Inspiration Rebreather Lid

In about the middle of October, I send my rebreather electronics off to to be repaired. It had the same exact problem recur that I already had repaired a year or so ago.
They also did a 'servicing' that cost over $500. Friday I got my lid back and my display on my handset was damaged. It had a protective sheet on it when I sent it, and the sheet was gone and the display was damaged. I've never seen that kind of damage on anyones display. Sometimes they get a 'cigarette burn' if you leave them in the sun, but I have always been meticulous about keeping it safe.
I was so mad, I called them immediately, and just caught them as they were going home. (It is 5 hours later in the UK)
In a half hour, I had it back at Fed Ex, shipping it back to be re-repaired.

HellBoy

Is it one word or two?
Last week I saw the movie Hellboy II. OI Girl and I had saw the previews and I said I thought it would be funny. It was pretty entertaining. Little too romantical for me the second half. But the monsters and destruction were pretty cool the first half.

This week we watched Hellboy, the first one. It was good too, a little less romance and more action, although still too much romance. Good thing the guy's immune to fire.
On a scale of one to three, I give them both a two.

I generally don't like scary movies, but Hellboy isn't scary. It's rated PG 13 I think. I also saw 'Alien VS Predator' some months ago. It was so overdone it was hilarious. Absolutely every person in the movie gets eaten by a monster, except one guy, flying over in a plane.
The End.

Insanity

Yesterday, i was cleaning up the new studio, bring my tools and stuff back to my 'shop' Now I can't find a tiny bag of connectors that I put somewhere I wouldn't loose them.
Driving me nuts!

The apartments

Yesterday evening I had my architect over and showed him my idea for adding two apartments under my house. I showed him the leftover building material I had, the doors and block and steel, and he's going to draw up some plans.
If I can get a couple of apartments built, I can almost cover my mortgage with the income.

Hardworking weekend

Saturday, like I already said, I weekwhacked. After posting, I decided I was just going to blow off the Sunday weedwhacking and take it easy.
But there was a tangled pile of steel rebar that has been buried under grass and vines, I weekwhacked it out yesterday and needed to get it moved and sorted. So I did. Then I decided to weedwhack because I had my new string, Poulain Predator, .095 inch. It worked considerably better than my old skinnier string. I cleared away a corner of 'jungle' that had never been cleared since I moved it.
And finally, there was another pile of steel that I had stacked months ago, then someone hit it with a front-end loader and slid it off the property and messed up my noce neat stack. Well I moved it over where I put the first pile. I'm pretty sure I moved at least a ton of steel.

Snowy Cabin

It's cold and windy here, the windows and doors are closed, and the AC is off. The wind is whistling through the railings. It feels like we're up in the mountains in a snowy cabin instead of in the tropics.

Yesterday I weed whacked, today I will do more of the same, and pick up more rocks. I am very excited about this, because I got a brand new spool of weed whacker string! Pretty Orange!

Last night we rented the movie 'Get Smart'. It was good, much better than I expected.

Silence

I stole this from Robb, because I love it!

And it's so true!

Disgruntled

I asked for some time off next month, because my Mom and sister are coming to visit. My boss said no, because she set me up with a bunch of extra work for exactly perfectly the same dates as my Moms visit. So not only will I not be getting time off for my mothers visit, I'll probably be working late during her whole stay too.
They owe me more than 590 hours, and when I ask for time off, the answer is no. (this has happened twice in a row now)

countdown clock

I wonder what'll happen to this post when the clock runs out?

Topic Shortage

I didn't post yesterday, I am still working the night shift. I think today may be the day I finish the studio. I'll post pics when I get it all cleaned up and all my tools out of there and stuff. I hope the staff likes it.

Trashbag raincoat

Yesterday I left my raincoat at work, so today I wore a black trashbag with holes cut for my head and arms. Although I had seen them plenty, it was the first time I had ever worn such a garmet.
Stylish enough to wear anywhere, yet comfortable enough for everyday wear, economical and functional. It goes with anything, keeps you dry, and it was big enough that my computer backpack would fit underneath, not outside in the rain like with my raincoat.
So, it was a good thing!
My car's in the shop, getting a new muffler, there was ascraping sound, I figured front end, big $$$ but it wasn't so bad. The tailpipe was scraping the tire on right turns. That's why I'm riding my scooter in the rain.

Good weekend

My Favorite Pirate

It was a good weekend, Saturday OI Girl and I took the two dawgs to a training session. They both did very well. Ditto better than Sheba. We'll be going back for several weeks. Sheba seems to be improving, but she's still hardheaded. Also we went to the Pirates week landing and parade and Saturday night we watched fireworks from our roof.
Sunday we went to the beach, it was sunny and hot till it suddenly started raining.
Today is windy and cold.
This is the kind of post nobody leaves a comment on.

Hell Day

Yesterday I didn't see the light of day. I got to work at 4 AM and didn't leave till 7:30 PM.Everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong. Well, that's not true, but you get the idea. Major computer problems

I just hope I can leave at a reasonable time today.

