It's been a long day, but a good one. I had lunch with a friend and that was not only an absolutely delish meal but more importantly, great companionship and conversation! And hey, I recruited an Obama supporter!! Yea! I read an article on CNN.com that said he was now a bit ahead of Clinton nationally in polls, and would beat McCain whereas Clinton might not.
In the afternoon, I went to my kids' track meet and boy it got windy and cold!! We were there until well after dark. Savie was supposed to run in the Relay but one of the girls left early - which is really annoying - and so the whole team had to forfeit. Why the heck would she come out halfway across Houston and then leave before doing their event?! That was Savie's only event, but then I told her she was going to run the 800m whether she wanted to or not! ;) Mean mommee strikes! She wasn't really upset about it, she was just complaining a bit that she was cold, her knee hurt etc but then she ran and did awesome (3:28 time for what is a half-mile - she didn't medal but that's a good time for her) and she was happy she got to run. I knew she would be! We got home late, almost 9pm. 
Copyright (C) Tim Calver/DCL 2007
I'm trying to get caught up on some things, and am getting super stoked about going to Australia in just about a month. I still have not even looked at my wall map of the world to see where the heck the Coral Sea is! OK just did - it's just the name of the Pacific Ocean section off the NE tip of Australia. Here's some of what I know so far: I'll be on a liveaboard ship for about 10 days out at Osprey reef and scientists are tagging white tip reef sharks, grey sharks and tiger sharks, which happen to be the 2nd most dangerous sharks to humans. Richard Fitzpatrick is the main scientist on this project, and you can see a photo of what they'll be doing here at his research website, Shark Research. They have tagged the sharks and will be catching them and gathering information on the sharks. Meanwhile a crew is shooting the Discovery Channel Shark Week 2008 documentary, based on this groundbreaking research. The filming has been going on for a year already but this is the last big shoot. I'll be blogging almost daily from the boat -- not to here but to the Discovery Channel website along with photos by Cat Gennaro.
At the track meet, I was talking to some parents from the kids' school about me diving with sharks and of course everyone is kind of freaked out when I mention this because most people think Oh My Gosh diving with sharks?! Are you crazy?! (as a matter of fact...I am! LOL). I have no fear at all at this moment in time but when I get down there in the water with them, I'll probably pee my pants. At least I'll be in the water. ;) When I was in the Galapagos we were supposed to get to snorkel with sharks at one spot but we couldn't find them that day, and I was disappointed. Anyway, the funniest thing is that one of the moms asked me if I have a good insurance policy (I think she meant life insurance) and I said no but I'll get an accidental death and dismemberment policy for travel, and only when I said it out loud did I get the irony of what I was saying - or realize that there is a real risk of "dis-member-ment"!!! Well my friend Elise told me yesterday that I'd still be damn sexy without a leg.
