USS Oriskany

As you all know, I'm an avid scuba diver. The weekend of 27-29 July, myself and a group from work went to Pensacola, FL to dive, what is known right now, as the Recreation Dive Site of the World, the USS Oriskany. It is an aircraft carrier that was sunk 24 miles off the cost of Pensacola back in June, 2006 as part of an artificial reef program. It's in 212 feet of water, with the control tower being as high as 68 feet and the flight deck is at 137 feet. Below is my write up I put on my Scuba Forums.. The detailed write up is on my website linked from the "Trips" page.

Report from the Oriskany, 28 Jul 07.
Booked the Charter through MBT Divers in Pensacola. We were charted on the “Tech Rec” with Capt Chris Wachtel and deck mate, his very attractive, yet under-aged, daughter, Erin. They were most excellent hosts and provided a great day on the water. The charter had my group of 4 and two other divers from NC and PA. The 6 of us enjoyed a looong 2 hour ride out to the “Mighty O.” The Tech Rec isn’t the fastest boat to charter to the “O”, but it was the slowest either. In it's favor, it does had a head and cushioned bunks below for those that wanted to nap.
We got above the “O” and Erin tied us off to a buoy. We first splashed at 1100 local with 27% NITROX. We went straight to the Flight Deck. The down line was tied off on the ship at 111 feet, so by the time we got to the end of the line, we could see the flight deck. We jumped down, took a reading showing 137 feet as we stood on the flight deck, and then took a few pictures. With our profile, we only had 9 minutes of bottom time at 137 fsw, so right after pics, we started to spiral our way up and around the island. Vis was only about 60 feet on this dive. Capt Chris said it was the worst vis he had seen in a few weeks. (Lucky us).. We worked our way up and ended the dive 1152 local. Saw a bunch of amberjack, bleemies, triggerfish, and a good number of barracuda.
1.5 hours surface interval and we splashed again. This time we were running 30% and kept our max depth above 100 feet. This dive concentrated on the swim-thrus all along the island. We entered the bridge and took a couple pictures and then hit just about every door we could find working our way up. There was one that allowed you to go up a stairwell and another that took you from one side of the island and out the other. It was an awesome time going into the wreck with no chance of getting trapped or lost. From every open door in the island you can see another door way or opening to the outside. They planned this wreck well for Recreational Divers. Vis, unfortunately, dropped to about 40 feet near the end of this dive. We were all getting low on air, so we called it and ascended to our safety stop. For the most part, uneventful and very cool dive. We had a couple “operator error” minor SNAFU’s, but nothing that caused any harm or danger to anyone in our group. After the diving, there was a loooong 2 hour ride back to the Marina. But, we had a blast on the trip.!!! All in all, a VERY exciting day.
In case anyone is interested, we also ate at two really good joints: The Fish House and Trigger’s Seafood. Both highly recommended. The Fish House is a bit more upscale that we’re used too, but Trigger’s is a down-home “Mom and Pop” type joint that is some good eatin’!!! To finish up the story, we stopped by Morrison Spring and did a dive to rinse the gear on our back to GA. 3 of the 4 of us had never been and the other had been over 4 years ago. Nice dive, but it got crowded near the end. We were running 32% there and got an hour, 27 minutes on that one dive out of an AL80. Afterwards, we loaded up the gear and headed back to GA.. I was back home in enough time to tuck my 13 month old into bed that evening.

All in all, it was an AWESOME trip!!! Thanks to Dive Buddy Dee, Mark M2 and Bill F+10 for going with me. Good dives, good times and good Buds!!! Thanks to all!!!

The pictures are: (top) Me on the Flight Deck of the Oriskany 137 feet down taknen by Mark M2. (Yes, I know my head looks like a glow stick) :) And (bottom) the flags draped off the side of the "Mighty O" in honor of those that served on her. Isn't that just a cool picture?

**D**

Much Better Mood

I'm in a much better mood tonight. I slept pretty good last night (unlike Sunday night). I did get up at 4:00 this morning with Tiny Baby, but she fell back to sleep within 45 minutes, so I got a tiny bit more sleep before I had to get up at 5:15.

A few updates..

My sister, Leslie, has had her reconstruction surgery. She was under the knife for over 7 hours on Monday. Everything went well and the doc was pleased with the results. They said she was sitting in a chair today. She wasn't a very good mood, but they have her on some good pain medication. The meds actually make her sleep a lot, but she feels no pain when she's sleeping so that's a good thing. She's going to be in the hospital for a few more days and should come home later in the week. All in all, a very good report from the surgery.

I sold the '03 Tundra. For those of you that have no experience with Military folks: Each base has a parking lot they allow members to put their used vehicles in and try to sell them. We pay a dollar a day to put our vehicles there and 90% of the time, they will sell before your first contract runs out, if you have a decent vehicle and don't want a million bucks for it. We call that Parking Lot, "The Lemon Lot." The vehicles there aren't "lemons" but it's a name that was given to the Base Used Car Lot years ago and it just stuck. I put the Truck on the "Lemon Lot" last Tuesday. I got two calls on it on the following Friday. One was a girl that seemed very interested in it and another was a dude that could read. The sign in the window said: "2003 Toyota Tundra SR5 2WD Extended Cab" He called me up and asked one question: "Is your truck 4 wheel drive?" "Ummm.. Oh yeah, normally it is, but the front wheel drive portion really need a break so it's on vacation in the Caribbean. It should be back next week. If you want to buy the truck now, I'll tell them where you live when they get back." Here's your sign. But, Luckily, Buyer Allyson wasn't a dumb ass. She liked the truck and wanted to buy it for her husband, who is deployed, for his birthday. How cool is that? We met and she drove the truck on Saturday and then she had the Toyota place look at it on Monday. She called me Monday afternoon, we settled on a price and I met her this morning to sign the papers at the Credit Union. We signed over the title and she's now the proud owner of my '03 Tundra. I hope they enjoy it as much as I did.

