Festival Planning

Not much to report at present. I'm heading to Glastonbury next month. This may be my last time as a volunteer, or as the organiser. Then again, it may not. My going is dependent on whether or not I'm still in my current job. As a union member, I can organise my teams of bar volunteers to raise funds for the union at the festivals, which I've been doing since 2005 (my God, that's a long time). Were I employed somewhere else, or in a job where it wasn't possible for me to devote my time to organising the volunteers, this might not happen anymore, and it's not impossible for me to move jobs. That could happen next year, so I've decided to take advantage this year and enjoy Glastonbury.

Alas, I'm still doing the organising. See above t-shirt picture.

In One Way, Depth is Just a Number...

(I started writing this post back in 2010, came across it, and decided to revive it. As of 2013, I'm a Rescue diver, albeit I do need to go back to Lake Ellerton and practice fishing people out of the water some time soon. Funny how even back then I was picking holes in PADI's teaching methods...). 

And in others, it isn't.

As part of my Advanced Open Water Certificate, I'll be doing a "deep dive" whilst in Bute for the diving weekend I'm going on in March. For those not familiar with recreational diving limits, I currently have an Open Water certificate, which means I'm qualified to dive as deep as 18 metres.

In common with (I suspect) most Open Water divers, I have somewhat bent this rule - without getting myself bent, I hasten to add - whilst diving in the tropics. My deepest dive so far was 23 metres in the Maldives to see an interesting sunken ship. It was at the start of the dive, myself and my buddy had full tanks, I wasn't tired or dehydrated and I kept a close eye on my dive computer and air gauge, so I figured I wasn't running an unacceptably high risk of burning through my breathing gas or running out of bottom time. I was right.

A quick digression on some terms I'm using here:

Bent = getting the bends; decompression sickness causing by ascending too fast or staying down so long you can't come straight up but have to do decompression stops. Recreational or sports divers, like me and like everyone when they first start diving, do the sort of dives which don't require decompression stops, so that at any point in the dive, you can abort it and ascend to the surface, albeit at a slow enough rate that you don't get the bends. This is for safety reasons.

Bottom time = the amount of time you can stay submerged before you have to ascend. Governed by two factors; how much breathing gas you have, and how much nitrogen you have absorbed from breathing gas under pressure. The amount of nitrogen you have absorbed governs how long you can stay under without needing to do decompression stops to allow the nitrogen to leave your system so that you don't get the bends. The two factors are interlinked: If you're at a deeper dive, you go through your breathing gas faster, because it is delivered at a higher pressure. This also means you're breathing in more nitrogen molecules - it's a compressed gas, so there are more gas molecules in each breath you take in - so you absorb more nitrogen and have a shorter period of time you can safely stay under. Also one of many diving terms that causes juvenile humour to occur. 

For my "deep dive", I'll be going deeper than this. It's surprisingly hard to find out exactly how deep online - it's something I'll ask my instructor - but probably around 25-30 metres deep depending on the conditions.

This post starts "In one way" because a novice diver saying "depth is just a number" and leaving it at that implies that person hasn't fully grasped that deeper dives do come with a set of distinct challenges. These include the aforementioned shorter bottom time periods and the fact that they use gas a lot faster than shallower dives. They also include the unique aspect of getting the narcs.

The narcs = nitrogen narcosis. Essentially, the deeper you go, the more the higher concentration of nitrogen you're breathing makes you feel intoxicated. It's most commonly compared to being drunk, although symptoms vary from diver to diver. The narcs are harmless in themselves and go away if you ascend (safely) to a higher depth. The risk comes from feeling a bit drunk 30m below the water. It's even worse for technical divers, who have to fiddle around with their gases to try to come up with a mix that won't send them completely off their heads whilst 60m down.

But in one way, I believe that depth is just a number. Why? To me, it's in the mind. One thing I think PADI's Open Water Diver course does run the risk of is encouraging newbie divers to think "It's okay if things go wrong, I can always go back up again". I think that's the wrong mindset. Sure, there are times when a CESA (controlled emergency swimming ascent - swimming up to the surface if you've run out of air, but keeping your weight belt on so that you don't rocket up there, and exhaling to stop you from getting lung overexpansion injuries) or even the dreaded buoyant ascent are the right, i.e. only, options to handle the situation.

