ECU

is this for real?

i've been emailing back and forth (ok twice each way), with Nathan Richards of ECU.
you can see my links to him in previous posts.

in his last email it ends with:

Anyway Travis, I am happy to help you out – let me know if I haven’t answered all of your questions. Keep an eye on the ECU website – it will be going through more changes soon – changes that will hopefully make you apply to us!

so is it really this easy? you just show some interest in a person and they, in turn, show interest in you?!
fuck! if i actually got my ass in gear, could i apply to ECU this year?
the only thing i really worry about (other than GRE scores) is the fact that you need those 3 references from previous professors.
if i were them, i would have kept my previous letters just in case my students needed another reference on the chance that they didn't make it in anywhere.
maybe i should check out deadlines for ECU (and vanderbilt while i'm at it), then i can see if it would be worth my while to go visit UW again and talk to the professors who gave my references the last time around.

lots of work, but it'd be worth it!

yoda

yoda, bitches.

happy halloween.

damn!

HOLY FUCKBALLS!#$@

i was considering a field school in southern Australia next summer.
down in Adelaide for some good ol' underwater archaeology.
the cost of the field school is roughly $1700.
fine.

now, let's get my ass over there.
oh, that'll be another $2100+ on top of that!

uh. let's try something that isn't on the opposite side of the globe.
Lima, Peru: $850. still kinda rape, but more doable.
now if i could only find a school there.
Lake Titicaca anyone?

vanderbilt

ok ok ok ok.

i think i've finally got it!

Francisco Estrada Belli

is a name that i need to remember!

this man works over at vanderbilt university, which unfortunately happens to be located in Nashville, Tennessee, BUT he not only works with mayan archaeology, he also dabbles in underwater archaeology!!!
i'm kinda confused how he can keep up with his diving since he's in fucking Nashville (i'm sure it's not his top priority), but nonetheless, it's the first time i've found anyone who deals with these two issues.

i have to thank my fred's coworker, Jemma, an aspiring lawyer, who mentioned the want to go to vanderbilt which re-inspired my search at this locale.

before, i had only looked at the university because it harbors the god-like archaeologist, Tom Dillehay (third down): excavator of the infamous and controversial 12,500 year-old Monte Verde site in southern Chile, as well as the author of a book that i read a while back: The Settlement of the Americas.

to work with both these people would be like being in a dream.
this kinda makes me want to take the GREs again (after studying for them) and put some effort into essays and such.

dammit. this is a smart school!
this aint no UAA (anchorage, AK).

time to get my ass in gear.
i wonder why i had no problem emailing the ECU guy, Nathan Richards, but would rather piss my pants before contacting this Dr. Francisco.
i recoil with anxiety when i see something i really want.

maybe that's why i have troubles with girls...

spelunking

i kinda want to do this.
anyone interested?
not sure about the cost other than the $5 rental.
seems like guided tours go for about $50.

and why does it seem like there's a crapload of caves in BC, but only 3 in Washington?
although i guess most are in the northern part of Vancouver Island.
...probably a combination of the fact that there's limestone rock and uplifting due to Juan de Fuca's subductionwhich creates underwater rivers and hence these caves.

halloween

Last night was pretty good.
Aaron and Manuel had a halloween party.

i showed up as someone from the Zissou team from the movie Life Aquatic.
it was a good time.
i got to be a little crazy and see some friends.
here's the rest of my pictures from the night.

Manuel took a ton more than i did.
i especially like aaron scratching that the window and dan's light saber.

all in all a good night.
i think i strained an inner thigh muscle, but other than that, what a beautiful night.
powerbombs and dogpiles got nothing on me.

incident

there was actually an incident at the pool last night.

there was a pool party with a dozen small children (maybe 7 - 9 years of age).
i was actually out on the deck for the entire hour, but i would get distracted, talking to people like arturo.

at 7 o'clock, everyone hops out of the pool and into their respective locker room.
i thought, "that was way too easy, usually the kids have to get yelled at for at least 5 minutes before they get out."

come to find out, one girl didn't head straight for the locker room.
she was holding her head and sobbing.
a parent was at her side looking somewhat frantic.

he asked for a first aid kit.
i busted ours out, and grabbed some gauze for her head.
it was bleeding pretty heavily, but with any head wound right at the hairline, that's going to happen.

but what had transpired was that one of the kids in the pool thought it would be a good idea to throw one of the rubber 2-pound weights around in a conjested area of the pool.
she got smacked and everyone booked.

one of the dads seemed to know what he was doing, so i let him take over.
i mean, really, what can you do other than clean up the wound and apply pressure and wait for bleeding to cease? that's what he did. he just looked more professional cuz i got him latex gloves to wear. i found some ice in our freezer as well, and we applied that for a bit.

the pool actually came through in an emergency. i was thoroughly shocked!
however, the next time an incident rolls around, i bet they're going to be short stocked on gauze.
i mentioned they should get some. we'll see how that goes.

as for the girl, she handled it rather well. yeah, she was sobbing for a while and choking on tears, but after a while she calmed down and was coherent enough to give phone numbers to call parents.
she said she wanted to go home, but i think the other girls who were showing the deepest compassion, convinced her to stick around for a while.
the girl's mother did eventually come, but i didn't happen to see if they left early.

