Whale shark circles tank, originally uploaded by Aunt Christina.

I've put up the last photos from the Georgia Aquarium. They include these shots of the whale shark, which was spectacular to behold.I mean, not only was the shark itself really amazing, but the exhibit was beautiful--the sun (or artificial light?) shining into the tank really lit it well. I am very happy with these photos, especially because I snapped them very quickly, I was running out of time for my visit and had to zoom through this last area faster than I'd wanted to.



There were Giant Grouper fish, which are huge and slow moving and kind of prehistoric-looking; and schools of smaller fish that looked very pretty flashing by. I really liked that aquarium. I've been to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, the New Orleans Aquarium, and the one in Chicago, to name a few, and I liked all of them, but this one was really impressive. And according to their stats, it's the world's largest, which I hadn't realized while I was there. It certainly was most impressive.

Also on that final day in Atlanta, after the con was over, I got to visit CNN's world headquarters. They're located across Centennial Olympic Park--built for the 1996 Olympics and site of the infamous bombing--from the Aquarium.


I had a nice walk on a sunny day to get there (the park is quite picturesque), and took the tour of CNN. That was way cool--but frustrating because of course they don't let you take any photos inside the studio-viewing area. I did see Chuck Roberts at the Headline News desk :-) CNN Center is part of the Omni Hotel complex, and way back in the 70's there was a "World of Sid and Mary Kroft" center there. I thought that was a riot! The food court used to be a skating rink.

The tour starts by taking you up the world's tallest freestanding escalator, 8 stories high, wowsers. We also got to see a mockup of a CNN studio, so that they can explain to kids how green screen works, show the weather desk, and anyone who wants to can have their photo taken at the desk like they're an anchor. I was tempted...but didn't do it. While I was there, the big news was Hurricane Ike's landfall and the abridgement of the Republican National Convention, so they were quite busy.

That's it for these vacation photos; thank you for continuing to read my delayed posts! I'm always playing catchup with my photos... next up will be one of an assortment of other sets I am still working on, so stay tuned!

Wrapped up with ribbon, originally uploaded by Aunt Christina.

I'm back with some more aquatic creature pictures. Here's the Asian river otter I mentioned last time. Man these guys were adorable, and very active even though they never went in the water while I was there (and I stood in front of their exhibit for at least half an hour!). There was a family of 5, who looked to be all the same age so I assumed they were littermates, but I really have no idea. They were napping in a comfy tangled heap in the "roots" of a tree by the water, but only a little actual sleeping was taking place. Mostly they were squriming and wrestling and playing. The red cloth strips are what I assume to be for "enrichment", something for them to play with and keep from getting bored. At one point one of them decided to venture out from the heap to use the "facilities" as we would call it; soon each of the other otters was following him up on the ledge to add their mark to the same spot. I hadn't thought they would do that like dogs do, but I guess it can be a common thing in wild animals. I just love their button noses and whiskers and tiny ears, they are the cutest animals ever--I guess because they look a lot like puppies and kittens, they have that perpetual young-look to them. Anyway, I also saw:


a loggerhead turtle. He's the third one they've had, when they grow to a certain age they're too big for this exhibit so they move them elsewhere.


There were alligators in the river exhibit and


piranha (not in the same tank, obviously!), which I find fascinating in a shivery sort of way. There was also a tank for touching:


you could touch a bonnethead (shovelhead) shark and a cownose manta ray. That was interesting--I hadn't thought I'd be afraid of them but it took several long minutes of getting my nerve up and almost-but-not-quite sticking my hand in far enough, before I finally quickly touched the back of the ray. I never even tried to touch the shark, that was too freaky. I knew they are not dangerous, they eat crustaceans not us, but it was amazing how strongly my "flight" instinct was kicking in. Intellectually I wanted to touch it, but my body said otherwise--I was nearly paralyzed at the thought of getting a finger so close to one! But they made for nice photos coz they were so close to us.

One more batch of aquarium shots to go, I think...

Love bites, originally uploaded by Aunt Christina.

Put up more photos today. Here is Nico, one of the beluga whales, giving a "love nip" to either Natasha or Maris, the two females. The staff member giving a speech said that they are trying to breed them. I was really tickled to be able to catch this moment, it was very fleeting and I only saw him do it once. I could have stood there watching them for hours, they are so beautiful. The other cool thing they did was blow bubble rings, out of their mouth! It was so cool! But practically impossible for me to catch. Needed video camera. I also saw some awesome


Japanese Spider Crabs. The kooky


Weedy Sea Dragon, which looked like something created for a sci fi movie, was fascinating, and


the giant sea otters were a lot of fun. (Wait til you see the river otters, they were also adorable) Ta for now, gotta run to work!

Poisoned breath, originally uploaded by Aunt Christina.

Hi folks! Today's topic is the wonderful wild underwater world. I started uploading my photos from my trip to the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta--it was so cool. This photo above is of a Pacific Sea Nettle swimming in its tank, as two visitors watch. As I say in my Flickr caption, this didn't occur to me til later, but this shot makes me think of various Stargate or Star Trek episodes where one character is possessed by some weird spineless creature, that then floats out of the mouth of the infected guy and into the mouth of someone else. So here we have the alien doing just that! :-) No really, these animals were fascinating to watch. There were all KINDS of awesome critters in that aquarium:

penguins, and


sea horses,
and of course lots of cool fish. That's all I got posted today so far, sorry to stretch it out into installments again but I've been really busy! I promise to put the rest of them up asap. In the meantime, glub glub glub...SPLASH!