:Six Feet Under… and then some.

The darn thing actually worked!

I was able to finally take my home-made gauge into the pool and it registered changes in depth nicely!  No leaks noted.  But then that was just 14 feet, I wonder how it’ll do at a hundred…  And the reg worked flawlessly too

Although it felt a bit weird, being all by myself in the pool.  Well, there’s always a first.

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The ugly calico thing isn’t as noisy as before, and doesn’t hiss at me anymore.  It is, however, losing weight.  I need to find a better way to feed it.

As per tradition, I’m considering it my CS cat.

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Well, just one more official duty to go in Imus, then I can focus on getting my stuff together in preparation for leaving in under a month.  Its been interesting, working there.  I enjoyed the fact that I didn’t really need to battle through traffic to get to and from work, even though my schedule was seven to seven.  The Daang-Hari route to Cavite is just such an incredible time-saver.  However, this is also the same reason why I’m happy its almost done.  I’ve always disliked passing through the Molino part by myself at night - especially through the rough, muddy portion near the bridge.  Well, that’s that I guess.

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There are few things in my life that tick me off more than driving around Metro Manila.  This is due to several factors - one of which is that I am an anal-retentive prick (see? even just thinking about traffic pisses me off!).  Anyway, here’s a listing of some things of note: 

- The most important part of the pinoy motorcyclist’s body is the elbow.  That’s the conclusion I got from watching people riding around with their helmets strapped to their arms.

- Signal lights?  What are those?

- Lane markings? wha…?

- The purpose of pedestrian overpasses is to provide a shade for people crossing beneath it on the street.

- people will usually cross in front of your car when you are moving forward rather than behind it.

- the jeepney is truly the king of the road… right after the buses and trucks that ply the streets after 9 PM.

- Filipino animals are the laziest bunch ever, refusing to get off the road until the last minute.  This notion has been reinforced several times by the fact that I have almost hit cows on more than one occasion.

I’ll stop here muna for my own peace of mind.

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I got my regulator back from being professionally  serviced, thank you very much.    My faith in my LDS has been restored.  Read about that tragic saga here.

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After receiving a PM from an old friend of mine, I realized that there were a lot of things that have happened in my life that I would rather forget (which I will NOT be listing here, as it defeats the purpose of trying to forget…)

Where was I again…?  Oh yeah… on the other hand, there are thing that I do NOT want to forget, but unfortunately have.  Such as all the normal lab values for children, as well as the IMCI protocols.  Why am I thinking about this?  Because I remembered that the pediatricians have this conference thing tomorrow, and so now I have to catch the other patients tomorrow.  I hope the gynecologists show up tomorrow.

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Sigh.

Another kitten.  This one was rescued after 3 days of constant mewing within the crawlspace of our roof.  I had to go up there - in between the ceiling and the roof, crawling between the joists, while avoiding the wires hanging around the place - just to rescue the UGLIEST, splotchiest calico thing in existence!

Now its still constantly mewing, but its now in a hamster house with its own feeder.  Ick.

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I hate to admit this, but I’m actually enjoying work.  I get to do more or less what I do most days (reading SCUBA articles from the web; playing computer games), being disturbed only by the occasional URTI and AGE.  And once in a while, a pimple or two.

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I’ve decided to never, ever donate blood again in PGH.  Eight hours spent mostly waiting.  For future reference,  I’ll just give a gift cheque instead.  Does the PNRC have that?

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After 4 years of driving around with a peculiar noise coming from my engine (it has on more than one occasion been accused of being a diesel engine - an old diesel engine), the noise got so unbearable that I finally decided to bite the bullet and get it fixed.  The reason for my waiting so long is that all this time I thought it was the air-con compressor that needed to be fixed.  And while the noise level before was such that it was slightly difficult to carry on a conversation in using a normal vocal level, last night it sounded like the engine was going to come apart.

So I brought it to my mechanic.  I was all set to borrow money just to get it fixed, trying to calculate in my head how many duties it would take to repay it.

Can you imagine my relief when he told me it wasn’t my compressor, but just my tensioner bearing?  Total cost: 650 pesos.

4 years of driving around with noise…  Sheeesh!

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There’s not much to say about my duties in Imus.  Here’s a sample of what my total case load was:

     2 annual physical exams

     3 URTI - bacterial

     1 ATP

     1 UTI (norfloxacin resistant Klebsiella to boot!)

     1 pimple.

Need I say more?

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Well, it had to happen eventually.

I’ve decided to start another blog somewhere, because I’ve been receiving feedback from the 3 (or was it 4) people who read this one.  I’ve decided to put the really, really technical rants and other bits of dive crap in there and just focus on the totally mundane, everyday occurrences of my life. 

