Rescue Diving

Who would of thought that becoming a rescue diver would require so little diving.  The course took three days.  Day one was classroom time.  It was not too terribly exciting.  We went back over all of the questions that we had to answer prior to class.  There were 5 chapters and 10 questions for each chapter.  In case anyone is mathematically challenged, that is 50 questions, each one with a short video segment from the Rescue Diver DVD to reiterate the answer.  Once we went through all the answers, we had a test, also 50 questions.  It was a standard multiple choice, true/false test.  The whole class combined only got three wrong.  We each could have gotten 12 wrong.  Obviously it was not a hard test.  The whole thing took about three hours.  

Day two was in the pool.  We practiced the skills we would need to use in the open water session.  The skills you learn during Rescue Diver include how to tow people who need help making it back to safety, how to bring an unconscious diver to the surface, how to stop a panicked diver from making an unsafe ascent, how to escape from a panicked diver, and my personal favorite how to ride a panicked divers tank so that they cannot get to you.  The pool water was nice and warm and clear.  That would not be the case for day three.

Day three was in Goose Creek.  It was a clear, windy, cold October day, I even wore a sweatshirt.  We started by going over our emergency contact numbers and the emergency action plan and how to perform an expanding square search pattern.  Then it was time to get in the water.  We had four scenarios that we had to go through.  Scenario one was an out of air simulation.  The hardest part of the scenario was finding the person who was going to be out of air.  As soon as you dropped below the surface, visibility dropped to less than a foot.  The only way to find them was swinging your arms around until you found an object, and hope it was the person you were looking for.  Scenario two was approaching a tired diver who turned panicky why you got there.  This one was on the surface so it was much easier to complete.  Scenario three turned out to be a mess.  We were supposed to locate a missing diver, who looked oddly like a bucket.  We were supposed to perform the expanding square to find the bucket.  It did not really work to well.  I could not see the compass to use a heading to make a 90 degree turn and could not see far enough to have any sort of orientation for turning.  After several failed attempts at an expanding square we tried a different approach.  We created a line by holding onto the octopus of the person next to us and swam forward.  Then spun, and headed back in the opposite direction.  We completed this pattern somewhat successfully, but swam right over the bucket without ever seeing it.  The last scenario was an unconscious diver at the surface.  

After completing all four scenarios, we went to the assistant instructors house to dry off and warm up.  The water temperature was a balmy 53 degrees.  One instructor was wearing a dry suit and I was wearing a 7 mm wetsuit with hood and gloves.  Overall, I spent less than half an hour underwater.  However, each scenario counts as a separate dive, so four dives in less than 1000 psi of air, talk about efficiency.  

What is the Date Again?

And I thought I just had a bad dream about Aliens.

Since my last post a few things have changed (other than now being an intergalactic traveller). I am soon to be an employee of Best Buy. This process required three separate interviews, a drug test and a background test. This is more hoops to jump through than Brittany getting a job with Watson Wyatt. That is not it either. I now have three weeks of training ahead of me starting on Sunday where Brittany only needed two. Moral of the story, it is harder to work at Best Buy than be an actuary.

I also postponed my Rescue Diver class by about a month. It will now take place on October 20, 22, and 25 so you will need to wait a little longer to read about being a Rescue Diver, sorry about that.

Finally, I submitted my registration form to Divearth to begin the final arrangements of my internship in Honduras. So if all goes according to plan I will plan on flying down on January 10th to begin my training to become a dive instructor.

Fall Begins

Although it may not feel like it everywhere, fall is beginning in Missouri. With the rain from Gustav, the temperature has dropped and this weekend my family did two things that help close out summer and begin fall.

The official close of summer for my family is the closing of Barney's Bar-B-Q. It is a restaurant that only opens on the weekend during summer. It closes this weekend and we went there twice to bring the summer to a close. The second night the owner's whole family was at dinner the same time we were. This is the family that hired me to firebreath last summer and it ended poorly. We had a good time reliving the experience and hearing about how the whole incident made me a hero. If you do not know what happened you can see the experience here.

