Snorkel Boy has gone the way of the wooly mammoth. Say hello to Scuba Boy.

I’ve wanted to take scuba lessons for-just-about-ever, and snorkeling on our recent cruise vacation finally made me get off my ass and go do it. I wanted to go deeper, longer (yes, I’m still talking about snorkeling), so I raced straight from the cruise ship to my local dive shop, Aqua Adventures Unlimited, and signed up for scuba lessons.

My classes covered two weekends. Weekend #1 (May 8, 9) we did the book learnin’ in the mornings and in the afternoon learned basic scuba skills (like how to put on a skin-tight 7 mm wetsuit — it’s a real workout!) in the pool. Weekend #2 (yesterday and the day before) we went to Catalina Island and did the Open Water dives in the ocean with real live fish and lobsters and stuff. We even saw a shark! (Not a real one, it was just the design on someone’s towel on the dive boat, but still…)

Bottom line: I love it. Swimming among the kelp is like flying through a forest, breathing underwater is indescribably cool, and there’s so much to see down there that you don’t want to come back up. I’m glad I finally did it. I can’t wait to go out again.

I am Scuba Boy. Woo.

I’ve had time to reconsider and cool off and I now regret my comments in my last entry. I was a little hot and I let myself speak a little too soon and I suppose I didn’t really mean what I said after all. I don’t want to burn my house down, not really.

I wouldn’t miss the garage much, though. Yeah, I could lose that, easy. Hmm… How could I lure all the animals in there at once?

This will take some planning…

I had a moment of clarity just now, the kind where you’re having a conversation and you blurt out something that crystalizes how you feel and you didn’t know you felt that way until you said it. I was telling my coworker Gavin about how much I enjoyed stepping out of the shower and into a pile of fresh dog puke this morning when I said:

I hate all my animals. I want them to die. I wish my house would burn down with them trapped inside.

Clearly, I’m having pet issues right now. And maybe house issues, too.

Oh look, another vacation picture. This one is Zoe experiencing a “foot push” ride from two dolphins in Cozumel. There are two dolphins under her, one with a nose in each foot, pushing her through the water. I don’t know who that fat bald guy is right behind her.

For Beth: “Ooh, look! Kittens!”

You can’t throw a dead fish without hitting a sushi bar in this town. That’s not such a bad thing, since both Beth and I like sushi.

Lately, we’ve been going out for sushi about once a week (not a cheap habit), and our preferred restaurant is Teru Sushi. Teru Sushi is also popular among the celebrity set. It seems like every time we’re in there we see someone who looks vaguely familar in a ER walk-on role kind of way, and occasionally we see people who are familiar in a “holy shit, look who that is!” kind of way.

For example, a few years ago we had sushi with Captain Kirk. Well, maybe not with him, but William Shatner was definitely at the next table, and he was telling his self-absorbed stories loudly enough that we felt like we were part of his party. And his dinner companions, boy, they were lapping it up. It was obvious that they were there needing him to agree to do something for them, and they were grinning and nodding up a storm as he went on … and on … and on … and on about his trip to Mexico … and his home remodeling … and his trip to Mexico… But the vibe I got was that they weren’t going to be getting what they wanted — but the Captain would: an audience.

Saturday night, we saw another big celeb there: Paul Stanley, lead singer of KISS. That was pretty cool. He and his stick-thin girlfriend sat next to us at the bar and we exchanged pleasantries about the cucumber roll. I had no idea who he was at the time, but he looked vaguely familiar, and I overheard (eavesdropped) enough of his conversation to figure out that he was about to go to Australia and then Tokyo on tour. That put me on the musician path, and then when he and I made full-on eye contact I knew who he was. He ordered toro sashimi, in case you’re wondering.

That’s it. I just wanted to do some namedropping. And recommend a good sushi restaurant. But mainly just namedrop.