(and i love this part.)

later on, one of the 7 - 9 year-old girls picked up a random weight that looked like the one that could have been the weapon of choice for whoever the marksman was, and brought it to the front desk. she complained that we should not have stocked the pool with such weights.
well. my rationality, is that if you know this, why the hell were you throwing it in the first place?
this is why people suck.
instead of blaming themselves or one of their friends, the blame is transferred to the object, and thus the owner of the object, the pool.
kids at that age should be well enough away of the consequences of throwing weights across a pool. this is why we also supply the pool with ample amounts of balls.

but there's always gotta be some fucktard that isn't strong enough to confront their friend or take the blame for themselves so they blame whoever is the most convenient and most removed from them.
fuck that. people are stupid and the courts thrive on that.
mcdonald's: your dumbass spilled your own coffee.
you paid for it, it's now yours. it didn't malfunction. you did.
gah. idiots!

trilink

man, i've been meaning to post, but i just haven't gotten around to it.
i guess you could say i've been busy. i don't really know if it's the truth or not.

anyway.
the majority of my posts just seem to be links to flickr, and tonight is no different.
except for the quantity of links.

first off,
i hung out at the pool with a coworker that doesn't work at the pool.
good times were had. no one drowned. and i had good company.

second.
my Ohioan pit partner, Will, from my Alaskan dig at Broken Mammoth sent me some pictures today.
I thought i'd share them all with you, so i put them up.
i put them in a set, but i mixed them in with the ones from way back when.
so this link should make it easier to find.

finally,
i went diving yet again today. my 4th tuesday in a row!
once again, i ditched the camera, but it was still a cool dive.
and i still took pictures.
i'm starting to get the hang of the whole bouyancy thing:
let air in as you're going down, let air out as you're coming up.

i'm still having issues with kicking up silt, but i think i'm getting a lot better.
it's my major focus now.
any slight turbulence will leave a fat trail behind you.
the easiest way to get around that is to leave a buffer between you and the ground, say 5 feet.
but really. what's the fun in that?
my whole reasoning to get into scuba is to poke and prod everything that lies beneath.
so i just have to go the more difficult route and learn to keep my knees bent and legs up.
you can do a frog kick in this position that propels you fairly nicely.
Cory showed me the 4 kicks today. there's one that supposedly makes you go backward.
when i tried it, i went no where.
meh. more practice.

but goddamn i'm so much better than even the last dive i went on.
i can somewhat hover, i can travel in a straight line, my arms don't flail as flagrantly as they used to. it's my baby step for this underwater environment to become second nature.
i bet the classes i take in mid november will really accelerate the process.

now i really want to buy shit. Cory is selling me some steel tanks, which are better than the aluminum that i have in that they never go negatively buoyant (make you float) as you lose air.
when you wear aluminum, you have to tack on 6 extra pounds. when steel tanks are empty, they're neutrally buoyant (neither sink nor float).
you also get more compressed air from the tank 700 vs 800 cubic feet.
i can't see where i can go wrong in buying these.
of course he's selling them at a fair price, but that makes my life easier so i don't have to go out and search for tanks.
it's one less thing on the list.
we've still got: compass, dry suit, new first stage, badass light.
well, i guess that's it for now until i get into the nitrox and argon and tech diving.
either way, i'm having fun.

today i saw another 2-foot purple sea cucumber.
i came upon it then had to go and catch up to Cory.
so i fluttered my hands around to get some backward momentum, which totally launched the poor sea cucumber!
the current from my hands caught him and tossed him a good ten feet.
they're soft and squishy, so i bet the landing wasn't all that hard.

we checked out the train wheels again, and went back to those anenome-ridden logs.
we went to a place when even more anenomes this time though! where there were logs that were hatchmarked like a number sign "#", and white anenomes (with the occasional splash of orange) covered every square inch of those logs.
THAT was an anenome forest.

we made our way back to the Sunbear. the sunken tug boat that harbored the octopus on my first dive.
this time when we checked underneath, there was a very LARGE purple fish.
this was probably the largest thing i've seen underwater beside the octopus, which i really didn't get to see to its full extent.
this purple monster at first looked like pictures of wolf eels i had seen from tacoma, but then i realized this thing had fins like a fish.
it was at least 3 feet long and dark purple.
to begin with, it was just chilling under the bow of the sunken boat.
Cory shone his light on it.
for a moment it just sat there.
then, it opened its eyes.
it felt like a scene from jurassic park. reptilian eyes opening up to the world to see whetherthe appropriate response to the disturbance is to flee or attack.
the fish pondered it for a while.
he did a 180 showing his massive size and length.
his tactics worked.
somehow when struggling before with that backward kick, it instinctually kicked in through fear.
I looked over to Cory.
he made a motion with his hand. he had the top four fingers coming down to meet his thumb like a mouth.
then he continued to make that motion until he was clamping down on his opposite forearm.
ok. the thing bites.
i won't ask questions, let's go.

