In which I utterly fail to cover myself with glory scuba diving
Diving today at Redondo with my new buddy Alex was something of a challenge. In the end, bad things happened — but while I didn't do a great job, it could have been a lot worse. Bear with me as I run through the scenario, the challenges, what I got right (not a whole lot), and where I can do better next time.
The only way I'm going to get better at this diving thing (besides diving a whole lot more — these were dives 66 and 67, and I'm at somewhere just over 35 hours of bottom time) is for people to point out opportunities where I can do better. (For the record, Alex and I are both PADI Advanced, and I've completed my rescue dive course except for the CPR section as I was out-of-town when that happened; I should be finishing it up in November.)
Our first dive started off well. We got down to 85 feet and saw the octopus under the boat. (Well, I did — Alex didn't really know what he was looking for.) Heading to the boat at 55 feet in a leisurely fashion, I overshot and we ended up at 35 feet. At which point Alex experienced a buoyancy issue and came up to the surface. I saw that he was going up, and followed at a not-triggering-my-dive-computer's-warnings pace, albeit without a safety stop at 15 feet. We met on the surface (though he was some distance away at that point) and swam back to shore. (Bottom time 19 minutes.)
Our second dive started out a little badly: Alex lost his mask and snorkel while putting his fins on. (I think they're blue — if anyone finds this at Redondo in the next week or two, please let me know!) He had a backup mask (no snorkel), and when we got in the water everything was lovely. Went down to the boat at 55 feet, saw the octopus there, headed to the boat at 40 feet... There were tons of shrimp out, huge armies of them, and some nice-sized crabs. We were having a lovely time. I had wonderful buoyancy, there were great things to see. I was in a happy place.
Somewhere around the stacked pipes, or the second reflector pile (35-45 feet deep?), I noticed that I had stopped breathing air. In fact, I was sucking in water. I noticed that my reg was out of my mouth, so I put it back in. Then I discovered that it didn't want to stay in. I saw that the mouthpiece was gone. Whoops.
I located my octo, and struggled to detach it from its holder. (I have the kind that looks like this, where the bite piece slips into a pair of slots, like this.) Turns out that while this octo holder does in fact secure it nicely, I'm not very good at removing it with my gloves on.
I looked at Alex, but I didn't think I could reasonably swim to him — I was holding my breath, which meant I had started rising. Whoops. Around 25 feet down I decided that I would do a CESA, as I still wasn't having success getting my octo out. So I let the air out of my BCD, swam up, and breathed out as I ascended. At the surface, I inflated my BCD and managed to detach my octo from it. Alex came up shortly afterwards. From where we were it was a long swim back to shore. (Bottom time 17 minutes — though it felt that long on my CESA alone!)
Things I think I got right: I avoided lung expansion injury, and (so far) have no signs of DCI. I identified the problem rapidly, and located my octo promptly. I didn't inflate my BCD and hurry to the surface, and I resisted the urge to pull off my mask as panic started to rise near the end of my CESA. I made sure to renew my DAN membership in the spring, with one of the better insurance options.
Things I think I got wrong: I was too darned far away from my buddy, for starters. I wasn't able to manipulate my octo at depth — something I've done in courses but never had to try in a real emergency. I certainly ascended too fast. Also, I was too tired: I slept poorly last night, and maybe I should have called the dive on that basis. I'm sure that my tired mind slowed my reactions and encouraged suboptimal behavior.
Things I probably could have done instead of what I actually did: (1) been close enough to my buddy to get his octo promptly (2) held the mouthpiece-less reg in my mouth with one hand while I detached the octo with my other (3) used the purge button on my reg to stream out air, which I could sip from while I detached the octo.
What I plan to do: well, I already bought a new octo holder, one of the silicone loops that I should just be able to tug when I need (Not exactly this but close.) I plan to stay closer to my buddy — Alex and I agreed that was a misstep. And I plan on continuing to dive, and to build experience. While I didn't exactly cover myself with glory here, I did manage to avoid full-blown panic and made it to the surface with no apparent injury.
I wish my library worked like Netflix.
I wish that I could ask the library not to send me any more books until I'm done with the ones I already have: Netflix won't send any more than X videos at a time, and if I could dial my library requests down to one at a time, I might be able to read everything before the next book shows up. (I'm limiting myself to one or two books for pleasure reading at a time these days, and that's mostly what I get from the library.)
Instead, I make requests, get nothing for weeks, and then I get books showing up faster than I can read them. I could take them all out, and renew the ones I haven't had time to read, but that's denying someone else the books. Usually I just pick one and let the other holds expire, or take them out and return them promptly...
Applied Delany
In recent weeks I've developed the habit of listening to NPR's Car Talk on my commute. It amuses me to listen to a show about automobiles while riding public transit, in addition to the pleasure the show itself provides.
Enjoyment of the show derives in no small part from repetition, and variation of that repetition. It derives less from the solution of tricky troubleshooting problems (though I do enjoy that aspect personally and professionally) as from the insults that the brothers deploy against one another, and more explicitly ritual aspects of the show: the closing credits, which consist more of puns and in-jokes than names or roles; the weekly Puzzler; and even the iconic braying-donkey laughs that the brothers loose upon the radio laughing at their own jokes.
