Saturday, Sunday... days 36 and 37

I loved the contrasts this weekend provided me.  At the essence of this Challenge is my hope to better understand myself and the human race as a whole.  This weekend provided me with just the platform to do that.

All day Saturday was spent Scuba diving at Anacapa Island, one of the islands that is part of the Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara.  Sunday was spent running around parts of Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and Malibu.  Saturday was filled with sea lions, dolphins, lobsters and thousands of fish; Sunday was filled with art, museums, and thousands of people.

I got certified as a scuba diver in November of 2009.  I had no idea I would love it as much as I now do.  It was something I had always thought about doing, but a long standing fear of the ocean brought on by... you guessed it, watching the movie Jaws when I was young kept me from ever going under water.  Trust me there are times under water where I swear I can hear that famous duh dum DUH DUM music playing.  However, eventually my desire to explore the world including the over 75% of it that is under water outweighed my fear of Jaws so I got certified.

I love it!  It is so relaxing, so peaceful, and so beautiful.  The pictures I took do not even begin to do the world below us justice.  We did four dives on Saturday.  By the end of the third dive I was freezing.  The one down side to diving here in the winter is the water is about 55-57 degrees.  I made sure everyone knew two things: One, I was going to do the fourth dive, but would only go for about 20 minutes because I was soooooo cold, and most importantly, Two, No the mustache was not helping to keep me warm under water.  As a side note, the mustache was definitely the highlight of the boat, everyone took turns making fun of it, by the end of the trip I was checking in as "Dirk Diggler porn star."  It provided so many extra laughs which made the whole experience of wearing this ugly thing worth while.  Well I did the 4th dive and ended up staying in the water until I had to come up because I was running low on air.  Well beyond my stated 20 minutes.  I was just having way to much fun.

Sunday on the other hand was much different.  I set out for Los Angeles intending to go to The Museum of Tolerance.  The Getty Museum was on the way and right off the freeway so I made a quick stop.  It was 75 degrees outside, and a beautiful day.  I wanted to back out of the museum and run to the beach, but kept reminding myself that part of this Challenge is supposed to be about exploring new things that I would have never done otherwise.  So, i ventured into the art museum. 

The Getty, structurally is beautiful to look at, and the works of art are impressive, but, as I soon learned staring at art, indoors, especially when it is freakin beautiful outside is not my cup of tea.  I got scolded for taking pictures in one room (my mistake I'll admit there was a sign I did not see).  I felt like if I talked to loud one of the paintings would break.  I struggled to "get into it."  I was, however, very impressed by how old the paintings were and that they could survive hundreds of years in the pristine condition they were in.  I was also extremely impressed with just the raw talent on display by the artists who lived 100's of years ago.  Having said that, I am not going to lie, I had the "Beach Boys" "Surfing the USA" song playing on repeat in my head.  I needed to get outside - asap!

The Museum of Tolerance was vetoed, I will still visit there, but on a future date.

I learned a lot this weekend.  I learned just how much I love being outdoors and interacting with nature vs being inside looking at human made art.  And as I said earlier, that is the essence of this challenge - self discovery.  I am going to do 1000 things.  I consider myself to be an open minded, up beat, positive person, but that does not mean I have to like/enjoy everything I do.  I did enjoy the experience of going to the Getty, I do not know if I will ever go back.  I have driven by it 100's of times and always said I would love to see it, well now I have.  I realized how important it is to spend MORE time doing MORE of the stuff we love and spend less time doing the stuff we don't.  Each of my dives were a total of 30-40 minutes long and they built a foundation for a full day of laughter and smiles.  I'll take an extra serving of that please! :)

I love the experience of exploring, I love learning more about myself as I feel the more open I am to experience and the more I learn about the things that excitement me and make me laugh and smile, the more I will prioritize those things in my life.

Enjoy the pics,

Carpe Diem,

Jesse