just prior to this i foolishly thought that i had conquered my fear of what presented itself in this underwater world. i had run into dungeness and kelp crabs, zealously annoying them with gentle jabs as they reared up to face a giant that they could do nothing against.
their best defense was to find a corner to back into and poise with claws ready to strike.
by that point, they were no longer easily accessible to prod, which left them to win that round.
i also came across a GIANT ling cod.
the one in the photo there was maybe a foot long, but the one i came upon was nearly 3 feet long.
it had the same reaction, where it was resting/sleeping until it felt my disturbance.
it opened it's eyes and focused in on me.
i really don't know how to describe the intensity of that moment.
it's almost like you get to see the confusion and cognitive workings of the fish's mind all in a few seconds time when its eyes open and meet yours.
after processing your unusual form it reacts.
this time, the cod decided to just flutter away.
nothing quick. it just didn't want to hang around and be disturbed or wait for possible harm.
but talk about dinosauric! that thing looks like a dimetrodon with its jagged dorsal fin.
it's slightly unnerving.
but for some reason, this guy didn't seem as frightening as the other purple fish.
i think maybe because the purple one seemed to be more lurking, whereas the ling cod was out in the open and laying exposed.
also, like with the crabs, animals tend to be much more aggressive when they're backed into a corner.
if the ling cod wanted, he could have easily shot off in any direction, whereas this purple monster had no where to go.

i forgot to check the water temperature again, but we i do know that we made it down to 65 feet.
nothing too big. this time i think Cory wanted me to experience the longer dive rather than the deeper dive.
this time around we were in the water for 45 minutes, whereas before we generally called it quits after a half hour.

good times were had and everyone lived.
that makes for a good day.

i have one more dive i can get in before Cory goes in for knee surgury on November 10th.
I'll miss that guy. maybe i'll get him something for all his troubles.

today

today i taught myself to juggle and was called an "ugly white boy" in ethiopian.
top it off with a hamster on the face and we'll call it a good night.

New Orleans

i was looking for underwater archaeological opportunities and came across this site.

i don't know when they took the photo, but really nothing seems to be in too much of disarray.
all i could find was if you zoom way in on the Municipal Yacht Harbor
and then switch back and forth from the satellite or hybrid button to the deathly red Katrina button, things fall apart.

i mean, BP's emailed seemed to say he was doing OK.

Alki III.2

this is all i have to show for my dive. i tacked that and other picture of the claw to the Alki II set.

I had complete scallop shells, a complete crab carapace (top half of its body), and an even larger claw.
but misunderstandings are easy to come by underwater, so i thought that Cory was telling me to leave all this crap behind, when he was actually just wanting me to tuck it into my wet suit.
this is the only one he did for me.
the rest were sadly left behind.

I remember back when I went to tahiti, I found a perfect purple sea urchin shell that I kept on a shelf near my door.
However, it got bumped and knocked down, shattering to pieces.
Sea life seems to be so fragile out of water.
I wonder how long this claw will last.

Alki III

i went and dove at Alki again yesterday.
i took keith along for the ride. he dropped his car off at his parents, and we were going to be hanging out in Seattle for the duration of his stay in this here state of Washington, so he came along to the dive site.
he got a picture of me all suited up. maybe i can snag that from him and post it (hint, hint. wink, wink.)

so this time i went down with Cory sans camera. it was kind of sad, but in other respects, it seemed to open up a new world.
beforehand i was always concerned with my camera, but this time around i was free to be much more tactile than usual.
i poked at the fatty sunstars, i pet the crabs.
apparently the crabs only get mildy perturbed when you touch their ass (which is what i did), but they rear up when you throw your hand in their face like what Cory was doing.
i like that defensive response of theirs better.

another difference without the camera was that i got a closer look at things.
before i had to keep a distance to get a good shot, but this time i could be right on top of the subject in question.
it was almost like being at the petting portion of the aquarium rather than having the inches thick plexiglass between you and your curiosity of the creatures.

this time, two other people came with us, but quickly went and did their own thing.
we met them at the bottom around 30 or 40 feet down.
one of them had brought a dead fish in a bag.
when we got to a wood/metal(?) board that had apparently been down there for many years, he took the fish out of the bag and shoved it under the 6" area beneath the leaning board.
as to whether there was an octopus or something down there, i have no clue. i didn't ask.
and you can't really ask questions underwater anyway.
the odd thing was that they didn't really stick around to see if anything was going to devour the fish.
Cory and I stayed around the longest. He actually shoved the fish in further than it already was.

