Work in Progress

With all my gadgets, I realize I rarely use them. When I do use them, I don't use them particularly well and don't do anything with them. Here's a great example, a quick little video of Noel stalking, then pouncing on an unsuspecting cricket for dinner.

Posting this serves two purposes, one to show it can be fun watching Noel eat and the second to motivate myself to take better video! This was pure laziness. All I did was set the camera on a tripod and recorded for a while to catch the action, which happens to be almost impossible to see and I must have shot this two weeks ago and finally got around to editing it (if you can call it that).

So, this blog entry is shaming me into attempting to taking better video and working on actually creatively editing it. Hopefully, in a few weeks I'll get something worthy of Nation Geographic (amateur addition) posted soon.

Third Time is the Charm

This entry is going to be about 3's and how many I can fit in. Put your schizophrenic hat on, because this blog entry is going to be all over the place!

Since I started with a picture of Noel, he gets the first "3" reference. He ate three crickets yesterday (in what seemed like three minutes, but it wasn't official so it can't be counted as a three for this blog)! That feat probably isn't very impressive, but it leads me into another perfect example of what silly things can be done with technology. Noel can now be viewed live on the web, provided you can spot him.

Live Noel View

Not sure how long I'll keep the camera up, but it's fun to first play spot Noel (aka Where's Waldo style), second find the napping spot, and third catch him moving.

Yesterday, my replacement iPhone showed up. I'm hoping the third time is the charm! It's only my third week with the phone and I'm already finding it hard to live without, which is almost scary to me. My fingers are crossed that this one has all the bugs worked out of it, otherwise I may have to send it to Will It Blend, which could be fun too.

Tonight will be a visit to the third gym. Just when I thought the choices were narrowed down, low and behold found another trial membership to check out. I'm actually looking forward to it because I've been stuck at 163 for the past couple of days and it's bugging me!

Those are my three mini stories for today. Now, where are those lucky charms.....yum.

New Family Member

If Mani taught us anything, she taught watching crickets getting eaten is damn entertaining! After Mani's Funeral, it felt like such a waste to put her house away and unused, plus we had extra crickets. Granted on this diet, I've been hungry at times, but the thought never crossed my mind that I could use them as a food source. Though, dipped in chocolate....okay I'm not even going to think about it. Instead it seemed only natural to visit the pet store and find something else the liked to eat crickets.

The choice was made, a green anole. Though technically not a chameleon, it changes color and by my definition that's close enough! His name, Noel Anole (because we got him around X-mas time). Let me tell you, Santa already visited him too! Not one, but two special lights to keep him nice and warm and his sun tan that extra nice shade of green!

He is a little shy at the moment and doesn't want to eat with us watching. But, it's hard to out smart us, so tonight I setup the video camera and we left the room. Noel has some speed! Crickets beware!

iLemon

I really do like my iPhone, but I'm liking it much less right now. I've had it for almost three weeks now, but this weekend my Apple turned into a Lemon. The problem started on Saturday, every call I attempted ended with "Call Failed". (Warning Rants ahead)

The first stop was to the AT&T store to solve the problem. An hour later of the incredibly technical expertise of swapping SIM cards (extreme sarcasm) did not solve the problem, I was given the choice of calling Apple's 1-800 number or driving 40 miles to the closest Apple store. The first and almost comical solution of calling a 1-800 number with my phone that can not make calls seems a little square peg, round hole to me. It would be one thing had I been given a temp phone, but no, it's just assumed you better have another phone in your house. The second and major issue I have is clearly the phone has a problem, it's less then three weeks old, why not give me a new phone send mine in to get fixed, case closed? Apparently, that would be too simple.

Calling the 1-800 number accomplished two things. The first, they successfully restored my phone to its original state and in the process deleting all my contacts, content, and calendar events from my backup. So, now do I not only do I have a phone that does not make calls, but I get to have fun adding three weeks of things back to my phone. In Apple's defense, the 1-800 number did manage to schedule me for an appointment the next day to get my phone looked at the Apple store. The 45 minutes on the phone would have been better spend only scheduling the appointment, the other 43 minutes were not necessary and frankly had I not called, I still would have had my backup.

My Apple store experience went much the same as the rest of this story. I did only have to spend a total of 30 minutes in the store where I did walk out with a working phone. I have to admit, I was very skeptical because the swapped phone did not come from a brand new iPhone box. Instead it came from a plain white box. But Apple is known for their great PR, so I made the assumption that everything would be fine. In reality it was, I walked out of the Apple store with a phone that could make and receive calls. We all live happily ever after....or do we?

Eight hours later, my iPhone was almost back to normal. Songs, videos, programs all back and the only thing left to do was work on my contacts. While working on that, I noticed that my wifi signal was getting weaker, a few minutes later, my wifi signal was gone all together. My "new" iPhone's wifi is completely dead now! I think my "new" iPhone was really a refurbished piece of junk.

At this point, I haven't made any calls yet, but I already know it will be heading back to the Apple store 40 miles away to get another phone. Three weeks in, this will be my third iPhone. Apple has some great PR going with their products, but call me unimpressed. So far, this Apple is looking much more like a Lemon.

Spring 2008 - December 13, 2008

Kalamazoo, MI - Mani Mantis born Spring 2008, in Delton, MI, one of two hundred children, passed away at 5:37 pm December 13, 2008 of natural causes. She is survived by her two adopted parents Becca and Mark, her adopted sisters Rascal and Sweety Pie, and brother Shy. She will also be survived by potentially two hundred children, yet to be named.

Though she grew up in the small town of Delton, Mani became well traveled in her later months first moving to Kalamazoo, but also taking trips Grand Rapids and even further north in her free time.

Mani may have been the most well traveled Manits, but she will be best known for her countless hours working on controlling the cricket and boxelder bug populations. One unknown coworker issued the statement: "Hard work and Mani are one in the same, it was like she put in 168 hours a week." Statements like that make it easy to understand how Mani held records in hunting. Killing three crickets, two boxelder bugs, and a fly in a single night, those are records that will probably never be broken.

Mani's mate could not be found for comment. Some say he lost his head.

Mani Mantis will truly be missed. She was one of the good ones. An open memorial service will be held Sunday from 9-10 am. Any donations may be made to Mark.


* I'll miss you Mani! You provided hours of entertainment and I enjoyed learning about you.

4.88505747% But Who's Counting?

Wednesday marked officially the one month on my new exercise program (or is that attitude?). That's twenty nine more days then most people last, so that by itself is a victory! Even more impressive, Thanksgiving was in this streak of days. Okay, so this piece of Mama's Chocolate Kuau Pie wasn't within reach (good thing it's 4,300 miles away) at any point, but I did a good job of avoiding the "pleasures". Now, I said I was good...not a saint! I did have two pieces of pumpkin pie, which I think was my only cheating for the month. I'm still proud to say there is 4.88505747% less of me.

