PADI Casting Call

Divers Wanted for PADI's next Photo Shoot

If you’re passionate about diving, love to travel and want your 15 minutes of fame- here’s your chance! PADI and Diving Science and Technology (DSAT) are currently casting PADI Divers to star in upcoming projects.

Selected PADI Divers will appear in both print and video media to launch exciting new marketing campaigns. These new campaigns will be designed to attract new divers and promote continuing education.

To qualify, you must:

• Be a certified PADI Rescue Diver or above
• Be at least 18 years of age
• Have 75+ logged dives
• Have experience diving in a variety of environments (e.g., fresh and salt water, tropical and temperate conditions, wreck/drift/night diving experience, etc.)
• Be available for one or more photo shoots this summer, each approximately one week or longer (exact dates TBD)

For more information on PADI's casting call, visit padi.com
All submissions must be received by 2 March 2009.

I applied, but they weren't crazy about my photo....

What Type of Sea Creature are you?

To promote the new IMAX film Under the Sea 3-D there's a fun little online quiz called "What Type of Sea Creature Are You?"

I am the mighty Garden Eel.

The film is a sequel of sorts to Deep Sea 3-D and is narrated by Jim Carrey. For those of you with "hard water" right now, this could be a fun dive club outing!

What Kind of Sea Creature Are You?

Friday Randomness

Geez, it's been a random day today.

I had a weird dream I was on the Catalina Flyer and conditions were so rough that seals and small whales were being flung through the air on giant waves. I'd be standing on the bow of the boat and a seal would arc over my head. Totally strange.

I came in to work and discovered an order I sent to Palau went missing. We contacted the shipper who told us, "we sent it to the hub for that area." Want to guess where the "hub" for Palau is?

Tennessee? (nope)
Hawaii? (nope)
Poland? (getting warmer)

The correct answer is: Morocco.

I've marked on the map (above right) where Morocco is in relation to Palau. Something tells me the person answering my call didn't have a clue where the island of Palau is.


Then I get an email from one of my students asking if I teach the distinctive specialty: Luxury Oil Rig Diving.

Check this out: there's a proposal to convert oil rigs (in the Gulf of Mexico) to Dubai-esque luxury hotels. It's an interesting concept.

Maybe someone would hand me a latte as I climbed out of the water. Perhaps I could get a cabana boy to rinse my wetsuit? This idea has possibilities, I'm just sayin'.


[Image: Courtesy of Morris Architects].

Who knows what oddity will come across my desk next?

Hope everyone has a great weekend. - Megan

UPDATE: Here's another interesting news nugget. It seems someone has found the lost city of Atlantis on Google Earth.

Violinist in the Metro

I received the following email from a friend of mine at Nike last week. It's an interesting true story that tells us basically two things:

#1 Beauty can be found in unexpected places
#2 Perception is reality. If an experience comes in a low-quality package, consumers will not perceive there is any value to it.

Read on...

The Violinist in the Metro

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written,with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.


Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people.

The Little Blog That Could ...

PADI Northwest Newswire Becomes

PADI Instructor News

When we started the PADI Northwest Newswire two years ago we had about 20 regular readers. Today we have more than 60 email subscribers and 170 RSS subscribers! It's great to know we've created something of value to PADI Members. Thanks to everyone for your support.

As some of you know, I've changed regions and now work with Hawaii, Southern California and the Central Pacific. The blog will continue, but I've re-named it. All bookmarks, RSS feeds and email subscriptions will continue to work as before. You don't need to change a thing.

For those of you who are new to our blog - ALOHA!
Here are some tricks and tips you may find useful

• Use the right hand column to explore popular posts and find useful info.
• Use the search box (top left) if you have trouble finding something
• You can receive updates via email or RSS feed (what is RSS?) or just bookmark us

Top 5 most popular posts ever:
Does Your Website Make Money for You?
PADI Wheel RIP video
Who's Taller Barry or Megan?
The Course Every PADI Instructor Should Be Offering This Fall
How Do You Say BWRAF?

Top 5 Google searches that bring people to our blog:
Divemaster exam answers <-- whoa!
PADI Divemaster jobs
PADI Instructor jobs
Specialty of the month
PADI Instructor Manual

Project AWARE Manual Now Available for FREE Download

Our World Our Water
download now from projectaware.org

Project AWARE's Our World, Our Water is now available as a free download from projectaware.org. It's a 10MB Adobe .pdf document.

Click the photo above to start downloading the manual. Or, click this link to download Our World Our Water.

1. Choose Global Initiatives (middle of navigation bar).
2. Then choose "Specialty Courses" from the drop down menu
3. The Our World Our Water manual download is in the middle of the screen.

The Project AWARE specialty course counts toward the Master Scuba Diver rating and can be conducted in one day. Check out our article, "Tips on teaching the Project AWARE specialty."

Google Earth adds Google Ocean

The video below describes the in's and out's of Google Ocean. It's cool, but, they've got nuthin' on the real deal.



For those of you who are Google Earth-savvy, check out 5 Ways to Pimp Your Google Earth from Deep Sea News.

2009 PADI Marketing Kit

PADI's 2009 marketing kit started shipping last week to PADI IRRA Members in the US and Canada. The treasure chest-looking box contains over a hundred dollars worth of marketing materials - and a few contain hidden treasure.

The PADI marketing kit includes:

• Support materials for PADI Diving Society, eLearning and Discover Scuba.
• Window clings
• Dry erase boards
• Tank wraps
• Employee success charts
• A PADI-branded DVD wallet with GO Dive and GO Pro promotional DVDs
• and a USB flash drive full of files

The USB drive contains email templates promoting the PADI Master Scuba Diver Challenge, Specialty of the Month and Go PRO Challenge, direct mail pieces for the Be A Diver campaign, PADI X (college program) materials and more.

A few lucky PADI Members will also find a “golden ticket” on the USB drive, good for prizes such as $500 US in PADI merchandise credit, PADI-branded jackets, even a free PADI store renewal.

* Being sensitive to customs regulations and potential duty charges, PADI Americas will not automatically send a marketing kit to retailers outside of the US (50 states) and Canada. If your store is outside of this territory, please let me know if you'd like one of these free kits on your next order.

2009 PADI Specialty Instructor Manual update

A new PADI Specialty Instructor Manual – Digital Version will be available later this month. In addition to the specialty outlines included with the 2007 version, the new edition includes:

• Emergency Oxygen Provider Instructor Guide (new in 2008)
• Boat Diver (revised late 2007)
• DPV - Diver Propulsion Vehicle Diver (revised late 2007)
• Drift Diver(revised 2008)
• Underwater Naturalist (revised 2008)
• and Project AWARE Coral Reef Conservation (revised 2008)

The product number for this item is 70909MUL. Please ask your Sales Consultant at the time of purchase which version is currently shipping. All guides are provided in English and some guides are available in French, Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese.

PADI Members who own a 2007 version of the Specialty Course Instructor Manual CD-ROM may purchase an update disc with the new and revised instructor guides from 2007 and 2008 - only.

PADI Members who own a 2005 Specialty Course Instructor Manual CD-ROM will need an additional update disc. Please speak with your PADI Sales Consultant for additional details.
---
If you enjoyed this article, please subscribe to our blog.