After that episode of our dive, Cory took me deeper.
without always looking for good shots to take, i was able to focus more on our depth.
i remember this set of wheels from my last dive. apparently that's down at just about 60 feet.
that's about how far we went last time.
but this time, we ventured further.
beyond this, the scenery got very dull. i'd seen many a views like this in the lake.
just barren, nothing but dirt and maybe a pebble here and there.

we came upon a HUGE sunstar like the one pictured above. Cory shone his light on it.
cool. it glowed a pretty orange, almost like those small rave glow-sticks, with a luster of what it looks like when you shine a flashlight through your hand in complete darkness.

after doing this, Cory picked the thing up and we dragged it north to a rock pile.
(sidenote: for some reason, in open spaces i am awesome with my orientation, but get me in a building, like a mall or its parking garage, and i'm totally lost.)

the base of the rock pile was 85 feet down! that's a new record for my deepest dive!
acsending the rock pile (which sounds kinda weird cuz it's not really climbing, you just float up) i got a bit of a scare.
lying amongst the rocks are these orange-spiked purple arms that looked like they were coming out from under the rocks. an octopus!?!
no. after a few seconds of investigation my heart got to rest.
these 2 foot long "arms" were not connected to anything even more scary looking, they were their own entity.
i believe they were sea cucumbers.
the one in that picture though is a little shit and way less turgid than the ones that i came upon.
it's spikes are wilted and limp, the things i came upon were full of life and very intimidating.
the things were also easily twice the size of the one being held.

since i've written a lot since i mentioned it, you may have forgotten that Cory was still carrying a large sunstar when we came upon this rock pile.
so what did he do? he tossed the sunstar atop the, at least, half a dozen sea cucumbers.
i've never seen anything so closely resembling a turd not move like one!
those fuckers darted in any direction that was not the sunstar.
the sunstars underside feelers were going crazy, elongating to almost an inch searching for a slow cuc, but finding none.
one of the cucumbers rapidly inched its way in my direction.
Cory motioned to pick it up.
i didn't want to hurt the thing, so i was attempting to be delicate, which is hard with 5mm gloves on.
but you touch the thing and it's like there's no substance to it all. you could easily touch your fingers together if you wanted.
i may have, but couldn't really tell with the gloves.
so i picked the thing up and held it at either end.
these sea cucumbers also had thousands of tiny feelers on its underside. so that's how it hovered across the bottom of the Sound...
held up like an offering, it easily stretched to its 2.5 foot extent while Cory shone his light on it.
a very odd experience.
when i got bored with checking out its thousands of feelers, i wanted to put it down.
i let go of it thinking that it would slowly drop back to the seafloor, but no.
the thing remained in status as i had presented it.
not wanting to slam it back to the "ground", we just let it remain hovering and ventured back to more shallow waters.

i'm realizing more and more how to manipulate my BC as to not rocket to the top when getting into shallower waters, and i'm also getting slightly better on not slamming to the seafloor.
the optimal position is hovering horizontal just over the seafloor with your knees bent and feet up. then when you go to propel yourself by kicking, you don't stir up sediments on the bottom.
i still suck at keeping a pristine environment, but i'm getting better.

in shallower waters Cory had me do some basic safety tests like removing my regulator, holding it out infront of me, while grabbing my backup and using that. then, of course, switching back.
he'd show me how to do that one while underwater.

the next drill he only motioned. he points to his mask and makes a motion that indicates taking it off.
i knew what he wanted, but i really didn't want to do it.
he wanted me to take it all the way off of my head, then replace it and blow all the water out with my nose.
i played dumb, to a point, and only flooded my mask, leaving it on my head.
but that was a pain enough.
i've done it in a pool before, but i forgot why it sucks in the Sound: salt water.
it kinda stung, and there's no real way to wipe your eyes with your mask on, so you just grin and bear it.
no wonder he didn't demonstrate...

before the dive i was worried about getting really cold, but only at the initial entry of the water was i ever really cold.
even though the water was a blistering 53 degrees, i never felt like turning to Cory and asking to call the dive.
it wasn't until i started to take my wet suit off in the parking lot that i got chilled.
the air temperature was probably similar to that of the water.

so because of that, i took keith to my pool where we met air for some good hot tubbing action.
then came dinner at keith's ultimate idea of a good food: burgermaster.
i can't really blame him.
then came drunky-time at Cooper's on Lake City.
a good round of pool, darts, and BS made it a complete night.

around 11pm, dan and i dumped keith off at the airport headed for Pittsburgh.
i guess he'll be back for about a day in about a week, but beyond that, he'll be living in PA for some time.
first the east side, now the east coast.
from E-burg to P-burgh.
we'll miss your ass. (mostly Stu's;)

yukon

well.
further research shows that Yukon College is in Whitehorse, which is straight north of Skagway near that long vertical lake on the north side of the freeway. If you zoom in (bad sign) you can see it.
So it's roughly on the same lattitude as Anchorage, but again, the lack of proximity to water makes it colder.