It looks like I'm keeping close track, I'm really not, I just happen to be a numbers guy. I'm still most concerned about finding all six abs, even though not one has been uncovered yet! Where are they hiding? Program 2 on the treadmill has been defeated and I'm up to 4.44 miles every other day, which considering where I started, I'm very happy. This coming month will be the real test though, with all the Holiday goodies making their way into the office to tempt me. But, then again if I'm running 4.44 miles a day, it will only take me a 2.7 years to get to that Chocolate Kuau Pie. Guess I better get started...

I'm an iDork now

iTried. iFailed. I'm now an owner of a shiny new iPhone. When the iPhone came out, I avoided the hype. How could so many people be excited over a phone? It's just a phone, right? After all, it just makes calls and we've been doing that for a hundred years now. Which just so happens about the same age of my old cell phone, so I figured it was time for an upgrade.

My requirements were short: I wanted a phone that makes calls (ideally from my house...my old phone only accomplished that about half the time), a GPS, the ability to read/send e-mail, and probably the strangest request...the ability to show pictures. Lots of phones I looked at were very capable of meeting my first three requests, but the choice became obvious when looking at the iPhone's large screen. I was very skeptical of the touch screen, but it's amazing! I was sold after 5 minutes of playing with the phone, I knew it was the one for me.

Either my expectations were low, or I'm impressed easily, but I'm in awe of this phone. Well, maybe I should say the "Apps" for this phone. The GPS feature is nice, but I already have a great GPS. I was hoping for the GPS feature to help out in situations where I didn't have my hand held GPS with me (I do get lost from time to time...don't tell!). This is almost ridiculous, what if I got lost, but also needed "pizza"? Well, here's a sample screen shot of just such an occasion.



Not only does it show all the pizza places around me, I can actually pick the one I want and get turn by turn directions or better yet their number (which only needs one click) to call them and ask for deliver! Now my fancy hand held GPS can't even come close to pulling that off.

My first real experience with an new "App" that I added to my phone was one called Shazam. I picked it because it was rated high and best of all it was free. Now I didn't try it the first night, but I made Becca try while we were traveling up north for Thanksgiving. The concept seemed too good to be true, your favorite new song comes on the radio, the DJ never says the title and goes immediately to a commercial after the song ends, the artist and title remain a mystery. This "App" promised by holding the phone up to the speaker for about ten seconds, it could tell the name and artist of the song. Bullsh*t! There's just no way, right? Wrong again. For the first test, I was playing something that I'd hardly consider popular and Shazam got it. Okay, that was a more modern song, lets try something early 80's, it got it. I've already used it once, snagging a new song that I had know clue who it was:



With this "App", there's no reason to even employ DJ's!

It's official, I'm an iDork. I can't help it though, the phone is so damn cool! I was only after a phone that could show off pictures, instead I got a phone that completely amazes me. Sure it's missing a few things, there's definitely things that could be better about it, but overall I think I have the phone that I've been missing for years. iHappy.

I'm a Grandparent...Maybe

I know, it's a shock, Mani is a mommy! This came as a very unexpected surprise, but I believe this spring I will become a grandparent to many very tiny praying mantises. Never one to call a lady fat, especially one that is know for killing mates, I didn't want to say anything to her about her belly, but it was very large. She had been eating every moving creature put in her cage, so I figured she just needed to control her eating habits like I do. Instead, I came home to find her laying her eggs in a nest above her favorite hunting grounds.

This definitely is my good deed for the year (with a whole month to spare)! Not only did I save Mani from a cold and certain death, but by doing so, I even saved countless other unborn Mani's and Manny's! I wonder when the mayor is going to give me a call to receive the key to the city...

Oh, and since they won't be born until the spring, I'm not obligated as a grandparent to buy them Christmas gifts this year!!

The Biggest Loser (The Quest to Find Abs)

I'm officially two weeks into my quest to find my abs again, I miss them. Having not seen them in about 10 years, I hope they are still there. I'm still unsure how they disappeared because I still am a horrible cook! I'll have to assume it's been 10 years of my strenuous desk job and my couch movie watching habits.

Now I did attempt to do this last year about this time, and the fact I'm writing about doing it again, proves I failed. This time around though, there is much more motivation. In addition to the motivation, it's more of a complete system, diet and exercise. By the way, don't label shop in the grocery store on Sundays, it's busy! So, for the first time ever, groceries were bought paying strict attention to the labels in an attempt to keep calories down.

The exercise system has also changed. Last year was treadmill every other day for three days a week. This time, it's treadmill twice a day at least three days a week, weight training on the other days, plus aerobic videos to keep the daily exercise at about an hour a day.

Monday marked the second full week of this new torture. I'm down about five pounds, still have a long way to go to see those abs again, but I'm already up to three miles a day on the treadmill (it was a struggle to even get to one the first day). That is exciting by itself. So, next time you see me, hopefully there will be less of me.

My goal is to be in great shape for my Cozumel trip, which is just about 5 months away.

Trout Like Me

What a weekend! With the season winding down, the diving is going to get much more difficult once the lakes freeze over (not to mention the fact that I really don't want to ice dive!), so it's best to take opportunities when you can. It just so happened that a couple of the local divers were planning another trip to the Gilboa Quarry, the spot of our advanced dive class. Both Becca and I were disappointed that with the class, we really didn't have a chance to leave with any pictures or video showing what a cool place Gilboa is. This visit, definitely became a set of dives I'm sure we'll both always remember and look back on and laugh.

Our plan was two dives, we ended up doing three dives. The Gilboa Quarry is stocked with many different types of fish and one of our goals this time was to feed them. We bought two bags of fish food with the thought that we would use one on the our first dive and one on the second, so we'd both get a turn. I put the food in my pocket and off we went. On our first dive, we wanted to explore an area that we only visited on our night dive, a group of tubes. Quite frankly at night, it was eerie as hell, and we didn't stick around very long. This time in the day light, it was much more relaxing. As we were swimming out, the fish seemed much more friendly then I remembered. After we played around in the tubes, we went back to a sunken school bus that is the traditional feeding ground for the fish. I open my pocket to get the food out and I couldn't find it. It really didn't strike me as odd because with dive gloves on, it's not the easiest thing in the world to feel around in pockets. Becca helped, nothing! At first I remember being irritated that clearly Becca wasn't doing a good job looking in my pocket...then the light bulb went off in my head as to why the fish were so friendly! After our dive, neither of us really understood how or why the fish food went missing. It was honestly like the fish picked my pocket. We admitted our mistake to our diving friends and had a laugh about it. Becca and Mark, outsmarted by some fish!

Dive two, this time no fooling around. Becca carried the food in her pocket and we were going to feed the fish first, then play around exploring. We got in position, Becca got the video camera ready, I got the food out of her pocket and then learned it's impossible to open a ziplock bag with gloves on! Well, that's why they invented dive knifes, so I pull mine out and open the bag. Now, I've watched the Discover Channel before. I know what a feeding frenzy is, but nothing prepared me for how crazy the next forty-five seconds would get. Fish were coming in from every angle, so fast and unpredictable, I was worried that they would fillet themselves on my dive knife. The whole time I'm trying to watch what is happening, but I'm also trying to keep the fish safe, that's when one decided to kiss me. I can't even describe the craziness of this, so here's video:




It really didn't hurt, but it definitely was a shock! I figured with all the action, Becca wouldn't have any idea what happened, though I know I muttered "Son of a bitch" through my regulator! After our dive, I told her about what had happened and we just laughed. It wasn't until a few minutes later she noticed that I was bleeding, "What did you do to your check?". When she pointed it out to me, that's when it hit home, I had a fish hickey! That's when this became more then just a laugh, this is something I'm going to have to live down for a very long time!

