Update on Webcast for the Celebration of Life for Bernard Schober

Hi everyone-

This is Bob Nelson. Thank you for your patience as we worked through the details to be able to webcast the Celebration of Life for Bernard. The event is tomorrow, and the details of time and place are listed in the immediate previous post of this website.

This event will be live-streamed on Facebook, via his official page, The Klute, located at: https://www.facebook.com/TheKlute

While the service begins at 4pm, we will initiate the stream at 3:45 MST/PT, or as close to it as we can. Please know that during the stream:

  • We will not be able to respond to comments, and comments will not be shared with the live audience.
  • Quality may suffer based on Internet availability. While we have secured an exclusive hotspot for access to stream with, it is still a wireless connection, and subject to the limitations of such.

Thank you all for the outreach to make sure that you had a way to be a part of this event.

It is with profound sadness that the family and friends of Bernard Joseph Schober announce his passing. Please find information on both his viewing and remembrance ceremonies below.

Green Acres Mortuary & Cemetery401 N Hayden RdScottsdale, AZ 85257

[Map]

Viewing CeremonySaturday, July 23, 20223pm-7pm
Green Acres Mortuary & Cemetery
Main Building.

Celebration of LifeSaturday, August 13, 20224pm-8pm
Green Acres Mortuary & Cemetery
In the chapel
First hour dedicationFood and drinks available

Come Dive with Me, Come Dive, Let’s Dive Away!







 
Last week, I went on a very short, but very productive expedition to my home waters off of Palm Beach County, Florida.   Much of it was a “return to dive” exercise.  Part of the reason for my absence off this website was that I was convalescing from fairly intensive surgery (that caused two major complications that caused me to miss an expedition and training in Bonaire, and another expedition to the cenotes of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula). 
Continue reading “Come Dive with Me, Come Dive, Let’s Dive Away!”

I’m back!

Me, diving with an Oceanic Blacktip shark at the Protea Banks off of Margate, South Africa (photo by Jeff Barr)

Hi everybody!  I know it’s been a while since I posted any new content, but I had a good reason – I was in South Africa for two weeks, diving and on safari (photos only, of course)!

I’ll have photos and stories and poetry and even some new merch inspired by my travels, so keep an eye out (I’ll be posting a new poem later tonight).

It was exciting, and I hope to inspire you in 2019 to have your own shark adventure!

Decision ’18 – Trying to Find Arizona and Florida’s Ocean Heroes

OCTOBER 16, 2018 UPDATE:  This was a great idea that didn’t pan out.  Unfortunately, September and October turned out to be incredibly busy and I wasn’t able to donate the necessary time to get this going.   I will post some recommendations in the coming days, but nothing so elaborate as this had been planned.

ORIGINAL POST: August 29, 2018

Examples of Ocean Heroes, but they are not running for office, considering Atlantis operates on some sort of heredity monarchical system.

While I’m a multi-issue voter – I care about whether or not my duly elected representative likes puppies, babies, AND Mom’s apple pie, for instance – there’s two issues that will make or break my support for a candidate:  marine conservation and climate change.   In Arizona, we’re upstream from ocean, so what we do here filters down into the Blue Eternal, and in Florida – well, Florida will literally live or die on the health of the oceans and the level of the sea.   For my ocean adjacent home state of Florida, and the land-locked desert I now call home, I’ve decided to try to determine, in four races, who is the ocean hero who I can support, and hope, as a salt-water enthusiast, you will similarly support.

Don’t be this guy.

Those races will be Arizona’s and Florida’s gubernatorial and senatorial races, and I’m going to be honest with you – I don’t know what I’ll find.  I know next to nothing about Florida gubernatorial Democratic candidates Andrew Gillum and Republican Ron DeSantis, and while I like Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, and have a fair amount of animus towards current Florida governor and Republican Senate candidate Rick Scott, I’ve never gotten into the nuts and bolts if their records on ocean policy and climate change.   For Arizona, same thing with current Republican governor Doug Ducey, and Democratic candidate David Garcia.  For Arizona, I’m actually fairly antagonistic towards Democratic Representative Kyrsten Sinema, and I don’t care much for Republican Representative Martha McSally, both running for Arizona Senate.

What I’ll be doing is running a series of issues up the flagpole – for DeSantis, Sinema, and McSally, I’ll be using their Congressional voting records, focusing primarily on the most current Congressional session.  Likewise for Bill Nelson, I will be focusing on his Senatorial voting record.   For Doug Ducey and Rick Scott, I will be focusing primarily on laws they have signed and policy edicts they have issued.  Gillum will likely be the biggest challenge, as Mayor of Tallahassee, he will have the most limited ocean policy record, so I may have to extrapolate based on his Mayoral record, coupling with promises made on the campaign trail.

And if they are space aliens, I premise to let you know.

Full disclosure – I am a Democrat, but I’m going to attempt to boil away as much of biases as humanly possible, and go with the science and consistency (meaning: if candidate X is for small government but mandates a big government policy, you’ll hear about it.  Similarly, if a candidate is anti-climate change and then takes money from Big Oil, you’ll hear about that too).

There are some things that are going to be taken as non-negotiable.

Not a scientist – his opinion is worth exactly a pound of whale shit.

1. Climate Change:  The science is settled.  It is real, it is man-made (anthropogenic), and it is causing problems from coral bleaching and ocean acidification, and a political columnist with no field experience or research work’s opinion does not carry the same weight as a scientist who is doing the work.

2. Biodiversity is critically important:  Yes, the desert pupfish and the Lost River sucker are as important as the great white shark and right whale.

Desert Pupfish, Cyprinodon macularius, John Rinne

3.  Plastic pollution must be addressed:  This means from your drinking straw to a ghost fishing net.  There is no single solution for this non-point pollution problem, and all of us are part of the problem (from the consumer to the producer).   No,  skipping the straw will not draw Lisa Frank rainbows in the sky over an ocean of jumping dolphins.  Unless you need it due to disablity, there’s still no reason why you should be using a straw.

Cretin.

4.  The affects of rivers and waterways upstream affect ocean health:  This should be a no-brainer, but some people don’t get this.

The rating system will be clear and concise.  I’ll introduce it with the first post I do, no later than Saturday morning, and we’ll start off, as is my wont, with shark conservation.

NOTE:  THIS IS THE WORK OF A PRIVATE CITIZEN, EXPRESSING OPINIONS GUARANTEED UNDER THE 1ST AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.  I REPRESENT NO POLITICAL PARTY, POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE, 501(c)3 or 501(c4) CHARITABLE ORGANIZATION, OR COMPANY. 

World Premiere Video – No Volcano, “Take My Chances”

A few months back I was asked to be part of a music video for the song “Take My Chances” by No Volcano, a Phoenix-area band.  Directed by Troy Farah, who had previously turned my poem “The Doom that Came to Manhattan” (a Trump campaign commercial/Lovecraft short story mashup) into a music video.  Since I had a lot of fun doing that, I said: “Why not?”. Here’s the finished product:

Continue reading “World Premiere Video – No Volcano, “Take My Chances””

Warning: NEW CONTENT ALERT!

Hi folks, I’m still re-adjusting to non-shark diving life and I’ve got to file my taxes this weekend because I’m starting to get angry letters from the Arizona Department of Revenue, just chiming in to let you know that avast! There be new content ahead!

Over the next week, I’ll be talking about my trip to Fiji, finally doing that review of the Phoenix, AZ food truck “Maine Lobster Lady”, talking about the Trump Administration’s threat to dismantle the “Sea Grant” program, and sorting out that Phoenix Suns/Dolphinaris AZ promotion controversy.

See you soon!

I’m feeling much better now.