The other thing i realized that sucks about Canadia is their spelling.
Just read that last paragraph there... programme, artefacts?!
god, it's a whole new world over there!

Lost

damn. i gotta tell you.
this book of mine is getting better and better!

i may have already blogged about it, but the book is exciting me.
it's talking of how sea level used to be 300+ feet lower than it is today about 10kya (thousand years ago), and then by 9kya, an influx of water made sea level rise to 50 feet above what it is today. it's current level came around 8kya (all are +/- a few hundred years).

anyway. the author focuses on archaeology done in the Queen Charloette Islands, which is the large one above Vancouver and just below Alaska's border.
They're all over, but mostly looking at the southern area of the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve.
On one 20-yard stretch of a beach, they came across 2,000 artifacts. So after some excavation to dig deeper in that area, which tended to involve using low tide to their advantage all the way up to where they were still knee deep in waves searching for artifacts, they came across an arrowhead with a barnacle on it!
dating that poor bastard, they realized that the lithic was at least 10.3 kya. if not older.
this still isn't old enough to turn all the scientific heads, but it's a start.

from this point, they took to surveying the shallows off shore to see what could have been a possible lake back when sea levels were lower.
in proximity to the beach that was littered with artifacts, they found what was once a lake was 344 feet down.
now although people, like the guy who runs the 5th dimension dive shop, have been down about 300 feet, they didn't have the resources to do this.
Instead they stayed in shallower areas about 40 feet down to see what can be seen.
And, well. unfortunately, that's where i'm at now.
i guess you'll have to stay tuned to find out what they found, if anything.
the main point now is that there were actual refuges during the Pleistocene (Ice Age) for people to travel to along the coast where resources were plentiful enough to sustain life.
...espeically in the summer.

i was just so excited to see that this type of shit is actually out there!
the author was complaining about how most of the underwater archaeology done is of a single event, like a shipwreck.
once you find the site, you're set. it's one point in time, everything dates to the same time.
but the kind that these people are doing is spread out over time, more like the normal archaeology done on land.
however, that makes it a more difficult task and more difficult to date.

so on the upside. shit like what i'm REALLY interested in, is actually being done (or at least it was 15 years ago), but the downside is that it's being done in Canada.
I guess it could be worse, but is Canada really that bad?
People wouldn't scoff at you cuz your leader's a retard.
however they would scoff cuz you're that weird cousin to the north, eh?
Canada's kinda up-and-coming though, isn't it?
at least Vancouver's doing alright for itself.
i could kinda see myself going there.
maybe.

there's a cool school there called Simon Fraser.
Yukon College is where the divers were from.
But I'd think that would be worse than going to UAA (Anchorage) cuz you'd be in the mountains, without water, and therefore the temperatures in the winter would probably be even more harsh.
something to look into...

if only this kind of thing was more prevalent.
maybe i should write a grant with underwater plans: searching for OIL/paleoindian artifacts.
score!

ass drag

man i'm dragging ass today!

i showed up at work yesterday and they asked if i could stay longer if they couldn't find anyone else to come in. i was already working a full day and they wanted me for 3 more hours.
fine. whatever.
it was so there was someone around to close u-scan.
i'd only done it once before, but sure, why the hell not?
so up until my lunch that i got after being there for six hours, i was lazily pushing carts with 3 other parcels (usually you're lucky if you have a partner).
took my lunch, came back and got a crash course on closing.
another 4 long hours later, i got u-scan closed by 11:10, which i guess is pretty damn good by anyone's standards.
so i was at fred meyer from noon til 11:30.

then i was scheduled to be back at 9 in the morning.
and that would be why i'm dragging ass today.
i'm used to 11.5 hr shifts, sometimes even 13 hr shifts, but they tend to be split between my two jobs. fred meyer is slightly more demanding than the pool.
although i do just stand at u-scan, at the pool i get to entertain myself.
now i get to go back to the pool tonight.
more fun.

at least i get to look forward to diving tomorrow!
unfortunately there won't be any pics, so i'll have to go oldschool and describe it all to you.
well. that is if i have the time/patience.

watch. this time around the octopus is going to come out and eat cory.
damn, that woulda been a nice shot!

Alki II

went back to Alki again today.
Met up with Cory again who gave me another headful of knowledge about diving.
I'm so glad I found this guy. He's really patient and informative.

Today I got to try out my new backplate and wing BC. It was definitely a good experience, a lot better than last time.
Everything stayed in place and its a lot easier to stay horizontal with that thing.
However, it's still apparent that I need some practice with it.

