Hellbound Amidst Heaven.

HA!

2008-06-20T10:08:00.000-07:00

Well, I am really not Bryan but he left google signed in on his computer, so what the heck. Yup, he is now living in Fort Lauderdale in an apartment with four other pilots. He is flying a Brazilia but will soon probably be moving back to a Beech. He has a girlfriend, Elise, and still hangs a lot with his old friend who is a girl but not really a girlfriend Louisa. And he flies to the Bahamas and all over the state of Florida, but Gulf Coast Airlines is looking to get some bases in the midwest, well, like Cleveland.

Now we will see how long it takes before he notices that he has a new blog post!

2008-04-22T19:34:00.000-07:00

HERES a link to my new blog. I hope you enjoy it :-)

2007-05-10T17:48:00.000-07:00

I . . . . . Don't know.

sunday

2007-04-29T15:46:00.000-07:00

wow... looks like I get TWO posts in before my adoring fans can read and comment. that's cool, i guess. I'll just make this one short.

today, after church (of course;-) ) Steve, Rich, Megan, Sara, and Jamie and I went down to sugarloaf and biked around old US-1. there was an old bridge there we jumped off of, as well.
there were some random people hanging around the bridge. so not everyone in the pictures I know. there was some kid named sherman and his mom. Kid apparently watches too much family guy clips on youtube.

Somewhere along the way Rich got a flat tire. sad day.

Sara's playing with a glock. silly girl.

. . .
. . .

the end.

What we did today. . .

2007-04-28T17:48:00.000-07:00

Good evening. Glad you liked the last post. I keep telling you how much I love Key West... I'm glad the pictures help you better understand it. However, I really don't think I can fully convey to you just how fantastic life is down here. I kinda wish I had my family here to enjoy it with me.

Today we went on a branch snorkel trip (sponsored by our company) and then, after the branch trip, a couple of friends from work and I took the ferry BACK out (this time with scuba gear) and went to the c ayman, and then to another reef to catch dinner.

We took the ferry which we will eventually be using to bring passengers from shore to the sub, once we start operating. It used to be a dive charter boat, so its perfect for this type of thing.

First off, I'm sorry I have so many pictures. I took over 250 today, so this only represents a small portion of my "catch". I shot way more photos than I did fish.

Anyway. . . most of the pictures speak for themselves. We all had a fantastic time. It was a fairly active reef system. Nurse sharks, barracudas, parrotfish, sgt majors, lobsters, porcupines (aka "puffer" fish) . . . I really didnt see any fish I haven't seen before, but it was very, very enjoyable nonetheless. I chased adam down and had him take a picture of me with a puffer fish just cuz mom seemed to not believe me when I told her we had puffers here. Frankly, they're pretty ubiquitous. Its the one that looks like it had downs syndrome (I'm kinda reaching for it in the picture)

Louisa won't go snorkeling unless she has an inflated vest (a BC.) I personally like diving down to look at stuff. . . I would feel restricted with a life vest on. It seems that most people on their first trip or two stay at the surface, and then the more they go out the deeper under they'll venture.

heres a video I took at about 15 to 20 feet . . . most of the vids I took while snorkeling didn't turn out too well because I was not wearing a weight belt. even this one you can tell I'm struggling to stay under. you'd be surprised how bouyant a skinny guy is when he's holding a full breath of air. I'm wondering if I might not be able to stay down longer if I exhale, the concept being that I'm not working so hard to stay under and thus need less air. besides, it's the buildup of CO2 in your body which causes the urge to breath, not a shortage of oxygen.

The trip to the wreck was pretty cool. We all went down together and pretty much stuck together the whole time. there were several 200 - 400 pound jewfish, but none of the pics I took of them turned out very well (that deep, you have to get pretty close to what you're shooting for it to be very vivid)

I got several videos, but google isnt accepting them right now. I still need a reference to another high quality video posting service. cmon, help a brother out!

The second reef wasn't quite as active as the first, and the water was a lot deeper. luckily, this time we had scuba gear. unluckily, my camera battery ran dry right after our second catch (a squid) The squid was pretty cool. even after we got back to the dock, the squid's skin was changing colors in kindof a random pattern, like an LCD monitor who's pixels are randomely blanking off and then back on. pretty darn cool. Heres a video... the dialogue in the video is a little funny. I didn't even know I had captured that snippet of conversation. Adam was cleaning a fish while I was shooting the video.

After we returned we grilled out (of course) and MAN was it good. I actually came home with a snapper filet (I filetted it myself) and a cleaned hogfish (I cleaned that one too ;-) ) and both are in my fridge awaiting dinner time tomorrow.

today.

2007-04-27T18:18:00.000-07:00

Helloooo...

geez, I dont know exactly when I last posted... we grilled out at Louisa's Wednesday night (Louisa wouldn't come down :-( ) it was funny, I got back from flying at around 7 and Jon says, right after I walk in, "we're grilling at louisa's house, I already have the steaks" apparently he cleared it behind my back. cool :-D he's a fantastic griller. lol

We were playing with a cast net after work a few days ago... basically its a small net which you can throw into the water to catch smaller fish near the surface. like minnows. I took a video which didnt seem to upload too well. I think google compressed it, maybe I should start using youtube or something. does anyone know of a free hosting service which won't compress videos?