Oh, and for the record, that's why we needed a third dive. There was no way we could leave without Becca taking her turn feeding the fish. Back in the water we went, but for some reason I noticed that she held her bag of food very far away from her body and the fish somehow managed to take the whole bag of food from her in under ten seconds!

I may be marked with a fish hickey, but definitely turned into a fun weekend. Here's a couple videos:


Becca first gets sucked into the engine of the plane, then we swim through it.



Me chasing fish around.

I Created a Monster

Okay, so I didn't create, I found it, I think it should still count. This is my new pet, Mani (after a lengthy discussion Mani was decided as the female version of Manny). I found her laying on the ground getting pelted with hail and almost frozen to death while walking between buildings during work. Personally, I think work really would be more fun with a pet preying mantis, but my boss told me if Mani flies and lands on him, he'd kill me, so Mani has come home with me. After some much needed heat, Mani seems fine and in good spirits.

No expense is too much for our pets, so Becca spent fifty-five cents on four crickets to provide some entertainment for us. Oh did I say entertainment, I meant much needed dinner for Mani. It was a tense couple of minutes, not knowing if this experiment would work, but in the end Mani locked on to her target, aimed, and fired a death grip onto a very unlucky cricket. She then proceeded to eat the whole cricket in a matter of minutes. It really was quite amazing.

She has proven to be a very fun monster for this Halloween season. I'm hoping to get some more use out of my macro lens and this seems like a perfect opportunity to use it. Who knew mother nature could be so fun! Can you see those death spikes on Mani's arms? Oh and the way she used her lightning fast reflexes to impale that cricket, then proceeded to devourer it while it was still alive ( I'm sure screaming in it's little cricket voice), like any movie can create that level of goory detail! Oh wait, maybe I'm the monster......nahhh!

Shania Twain, Marry Me!

Shania Twain |MTV Music

MTV hasn't been on the map since whenever they stopped actually playing videos (which was what 1989?). Well, they finally did something right in the 20 years since they stopped being cool! They launched their own YouTube like service that actually allows you to watch music videos on demand.

I've spent the majority part of the day watching old favorites, but have to admit, part of the fun was a game I invented. Because it's a new service, the view counts on the videos are kind of low. After checking out some of my all-time favorites, I thought it would be fun to find a video where I was the first person to view it. So, the search began. I was surprised, when even some of my obscure music even had 6 views already. Almost ready to give up, I thought about my dream girl, Shania Twain. Surely, she'd have some views, but I went to my favorite video (not song) of hers and low and behold the view count was empty! So, Shania, if you are out there, I want you to know your number one fan viewed you first...and yes I will still marry you!

Never, Return to the Crime Scene!

Here are the tracks. I did the unthinkable. I returned the scene of the crime. Hopeful, to repeat the great sunset of few nights ago, I returned to South Haven for another sunset. I should have know better. Sure enough, last night's sunset was blah!



The sun got behind those clouds and I was once again taught a valuable lesson. Just because it's good once, doesn't mean a damn thing. Photography is amazingly frustrating at times. Two sunsets within days of each other giving two extremely different results, one great, the other, hardly better then a bad Jim Carey movie.

The night wasn't a complete loss though (and I laugh because this entry is going to have more pictures then words), Becca and I rode a few miles on the Kal-Haven trail hoping for some fall colors. We didn't do great, I think best colors have already passed, but I did like this:



Then, I got this shot I titled "Road Kill":



That's dedication if I ever saw it! I'm glad no cars came, not because of her safety, but I'm really not sure if I was ready to deal with the dilemma of choosing to warn her....or keep quiet and get the action shot of a car flattening her!

Hmmmm, what was I saying about returning to the scene of the crime?!

Picture Perfect

Wow! A last minute trip to South Haven proved once again that no planning really does pay off! All that advice growing up from mom that planning was necessary to make a project turn out, completely out the window. If I can get results like this with a last minute decision, just think of the wonderful book reports I could have created waiting until the day before they were due!

This is a new day for me, gone of are the days of organization and planning. From now on, I'll be doing my taxes April 14th, changing my oil at 3001 miles, packing the day of my trip, and paying bills on their due day, not before! It's going to be hard for those of you that know me to recognize the new me, but I'm a changed man. Hmmm, wonder if this new theory of mine holds up for the expiration date on the milk? :)

This was a weekend for the record book, Picture Perfect.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

No, we didn't head down to the Four Winds Casino and start playing blackjack, but it kind of feel like it for me! First, let me explain this picture, last night was the "Dry Dive" dinner party with the local divers. The theme was "Dressed to Chill" with an award going to the best dressed. We thought it would be funny to take a loose interpretation of the chill and go as skiers. Personally, I thought we had the best costumes, but we lost to newly weds. I'm not disappointed though.

So, earlier in the day at the Geo Caching Event. My ticket got called to win a geo-coin. Win number one.

My ticket got called again at the dive party. The game was in the theme of Lets Make a Deal. Three curtains, some curtains have non prizes behind them. Since I was the second contestant, I was kind of at the mercy of the first contestant. She picked the middle curtain which happened to be a woman's rash guard with a shell bra. I thought for sure since she was a woman, she'd take it, but no she passed it on to me and choose a different curtain. So, here I am being forced to wear part of my prize:



As luck would have it, they did let me pick between my pink woman's rash guard, or the final door. Now, with the Cozumel trip coming, I actually thought Becca would want the rash guard. Apparently I was silly for thinking that Becca would be seen in something pink, because She told me to pick the other curtain and risk getting old dive gear without a second thought. I have to admit, it was hard to give up the shell bra, but I did and took what was behind curtain number one.



Turns out we made a good choice. Behind curtain number one was a dive computer! Sure, we already have our own, but it would make for a nice backup! Not a cheap prize at all! Winner Winner Chicken Dinner! So, we were winners this weekend!

Fall Colors

This weekend was a Geocaching event that took place in a local park. It's always fun to visit and trade funny stories with fellow cachers. I'm slightly worried that one of them planted a bad seed though. He went on a three month, 19 state, caching adventure were he almost hit a thousands finds! That's the last person Becca needs to listening to stories from!

We got to play around with some of the trees that were changing as an added bonus. My favorite picture of the weekend is the above one, Becca getting in my frame, being goofy. She's a big helper, but turned out to be my favorite, so it's funny how things work out. I also found it humorous that the two of us never take pictures of each other, yet this weekend our favorite pics were of each other.

