Maui Dives

I recently lost my dive log. A mortal sin for a diver, luckily I am not an orthodox diver. As a programmer I realized that there is a better way to record dives than paper books. It would be really nice to have an interface to post blog posts that include diving information. This would follow the data blogging trend.

I think that a dive blogging platform should include:

• A way to post a description


• A way to upload dive profiles from dive computers.


• A way to securely link a dive to a dive company. A replacement for the traditional stamps that dive companies currently used. This could be performed with e-mail.

This would have many nice features over traditional dive logs. You can calculate statistics about your own diving and statistics about dive companies. There would not be a huge audience for this but it would be a very dedicated following. In this spirit I am going to post descriptions of 4 dives in Maui.

November 13, 2007
# 3
Location: Molokini back side
Company: Mike Severns

We dove down to 100 on the wall that goes down to 150 ft. We slowly worked our way up from there. It was a great dive the dive masters were very good and knowledgeable, pointing out unique fish to the area. The most interesting fish was seeing a fairly large ray swim by.

#4
Location: Maui Shore
We dove down to 65' to see a sunken WW2 amphibious landing vehicle. The vehicle was fairly rusted out but cool to see. More interesting was the frog fish that was on the vehicle hanging out. There were a couple of antler corals near by, but not too interesting.


November 14, 2007
#5
Location: Molokini crater
Company: Pride Of Maui
I want to preface this description by saying that I choose the Pride of Maui because I a large number of people I was traveling with were going on a snorkeling trip on the boat.
This is a snorkel factory. If you know anything about snorkeling you will likely be annoyed with the crew, this is designed to for people who nothing about diving. The boat rarely sees scuba divers. We rented all of our gear and it was some of the worst I have ever used. The first 3 tanks that I tried did not have enough pressure. They did not have wet suits for us, even though the promised us suits. The dive master told us he had not dove in 5 months. We had no dive computers, or watches. A little bit scary.
The dive was very nice but the dive master was a tool. He had screwed up his weight so he was picking up rocks to weigh himself down. He was too lazy or clumsy to stop his pressure gauges from dragging on the coral. We saw one small shark at the very end of the dive.



November 14, 2007
#6
Location: Maui Shore
Company: Pride Of Maui
This was a very shallow and short dive. We were able to see four turtles and lots of eels. Our dive time was limited to the fact that we did not have a watch and had to be conservative, and the fact that the snorkel boat imposed a time limit on our dive time.
Avoid Pride of Maui at all costs!!

Big Sur Half Marathon

This weekend Annie and I ran the Big Sur Half Marathon in Monterey. I was blow away the beauty of the area. We finished at 2:03. I was kind of hoping to break 2 hours, but not bad for a first time. We did not take any pictures so there is not much to show.

I would love to write more but it is late and I am diving in the morning.

UPDATE:
I have a bit of time to update the post from LAX. The organizers put on a great event. There were a bunch of bands along the way to cheer us on. Ranging from a lone piano player, horn quartet, rock band, hippie drum group and the best was a taiko drum group. The taiko drums group was most of the way out along the beach. So you heard them twice, once right before the turn around and once right after the turn around.

SF2G Haloween

Here are pictures of the San Francisco to Google ride on Halloween morning. Some are blurry. I am only in a few pictures, but you can get the picture. It was really fun to roll down the road at 20 mi/hr with tunes blasting riding to headlights.

Pot Rack Building Instructions

I have had several requests for details on how to build a bike wheel pot rack. The contract with ReadyMade said that I could publish for a while. I think the time has passed and they have not answered my e-mail so here it is.

The biggest task is to acquire a wheel. Front wheels work better, more symmetrical. The next step is to decide what type of wheel to use. I used a modern mtn bike wheel. Mtn vs road is not very important. However it is easier if the hub has cartridge bearings, not the old fashion bearings with races. ReadyMade reported using an old fashion wheel. If you are looking for a free/cheap used wheel it will be a lot easier to find an traditional bearing race hub.

