Sunday, October 30, 2011

My Photographer Was Successful

A story through pictures.  You can look anywhere on the web and find lots of pictures of people scuba diving and sharing their pictures of the underwater universe.  I've opted to join the collective.  The caveat being that these are my pictures.  Further, I'd like to point out these pictures were taken with a $15 camera.  I was a little shocked that they turned out as well as they did.  Lisa was the photographer so there are not pictures of her so stop your begging.

As you can see below, this first picture is of Julio pushing me off the back of the boat.  He wasn't very nice, but I survived.  I'm kidding of course.  The guys at Sand Dollar Sports were awesome.  If you're going to go diving in Cozumel, I'd highly recommend them.  They exceeded my expectations.  They were savvy about everything and even helped me remember to test my blood sugar between dives.
This second picture is one of my favorite fish pictures.  Lucky for you, I'm not going to share all my photos.  There are too many.  I just picked some of my favorites.  Some because they were cool and some because they turned out cool.  Try not to skip ahead.
This is just a miscellaneous shot showing several little hidden treasures.  I didn't realize until I uploaded it, that it got Julio's finger pointing out one of the fish.  Julio is two different people.  I can't remember their names.  There was the Julio pushing people off the back of the boat and now there is Julio pointing out treasures of the sea.
This one is a little hard to see.  I cropped it the best I could.  It's still cool.  It's a picture of a nurse shark resting under the overhang.  You can see the tail fin to the right then if you squint and hold your head just right you can see the entire shark.  It was about 4 feet long.
And last, but not least, the rarest of all sea creatures.  It's the salt water Gar Fish.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

He's Back

I'm back and frantically attempting to come up with entertaining topics.  You'd think being on a 7 day cruise in the Caribbean and being chased home by Hurricane Rina would be topic enough!  Durango even briefly blogged about me.  It warmed the cockles of my heart to see that he missed me.

I only had one person concerned as to my whereabouts or possible demise.  Sad but true.

My Scuba was successful.  We took an underwater camera, but it wasn't of the digital variety so we're having to wait for the 35mm film to be developed.  We're also not very optimistic as to the quality of the pictures.  Which is too bad because I do look pretty good in a wetsuit.  Everyone thought so.

I'm thinking about writing an informational blog about diving with an insulin pump.  I'll keep you posted.

I'm also rather disgusted that the "Occupy Wall Street" crap is still progressing.  I'm not a fan.  The amount of ignorance coming out of that misguided charade is alarming to say the least.

But, enough of that.  The waves were choppy enough on this cruise to actually make me a little sea sick.  It also could have been the amount of beer I drank the night before.  I'm not passing any verdicts.  A little bit of ginger root fixed me right up.

They cancelled our stop in the Cayman's.  I think because of the beginnings of Hurricane Rina (back when she was just a lowly depression).

I always meet people on the cruise and tell them that I will write about them in my blog.  I never do.  Well, maybe once I did.  This time will not be any different.  I wish now that I had taken pictures of Abbot and Costello.

 

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Cruising

For all those who are detrimentally worried about my mysterious whereabouts, worry no more!

I'm frantically preparing for my quarterly 7 day cruise which I'll be embarking on this Sunday.

This time, I'm going to drive to Galveston on Saturday and stay at a classy Motel 6.  Then, early Sunday I will drive my little car to the Galveston Park 'n' Cruise which is covered and cheaper parking than what the cruise lines offer.  It's also directly across the street from the ship so you don't have to take a shuttle.  Makes life easier and that's the way I like it.

I read online somewhere that you can start the boarding process at 10:30 AM which means I could be in my happy place by 11:30!  It's like I'm a professional cruiser.  I have been thinking of trying to get an *IT job on one of the Carnival ships.  That'd be a cool way to spend the last 20 years of my life.

On this particular cruise, I'll be scuba diving in Cayman Islands and Cozumel.  I'm not sure how many pictures I'll acquire, but I'll try.  If you don't hear from me by the 24th of October it probably means I suffered an unfortunate accident or I finally got that dream IT job.

*IT stands for Information Technology. I'm not really an IT guy, but I think I could be if I wanted to.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Fun With Friends and Words

Since Words With Friends came out on the Android I've been playing with several people I happen to know who can put up with my self-diagnosed Asperger's syndrome.  We'll call them friends.

I quickly grew irritated with the game because it requires a good vocabulary, but it's also a math game and I prefer the math portion of it.  You look at all the different ways you can play a word and come up with the one which will give you the most points although it's not always obvious.  The scoring rules are kind of "learn as you go".  My vocabulary is not very good.

I discovered the "Win Every Game" website to help me with the vocabulary part, but I still spend a lot of time doing the math trying to figure out the best place to put the words.  There's also a bit of defense thrown in trying to prevent your opponent from getting the 100 point scores by leaving triple letter triple word combo's open for play.  You gotta keep those puppies unplayable.

Yesterday I played the word zek.  I didn't really know what the heck it was, but it fit where I was trying to play with a triple letter score on the z.  My opponent (bless him for putting up with my sickness) said, "Okay smarty pants.  What does zek mean?"

I had to look it up.  It happens to be an inmate at a forced labor camp.  I used zek in a sentence just to prove I knew what it meant.  We don't have zeks in the USA, but we should.  Go tell that to your friends and see if they look at you funny.

Although not required for diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome, physical clumsiness and atypical use of language are frequently reported

Monday, October 3, 2011

The Melty Man

Preface with this link here if you haven't already read it.

Yesterday, I watched the Cowboys again.  They had accidentally won two games in a row.  One with Tony injured and on drugs and another by some strange field goal kicking anomaly.

As I have said on many occasions and written down twice, for Romo to win games, he needs to take some kind of mind altering medication at halftime so he doesn't melt.  He proved me right again yesterday.  As soon as things get stressful or go the least bit sour he melts like a scoop of ice cream on a black car during a Texas summer.

I like the Cowboys.  I like Jason Garrett as coach.  I like the young offensive line.  I like the defense.  I simply can't stand Tony and his consistent inconsistency.  From now on he will be known as "The Melty Man".



Yesterday, my dislike of Tony got so bad that I accidentally let out a little cheer for the Lions.  It was unintentional.  Really.

Therefore, I am boycotting the Cowboys as long as Romo is quarterback.  If he gets injured like he did last year or just decides to politely step down for the sake of the team, I'd appreciate someone giving me a heads up so I can end my boycott.

I'm a fan of intelligence.  Bradshaw always seems intelligent.  Yesterday he said, “On the taxi squad you’re taught to throw it down there and he [Tony] plays like that. He plays like he’s on the taxi squad. When you look at the interception against the Giants in the playoff game; we look at the bonehead play, the interception against the Jets which would have been a huge win for the Dallas Cowboys; the dropped snap on the field goal. He seems to always make bad plays in big games and that’s what he’s being measured by. He’s rapidly becoming kind of a Danny White. A very good quarterback, White followed Staubach. Now we’re seeing Romo follow Troy Aikman.”

That was Terry's politically correct way of saying, Romo is a bonehead.  Oh wait, he did kind of say that.