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DEL.ICIO.USFishScales mark marriages, babies and family
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rahul Bajaj armed himself with a FishScale when he got ready to take the plunge.
A doctor affiliated with Emory University, Bajaj had been carrying on a long-distance romance with Seema Sood, who lives in New York City. He wanted something permanent to mark his marriage proposal. So Bajaj — and apparently more than a dozen folks with the same idea — decided on a FishScale, the illuminated pieces of immortality at the Georgia Aquarium that patrons purchased for $55 each.
A 100-foot-long wall of the “scales” will greet visitors to the world’s largest fish tank when it opens its doors to annual pass-holders Monday morning.
Bajaj, however, got a head start.
John Spink/AJC
Rahul Bajaj’s proposal is one of 14 on the FishScales wall.On July 22 , the 31-year-old flew to New York, took 24-year-old Sood to the roof of her apartment building overlooking the Empire State Building and gave her two boxes. One contained a book he made of the e-mails the two have traded during their courtship. The last one she opened contained a framed copy of the FishScale that reads: “SS, Will You Marry Me? RB.”
The couple, both the children of Indian immigrants, plan to wed May 6 on Long Island, where they grew up. Bajaj plans to take his bride-to-be to see their real FishScale the next time she comes to Atlanta.
“This is something permanent, something we can come back and see on our 50th wedding anniversary,” he said.
Some 34,441 people purchased FishScales, including 14 that contain marriage proposals, 316 in memory of loved ones and 59 for yet unborn children. Money raised from the scales goes toward the aquarium’s education, conservation and research efforts.
Aquarium officials cut off sales after a few months when demand outstripped supply even though they had only advertised the scales on their Web site.
“We want that wall to be there forever,” said Jeff Swanagan, the aquarium’s executive director. “It was more about connections [with the community] than it was about fund-raising.”
Swanagan personally bought 11 FishScales, including panels for his five children, his parents, his ex-wife, her parents and even his daughter’s boyfriend “just because he’s a good kid.”
The FishScales are a high-tech version of the Olympic bricks that line Centennial Olympic Park. About 460,000 bricks were purchased for $35 each for the 1996 Olympics.
Aquarium benefactor and Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus has quipped that the FishScales are like the Olympic bricks “only you can find ‘em.”
Aquarium visitors who want to locate their scale first must type their name into a raised computer screen that faces the FishScale wall. A light moves across the Plexiglas wall until it gets to the area where your scale is located. It then forms a ring of light around your scale.
“It makes a circle around it like a bull’s-eye,” Swanagan said. “It narrows it down to an area of about 10 scales.”
One of the people who bought a scale will not be there to share it with his daughter. Jack R. Snook, a 24-year-old U.S. Marine who had returned from heavy combat in Iraq, bought a FishScale on March 10 for his 7-year-old daughter, Mallory.
A month later, Snook was shot dead in downtown Atlanta in what police described as a case of road rage.
“He loved fish and was very interested in carrying Mallory to the aquarium when it opened,” said his mother, Pat Snook, who lives in Cumming. “Now, we will do it for her. She needs to see it.”
An Atlanta nonprofit last month sued the aquarium over the FishScale program. The Center for Transportation and the Environment Inc. said it came up with the FishScale idea and has accused the aquarium of copyright infringement.
Aquarium spokeswoman Donna Fleishman said the lawsuit is “completely without merit” and will have no impact on the aquarium’s opening or visitor’s access to the FishScale wall.
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By Norma
November 18, 2005 12:20 PM | Link to this
Here’s how to find fish scale