This morning we worked around the shop at the sub; this afternoon we went diving. not in the sub; we went out to set a mooring for our operations. we used a forklift to move the anchor on to the back of the jack. Theres a picture of Prince and Richard sitting on the anchor resting on some plywood. those big white pillows are lift bags. Basically you put air into them and they float. you can then attach them to things that you want to float. like sunken boats (two of these lift bags were used to raise a sunken shrimp boat) or an anchor that almost weighs a ton (sometimes its just not safe to throw it over the side)

So once we got to the mooring site we chucked the anchor (tied to the floatbags) over the side of the boat and dispatched five divers to escort it to the bottom. I mostly played the role of scribe ;-D
so I have some okay picstures to post here. The specks in the water are actually jellyfish. there were lots of little bits of jellyfish everywhere, I was thankful to be wearing a long suit (the water temperature probably didnt warrant it.) Richard was the only other in a long suit, I think.
I got stung a little on my face, but it was just a mild irritant and they weren't big enough to even really leave a rash.

Once we were in the water we let the air out of the ba gs slowly and positioned the anchor above where we wanted it. You can see a little green strap going around the anchor - thats there to hold the flukes in place. they tend to flop around (catching fingers on the smaller ones) and we didnt want anyone to get hurt. once it was on the bottom we removed that strap to let it dig in.

anyway, if you have a sealed, malleable container which is brought up and down in the water, it expands and contracts. water does NOT expand nor contract. As it contracts it displaces less water. anyone who is reading this probably knows the principles. anyhoo, this means that a soft airfilled object is unstable when it comes to bouyancy; If we make the bag neutrally bouyant, then bring it down ten feet, then it will become negatively bouyant (from the compression) and sink. Conversely, if we brought the same object to a shallower depth, it would then tend to float (from the expansion) and continue up to the surface, accelerating all the while.

What does this mean to us? Well, once the lift bags start to fully submerge, we need to keep pumping air into them to try to slow the anchor's descent to the bottom. If we just let it drift down it will accellerate to a speed which would be dangerous for us to try following it (you dont want to move vertically through the water too quickly)

once the anchor started accellerating too fast for us to manage easily, we swam back away from it and let it fall by itself to the bottom. We then swam down to verify where it landed and make sure it was okay, and to recover the float bags (which cost around 1500 dollars a PIECE, by the way)

We also dropped 25 feet (I think) of 1 inch chain which will act as the rode. This anchor isnt ever going to move again.

After work Willy grilled up some ribs and a few porkfish that Chris caught. what a way to end the day.

I'm pretty worn out, as usual, and I have a snorkel trip planned for the morning (our YSA have "chartered" the sea breeze, and then after that we plan on diving the cayman (the shipwreck behind these fish to the left (I dont remember when I took that picture, sorry its so bad.) and spearing some dinner.

have a great day!

2007-04-23T21:50:00.000-07:00

No pics today, sorry guys. I left the camera at the sub.

Today I helped install security fences and stuff at the sub dock (real basic stuff) and then stenciled the tug's name on to the tug (it got a fresh coat of paint recently)... then in the afternoon I jumped in with Richard and we scrubbed the windows (it SHOULD be done everyday...)

Rich bought a wetsuit at a yard sale, but didnt like the colors (don't ask) so I got a new wetsuit. Its a long "farmer john" setup, actually designed for surfers... Scuba guys can use it too :-D

after work I fried up that mutton snapper (with just lemon juice, pepper, and salt. VERY good) and then went to FHE. After FHE Rich, the girls, and I came over to the seaside complex (where I and the girls live) and skateboarded around the parking lot for a few hours. I just got back from dropping rich off; Its 12:55; so I'm going to bed.

love ya'll.

Apr 22

2007-04-22T18:07:00.000-07:00

Some of my adoring fans have commented on the title og the blog. Its a multi-tiered metaphore for my life right now. first one to find two (2) possible parallels in the title gets a prize.

Pics of the boat with me on it to come. here are a few stock photos of the beast. . .

not the most in-focus, but they're from my old camera. the windows are covered in black duct-tape in the picture.

I actually moved the boat yesterday over to just northeast of sunset key (across from mallory square.) I originally had gone out to the boat (located in boca chica channel) to do some fiberglassing work and to secure it better because we're expecting wind advisories in the next few days...

anyway, when I arived at the boat ramp I blew up two inflatable rafts from kmart, and put all my equipment (one 18 pound danforth, a 20 pound "mushroom" sand anchor, fiberglass resin and mat, etc) into one boat ("boat" is submariner slang for "vessel") and put myself and my water scooter (a la Dubby) into the other. I tied the boats together, and leaned over the front of the boat and held the water scooter in the water and used it to propel myself forward. fantastic. a couple of old water vagrants (bums with boats that they live on) were watching me with a look of great amusement on their faces. I turned to them and shouted "the is the perfect marriage between ingenuity and insanity" which was perfectly true... anyhoo, I don't remember the whole conversation, but when I told them that I was going out to my sailboat to work on it with the intention of moving it later on over to garrison bight, one of them brightened up and said "oh! todays a great day for a sail... lets move it today!" with a great amount of passion.