I was also able to complete my American Heart Association CPR/AED Instructor course today. I took the course last Thursday, but we had to actually instruct a class and get evaluated to become "official." So, I instructed my first class today. I didn't have to do the whole thing. Our evaluator started the class and did block one. I did block two and another instructor candidate did block three. We did good and are now CPR instructors. The reason I wanted to be an instructor stemmed from last year. I need to be CPR qualified to take my PADI Rescue Diver course. That's when I noticed we had no instructors at work and there was no way for me to get qualified. I took me three months to find a way. I finally had to sit in with Healthcare Givers and take the "Mac Daddy" of CPR courses. I was well trained, but I was trained well above my level. But, hey, when you're desperate, you'll take what you can get. Since I got so pissed off about not being able to get qualified, I decided I can't sit there and complain if I wasn't willing to do something about it. So, I have become an instructor so no one else has to go through what I did to get qualified.

Everything is still a "go" for our Oriskany dive, so we're getting excited about that. I hope we get some good pics and video from it.

That's about all I have for now. If you get time, drop me line and post me a comment. I don't seem to be getting very many comments lately.

Useless People

I knew I had done a write up awhile back about useless Managers and Supervisors, but I didn't remember what I wrote. I found the original (Feb 16, 2007) but it mentioned more about the useless people in the Corporate world. Which, believe me, there are more than you can count out there. I have no use for those people. The military, on the other hand, doesn't have quite as many, but in this day and age of political correctness and being sensitive to every one's needs, we are starting to get more and more each year. It's a sad state of affairs when the US Military starts worrying about people's feelings. I can honestly say that, when I got out of the Air Force in 1996, I had 2 supervisors that I thought were great guys and role models to being a supervisor. These guys a couple of great guys. We even partied together outside work. But if you screwed them over they would bust your ass just you like deserved to be busted. On the other hand, if you did everything you were supposed to do and you did it to the best of your ability, they would stand behind you 100% no matter who was coming down on them. That's what good supervisor is. And, I will never forget Pat Thorsen nor Matthew Teasdale as long as I live because of their mentoring, their motivational skills, their support and their friendship. Both of these guys had plenty of reason to bust my ass, but both of them also saw what potential I had and they never gave up on me, no matter how much outside forces were trying to make them. And, for that, I am eternally grateful. I have patterned my supervisory skills after both of guys. And, I believe, after quite of few years of supervising young airmen that have made a few mistakes themselves, I think I did a pretty good job of emulating my supervisory "heros."

Now, I was Active Duty for 11 years. And I had TWO supervisors like that. That's not a good ratio. But, since getting out of the Active Duty Air Force and being a civilian for the last 11 years, I can tell you I have had exactly ZERO supervisors that were worth a crap. Not a single one!!! They have all been "Yes" men with no backbone. None have had the balls to stand up to anyone that even questions our motives, much less downright disagrees with what we're doing or how we're doing it. It has been super frustrating dealing with this useless people. After getting royally screwed by my supervisors at both Deltacom and Powertel, I realized that the only person that was ever going to have my back was me. But, when I cam back to the Military, I expected things to go back to the way they were when I was Active Duty. Wrong. The kindler, gentler Air Force has brought about the same type of supervisors and officers that I saw on the outside. No backbone and no backing of their people. They are too afraid of pissing off some higher up, so they just bend on command. It's sad, but I've learned to deal with it. I just go in, do my job and leave. I don't stick around, I don't go the extra mile anymore. It never helped anyway. After they proved that they aren't going to back us when the chips are down, we just do our job to the best of our ability and leave it at that. I don't ask for permission to do anything. I do what needs to be done to get the job done. If it wasn't the right call, then maybe someone will say something to me. But, with these people, it's doubtful. So, I don't put too much worry into repercussions of doing my job the way I see fit. As you can tell, I'm really not worried about it if I'm going sit here and discuss it on a World Wide BLOG. LOL.. Of course, all personal pages are blocked on Base, so none of them can read this anyway. Not that I care. I'll never write anything on this or my website that I wouldn't tell them to their face. But, they are too caught up in their little political ass kissing games to be bothered by a little person's opinion, like mine anyway, so it's moot point. But, I do like to vent and get my feelings out there. That's what helps me release the "pissed-offed-ness" that sometimes keeps me awake at night. Hopefully, this will help me get back to sleep tonight. Actually, I think it might.. My mind is starting to slow as I type now.

On a brighter note: We have booked a charter to dive the Oriskany, the aircraft carrier intentionally sunk of the shore of Pensacola, FL on 28 July. That's gonna be a blast!!! Of course, there will be a trip report and pics when I get back.