No shit! Drinking alcohol can make me drunk? Guess I shouldnt do that anymore.

A day in the shop, finally.

An endcap is born. More when i get home.

Blogging mobile style baby!

Now i can post to the blog from anywhere. Oh the possibilities!

MISSION: Buford

Looks like this weekend is a scouting mission to find Buford Spring. Buford is a small, pristine sinkhole hidden in the marshes of the Chassahowitzka Wildlife Management Area. Being as it is about 5 miles back into the wilds and has at best a dirt road leading to it, the site is not heavily trafficked and remains in its wild state. I plan on making the trek along with Gibby and Robbie, who has a truck brutal enough to get us all there. Perhaps we will bring snorkels or a small tank and do some submerged recon as well. Mostly we hope to get some accurate GPS readings and take a look at what it would take to put in a walkway, like at the Eagle's Nest. Eagles Nest is a large, deep cave system which is WAY beyond my current skills, training or confidence.
More to come this weekend... hopefully lots of pictures.

Candi..... chocolate and cheese!

BRILLIANT!! As if singing about it, or even naming an entire album after it, werent enough of a tribute to the combo. A New Zealand company has begun marketing chocolate flavored cheese slices. And apparently doing pretty well too. Unfortunately, its only available in Taiwan currently. But if you follow the Slashfood link there is a link to the University of Michigan Dairy Store(?) where you can get something like it. Or take the homebrew method and follow Paula Dean's recipe for cheese fudge, made from cocoa, powdered sugar and (wait for it) Velveeta. Mmmmm, cant wait.
And at last, a way to combine two of my passions, cheese and diving. What's next? Beer ice cream? I need to break out the ice cream machine and fire out my own recipe for Guinness Ice Cream with Dark Chocolate SauceTM.

NEWSFLASH: Dry ice is fun. RC submarines rule.

As I left work today, somebody said "Hey, want some dry ice?", indicating a 2 cubic foot box at his feet. I said "Seriously, you dont need it?" which seemed to confuse him because I think he was just kidding when he offered it, guess he was gonna throw it out. So I said "Hell yeah, I'll take it" he asked what I would use it for, to which I replied "I dont know but it'll be cool whatever it is". And off I went, happily carrying home the 10 pounds or so of frozen CO2.

Lets just say that dogs dont like the sight of a room filling with thick, ground clinging fog.

So after I wasted most of it just making things smoke, I found this. Which by the way, came from hackaday, one of my fave websites and basically my reason for starting this blog. Go see all their other hack goodness sometime.

And per Wazoo's request that after I perfect my video housing I add some sort of guidance system to it, I present this link. Also from another great blog, Divester.

DUDE! Everybody should have one of these.

This guy built his own flamethrower, then went out in the street to test it! I'm sure the folks in my neighborhood would just love it if I did that. But then again, what do you say to a guy holding a fucking flamethrower?? I know I could build it, I doubt I could ever use it. Its basically the same thing as a confetti cannon I once constructed for a certain stage act, but instead of shooting out paper, it shoots denatured alcohol. Yummy. I think I would have added a thickening agent to make the alcohol a little more viscous and clingy. Someone please stop me before I do something bad.

In other constructive/destructive news, I found two really cool and over the top websites all about spudguns, or as I always knew them, "potato cannons". These guys have taken it way beyond my length of PVC and can of Aqua Net. Of course these are intended for safe and responsible use in an area away from people and animals. And you should NEVER use a spudgun to launch a projectile intended as a weapon. Now why would I want to do that???
Give www.spudtech.com and www.advancedspuds.com a look-see for all the fantastic details.

I think once I'm done with the camera housing project I will use some of my accumulated PVC pipe and glue to make one or both of these devices.

Also check out onlineconversion.com for any kind of unit conversions you may find necessary in completing a project.

As a side note, as much as I love wrong tshirts, if I find the person responsible for this shirt design I intend to punch him/her squarely in the mouth.

Lathe? We dont need no steenkin' lathe!

All it took was a little creative tool use, oh, and willing suspension of the fear of losing an eye. I managed to coaxe these two beauties out of the piece of 1 inch thick acrylic I picked up last week from Farco Plastics. These will eventually be the cylinder end caps for my video camera housing. They look like they would stop a bullet, I'm pretty sure they will hold up deeper than I plan on diving. At least if I drown the camera will record it all the way to the bottom for later examination....

DROP WHAT YOURE DOING RIGHT NOW!

And go see this movie, twice.

Finally a movie that is entertaining, scary, inventive, and believe-it-or-not, ORIGINAL. What a fucking concept. Its pretty much the only thing this summer that isnt a remake, sequel, or copycat of something else.
I got everything I expected out of this film. It looks and feels like the late 70s horror flicks when they knew how to make a spook movie. Has the same shot-on-film with no budget feel as the original Dawn of the Dead.
All of the requisite horror ingredients are there: violence, bloodshed, profanity, random violence, alcohol abuse, crude humor, violence, death, sadism, voyuerism, abject violence, and of course, Sheri Moon Zombie.

