Monthly Archives: June 2005

Well, Well, Well,

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I swam today and did the mile swim in 36 minutes and 59 seconds, that’s the unofficial time, from my stopwatch. My official time will probably be a few seconds less because I started timing after the starting “horn” and stopped after I had crossed the finish line and stood up.
And guess what else? I won an airline ticket in the random prize drawing at the end. I can go anywhere Cayman Airways goes, free! It’s the first time I ever won an expensive prize like that, ever in my life. (Once I won a transistor radio worth about $10 and once a submarine ride worth about $35 and that is it.)
There were 361 swimmers, compared to over 500 last year. But this year, there’s less people on the island.
The fastest was 13 minutes and a few seconds! I can’t even do a half mile in 13 minutes. The winner was 15 seconds shy of the course record. In the past 8 years, I have swam in 7 of the Flowers Mile Swims.
Anyway it was a pretty good day.

Flowers Sea Swim

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Today is the Flowers One Mile Sea Swim, It is an annual sea swim. I have swam in 7 of the past 8. I am kind of dreading todays because I have not been training at all.
Before Hurricane Ivan, I was getting a lot more exercise than I am now. I ran a little and swam a lot, like almost every day. After the storm, I worked and worked like everybody else and it seems like I’m still working. I’ve been diving quite a bit I guess, but the daily beach and exercise and fun and sun seem to have evaporated. A lot of people I talk to say the same thing.
Hopefully I can finish in 40 minutes or less.

Ramblings of someone with nothing to talk about

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My rebreather part is now in the UK. I dropped it off an 2 PM on the 14th and it arrived at 9 AM on the 16th. How long do you think I should wait before I call?

Since my rebreather’s Out Of Comission, and I don’t have anything to talk about, I’d lke to point out the link on the right side of the page over there —> called Earth View. I really like that web page. It shows the Earth and where it is light and where it’s dark right now. You can click on the map for a zoom in and change the settings under the map. It’s really cool to compare June 21 and December 21, also March 21 or September 21, which both look the same. If you click the guys name at the bottom it goes to his really good page with all kinds of stuff. (I don’t know him, I just think it’s an interesting page.)

I also think it is very cool that I read about the things on the news and then hear about them from you first hand. For example, I heard about the California earthquake on the news, then I cruise my regular blogs and there is someone I kinda know who was in it!

Work has been busy, I have two new FM Broadcast antennas that seem to be missing parts. When they delivered it was a whole truck almost as big as an 18 wheeler full – and no paperwork! They’re sitting in the grass next to the tower, waiting to be installed.
I have a new billing computer that arrived damaged that I have to fix. I got it working already but it still can’t see one of the hard drives because the RAID board is smashed. I will fix it tomorrow by cannabalizing one part of the board to fix the other.
I have to set up for a press conference tomorrow morning at 9.
I have to go check out a site where the sales department is having an outside broadcast Saturday.
Also I have to go to the bank and Post Office. (In Cayman, there is no mail delivery system, you have to go pick up your mail, and you have to go to the Post Office to mail something.)
And I feel like I’m forgetting something else I can’t remember right now.
Not to mention my list with ton of little things, non critical.
AND,
I have to call about my rebreather too.

Well, for not having anything to say I said a lot. It’s way past my bedtime. GOOD NIGHT!

Also, I really like reading everyones comments and I really appreciate them all!

Need some purple!

Officially Beached

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Well, I am officially beached.I had to send a part of my rebreather off for repair. remember I told you one of the green LED’s quit? Well, the other green quit too. So I sent it back to the UK for repair. The US representitive PROMISED a quick turnaround time.

This is a Giant Green Parrotfish from yesterdays dive, They eat coral and you can hear the scraping sound when they eat. I carry an inexpensive camera, in an underwater housing, rated to 100 feet, which I have taken to 160. I it fits in my pocket and if I see something to take a picture of, I take it, but I usually don’t get good results. I have an Nikonos V underwater camera with a 15mm lens that is a really really good camera, but I just don’t like fooling with it, film and “O” rings and the flash and the cable and putting it together and taking it apart and it is just a pain in the butt.