Today Cory actually tried to show me a thing or two.
Since I had the new BC he wanted to work on buoyancy control.
We'd go up to these buoys that were set up, and just practice going up and down them at a gentle pace.
I so sucked.
I'd look up. There was Cory.
I'd look down. There was Cory.
It's all about the slightest addition/subtraction of air to the BC.
It's very easy to overcompensate. You'll put in some air, it doesn't seem like enough, so you put in just a bit more, then you start rocketting to the surface!
You'd think that after the third or fourth time you'd get it down, but I still seemed to plummet or rocket every damn time.
I guess it's because the reaction time is so slow.
it's very gentle, then quickly hits you.
I guess i need to learn to be more patient.
but it's hard when you're sinking fast to the bottom.
I guess the biggest pet peeve of any diver is some retard that kicks up silt from the bottom.
Today that retard was me.
Cory would point at his eyes, point at me, then point to the "dust" cloud behind us that looked like a huge truck just rolled on through a dirt road.
my bad.
even though i tried to be really attentive in that aspect, i still blew it.

but. after we were done and came up to the surface, Cory gave me a few pointers to work on for next time.
Have I mentioned how cool this guy is?

So I think my first time around, Cory kinda let anything slide.
This time he kinda tried to have me pick up the slack.
For our next round, he requested that I leave the camera behind.
That's kinda sad cuz you won't get to see any of this, but ok by me because if i want to get better at taking photos, I first need to get good at learning to actually dive well.

Just like anything, I gotta put in the work before I get the benefits.
I wasn't really planning for Cory to be a teacher on this calibur, but I think after today's dive showing me that buoyancy control isn't an innate ability, I'll put all my effort into learning what Cory is willing to teach me.

So, next time I'm afraid I'll only be able to get pictures above water and write about my experience.
I know. Not as fun.
But more fun will come later.
Later I'll be able to go where ever I want and not just Alki.

Pool

yar.

another Friday spent at the pool.
Check it out.

halcyon

I picked up this bad boy today after realizing that the 2nd-hand craig's list BC i bought last year is a piece of crap.
it set me back a bit, but it should be totally worth it.
the hose that connects from the K-valve to the BC was also leaking.
But a new hose comes with the new BC i got, so that fixed all of my big problems!

so now my next major step is getting myself into a drysuit.
i'm not really sure what i'm looking for yet, but i believe that crushed neoprene is not the answer.
as for what is... well, all i know is its not that.
i'm thinking there's only two options, so that'll be easy to figure out.

when i went into the shop today, the guy, mark, recognized me as the guy taking the "fundies" class. that's a plus. then, with the wad of cash that i dropped on him today, i'm sure he'll remember me for a long while. this is a very good thing, since he seems to have connections.
this weekend he and some of his buddies/students are heading on over to florida to do some cave diving. dammit. so jealous.
i've got a few more classes to take before i can attempt anything as dangerous as that.
i've read enough stories to know what can go wrong down there.

so i think i'll be frequenting that shop. its too bad its in issaquah, but not that far back toward the mountains. its off of the front street exit on gillman.

my ultimate short-term goal is to be diving in Lake Washington.
apparently there are about 8 known shipwrecks down there, but i have to go through additional training to get to them because they're so deep.
you have to get into something called 'triox' which is where helium is added to the usual mixture of oxygen and nitrogen. helium is an inert gas, so i think the deal is that it doesn't attach to your blood cells, therefore when surfacing you don't need as much decompression time as you would if you were only dealing with nitrogen and oxygen.
i could be wrong...

anyway. i'm getting into this shit. it's a damn shame that it's so expensive, or i'd urge my friends to do it.
but they're not as much of a leech as i am, living at home...
it's nice to throw rent money into other avenues, but on the other hand, i feel lack of independence.
whatever. i get to do what interests me at a small cost.

oh! i should also mention that i misplaced my First Americans book one day and took my Lost World book which is very much my style. It does review the history of how archaeology came to be a science, but thankfully the more abridged version that Adovasio's (First Americans), but it goes into a "what if?" on pleistocene cultures that haven't been found in the new world because of their proximity to the old shoreline.
see, when the glaciers trapped a huge amount of water in ice form, sea levels around the globe were 350 - 400 feet lower.
look at the world today and see how many large cities are located near water.
um. damn near all.
be it river, lake, or ocean.
so if you're exploring a new territory, and resources are abundant near the water, wouldn't you travel along that resource base if you're migrating to a different environment?

i'm just getting into the book, but he's already talking of cave sites along the BC and southern Alaska panhandle with artifacts dating back to 10 kya (thousand years ago).

today the more popular theory, rather than this coastal migration, is that of the Clovis people, who came through that ice-free corridor that we all heard about when growing up which led people from Russia through to Alaska and on down to Alberta, Minnesota, and so forth until they spread from New Hampshire to New Mexico.

