Going scuba diving in Belize

Former boyfriend (more or less current boyfriend at this point) and I are headed to Belize over the holidays for another adventure vacation. We are trying to recreate the type of experience we had in Kauai - getting up at the crack of dawn, being active all day doing things we can't do here, making our own breakfast and lunch so we don't feel stuffed to the neck, and crashing early without feeling the need to spend the evening drinking.

We were happy to have found accommodations that are reminiscent of our fantastic stay at the Hideaway Cove. The name even has "cove" in it again: Parrot Cove Lodge, and the TripAdvisor reviews are equally positive. I found us an overpriced flight on trusty American Airlines (I needed one more flight to keep my prized Platinum status) which entails ringing in the new year at 35,000 feet en route home. I decided to use a few miles to upgrade us to first class on that leg since we're going 3 hours out of our way and flying through Miami, plus we're celebrating a holiday so we need access to free champagne. I'm actually looking forward to that - we may even see fireworks all across the country as we see the clock strike midnight several times throughout our journey.

The reason we decided to go to Belize is that a friend suggested that we might enjoy Scuba diving there. We are such fanatics of seeing aquatic life and wildlife in general that we decided to give it a shot. This week and next week we will be spending 5 different days in class getting Scuba/PADI certified at Haven's Reef. This entails one day of indoor class, one day of class in a pool, and one weekend in Catalina island doing six open water dives. We started watching the instructional videos and realized just how complex Scuba diving really is. There is so much to keep track of and adjust - air supply, flotation, air pressure - I'm just glad we're doing so many practice dives in class so we have a shot of enjoying the fish when we do it in Belize!

Other planned activities include visiting Mayan ruins, hiking, and deep sea fishing. I'm very excited for all of this and looking forward to another great getaway!

How to mockup a website if you're not a designer

I spent eons searching for an answer to this question and finally a friend tipped me off to the best way to mockup a web page without using a heavy design program like Illustrator, Photoshop or Fireworks (or even the old fashioned pen and paper method). First, the SnagIt extension for Firefox is an easy way to capture bits and pieces of other sites you wish to emulate or show the designer. Next, these can be very easily pasted into good 'ole Powerpoint, which is an easy way to organize multiple screens. Powerpoint allows you to insert all sorts of useful shapes and buttons, as well as text boxes which can be used to annotate. So far this system seems to be working well. Hopefully this blog post can save someone else the time it took me to figure it out!