So here I was, by myself on the waterfront, with two inflatable toys, one of them full of junk, and a 50 year old female vagrant who lives on a boat smaller than mine (seriously) who wanted to help me sail my boat around the island. what would you do?

anyway, her name was barbara, and it turned out to be a great sail! (but I CAN'T sail this boat to tortuga all by me onesy, savvy?"

Turns out it was her birthday. she loves sailing, but clearly wasnt too experienced. she's got several children (most of whom she's put up for adoption) and was apparently very, very excited to go on an adventure for her birthday. She has no job or anything, so she of course had no plans or commitments. It really was a fantastic day. Then, after we got to our destination, and had motored in (putzing around on a toy boat in a harbor used by cruiseships, lol) we went out to a cafe on duval and I treated her to a seven dollar birthday dinner. then we took the bus back to my car at boca chica, and that was the end of that.

I'm pretty proud of the method I came up with for securing the boat... I took the 18 pound danforth and set that with 5 feet of 3/8 chain and a 75 foot rode to the northeast of the boat (into the prevailing wind) and then set a 15 pound danforth to the southeast on a hundred foot rode (about six feet of 1/4 inch chain, i think) and then looped both rodes through a one foot loop of 3/8 galvanized chain which I attached on both ends to the 20# "mushroom" sand anchor, which I threw off the bow of the boat. I'm pretty confident that that'll hold the boat through ANYTHING short of a hurricane. the 'shroom with make all the pull on the danforths exactly parallel the seabed, which will give them the best possible hold, just like popping on 35 feet of chain would do. its just waaay cheaper.

Today I went to church and found out that one of our friend's children had been playing with knives, and had accidentally driven a pretty hefty knife through their three year old's shoulder and into his lung. So say a prayer for david for me (this kid is amazing).. he's doing okay, he should be fine.

After church I went over to Steves house and we grilled burgers with sara and jamie, and rich and louvins. then rich, steve, and I met up with louisa and went sailing (on the Cape Dory) from the sailing club.

Steve gave me some fresh mutton snapper which I have pretty big plans for tomorrow... Jon and I will grill it up with some grouper right after work... ohhh, cant wait.

arright, I'm going to bed now. see ya!

something witty, yet professional

2007-04-19T17:28:00.000-07:00

Hey.

Jon and jessie got back with my boat yesterday. They arrived just south of the boca chica bridge around 6:30... I ran over with two inflatable rowboats and went out to meet them and bring them back. They had been out in it for 36 hours. Not a bad sail, I wish I could have been with them.

We passed our ABS inspection today on the sub... just one or two minor, minor things (like smoke detector batteries) and a lot of training and we'll be ready for paying passengers.

As far as pictures go...

We have a picture or two of Rich and me playing/working underwater... I think this was last thursday or so. We were replacing a level sensor in one of our hard ballast tanks. The two of us went through six full scuba tanks in one day.

Here. That's for mom.

The visibility is aweful in the harbor. I've seen way worse, but its still not pleasant when you can only see about ten feet or so. We dropped a tool or two and had to descend to the bottom twice for recoveries, roughly thirty feet. It's kinda freaky descending with only your buddy in sight and absolutely no visual references other than the sun overhead. I took THIS video on our second trip down.

I jumped into Boot Key Harbor once with less than a foot of visibility, to scrub down the hull on my boat. I didnt have a tank, just a snorkel. I later found out that the water was only about eight feet deep where I was, so I probably was brushing the seabed with my fins and didnt even know it. I hope I never have to do something like that again.

Anyway, there are several large (five to eight foot) tarpon who hang out underneath the pier, and they're not really scared of us at all. They'll swim away from you if you look right at them (they watch your eyes) but if you're not paying attention you can all but bump into them. I almost swallowed my regulator once when I was swimming around one of the pylons and I look down and theres one (maybe four feet long) swimming three feet below me.

For sizing reference, my arms arent quite long enough to reach all the way around that pylon in the picture to the right. I'm pretty sure it's an eighteen inch diameter plus a good three inches of barnacles on each side. Needless to say, these fish dwarf it.

One last underwater picture... what a pretty sub! That's been pretty much all I've thought about for several months now, and she's almost done!!!

I've lucked out with the airline this month. I've been working maintenance (on the sub) on my reserve days, and I've been off on all operations days (when we take the sub out for a dive) so I have been able to work pretty much five days a week. I'm not sure how much longer I can keep that up.

Anyhoo... what else do I have here which will be of interest to my family. . . oh, here we go. This is my FHE group. we scribbled on each others faces and then took our picture. Mormons will exist everywhere, I guess. . .

I guess that's it for pictures... I have more but I'll press them in here later, if I ever actually update this thing.

One of my studio monitors has started buzzing on certain frequencies and volumes, so I guess I have to ship it back to Yamaha to get it looked at. I'm waiting on them to mail me an RA number.

I fixed the flat tire on the uni. I rode it to work and back yesterday. and thats all for now. gnight.