*sigh*
Very long day in the lab today, Mack and I ended up getting a lot of work done, but getting home at 11pm sort of is a drag. The story is going to pretty much be the same for the next few weeks as I try and get thruster performance data. Oh, yeah, my thruster runs like a champ now. Well, not perfectly, but it runs reliably anyway and no longer eats itself allowing me to (shockingly) use parts more then once. But yeah, bed time.
Oh, I found a sweet picture from last year of me playing chess while we were camping. Figured I’d toss that one up for the heck of it.
As of Sunday, I’m finally a certified open water scuba diver. Let me tell you though, it was sort of a close call – not because I suck at diving, but rather because I nearly froze. We were doing the last two dives out at Esery Park which is near Copper Harbor but more importantly, directly on Lake Superior. Brad measured the water temperature to be a balmy 36 degrees F. So we saddle up like troopers, flood the wet suits with hot water (gives you at least a fighting chance in the water), and waded in. The first dive lasted about 40 minutes and I was plenty cold by the end of that one. Most of the class was pretty well out of it after climbing up the rocky shore; from blank stares to glossy eyes, no one was really firing on all cylinders.
After a 45 minute or so “warm up” session, we change out our tanks and saddle up again. I’m still pretty damn cold but the hot water being poured in my wetsuit feels great. What both me and my dive buddy fail to realize, is that I’m about to jump into the water without my wetsuit all zipped up. Needless to say, 30 seconds later when the frigid water sucks the air out of my lungs it is clear there is a problem. I surface and it is immeditaly evident what the problem is: yep, I’m screwed for this dive. With that knowledge in hand, I grit my teeth and man bones and decide to suck it up and give’r hell.
Fourty minutes later, we emerge! I stagger un-assisted up on shore and begin to shed my “xmen” suit. I hear lau
***ok, I’ve been dabbling in this post for a few days, but there are bigger fish to fry****
Wow, what a long thruster test today. Over 200 minutes of on-time which is a new record for the bismuth thruster. The only down side is that these tests are pretty intense (imagine looking at 150+ knobs and buttons that control the thing) so by day’s end I’m pretty well mentally shot. On the upside, my usual routine after a long test is to roll down the KBC and have a few beers while I document what happened and what my next move is in my research journal. So I’m looking forward to that as the lab is sort of like a prison on days like today. It is about 80 degrees in here with absolutely no airflow. Luckily though there weren’t too many people running around in here today because that can get very annoying very fast. Not that anyone is to blame; we all work here and I’m sure I’ll be on the other side of the fence in the not to distant future.
I broke the chain on my bike this morning on the way to work. Never had that happen before. Fortunately I was less then a block away from a bike shop so 10 minutes and $18 later I’m on my way again. Anyone else ever break a bike chain? I don’t imagine it happens all the frequently.
A reading from the book of obvious: Lake Superior is very cold in mid May. We did two of the required open water scuba certification dives last night in Eagle Harbor and let me tell you it was really freaking cold. The water temperature was somewhere between 40 to 45 degrees compounded with a balmy 50 degree air temp. Worse yet, during the first dive, I didn’t have my hood tucked in all the way so the frigid lake water was able pass with little impedance into the “warm” side of my wetsuit. Needless to say, after two 30 minute dives it took several hours for my core body temperature to get to anything near reasonable. Lucky me though, I get to do it all again on Friday out in the actual lake (not a harbor) where the water will be even colder. The up side is though, after Friday’s dives, I’ll be a certified scuba diver so I can go out and freeze my ass off whenever I want.
Sorry for the lack of content lately, I’ve been rather busy doing things then writing about them so I’ll give a quick summary while I enjoy a PBR:
On the docket for the immediate future is departure for Duluth hopefully within the hour. Cindy, Barden and I are going to be staying over at Nate’s for the night so we can get a jump on our Boundary Waters canoe/kayak trip. We go in on Tuesday morning at Sawbill Lake and will hopefully emerge four days later at the same spot we put in. We have some GPS assistance so there’s a pretty good chance we’ll make it.
When we emerge on Friday we’ll be heading south. The current plan is to dump those two off in the Cities and continue on back to K-Town as the evening grows late. My good friend Dan Johnson is getting hitched on Saturday and I plan on attending that occasion. After the reception and whatnot I’m not sure what the plan is, but after sleeping on the ground for the better part of a week, I’m probably just going to hit the sack (hahahaha yeah fat chance of that). So if anyone is going to be in Duluth tonight or in Kasson area this weekend, give me a ring. I know the old crew has since been strewn far and wide but I’ll keep the cell on anyway.
*sigh*
It’s that time again . . . where I’ve basically worn out the operating system and need to start fresh again. This particular implentation has lasted almost exactly a year but in the last three weeks, something isn’t happy and is causing a huge slowdown in everything I do. This operation can almost be considered precautionary since it is eather the OS or the hard drive and if it is the latter, I’d like to know before it is too late. Well hopefully I got all the data off that I needed. This is SHIFTY_EYES signing off. G’day.
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"Well, I think we have enough rope, beer and chainsaws to get the job done"
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