Aquarium destruction

So... the water is not supposed to be coming up the stairs of the aquarium. It's definitely not supposed to be halfway up the door, either. (You can kind of see the sign that says "entrance".) We had a massive storm (not rainy, just crazy windy. Like when we walked to lunch, we walked in a row, like penguins, to minimize the wind. Needless to say, we were the only people on the street that day). So anyway, the swells got absolutely huge and destroyed a lot of the aquarium-- blowing out windows, knocking down doors, and completely flooding the place. Adam and Nicho, the aquarium manager, got most of the fish out and released them into the ocean. We helped try to clean up the gift shop yesterday, but the place is trashed.

Luckily, the aquarium was insured, so it will be rebuilt. And I'm going forward with my fund raiser, although this does complicate it a little bit. Basically, we are not raising funds to rebuild it (because they have those already), but raising money to improve the system so that they can have a larger stock, including more sensitive species, and to allow us to conduct research at the facility (which is why SAMPLA took it over in the first place.) So we are meeting with the manager of Big Blu, the bar where we want to host the event, today. I mentioned it to her last Friday night (Ryan introduced me and announced "One of my interns has an idea for you guys!" I was pretty drunk, so it was a really bad time to talk about it, but she seemed enthusiastic). Hopefully that will go well.

The basic plan right now is to have essentially two fund raisers on the same day: one in the afternoon for the older crowd of Mossel Bay, and one at night for the younger crowd. We've got a ton of ideas, and I will let you know what's happening as it comes together, especially if there are ways y'all can help. It should be a huge undertaking, but I think I'm up for the challenge. So, wish me luck at my meeting, hopefully we'll be having this event on September 26th.

Other than that, things are alright. I think we're all really missing the old interns that have left; we have five new people and six old people, and it's just a really weird dynamics shift. It is nice to be one of the people who knows what's going on. But... the last group was so much fun, so it's kind of hard.

Alright, that's it. I'll let you guys know what happens with my meeting!