Wet Ramblings of the Dive Boy

high carbon footprint

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 23:40:00 +0000

As muders go, this one has a pretty high carbon footprint!

A woman is stabbed to death by her ex-lover who flew from Trinidad after seeing a picture of her with her new boyfriend on Facebook.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/8552740.stm

Fuck you fucking Dell

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:25:00 +0000

Why did you put the MUTE button right next to the POWER button on my laptop. It's fucking retarded.

Rebooting ... Gives me time to rant from my Palm Pre.

Ah those poor Christian Conservatives ...

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:21:00 +0000

You got to give it to those religious right-wing conservatives, they sure know how to par-tay!

http://m.visaliatimesdelta.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100305/NEWS01/3050322/1002&template=wapart

Not only caught sodomizing, but driving away drunk too. He must have been very uncomfortable sat in the back of the police car, with that ample application of lube squelching around in his knickers.

Skiing at Northstar

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:05:00 +0000

Went skiing at Northstar last weekend (Feb 19). Had some great skiing, bit of fresh snow overnight Saturday, meant I could Carve up some powder on my snowboard on Sunday.

Ben's getting really good (for a nine year old who only skis two/three times per year). He did some black runs this year and was having a great time going between trees and doing jumps. I was worried he might hit a tree, but parents are supposed to worry about those types of things ... when they're not hitting trees themselves at least.

Here's some footage of Ben. I'm doing the camera work, sorry it's a bit jerky. Hard to watch the screen and board at the same time.

Beer Wars - the movie

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 06:03:00 +0000

Wow! I suppose I should have known it, but I didn't realize! The US beer market is just as perverted and corrupt as every other sector of the economy.

Let's get that three tier system working for us again and bring choice back to the consumer.

buy at amazon.com or watch on netflix streaming

This movie is a bit like Supersize me or Who killed the electric car, but for the beer industry.

Down with Busch!

Do university professors have that dream ...

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:47:00 +0000

You know that dream you have, if you ever went to university. The one where you have an exam coming up and you haven't revised, or you have a final project coming up and you haven't done the work?

In my case the variation is that I have the final exam for Dr Unwin's Communication class coming up. In the dream I have never attended any of his lectures - this may be less dream and more statement of fact! I always missed his lesson as it was too early in the morning. Then again, I also missed most of Dr Ward's classes. Strange, as these two subjects were my favorite. Anyway, I've got off topic again.

So, you know the dream. You wake-up in a panic as you think you're going to fail your degree as you didn't do any work and the exam is coming up. It's 20 years since I left uni and I still have the dream occasionally.

I wonder if professors have that same dream still.

OR, do they have a dream where the final exam is coming up and they haven't written the paper yet :-D

Diving last week - Point Lobos

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 07:34:00 +0000

UPDATE: I have photos posted in the slideshow section. Here is the link

WalMart CCTV footage

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 07:33:00 +0000

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Who the fuck thought up the idea of a 47" shelf?! Thanks Ikea!

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 22:53:00 +0000

Wall studs (joists to you brits) are spaced at 16" in the US. As the yanks like to say "sixteen on center", though that mnemonic makes no sense to me, if it's 16" the 'on center' part seems superfluous, it's also 16 on edges ... but I digress.

Anyway, I'm in the middle of putting up shelves in Ben's bedroom and I pull out the shelves (from Ikea) and they're 47" long. Now, that means I have to put the brackets 47" apart, in fact closer to 46" due to the design.

How does that make sense to anyone? It means one bracket may be in a stud, but the other's bound to be dangling from sheetrock. It's fucked-up. Now I need to figure out if I can get some butterfly mounting things, and figure out how much weight we can put safely on these shelves. No doubt books are out of the question.

Stupid, stupid Ikea.

I am so shallow

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 07:28:00 +0000

...

