On January 8th, 1968, the television program The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau premiered. That was it for me - I wanted to be a marine biologist and physical oceanographer: Here is the first episode - Sharks:
If you ever watched the movie A Life Aquatic - the ship they used is a complete replica of the Calypso. Also, I love the Star Trek theme being echoed at 12:26. ST-TOS first aired in 1966 so that phrase was definitely borrowed.
Alas, after a couple of years at Boston University with some sessions at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Lerner Marine Lab on the island of Bimini, I came to the realization that there were 50,000 other people who wanted to be Jacques Cousteau and the probability of good employment was minimal. I lucked in to a nice job at the local public aquarium in Boston and spent five years there - formed my first business after that, ran that for a couple of years and then moved out to Seattle. Boston was a lot of fun but it was getting just too overbuilt, gentrified and expensive.
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