ok. so with some expertise from kato (unplug/replug the hub), my internet is up!
i guess i can now document my trip with pictures.
well. this may take a while, i might do it in spurts. but here i'll start.

took a private jet from paine field in everett to morristown, NJ. pretty awesome stuff. check out those huge windows. the shade goes down by the push of a button and comes down in between the two planes of glass.
that table had to be folded up for take-off and landing, but came out and had cup holders during the flight.

there was also a computer monitor that showed stuff like ETA and altitude, as well as other stuff. it had GPS, which of course, was rather accurate, as you can see the Green Bay peninsula area out the window as the wing of the plane covered it on the map.

the hangar was rather large, i guess it could fit three of the planes like the
G-4 that i flew in. there was also this badass helicopter just chilling in there as well.

well. i gotta head off to work and i haven't even begun to hit the sights i saw.
so i'll get back to that later.

as made clear by the last post, my sister made it home safely.
aint it grand?

i am a big tard who loses remotes after my ass sits on them and presses BUTTons.

so i finally made it home last night after that week long trip.
the realization that i'm actually once again living in my parents house is starting to sink in.
kinda depressing, but that'll just mean i'll have to push myself to get out and do stuff.

anyway. the trip was pretty cool, even if it was with my family. i'll post pictures when my computer gets hooked up to the internet, right now i'm using the communal one.

highlights of the trip were: NY city, Boston, Niagra Falls, Cooperstown (baseball hall of fame), Hannibal, Missouri (home of Mark Twain), the Badlands of South Dakota, Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Monument, Yellowstone and its fauna, and i guess thats about it, with maybe the exception of wazzu.

if i don't get around to posting a detailed description of the trip, you can check out my sister's blog. i haven't checked it out yet so i don't know what all it entails, but hopefully some of it is interesting. i know there's at least a link to the crazy horse website if you aren't sure exactly what that is.

so yeah. i had today off, but tomorrow i get to be reminded how shitty of a job i have. what's worse is that my boss hired new help, and in doing so gave them the morning shifts that i wanted. so its back to working til close at 10 o'clock.
dammit i need another job.

manuel hit on a striking point the other day when snorkeling. my job can be easily compared to a prison. my only prominent activities are reading or lifting weights. luckily i get to go home after a few hours, and i'm no man's bitch.
but even though it may be my temporary cage, social interactions can keep things lively, or at least somewhat interesting. that dickass that i talked about earlier: fucking up my swept pile, he's back in action. last week he was "on vacation" which just meant "no work". he'd still come in every day, he just happened to do even less work, which i didn't think was possible (however theres also the anamolie of my job). anyway, the chair i sit in at work has an adjustable back. its rusty and metal, but with the right adjustments which extends the back to its highest reach, the metal doesn't dig into my back.
yet what does this assclown do? he doesnt even bother to sit in it, he's too busy fraternizing with the clients. but inbetween visits, he has time to lower the chair's back to its lowest extent. all the while not using it, whereas i use it all shift. now, it wouldn't be so bad, but to raise or lower my pedestal, a wrench of some sort is required.
so during my absence, the punkass gets that wrench and wrenches it down. but for what purpose? is it nearly to fuck with me? or is that what the boss wants? why would the boss bother to worry about that when they can't even fucking figure out how to run their own business?
i think the dickweed is just toying with me. he also dumped a shitload of baking soda into the pool (which is normal if done weekly or so), but when he was done he shoved the bag, which is about the size of a cement bag into a large bucket that is the lifeguard stand trash. this trash could go unemptied for weeks if morons don't shove shit in that is larger than the trashcan itself!
just outside the pooldeck, there's a trashcan that's the size of those you see at fastfood places. why not deposit that sack there?

but hey, theres better shit at work than that. ive got my few regulars that i talk to daily. only a few cuz i cant stand having too many obligatory conversations in a day. i got about 3 going right now, and i don't know if i could take on many more. so other than Arturo, George Lucas, and my 17 year-old co-worker, i usually keep to myself, with a few side-conversations with some of the people i'm friendly with.

the others, the ones i don't interact with, but see damn near daily, i make up names for them since they aren't going to introduce themselves to me anyway. . .