The second event of the weekend was apple picking. This is another family tradition. We went up to Principia College to pick up my brother just to find out that he could not make it because of a survey. So my sister, dad, mom, and I went to Yate's Apple Orchard to pick apples. Last year they did not have very many apples at all and told us that whatever we could find we could take. This year the apple crop was much better. We picked a bushel and a half of apples and then went back to the college to get Michael for dinner. On the way back the Garmin led us in a new way that we had not driven before. On the way, I saw the place where I asked Brittany to go on a date with me, just one date that is all, and she denied me, shot me down right where I stood. We drove up to Pere Marquette for dinner where we had a family style dinner of fried chicken although it was the sides that made everyone happy. They brought out rolls at the beginning of dinner that they could not keep filled. They also had cole slaw, mashed potatoes and gravy, and green beans. And yes Brittany, I ate some green beans for you.

So now it is officially fall and I can smell the apples being baked already, apple pie and apple sauce.

Repulican National Convention

I watched the Republican National Convention this evening. I came in during Rudy Giuliani's speech. and stayed through voting for the Republican nomination. Governor Sarah Palin made a very strong speech. She had a good time making fun of Obama and promoting McCain. It was a speech that was very entertaining.

When they got to the point where they started the voting I was excited to hear Alaska give five votes to Ron Paul. If you don't know, one of my friends and roommates in college was a strong supporter of Ron Paul and was very vocal supporter whenever a political conversation came up, or really whenever he brought up politics. Since I got to hear all about Ron Paul all the time I became interested in his campaign. Hearing him get votes made me happy. Anyway, Alaska gave five votes to Ron Paul. Then voting continued for a long time. It made it to Montana and McCain was only 21 votes from clenching the nomination. Every single state and territory was called and passed so that Arizona had the right to cast the final votes to make McCain the nominee. As the rest of the states continued in their voting, a few states voted for other candidates. The lady responsible for repeating the vote counts must have been falling asleep. She regularly messed up in repeating the vote count. When all the votes were counted McCain obviously won, but I was disappointed when the final count did not match what was said by the delegates. They only awarded the 5 votes from Alaska to Ron Paul and 2 to Mitt Romney. I know for a fact that Ron Paul received 12 votes, Romney 2 and I missed where 4 votes went. If they felt it was important enough to cycle through all the states before going back to Arizona and wasting a lot of time, why do they not feel it is important to at least get the vote count correct. I know it is a minor detail but it is disturbing the poor math skills demonstrated with this vote. It is ok very shortly afterward there was a movement to make the vote unanimous. It was an oral vote, most people voted yes. When they asked if anyone opposed there was a very distinct no in the background. Followed by, "Then the vote is unanimous." I just think that it is funny since there was a loud no right before saying the vote was unanimous.

Anyway that is how the Republican National Convention voting process went this year.

I Visit Brittany

This weekend the tables were turned. Instead of Brittany flying in to visit me, I flew to Dallas to visit her. The plan was for her sister to pick her up at Dallas International then for her to pick me up later that day at Love Field. That was the plan until her flight was rerouted to Oklahoma City due to storms. So I ended up landing first and driving with her sister to Dallas International to pick up Brittany.

Saturday was spent relaxing. We went to Costco to eat lunch and free samples. After that we went to Dick's Sporting Goods so that Brittany could buy a tennis racket. Then we went home and spent more time relaxing. We ate dinner and played pitch. Phil and I beat Brittany and Courtney. We started out down two games to none and then came back and won three straight to take the series.

Sunday was the beginning of the much more active part of the weekend. We left at 7:30 in the morning to drive down to New Braunfels, Texas to go to Schlitterbahn, the largest water park in the United States. We made it there right around noon and started at Schlitterbahn West. This portion of the waterpark used only water from the local river. Fittingly, all the rides modeled fast flowing rivers with drops in them. We then went to the other side of the water park to Blastenhoff. This was a more convential water park. It had the most popular waterpark in America called the Master Blaster. It was not all that impressive, especially with over an hour in waiting. The best part of this side of the waterpark was the lazy river wave pool combination. It had a very strong current and big waves to play in. After the waterpark we went back to the Westin where we were staying for free dinner. Actually it was free hors'devours but it worked for dinner for us. After dinner we played pitch again. This time Brittany and I played against Courtney and Phil. Brittany and I were on our way to make a comeback when Brittany made a daring 4 bid that did not work out quite as well as she hoped. So we ended up losing game 5.

Monday morning Brittany got to use her new tennis racket. After tennis we went to the Comal River, rented tubes, and floated down the river. Very shortly after starting our float we found the best ride of the weekend. Whenever the river had little drops or waterfalls, they would build a chute to bypass the sudden drop. The water still had to fall the same distance, it just was spread out a little more. If we had more time, we would all have liked to ride that portion of the river a few more times. We continued down the river and had two more drops, not as good as the first but still exciting. We got off the river and started our drive home. We thought we could do it in under 4 hours, but it took almost 5 due to traffic and congestion most of the way home.

