Happy Halloween!

Q: How come the skeleton was afraid to cross the road?

A: He didn't have the guts!


Q: What do you get when you take the insides out of a hot dog?

A: A Hollow- weenie!

Those are my Halloween jokes, I'll tell em to ya again next year!
PS: from last year:
October 31, 2005 2:31 PM
Carnealian said...

Why did the vampire go to the orthodontist?
To improve his bite...

What do you get when you cross a vampire and a snowman?
Frostbite...

Why do witches use brooms to fly on?
Because vacuum cleaners are too heavy...

How do witches keep their hair in place while flying?
With scare spray...

What do you get when you cross a werewolf and a vampire?
A fur coat that fangs around your neck...

Do zombies eat popcorn with their fingers?
No, they eat the fingers separately...

Why don't skeletons ever go out on the town?
Because they don't have any body to go out with...

What do ghosts add to their morning cereal?
Booberries...

What is a vampire's favorite sport?
Casketball...

What is a vampire's favorite holiday?
Fangsgiving...

What would a monster's psychiatrist be called?
Shrinkenstein...

What did one ghost say to the other ghost?
"Do you believe in people?"

What do you call someone who puts poison in a person's corn flakes?
A cereal killer...

Why do mummies have trouble keeping friends?
They're so wrapped up in themselves...

What kind of streets do zombies like the best?
Dead ends...

What does the papa ghost say to his family when driving?
Fasten your sheet belts...

What is a vampire's favorite mode of transportation?
A blood vessel...

What is a ghost's favorite mode of transportation?
A scareplane...

What type of dog do vampire's like the best?
Bloodhounds...

What is a ghoul's favorite flavor?
Lemon-slime...

What does a vampire never order at a restaurant?
A stake sandwich...

What is a skeleton's favorite musical instrument?
A trombone...

What do birds give out on Halloween night?
Tweets...

Why do vampires need mouthwash?
They have bat breath...

What's a vampire's favorite fast food?
A guy with very high blood pressure...

Why did the Vampire subscribe to the Wall Street Journal?
He heard it had great circulation...

This doesn't happen to normal people!

Yesterday, my doorknob broke and I was trapped in my apartment. I took the doorknob off but the bolt part was still stuck, holding the door closed. I took the pins out of the hinges but still couldn't open the door because I couldn't pull with sufficent leverage. So I opened the window, took the screen out, crawled out the window and kicked the door in. I've never heard of this happening to anyone before, but it'd be a great excuse if you wanted to miss work or get out of an appointment. My doorknob broke and I was trapped inside. Brilliant!

I volunteered to help with the FCCA (Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association) Conference. Last night I was supposed to be at the airport from 6-10 PM to greet the people arriving and to help with their luggage. But due to late flights, I got home about 1 AM and got in bed at 1:10. I didn't want my volunteering to interfere with work, but the word I get is that it has priority. I'll have to get the OK from my boss, but it looks like I'm back at the airport at 2 PM today. I've had less than 4 hoursof sleep and I'm pretty tired already.

The dive yesterday was great but very rough water, and current was against us both ways. It must flip around while we're deep, and It seems to happen fairly often.

Well, I'm going to work now! Ciao!

Multiplying snorkel trips

Had a good day yesterday, the snorkeling trip went well. Another lady from work wants me to take her kids too. Today I'm going diving.
The OI Girl went to the doctor yesterday about her hip. He told her get better shoes and take these pain pills and yoga will help. She's working today because it's inventory time.
That's about it for today.
I've completed 44 out of 95 lessons on my course.

insert title here

I'm supposed to take a c0-workers son snorkeling today. I am looking forward to it, that is, if the kid can swim at all and we can get some decent snorkeling in. I want the kid to be amazed and have fun, not a kid that's all whiney and scared.
The OI Girl has a problem with her hip, from an old bicycle wreck injury. I can feel a lump, like a muscle is routed the wrong way. She's going to the doctors today instead of working.
I want to do more of those "Then and Now" posts like the one the other day. Although that spot hasn't changed that much really, some others have.

then and now

Smiths Cove from a 1992 postcard, and from a pic I took the other day. I think the person who took the postcard shot was in a boat or on a rock outcropping that has since fell away.

