Some fish with fishing poles and hooks, others with their bare hands...

An undergrad in our lab is going to graduate school, so she invited us to her father's home in the Keys for a barbecue. While we were there, we found a marina where a huge school of tarpon live. For those who don't know tarpon are huge fish (up to 8ft long and 350 lbs) that live in schools. There were several in the marina that were over 6 feet and probably 200-250lbs. They are considered great sport fish because they jump a lot when they are hooked. We found out how exciting jumping fish can be.

Imagine dangling a small fish in front of these hungry eyes.




Then more congregate to look hungrily at the dangling baitfish.

Then wham! One jumps up suddenly after the baitfish.


I must say it was difficult to keep from jumping back instead of letting the Tarpon grab the baitfish from my hand.



The girl's hands in this picture is another graduate student Xin who wanted to feed the tarpon but was completely clueless. She was trying to take a picture of the tarpon, while she was dangling a baitfish. However, a tarpon jumped out of water and grabbed her baitfish before she was even ready. It sure made for a great photo.

In the end only Patricia, Xin, and I fed the Tarpon. None of the other men students would even try it.

Though we do not have much room in our apartment, we do have a balcony that we decided to turn into a jungle. The start of it is 19 orchids, several pots of herbs, 2 palms, several other house-type plants, and a cactus garden.



































These first two are Phaleanopsis orchids. The one on the right I bought for Patricia for Valentine's Day.

















The red flowers above are froma a Cattleya (one of three that we have). The bromeliad is the largest of several that we have.



This next one on the left is my pride and joy, the slipper orchid Phragmipedium caudnatum. I got this orchid 7 years ago, which means that I brought it from AZ to WY and then to FL. The side petals grow quite long and can reach 2 ft. The petals grow down until they touch something. The idea behind these long petals is that they provide little ants and bugs access to the flower. They fall into the slipper portion of the flower and cannot climb out because the sides of the slipper fold down and trap them inside. The only passage out of the slipper is through the back where they pass by the anthers and get covered in pollen then pass by and pollinate the pistil. Basically the smart orchids (most evolved plant family) trick unsuspecting bugs into pollinating them. How can anyone not love orchids?!







The one on the right is another lovely slipper orchid from the genus Paphiopedilum.











This is a Phaeis orchid. It is a rather large, fast-growing orchid with 2 ft long leaves and grows in a large clumps of shoots. Next year it should have about 10 spikes with 25 flowers per spike. I can't wait!







The last is one of 8 Dendrobium orchids that we have.







Last here is our little piece of desert. With all these orchids and other lush green plants. I had to have a little bit of home, too.

More photos

It has been so long since we last wrote on our blog, partly because I am out of habit and partly because there is not much happening other than work. We are finally growing our jungle on our balcony. So far we have 9 orchids, 1 bromeliad, 2 palms, and 2 pothos. Of course this is only the beginning. Patricia is organizing the interior design part of it. In other words, everything must be more than functional but beautiful. Once we have things more organized, I'll put up some pictures of our balcony jungle.

Also here are a few pictures from Disney World and Yuma.

Patricia goes to the temple!

Patricia will receive her endowments this Saturday, 13 December. She is so excited about every aspect of the temple. After our bishop interviewed her today, he came and said, "good job". When I said thanks (not knowing why), he said "No really good job helping her get prepared. She is the most prepared new member I have ever seen." I must say that I was happy to hear that, but she is the only one who receives the credit for preparation.

Viscaya Museum

On Saturday we went and visited a house built in 1914 by James Deering who was the owner of International Harvester, the largest company of agricultural machinery at the time. The estate took 2 years to build at a whopping price of $20 million. 1000 workers worked on the house daily, which was 10% of the entire Miami population. Once the house was finished, he had a crew of 130 people to take care of the house, estate, and the farm where he produced his food.

The house was massive with 75 rooms that were decorated with furniture purchased from European castles and in some instances the entire room including walls and ceiling were brought over from European castles. He never married but had 10 bedrooms for his constant stream of guests. He lived on the bay, so people could arrive at his house either by ship, train or by car. Just imagine his lifestyle required the employment of 130 people!

Just for those interested in agriculture. the company that James Deering owned was International Harvester, which merged with McCormick. Later in the 1980s the company split into Navistar (trucks and buses) and Case International (tractors and farm machinery).

First time for everything

Patricia and I have been together for 15 months, and we went to the theater for the first time. I thought pretty crazy that after we have bee together 15 months we finally watched a movie. I guess we are not movie goers.

Patricia wanted to see it because all the young women at church and their mothers were talking about it (She is in the young womens' presidency). I knew nothing about the movie except a few reviews that I read that said that it was the biggest sensation among teenage girls and their mothers. I, not being part of either group, was rather reluctant to see this chickflick. I figured that I would be one of the sad group of men forced to accompany wives or girlfriends to the theater. However, the movie was not all that bad. I was glad that it was not overly sappy or stupid, and not satanic like many vampire movies are.

Word to the wise

No matter how mad you are at your computer, so do not hit it with your left hand while wearing a tungstun carbide wedding band. You only are left with a cracked computer monitor and wedding band broken in two.

Yes tungstun carbide is one of the hardest substances on earth next to diamond, but as I found out the hard way it is extremely brittle. Fortunately the place I bought replaced it. Whew!