe Lightroom. If you missed the talk, you can catch it on our YouTube channel through this link:
https://youtu.be/28BIsmWoVuU
ZOOM SEEKERS FOR 2023 - We're going into year three of Zoom Seekers and we think we've got a really great array of speakers lined up for the entire year. We're starting off on January 10 with Brett Eldridge talking about discovering new wrecks to dive in our SoCal waters. Throughout the year we've also got Dan Orr, Dale Sheckler, Karl Huggins, Rachel Cushman, and others scheduled. We've even got two marine-themed artists - Stephen Holman and Victor Douieb - who will be talking about how the ocean inspires their artwork. You can view the full slate of speakers along with their bios and a brief description of their talks on the Reef Seekers website through this link:
2023 ZOOM SEEKERS SPEAKERS.
AQUARIUM IN BERLIN BREAKS - "Catastrophic failure" is an understatement. The AquaDom in Berlin, an 80-foot tall cylindrical aquarium inside a hotel, suffered a structural failure where the plexiglas broke or shattered and all of the 264,000 gallons of water and 1,500 fish came cascading out through the hotel and into the street causing major damage and killing all of the fish. Luckily, this happened around 6AM so there weren't people around at the time and no one was injured. They're thinking that maybe sub-freezing temperatures caused a crack in the plexiglas that led to complete failure. You can read more about it here:
AQUADOM IN BERLIN BREAKS.
COVID TESTS AVAILABLE AGAIN FREE OF CHARGE - Especially if you'll be traveling, you'll want to have some COVID tests to take along . . . just in case. The U.S. government is again mailing out free kits to anyone who requests them. You can get your four free tests (2 boxes of 2 tests) through this link:
https://www.covid.gov/tests
UNDERWATER EGGS - Ever wondered what it would be like to crack an egg underwater? (These are the types of questions that keep me awake at night.) You can find out by looking at this 1-minute video of an egg cracked at a depth of 60 feet. The amazing thing for me was why fish didn't attack it right away (maybe they just don't like eggs):
UNDERWATER EGG-CRACKING.
And that'll do it for now. Have a great Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, or whatever, and let's go diving after the holidays!!!
- Ken