The worst possible mistake

Yesterday I made the worst possible mistake. Everyones worst nightmare come true. Thee Horror of Horrors.

I went back to work after a vacation-

and

I was. . .
a day early.

I wrote it on my calendar wrong. When I got to work, I saw the vacation request I submitted and the 24th was included.
I thought about leaving, but I was already there, and there were things to do. So I stayed.
It was actually nice to be back. First Time.

I love it!

Here goes, back to work.
Yesterday, it rained and was cloudy all day. The OI Girl said it was sunny in town, but I didn't go down there. I studied and took a nap. A wasted day, like I promised myself it wouldn't be.
It did get sunny here late in the afternoon, and we went for a beach walk. I've been telling her I want to incorporate beach walks into the daily routine, and start trying to do them almost every day when she gets off work.
Here's some more pictures from the 22nd. One is the same ol' triggerfish nobody wants to see. And a Flamingoes Tongue on a sea fan. I made the Triggerfish my wallpaper on my computer.

Wish me luck today at work. The first day is always hardest. I'll find out I'm working weekends for the next several weeks at least, and I'll get a whole new list of problems and complaints. I love it!

un-title-ed

I'm up and drinking coffee. Today I'm going to study, go for a beachwalk with the dawg, then maybe go diving or back out on the kayak again. I feel a little sore from paddling yesterday so I think I need the exercise.

Sunday Night

I've had a very busy weekend. Today the OI Girl and I went out on the kayaks to the little island. There isn't a trace of the plants I planted. I'm sad, my little babies died. I took some more plants out there though. Some vine beachcrawling plants that grow purple flowers. Also it looks like two of the pine trees someone else planted have taken hold and are doing pretty well.

Here's some pics I took today, the top one is a couple a buddies (pufferfish and yellow snapper(?)) hanging out on the reef, and the bottom one is a Christmas Tree worm. Also I got some good pics of that same Queen Triggerfish from the last post, but I know nobody wants to see that same old fish again.

Tomorrow is my last day off before back to work Tuesday. I'm just getting the hang of being off from work and then I have to go back....

I assure you, I don't plan on wasting the day tomorrow!!

Yesterday

Queen Triggerfish from my snorkel

The view looking up from my spot on the beach

The Monster Ditto on the beach

Yesterday was a good day. I went for a morning beachwalk. I went into town and took care of some business, (but not all of it). I went to the beach with my dog. I don't think I got my 3 hours of studying in, there aren't anough hours in the day.

questions answered

Yesterday I couldn't post, I couldn't get on to blogger.

This post is from the comments you left on the last two posts.

My camera is rated to 130 feet because any deeper, the housing could crack or water could squeeze past the O-Ring seals and flood the camera. My old camera was rated to only 100 feet, but I took it to 170. At 170 feet, it didn't work though, I got a weird error on the screen and it wouldn't take a picture. I think it was being squeezed a bit. Maybe when the new gets worn off of this one I'll take it a little deeper, but I've flooded cameras before and it's no fun and expensive. I don't know why it's only 130 feet, it's just what the manufacturer says.

For the dive to 100 meters, the plan was 330 for 5 minutes, as we had an open circuit diver with us. (Two Inspirations and a tanker.) We used 10% oxygen and 50% helium for our bottom gas. (the open circuit guy had 12/60). 10/50 really wasn't really optimum for a dive of this depth on a rebreather, 8% O2 and 60% helium would have been better. Using a PO2 of 1 atmosphere, 10/50 should only be used to 298 feet.

It also should be noted that the open circuit divers gas bill was about $2000 CI ($2400 US) for 6 dives. Us rebreathers paid less than $100 for all our breathing gas for all our dives.

As you go deeper and deeper, nitrogen becomes more and more narcotic and oxygen becomes more and more toxic, so helium is added to reduce both oxygen partial pressure and nitrogen partial pressure.

