Diver Bob

Nose Job

2007-04-17T07:20:00.000-04:00

Not really, I have no cause to be that vain. I visited my Doctor on the recommendation of my lovely wife for treatment for my snoring. The good Doctor took one look and sent me onward to an Otolaryngologist (big word for ear, nose and throat doctor). Dr Szmula of Lockport, NY was a breath of fresh air. He, like my family doctor speaks unaccented, American English and made his diagnosis in all for 30 seconds after interviewing me about my history. He made my options very clear, snore or have surgery. I have a deviated septum which is the result of several possible causes( former bouncer, former Marine, me nephew's knee). A deviated septum is a crooked septum, the septum is the membrane covered cartilage that separated your nasal passages. This by itself is not really a problem but can cause chronic nasal congestion and lead to other more serious problems like sleep apnea.
Well I did it and had the surgery yesterday. I arrived at the Inter Community Memorial Hospital in Newfane, NY at 6:30 am and got set up and prepped for surgery. By 8:00am I was being sedated and wheeled into surgery. I don't remember anything else until I woke up in recovery and was transported back to the ambulatory care surgical center. The nursing staff was great, truly wonderful and dedicated women. Dr. Szmula told my family after the surgery that I could have a Yugo drive through my nasal passages now.
I cam home about 1:00pm and took some tylenol with codeine. I have been a little uncomfortable but the discomfort is worth it if I can breath through my nose again. This morning I woke up all stuffy but that is normal. I'll be giving more updates as I recover. No diving or working for a couple of weeks so I will have plenty of time to blog. More soon.

2007-04-08T16:16:00.000-04:00

Happy Easter morning in Gasport, NY. 20 degrees and 6 inches of snow made it look more like Christmas. Of course this past Christmas it was in the 50's and sunny so who can really know what the effect of global warming is going to be. Anyhow. Happy Easter to all and to all a good night.

Parenting License

2007-04-02T18:07:00.001-04:00

I really wonder why there is no mandatory training program for parents. The news today had two stories of outstanding parenting skills. First there was the Mom who thought it was a good idea to prostitute her seven (yes 7) year old daughter. I have a 7 year old and I would personally like to place this wonderful example of motherhood in general population at a men's prison and see how she likes it. The other was this Dad, who's car wasn't big enough to fit all his kids so he put two of them in the trunk of the car and had them riding there for about 20 minutes. I remember putting people into the trunk of my car to go into the drive in theatre years ago. The difference is I was the kid not the parent, it was for only as long as it took to get into the theatre (about 5 minutes), and the trunk on my 1977 Chevy Malibu was a lot bigger. Yes, when I was 16 I would have made a lousy parent, my Dad even told me so, but how big of a moron do you have to be to do this kind of crap as an adult. The scary thing is these people are parents and have already added to the gene pool. What can be done? I am open to comments.

Parenting License

2007-04-02T18:07:00.000-04:00

Heaven and Hell

2007-03-02T17:54:00.000-05:00

Well as you can see from the last couple of posts the family and I spent a week in "heaven". The Hawaiian weather was amazing and the people we met really personified the Aloha spirit. The beaches were clean and pristine. The diving was great even if the dive operators kept apologizing for the "poor visibility" (less than 100 feet). We saw sea turtles, octopus, the humuhumunukunukuapuah'a (yes it is all one word). Then reality struck and it was time to go home to Western New York.
We arrived at the airport in Buffalo NY late on Saturday night and were met by 14 degree temperatures (farenheit) and it had snowed everyday while we were gone, and continues to now (with short breakes for freezing rain). Next week we are actually going to see temperatures in the upper 20's, ooh heat wave. I really can't wait until it is summer around here again. 80 and sunny is very welcome right now. It is definitly better diving when you don't need a chain saw to cut a hole in the ice. Well this is were we live so we just have deal with it. "Hey honey, please pass me that Oahu real estate catalog again"

Instructing my Wife

2007-02-27T16:39:00.000-05:00

How proud I am of my lovely wife Jenny. While we were in Hawaii she completed 3 of her open water training dives and several skin dives. Now she has been bitten by the bug and wants to dive more. She is already making plans for our next trip to Hawaii (next February) and is actually talking about going diving around home as well. This is a great change from the "I only want to dive if you take me somewhere warm and tropical". I am having a blast instructing Jenny. She is a great student and a quick study. She has amazing bouyancy control for such a new diver, heck I was probably diving almost a year before I had the kind of control she does. It is probably the high quality instruction she is recieving.

Hawaiian Vacatiom

2007-02-26T18:01:00.000-05:00

Diver Bob is back from his vacation in Hawaii. The Family went to visit the family of Jack and Jill Army. Jack was home on leave while we were there but has since returned to duty. The pic is my 7 year old daughter. I tend to start them early. We did some snorkeling at Ko'Olina and then the wife and I did some diving as well. There will be many more pics to follow in the next few days. I also have to talk more about the SCUBA Challenge we are doing at Discover Diving in Depew, NY. More soon.

Instructor Bob

2007-01-29T18:55:00.000-05:00

Well I did it. I am now a real live scuba instructor for NAUI. I am currently taching for Discover Diving in Depew, NY (www.ddwny.com) and loving it. My veryfirst student is none other than my lovely, wonderful (and very trusting) wife Jenny. She figured that if she could teach me to fly then I could teach her to dive. All is well in this part of the world, we are finall getting some snow. Diving right now is limited to the pool for training but soon we will be diving in beautiful Hawaii. We are all going to see my cousin and her children and hopefully her husband (who would be home on leave from a not very friendly area of the world). I can't wait. More later. Have a great day.