Travel Plans

The first dive adventure is officially planned! Last week, passports were ordered, so it safe to say we are headed some place fun. Next stop, Cozumel! After some debating, it seems like it's the best to head out with our local dive crew for our first adventure. It's was always been a hard decision to which island in the Caribbean would be the first choice, this trip happened to interest me, so Cozumel it is. Plus, with the local dive crew taking care of everything, I don't have to worry about running into pirates. The only challenge now will be packing! Where's Becca?

Someplace New and Cool

Last week was a disaster! Becca put all this work into finding a group of geocaches in a spot where it we could not only Geocache, but also take some pictures. I'm not sure which was the first sign of bad luck, the bridge that was suppose to be our subject for our pictures being under construction or the strange atmospheric conditions that had our GPS's bouncing all over the place. To give an example, we actually gave up going after a cache because it looked like it was on a small island in a park. Turns out, by some kind of blind luck, we found it on our way out of the park over 70 feet from where our GPS's said it would be! Trust me, that was the only thing that went our way the entire day.

By the end of the day, we were both frustrated and almost at each others throats. We had such a bad outing that I went on a rant saying how much I hate "parking lot" caches. Becca wanted to hit a few of the easy caches that wouldn't require much searching to at least say we did something. I put my foot down, the weekend on a bad note.



This weekend, Becca decided on one cache and only one cache. This one happened to be a number of trails in a hidden preserve that we've driven by hundreds of times and didn't even know it was there. These three pictures came from the trails. The highlight had to be the pine tree forest. It was so cool to not only see this, but know that it's been here here this whole time and we never visited it once. We walked close to two and a half miles, most of which was for the cache, but I'm not sure what was better the views, the exercise, or just simply being successful in the hunt for caches and pictures.



Definitely, look forward to visiting this place again for these views!

Deep Weekend

Two weeks ago, I was sick. Last week, we were in the middle of a monsoon. This weekend, it felt great to just to be able to do something! The above video clip is our dive in Martin Lake on Saturday.

Martin Lake was our first diving adventure. It's a deep lake and our first visit, we didn't feel comfortable doing deeper then 60 feet, especially on our first dive. This time, we are both more confident divers and were eager to do more exploring and see what was down there. The visibility wasn't great, but it was much better then our first visit.

The first task was finding the underwater platform, which we did fairly quickly. It almost looked like we knew what we were doing! We descended down to the platform, made sure we were both okay, then started the express elevator down to the first boat. I didn't get too far down when I felt a tug on my fin. Not sure what to expect, Becca showed me this:



By pure chance, I missed seeing our underwater friend on my decent. I have to admit, I'm glad I missed him because it I probably would have screamed like a little girl...and lets be honest, it's more fun to tease Becca for freaking out instead of me! Later on the surface, Becca's comment on seeing our friend "I almost swallowed my regulator". What I really want to know, on our first visit to this lake we went with a number of local divers, I made a comment that it would be funny to put a skeleton in one of the boats. Not a single one of them made mention that that skeleton was even down there! So, ha ha you guys! Way to not let on to the new divers that somebody already thought of that idea!

I was surprised at the number of boats that are down there, it's a boat graveyard. We found three and we still didn't cover all the water we wanted to. We'll have to go back again for sure, just to make sure we see everything. We burned through air much faster then I wanted to. At least Becca's excuse could be the huge gulp she took when she saw our friend, but in my case I can't explain it. I just like breathing, mmmm good air. I'll blame the cold though, it was 41 degrees from everything deeper then 60 feet. We made it down to 75 feet, about the same as our deep water dive in our advanced class, but it was 5 degrees colder here in Martin Lake.

Our second dive the week end took us to Long Lake. There was an underwater geocache that we've wanted to do for quite awhile. It's always a challenge to swim on the surface with your dive gear on, but then add holding a GPS over you head and not only do you look silly, but it's harder then it looks. After getting over the correct coordinates, we dropped down to look for our treasure. Visibility was only a few feet, which wasn't bad, until Becca dropped down in the muck and stirred everything up! Leave it to Becca, always wanting to increase the difficultly level! I can't say I followed an orthodox search pattern, but it was good enough because we found it.

After our goal was completed, off we went to search for something else cool. Well, we didn't find it! Long Lake seems very strange, typically the deeper you go the better the visibility gets, instead here it was the opposite. Deeper then 30 feet and it was the lights were off, there was more sediment, and the bottom was invisible. We ditched that plan and stayed above 30 feet for most of the dive. The second highlight for the dive for me was during our safety stop, which we did swimming back to shore, I got a little freaked out because sand got kicked up right in front of me. My first thought that a boat went over our heads and I knew we weren't very deep, then it dawned on me that I would have heard that. Looking around, there was a huge carp swimming around. Apparently, we got to close to it and spooked it and it cause the sand to kick up.

That was the extent of our deep weekend. All in all, it was fun and I didn't get scared when I saw the skeleton ;)

Four TD's In One Game

Al Bundy once scored four touchdowns in a single game in High School. That was his claim to fame and even though he's a fictional character, I have to admit it would be cool to always have a memory like that. It's safe to say that if I played football, I probably wouldn't even be able to walk right now! So, it's probably a good idea I didn't attempt my legacy in sports when a trip to Maui can cause my knee to swell for months. If I have any claim to fame, it's in the virtual world of computer games. The contact is far less physical, but the competition is just as heated.

My game of choice has been the Unreal Tournament series. It started back in 99, and evolved to 2003 and 2004 versions. I don't even want to think about how many hours I've spent running around levels shooting friends, strangers, enemies, and everything in between over the years. Even when I think of people playing computer games, I think of pale skinned nerds with no life. I can't even avoid the stereotype, yet I've met some of my best friends (who don't fit the mold either) running around in a game trying to kill each other. That alone is kind of amazing to me that it's even possible.

To play an online game, especially one where the object is to shoot and kill the other person, you need a tough sounding name. This is where Ace comes from, it's my online name that comes from ten years running around in games (There's a much longer story behind the name that I'll save for another blog entry).

Here is the first video I made of myself running around. All the people in this video are friends, but I made this specifically to goof on Diablo45. He's a real character both inside the game and outside the game. This clip is a perfect example of him telling you a complete BS story with a straight face only at the end, laughing to give away his joke in the final seconds of the story. That's Diablo45. Camping is the term given to a player that stays in one spot and attempts for easy kills. Diablo45 was very vocal that he never camped, this video shows otherwise:



This next video is probably my favorite, not because it took the most time to create, but because of story behind it. It's common to find gaming highlight videos around, but there are some seriously talented people that not only make them, but are supremely skilled in their gaming abilities. Part of the fun of making the videos was learning new things, for example what is involved from the encoding to capturing and editing. Lets face it, I'm never going to be a director, but even the amount of effort to make even a short clip like this is time consuming. Not only did I meet IceColdFever (another gaming name if you couldn't have guessed) by playing games, but we also shared an interest in learning how to put these videos together. As it started, I think I made a quick video of me pwning (gaming for owning) IceColdFever in a couple of clips. That's all it took, then it became a mission to not only make a better videos, but get better clips of us killing each other. The beginning of this video includes the previous video IceColdFever made of himself pwning me. Of course, this one is called IceCold Payback:



Just like with anything, gaming can make friendships for life, but it can also make enemies. This next video probably is my 4 TD game, because it was labeled the Grudge Match. The story behind it was some cocky players, who I really didn't care for, came around talking all kinds of trash. It was decided that a Grudge Match would take place to stop the bickering. The match would be the best of three, 3 vs. 3, team deathmatch. Concept is simple kill the guys on the other team as often as you can in a set time limit. My teammates were Diablo45 and Optimus Prime. As far as I'm concerned, two of the best gamers out there. The first game we crushed the other team. The second game proved this really was going to be a Grudge Match, the other team beat us. Now the stage is set, one more game to get bragging rights. It was an absolute dogfight the whole way when disaster hit, Diablo45 got disconnected from the game in the final minutes. When this video starts, we are down 62 to 60 with ten seconds to go and it's now two vs. three. I don't want to spoil it, but I force overtime and the good guys win!



