Had my first formal diving lesson today, which was about basic techniques like snorkeling. Two things stood out: my fitness sucks monkey balls, and some of those techniques are actually quite hard. As natural as it felt breathing with scuba gear, so unnatural was breathing through a snorkel. Normally, when I dive, I hold my breath and go under. Breathing through the snorkel, I kept screwing up the breathing when going down. That means little air in your lungs, and even less remaining when you surface, to blow the snorkel clean.

Another fun starter was ‘ok, grab all your gear, and jump in’. Note that this isn’t ‘put on your gear and jump in’. This means that while threading water, you have to put your mask, lead belt and fins. The trick is basically to start prepared. Close the belt loop, open the fasterers on your fins. After jumping, hang the belt around your neck. You typically have no hands free (due to the fins) to secure your mask around your neck, so  stick your arm through, while putting on the fins. After that, mask around your neck, put belt on correctly, and finish with the mask.

The theory part was basically the gas basics, and the gas behaviour laws. (Volume x Pressure) / Temperature = constant, just like volume x pressure = constant. Basically, this means that when you rise, and the pressure drops, the air in your lungs expands. This means continuous breathing, or your lungs could burst. Another thing is nitrogen. As pressure increases, your body aborbs nitrogen. This is released when the pressure drops again. The whole idea behind a proper diving course is getting rid of that nitrogen in a controlled fashion. If you surface too quickly, the released nitrogen will form bubbles in your bloodstream, a condition knows as caisson disease. This is very nasty, and potentially deadly.

All in all I’m tired but satisfied

Over the past few weeks I’ve become pretty hooked on the TV series Jericho. It tells the story of a small rural town called Jericho, and how they cope with the aftermath of a nuclear attack. There’s more to it than just that, as some people seem to know a lot more about what went down than they should. Today I caught up with the current broadcast schedule.

Spoilers ahead

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I really enjoyed the holiday in the Ardennes. Unfortunately, both Arno and Wendy were ill and/or recovering.

The house itself was large, and well suited for our needs. It had a fairly open layout, with the ground floor being devided by the stairway into three sections: two living sections, and the dinner table/kitchen. The stairway was open, so while separating the three spaces, it didn’t completely isolate them. The 1st floor had six 2-person bedrooms, as well as the showers and bathrooms. The 2nd floor had 10 additional beds, and a few sinks. In general, the fittings were fairly utilitarian. There were some quirks tho. One of the showers leaked into the ground floor, the light switches were wired is a very interesting way, and there was a drainage problem in the sewer. We managed to unblock that one (anyone seen Discoveries ‘Dirty Jobs’? :P), and it gave us no problem afterwards.

We visited some towns in the area. I liked Stavelot the most; it had a pretty decent museum, which had, aside from the normal expositions about the local Abbey and the Spa-Francorchamps Raceway museum, a nice exposition about the work of comic artist Rene Hausman.  We also had a very early excursion into the countryside. While it was too dark to take succesful photographs, we did spot a fox, and a few deer. We did hear some wild boars, but we never actually saw them. The rest of the time we spent reading, watching Jericho and Stargate Atlantis, and hanging round the fireplace.

The weather was okay-ish, which I guess is fairly typical for the region this time of year. We typically had either snow/hail or sunshine. Only the last day had some rain, and the weather got pretty bad on our drive back home. Apparently, quite a shitload of snow fel last night… oh well :D.

The diving school had an underwater photographer present for the introductionary dive. Click to see a larger version.

Some of the gear I bought for the diving course. Boots, fins, goggles, belt & lead, snorkel and watch.

Had an introductionary SCUBA dive in a nearby swimming pool. That was loads of fun. Decided to sign up for the NOB 1* certification training which is equal to the internationally more well-known PADI Open Water Diver. Nowadays, these ccertifications are very much standardised, and you’re able to do NOB 2* with a PADI Open Water, and vice versa. A fun coincidence was that the dive club I signed up with has loads of former coworkers from my time at REMU.

As I was stuck in a hotel room with nothing better to do, I took the time to watch some movies I never got around to watching.

Syriana -  a movie about politics, greed, and oil. Great acting, even if the plot itself lacks highlights. This is one of those movies that makes you think about how the world works.

Four Brothers - Fairly run of the mill revenge movie. Have seen worse, have seen better.

Watched Ratatouille to be able to compare it to Flushed Away.

• The animation is different. Flushed Away was made in cooperation with Aardman Animation, and the animation stays close to their claymation style known from Wallance & Grommit. Ratatouille tries to be more realistic. Not that they try to lose the cartoony style, but the rats have ‘real’ hair, and a lot of the stuff just looks real, even though the backdrop is cartoonish. Anyway, both are top notch, if different. In general, I found Ratatouille’s animation to be (marginally) better, simply because it was pushing the envelope more.
• Audience: Ratatouille is safe for all ages, Flushed Away has some rather explicit lines and humour.
• Humor: Flushed Away is more in your face, Ratatouille is more gentle, humour wise. In general, I had more laughs atFlushed Away than I had at Ratatouille.

I enjoyed both, but if I would have to pick just one, I guess it would be Flushed Away, but with a very narrow margin.