When I look back, the original reason for starting this Friendster blog was this: to be an online dive log and journal.  Six feet under… and then some.  However, due to time constraints (and the quiet realization that posting those things would be boring…) most of my entries have been about anything but diving.  There might be some seepage occasionally, but I promise it wont be too much.  It’ll be more of the same type like what  you’ve seen before.   For example:

     I got my "mababaw" diving fix today while testing my reg.  I borrowed a tank  and threw the setup into a drum filled with rainwater outside.  Then I put my mask on and immersed the upper half of my torso into the drum… lots of little wrigglers, but I was happy as a clam …

Believe me, there’ve been times when I would’ve wanted to go into every detail to the point of boredom.  And now I’ve got a venue for it! :) 

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Ah, I’m becoming more of a regular in Imus (sorry Candy… gotta find a way to pay the bills).  Its an interesting change of pace, if only it weren’t so far…  a 44km round trip. it better be worth the gasoline!  I’ll try to post a picture of the drive next time.  That way you can see that one of the greatest hazards of driving back at night is the risk of hitting cows!

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Does anyone out there still remember the Cranberries’ song "Zombie"?  Well, I woke up this morning and heard my neighbor singing at the top of her lungs:

      …What’s in your hair?
          in your hair?
          Darling! Darling! Darling!

*snicker*

Then again, I think we’ve all been guilty of that.  At least I just resort to humming instead…

On the same note:  They should just remove all Cranberries songs from videoke lists.  I’ve only ever heard one person sing the high notes in "Twenty-one" properly and that was way back in college.  Anything else just sounds like a banshee wailing in the night.

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I’ve been thinking about what I want to specialize in, and after several days working in an HMO setting, I’m beginning to kind of realize that I miss the action of an ER setting.  I’m getting tired of the pakyaw special, where heck - since you went to the clinic, you might as well have your entire family checked out!  Or the ones who insist that there’s something wrong with them and ask you to perform certain lab exams, and then complain about it afterwards.  I kinda miss the times back during my rotations in East Avenue where I would’ve rather stayed in the ER than do ward rounds.  To be up on my feet the whole day attending to things left and right.  Yeah, I was an ER and code junkie back then.  Back when I didn’t have to worry too much about gas expenses and car repairs.  But now I do.  Now i’m doing this.  The hours are kinder, and its  easy-ish money.  Ah well, I’ll just do ER again when the compensation’s better I guess.

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There’s a certain sense of voyeuristic pleasure in seeing yourself in someone else’s site.  I was browsing through the photos of one of the group I was with last week, when I saw me!  Can you find me?  (hint:  look for the yellow-finned tuna)

(just borrowing the photo, Jay.  Thanks!)

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I woke up this morning with another hare-brained idea.  I spent part of yesterday going around the mall looking at watches with integrated depth gauges.  See, the depth gauge of the reg I bought… (oh goodness, no! not another dive related blog entry!) Hmmph! Anyway, as I was saying, since my depth gauge was busted, I decided to get a watch/computer, but the price was prohibitive.  See, I’m a budget diver - like "check-my-wallet-to-see-if-i-can-do-one-more-dive " kind of budget diver. So, back to the hare-brained idea:  I decided to repair my own gauge - seeing as I couldn’t make a dead gauge any deader now, could I?

You may have noticed by now that I have a propensity for improvisation.  I have a catalog of hits and misses, and so far my current batting average is around 0.33 , so I guess I can take a few more swings.  Lets look at the score board…

First, there’s my regulator.  By rights, I should have a professional take a look at my regulator.  Tried to get it cleaned at the local dive shop here and they said  they didn’t service my regulator because, well, since its actually a vintage model (the kind way of saying it was no longer manufactured), they didn’t have parts to fix it.  Well, it didn’t need to be fixed ’cause I tested it and it worked!  It just needed to be cleaned!  So anyway, I’ve taken it apart on my own, cleaned it (I doubt a technician would’ve been as meticulous as I was) and by golly she’s now a keeper!

Then there was the flashlight.  Remember?  The one I resurrected from the dead? I brought it down with me 5 times last week end, but as far as I can tell, it was probably dying again by the middle of the 2nd dive.  (see previous post Learning Curve)  Let’s never speak of this again.