Our runtimes were about 90 minutes, with the rebreathers clearing deco about 30 minutes before the open circuit diver. Run time is the time from when your head goes underwater till it comes back out of the water. It includes dive time and deco time. Our run times while planning the dive were about 60 minutes and his were about 90. Dive time is the time from when your head goes underwater till you begin your ascent, (330 feet, 5 minutes). But we stayed at 330 for about 5 minutes. (It takes about 3 or 4 minutes to descend to 330 feet) Everybody had computers and the profile was generated on land, and is really just a backup in case of problems. We stick to the profile, but the dive computers and the open circuit divers gas consumption gave us some flexibility.

The extra weight from the "Love Boat" helped me descend faster.

I'm not realy sure if we hit the sponge belt or not. I guess we did, but I'm not sure of the definition. At 330 feet, the dropoff is very vertical, so the sponges that like flat areas, like barrel sponges, are scarcer and not as big. But the sponges that attach to the wall and hang, like elephant ears and tube sponges are HUGE.

My friends left yesterday and today I'm studying and I really really want to go to the beach. Plus I have some personal business to attend to.

And I want to go diving more too. The more you dive, the more you want to dive more. It's perpetual-

The more you dive, the more you want to dive more.

I'll get some pictures too

One great dive deserves another

Yesterdays dive was so good, we're doing the exact same dive today. I think one of my dive buddies wants to go a little deeper this time, but I'm for an exact repeat, maybe with a little more time at depth.
I flooded another flashlight.
My camera is good to 40 meters, 130 feet.

100 meters

Todays dive is 100 meters.
It will tie my deepest depth on my rebreather. For the other two guys, it will be their deepest.

Damaged reputation

Not much to write today. Just diving yesterday, too deep for my camera. Double diving today.
Last night a large group of us went out for Sushi. OI Girl and I ordered "Love Boat For Two". I expect to get some grief about that today. Imagine that! A big tough gnarly mean guy like me ordering a "Love Boat For Two". I'm ruined! Ruined I tell ya!

Yippee!!!

Yesterday was quite hectic, I picked up my friends, took them to their hotel, and we went diving. It was kinda late when we finally got in the water, and getting dark. But it was OK for a test run. Today we will do a deeper dive. I woke up at my regular time to do some studying, and then diving at 8:30 ish. Well, I pick them up at about 8:30, all the dive gear is here, at my apartment. So we'll come back here and put everything together and then go.
I found my bluetooth earpiece, it was in a pair of pants in the drawer. Finally! I was going crazy, loosing one hand every time the phone rang. I had the OI Girl call me, and then I walked around thehouse - "Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?" Then I got near the dresser, she could hear me. So I started digging. Yippee!!!

Not as beachy as I thought, but. . . .

Walking North on Seven Mile Beach

Yesterday, I took the OI Girl to work, then stopped on the way back home for a beach walk. Then I came back home and the phone was ringing. The OI Girl received her money for her car (did I mention she found one and we put a down payment on it?) and we went and picked it up, got insurance and licensed it etc. Then she drove to work, I came home and ker-splash! Water started pouring from the front of my car. My water pump broke. So I filled it up with water, and made it down to the shop. They fixed it, and dropped it back off to my apartment in four hours. Talk about sevice!
So I'm back on track, ready to pick my friends up at the airport in just a few hours.
I heard it snowed two feet in Buffalo New York...

Vacation starts TODAY!

My vacation starts today, my friends arrive tomorrow! it's a BEACH DAY!

Painting

Today is my last day before some days off. I have some friends coming down for a rebreather trimix instructor course, and I'm the students student again.
Most people look forward to time off. I do, but I worry about work.
Pretend that work is going in every day, and painting a painting. When you go on vacation, a co-worker who sees you painting every day and knows how you like to paint covers for you while you're gone. It's not too bad, because the person sees you painting every day, knows your style and what you're painting.
When I go on vacation, an outsider comes in, and I don't like the way he paints on my painting.
It seems like a really stupid way of describing it.
I have to think about it some more.
I don't feel comfortable when I go on vacation because I worry about work. I don't want any new projects started while I'm gone, I don't want anyone working on my existing projects while I'm gone. I don't want any surprises when I get back. If something breaks, I want my "replacement" to fix it to keep the station running, and that's all.
When anyone else goes on vacation, someone "in house" fills their place, but when I go on vacation, someone from outside comes in. I rekkon I'm the only one who considers him an outsider, because the only time he's there is when I'm not, and I DO know the guy, so maybe "outsider" is poor word to use.
It costs the station a lot of money, and having someone there in my place makes me feel insecure I guess.