Sustainably Farmed Sonoma Wines

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 17:14:00 +0000

http://www.benziger.com/ :
"Our certified-Biodynamic estate on Sonoma Mountain is beautiful all year long. And the view from our Parthenon can't be beat!"

Not sure if I've sampled their fayres, but I'll have to give it a try now!

I just read an article about their 'Biodynamic Vineyard' and hence green cred.

OK, it's just an excuse to go drink!

benziger.com

'Twas the night before christmas...

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 06:09:00 +0000

Just finished the traditional reading of " 'Twas the night before Christmas ". Now Ben is tucked-up in bed ( so is Mrs Sagar :-/ ). I just have to wait a few hours for Santa to arrive.

The mince-pies were made this afternoon and are out by the fireplace with a glass of milk. For the reindeer, there are two carrots and a bowl of water on the front lawn (next to the "Santa Stop Here" sign).

We're all ready for Christmas. Hopefully Ben won't wake-up TOO early.

Merry Christmas!

---

THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
by Clement Clarke Moore
or Henry Livingston

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;

And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,

Had just settled down for a long winter's nap,

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash,

Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow

Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;

"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!

On, Comet! on Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!

To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!

Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,

So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,

With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof

The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

As I drew in my head, and was turning around,

Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,

And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;

A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,

And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.

His eyes -- how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!

His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,

And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,

And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;

He had a broad face and a little round belly,

That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,

And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,

Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,

And laying his finger aside of his nose,

And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,

And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night."

---
I think it's out of copyright. Text copied from: http://www.christmas-tree.com/stories/nightbeforechristmas.html

Naturalization Test

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:51:00 +0000

Took my test yesterday. History, Civics and English. History and Civics were no problem, but I almost flunked the English test ... Had to think twice whether 'speech' was spelled 'ee' or 'ea'. Ah how funny would that have been if they'd kicked me out and sent me back to England because I couldn't speak the lingo.

All being well I should get my swearing in ceremony within the next two months.

Apple buying Lala

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 06:51:00 +0000

Here's another bad idea.

I suspect this means Lala won't be writing a client for Windows Mobile or webOS.

Apple preserving its monopoly in the portable music player market.

Time to close my lala account.

Comcast buying NBC

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 19:32:00 +0000

Can't be a good idea.

NBC ownes 1/3 of Hulu.

Hulu is a great alternative to cable TV.

Comcast is a cable operator.

I think we all know where this is going.

Quiet Thanksgiving

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 06:42:00 +0000

We had initially planned to spend Thanksgiving with friends, but that fell through. Then I was thinking I might get a couple dives in over the weekend, but the weather turned out to be shit. So in the end it was a quiet weekend and I spent a day clearing out the garage.

I now have enough space in there to set-up a daddy play area; TV, Papasan chair, computer for some tunes, etc.

Got to get the junk I've take out onto eBay.

My best Google Voice fail to date!

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:28:00 +0000

Message from Debbie, according to Google Voice...

Hi it's me. I'm sending out an email about assigned to use back and I just wanted to check week. Jam claiming if you could visit.

Let it without mistake fish,especially I watch passions, so give me a call placed.

FYI, Google Voice is a voicemail service that translates your incoming phone calls into text and emails them to you. It does particularly bad at understanding Debbie's Yorkshire accent! As of yet they have not added an option in their UI that allows me to list the place of birth of a caller ...

Good Diving, despite the weather

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 06:30:00 +0000

The wave model for this weekend was not so good, but I had a navigation class scheduled at 11am, so I headed down to Monterey anyway.

There was a dcosv club dive at 8am, so I went on that, it was at the Breakwater in Monterey. Entry seemed a bit rough, so I got a fin on before I entered the water, which may or may not have been a good idea. It made entry clumsy, but I was able to kick out past the breakers more quickly.

We didn't dive along the breakwater, as I usually would, we were swimming out North to look for an old cannery pipe. We didn't find the pipe, but we did see a lot of other cool stuff.

