The Past, The Present, and The Future?

It’s funny how I’ve been playing around with the idea to write a blog for some time now, how I constantly tell myself that no one will ever read what I write, and the procrastination.  I got the itch to revisit the idea when my wife asked me how much I knew about WordPress for a work project.  I knew nothing beyond what WordPress was; a tool for bloggers, right? Of course, my wife is smart and knew I wouldn’t leave it at that.  Thus started my journey through Lynda.com classes on WordPress, web development, and then many other tangents.  I never did help her with that project, but this blog, and this first post, is the first step down another one of the many paths I’ve attempted to travel (many simultaneously).  But this is not the past that I want to talk about.

The Past

I’ve always felt a calling to the ocean since I can remember.  I think it’s because I grew up in Southern California and had easy access to some amazing beaches.  It also helped that our family would camp several times each year up and down the lower half of the west coast.  Now before you start making any assumptions, I never learned to surf, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t find myself at home in the break.  My dad taught me to body surf and eventually boogie board, but the real quality time spent was the hours of surf fishing, regardless of the whether or not the fish were biting.  I quickly develop a keen curiosity for what was below the waves and a trip to San Diego and SeaWorld forever molded what I would drive my early life towards.  I have a picture that always comes to mind when I think about how I’ve gotten to where I find myself today.  It’s a simple picture of in the galley of a good family friend’s boat with a diving mask.

Fast forward to my senior year of high school.  I find myself already accepted to my school of preference (San Diego State University) and summer job at SeaWorld for when I graduate and leave Los Angeles.  There’s a problem though, and my dad has the solution.  My mom and dad are planning on going to the Caribbean for a cruise with other family, and my dad wants to go scuba diving with some of them.  He would like a partner in crime and figures I should probably know whether or not I can SCUBA dive if I’m going to become a marine biologist.  Thus we became Pops and Sport in our open water class of 6.  Those memories and stories are for another day.  We finished the class, dove a couple of times for the next year, and then nothing.  So much nothing that a good friend in college would eventually tell me my diving skills, or lack thereof, was of such awesomeness she swore to never dive with me again after our first dive in San Diego (my first since leaving LA).  We eventually dove again with much better success.

The Present

I’ve grown so much since that first dive in San Diego.  Years of diving for work made me realize one day that I already had the experience and knowledge to pass most of the advanced courses offered by PADI, and I seized the moment to have some fun with a couple of good friends.  I eventually took on the responsibility of dive safety for my department, which at first was mainly a lot of paperwork and class logistics.  My time would come, the need for more in house training opportunities, and some very motivated dive and safety managers, presented me with the opportunity to become a ‘professional’ diver.  I’ve since obtained my dive master (DM) certification and help my facility’s dive safety officer (DSO) with in house classes and employee development.  I quickly learned that if I opened one door and kept my eyes open, more and more doors would continue to open.  Not many people can say that a typical week for them includes all the normal work of diving aquariums, planning and caring for marine life, and discussing dive theory, strategy, and the future. Ok, there’s still some standard work in there, but it’s still not the same.

The Future

This part is not really about me.  I have a lot to learn and many roads to travel, all of which I look forward to with all my heart.  But, today I had the opportunity to see the start of something in my son.  He’s come to visit me at work many times and has an understanding of most of my job.  He even knows that I scuba dive and used to refer to any picture of a diver as daddy, but he has never seen me dive in one of the displays.  Today did not change that, but what I saw was just as important.  After seeing one of my coworkers dive for a full face mask presentation, we took the opportunity to show our friends the back area of the display.  On a whim I grabbed the mask and asked him and his friends if they wanted to try it on for fun.  What I saw was the same curiosity I had as kid.  As my son start to reenact my coworkers presentation with the mask on, I saw myself in him and began to wonder.  I asked myself what does life has in store for my son, and what is going to be the catalyst that starts it all?