Back From The Brac

The devastation on the Brac was pretty complete, but there's someone working practically on every roof, they put up new light poles on it seems like the whole north side of the island. Everyone's working in the year, cleaning up. Nobody is defeated.

Brac Reef will be gutted and rebuilt, keeping it the same, but newer.

The Brac will be better than before in the long run

It is a lot more efficient having 50,ooo people on Grand Cayman helping 2000 people on the Brac , instead of 50, 000 needing to be helped by 2000.

I was wrong

Looking at the track, the eye passed south of all the Cayman Islands. During the storm, I was told that it went to the north of Little Cayman and the Brac. But still, it was worse than a direct hit, because the eye would have at least given the Brac and Little Cayman a little break in the middle.

I found out last night that I'm going to the Brac tomorrow to check my equipment

End of and Era

The Hurricane left Grand Cayman largely untouched. But Cayman Brac got devastated. Paloma was an unusual hurricane. Usually, hurricanes here travel east to west, and the left side of the storm is weaker than the right side. So, the south side of a Caribbean island is usually more vulnerable than the north. If the hurricane passes to the south, the island gets the stronger side of the storm, and the north is protected by the island itself, and if the storm passes north, the island gets hit with the weaker side of the storm. I was told that this storm, traveling the wrong way, west to east, went north of Cayman Brac. So the North Side got the strong side of the storm, and was devastated very badly. I also heard that Little Cayman, while suffering an almost direct hit, isn't damaged badly at all compared to The Brac.
The hotel(s) and beaches are mostly on the south west part of the island. There were two hotels, Divi Tiara and Brac Reef, Divi has been closed for a couple of years, and I loved Brac Reef.
The east end of Cayman Brac has a huge ridge-like cliff, but the west is largely flat. The way I understand it, storm surge passed completely over the island and destroyed Brac Reef Beach Resort with the weather coming from the north instead of the south. It took the roof off almost the whole thing and flooded it out. It will have to be razed, I heard.
Also, villages along the north were very severly damaged. They had never been hit like this before. Normally the Bluff protects them. Some of my friends lost their entire houses to 25 foot waves. It's a miracle that nobody got killed
Least damaged is the south east part, where there are less houses, and they are more built to take the storms. This part was protected by the Bluff this time.

In the past 12 years, I've been to Cayman Brac many times for work, it was always a pleasure to go. Brac Reef is where the OI Girl worked when I met her. I have only good memories there. Cayman Brac is one of the best places on earth. Another kick in the groin is that the hurricane season is almost over, and a lot of people, myself included, were relaxed, in the cool rainy weather, that hurricanes were finished for the year. This one came out of nowhere and fast.

I'm really sad about this.

The worst is over

The worst is over here in Grand Cayman as the storm went south instead of over. But it looks like Little Cayman and the Brac will be whacked again. Hope they make it through OK.
Hope my house made it through OK too. I look forward to going home and going to bed!

Same amount of worseness

Worse

Paloma

Oh boyoboy, if it happens like this, we'll get the right side of the storm, which is the strong side. Think Hurricane Michelle, far away, but gave us big waves. Michelle is the one that sent waves straight through my apartment and almost washed my Dawg and me out to sea!

Historical President

Forget all the crap on the radio and TV, this is the first US president that is younger than me!

Monday

last nights sunset from my back porch

It was a good weekend, although it rained a lot and was mostly cloudy. I added a shelf above my workbench, and today I have to buy some hardware to properly secure it. I was a few screws short and it will take about 5 minutes to screw them in.
It was a pretty good sunset last night, which hopefully means a nice day today, although the weather report indicates otherwise.
I'm back at work, wiring and wiring.
Last night we cooked some ribeyes on the grill and earlier we watched a movie I've been meaning to mention, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It was pretty good, although it was definitely a chick flick.

Fellow Bloggers

Yesterday I was at the Vet's office with the OI Girl, getting the dogs some vaccinations. We were just walking out, wrassling our two dogs, who wanted to sniff and possibly devour all the other dogs in the waiting room, when this guy asked me if I was Mark. I said yes, and although he looked familiar, I didn't really place him, till he said he read my website. (I thought that was funny, 'cause I never really considered this a website, its more like a TOY website). It clicked then and I asked him "are you Mad Bull?!" and he said yes! I said I always wanted to meet him and Trouble. He said he gets together with Trouble every now and then.
I gave him my business card and hopefully he'll call and we'll have a cuppa coffee or a cigar sometime. I had looked at Mad Bulls pic on his profile and had been keeping an eye out, but he is much taller than I expected!

It was cool, meeting another blogger!

Worthless Product alert

I bought a bottle of this stuff. Dr Katz's Thera Breath Oral Rinse. It is worthless. If you drink coffee, this won't even get the coffee taste out of your mouth. I knew it reminded me of something, but couldn't figure it out, suddenly it hit me- it is like swimming pool water. That's about how strong it is. Worthless.