1. Thread one nut and the coupling onto the metal side of the two sided bolt.


2. Using two wrenches, tighten the nut and coupling against each other.


3. Drill a small hole into a joist in the ceiling/floor of the floor above.


4. Screw the wooden side of the bolt into the hole. Use a wrench on the coupling to drive the coupling/two sided bolt.


5. Prepare the wheel by removing the tire, tube, skewer, and axel. Each hub with have different directions for removing the axel. If you are using cartridge bearings replace the bearings sans axel. If you are using a bearing race hub replace the bearings with washers.


6. Place a washer on a 1/2 in x 3-4 in bolt. Thread the bolt through the hub so the washer and head of the bolt are on the bottom wheel.


7. Place another set of washers on the other side of the wheel. I placed enough so there would be no gap between the wheel and the next nut. Add one nut after washers. Tighten the nut against the head of the bolt. Do not over tighten, the bearings will bind if it is too tight. Be sure to get the bolt as straight and centered in the hub as possible. This is kind of difficult and sort of a hack. It might be a good idea to try to shim the bolt so the centering is automatic.


8. Place one more nut on the bolt attached to the wheel. Screw it down enough so that there are enough threads clear for the coupling.


9. Assemble the two parts. Place the wheel below the coupling. Use the bolt head to tighten the bolt on the wheel most of the way into the coupling. When the nut attached to the wheel comes up flush to the coupling stop screwing using the bolt head. Use one wrench attached to the coupling and one attached to the nut one wheel side bolt. Tighten the two bolts against each other.


10. Attach hooks to the rim and spokes of the wheel.

Done!

If you have any problems with this please email or comment. I have detailed pictures I will label and post but not right now.

Please send pictures if you create a pot rack.

California Bike Pictures

I have a lot of stories about Google and San Fran, but I am not in the mood to write a big post. I just wanted to share some bicycling pictures. None of these are pictures that I have taken.
I have been riding to work about once a week. There is a great group of Googlers, and others who ride fairly regularly the 45-50 miles from San Fran to Mtn View. Here are some pictures of the ride, none taken by me.

I also have some pictures of a bike ride I took with Piaw and a few other riders.

UPDATE Piaw was nice enough to write up the ride. Check it out here.

Pictures of the trip west

Really just pictures from Winter Park. Typical to Annie and I we were to lazy to take any pictures. These were all taken by other people.

House Photos

Here are some pictures of the house shortly before we left.

PVC Tomatoe Cages

 
Last summer we had difficulty using standard tomato cages. The cages are designed for use in yards with a lot of soil. Our vegetable boxes are only about a foot deep. The cages would not stand up when we needed them most; when they are heavy with fruit. We tried all sorts of things, propping up the cages, tying them to walls. Nothing seemed to do the trick.
 
This year we decided to try something different. Instead of using individual cages that would flop over we built one big cage over the whole garden. It was fairly cheap, around $30 and I would like to think that it looks good too. As an added bonus it keeps Coltrane out of the garden.
 

Fun in Dublin

I recently got to travel to Dublin for the VTC conference. I wrote about the technical aspects of the trip on ebiquity.

I planed to trip to coincide with the start of Jared's trip through Europe. Despited a cold, and hurt feet we managed to have fun on the emerald isle. My advice to other travelers is only spend a couple of days in Dublin. It is a fun town for a few drinks, but I found the countryside much nicer than the city.

I was amazed at how cosmopolitan Dublin is now. It is a very wealthy society now. Now that Dubliners can afford things other than potatoes and carrots, they are eating all sort of things. Almost every restaurant has a juice machine, and the Irish are mad about fresh juice and smoothies.

Pot Rack Published!

Our recycled bike wheel pot rack got published in in ReadyMade. They changed the design slightly so that it does not need an expensive cartridge bearing hub. Unfortunately they gave more page space to a sort of silly bike wheel lazy susan.

The pot rack was in their magazine, not the blog. That is a little more prestigious, however it means that you have to go buy the magazine to see it.