Adult Night With The Cathey's At The Aquarium November 2009

Did you know? - The Pike was an amusement park and arcade near the beach south of Ocean Boulevard in Long Beach, California. Started in 1902, The Pike ran until 1979, when a long-term contract with the city ran out. It was most noted for its large wooden roller coaster, the Cyclone Racer, that extended out over the water. The area surrounding the pike also went by the names of Silver Spray Pier and after World War II, it was expanded and renamed Nu-Pike.

The amusement park area began in 1902, as a beach and bath house resort at the end of the electric trolley car line, the Pacific Electric Railway, from Los Angeles. In fact the opening of the bath house coincided with the extension of the "Red Car" to Long Beach on July 4, 1902. This area gradually grew to include a “Main Street” or lane with concessions, which included the carousel, salt water taffy store, pony rides, goat carts, fortune teller, weight guesser and a variety of rides and other attractions.

In the early 1920s, the original Long Beach Municipal Auditorium was constructed on the beach and on 20 acres (81,000 m²) of landfill located south of today's intersection of Ocean and Long Beach Boulevards. After the construction of the auditorium, there were problems created by storms and coastal erosion in the area. In order to protect the auditorium from these problems, a horseshoe (rainbow) shaped breakwater was constructed around it. Because of its shape it was named "Rainbow Pier", even though it was actually a breakwater with a road constructed on top of it.

In the late 1940s, the City of Long Beach began filling in the water area enclosed by the Rainbow Pier breakwater creating additional public trust lands upon which a larger, more modern auditorium was constructed. Filling of the shoreline area continued in the late 1950s and early 1960s with the Tidelands Filling Project

Did you know? - P. F. Chang's China Bistro, Inc. (NASDAQ: PFCB) is an American restaurant chain founded in Scottsdale, Arizona in 1993 by Paul Fleming. The restaurants serve American Chinese cuisine from a menu originally conceived and planned by chef Philip Chiang.

P. F. Chang's operates exclusively in the United States; As of December 2005, PFCCB Administration, Inc. maintains 133 restaurants in 34 states. P.F. Chang's corporate headquarters is in Phoenix, Arizona. P. F. Chang's China Bistro, Inc. is the parent company of Pei Wei Asian Diner, a casual, pan-Asian restaurant chain in the United States.

Did You Know? - The giant sea bass (Stereolepis gigas), also known as the black sea bass, is a fish native to the northern Pacific Ocean. Considering its conspicuous size and its curious nature, it is surprising that relatively little is known about its biology or behavior.

There are published reports of giant sea bass reaching a size of 2.5 m (8.2 feet) and a weight of up to 255 kg (562 lbs). However in Charles F. Holder's book The Channels Islands published in 1910, the author claims specimens taken from the Gulf of California attained 800 pounds (360 kg). In the eastern Pacific its range is from Humboldt Bay, California to the Gulf of California, Mexico, most common from Point Conception southward. In the western Pacific it is found in the sea around Japan. It usually stays in relatively shallow water, near kelp forests, drop offs or rocky bottoms.

Giant sea bass were once a relatively common inhabitant of Southern California waters, yet in the 1980s it was facing the threat of local extinction off the California coast. Beginning in the late 1800s, the species supported both a commercial fishery taking hundreds of thousands of kg annually, and a sport fishery that also landed hundreds of fish each year. Spear fishermen also exploited the giant sea bass, first as free divers, and then after the mid 1950s using scuba gear.

Often the divers would target the species when they moved into shallow water during the summer months to spawn. By the late 1970s, biologists with the California State Department of Fish and Game, recognized that the local population of giant sea bass was in serious trouble. Actions were taken, resulting in protection from commercial and sport fishing that went into effect in 1982. Yet for almost two decades encounters with giant sea bass were scarce.

The giant sea bass reproduces slowly with a population doubling time of more than 14 years and is still listed as critically endangered. Due to its size and carnivorous nature it can pose some threat to humans

Did You Know? - True eels are elongated fishes, ranging in length from 5 centimeters (2.0 in) in the one-jawed eel (Monognathus ahlstromi) to 3.75 meters (12.3 ft) in the giant moray. They possess no pelvic fins, and many species also lack pectoral fins. The dorsal and anal fins are fused with the caudal or tail fin, to form a single ribbon running along much of the length of the animal. Most true eels prefer to dwell in shallow waters or hide at the bottom layer of the ocean, sometimes in holes. These holes are called eel pits. Only members of the Anguillidae family regularly inhabit fresh water; they too return to the sea to breed. Some eels dwell in water as deep as 4,000 meters (13,000 ft). Others are active swimmers.

Eels begin life as flat and transparent larvae, called leptocephali. Eel larvae drift in the surface waters of the sea feeding on dissolved nutrients. Eel larvae then morph into glass eels and again into elvers before finally seeking out the adult habitat.

Did you know? - Jellyfish do not have specialized digestive, osmoregulatory, central nervous, respiratory, or circulatory systems. They digest using the gastrodermal lining of the gastrovascular cavity, where nutrients are absorbed. They do not need a respiratory system since their skin is thin enough that the body is oxygenated by diffusion. They have limited control over movement, but can use their hydrostatic skeleton to accomplish movement through contraction-pulsations of the bell-like body; some species actively swim most of the time, while others are passive much of the time.[citation needed] Jellyfish are composed of more than 90% water; most of their umbrella mass is a gelatinous material — the jelly — called mesoglea which is surrounded by two layers of epithelial cells which form the umbrella (top surface) and subumbrella (bottom surface) of the bell, or body.

Jellyfish do not have a brain or central nervous system, but rather have a loose network of nerves, located in the epidermis, which is called a "nerve net." A jellyfish detects various stimuli including the touch of other animals via this nerve net, which then transmits impulses both throughout the nerve net and around a circular nerve ring, through the rhopalial lappet, located at the rim of the jellyfish body, to other nerve cells. Some jellyfish also have ocelli: light-sensitive organs that do not form images but which can detect light, and are used to determine up from down, responding to sunlight shining on the water's surface.