Giant Green Parrotfish

one way diving

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Today I did a dive from Dive Tech to a little fishermans marina just about a quarter mile towards town. There is some great coral along there and so many fish…. I like making the one way trips on the rebreather, I see a lot better stuff. We just put all the gear in one car and leave the other at the get-out place and drive back and get in and dive to where the second car is.

Today I had an almost incident. I was at 145 feet and wanted to add some diluent and added O2 by mistake. Then I couldn’t figure out why my PO2 went up (to about 1.45). So I tried to add another little squirt of diluent and added O2 again. My PO2 went up some more and I quit breathing and exhaled as I tried to do a dil flush but used O2 again. MY PO2 went WAY WAY up (Like 2.55 PO2) but I wasn’t breathing it. Then I switched to my bailout gas and at the same time realized what I was doing wrong and did a flush using the correct gas and everything came back to normal. So I went back on the loop and continued on the dive. I never breathed any PO2 higher than 1.6 the whole time and the whole thing was over in seconds, but dang! It could have been a really really bad screw up! (You add O2 by pressing a button on your right and add diluent by pressing a button on your left, I was pressing the wrong button).

What're the rules here????

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I have an ever-widening circle of blogs I read almost every day. I just stumbled onto them. Now, I check my blog, and look for new comments, and I check my circle of blogs too, looking for new posts, and I look for new blogs too, someone who grabs my attention, who I feel like I know what they are talking about. Sometimes I want to add comments but worry about what they may think. For example, what would you think if I was commenting on almost every post you made on your blog? I don’t want you to think I comment too much or am trying to enter your life against your will. But the truth is, I relate to what you write and want to respond. So I am kind of torn a little between doing what feels OK to me and trying to imagine what you or your friends or family or a complete stranger would think if I did. I guess basically what I’m saying is, I perceive there are rules or etiquette about what is and what is not OK, but I don’t know what they are. And I sometimes worry that I may over step the boundaries. don’t get me wrong, I don’t fell the desire to comment on every post of every blog I read, but sometimes I wonder if I may be commenting too much.
On the other hand, I would be happy if you or anyone else commented on my blog as often as you want. That’s why I put this stuff on the internet. I want other peoples comments, all I can get.
Once I commented on a blog and the person posted a comment on mine “WHO ARE YOU?” It seemed to me I made them angry. So I learned that just because I want a lot of comments, maybe everyone doesn’t.
So what are the rules here? How do I know how much to comment? When I think I’m “really getting to know someone” on here how do I remind myself that maybe I don’t? How do I know how much to trust my perception in any situation? I do not believe that my perception is always accurate, how do I avoid stepping on toes without being passive? We could all sit around and never comment at all for fear it wouldn’t be proper for one reason or another, that would suck!
So what do you think??

Hump Day

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Over the workweek hump. We have a tropical depression that formed 200 or so miles SE of here. Let me tell you, it is raining raining raining and only supposed to get worse before getting better. Saturday is the Queens Birthday Parade and I hope it is nice by then. My boss is supposed to get a medal. Plus we broadcast it live, so wet or dry, I’ll be there.
Other than that, things are going good. I hope it is nice and sunny by the weekend so I can go diving. Although I do have a problem with my new rebreather electronics, one of the LEDs on the Heads Up Display (HUD) apparently burnt out. It is more of an inconvience more than anything though. The handset display is fine and the LED that isn’t working is the one that tells me everything is OK. If there is a problem, I’ll still instantly know about it.

Saturday Nite BEDTIME!

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Today was a good day and I am looking forward to going to bed. I worked this morning, went to the dive shop for a while (but didn’t dive though) and went grocery shopping after visiting some friends and I’ve spent the last hour or so catching up on email. The month of June got off to a wet start with almost two inches of rainfall recorded and tonight I walked my dog and there was a sky full of stars and it looks like tomorrow will be a hot sunny day. I have a dive plan drawn up for a 250 foot dive and if everything falls into place, I may get to do some great diving tomorrow!