Proponents of this theory claim that the coastal migration theory's pull is null, claiming that glaicers would have been covering the coastline, leaving no resources or even land for people to work with. however, Koppel, the author, gives results of archaeology done at certain coastal caves which, although haven't given up any cultural remains during the supposed uninhabitable pleistocene time frame, they have relenquished faunal remains proving that mammalian life in this area was possible and that the land wasn't entirely blanketed by ice.

i've now just come to a point where human remains were found in a cave, but i don't know the outcome of the find.
Koppel just went on a tirade about Kennewick Man.
fun.

speaking of which. archaeology is totally rad.
i was thinking about this last night, and i came to some conclusion of why archaeology draws my attention.
well. i guess it is crazy to see how people lived in the past, yeah, that's well and good,
but the things that i'm interested are found underwater or in caves. or in underwater caves.
these places are really the least well explored places on earth.
the entirety of the exposed globe has been, well, exposed, but what lies beneath the water and what lies beneath the earth are all that really remain for a modern-day explorer.

i've always enviously heard stories of charles darwin and james cook and marco polo who are able to go to exotic places and encounter exotic cultures.
there isn't really any of that left except for what you can dig up from the past.
so send me to the deepest, darkest, wettest recesses of the earth where lie remenants of human ancestors who once hid from the uncontrollable elements facing them on the outside world, and maybe i can get a glimpse of how those famed explorers felt.

how cheesy was that?

nah. but really. i do just want to be original and do things that not many people do.
is that too much to ask?
something with a little excitement as well. semi-life-threatening. somewhat remote.

that would be the life...

flying

flying fish, yeah.
but flying sharks?

Alki

Headed out to Alki today to meet up with a guy I met at 5th Dimension.
This was my first chance to actually SCUBA dive since last year!
I'll write more about it later, but right now I'm kind of tired and only really want to show you the movies I took.

This movie shows how I need to work on my slow-panning skills.
I guess this other movie does as well, but the quick panning later on in the movie was out of fear of losing my guide.
This second movie was of a small tug boat that went down a while ago.
I swam across to the bow where some starfish and other sealife were hanging out.
Under the bow, but getting a better view from the former middle of the tug, was where we spotted the octopus.
You can kinda see it if you check out the pictures I posted.

Apparently at this site, Cove 2, you can also have the luck of seeing Harbor seals and six gills (6 foot sharks).
The sharks luckily dart away when they see you, but the seals will play around.
On the night dives, the seals will follow your light until it spots a fish, then they will quickly nab it.
Smart little bastards. I'd hate to be the fish. It'd be like being on the firing range.
See the scope, you're toast.

More later, if I remember.
Tired.

Ray's BM photos

I put up yet another set on flickr.
However, this time around, i had no part in the picture taking.
All i did was upload and give descriptions.
The photographer in this set is Ray (foreground), a science teacher looking to hold onto his teaching degree.
He worked in the pit directly north of mine.

Ray got some cool shots of stuff that I missed out on, namely some of the artifacts.
So take a look! Unless you got enough of it the first time around...

google

google is universal.
try typing in the box.


another weird fact:

"In Farsi, no word starts with two consonants."
"Therefore attention must be paid to the spelling of the words or names of foreign origin with this kind of spelling."

*Estera'vinski (Stravinsky), esta'diyom (stadium)

Spanish speakers have the same problem with words that begin with "sc(r)" or "st(r)".
They need to add the "e".
Is it the same with other latin-based languages, or is this solely from an arabic influence?
my french is limited: escargot.

Farsi

There are two regulars that run U-scan at work.
One is Indian, the other is Iranian.

The indian woman is very calm and mellow.

The iranian woman is very outspoken and always yelling at people, especially customers.
She's a bit rough around the edges, and she's always complaining that i do jack shit, while she, herself is also doing jack shit.

So we have this love/hate thing going on.
She keeps telling me how much she despises me, but i think it's just her way of keeping herself entertained.
i might even be one of her favorite employees to interact with.

today i was talking to her. she knows i'm into all that archaeology crap.
she asks about the book i'm reading. i tell her.
then she asks me how to say my intended profession: archaeology.
she asked me to break it down for her slowly so she could more easily hear it and learn it.
as i was doing that, she wrote it down in Farsi.

you read it right to left. it's broken down roughly like ar-chae-ol-ogy, although she said that she wrote the "G" as a "J".
Apparently farsi is one of a few written languages that use the arabic alphabet.
it's much like how Spanish, French, and English all have the same lettering, but the pronunciation can be totally different.
So farsi and arabic use the same letters, but they sound different.

She went on to tell me, somewhat biasedly, how Farsi is now spoken in Afghanistan, but those people use it very harshly compared to the Iranians. Her example was, what you might say to a child in Afghanistan to have them be quiet is "SHUT UP!" in Iran.

she also mentioned how Farsi has a bit of French influence. she said they use words like merci for thank you.
i wondered, but didn't ask, "did they not have a way of expressing gratitude before the persians encountered the french?
...and to get courtesy lessons from the french!?!!?

she may have a very abrasive attitude, but somehow a great majority of the people in the store, including many of the customers, like her.
i think she has one of the biggest fan bases at the store.
i guess its just her outgoing personality that just happens to be coupled with the abrasiveness.
i know she gives me shit daily, but i don't think she really means it.
otherwise, why the hell would she bother to tell me about her culture?

parties

it's been a weird couple of weekends.

