Fruit of the spirit
4:24 PM- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
One Free Weekend
10:56 PMSpent one of the rare Saturday at home. Paid off my sleep debt, caught up with 3 loads of laundry, watched planet 51, snacked, picked up the scuba diving book. Things I have been wanting to do for along time now. :) grin... I'm happy. Now, I'm just blogging in a 26 degree weather, listening music on the totally awesome seinheisser earphones. :) the trip to Germany was good. Compared to Switzerland, it pales... But still being in Europe beats Singapore and its naggy, irritating and hostile inhabitants. Shopping there is extremely slow since the cashier takes extreme care in handling. Nothing else worth mentioning except for the sausages. :)
July is great, I'm glad I'm not in shanghai now and missing the 35 degree weather. Its also great because all the Scuba documentaries are showing on tv. The book we are studying on the beatitudes, keeps me hungering and excited about Sundays.
Next month, I move to shanghai, one of my assistants leaves... Mom is all alone at home...
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Simulation
4:10 PMSo looking forward the the move and the challenges at work. I wonder how much I should pack and bring over. I hope I fit in because I don't have any friends there, and I do know a few business associates there my age.. So I guess I won't be too lonely. It's only for a few months right? ;) yeah, at last, something fun and interesting in my mono life.i plan to head to Tibet after my work in shanghai, before coming back to Singapore. Or maybe japan. Heh. Yay! Totally looking forward
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Loving the seashell
10:37 PMLoving the asus seashell 1008P. thanks to rui for shopping with me. woots! i always regret my buys when it comes to electronics. i admit i buy on impulse. but glad that some research was done, and i actually thought and prayed about it before i bought it. :) loving it it’s quite slow since it’s only running on 1gb ram. but as long as it’s featherweight at 1kg, slips into my handbag, able to run dwg viewers. i cannot ask for more. oh wait, maybe photoshop. but. doubt i will be doing a lot of serious designing work on this lappie. so im happy to just use this 800 bucks for the next 3 years to email, watch anime, skype, and as storage. heh.
Scuba in Kiribati
11:29 AMLast night I watched a documentary on Shark-Eden- Republic of Kiribati, on nat geo adventure. The dive sites and islands were AMAZING… Flint, vostak, Starbuck and Millenium Atoll. These islands housed more than 150 species and were 2nd in worldwide ranking for bio mass. Prestine. Amazing. Mind blowing. Black tips, white tips, reef sharks, jacks, barracudas, parrotheads, loads of small fishes, big rays. Never seen so much breathing healthy corals my whole life. Loved the branching corals, and the giant clams. Starbucks had a algae population, it was like a green field in the water. I almost cried when I say so many sharks and the ocean was just exploding with life! So beautiful, I wished I could visit this place. But I have no idea how to get there!
Facts from NatGeo Web:
BIOMASS AND REEF HEALTH
The biomass of a species can be estimated in an ecosystem by calculating its abundance with its average individual size.
A high biomass means a large number of fish, which can indicate a healthy reef.
Flourishing reefs can keep bad microbes in check.
Certain algae found on damaged reefs release food for bacteria and can cause bad bacterial to grow out of control.
FLINT ISLAND AND REEF
Flint Island, in the South Pacific, is four kilometres long and less than a kilometre wide.
Flint Island is the top of an ancient volcano, surrounded by deep ocean.
In the 1870s, native plants were stripped from Flint Island and tens of thousands of palm trees were planted to produce coconut oil.
Around 1900, Flint Island was abandoned.
Coral and algae can be a barometer of a health of an ecosystem.
If a coral is stressed, it can turn white or bleach.
Coral covers 90% of the sea floor of the Flint Island reef. This is over three times more that other reefs in the Indo-Pacific.
Flint’s reef is beautifully coloured and healthy.
The reef’s algae use sunlight to create energy, some of which it gives to the coral.
Sharks keep fish populations under control.
Fishing has affected the shark population on Flint Island.
VOSTOK ISLAND AND REEF
Vostok Island was first sited in 1820 and named by a Russian explorer, after his ship.
Vostok is less than 2.5 square kilometres.
Vostok Island has never had human habitation.
Sharks and abundant life in Vostok’s reef indicate a healthy and undisturbed system.
Vostok is one of the few places left that looks like the Pacific did 200 years ago.
Vostok’s forest ecosystem is natural, unlike almost every other South Pacific island.
Vostok’s forest contains a mat of pure guano.
Guano, or bird dung, is rich in phosphates and nitrogen.
In the mid 1800s, surrounding islands were mined for guano to be used as fertilizer.
Vostok’s small size saved it from being mined for guano.
STARBUCK ISLAND AND REEF
Starbuck Island is nearly 600 kilometres northwest of Vostok Island.
Starbuck is over eight kilometres long and three kilometres at its widest.
Starkbuck has only a handful of palm trees.
In 1872, more than 100 guano miners laboured on Starbuck, abandoning it in 1920.
Starbuck’s reef is half covered by algae, mostly Halimeda, a type of algae that coexists with corals.
Starbuck’s reef is abundant with fish and sharks.
Starbuck has the second largest biomass of all studied coral reefs.
The biomass of predators on Starbuck is larger than that of the fish they eat.
MALDEN ISLAND AND REEF
Malden Island is 200 kilometres northeast of Starbuck Island.
Malden Island is almost 39 square kilometres and roughly triangular in shape.
Malden Island was mined for guano between the 1850s and 1920s.
Malden Island was the test site for three low altitude nuclear bombs in 1958.
Malden’s reef contains at least ten times more sharks than other reefs around the world.
Parrot fish graze on the reef and break down dead coral skeleton to sand.
Development, fishing, and pollution can upset the delicate balance between algae and coral.
There are 10 times more microbes on reefs degraded by man.
MILLENNIUM ATOLL
Millennium Atoll is a lagoon surrounded by a string of islands.
Millennium Atoll is about 800 kilometres away from Malden Island.
Blacktip reef sharks swarm the flats of Millennium’s lagoon.
Sharks are among the first species to go away when humans arrive, and the abundance of sharks in the Millennium lagoon indicates a healthy system.
Millennium’s reef contains a large amount of one species of branching coral – Acropora.
Millennium’s reef contains giant clamps with electric green and blue colours.
On the islands, native plants compete with imported coconut trees for space
Boiling point
12:44 AM- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone