Fueling Puerto Rican Perfection

This post doesn't really have much to do with technology, video games social media or whatever it is that BlogCampaigning is about these days.

I just wanted to share some sweet photos that I took on my vacation to Puerto Rico last week. It was 8 days of epic waves during the day and reading the Game of Thrones series of books at night.

While I used my BlackBerry Torch and a Sony point and shoot for most of the photos, I used a GoPro Surf Hero camera to get those in-wave shots.

I was able to buy the GoPro Camera thanks to DDB Fuel, a program offered by the company I work for, DDB Canada. DDB Fuel gives employees money to put towards something that will fuel their creativity. I've done a bit of photo and video editing before, but using the GoPro camera has given me a chance learn more about how to actually use a camera (accounting for the glare of the sun, different settings, etc).

Puerto Rico is a really amazing place, and I would definitely go back. The water was warm, the people were friendly and the weather was absolutely beautiful.

I didn't just surf, though. I also visited the Arecibo Observatory, the world's largest radio telescope.

If you want to book a trip like this, I highly recommend going through Surfer Living, a surf-specific travel agency. They made some great recommendations about where I could score good waves, where to stay and had great customer service overall. If you end up going to Puerto Rico, hit up the Desecheo Surf Shop.

-Parker

The Biggest Radio Telescope in the World: "We Want To Be Citizens Of The Cosmos. We Want You To Know About Us."

Yesterday I went to the Arecibo Observatory, the biggest radio telescope in the world. It's in Puerto Rico.

Why? Because I love science and technology, and this is a really amazing piece of human achievement.

Thanks to the Arecibo Observatory, we know that the orbit of Mercury is 59 days and that neutron stars exist. The Arecibo Observatory also helped discover the first 3 extra-solar (as in, not orbiting our sun) planets, and was used by SETI in the search for extraterrestrial life and the Americans in the search Soviet information during the Cold War.

It's also a pretty fantastic piece of engineering: the platform holding all the equipment, suspended over the center, weighs over 900 tons.

I knew some of this before I went, but learned about it in more detail and more on the Arecibo Observatory Wikipedia page. (the visitor's centre is pretty comprehensive but was also pretty full of annoying kids so I didn't stick around too long inside).

While I was there, I was reminded of an episode of NPR's RadioLab about the world's geekiest, yet most beautifully romantic mixtape, a golden record that was put on the Voyager Spacecraft by Annie Druyan, wife of Carl Sagan.

[audio:http://blogcampaigning.com/bloggraphics/radiolab051206.mp3]

RadioLab is amazing, by the way.

-Parker