last weekend i went to Po's housewarming party.
good times. it's a cool place, reminds me of our past residencies together.

after a while of being there, Juan, a guy i've met through po and smithers offered to take me to a party in montlake.
so we drove on over to that one.
everyone seemed someone young.
yet the party was more chill than po's, meaning that everyone was just sitting on their asses, not really mingling, at least in the main room.
in the kitchen the story was a bit different.
but in the main room, sat arija's little sister, ashley, who i'd met at previous band parties and parties at kevin's place. there was a hot tub involved...
so i talked to her, although she had no fucking clue who i was (isn't that always fun?).
it even took her a while to figure out who dan was.
she probably wasn't thinking of her sister's friends, actually her sister's ex-boyfriend's friends.

but my point is, how small the world is.
she was just chilling at her boyfriend's place, and i don't even fucking know who lives there, hopefully Juan did.

then this weekend i stopped off at kevin's place for a cocktail party, although i didn't get the "cocktail" half of the memo, so i made due with a tie over my philmont shirt.
but when i walked in, i saw someone that looked vaguely familiar.
come to find out, the girl, Jacqueline (maybe i butchered that), is a friend of my coworker from the pool.
we'd gone to two big group dinners together, one for my coworker's birthday, and another for another coworker's going-away party.
we didn't talk at either dinner. we were at opposite sides of the table. but we spent most of that night talking.
again, small world. she happens to be kevin's coworker.
and kevin i've known through dan since sophomore year in college.
again. crazy how unknowingly linked people are.

then i ended up hitching a ride from kevin's place with another coworker down to an irish bar in ballard, conner something...

there, my coworker plays gaelic football with a girl i went to high school with, Becca.
she was the girlfriend of one of my swim team captains, and also ASB secretary her senior year.
apparently the reason for going out was her going away to san fransisco to be with her irish boyfriend.

it was kinda funny, cuz she now has this irish accent that she didn't have back when i knew her in high school. maybe it was because she was drunk...
but, once again. small world.

weights

i added more pictures to an old set on flickr.
it was mainly to tell you this amazing story:

Clement is a physical training god.
he may just be a simple front desk worker, but this guy knows his shit.

i used to go into the weight room and lift near the heaviest shit i could.
then clement tells me of the stuff he reads about.
he talks about TUP (time under pressure) where the more amount of time that your muscles are resisting the weight, the better.
which makes much sense when you think about it.

but rather than pushing for an inordinate number of reps, the key is to find a good weight for you where you can do something like 10 reps while taking 3 to 4 seconds with each rep, slowly lowering and raising the bar.
his other key is rest. he says you should take 5 to 7 days of rest before reworking that same muscle grouping.
which i found to be true. when i went to Alaska, i was at a certain point, but when i came back, even though i hadn't been lifting, i felt that somehow i had recooperated and grown stronger.

coupled with the max time resistence technique, i've been doing fairly well.

there's this guy Tony, who comes in daily and is super buff.
He can crank out 30 continuous reps on the bench press with 45's on each side, which makes it 135 lbs.
in that picture however, he has 2 45's on each side. he put out about 5 of those.

but almost every time i work, if our paths happen to cross in the weight room and he's just done
or is about to do some reps, he'll point to the bar and give me some ungodly number to do.
he's says, "i did 30, now you do 30."

today must have been a bad day cuz he only did 25. so he tells me to do 25.
every time i try, i get nowhere near that number.
the closest i've ever gotten before was 17.
but on friday, something was different.
after doing the slow reps that Clement told me to do, even though i now do less weight, i'm somehow more buff.
Tony sat and watched as i cranked out 25 reps, easily.
thinking about it, i could probably have put out 2 -5 more, but meeting my quota, i stopped.

usually, everytime i stop and some measily low number, Tony will insatiably laugh his booming laugh.
that day, he just said, "you did it. good job."
and walked off.

ha! maybe i'm starting to scare him.
cuz he works his ass off to be able to do that, and i just follow the wise words of Clement.

stinking rich

today was a good extension of yesterday.
i picked up my check, and was surprised to have two!
the first was back pay dating back to September 4th.
the second was my weekly paycheck now $3 more/hour than my previous paychecks.
what a good paying week!

but, oh man, i gotta tell you about the other day.
i get into my car and it reeks like ass.
i think to myself that it may be from the leak in the back windshield of my car.
but at that time, it hadn't really rained at all.
so it couldn't be that.
thinking about it a bit harder, i realized what it was.
2 weeks ago manuel and i went snorking at Juanita Beach.
i came back with this little guy.

he made his way to my car where i thusly forgot about him until he made a stink about it.
slightly bubbling and oozing when i found its aged ass, i sniffed the shell to find out that, yup, it was the origin of the rotten smell.
the stupidest part was that i kept forgetting to take it out of my car.
finally today, three days later, i got around to doing it.
i'll have to air out my car tomorrow.

shit. i gotta email a guy about scuba on tuesday.
i think we can still go if its shitty weather.