We were 'harassed' for a while by a sealion that would swim down to see us (about 50ft down at the time), swim around me, take a look, then swim off, to return a couple minutes later.

I saw two sunfish (or Mola Mola), weird looking creatures. Never seen those in Monterey before ('cept at the aquarium). There were a lot of jellyfish around too, someone suggested that's what attracted the sunfish in so close to shore.

Couple of really nice, big crabs, probably decorator crabs - my crab knowledge is not so great.

Unfortunately I didn't do too well with my air this weekend. I had to surface after about 35minutes dive time - though with a max depth of 60ish feet, that probably isn't too bad. Unfortunately I had quite a long surface swim back to the breakwater to exit. Fortunately there wasn't too much kelp, kelp-crawl is always the worst thing to be doing after a dive, when you don't have air spare.

As it turned out the navigation class was canceled, so I did a second dive club dive. There wasn't much to see on the second dive. The surge was also getting bad. Again, it wasn't a very long dive.

'spensive cars

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:53:00 +0000

We were at the Silicon Valley Trivia Challenge on Saturday, it was held at Club Auto Sports, San Jose.

One of the companies that does business there is Club Sportiva. Club Sportiva have an interesting business model: You pay them $3500 a year, then you get access to some fancy cars - Aspen Martins, Porchs and Ferraris, etc. You have 10 days use per year, presumably you sign the car out, thrash it around the back roads of California, then fill it up with gas and return it.

For $1000 you can have a day experiencing some of their vehicles driving around Napa etc.

Luckily I don't care much about cars, so I wasn't at all tempted to make a purchase on Saturday night.

Actually, I was just looking at their website. They also do Exotic car rentals. For about $600/day you can rent a Ferrari. I know some people who might be up for that next time they visit California.

Washington DC, day 5

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:38:00 +0000

Last day. We could have just sat in the hotel for three hours and used the pool again, but instead we headed for one more museum - The Smithsonian Native American Museum.

We only had a short time, as we needed to be at the airport by noon.

I know it seems wrong to cram thousands of years of culture and heritage into 2 hours, but to put it into perspective: we did the national archives in about 60 minutes (which covers 1776-present day) and Natural History in about 5 hours (which spans about a billion years). So it wasn't too bad now was it?

Still, it felt wrong when Debbie went up to the Native American guy on the information desk and said "We've only got an hour then we need to go get a plane, what's good?". She should have added "Not only did we Europeans take your land, we relegated you a foot note of our sightseeing trip.".

I have to say, the gift shop did remind me of the concession stalls of a folk festival. All pan-pipes and hand woven shawls.

I'm now on the plane back to California.

Appropriately, United Airlines have cancelled our direct flight to SFO, so we're flying via Denver. Fitting, as I say, as the only reason we got tickets to DC was to use-up some vouchers we had. We had free flight vouchers because United bumped us from a flight from chicago to San fran last christmas. Anyway, a two hour delay to SFO nothing to complain about really.

Washington DC, day 4

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 21:30:00 +0000

Today was all about spying!

We went to the International Spy Museum just a couple blocks north of the National Archives (around 9th and F st).

Good museum dedicated to the art, and gadgets, of spying.

They take you through the history of espionage from the early days (roman times) right through to current day threats like Cyber Crime and those international terrorists and extremists.

They have lots of hands on exhibits, interactive (touchscreen) displays and artifacts or recreations of artifacts. They even have a full size replica of James Bond's Astin Martin (you know the one with rotating number plate and bullet proof shield). The car cycles through the features, awesome!

There's a good exhibit on cryptanalysis and the code breaking of WWII at Bletchly park.

It's perhaps a bit overwhelming for the kids. Too much info to take in. Ben had had enough by the time we got to the cold war, so we had to zip through that a little faster than I would have liked. It looked like a great exhibit, detailing tunnels that ran under the East Berlin and all about the selling of atomic secret to the USSR.