Seeking the blue light

I have a bluetooth headset. It is great because I don't loose a hand while talking on the phone. Also, I can keep my phone on silent and when someone calls, I get a bentle blooping sound in my ear. I can go to the beach and have my phone in a waterproof box in my backpack and still take calls. Someday, the phone part will be gone and all everyone will have is the earpiece, which will be the entire phone. The bad thing is, that when you're using it, people think you're talking to yourself, but also, when you're talking to yourself, people think you're talking on your headset. (This has happened to me more than once!)

I can't find mine right now. It's been gone a few days. It's here, because my phone connects to it when I get a call, but I can't find it. I was looking for it in the dark last night. I called my cell phone from my house phone, I was walking around, looking for the blue light.
Nada
It's around here somewhere, but I can't find it.

No more trig I hope

24911
I had a very busy weekend. I worked Saturday for half a day, and I got to catch up on some studying and cleaning (not much cleaning, but I did get a good 4 hour stint of studying done).
Saturday, OI Girl and I went grocery shopping, and I pulled into a parking space in the parking lot, just like normal, got out and was walking to the store just like normal, and this lady yelled at me from her car that she was waiting for four cars to go by to get the parking spot I took. I said I didn't see anybody waiting but I was thinking, the only way someone could be waiting for that spot and me not see them, is if they were going the wrong way around the parking lot, against the flow of traffic. Anyway, I didn't say that, and she called me an asshole and drove off. Then I got angry, walked back to mey car and moved it to a spot right next to hers and and as we were getting out of the cars I told her again "There's your parking spot MA'AM, I didn't see anyone waiting" I was furious by then, and she knew it.
Now I'm all pissed off again, just from thinking about it.
Prior to that, the OI Girl was in a crabby mood all day. I felt great when I got off work that morning, It was sunny, and I met The OI Girl at the beach. She was in a bad mood, I could tell instantly. Then she wanted to leave almost as soon as I got there. Four hours later, I loose my temper in the parking lot with some some weird woman. I did pretty good for those 4 hours I think.
Then we had a fun time making up.
Also Saturday we went and looked at cars for the OI Girl. She found one she likes, a Mitsubishi Pajero. Hopefully its still there when we go back to get it today.
Yesterday we were going diving, but it was raining really hard off and on all day. I don't even know what happened to the day.

I'm officially done with the Trigonometry part of the course, (I HOPE!) I got 85% on the first test and hope to get the results of the second today. It was tough, and I hope to increase the pace from here on out.

Now it's back to work.

See ya tomorrow!

Approaching the fed up line . . . .

Saturday.
Yesterday I worked from 7:30 AM till 11:15 PM with no breaks. then I came home and went to sleep. Woke up this morning with two missed calls and a message from 12:15 AM about another problem. that's a whole hour after I left.
OI Girl says she feels like she's dating a doctor on call all the time.
Wish I got the pay of a doctor!
I'm headed back into work, right now.

I don't have much

to say today. I'm glad it's Friday. I am working late tonight and tomorrow a little. I'm mad at the swimming association because they notified us swimmers of a swim Saturday, and if I had known earlier, I wouldn't have said "OK" when they asked me to work. I sent them and email, not too nasty, a little.
I need to go diving, hopefully Sunday, and we'll be car shopping this weekend too. (For the OI Girl, not me)

I'm getting ready to get pissed off at a guy at work. He tells my boss things like "Tell Mark to stop by when he gets a chance". He can call me his damn self. I have too much work to do to be running and seeing what he wants while he's playing video games for 55 minutes out of every hour. I am probably not being reasonable in being offended. Maybe he's having technical difficulties with something, but I get the feeling he sit's at his desk and tries to 'issue commands'.
I don't want to get myself all wound up about that so early. I hate it when I feel like this.

I'm looking forward to the weekend. I'm too busy, as usual, but I'm looking forward to the beach and some diving. I don't think I have never gone so long without going to the beach as long as I've been here.