what we got? the one i remember most vividly from today is Ned. now, Ned is not his real name, mind you. its just a name that i saw fitting. ned happens to have an artificial voice box, one of those mini microphone-looking things for those who were unfortunate enough to have a trachaeotomy. i remember him today because i went into the lockeroom to wash my hands. Ned happened to be on the other side of the partition and was playing with his voice box dealy-thing.
after about 20 seconds, he got the thing working, and his test run went a little something like this: "Goooooooood . . . Loooooooord". cracked my shit up. but i guess everyone wants to vocalize their emotions.

next, we got fat greek man. this guy has white hair, but is balding, somewhat like a monk's bald head, but without the hair around the forehead, like Mr. Burns'. however, this dude is hefty with a round belly. too boot, he has his gold chain with a round medallion. i think thats what seals the deal on the "greek" monicure.

who else? well, there's Thumper. this is an old woman, probably about 80, if not older. but she still gets her ass in that pool damn near every day, more power to her. but there's this one annoying thing about her. . . when she swims, she does the breast stroke move with her arms (outward sweeping motion), but with her legs she does the crawl stroke kick (think: kickboard kick). yet in reality, only one of those legs are really going: righty. and righty comes out of the water every other kick and makes a HUge splash preceeded by a THU-ump. yeah. so, hence Thumper.

there are others that aren't so exciting: caney (she's got a cane ;), fat guy who swims (a fat guy who swims), the shirt (a man whose chest/arm hair makes it look like he's still wearing a long-sleeved shirt in the pool), hotty mcHot (you all know her), fake breastisis (her nips are always out there), granny veracose (need i say more?), gorilla nips (a man a newborn could swing from), that guy and that milf who are constantly breaking up (meaning they don't come to the pool at the same time for given amounts of time), weird guy (he kinda shuffles his feet along the pooldeck, always keeping eye contact with it, and always asks for his fins when he's done using the hot tub and saunas), the librarian (this is an old, crouched, wrinkled, white-haired woman who always comes in with her long hair bunned, and wears her large-lensed glasses, with chain, into the pool. reminds me of your stereotypical librarian and is always asking me about books), the old white guy with the black grandkid (wtf?), powder (this is again, an old, pale guy, but he's completely bald, shaved, or no hair at all? anyway, everytime he swims he's got some white marks smeared on his face. i have no idea what it is, but i'm thinking some sort of moisturizer), fatty mcFat (hotty's arch nemesis, whose ass could equal three of hotty's whole body. her super power: shes UNSINKABLE!!), slapper (this guy may have a shitty swimming style, but i'll give him credit. he's gotta be at least 70 but is out there everyday for about an hour slowly slapping away at the water with his handpaddles), bag lady (she's got all kinds of crazy toys that she takes into the water with her. i guess its the balls-out, expensive way to do water aerobics. if only she knew how to swim. . .), jackass #1 and jackass #2 (somehow both of these guys are friends of the boss, and for some reason they both rub me the wrong way), and to end the list, but not exhaust it, theres the woman with the tard (this kid, maybe high school-aged, must have had polio or something. he's pigeon-toed, and always has one arm angled up, and has his head cocked. i've overheard him talking to his mother or friend, i dont know which, and he's actually very capable, mentally, and is probably somebody very interesting to talk to, which kinda makes me feel bad i call him a tard. its too bad i dont have an opener to talk to this guy. hm, i believe i may have talked about this kid before. so with that, i'll end my list.

its my own storyline, and i can invent whatever falacies i want. with some of the fiction books i've read, i've imagined the characters to look like people at the pool. in Slow River (author: i can't remember), the main character, a rich heiress, hooks up with some street-rat dyke. so of course i cast the part to the only shaved-headed woman who graces the facilities. she also seems somewhat weird, yet freakishly limber.

this is what happens when i run out of books.
luckily i jacked daVinci code from my dad.
something to look forward to tomorrow.
i'll most likely have george and arturo around tomorrow, but the 17 year-old co-worker will not be, and who knows about the rest of the regulars?
thank god for reading. lifting weights can only last so long. . .
boobies can only get so big . . .

so i guess i'd promised i'd write about this weeks dive.
let's see. went over to the eastside, my old hood, kirkland.
drove down market to where it deadends in downtown and jumped off the piers there around the argosy cruise. the water didn't seem as cold this time as it did the week before way down south. maybe it was more shallow or some shit, who knows.

so we dove around the piers, the same old shit, bottles and cans and just clap your hands.....
where its at!