Buoyant ascent = ditching your weights so that you immediately become positively buoyant and fly up to the surface in an uncontrolled ascent. Extremely dangerous as you run the risk of getting lung overexpansion and the bends. Absolute last-ditch measure for getting to the top if all other hope is lost. Comes with a big AVOID DOING THIS IF YOU POSSIBLY CAN in the diving training manuals.

However, I think that's a risky mindset. It encourages you to think that all problems are solvable and there's always a way out, whereas you should be thinking about how to prevent the problems in the first place. You can get the bends coming up from 12m or even shallower. Going deeper increases the risks, but the risk is always there.

Dive safely, folks. And remember... in British waters, there's frequently bugger-all to see at 30m in March in the Farne Islands. 15m is more fun, and there are seals!

Gym Guilty Pleasures

No, this isn't me.

I don't often blog about going to the gym, although I have done this 2-3 times weekly since I was about 14 or so. (Interesting fact: girls can do this more safely than boys as our bones stop growing earlier. I reached my full height about 13.)

I don't blog much about it because what appeals to me about it - the simplicity - doesn't generally make for a good blogpost. I like the gym because I spend much of my life employing the grey matter between my ears. The gym appeals because it doesn't require this in the same way. Let's face it, it works as follows:

1. Pick heavy thing up.
2. Put heavy thing down.
3. Repeat until step (1) is no longer an option.
4. Eat.
5. Sleep.
6. Repeat.

Actually, brainpower is involved, but in a different way. It's closer to meditation than brainwork; when I do my exercises, I mentally picture the muscles I'm using and try to focus on using only them, not any others. It helps if you picture them as being in bright colours, like those big wallcharts of people with their skin off that used to freak you out aged 12 in biology class at school.

This usually works, but not always, and sometimes you get distracted by annoyances and guilty pleasures. Namely:

Gym Annoyance 1
People who don't throw their bottle caps in the bin, but instead leave them lurking in the bottle holders on the treadmill. If you can run 2 miles, you can walk 5 metres and throw your damn bottle cap in the bin.

Gym Guilty Pleasure 1
Noticing that someone has left the machine that you are about to use on the correct weight setting for you, and you don't have to fiddle about with it.

Gym Annoyance 2
People who sit around for ages on the bench or seat for the equipment you want to use, staring at the football, then, when you ask, say "yes, sorry, I'm still using it". No you're not! You're watching Everton lose to Man U!


Gym Guilty Pleasure 2

When the someone in Guilty Pleasure 1 was male. 

Gym Annoyance 3

People who don't put their weights away. Seriously. I should not have to lift 200+kg of weights of the squat rack machine so that I can do my exercises (which use about 60kg, max). This annoys both myself and one of the senior instructors at the gym to the extent of spitting. His solution is to make tannoy announcements about banning people from the gym if they can be identified on CCTV doing this. Mine, I fear, will be that one day I'll snap and hand out some gymnasium justice with a 10kg dumbbell.

Gym Guilty Pleasure 3

Watching the unfeasibly muscular lads in Annoyance 2 going on the treadmill and blowing up* after ten minutes, because they spend so much time building muscle they do no cardiovascular work at all, and thus cannot run for shit. 

I can't run that well either, although I can do 3km without stopping and am pushing for the 4km. And I can put my damn weights away.

* not literally, thank God - the brains would take FOREVER to wash out of the bottle holders.

Cartoon of the CyclingDiver

Been a busy month so far, as I continue to learn about management. Apparently the main side-effect of studying management and leadership theory is the need to resist the urge to go into your boss's office brandishing a textbook, pointing at it and saying "See, it says here you're doing this bit wrong".

On a more positive and less boring note, a good friend made me this rather excellent cartoon for my birthday. It now hangs in the bathroom, which has the vague theme "Sea". (The other themes in the house are:

• Hallway = Cats
• My bedroom = Travel
• Living room = Nostalgia
• Kitchen = Cross stitch
• Spare room = Drying laundry
• Cupboard under the stairs = Diving-related crap)

I especially like the diver in the top right hand corner :-)