God I could just stare at the crack of her ass all day.

Thank you Rob, and fuck you Rob.

No, really. I think I know what I'm doing.

So I went to Crystal River for more dive classes this weekend. I went up to complete my required two dives with an instructor to get my Nitrox certification. Also I was working for Cpt. John as a second crew hand. Which basically meant I reviewed the tests and helped teach the skills while John supervised to make sure everything was on the up and up.

I was joined by two of my co-workers, one is certified and the other along with his wife, are getting first time certified. Thanks to my ever-prepared planning skills, they had all of five days to get ready for their class and checkout dives. Needless to say I was worried about their skill levels and more importantly, safety.
It turns out my concerns were not unfounded, as on the second day Jerry learned a hard lesson about diving. You cant breathe underwater.

I was charged by John with the responsibility of taking the class back to the Three Sisters springs and teaching them a few skills: breathing without a mask, replacing and clearing your mask, and an Emergency Swimming Ascent. So I go back and we go through most of it in 10 minutes or so. I take each diver down to 12 or 15 feet, have them take a deep breath, then remove their regulator and swim to the surface.
So I take Jerry down when its his turn, and signal him to proceed. He takes the reg out of his mouth, looks around for a second, then realizes his lungs are near empty. I see the look of panic in his eyes as he frantically (and unsuccessfully) tries to recover his mouthpiece. Something I thought we had already covered, but I digress. I immediately realize it is tangled and he cant get it into his mouth so I swim for him, offering up my own primary regulator. In his panic he doesnt even notice and I see him look skyward. "Here he goes" says my inner voice, and sure enough he takes off for the surface. Granted this is the ultimate goal, but at a more controlled pace. Lucky we were in shallow water.

In short, I got to practice my Rescue Diver skills in a real world setting this weekend. Special thanks to John for telling me after the fact that the students dont really need to spit out their reg, just not breathe from it.

On the positive side I got my Nitrox certification finished, and got to use my new Nitek dive computer on a few dives. Yippeee, watch out grouper.

Post full of links

Okay, havent posted in a few days. The usual 13 hour mondays and tuesdays put a damper on computer time. So here are a few cool links so I can at least say I checked in.

• Google on the MOON. OK, I don't know if this is for real or not, but if it is I so wish that I was a database programmer super-genius or something.
  
• This is the coolest home theater addition EVER. Since its already sold I guess I'll just have to break out the jigsaw next weekend and make my own (no time this weekend, getting my Nitrox certification).
• I got in my new stainless steel internal spring compression latches part# 1794A43 (whew!) from McMaster-Carr, these will make great closures for the LIH v1.5 which I hope will surpass the 45 foot mark set by the v1.0
• Grand Wazoo apparently made it onto the Orlando local newscast the other day for smashing the shit out of this window. Must have been a scary sight to see his ogrish ass pounding away at it with a baseball bat. Footage to follow...
• After seeing the pictures on this website, I think Alexander springs will be the next planned springs dive. So beautiful..
• oh, and I almost forgot TinyApps a great site full of small, simple, functional an non-intrusive software. Some great alternatives to the usual bloated Micro$oft progs.

Okay, thats all for now. Time to go guzzle some PBR and munch down on some of Ya-Ya's eggplant parmesan. MMMMMMM....

Ginnie Springs Outdoors report

We spent all day yesterday at (or driving to) Ginnie Springs. I got kind of lost along the way... It was our first time there and we had no idea what to expect. The place is like Livestock every weekend! I knew it was somewhat of a party spot being that it is on private land and they allow alcohol. But I had not anticipated the huge college crowd from Gainesville, since school is still out for the summer.

The springs were great and I got some good clear video looking into the caverns. Too bad its all shakier than an epileptic in a haunted house. I also forgot the remote for the camera at home so I was filming everything in 10x zoom. Too bad, but the housing did hold up down to about 35 feet without a leak.

The tube ride at Ginnie was nice cause the river is warmer than the springs, but kinda short at about an hour to ride downstream. The place looks like it would be a lot of fun if we went back better prepared and spent the night so we could spend more time there and less in the car.

OK, something other than camera projects

How bout some links?

Crazy creepy ass video looks like some weird UFO conspiracy vid at first but keep watching
This is even better than those HP printer commercials with the picture book song
I might have to run right out and do this to my computer this weekend.
eMachineShop has to be the coolest thing to order online since pizza
and finally a link borrowed from my favorite blog, hackaday.com Have fun Bush haters!

Wow, only $1,999 ??

I know its getting old at this point but here is a Sony housing that really will go deep enough (246 feet) to be useful for diving. And you can use most of the basic controls on it as well. Too bad its almost $2000

Housing ready for final wet test

Here it is, painted up all pretty-like. The housing is finished, with a fresh coat of marine yellow, a retaining clip,and some ballast in the handles to make it float level. Tomorrow we are going to Ginnie Springs and I can test to see if it makes it to the 33 foot mark.

