I took this shot with my Nokia E90 while waiting for my Jonah's fruit shake. I'm going to try and cross-post from Multiply to Blogger and see how the two blog services compare.
So far, I like the ability to insert a Poll into my Multiply blog. On the downside, Multiply doesn't seem to have a good preview system.
Or maybe I just haven't figured it out.
It took a lot of arm-twisting, bribes and cajoling but finally I finished our Christmas blog, which can be found here.
Oddly enough the younger kids were quite enthusiastic about the project, as soon as they had been bribed with enough rewards for sitting down in front of their computers and typing out something.
T and B came in last, pushing their submission deadlines. B wrote a beauty though - it's so rewarding for a parent to read good stuff that a child has to say.
It's amazing that we've got our Christmas letters on the site dating back from 1994. Reading through it all is getting to be an exercise in archeology!
Here's our latest addition to the workforce ... Athena!
It's amazing that DOLE actually has pretty strict procedures on child labor. This permit is only good for two weeks and only for her Nivea "spokesbaby" appearance with T on GMA. That appearance was supposed to happen two weeks ago but the organizers forgot to get this permit.
Now that we have this, can we get celebrity manager Joji Dingcong to handle Athena too?
I just saw the Palau pictures of CH on her Multiply blog and I suddenly feel inadequate.
Here are two pictures of the same Napoleon wrasse:
All the pictures on the left were taken by CH using a Canon 300D with a beautiful, domed u/w housing and two strobes.
The pictures on the right were taken using my little Sony.
Spot the changes eh? The amazing thing is that I actually felt good about my pictures when I first saw them. At least until I saw CH's output!
CH's blog address is minischnauzer.multiply.com and it is worth a visit to see all of her great photos.
Here's another example of what strobe lights do to improve color underwater:
This black manta was really amazing. He (or is it a she?) stayed with us for about 40 minutes, all the while doing loop-the-loop turns as he fed on plankton. I've got some pretty good videos of this feeding behavior on my YouTube site.
The black manta is also very identifiable because a piece of his left wing tip has been bitten off. Perhaps he was attacked by a shark when he was younger, as the crescent-shaped bite looks about the size of a shark's mouth. Luckily he survived to regale us with his u/w antics at German Channel.
I'll end the post with a couple more comparison shots. The first set are of grey reef sharks at Blue Corner.
Here we can see the greater color variation in the Canon, as the silhouettes of the sharks are more pronounced against the lighter surface. The Sony produced a more monochromatic image.
The last set are of the spinner dolphins that visited us twice. The first shot was taken by CH during the dolphins' sunset visit.
T took this second image, the shot of CH and her husband R with the dolphin - a perfectly timed shot! This one was taken during the dolphins' day visit though, which is why the sunset has disappeared.
My complete pictures, together with T's, can be found on my Kodak Gallery site.
Palau is first and foremost about sharks. Sharks in Blue Corner, sharks in Ulong Channel, sharks in Siaes Corner, sharks everywhere.
But this year, it was so much more.
This year, the mantas put on the show to end all shows:
(More manta videos are here and here. And here is a great shark video from Blue Corner.)
But the best part of Palau this year was just the people we were with - as usual, Tita Mary, but now also Tita Jojo Castro and her niece, Kimie, Rommel and Cris Hinlo, Gigi Santos, and Tessa and Annika. As usual, the crew of Capt. Ken was fantastic, Sixsei, Eddie, Richard and Chetra the chef.
In a day or so, I'll find the time to load up all the pictures to Kodak Gallery.
Yvette just e-mailed a link to her Multiply site, which has photos from our recent trip to Malapasqua. I "borrowed" these two from her album, as I don't think I have any photos of Tyrone and I underwater. (Thanks Yvette!)
These photos were both taken at the wreck of the Dona Marilyn, one of numerous inter-island vessels that have sunken off Philippine waters over the centuries. Although the shipwreck is only about a decade old, it is already well covered with soft corals.
Yvette gave us some pointers on how to be an underwater model. The obvious one is to avoid exhaling during the shot, so that no bubbles are there to distract the viewer. We also practiced looking off to the right of the photographer, as if we're seeing some huge whale shark or something.
Tyrone's diving has really progressed. He's grown since our previous dives in Dumaguete earlier this year, so he had to wear Tessa's Mares suit. With our matching gloves and computers, we look like a pretty good team!
My wife truly leads an enchanted life. Tuesday, she jetted off to Hollywood to watch the premiere of Disney's "Enchanted" on November 21, on an all-expenses-paid invite from The Little Gym.
If that seems like a lot of flight time for a two-hour movie, let's not forget that Hollywood premieres usually have a bit of red carpet magic woven into the event. So, I am anxiously awaiting pictures of T in whatever Seaprincess costume she turns up in on the big night.
The trip was also a good chance for her to swing by SFO and spend some time with B, who is now happily ensconced in some internet company's cube farm, working at his first job. B will fly down to LA with T for the weekend, the better for the two to extend their bonding time.
Meanwhile, back here at home, I am already wondering how to spend the weekend with the three other kids...
Update:
Inquirer columnist Ruben Napales just wrote about T's trip to Hollywood:
"LOS ANGELES―Tessa Prieto-Valdes stopped traffic, literally and figuratively, on her way to and from the world premiere of Disney’s “Enchanted” at the El Capitan Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard..."
The photo caption says, "DUETS” champ Tessa Prieto-Valdes with Masi Oka of “Heroes.”
