Halloween 2011

I realized that I did not post any Halloween photos on my blog. The Iadipaolo's had us over the night of the World Series Game 7. Tom, Jim and I were all dressed in a baseball theme. Below is Tom, Theo Epstein, and Jim as the a new brand of cereal, Theo's.And here's the scariest costume I could think of.

Georgia Aquarium

Last Saturday I took in the Georgia Aquarium prior to hitting the Philips Arena for the Sugarland show. I took quite a few pictures, but am only going to bore you with the ones below. Actually, I'd love to show you more, but my upload speed is ridiculously slow tonight.

I've loved the Lion Fish ever since seeing them on my Go Fish deck of cards as a kid.
I don't remember many of the stats Gary mentioned while on my behind the scenes tour, so I can't tell you how big this viewing area is or how thick the glass material is. All I can tell you is the conversation between the diver feeding the fish and the little girl was pretty amusing. I believe this exhibit was called Deep Sea Voyager.
Deep Sea Voyager was my favorite exhibit. It also hand a tunnel you could go through and watch the fish and in this case a manta ray swim around and above you.
During my behind the scenes tour, I got to see the top side of all the exhibits. Here's the top of Deep Sea Voyager where you can see one of their spotted Whale Sharks. The fish do not get live food. (Having fresh "sushi" and plenty of it helps keep the fish from eating one another). When feeding the whale sharks, the divers will hop in a blow-up raft and pull themselves across the top of the water in between the roped off lane you can see below. Their food is in very tiny pieces, so by dropping the food in a lane, it allows the Whale Sharks to swim beneath the lane and get mouthfuls of food to filter out all at once.
I don't recall the name of the exhibit below, but this very elaborate setup is to replicate conditions for coral to live and grow. This area had a glass ceiling to let natural light in and as you can see, many artificial "suns". Just beyond the lights you can see a waterfall dumping. This is how they replicate the waves needed for the coral to thrive. The trough fills, then dumps, and repeats over and over again.
If all but one of Georgia Aquariums exhibits are salt water tanks and Atlanta is not located on the coast, how do they get the salt water needed?

I doubt this question crossed your mind, but if it did, here's the answer:
Okay, so that doesn't answer the question fully, but it's an integral part. The facility is built to minimize evaporation, reuse/filter water, and capture rain water. It was amazing to learn how the facility was planned around what fish they wanted to feature and what was needed regarding transport, doctor exams, cleaning, feeding, viewing, and maintaining the habitats.

And if you were wondering, there is no 3-second rule when preparing food for the fish. If it hits the floor, it goes in the trash.

Oh, and, all of their medical equipment is on wheels so it can be brought to tank-side exams.

My last random bit of knowledge... before surgery, they are able to administer anesthesia to fish through the water.

Atlanta Travel

Tonight I shall focus on my Atlanta Travel. I took planes, trains, automobiles... well... and feet, shuttles, escalators, elevators, and moving walkways on my route to, from, in and around Atlanta.

Here's a quick pick of one of the subway platforms. I don't think I would have been nearly as confident of navigating around a big city like this had I not taken a "practice" run in Boston earlier this year.

The basic gist of it was I flew out of Bloomington, landed South of Atlanta at the airport and took the train/subway to the North end of Atlanta where my hotel for the 1st night was located. The courtesy shuttle picked me up from there and took me back to the hotel. Once I got my bearings straight, I hoofed it around the hotel area and took the train into downtown Atlanta the next day. The second night my hotel was right near the aquarium and concert venue.

It was fun taking public transportation and walking to your destinations, but I could do without the super crowded trains (luckily that only happened on a quarter of my rides). I was also quite pleased with the performance of my new iPhone 4... I seriously could have got lost without it because the maps I had weren't that detailed.
With my luggage, I took the elevators at the train stations and if I was traveling light, I opted for the stairs except when I came upon this subway station. The train was about 4 stories down from the street. I'm guessing this escalator was a good 3 stories! I didn't photograph the second shorter elevator.

Going up.

Going down. This was actually a pretty scary ride down.

I should mention that the money I saved by using the MARTA public transit went towards upgrading my flights to and from Atlanta on AirTran Airways. I had a super comfy, roomy seat, attentive and friendly flight attendants. My bags got to fly free, I had complimentary beverages (mmm... Baileys Irish Cream) and snacks throughout the entire flight... not to mention I got to deplane first! Yep, I was livin' it up! If you're going to vacation, you better do it right!

Random Thoughts While Traveling

I can't tweet while on an airplane and it's also not safe while driving, so I now have a backup of random thoughts floating around in my head.

• The time it takes everyone to find room in the overhead compartments for their two pieces of luggage probably equals the time to wait in baggage claim if everyone were to check their bags.
• Seeing houses from the airplane reminds me of the theme song from the Showtime series Weeds.
• Cotton candy clouds may be my favorite kind of clouds.
• Where do the sunset colors come from, especially the pink? I'm guessing I learned this back in middle school, but am no longer smarter than a 5th grader.
• My dog seriously is Houdini.
• I'm surprised the windmills in the windmill farms are spaced so far apart.
• Don't know what to get someone for a gift, then visit Skymall. It's apparently the place to shop for the person who owns everything.
• Is it really that hard for people to "hold it" for two hours? or is it monkey see, monkey do when the lavatory is empty?

Okay, I think my brain is fairly well empty now. I'm sure there were more thoughts and pressing questions, but that's all I got right now.

I'll blog in the next day or two about my weekend. For some who were counting, this was my 12th Sugarland concert and 5th this year. I sat next to a couple other fan club members and they were at their 8th show of the year (traveling from Indianapolis). So, maybe I'm not as crazy as people make me out to be?

Here's a teaser of what I saw!

10-7-11 Sugarland in St. Louis

So, my brain has been mush lately. Way too much going on at work and taking last Friday off wasn't the best timing. But, when you have tickets to a Sugarland show, there's no way of not going!

Gotta love how much fun Jennifer and Kristian have on stage together.



Sara Bareilles opened for them and then joined them for Come on Aileen in the encore. Before Sara hit the stage, the crowd erupted in almost deafening cheers at the news of the St. Louis Cardinals winning the first round of the playoffs. After a pause in the song and Kristian trading his hat for a Cardinal's cap, they wrapped up the concert.

Here's Mom and I before the concert started. We had a fun road trip with laughs, shopping, and a little bit of family.