Baby Beluga

Last Sunday Claire and I went to the Vancouver Aquarium to celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary. While there, we enjoyed seeing all the various animals the aquarium has to offer, especially the beautiful arctic water beluga whales.

We made sure to stop by their enclosure for their show, but while it was informative, the whales did very little. Now, they're never as active or as dramatic as the dolphins, but the show is usually fun to watch regardless. On Sunday, however, the belugas simply swam round the enclosure, and pretty much ignored the staff for the duration of the short show. Something was clearly wrong.

From where we were sitting we could see a third beluga swimming in a separate area, and, as it turned out, this was the problem.

Last Monday Vancouver Aquarium's oldest beluga, Kavna passed away. She was thought to be around 46 years old, much older than the expected 20 - 25 years a wild beluga can expect to enjoy.

Before starting work in Vancouver, I had heard about belugas, but never really thought much about them. But the white whale holds a special place in the hearts of children across Canada, and especially Vancouver. It's all thanks to a children's musician called Raffi and his beautiful song, "Baby Beluga". I first heard it sung to the toddlers in one of the centers I work in and immediately fell in love with the tune.

In honor of Kavna, who, according to Raffi, inspired the song, here it is, as sung live by the man himself.

RIP Kavna

Discussions Of An Abstract Nature

Short one today, but here goes.

Yesterday I worked in the after school age program. It's a nice change of pace moving from the little ones up to a group consisting of six to eleven year olds. They are much more independent and capable, such that most of my day is really about just being there for ration and insurance purposes, but they rarely need me for anything specific.

The other major difference is the topics of conversation. Over the course of the day I discussed endangered species, hunting, conservation, Santa Claus, and eating bugs with one group, and later the formation and physics of black holes with a different child.

I love my job.

Titus Will Be Missed

I gotta admit, until earlier today, I had no idea there was a gorilla named Titus, though I had seen him several times. Titus was named by the famous zoologist and gorilla expert Dian Fossey when she first met him, and rose to fame at the tender age of five as part of Sir David Attenboroughs Life On Earth series, when he climbed all over the famous naturalist. Titus even went on to star in Gorillas In The Mist, along side Sigourney Weaver, the lucky, lucky primate! He even had a whole BBC documentary devoted to his life last year called Titus: The Gorilla King.

Titus became the first gorilla to have his life documented from birth, and over the course of his 35 years, he has provided researchers with unparalleled levels of information. Titus died last Monday, September 14th, after a short illness, reports BBC News.

BBC Worldwide has some videos on YouTube with Sir David and the crew that accompanied him on their first meeting with Titus and his brother. Below I embedded my favourite, the one showing a young Titus lying on Sir David, but they also have a beautiful one talking about how close the entire crew got to the huge primates.

Those Damned Water Aliens Are Back Again

Grab your shotguns! Turn up your obnoxious high pitched music! Release the flu virus across the population! But above all else, someone get Will Smith on the phone!!

The aliens are back, and this time, they're invading from the depths of our planets oceans, those clever so-and-sos.

Not a hoax, not a fake, maybe some hyperbole, lots of inaccurate assumptions on my behalf, National Geographic has the full, fact filled, non-sensationalist story, with video! But who wants that?!?

Alien-like Squid With "Elbows" Filmed at Drilling Site

Okay, so this is kinda old news by now (very old news by internet standards!), but I've been meaning to post about it for days now! Days, I tells ya!

Laughter Makes The World Go 'Round

And even without us, there will be enough laughter to keep the world spining and spining! I really, really want one of these as a pet.

The Buffalo: New King Of The Savanna

Unlike my last video, this is awesomely cool! Not only can I say "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" and have a complete grammatically accurate sentance, but it would appear that they have recently taken their rightful place as Kings of the Savana! The following video is about 8m30s long, but worth every second. It has about fours "acts", all over a single incident, each one topping the last for amazingness. After the first minute or so the footage is a single, uncut shot.

Reason 6,438 For Why People Should Need A License To Spawn

This is insane. I mean, yeah, it's kinda cool to see, and the baby seems to be enjoying himself, but it's still not acceptable! The poor animal is scared to death.

Hamster Spin

Look at me!! I'm gone crazy blogging. I wish I could post less but more often rather than these fits and bursts! But whatever! I'm at home and surfing the net. It want to share all these things with you. See, I really do love you all.

Right now, life is awesome. We live in an amazing world of potential, and because of that, we can do anything! Anything! Even film hamsters displaying the principals of centrifugal force on themselves.