January 2005

Saturday, 1-29-4

Rebecca's Girl Scout Masquerade Ball

This was our second annual Father-Daughter formal. Last year it was a Cinderella theme. This year it was masquerade. When we arrived we found out it was actually more like Mardi Gras. Today was actually Grandmama's birthday and we wished we could be down there to celebrate it with her. The ball is all Becca has talked about for months but when she found out it was on the same day as the birthday she asked me if we should cancel our plans to go visit Grandmama on her birthday. Isn't she sweet?

Mommy did up Becca's hair (and complained about mine). We got all dressed up and out we went.

We went and had sushi/sashimi at Motoga just like last year. When we walked in our favorite waitress asked if it had been a year already? She remembered us coming in all dressed up last year too.

Last year getting our pictures taken at the ball took a LONG time so we decided to hit the pictures early. When we got to the ball, we were 30 minutes early and the photographers were ready to go. Pictures taken, in and out.

We took a table right next to the dance floor. We saved spaces for Julia and Thom. It was their first year doing this and they didn't know how vicious little girls can get over seating arrangements.

We danced all night. I don't really dance so well but I faked it pretty well. Every once in a while Becca would cut me loose and the girls would hit the dance floor without us but for the most part Becca had me out there all night. Thom danced too!

We had a great night and are looking forward to next year already.

Daddy and Becca. Mommy says I need a haircut. She may be right.

She insisted we get a picture that included her shoes.

Council was misspelled on both sides of the sign. I sure hope I wasn't the only one to notice this...

Becca standing at the entry gate.

Becca and Julia taking a break.

My little angel.

Monday, 1-24-5
I've got a lot to catch up on. I have been busy all last week and this week promises to be just as hectic. I was busy all weekend in the water, pictures will probably follow next week. I am now an open-water certified scuba diver! It was SOOOO cool! I read all about it and studied real hard. I knew how it worked but until you actually do it, nothing can prepare you for just HOW cool this is.
Friday night we set up the equipment and tried it all out. I squeezed my fat body into a wet suit. Lisa and Wade tried hard not to laugh when they told me that I had it on backwards. We went to the dive shop to fill the air tanks and take the first quizzes. Everything OK, ready for Saturday morning.

We meet up Saturday and head out to Ginnie Springs. After gearing up and settling down into the water, I was ready to take my first breath underwater. Even before fully submerging I was almost giggling at the fact that my mouth was under water and I could breath. I know, a snorkel gives you the same effect but it's just not the same. It was mind-blowing to me.
Before getting started, Wade and Brent told us about the mask/beer rule. One of the signs of a panicked diver is spitting out the regulator and moving the mask up onto the forehead (at the surface of course). We were not to rest the mask on our foreheads even for a minute. Every time we did, we had to buy them a round of beer. No student has ever gone through the class without buying at least one round. Lisa and I decided right then and there that we'd be the first.
We listened as Brent gave us instructions on the tasks we had to perform. Some of them seemed easier in the book but none of them proved to be too difficult. Our first practice was in 15' of water. We flew through them pretty fast because neither one of us had any real trouble with the skills. When your life depends on these skills you tend to pay close attention and learn fast! The "out of air" drill really drove home how bad it would suck to be on the bottom and not able to breathe. Brent got behind me and turned off my air. After a couple of breaths it got hard to breathe and then it just stopped. He cut it back on as soon as I gave the out of air signal but simulating that feeling was important because now I know how it feels and how much I never want to feel it again.
After the basics we went over to "Devil's Eye" where you could drop down 30' or so. The only problem I had was clearing my ears. As we descended I took forever to equalize the pressure in my ears. I finally got there but I could see that this was going to create a problem for me. Wade later explained that the canals are elastic and with experience and practice I will clear easier. I hope so, it really sucked to slow everybody down because I couldn't drop fast enough.
As we surfaced, Wade pointed out a fresh-water flounder. The size of a quarter and camouflaged so well I didn't see it. As he moved his finger closer to it, the ground fluttered and moved. A few feet away it stopped and settled in again and it was hard to see. You had to keep your eye on it like the 'cups and balls' magic trick.
We moved up and over into "Devil's Ear" on the Santa Fe river. There is a cliff right where the spring ends and you can drop down into the river. At the bottom, looking up 50' at the surface was magical! The crystal clear water from the spring mixing with the dark water (tannic acid?) from the river was quite a sight. There was a sharp line of where the spring ended and the river began and the temperature difference was very noticeable. I though the spring water was cold until I felt the river water. I stood right on the line and felt the cold water on the right side of my body and the (relatively) warmer spring water on the left side.
It was still cold in the spring water though so after a while we got out and warmed up in the showers. The water temperature was 72? and the air temp was in the 70s so it wasn't too bad. We spent 6 hours in the water Saturday so after a while, you just got cold and couldn't get warm. We did well and we were looking forward to Sunday's dives.

