Autumn along the California coast can be spectacular. With the cessation of northerly winds and coastal upwelling, ocean and air temperatures rise. September and October typically offer the sunniest days of the year. Summer tourists who shiver in their jackets in July might be surprised to know that in September the natives run around in…
Month: September 2016
A third of a year
In addition to being the autumnal equinox, today also marks the four-month anniversary of the car accident that left me with bruises, some cracked/bruised ribs, and a concussion. All of the physical injuries have healed by now, except for some residual soreness when I push on the left side of my rib cage, but the concussion…
What the muck?
This past weekend I was trying to manage some concussion headache issues and stayed away from the marine lab for four days. Usually that’s not a big deal. Since I’ve been absent so much of the summer due to the head injury, the lab assistants whose job it is to make sure that everybody has air…
Not-so-happy anniversary
Seeing as today is the third anniversary of the first blog post I wrote about sea star wasting syndrome (SSWS), I thought it would be appropriate to take inventory of my remaining stars and see how they’re doing. Right now I have custody of ~10 bat stars (Patiria miniata), 7 ochre stars (Pisaster ochraceus–collected last…
Camera test-drive: Nikon D7200
For the past several years now I’ve been using various iterations of an Olympus point-and-shoot camera, mostly for field and lab work. My current version, which I’ve had for over a year now, is the TG-4, in which the ‘T’ stands for Tough. This camera really stands up to its name. I routinely clamber over slippery…