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Month: August, 2005

New Tank!

23 August, 2005 (08:37) | Aquarium | No comments

So while I managed to sneak out of the Reef-a-palooza on Saturday and go diving instead, Jess went up and got the new tank. For now it’s still in her car, since it takes at least four people to move it. Her car’s backed up to the garage for now, where it’ll stay until we have the stand and everything ready for it. That means that we need to get a stand built!

So far we’ve got some plans. 4×4’s for the four corner posts. The top railing would be 4×4’s all the way around. The top would have two evenly spaced 2×4’s connecting the long sides. The back would have two 4×4’s spaced evenly. The front will have a 4×4 in the center. There will also be a 2×4 around the bottom that all the vertical posts would anchor in to.

That will probably be super overkill, but that’s fine. We’ll be out to get the supplies at Home Depot tonight. I’ll try taking pictures to post once it’s up and running. We need to get this done before the weekend if at all possible so that we can sell the 120g to our interested buyer.

The logistics are going to be… tricky. The tank will need to take up the space that’s currently taken up by the other two tanks. I suppose that means we’ll have to break down the two tanks and empty them, move them out of the way, put the stand where it’s going to be, put the tank on the stand, then try to get everything back in the new tank before it dies. That’s going to be a very long weekend.

Of course, after all that Jess will owe me a few weeks of diving-only weekends!

Banky’s Battery Info

22 August, 2005 (07:18) | Computers | 1 comment

Battery-Info Banky, my trusty iBook has been with me for almost two years now (OMG!). I saw a post today on The Unofficial Apple Weblog about an app that’ll show you some stats about your laptops battery. I decided to download it and take a look. The numbers were kind of surprising!

So as you can see the battery’s doing pretty well. At least, compared to some of the others in that thread. I can think of a few reasons for that. First, I let the damn battery cycle. I don’t constantly leave it plugged in to the AC adapter, charging. That much should be obvious given the high number of cycles. It’s a laptop for crying out loud, don’t leave it plugged in to your desk! Second, I maxed out the RAM (1.25 GB) so, in theory, the system has to spin up the disk less frequently. Less disk access means faster response (since RAM is super fast compared to disk) and less battery power since with the disk there are actual parts to shove around.

Dive #29: The Ruby E

21 August, 2005 (13:21) | Dive Reports | No comments

Date & Time	2005-08-20 @ ~ 4:00 PM
Visibility	15 - 20 ft.
Max. Depth	81 ft.
Min. Temp	51° F
Bottom Time	34 min
Air Info	HP 80: 3,000 - 1,000 psi = 17.0 psi/min

SCUBA Gear Assembly

20 August, 2005 (23:43) | Diving | No comments

I’d like to show how I put all my SCUBA gear together. This is a total step-by-step that should answer any questions you may have about what I take down with me, and why. I’ll post pictures when I get the chance to take them.
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About SCUBA Gear

20 August, 2005 (23:37) | Diving | No comments

I go in to quite a bit of detail about the gear required for SCUBA diving.
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Reef-a-Palooza

18 August, 2005 (20:49) | Aquarium | No comments

The second annual reef-a-palooza is happening on Saturday, and we’re going.

I’m not sure what all we’re going to take, but there will be tons to do. Bob Fenner will be giving a presentation, which is always interesting. If all goes well we might steal away on his annual European trip. He goes to Germany for some big conference, and then down to Egypt for SCUBA diving in the Red Sea. He does it all pretty inexpensively, too, costing maybe $2k for the whole trip! Of course, this isn’t luxury living and I bet that makes it better. I’d really like to go.

We’ll also be picking up another tank. Yay. It’s 5 x 3 x 2 ft, making it approximately 220 gallons. It’s Euro-braced and has a StarPhire front and is apparently quite pretty. It’s also a steal at such a low price. It’ll replace the current 120g + 55g + 40g sump system by combining all the display critters into one big tank. I’m pretty nervous about the sheer size of the thing. We’re going to drive it home from OC/LA in the back of Jess’ car. Then we’re going to need at least two more people to help us get it out of the car and into the back yard. Then we get to work on a stand. Etc. etc. — this will be a huge project. I’ll try taking pictures of everything and see how far we get.