Yeah, it might not be 4 TD's in one game, but I think it was a very cool comeback. Anybody who thinks computer games are all fun and games, let me tell you, my heart was absolutely racing and my hands were actually sweaty. That situation was intense! I was so relieved that we won the Grudge Match, I even followed through with my promise to Diablo45 and took a couple of puffs on his cancer stick in celebration that we won. My first and last time EVER making a promise when it involves a cigarette!

Oh, and my other favorite part of this story (now that it has a happy ending), was listening to Diablo45 going crazy and screaming when he lost his connection to the game in the final minutes. Makes me smile just thinking about it ;)

Old Passions

Even though this is Michigan, no it hasn't snowed...yet! An old friend found me on Facebook and it made me think about skiing again. It won't be too much longer and the white stuff will start flying again. Maybe, if I look forward to getting some skiing in this season, it will make for a mild winter! I would take a mild winter, but it also would be nice to get more skiing in, so I guess no matter what happens this year, I'll win.

Uggh, it's been fifteen years since I REALLY spent time with this passion. It's hard to believe it's been that long since I practically lived on the slopes. Sure, I've got some skiing in since, but it just doesn't seem the same down here in the middle of the flat cornfields. I do miss my old stomping grounds. Luckily, I do still get to go back for visits from time to time.

Here's video of me doing my favorite move (a daffy) on my favorite hill, South Peak, at Caberfae Peaks:


I remember two situations from that year that define me. The first, I loved skiing almost until closing time. It was as if I had the slope completely to myself, me against the mountain (okay it's really a hill, but for the story it's a mountain). The chairlift rides to the top in complete silence, huge fluffy snow flakes falling, and dreaming about the up coming run in anticipation. On nights when snow was really falling, all tracks would disappear and it was new every time. It was perfect! No rules, the isolation meant I could ski however I wanted, it was complete freedom. I'll never forget those feelings. There's something to be said to do what you want, when you want and how you want, I like it!

The second, was the companionship. As much as I love the isolationism and being alone at times, there are other memories of mine that I enjoy just as much, because of being with friends. Now imagine that same chairlift ride, but the silence is replaced with hysterical laughter as another friend crashes in the most prolific way! Or the dares, only with friends would there be a need to take a run down a closed run, in complete darkness, through the trees. Having friends around to joke around with and challenge you to try new things, that's special too.

Here's video of me doing just that. I'm sure Becca didn't want or think she could do this, but she's a better person for me "talking" her into trying South Peak.


May the snow fall late this year, but hope to see you on the slopes soon and I can revive this old passion!

Last Wednesday Night Dive of the Season

Look at all those dive flags! If it's one thing that noticed, the local divers like to dive almost as much as they also like to eat! Tonight's dive was the end of the season cookout, as you can see the turn out was good. Diving and eating, that can hardly be beat, add the socializing and the stories and it really becomes a fun night.

Tonight, we tried something new. I hooked my GPS to my dive flag as we went on our dive. Becca was convinced I only swim in circles, so I felt it necessary to prove to her that I really do have a general idea what I'm doing. I wasn't sure how this would turn out, but I think it looks good. We did do some looping, but that was because we followed were the railroad tracks when we were down.

Here's our Path:


Anytime we find an object underwater, that's a major accomplishment for us. One of these days, we'll try to raise those expectations some, but for right now, finding something equals a high five. The railroad tracks proved the easiest object to find tonight. We also found what was left of a car, it looked like a Model T or what was left of Model T. I think I could have fit it in the glove box of my car! The highlight of the dive for me were the fish. We saw a number of schools and it was funny to approach a barrel only to have a fish come shooting out. My favorite moment was thinking that I found something shiny on the bottom only to find a good sized pike laying in the weeds. We startled it before we could get a picture of it, but I thought it was an awesome discovery! It did remind me of the barracuda we saw in Maui.

Here's a fish smaller hanging out:


The food was great after our dive. Nothing better then surfacing and smelling BBQ! The evening ended with watching some video from our deep water dive in Gilboa. Luckily, Becca and I didn't get captured often because the videotographer was in the other group, which was a good thing because our form still needs work. But the video provided a number of laughs.

Haven't made our minds up yet which dive we are going to do this weekend, but I know we'll be getting wet again. Last dive of the season with the local people, but it won't be the last dive of the season for us!

Naui Advanced Class Weekend

First, I'm disappointed we didn't get actual pictures from our weekend. The Gilboa Quarry really was a cool place to dive, there was so much to see. With the class and the required dives, it was difficult taking the camera, plus it was just another piece of gear to drag around and keep track of. Walking away from our weekend, that is the only thing I feel bad about, but I look at it as a reason to go back. So, the picture for this entry is my deep water dive profile for our trip, 77 feet down at a balmy 46 degrees!

This entry also comes with cliff notes, because it's going to get long and detailed. So, if you want the quick and short of our weekend here it is: First dive fun, second questionable, third wow lost, fourth laser light show, fifth deep and cold, and sixth a goat rodeo but fun. I'm sure we passed, we are both alive, and are tired from carrying gear and getting into wet wetsuits! We had a good time, learned some things and overall was a good experience. That's it for the quick and short, stop here if you don't want the details.

Dive 1
The first dive was a weight check. The purpose was to remain neutrally buoyant and hover about a foot off a platform around 20 ft under. Surprisingly, Becca and I both had our weights to the instructor's liking. There were a total of twelve advanced students and we were broken up into three groups of four. After all four of us were checked out, then the instructor picked me to lead the dive. My first question was why, because I had no idea what direction to go. So, I picked a direction and headed out. Of course, I picked the one direction that has no objects in it's path and leads directly to the wall that drops down to 120 feet. I was relieved as dive leader at this point, to a more logical choice of another person in our group who had dove here before. I was also criticized on the surface for swimming too fast! I can't help it if people can't keep up! I think my dad could out pace the other two underwater, so I don't feel bad.

Once on a course to find things, we did. Our first object was a pop machine, I didn't attempt to put any money in it because I figured I already dumped enough cash into this sport. Next was a plane. I have to admit, that was very cool. The instructor even let us go inside it. I did, after I bashed the top of my tank into the doorway with a nice underwater bang sound! There are fish everywhere in this quarry, tons of rainbow trout. Becca yelled at me, but I couldn't resist the urge to reach out and grab one. It wouldn't fit in my pocket, so I let it go.

