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...