I found out today that Sony actually makes an 'official' housing for my camera, they want $280 for it and it only goes to 16 feet. and for another $700 you can get the light and mounting arm that go with it. Wow, what a deal, only $1000 to take a $400 camera down to 16 feet.
Mine costs about $25 so far and when I add one of Gibby's lights the total will still only be up to about $100.

Tomorrow is also the Dive-Rite tryout day at Ginnie, where you get to mess around with all the cool new gear. I dont think I'll get to do any of that since we're gonna be tubing not diving or snorkling.

It works! Down to 8.5 feet at least.

The second attempt at the Low Income Housing Project has succeeded. Today I was able to wet test the housing with the camera in it. Of course I checked it well without the camera first. Absolutely no leaks, and the housing was opened and closed twice during testing so the seal is repeatable. So far I have only tested in the pool so the maximum depth rating at this point is 8.5 feet.

Lets call it the LIH85 for now, 85 sounds better than 8.5 dont you think? If it makes it to 33 feet it gets to be the LIH330

Link to a short video clip here

More to come . . .

Low income housing project floods..

This is what I get for rushing something. Instead of using UHU or aquarium sealant on the front window of the housing, I used 60 second epoxy. Why? Because I couldnt wait to get in the pool and test it out today. Where did that get me? Nowhere.

I put it in the water and was happy to see it float nicely and seemed to be sealed up real tight. The part I was most concerned about, the test plug, was holding just fine. So I put on my mask and snorkel and took the housing down to 8 feet. Well about 6 feet down I saw it, a thin line of water running down the front window. By the time I got to the bottom of the pool, there was 2 inches of water in the housing. So much for that.

Back home I go to try another solvent-weld type of adhesive. More in days to come.

Low income housing, part I

I finally got the parts together to get started on my underwater video housing. Until I can part with enough cash to buy the fancy clear acrylic tube, I will be using regular 4 inch PVC water pipe. Here are the basic components waiting to be assembled. More on this after I put it together, when its done I will include a detailed version of the assembly process.

now entering blogosphere...

Well, I guess to be a geek these days you have to keep a blog, so here goes. Not that I really have anything to write about, but then again I doubt that 99% of the blogs out there are worth reading, even by their authors.
Over the next few days, I will try to retroactively add anything I've already done worth blogging about. So anything you see below here was added AFTER this post, and this is actually MY FIRST POST. Now we'll see how diligent I can be about updating this regularly. If you know me you know that probably won't last for long...

I think we're gonna need a bigger boat...

Well, just when we were starting to think about getting out into the Gulf for some spearfishing, Gibby sends me this picture. It is from an article on TBO about a guy who caught a Great White shark while out grouper fishing. Oh great, go out for grouper and end up with an 8 foot shark. I dont think I would want to run into this guy while I was at 80 feet with a couple dead grouper tied to my waist. Maybe its time to invest in one of those 44 caliber bang sticks ;)

Last hike in VT before going home

We squeezed in two short hours of hiking again today, we leave for home tomorrow morning. Went over to Grafton Village Cheese Co and started hiking from the lodge at Windham Ponds up the mountain bike trails. This seemed like a better idea today since we are limited on time and dont want a repeat of the other day when we wandered around for hours trying to get out of the woods. The trails were a tough walk and would absolutely kick your ass on a bike. This photo was taken at a fallen tree we found wedged in between 5 or 6 other trees. We also came across a cool little miniature log cabin with a wood stove inside. In the winter the trails are used for cross country skiing and snowshoeing, and you can stop off in the cabin and warm up to a fire if its really cold.

Went by the cheese company on the way out and picked up several varieties of their cheddar to bring home for our 'wine and cheese' parties. Between that and the import varieties I got at the co-op I feel bad for whomever sits near me on the flight home.

Went hiking in Vermont today

Well its our first full day in Vermont so Melanie and I went for a hike up a big hill on the opposite side of the Saxton's River from Granny and Pops' house. We started out just following a footpath, which led us to a dirt road. After following the dirt road for a while we found another road with a gate across it and went that way. We ended up way around the other side of the hill on someones hunting property. We found a little camp shack, and some beaver dams along the trail. I would have to say that if it wasnt for the GPS unit we might have been out there longer than we wanted to. As it was we ended walking home about 2 miles on the side of the road from where we finally emerged from the woods.

Classy Diving II

Diving King's Spring with Open Water students again... Went to Crystal River with Gibby again, he had a half class of new students and brought his nephew along too. We took off on our own so I could show him through the cavern while Gibby and Capt. John did compass exercises with the students. Had a nice time, but it's definitely time to start getting into the Gulf and out of the rivers for the summer.

Classy Diving

I went diving for the first time in 10 or 11 years this weekend. My friend Gibby has been assisting with PADI open water certification classes in Crystal River. He got me to go along for a refresher course. I was pretty surprised how I remembered everything once we actually started doing it. On Sunday we dove King's Spring and I passed through the small cavern there at about 45 feet with no apprehension or worries at all. Still trying to get better control over my bouyancy, but hey, what diver isnt? Hopefully this will lead to a summer full of diving and spearfishing.