The major event that will stick with us for the rest of our diving careers, is the fact that we lost one of our dive lights. Because we needed to do so many dives for this class in a short period of time, we got two additional tanks. With our previous lack of visibility in the local lakes, we got bright yellow tanks and put special underwater lights on them for our night dive which we would do later in the class. We had never used these tanks yet, so we decided to use them on our first dive to test them out and feel confident they would work for our night dive. They worked great, the issue became when Becca surfaced after our first dive and we were changing tanks, we realized her light was gone. Brand new light, never used, lost without even getting used! Talk about a bummer. Going back to the learning, lesson learned, attach the lights to the tank better!

Dive 2
Technically, this doesn't even qualify as a dive to me. The purpose was to snorkel around and try to dive deeper then you ever had before. Our first stop was out to a set of big truck tires suspended on a buoy making it possible to swim through them. I'm not exactly sure how far down they were, but I made it through the bottom tire and that was probably between 20 and 25 feet. I thought that was good enough and much deeper then I ever remember going before. Next, was a sunken boat with an entry in the cabin and a hole in the bow, the point being to swim in and through it. I did that as well, making sure to clear the hole in the bow, because it was a much smaller hole and I didn't want to become a permanent attraction. We went to a few other objects, but I didn't bother to dive down to them. My ears were already bothering me, plus we were in a very large group and three quarters of the people weren't even trying, so I figured why bother. As a whole, I thought the exercise was rather silly and would have rather got an actual dive in.

Here's the sunken boat:


Here's me about to swim through it:


Dive 3
This was the navigation dive. I thought this would be an easy dive, it proved anything but. By this time in the day, enough divers were in the water that the visibility was reduced from the thirty feet in the morning to a dismal eight feet at the most. That played a big factor in the underwater fiasco that was about to play out. On land we were given our course, four compass headings to locate clothes pins on various objects. Grab the pins, lap the course twice with each person navigating, come up with eight clothes pins total.

Becca has a touchy compass to begin with. It's nice that it's built in to her computer, but it's very difficult to operate and needs to be kept perfectly level to read the bearing. Then to make it even more difficult, for some reason they put the heading towards the bottom of the display which makes it hard to read. We knew this going in, but figured we could deal with it. We started out with her leading the way. I checked a couple times on my own compass to make sure we were heading the correct direction. We came to two guide wires for a platform first and swam between them, didn't see anything and kept going. Soon it became apparent to me that we must have passed the first point, so I gave the signal to turn around. Got back to the wires again, playing a hunch (probably my geocaching skills), I decided to check further west, sure enough on the third guide wire, there were a bunch of clothes pins. Yay, found the first one and although we over swam it, I felt good because it was only the lack of visibility that prevented us from finding it quickly.

At this point, I knew Becca was really struggling with her compass, so I took over navigating. I really didn't fair much better, for one thing it's surprising how much the compass is effected by metal. So after finding the first one, just the metal from the platform (which the wires were attached to) messed with the compass. Second object, the same thing happened as the first one. We were off just enough, probably only about ten to fifteen feet, where we swam right by it without seeing it. Again, had to turn around and waste time and air looking for it.

The third one was the worst. Again swam right by it, not once but twice. At this point Becca had a problem with her mask, so she went to the surface to fix it. I stayed below and watched her. As I was waiting, I got to thinking about the heading and the distance and really there was only one object in the general area which happened to be a motorcycle. Once Becca came back down, I headed us back to the motorcycle and I circled it one full time before I spotted the clothes pins. With the color of the bike and the color of the clothes pins, it was next to impossible to see them. Any more then a couple feet away and they were invisible. We had three out of four, but we were also getting low on air. I knew there was zero chance to have us both completely the drill and wasn't confident that we'd even get all four.

The fourth was more of the same, pass it, swim by it, turn around, circle it and find it. At this point I was just relieve to actually have all four. After the hunt for the third one and the time it took, I was sure we were coming up without finding them all. The most amazing part was after all the difficulty finding the clothes pins, I did get us back to the exact point we entered the water.

It wasn't a complete disaster, but it definitely was more challenging then I thought it would be. If the game ever becomes navigating accurately underwater, then we'll both get analog compasses. The ones we have are nice because we don't have to carry anything extra, but they are not the easiest to use. They will get the job done for what we need currently, but finding clothes pins in a large body of water, I'd prefer to have my gps!

Dive 4
This was the night dive, probably my favorite dive of the weekend. Becca did get a loaner light for the dive and we didn't loose it, so it was a successful dive just from that point. It was a free dive, so it was only Becca and myself and we had free reign to go wherever we wanted. We both like dives best where we can go explore on our own without a specific purpose. We went to the the plane first and looked for her lost light. She had bumped her tank exiting the plane, so we hoped to find it in that area, we did not. The helicopter was sweet. It's huge and has big doors on the front to load cargo (well now only divers and fish).

Next, we followed a line out into complete darkness. The line brought us out to sunken tubes that I can only describe as large drainage pipes. Up until this point, nothing has rattled me underwater, this was as close as it got. First, the water temp dropped as we got closer to them and the complete darkness made them feel very eerie to me. At one point my light hit a fish (I can only guess...or maybe it was a monster) and for a brief second I saw something white and moving. That freaked me out a little and it almost came to the point where I drew my knife, gutted Becca, and left her corpse for the monster as I made my escape. Luckily, for Becca's sake, I didn't see the monster again.

We headed back and found the majority of the other divers. It was almost like a laser light show as light beams could be seen all over the place. The only way to describe it is it reminded me of the scene in ET where all the action is taking place in the woods and light beams are flashing all around in a chaotic fashion. We surfaced and exited the water, it was fun to watch the light show from the surface as well. I so wish we could have got pictures of this.

This was the end of Saturday. Both of us were completely whipped from putting equipment on, taking it off, carrying it, moving it. It was a chore just getting back to the hotel and then we still had to log our dives, so basically homework!

Dive 5
The morning came way too fast. Our first dive of the day was our deep water dive. Looking around at the other divers, I wasn't the only one who could have used more sleep!

Looking at my profile, took about five minutes to get to 77 feet and I did have to slow down for my ears a little. Talk about an express elevator down, this was it. It was a cool dive and I mean that literally and figuratively. By the end, my fingers were numb. The wall of the quarry is almost a vertical face down to around 120 ft. It was strange to look below and see nothing but darkness, yet see a wall on our left side. For the record, Becca is gloating because she hit 80 feet to my 77. For the record, I think my buoyancy control is better and I stayed with the instructor better! That's my story and I'm sticking too it.

I'm glad that not only did we have an instructor with us, but also had a backup helper watching us from behind if there were any problems. One guy in the other group did have a freeflow problem. I'm very confident in my equipment and my dive buddy, but not much room for problems. I think that is about the limit where I'd feel safe without any backup gear. I wish as a group we would have gone deeper, I want to hit triple digits bad. It was a fun dive though. I liked the trout that came over to us and checked us out doing a safety stop at 40 feet. It was the only fish I saw on that dive anyway.