Saturday night a cold front came through. When I got to Wade's house Sunday morning it was 36 degrees. When we got out to Manatee Springs in Chiefland, it hadn't gotten much warmer. The wet suits were still wet from yesterday and cold! Lisa says she found ice crystals in her body suit. The anticipation of the cold was worse than the cold itself but NOTHING could keep me out of the water that day. We dressed out and went over to "Catfish Hotel". It's a small sinkhole covered in duckweed. It looked like a swamp. Yuck! In we went and just below the surface it was clear. We dropped down to roughly 70-80' and I had absolutely no problem clearing my ears. It was unbelievable! We had to be careful to stay out of the caves and the flow but it was cool just hanging out at the bottom, digging on the fish and stuff. I found myself thinking that I had already become an addict. I loved being down there. Venturing into the mouth of the cave I could feel the allure and the danger of swimming further in. Not today and not for a while. I'm not sure I want to do any cave diving training. Maybe after I learn some more and gain experience in the water but right now it scares the hell out of me.
When we got out and changed into warm clothes (it was still in the 40s) Brent and Wade congratulated us as we were now officially certified. At that point Lisa pointed out that they were buying the beer. We hadn't screwed up the mask bit the whole time. Wade said he was happy to buy the beer because we were really the first students that got through the class without doing it once. He got us back by not telling us an important secret earlier. When Lisa and I got out of Catfish Hotel, we were covered in duckweed. All our gear was covered too. Wade and Brent were perfectly clean. The trick is to go under and swim over to the stairs and blow a lot of air out. The duckweed will clear a hole at the surface and you climb out clean. NOW you tell me....
As we headed home we stopped in Gainesville for dinner, drank our well-earned Guinness and took our final exam. I had such a great time I could have hung out all night but we've got to get home, I've got a lot of duckweed to clean off my gear.
Anyway, the diving experience was one of the coolest things I've tried. It was well worth the money, the trip and the cold! I see a lot of dives coming up in my future. I can't wait to get back under the water. The are a lot of other courses I'll take before I even begin to think about caves. First is "Advanced Open Water". There's a long list of stuff I want to do. Deep Diver, Cavern Diver, Wreck Diver, Ice Diver, Search and Recovery... Oh man, here comes the shakes, I need another dive fix....

I'm keeping all of the diving pictures HERE

Wednesday, 1-19-5
Happy birthday, Jerry Jr. and Fred.

It's been a week since I've updated. I've been busy busy busy! I haven't had any time to do active research on useless trivia and I miss it. I've been writing a lot and studying for my open water scuba certification.

However, in my passive research methods, I have read a lot recently about the controversy over the wealthy in Heaven. I do a lot of reading on religions and most of you know where I stand on that. You've got to approach these discussions openly and without bias or it just turns into a "my god is bigger than your god" fight and nothing is learned.
Jesus Christ. Love him, hate him, deify him, humanize him, you've got to admit, he was one pretty cool cat. He said some righteous stuff that we should all listen to. Christian, Muslim, Jew, Other... If everyone emulated most of what he taught, we'd all rub elbows a little easier.

Well, back to work and I've got some writing to do too. At least now you know what I've been reading and why I've been missing from the webpage all week.

Friday, 1-7-5
Yeah! I made it through a whole week and updated every day. Yay for me!
The "Karen Update" is almost ready to be released. That's the password protected link on the front page you've been wondering about. I'll probably move the link to the "Updates" page when I make it available to you guys. I've had Teresa proof-reading it this week (she's busy with Girl Scouts and school too) and she has given me a lot of input on this. So much in fact that I'm trying to find a way to have Teresa be the one responsible for updating the "KU" page. She gets all the good dirt anyway.

I've put a link to a listing (.xls) of my DVD collection on the front page. Some of you will find it to be an easy way to look at which movies you can borrow from me. The rest of you will find it to be a blazing display of my Prussian/Virgo organization skills and proof that I need to be taken out and beaten until I learn that not everything needs to be categorized. You should have seen the original file. I deleted 8 of the tabs on the spreadsheet. I had it listing all my MP3s, books, photos, VHS, CDs, CD-R mixes, etc. I removed those tabs because I really don't "own" most of those MP3s if you know what I mean and I don't need Lars Ulrich suing me for having a bootleg copy of their crappy new music. P2P networks saved me a lot of time and money because if I had actually gone out and purchased a copy of the new Metallica CDs I would have had to track them all down, strap them in to a chair "A Clockwork Orange" style and made them listen to their OLD music side by side with their NEW m... mu... mu.. music, until they pee their pants and promise never to release crappy music again. As it stands, I downloaded it, listened, cried until I threw up and deleted it.

OK the rant is over, now the bad news for those of you who read this regularly (both of you). I was struck by inspiration this week and I have a new idea for another story. This means I will probably not be updating this as often because I will be writing. On the other hand (on the other hand, there are 5 more fingers!) those who know me also know that while the Muse does visit me regularly, she never stays long. I have volumes of notebooks filled with outlines and rough drafts for stories. I rarely finish them. This time I've started writing on the computer instead of by hand. Breaks my old "traditions" but then, maybe a tradition of failure is one worth breaking.

Don't worry, I'm not abandoning or even saying that I'm stopping with this web thingy. I like doing it too much to drop it. I'll probably update at the same rate I did before, 2-3 times a week. It amazes me that anyone actually reads this and as always, thanks.

Tuesday, 1-4-5
Coming back to reality this week. We kind of took off there during Christmas/New Years. Too much money spent, too much food eaten and not enough alcohol drank. Pretty successful holiday, family was all around and it was great to see everyone. I got to see my brother Jeff and his wife and son. He came in from Texas for the week. I didn't get to hang out with him as much as I would have liked but he has been away from Trisha and Gavin for so long he didn't have much time to hang out.
Finally got out to a Barracuda's game. First one this season. The NHL cancelled this season (and it doesn't look good for next season) but the minor league teams are still playing. I've got to get out to more games this season but I just don't have the time or money.
Everyone at work is just returning today. I had to be here all week but the rest of the crew had from the 24th to the 3rd off. We have another moratorium scheduled from Jan 16th to the 23rd. I can't stand doing "nothing" and that's all I seem to be doing recently. I guess I can't complain, they pay me more than Village Inn was paying me and I don't come home smelling like a grease trap anymore.

Onward to February 2005 Back to Updates