My shirt today is the same color as this text. I used to call it babyshit green, but now I call it wasabi green.

Weird dream

Last night I think I slept good. If I woke up at 3, I don't remember it.
I do remember a dreamI had:
I was at a moutainous place, at a hotel I think but it was more like little apartments. There were many travelers there and it was a big place, with many buildings, spaced far apart. I was outside and a girl asked me about an excursion, I think it was a dive trip. I told her it was cancelled, although I really didn't know. After that, we started talking more, and she seemed pretty nice. Then I had to go and as I was walking away, I heard her tell someone else that the trip was cancelled, I had forgotten about my lie, and felt guilty for lying to such a nice girl.
Then I was walking arcoss a big hilly field back to our room (the OI Girl was at our room, sleeping) and I heard a noise. I looked over and saw a big airplane, coming right at me. It was going to crash, but I just stood there, waiting for the first bounce so I could tell which way to run. BOOM! the plane it the ground and took a big bounce, and flipped over in the air. When it hit the ground and started skidding towards me, I ran to the left of the planes path. I ran almost up to our building and turned around just in time to see the plane skid to a stop, upside down. It was adjacent to me, about 100 meters away. I could see the pilot, upside down in his seat. He unbuckled, got out and ran away in the opposite direction as fast as he could. I wondered if I was far enough away. Then the plane blew up and started burning.
I wanted to get to the OI Girl but couldn't find our room. Finally I took a card out of my pocket with our room number on it and was surprised to find two cards. I found our door and could tell it was ours by the very green bush outside the door. Also there was a dresser on the "porch" and my checkbook was on it. I went inside and woke up the OI Girl (she was sleeping on a mattress on the floor) and told her about the plane crash. She said she knew, and that she was with me the whole time, and when I reached into my pocket and found two cards, really it was her pocket I was reaching into. That's why there were two cards, one was in my pocket and and one was in hers.
Weird.
What do you think?

A good thing!

It's a fast week so far, which is good. I've gotten a little studying in, and I seem to be going along OK, at least for a little while.
I have a split shift today. I plan on beachin' it. BUT lately we've been back in that daily pattern of lunchtime thunderstorms. Maybe not lunchtime thunderstorms, maybe it's better termed: "When I go to work it gets sunny then when I quit working it rains" pattern.
Anyway, I guess I got a little sleep and seem to have a better outlook on life in general than I have the past few days. Which is a good thing!

Thank God for coffee!

I'm tired, I feel like I'm wearing down. I worked yesterday from 7:30 AM til 9:15 PM. Today looks the same as I'm working tonight. I haven't been studying, too much work.
No matter how late I stay awake, I wake up at 3 am.
Thank God for coffee!

Blame me if you want

Saturday, when work was doing the power switchover, our competitor lost power too. (Their transmitters are on a tower that is in our yard, while ours are out in the center of the island.)
It never occured to me to tell them about the power switchover. I thought their power came from somewhere else, and they have 220 volts, we don't even have any 220. The Public Works guy said that he thought their power came from a different feed too. Plus, the power company should have the responsibility to tell their customer about a power interruption, shouldn't they?
I consider their engineer to be my friend, and I feel bad, because he may not be my friend anymore. If I had thought about it, or even talked to him, I would have mentioned it, but I didn't talk to him and didn't even consider that they might loose power too. I didn't think about them at all. His employer and maybe he thinks we/I tried to purposely screw them over by not telling them, but that's not the case. I expect I'll be hearing more about it today.

I decided not to re-start that trig chapter. I muscled my way through the test and have started the next chapter, (which is more trig). I'll let you know how I did on the test.

Eye m stoopid

yesterday I worked all day. I didn't even turn on my computer or check my email at all yesterday.

I finished the trigonometry chapter in my stuudying. I was taking the test. I decided to start the whole chapter over, because I'm just not able to apply what I learned in the chapter to the questions in the test. I thought I was getting a pretty good handle on it as I went through, but apparently not. I wantd to do a chapter a day and finish the 2 year course in less than 6 months, but I've been on this chapter for a week. It's not really a two year course per se, but I have two years to complete it. you can read about it for yourself here.

Tomorrow is the OI Girls first day at her new job.