uh yeah.
found some empty oyster shells, a blender, and some dirty undies of the male persuasion.
those we flung out of the water and onto the bow of the argosy ship. i think they appreciated it.

i guess there were two highlights of this trip. the bottom was dredged, so there wasn't a whole lot down there. so the exciting shit was actually just the toy that manuel brought.
it was a depth gauge. so we could actually see how far we were diving. i ganked the gauge from manuel and took it down to the bottom: 27 feet. it was actually pretty deep. something i'd probably have guestimated at 40 feet before we got our hands on this thing.

we went out a bit further and touching bottom the dial read 30 feet. very cool. did the dive in different spots around the area and came up again with exactly 30 feet. i guess that area doesn't get too much deeper. it was kinda disappointing because i think i could have gone at least another 10 feet, if not more. my ears weren't hurting at that depth after already clearing them like they were when we were back around seward park. so i'm still curious as to how far i can take that little bugger down. well. i guess it went to about 190, but if i didn't want to die, i guess i'd try for 40 or 50 feet.
so that was that.

the other highlight was the protector. i was looking to find a picture of it (my bad, this is the best i can do) and found this site that says its lease is up next month (oct). wonder what they'll do with it. send it to the penninsula like the klakalaka? or whatever the shit it was called. ok, i guess its kalakala. anyway, back to the story.

we got up to that big boat, fighting every huge wave the wind was throwing at us, and we dove down to see if the boat was really 14 feet under water, as told by its markings on the hull. yeah, so it was. but the interesting part was that the bottom tapered, as expected, but the very bottom flared out like a step parallel to the water's surface for about 3 or 4 feet, them curved back down to end in a flat base. i dont know if thats for added stability or to keep from tipping, or if thats even common in all boats that large. . .

around at the stern, i dove down to see the propellors, which i couldn't find. i guess a boat whose sole purpose is to prevent waves from crashing into smaller, docked boats doesn't really need propellors. although there was even a sign up on the lake side of the boat warning about propellors, so i was all sorts of confused. but while looking for the propellors underwater, you could hear the creaking of metal and water sloshing around. something that i only heard at the stern of the ship. it was a bit eerie. reminded me of noises you hear when watching documentaries about pearl harbor's USS Arizona, or sounds from a haunted ship, like the Queen Mary. i went back to the surface and was a bit more comforted when the noises ceased.

yet back on the lakeside, there was fun to be had. there were three sets of anchor lines heading diagonally off the ship and into the water. they went probably about 50 feet out and that damned 30 feet down. they were tethered to the ship probably about 20 or 30 feet out of the water. manuel and i vigorously tried to scale those fuckers and show we were true pirates in search of booty, but alas, swashbucklers we were not. however, i'm now certain that anyone who has climbed an anchor line in a movie is full of shit. ive been working out a bit at work, and granted i'm still a weakling, but i've done enough pull-ups to be proficient at it, but you just get to a certain point while climbing the line, where your weight on the line makes the angle too steep to climb up. i guess we need more practice. maybe if we weren't climbing in fins it would have been a different story, but i doubt it. so we both got maybe two thirds up a given line, then had to drop down about 8 feet into the water below. no harm done, other than a few calluses.

after we were done with the protector, we headed toward shore to the apartments sticking out over the water. nothing much there but seaweed. however, manuel did find a toilet and there were some long, cylindrical orange cones around. we found this long, thin piece of metal that maybe looked like a duct with one of the larger face pieces missing. we threw it around and got yelled at by one of the people living in the apartments. i guess he thought we jacked it, even though it was underwater 15 feet where nobody knew where it was. he had us put it on the dock so he could pick it up. we did that, and he just left it there. jackass. . . in his swanky apartment. . .

heading back to our starting point, along where there were some docks, we found a plastic patio chair, and at another, one of those foldable chairs with two seats, like the kind you find at REI, or the kind you jack from your landlady's daughter. anyway. both were slimy and green, but we graciously put them back up on their respective docks so people can once again enjoy them for sitting. or yeah. rather they probably just got kicked back down to their watery grave.

at the last dock we stopped at, i happened to come upon something glittering. diving down, i couldnt belive my eyes. paraphenalia for those that are herb-friendly. about 5 feet away from that: a full Sparks can. you know, that shit thats caffeine and alcohol mixed into a "yummy" concoction. i guess some punkass kids were enjoying themselves until they cops or other authorities showed. the stuff wasn't slimy at all, so it must have been recent. i wonder if i got to the stuff before they had the chance to. their loss.