Now there’s the depth gauge. I decided to use the internals of a water pressure gauge.  I went to the hardware store to get one (150 bucks! hehehe!)  Since the gauge was in PSI, I could just divide the value by 14.5 to get the pressure in BAR, and subsequently convert that into meters.  Or I could just stick the face of the old depth gauge into it.  I spent the better part of the day working on it.  I Still need to get some parts of it welded.  But think about it: cost of new gauge - 3500.  Cost of the gauge I’m making - 250 :)  Heck, even if it fails, at least it was fun trying to make it work.

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I also swung by the junk shop to see if I could find an air pressure gauge. Its interesting, the things you find in a junk shop.  I actually found a batch of old scuba tanks.  Not that I’d seriously consider getting them.  The thought of 3000 PSI pressing against old steel (not even aluminum!) was a bit much.  When a flashlight fails, then avoid diving in the dark.  When a reg fails, then it’ll free flow, giving you enough air to either surface, or get to your buddy to share air.  When a pressurized tank explodes behind you, well, you’re pretty much screwed. Well, I think I’ve got limits to my cost-cutting. 

Then again, I could always just have the tanks hydro-tested to test their integrity… hmmm…

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I’ve been YM-ing feliz more or less every 11 AM/PM.  Even over the net, I sometimes end up really madaldal.  The following excerpt is taken from the actual conversation about Sesame Street that transpired while making this blog entry:

felizorig: when i was a kid, i just assumed that bert and ernie were brothers. 
Ed: what? where are the genetics there?  one is a yellow pineapple, and the  other is a dark-skinned football head!
Ed: Bert has OCD.
Ed: Ernie has la-belle-indifference
Ed: the twiddlebugs have the "family car"
felizorig: twiddle bugs!
Ed: and the aliens have a "telephone" uh-huh, uh-huh, TELE-PHONE. BRRR - RING!

I was obviously not a fan of Batibot.

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Remarkable.

I’m actually typing this at work.  Its sooooo slow here that the cows across the road are just lying down doing nothing. Gawrsh, I’m counting COWS!  It’s a far cry from what I was doing last week-end…

Saturday was good.  Sunday was even better.  Saturday was “being-the-victim” day for the rescue divers.  Sunday was better because it was all fun dives.  It started with Ernest knocking on my door at 7 in the morning asking “hey, you wanna dive?”  So, bleary eyed, I got up and started putting on my cold damp wet suit.  The (very) condensed version of the rest of my Sunday proceeds as follows:  dive, breakfast, dive, lunch, dive, home.
At the end of the week-end, after 5 fun-filled dives, it was all “back to reality” mode.

Then again, what is reality?

I’m currently in Imus, doing some work for Medicard over here.  It was relatively quick-paced this morning, however, after lunch, it seemed that the world forgot that this clinic existed.  Everyone else is just watching TV (channel 2), and I’m here waiting for 7 o clock to roll around so I can go home.

Only when you compare the former with what I’m doing right now can you see the absurdity of it all.

Granted, everyone here’s very nice.  And no, I am definitely not complaining about the pace of work.  I kinda like it like this.  Heck, I’m coming back tomorrow for more!

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  You may also note that there’s a new picture in the “under where” folder.  My Franken-reg failed me – wouldn’t stop free flowing.  So I had to borrow another reg for last week-end’s dive.  Anyway, I’ve replaced the old one, and got an even older one… hehehe! Hey, as long as it works, and has an octo, I can’t complain.  Besides, it cleans up nice too!

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Well, that’s that.  I finally went and did it.  I trooped off today and placed 2 bids on eBay, and I won! Now, aside from the 2 good items I got, I’ve got a 100% positive feedback as a buyer now. :)  Validation is always a good thing.

Anyway, I am now the proud owner of a “Franken-reg.”  Which means a SCUBA regulator composed of parts from different manufacturers.  Now while lurking through the SCUBA bulletin boards I found lots of arguments for and against Franken-regs – or 2nd hand regs for that matter (an issue about life support).  Now, I don’t want to tempt fate, but I’ve got a good vibe coming from this thing.  I also won’t bore you with the technical details of the reg (Feliz gets enough of that from me already), but suffice to say it looks pretty okay.

Then again, I’ll get to find out this week-end.  Assuming the weather holds, I’ll be trooping off to Anilao, where I have so kindly volunteered to be a search “victim” for future rescue-divers.  Thus, to increase my margin of safety (and that of my buddy’s) I’ll have to look for an octopus to stick on my reg tomorrow. And a depth gauge.   And maybe hit the pool to test my stuff.

Oh yeah, I did say I got 2 things, right?  Well, in the event of, uh, whatever – I also got a safety balloon – a bright orange balloon I can use to signal the cavalry to come to the rescue!

I hope I don’t get to use THAT one…

*Sigh* I’m officially not a renter anymore!

See you next week!

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