Dive 6
This dive was our elective dive. You'd think with the amount of camera gear I have, the photography option would have been the logical choice. Instead we opted for something called surface marker deployment. I figure I have some much camera experience that my time would be better spent learning a new skill. Surface deployment becomes useful when on a ship dive and you become separated from group, you deploy a buoy so the boat can find you. Much better to take the boat in, then that few mile swim to shore!

The marker reminds me of a long balloon. Concept is simple, add air, let it pull a line up to the surface. Once on the surface it sticks out of the water enough for the dive boat to see you. I deployed it first from about twenty feet under. I could see it from below and it didn't look like it stuck out of the water much. When it was Becca's turn, I signaled for her to put two breaths of air into it. She deployed it fine, but the challenge was dragging the damn thing back down to do it again. I took two of use to pull it down. Obviously, we couldn't talk underwater, but I knew on the surface, I was going to catch some sh*t for telling her to do that. I did.

We could only do that for so long before it got boring, so we still had plenty of air to use to drain the tanks, so we went on one last tour of Gilboa. It turned out to be our longest dive of the weekend, we were down for an hour.

By the end of the weekend I was sore and tired. My fingers were sore from being in the water so long. I'm not sure how that's possible, but raisin hands is a understatement. Becca and I both decided that we'd like diving even more if we had a dive caddy. You know, somebody to carry all our gear, clean it, and put it on for us.

Should be next week and we'll have nice and new advanced diver certification cards.

New Dive Buddy

I officially want a new dive buddy! My current dive buddy proved that she is smarter then me, so I'm taking applications for lessor divers, to replace her! Last night, was of course the test portion of the Naui Advanced Diver class. I figured it was going to be an easy test. My dive buddy scored a 100% and I missed one question and had to settle for second place with a 98%. The worst part is losing to my competitive dive buddy, now I have to take another class with her, just so I can beat her (I'll use any excuse I can to take another class, they are fun). The second worst part, the question that I missed, I knew the answer! What's the most accurate way to measure distance underwater? Answer, using your arms. Even though I knew that, I still want to say fin kicks every time because when I think about measuring, I think long distances, not a quick estimate of a wreck for example. So, in essence, I "wrecked" my perfect score by answering it my way.

This weekend when we are diving and my dive buddy is giving me sh*t for beating me on the test, I'm going to accurately measure the distance from myself to her with a good solid punch! Bam! Yup, 35 inches away. What do you know, it is accurate ;)

Almost Famous

My fifteen minutes of fame may come as the result of my cat! I suppose you take it as you can get it. Sure, I would rather mine come as a result of finding sunken treasure (making me rich in the process) or saving a life, but I can't deny I have a cute cat!

I can only imagine what my mom is doing (I really think she is very proud of her four legged grandchild), but she's taking a week long painting class with her favorite artist. That artist has fallen in love with Rascal and there's a chance that she will paint Rascal's portrait and use her for future classes. If the artist does, then I would get the original painting as a royalty. Not exactly the endorsement I would hope for owning a famous cat, but who knows, maybe the cat food deals will come rolling in once her face gets out there!

Kind of funny actually. I've always told Rascal, next to Shania Twain, she is the best looking girl out there. Maybe it's true ;)

Are We Learning Yet?

In case you are wondering, no this photo wasn't taken in Maui! Want to know something really funny? That's probably some of the best visibility we've dove in so far! This came from my third dive in Gull Lake, but I'll get to that in a minute.

I missed telling about my previous Wednesday night dive, there's a reason for that, it wasn't the greatest. It was a themed night, the object was finding a sunken treasure chest full of prizes. Becca and I both decided there was no point for the two of use even attempting to search for it, we are lucky to find the water when we have all of our gear on, let alone a box in the water. We did not find the treasure, but we were in the area and it was a pure accident, that should count for something.

Two dives in, everything is a learning experience. The lesson on this night, look at your compass before you enter the water! What I thought would be an easy straight out, then 90 degree turn to follow the shore turned into a goat rodeo at about 20 feet under. All it took was a small stop, then all sense of direction was lost and it became a shrug our shoulders and pick a direction. It was a rather embarrassing dive in terms of trying to accomplish something. Next time, read the compass, check.

For some reason we had quite a bit of air left in our tanks after our Wednesday night dive, so we decided on Sunday to burn through the rest of our air in Gull Lake. With our lesson learned, we set our compass heading before entering the water this time. We headed out, reached our turnaround point without seeing anything interesting, then decided to head back. It was at this point where we found the motorcycle and the phone booth. Woo Who! I was hoping we would find something, too bad Murphey's Law stepped in when we were already low on air. It was fun to say we found something again, even though we couldn't play around for long. I know Becca wanted to ride it!

Since we were low on air, we did a surface swim to shore. The lesson learned from this dive, when doing our 3 minute safety stop at 15 feet don't hover, continue swimming to shore! Can't wait to see what our next lesson is, our next series of dives will be in a quarry for our advanced class this weekend. I'm super excited about them! I know our underwater navigation could use some work, but I also feel that with our trials and mistakes we swam away with some great experience already. I'm predicting great things for us and I expect to be labeled "Rock Stars" from our instructor ;)

Keb' Mo' (It looks like Henry to me)

My dad really has some horrible tastes in music! The basement is filled with boxes and boxes of albums, cassettes, and CD's which I'm convinced the only organization that would get any use from them is the CIA as they could use them for torture! Then again, we have to be humane with torture nowadays, so waterboarding it is and his collection is safe.

Growing up, I was given the reason it was good for me to be dragged to horrid concerts, somehow it would build character or class. We can all see it didn't do any good. Now that I think of it, I distinctly remember my dad listening to more of my music then his! Now there are exceptions to everything, one such exception is Keb' Mo'. With as vast of collection of junk as my dad has, there has to be at least something that is listenable. Now you take however small that percentage is and add the unlikelihood of me liking it, you have a miracle. Keb' Mo' is that miracle.

It just so happened that Keb' Mo' was in concert last night in Grand Rapids. Figuring this was my one and only chance to attend a concert with my dad that we both would enjoy, this was it. As it turns out, we both attended, but I was the only one who got to see Keb' Mo'! My dad's early schedule (hectic retired life) couldn't keep him out late enough to make it to Keb' Mo' making it on stage. The opening guy was rather so-so, so it was fitting that we both got to listen to not the greatest music.

When Keb' Mo' made it on stage, he was very good. I was hoping for a couple of my favorites from him, but only got a one or two songs that I enjoy. In the end, things could have worked out a little better, but in my book I still got the only concert I would enjoy with my dad in, that's all that matters!

Little More Then 6 Ft Under

Wednesday was the day, sink or swim (or should that be submerge and live or submerge and become fish food for the possible outcomes) to start my underwater adventures. Sure, I've accomplished the pool work and my open waters, but this would be my first dive on my own without an instructor around to provide some kind of guidance. Sorry for the lack of drama, but it should be obvious that I survived!