Instructor Training Course

2006-12-09T19:11:00.000-05:00

I finally did it. I enrolled in an instructor training course (ITC). I decided to switch over to NAUI for my instructor rating because it was closer for me to attend an ITC for NAUI than PADI. As far as the class goes I am almost done. I did my final open water dive for the course today, yes diving in December in NY has its challenges but any diving is better than working. I have nothing against PADI and I don't want anyone thinking I left PADI for NAUI for any negative reasons at all. I have the utmost respect for all divers and dive agencies it was a convienience thing for me since my local PADI shop closed down. I have only positive things to say about NAUI. It was truly a challenge to go through this course. The ITC staff at Discover Diving in Depew, NY have been great. I want to say thanks to Dallas, Darrel, and Linda for all their time and effort to make my experience with them exciting , challenging and fun. Next saturday is my final exam so wish me and my classmate Mike M. luck.

Another Day

2006-01-31T18:51:00.000-05:00

I am really getting into this divemaster thing now. It seems like I am diving every weekend, which can be challenging in Upstate New York in January. I was supposed to be involved in an Ice Diving Class next week but thanks to the mildest January since 1950 there is no ice to be had anywhere ( kinda hard to train to dive under the ice if there is none around). So instead I and doing the "certified assistant" thing and thinking that I could be decent instrutor myself someday. Although last week some 12 year old couch potato who got out of breath putting on his wetsuit caused me a little stress when I had to lift him onto the side of a 13 foot deep pool from in the water (did I mention that he weighed in at a svelt 250 lbs?) this job is still better than my real job (too bad the pay sucks). More Sea Lion dive adventures this weekend as well (bet you are wondering wht that is eh?) The family is great. I need surgury on my beak (aka Nose) to fix some old damage from my days as a boxer ( my nephews knee didn't help either) so when that happens I have to stop diving for a month ( maybe I can blog more while I am home from work. I am trying to schedule it for just before my wifes back surgury so I can be home for her first couple of weeks of recovery. I sure hope all is well with all of you. My Love to the Hawaiian, Texas, Florida, and Bahrain crews.

Happy Holidays

2005-12-24T10:58:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year too. I am so sorry that I have been too busy to get much bloging in this year. I hope to do a little better next year.

Christmas is a great time of year in my family and this year as usual will have many exciting times as a few sad ones but all in all a great year.

Well after the record braking summer we had this year winter showed up late but made up for it but. It has been cold and snowy here for a couple of weeks but today it is 43 degrees and raining, but we still have almost a foot of snow in our back yard.

Well, Peace on earth and all that good stuff. May God Bless especially the Marines,Soldiers, Sailors(both Navy and CoastGuard), and Airmen who serve this great country in which we are so lucky to live.

Special Thanks to my favorite military personnel: LtCol. Doug S. USAF (ret), Lt. Mike B. USAF, SSgt. Tom N. USA, Sgt. Shawn S. USAR(NYANG) and SN Ben C. USN, May God Bless you and yours in a special way this year.

Tobermory Report

2005-07-22T16:40:00.000-04:00

I left for Tobermory , Ontario with two dive buddies at 8am friday, July 15th. The drive up on friday was a bit challenging but we made it in about 7 hours (it usuually takes about 5 1/2 hours). Friday afternoon after cheching in at the Bruce Anchor Inn we headed out to Big Tub Light House Point for our first dive of weekend. We use this shore dive to acclimate divers to the 40-45 degree (farenheit) water of Georgian Bay and to familiarize them with the area so we can come back and do a night dive in the same location. Saturday morning we set out for the Niagara II, which is a 700 ton 180 foot long freighter turned sand dredge that was intentionally sunk in the Tobermory area on May 15, 1999 for the express purpose of creating a dive site. After our first dive on the Niagara II it was decided that since several of the 13 members of the dive expedition have been waiting 5 years to dive this wreck we would do it again as our second dive of the morning as well. After a 1 hour surface interval the group dove her again and made hull penetrations ad played in the wheelhouse. After the second Niagara II dive we headed back to Big Tub Harbor for lunch and to refill our tanks for the second half of our day.
In the afternoon we headed over to the W.L. Whetmore a wooden steamer 213 feet long that was driven ashore on Russell Island on May 17, 1901. The Whetmore is pretty flat but offers a great opportunity to study the achitecture of ships of the late 19th century. You can find her boiler, most of the propeller and machinery as well. We stayed at the Whetmore a little longer than usual because it is a pretty shallow wreck (25-30 ft) so this was our last dive of the day.
Saturday night we sampled the local color of "downtown" Tobermory.
On (late) Sunday morning several members of our group decided to do one more dive among the sunken tugs in Little Tub Harbor. Among the wrecks are; the Bob Foote, Sank in 1905; the 67' Alice G., sank in 1927; the 68' Robert K., sank in 1935; and the 59' John and Alice, sank in 1947. I opted out of this dive to begin the trip home hoping it would't take another 7 hours, it didn't and I was home among my family by 6pm on Sunday July 17.
This was a great trip and I recommend it to anyone with a desire for wreck diving. The water is cold all year round and dry suits are recommended. There are two dive shops in the area and they offer many opportunities to charter boats to the outlying wrecks.

Tobermory Bound

2005-07-12T18:58:00.000-04:00

Hi there. This is the first post for my very own blog. As I am new to this it may take a bit of experimentation to get it right but I get hope I am up to the challenge. I am the proud cousin of Jill Army (Jack Army is so lucky). I am heading even farther north than I already am this weekend. I am on the way to Tobermory, Ontario for some wreck diving with a few of my friends from Captain Bills Upper River Diving Adventures in Niagara Falls New York. I hope to get around to posting some pics of me and the crew. Let me know what you think. I am always looking for new dive adventures so let me know if you are going to be in western New York area and maybe we can get wet. -Bob