that's pretty much the whole damn tale of that day. the only other thing is that my golfball collection went up by another 3. why the hell are those things everywhere? i guess its fun to not know where your ball lands. or maybe the thought that you don't have to clean up after yourself.
i'll never understand. . .

hey all.
forgot to write about last week's dive, so i guess i'll incorporate it into this post about this week's dive.
i guess i didn't bother last week cuz there really wasn't much to report.
we went down south of I-90 to the surrounding Seward park area.
basically a shitload of weeds is all we found with the expected usual selection of beer and soda bottles and cans.

we went around a boat dock area which we thought might have proved fruitful, but we were sadly mistaken. just more weeds. i dont know how the boats can really function in them.

under one dock close to shore, i did find 4 fish hanging out. 1 was a kind i'd seen before, and he actually led me to the other three. they all just ended up chilling with weeds to their back and right, the rocky man-made shore to their left, and me in front of them.

the 3 fish were cool-looking. kinda colorless but with a pink hue, and their back fins were spined with the webbing constricted between each spine to make it look like a wave pattern. and the fins themselves were of a darkish green color. very interesting fish.

anyway, the four of them "sat" there facing me, just checking me out. i did the same. somewhat of a mexican standoff. they were as curious about me as i was of them. one of the weird-colored ones came up to get a closer look at me. i let my hand stick out and bob however the water decided it to. the fish got within about 6 inches and stayed there. i made the mistake of reaching further, which sent him and the rest of his friends darting into the safety of the seaweed. oh well.

later on we finally got out of the seaweed and there was just the dirt lakebed with large boulders. found a couple crayfish hiding in between some.
swimming further, i found an anchor with a long rope attached. i was almost going to keep it, but it got lost. meh. what would i do with an anchor? i gots no boat.

the only truely interesting thing about this trip was the depth. i'd go down and clear my ears as usual, but when i'd get down to the lakebed, it would feel like i would have to clear my ears again. i didn't cuz the pain wasn't excruciating, but the point was, that it was deep enough to where i would need to again, i've never felt that before or since. i'm wishing i knew how deep that actually was.

well. other than that, i only added to my golfball collection by 2, and that ended the day.
i was going to put today's dive in this post here, but i'm going to head off to edmonds instead. i'll be sure to post about it though later.

i went to work yesterday to do some maintenence around the pool. i walk in and ask Rob what needs to be done (Rob is not really my boss, but my bosses put a lot of responsibility on him when they're not around, simply because he's probably been working there for 10 or more years). Rob was sweeping with a big push broom, so he hands it to me and says i can do that while he moves on to other things.

i make a fat pile of dirt that had accumulated over who knows how many years. but all i have is the pushbroom. so i set out to hunt down at least a dust pan, if not also a regular broom. the place is usually cluttered and in disarray, but during closure it was magnified tenfold. so i run around down stairs, nothing. hop on up to the upstairs, and i eventually find a dust pan. and as i'm going downstairs, i see the broom that the dust pan attaches to.

i get back to the pool deck only to find that Rob's other duties included using the power washer. i guess he got impatient with my rooting around up stairs becuase he just blew away the pile that i had created. shit went everywhere, onto the tarps that cover the pool. then i show up behind him, broom and dust pan in hand. what do you do in a retarded situation like that? i just threw down the dust pan and set the broom up against the wall. a somewhat silent protest, other than the clanging of the dust pan. my hot, 17 year old co-worker stood there watching. clearly in Rob's view, she'd throw her hands up in the air in disgust as he pushed more and more shit onto the pool. but Rob's used to uncomfortable situations so he kept power washing.

i couldn't stand watching it any longer, so i just walked off and let him do whatever the fuck he wanted. i was just kinda pissed because my girly hands couldn't hang with the broom and i got this fat blister at the base of my thumb. if Rob would have told me that he was just going to blow all the dirt and crap onto the pool, then i wouldn't have bothered to sweep like he had asked me to.

but i guess you can't ask for the smartest people when you're working at a pool. especially with people who have made it their career. i guess the guy used to be a pharmacist, but i can't see that. why would you give it up? maybe he got laughed out of the business.