We stayed in the museum until about 1pm (we got there around opening time at 10am), but that wasn't the end of our spying activities for the day!

The spy museum has a "Spy in the City" game, where you get to go on a mission around DC looking for clues, retrieving microdot messages and collecting fingerprints of enemy operatives, in order to solve a mystery and deactivate an terror cells concealed device!

It's very well done! Great for the 9 year old sleuthes in your party. You are basically kitted out with a GPS enabled PDA-like device (your 'COBRA' unit) which 'receives' messages, documents and video instructions about the mission as you hunt for clues (usually on famous landmarks) around the NW DC area.

That's all I'm at liberty to disclose ;)

It was a fun few hours, despite the torrential rain that started about an hour into the game. The museum claims it's a 90 minute game, but it certainly took us longer. Also, I don't think we really needed three units (one each). I think I'd recommend just getting one (if you can get away with that). They did charge $14 per player!

We exited the Spy Museum's gift shop, crossed the road and entered Gordon Biersch. Dinner was a very nice Spinach Salad, with Salmon, accompanied by three glasses of 'Festbier', their current seasonal brew. Festbier is an unfiltered lager and very nice too.

As is customary on Sagar vacations, the day ended with a trip to the hotel swimming pool.

Washington DC, day 3

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:14:00 +0000

A long day in the air and space museum.

Got there a littl after 10am and didn't leave until 5pm!

Washington DC, day 2

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:41:00 +0000

Museum & Monument day today!

We started off by heading to the National Mall and walking along it to the Washington Monument, where we picked up some tickets (free) for the 3pm ride to the top. It was 10am and already tickets for all the morning tours were gone, so it's good that we did!

Then we went back up the Mall to the Natural History Museum. We stayed here until it was time to return to WaMo. We spent a good amount of time in the dinosaur exhibit, early life (pre dino), ice age. We saw the 3D IMAX dinosaur movie, went to the butterfly house, went in the bone room (favorite!), reptile exhibit and the insect exhibit.

Then we headed back to the WaMo great views of the White House from up there (550ft up), the Lincoln Memorial , WWII Memorial and up the Mall to Congress (though that view would be better if a. The grass wasn't dead and b. The windows on the WaMo were clean!).

Then we descended and did a shortened monument tour around the WWII, lincoln, Vietnam monuments. By this time it was past 5pm, we were getting a little tired! Stopped for a coffee, then headed up to the White House. Views are not as good from the street as from the WaMo!

Walked along Pennsylvania ave to return back to the hotel and find a place for dinner. Stopped at "Harry's" for dinner, the back to the hotel by about 9pm! Roughly a 12hour day.

Washington DC, day 1

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:57:00 +0000

Got an early start and headed up to the National Mall. The only plan for the day was to get oriented and do a "Duck tour" to get an overview of the city and monuments.

Hotel is the Residence Inn on E St SW at 3rd St, so we walked straight up 3rd st which brought us our at the Botanical Gardens.

Headed to congress/capitol hill first, as we could see it. Did the tour of congress and looked around the visitor centre until about noon.

Headed over to Union station for the Duck ride, which wasn't available until 4pm, so we had a few hours to kill.

Had lunch then went down to the National Mall to see the National Archives (magna carta, declaration of independence, constitution). They also had an exhibition on entitled "Big"...

Duck tour was fun. Captain Briton was an excellent narrator/guide. He let the kids on the boat drive a little as we sailed down the Potomac.

After the tour, back at union station we stopped for a couple of beers and light dinner at the "Capitol City Brewing Co" to end up the day.

Back to the hotel at about 8pm, ben and I went for an hour in the pool.

Shooting stuff can be fun ...

noreply@blogger.com (UK Dive Boy) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 06:12:00 +0000

http://sagar.org/boystoys/Walther-CP99.toy.txt.2.html
New toys added to the Boys Toys page.