Unfortunately, I had to leave on Tuesday and Brittany had to go back to work so we did not have any time for more exciting adventures this weekend. So until next time.

New SCUBA Gear

Last night I went to Y-kiki Divers to buy all of my dive gear. I started looking at new dive gear while at home the week before going back to camp. I looked at ScubaPro, Oceanic, Mares, and Aqualung. There is a whole lot of different gear out there and it is expensive. I looked at three different dive shops in the St. Louis area. I decided on Y-kiki because it is the one that my parents have had the best experience with and they also were willing to throw in the next course in my quest to become a Dive Instructor so I will be taking O2 Provider and Rescue Diver with them.

The equipment that I bought was all Oceanic.

BC - Cruz


This BC has two features that are pretty common but I am really grateful to get to use. One of them is the alternate air source built into the inflator pump. This will allow me to leave the octopus at home when on fun dives. Whenever you go SCUBA diving you always have a primary air source and a backup one in case your buddy needs to breathe off of your tank for some reason. By having it attached to your inflator hose instead of independent, it eliminates the need of a hose coming from your tank and is one less thing to accidentally drag along the reef.

The other feature is an integrated weight system. After putting on all the gear needed for diving, you end up being positively buoyant which is not a good thing if you want to go to the bottom of the ocean. To remedy this problem, you add lead weight. If you do not have an integrated weight system, you put on a very stylish belt with lead weights positioned either on the hips or a little in front of them whichever is most comfortable. However, the weigths often slide to the position that they want. The integrated weight system means that there are pockets designed to hold weight eliminating the need to wear a belt. The weight stays in the same spot the whole dive and some of it can be placed near the tank to help trim you while under water.

Regulator - Delta 4
Octopus - Octo Swiv Mag

This regulator is the only regulator that NOAA allows their divers to use in water under 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Although I do not plan on doing much cold water diving, it goes to show the overall quality of the regulator. The first stage (the thing with all of the hoses attached to it) is environmentally sealed which is why it is able to be used in cold water. The second stage (what you breath from) has a swivel connected to it so that you can move your head without needing to pull and twist the whole hose making the regulator less tiring to use. I also have control over the ease of breathing so I can set it wherever I want based on the conditions.

The Octopus is the secondary regulator that I would need while teaching a class to PADI standards. It is bright yellow so it is easily found. It swivels and twists to allow for the most freedom in the event that it is necessary. Another cool feature of this octo is the mag part of the name. It comes with a magnet on a clip to connect to the BC. This is much easier to use then any other connection device on the market.

Computer - Atom 2.0

This watch is a dive computer that connects wirelessly to a transmitter on the tank. This system eliminates the need for another tube coming from the tank. It can gauge my air consumption rate and can calculate how much time I have left on my dive. It will display the time remaining based on air time left or non-decompression limits. The advantage for having a dive computer is that it can adjust for changes in depth where a dive table is set hard and fast. The person helping me at the dive shop said that he was able to go on a dive where he hit 130 feet and be done for one hour and ten minutes. He was not at 130 feet the whole time but on a dive chart he would only be allowed to be there for 10 minutes and then he would need to go to 15 feet for a safety stop. With the computer calculating in real time he had an extra hour.

Altogether I spent 4 weeks of working at Cedars to buy all the gear making this be far the largest purchase I have ever made. And now I have to wait almost one month before I get to try it all out during the rescue diver course.

Easist Job Search Ever

It was time for me to start looking for a way to earn some money while in St. Louis for the next few months. I decided that working for either Best Buy or Circuit City could be a good option since I like technology. So I got ready to go look for a job. I put on a collared shirt and some nicer shorts. I drove out to a shopping center that had both a Best Buy and a Circuit City. I saw Best Buy first and as I pulled into the parking lot, I saw a sign that said, "Now Hiring." I walked into the store and went to the customer service desk. I asked the lady working there for an application. She told me that I had to fill it out online. She then asked what my availability was and when I told her that I was flexible, she responded by informing me that she would have no problem fitting me into the schedule. I went home and filled out the application and based on what I was told, I have to imagine that getting hired will not be difficult. So I should have a job when I get back in town from my trip over Labor Day.