Cayman's Raccoon Video

Raccoons have been visiting us the last several nights so Cayman and I went out and filmed them and Cayman did the voice over for our nature film:

If you have not yet seen my frog documentary, might I suggest the following:

Halloween

During the month of October we went to the Los Angeles Zoo at least 10 times. The Rhino has recovered and is back on display (horn cancer). For Halloween we enjoyed several friends company and costume wise went with a finding Nemo theme of clownfish and seagulls.

Hawaii Part 2 - Diving Videos

I was able to get about 60 dives in during our trip and had many first including: being surrounded by a pod of dolphins, seeing a new born baby dolphin, finding my first Tinker's Butterflyfish, finding my first psychedelic wrasse, as well as a finding a reliable spot to find Masked Angelfish. Here are a some videos I made:

Baby Dolphin with Mom

Diving Highlights

Yellowfin Soldierfish (rare)

Here are a few photo I took of a Tinker's Butterflyfish (taken during a dive with Spencer)

Parkway Corn

I was sick of looking at all the weeds growing in my street's parkway.

 So I removed the weeds.

 Next, I set up a gravity feed irrigation system and planted corn.

Corn is around 18" tall now (7/28), I also added some tomatoes to the end of the irrigation line.  

Shelley & Kendall get Master's Degrees

The years 2010 through 2012 were busy for Shelley and I. We both completed Master's degrees from California State University Northridge (CSUN). On May 24, 2012, I was honored to speak at my hooding ceremony with another Master's candidate.

 Shelley and I with our Master's hoods. 

 Speaking at the hooding ceremony with Buckley Mitchell. 

 

My good friend and colleague Robert Hammell. He helped get me through the program. 

Sharks Seen While Scuba Diving off Shell Beach California

Hey Everyone, if you haven't already heard I saw 4 large sharks while scuba diving yesterday. All 4 were bigger then me and the largest one was about 8 feet long (maybe 10). We think they were sevengill sharks. Here is a photo of one (from Monterey aquarium) and a short story of how we ran into them:

We were diving in Shell Beach (just north of Pismo) at around 5:00 in the afternoon. My dive buddy Eric and I dropped down to about 8 feet of water. Within 3 or 4 minutes underwater Eric grabbed my arm, I turned and saw the back half of the shark swimming away (it was about 6 ot 7 feet from us). We both signaled we were okay and Eric signaled to stay put for a moment so he could clear his head.

About 3 minutes later when we were moving forward again, this time in about 14 feet of water, I turned on my dive light and shined it on the ground first and then in front of us, as my light shined a head there was a 6 to 7 foot shark right in front of us (about 4 feet away) it was facing us then turned and looked at us with his eye then very slowly swam away. 

We continued for about 2 or 3 minutes then signaled to each other to surface. We popped up on the edge of a kelp bed and talked about the sharks and made a few guess as to what species they were. As we talked about 10 feet from Eric a large black fin splashed in the water, Eric looked at me and asked if I had seen it too, I said I had and didn't know what it was. We brushed it off as maybe a sea lion or a comerant diving. Eric suggested we surface swim back to shore, but I told him I felt safer under water and we are much less likely to be attacked under there. 

We dropped down to about 17 feet of water and slowly started making our way in. We had decided I would navigate so I was looking at my compass when Eric grabbed me again, this time I had almost swam into the shark. It was less then 3 feet away and came from left (Eric's side) to right my side, it swam slowly right in front of us. This was the largest one we saw and was between 8 to 10 feet long. 

About 2 minutes later we saw are last shark of the dive, which circled us about 6 feet away. We swam a little more until we were in about 6 feet of water then popped back to the surface to swim the rest of the way in. 

FAQ
1. Were you scared?
Yes, we both were but we stayed composed. Each sighting was no more or less frightening then the first one. We both stayed very calm and continued our planned dive. I was more in awe then scared in the water, after getting out I began thinking about it more and was a little jittery for the rest of the day. We wanted to get back in the water as soon as possible so our minds would not build it up and up as a fear that would make diving scary in the future.

2. Are these sharks dangerous?
Sevengills have had 2 recorded attacks on people and more then a dozen on dogs. I don't know why these sharks choose to swim to us, maybe to look at us, maybe they are territorial, we don't know. Sevengill sharks often hunt in large packs circleing sea lions and seals and then closing in for the kill. It is extremely rare to be attacked by a shark that you first saw. Most shark attacks happen without the victim every knowing the shark was coming. These sharks choose to show themselves to us, with there deliberate show swimming. I think they were probably just curious. The sharks you have to worry about are the ones you don’t see.

3. Is this area known for sharks?
Our dive friend Terry dives this location more then anybody. He sees sharks there all the time and said he has especially seen them recently. I also talked to a Kayaker who saw a 16-17 foot Great White there a few years ago. (Update added 12/21/05: Terry was diving at Shell Beach a few weeks ago and was approached by a Great White Shark underwater. He was hunting at the time and the shark probably wanted the fish he had killed. There are few divers in the entire world who have ever even seen a White Shark underwater).

We went out again this morning with a camera and dove about 1000 yards from where we dove yesterday. We were unable to find any large sharks, but did see 3 sting rays.

San Luis Obispo - Mardi Gras 2005

Here are some photos I took 2-4-05 when the city of San Luis Obispo hired hundreds of police to prevent "riots". The photo above is captures the spirit of that night.

Here is Kevin Newburn's commentary:
Riot night was awesome. Where else can you get a city to pay for the expense of 400 entertainers for students.

All those police officers etc. were so thoughtful to give us(Kendall and myself) hours of free entertainment, and they stayed up so late for us. It was like a parade, there were marching bands(ok, riot police), equestrian horses(for lazy policemen), nicely decorated floats(yeah ok, they were armored vehicles with weapons, same thing). It was like the rose parade, but more adult oriented.
Where else could you get a gun pointed at you and told to get back, or watch hundreds of officers march side by side in riot gear?

Where else can you be harassed by undercover cops for unloading your car, or have police knock on your door for partying way too loud when your sitting in a silent room eating pizza?

Where else can you talk back to cops and be entertained by the result, or watch other people get arrested and laugh at their stupidity, or see cops use ATV's to actually keep people off the railroad tracks to prevent accident?

SLO is an awesome place to party. Once a year the city hires the entertainment and all you have to do is sit back and enjoy the spectacle. Thank you to the city of San Luis Obispo for a wonderful night of free entertainment?

Sincerely yours, Kevo