The local dive shop promotes "Wednesday Night Dives" throughout the summer. There are some themed nights, but most are dives at some of the lakes in the area. This week happened to be Martin Lake (Lake 16). Simple concept being that if you enjoy diving, show up and meet some other divers in the area, dive, then go out afterward for some food. My dive buddy and I showed up at the "posted" time. I admit, we put on our gear slow, but there were people already finished with their dives as we were walking to the water! Not being in the loop yet, I think the "posted" time is entering the water time, not the lets all meet in the parking lot time. I'm sure glad we did this though, a woman gave us a great pre-dive briefing, that alone made the dive that much easier.

Let me tell you, 7mm wetsuit, gloves, hood, 18 lbs of weight, and all your gear in 82 degree air temps...is not fun. Not to mention the 200 foot swim on the surface to get to the point where it is possible to dive, I felt like a hot dog in a rotisserie grill. I couldn't wait to find the 50 degree water.

Down we go. I thought the visibility was horrible in Gull Lake for my open waters, this was 6 times worse! Visibility was literally a foot. Becca and I got down to the dive platform which was about 15 ft, gave each other the okay signal, then the next trick was finding a underwater line to guide us through the course. I was so worried about losing Becca that I'd start moving along side of the platform and two seconds later I couldn't see her. Sometimes I would stop and she would appear out of the darkness in my face, other times I would swim back to her only to again almost bump into her. Our lap around the platform helped, I think it got us comfortable with how close we needed to be and what we needed to do to find each other. We did find a bight yellow line off the platform, so off we went...only to find it going to shore and get us up to about 8 ft under water, obviously wrong cord.

Next guess proved better, it took us down to around 20 ft but again stopped. Lights on, we looked like two lost burglars searching randomly. Somehow Becca managed to see a chain leading deeper, so down we went again. This time we were lead to a sunken speed boat, success! At this point we both did an underwater high five because we both had zero expectations of finding anything. We looked around the boat for a little while, then continued deeper down the line. I set my dive computer to warn me at 60 ft, I figured that was a good safe depth. Martin Lake is about 80 ft and without doing the advanced class, figured this was our stopping point. At this point we turned around and headed back.

All in all, I'm very happy how we did. We found a boat, saw some fish, and more importantly lived to tell about it. It was great hearing some of the other divers complain about the visibility and cold at the restaurant. At no point did I feel cold and although the visibility was poor, I thought Becca and I did an awesome job of sticking together. I know I could improve my body control, can't count the number of times I put my knees in the mud, but I'm blaming that on not seeing the bottom and wanted to stick to following the line. Can't wait to give it another try, with a better idea of what to expect.

Here's my dive profile:


Official Dive #1 in the books!

The B's Have It

Saturday morning was spent over at Mejier Gardens. This summer seems like it's been so busy, I believe this was my first visit since spring. No, Meijer Gardens does not have good diving, this was a chance to give my other hobby a chance. It was a beautiful day, but for some reason I just wasn't feeling it.

Lighting plays such an important part, in this case the sun was blasting away and I probably should have got an earlier start. Most of my shots look like they are getting hit with a laser beam, but on the positive, I did see quite a bit of wildlife. Turtles, frogs, dragonflies, ducks, geese and even a deer.

Had the most fun attempting cool bee shots. Fun is a loose term because it was next to impossible. I have to imagine child photography would work in much the same manor. See the action, focus on the spot, only as you press the button to take the picture not only does the subject move, but it disappears. Okay it's frustrating to have an out of focus subject, but it's embarrassing when the subject isn't even in the frame! In the picture below, the bee is actually sticking it's tongue out at me as I'm sure it knows I'm not even close to being able to focus on it.



That's why my favorite photo of the weekend is going to this one. First, it's a flower, although sometimes the wind can make it challenging, there's NEVER been a time when attempting to shoot a flower, did I completely miss it. The second reason, this shot involved teamwork. It really wasn't in the greatest spot, so Becca posed it for me. Take that nature! We can get creative too.

This is how I roll (make that dive)

Here's my gear:



My Primary Regulator



My Secondary



My Tank (Free advertising for my local dive shop) I did end up using the flash in these pictures, so the tank actually is a darker shade of blue. I completely intend on strapping a smaller pony tank on this one as a extra safety measure down the road and that tank is going to be maze ;) So yes, I'll be U of M underwater as well as above!



My BC from the left



My BC from the Right



My 1st stage, note the small knob on the right



My sweet computer! The knob in the previous picture is really the transmitter to this wrist mounted computer. Very cool to eliminate a hose, not to mention the features this computer has.

There's also lots of stuff not pictured: 7mm semidry wetsuit, hood, weights, underwater lights, and a small writing board...for telling Becca no, we aren't bringing that junk back with us!

The hardest part was deciding on the BC. In the end I decided to go with the Seaquest Pro QD with i3 Technology. It was difficult because I also liked Scubapro's Knighthawk. I'm sure I would be happy with either one, but in the end it came down to the pockets. For some reason (past history) I expect to be carrying all of Becca's stuff, so it makes the most sense. The i3 Technology is interesting, unlike any other BC out there, the inflation is done by the lever on the left side of the vest. If I do one thing, it's lots of research before any major purchase. There are people that like this and there are people that hate it. Divers seem like an interesting group, there are those that embrace technology changes and there are those that think anything new is bad. I say interesting because it seems like a thermocline split, it's one way or the other. Anyway, the major gripe seems to be in a emergency situation, somebody not familiar with the BC, may not know how to inflate or deflate it. The cool thing about my setup, because I don't have a traditional octopus secondary, my secondary works just as you would expect (or like every other BC out there). So, really I have three ways to inflate my BC, i3 lever, power inflator on my secondary, and finally I could manually inflate off my secondary if I had to.

My special treat is my computer. I did have to spend some extra time deciding on this as well. Just like everything I do, logic dictated my decision. Okay, well, maybe some personal want crept in the decision process as well. For the cost of a normal dive computer connected with a cable, it was easy to subtract that cost off this computer and make the price not seem as bad. I won't even lie, there's no doubt in my mind this computer is way more advanced then I'll probably ever be. But, that's the point. I want to grow into it, instead of the opposite of getting a cheaper computer and in two years be kicking myself for not getting this one. The one feature that I think will be awesome is I can get a second transmitter and put it on Becca's tank. Then it's possible for me to keep an eye on her air as well. I think we all know that once she sees a turtle, checking her air will be the last thing on her mind!

Oh, forgot to say why all the gear was needed, especially with summer almost over. It just makes sense to take the advanced class next and I can squeeze it in this summer. This class is shorter in duration then the beginning class and it takes place in the middle of August. It continues to improve the fundamentals, but it also will allow me to dive deeper. For that, instead of diving in the shallow Gull Lake, we end up going to a quarry for this class. Figured it just made sense to have my own gear so I didn't have to rent, plus with taking the class the dive shop really gives a great package deal. Plus, if you haven't noticed, I'm geeked about getting out there and exploring! I'm already predicting that next year will be lots of shipwreck diving.