This week I realized that, in a sense, this made Car Talk a very adult pleasure. One of my favorite Samuel R Delany quotes comes from Tales of Neveryon, where he writes:
Childhood is that time in which we never question the fact that every adult act is not only an autonomous occurrence in the universe, but that it is also filled, packed, overflowing with meaning, whether that meaning works for ill or good, whether the ill or good is or is not comprehended.
Adulthood is that time in which we see that all human actions follow forms, whether well or badly, and it is the perseverance of the forms that is, whether for better or worse, their meaning.
Various cultures make the transition at various ages, which transition period lasts for varying lengths of time, one accomplishing it in a week with careful dances, ancient prayers, and isolate and specified rituals; another, letting it take its own course, offering no help for it, and allowing it to run on frequently for years. But at the center of the changeover there is a period - whether it be a moment's vision or a year-long suspicion - where the maturing youth sees all adult behavior as merely formal and totally meaningless.
Truly, the meaning of Car Talk inheres within the perseverance of its forms.
I don’t usually post videos…
... especially ones making the rounds so widely already. But I'll make an exception:
Silly, yes, but also incredibly inspiring. At least to my obviously-way-too-sappy sensibility.
Dinner tonight: Jon’s Faux-roccan chickpeas
In an experimental mood, and desiring to eat more legumes, Laura and I decided to make Moroccan-inspired chickpeas for dinner.
Here's the recipe:
My Apple Dilemma
I've been looking forward to the introduction of a 64G iPod touch: finally Apple would release a pretty, solid-state-storage MP3 player with enough room for my music, plus a reasonable amount of space for applications and videos too. (My MP3s alone clock in at about 45 gigabytes, so it's not as though the space on a 32G iPod would be adequate—my music-listening habits have a long tail, as I rediscover anytime I'm on an airplane with my 8G iPod Nano 2G.)
Today work sent out an e-mail about our corporate switch to the AT&T network, which noted that I would be in line to receive a BlackBerry almost identical to my current hated model. However, if I bought my own phone (with 10% corporate discount), they would hook it up to the corporate e-mail network. That includes the iPhone, I confirmed after double-checking.
So my dilemma is this: 32G iPhone (which would probably give me 16-20G of music, or less than half the collection, once I account for applications, photos, videos, etc.) for $270, or free corporate BlackBerry plus either my current iPod or a (presumably) $399 64G iPod Touch once they launch in fewer than three weeks?
Either way, the company pays my complete mobile bill, so that's not a reason to pick one over the other. Primary concerns are cost, one versus two devices, and the ability to carry around my music collection. Plus frustration level if Apple announces a 64G iPhone bump in the near future but after their September 9th event. (Because if they were to announce such a thing, the answer would be totally obvious.)
Pet Peeve: “Pour Over”
I've seen it twice today, once in a news story and once in an e-mail update from a literary magazine. The correct phrase is pore over, not not pour over. This isn't even marginally debatable as to which is correct, and is another example of people writing what they've heard, not what they've read. My friend Jody has long had problems training people to write English as it is written, rather than as it's been heard on television; this is another (minor) example of that.
Better lunch-porting devices
With the current economic climate driving people to bring lunch to work, I'd like to see nicer options for bringing my lunch into work without getting it all over the bottom of my bag.
This happened to me earlier this week. I made some delicious halibut poached in white wine and lemon juice with vegetables, and the delicious sauce spilled all over my bag, despite my attempts to keep the fish container upright. Today, I brought in last night's beef and mushroom soba soup, and that was more successful—Murphy let me get away with it, given that I wrapped the container in a plastic grocery bag before putting it in my tote.
When bringing saucy or soupy foods in, even the better disposable packages tend to leak. Now, this is partly my fault, as I'll just throw whatever package I have in whatever totebag or messenger bag I'm brining to work. (As an aside: anyone want to buy me this laptop bag? My six-year-old messenger bag is pretty worn...)
But I've had a wonderful coffee mug that just didn't spill, no matter how I carried it. I don't care about insulation, really: I just want a bunch of containers like this, in appropriate lunch sizes and shapes.
Measuring the Critics
Slate's Brow Beat has an excellent graph of relative conformity of movie critics. One critic, dismissed as a troll (and he praised both Norbit and Transformers 2 so I'm inclined to agree), nevertheless agrees with other critics 50% of the time. Further, virtually all of the critics bunch up at about 75% conformity, with the most conformist critic at only 83%.
This suggests to me that a scale from 1 to 100 doesn't really work. These guys should be graded (for conformity) on a curve, spread evenly across a spectrum. With that graph, we could break film critics up into three categories: trolls, thoughtful critics, and squares.
Or maybe I'm just saying that because I despise critics at both ends of the list. (My favorite three movie critics writing today are David Edelstein, Roger Ebert, and A.O. Scott, followed by up-and-comer Lindy West.)