LDS vs. Intarweb

18 August, 2005 (19:29) | Diving | No comments

As you know, I bought a set of steel HP 80 tanks. As is quite common with high pressure tanks they came with DIN valves (as opposed to the standard “yoke” or K-valve). This has required quite a bit of work to deal with.

First we had to get our first stages converted from the standard yoke, to DIN. Had we expected this going in to diving it would have been easier (read: less expensive) to just order them already converted. That hurt a bit — it cost $150 total to get both 1st stages converted. I’m willing to live with a bit of markup since we get free air and get to go on fun dives and boat dives for free. Plus they can only get those pieces from Atomic, who are notoriously expensive. Fine.

But today I went to pick up the DIN → Yoke adapters. This is two simple pieces of metal that swivel and screw in to the first stage. Somehow this cost more than the conversion! It’s just two hunks of metal and it costs $80?! What’s going on here?

I have to decide if I want to take this up with the LDS owner or not. On the one hand Jess and I get free air fills, free BBQ, and free boat rides on Ye Olde Rubber Duckie. On the other hand I feel like I was just bent over.

Dive #28: Ingraham St. Bridge

13 August, 2005 (18:13) | Dive Reports | No comments

Date & Time	2005-08-13 @ ~ 3:00 PM
Visibility	20 - 30 ft.
Max. Depth	70 ft.
Min. Temp	51° F
Bottom Time	32 min.
Air Info	HP 80: 3,000 - 780 psi = 22.2 psi/min

Another dive off the rubber duckie was tons of fun. Went out with Jake, Chris, Jason, and Jess. The dive site is the wreckage of the old Ingraham St. bridge. When the city wanted to replace/upgrade the bridge they took the old one, broke up the concrete, put it on a barge, and dumped it off Mission Beach. Now it’s another (unmarked!) artificial reef in the area.

On the way down the anchor line we saw some huge kelp: the leaves were easily 10 ft. long! Also saw lots of large cucumbers, urchins, rockfish, and I found my first spanish shawl. It was about ½ an inch long.

The visibility was superb (because of the cold water!) and the friends made the lack of diversity quite OK. There was enough to inspect and I hope to come back frequently.

Dive #27: La Jolla Shores

13 August, 2005 (18:09) | Dive Reports | No comments

Date & Time	2005-08-13 @ ~ 8:00 AM
Visibility	10 - 15 ft.
Max. Depth	100 ft.
Min. Temp	52° F
Bottom Time	42 min.
Air Info	HP 80: 3,375 - 700 psi = 15.8 psi/min

The surface was calm as a lake! w00t! Fastest and easiest kick out EVAR. Once we got out to our spot we descended, found the canyon, and started down. As we descended it got darker and darker. Around 100 ft. we decided there wasn’t much to see and headed back up to 60 ft. to find one of the walls where there was plenty to see: some catalina gobies, one medium, and one huge male sheephead fish.

Overall a very fun dive.

Save-a-dive kit!

10 August, 2005 (18:58) | Diving | No comments

Since I really want to round out our diving equipment and get most everything out of the way I decided to build a save-a-dive kit. I went to Fry’s last night and picked up a cute little yellow tool box that’ll work very well. Today I went through and picked up the items on this list:

Consumables

Batteries
- 8 x “C” Cells — for the lights
- 2 x 3v CR2 Li — for the VT Pro transmitter
- 2 x 3v CR2450 Li — for the VT Pro display
O-ring kit
Nose spray (Afrin)
Ear Drops
Eye Drops
Dramamine
Advil
Anti-fog drops/gel
Toothpaste
Sun screen
Zip-ties
2 x regulator mouthpiece
Pen/Sharpie
Wetsuit cleaner

Tools

Crescent wrench
SCUBA tool
Lighter/matches
Needlenose Pliers
Zip-tie nippers
VT PRo battery tool, a quarter
EMT Shears
Carabiners

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Month: August, 2005

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