Since I said that I would include more pictures, I chose my favorite pic of me, a pic of my favorite place (the MBA), my favorite pic that I took, and my favorite piece of art.

The reason that this post is coming now instead of last night is that I was baby-sitting last night, and was too tired to assemble a post that sounded like it was written by a person. The baby-sitting itself was pretty fun, the highlight being once everyone was winding down for the night, the youngest, aged 2, and myself in the kitchen doing the dishes and listening to U2. The little one was bobbing his head and singing along. If 10 years from now he has a love of anthemic rock with morally high-minded lyrics, I'll know why.

Going back to one of my pictures, I want to talk about the MBA, and in particular the Friday 2nd volunteer guide shift. The volunteers at the MBA are orgainized into 3 shifts per day the 1st from opening to 12:00, the 2nd from 12:00 to 3:30, and the 3rd from 3:30 till closing. I am on the 2nd shift, the best shift all week! My bus down to Monterey has me arrive at 10:00, and the shift meeting starts at 11:30, so I hang out in the guide lounge reading, eating lunch, etc. Once the rest of the shift arrives we begin working on our schedules which decides who will work at which station when.

The organization of the shift schedule is totally thanks to Tobie, one of the shift captains. There are six rotations (on my shift at least) in the MBA which volunteer guides work: 1-Marine Mammal Cart, Greet, Rove (which means wandering around talking to people), 2-Kelp Touch Pool (R), Rove, 3-Aviary, Rove, 4-Touch Pool, Rove, 5-Seafood Watch, Under A Lens, Rove, 6-Kelp Touch Pool, Rove. There are six teams on my shift (named after sea stars). The 1st team starts on station 1, the 2nd on station 2, etc. then after spending 30 minutes at that station, moves on to the next station. This ensures that every team works at every station, it is up to the members of the team to decide who works at Under A Lens, Seafood Watch, and who roves. That sums up the basic explaination of the Friday 2nd shift.

I recently finished a really interesting book called The Big Necessity. I was loaned it by one of my shiftmates. The whole book was about human waste, and how it is dealt with around the world. Much of the book focused on people without sanitation, and the many harms that can arise from such a situation, and the difficulties to overcoming that situation. Aside from the depression of that, the most striking chapter dealt with how some sewage is spread on fields as fertilizer, and how that affects the neighboring people, and other organisms. If just having sewage spread near people can be harmful, what would the effects be of eating food treated with that sewage?

Looking forward to a Luke 14 party tonight. I'll explain what that is, and how it goes/went tomorrow.