Where have I been?

It has been quite a long time since my last blog post. Most of you that have read my previous stories prob thought I would be posting stories every week or so. Well I really should have been. Its not that I haven't been diving or even writing about what we have been doing, because I have. Its just that since starting this blog I have become increasingly busy with other aspects of my life which have cut my spare time to a minimum. I have also come to the conclusion that I suck at building a webpage and it is a lot of work. I have read and started following several other diving blogs and am so impressed with the amount of thought, time, and ingenuity they put into their blogs. So please bear with me as I continue to improve my site and its content. So when reading my stories please consider the source. I am a mediocre educated, country living, been kicked in the head by large animals, beer drinking, construction worker kind of guy lol. Got it? Good. So here is how my days have been going as of late..........

TYPICAL DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN ADDICT

My alarm goes off at 4 AM i am usually not rested because I laid awake thinking about my next dives or I was too lazy to put my boxer Sydney in her crate for the night and she took up my whole side of the bed. I get a shower, put my coffee in my thermos, make a half a$$ lunch and head out the door. I live in Nevada but because there is not much work here so I took a job in California just across the state line. From my door to the job is about 90 miles. With traffic it usually takes me an hour and a half to get there. So it is in this free time I listen to the only audio book I have on my Iphone. Yup its "shadow divers". I have currently listened to it about nine times. I love it and cant get enough of it. When I get to work and I am usually there 30 minutes early, I make my morning rounds(stalking) on twitter and facebook. See what interesting things people like @Iarediver have to say. Then I hit up the craigslist postings for all things scuba. Those that know me best know that I am always lurking on craigslist looking to snatch up anything scuba related which is of use to me or my buddies and is a good deal. There are certain things I wont buy on there like regulators or a computer, but anything else that I spot will probably get swooped up. This is the reason I have a nice selection of BCD's and tanks. About 12 different tanks to be exact. Why would I need 12 tanks you might ask? Why not? I could always supply friends with some. It never hurts to have a set of doubles in 80's, 100's, 120's, stage bottles, etc etc etc. Different tanks for different dives.

So eventually I have to get out of my car and actually go to work UGHHHHH :-/ . I work ten hour days four days a week with the occasional friday which is an overtime shift which = more scuba money which = less grumpy ScubaT. My shift ends at 5pm and I make my long drive home which with traffic can stretch to almost two hours if I hit an accident or rush hour downtown. Pick up my kid and arrive at home. This leaves me enough time to play with him for a sec, stuff my face with Aprils amazing cooking, (hard to get skinny here) take a shower and repeat from the beginning.

So that is how the week days usually go. When I get home thursday night and I dont have to work a friday shift I am in a whole different mood. I know its time to get ready for diving.

THE DIVING I'VE BEEN DOING

I have been diving every weekend, sometimes fri, sat , and sun. I have fell in pretty tight with our tribe of divers and we have been putting together an amazing team to do all kinds of different dives. Together we have been taking as many classes as we can and working on our diving abilities, pushing and helping each other along the way. I myself have come quite a long way in my diving abilities and skill sets. From a struggling newbie kicking up the bottom, to a developing tech diver holding my own in a group of bad a$$ dudes. I have without a doubt found my niche in diving and the group I want to do it with. As with all of the other aspects of my life I do not live well with boundaries. I dont like limits or restrictions. I have always believed that if given the right amount of info, training, and practice there has never been anything I cant do. If another man can do something I believe I can do it too. This is why technical diving is working well for me. This being said, it does not have to be this way for everyone. Its not always about going to extreme depths or going places people have never been. Although this is the case for me. Technical diving could simply be a way to better enjoy things most recreational divers can just see only for a glimpse. For instance, We enjoy to dive the yukon in san diego. It lays in 105 feet at its deepest point. Not a scary deep dive at all. But if you are following the no deco limits you will have between 12-16 minutes of bottom time. I dont know about you but that is not even close to enough time for me to enjoy something as awesome as the yukon. So with some decompression training you can extend that bottom time and have the equipment to get you there and the knowledge and to bring you back safely. I think this is where people get so turned off about tech diving, They dont realize the opportunities it can open up to them and enhance your diving to things you are wanting to see and do that are within recreational limits. And along with the training to extend your bottom time, you can pick up essential diving skill sets that can set you far apart from other divers and all the while keeping you safer and making the dives less work, which = better diving experience. I cant help but notice when I watch videos of people diving exotic wrecks in warm water, great viz locations, and they are working so hard to maintain buoyancy and seem to never have heard of "trim" If only they could take a little more classes, enhance their skills they would begin to discover how much more enjoyable diving could be. How much less air they would consume if the could they were more comfortable in the water.

But for me technical diving is opening up all the doors to the things I want to do and see underwater. Even though I am just in the beginning stages of my training, it has already opened my eyes to what is possible and has given me the opportunity to see things that not too many people have seen where we dive. I have been able to see and find new wrecks no one has ever dove in the lake. I have been able to spend 35 minutes penetrating the yukon from top to bottom and use deco gasses to come back. And my favorite part is we can continue finding new deeper sites, and explore places people have not been before since before the dam was built and the lake was filled up. There are several large wrecks and a couple of towns that have not been relocated and we are gonna find them. This is what drives me and what my diving is all about.

So this is where I have been and what I have been doing. As all of you know, it is very hard to juggle the hustle and bustle of everyday life. And it gets even trickier when you throw in some hobbies and extra family events. So I am gonna try harder to get all the rest of my stories finished and try to continue to make improvements to my page so as to make this an overall more enjoyable experience. Hopefully you follow me and my buddies on twitter( @scubaTdiving ) and chat it up with us on face book. Please also check out our web page page for desertdogdiving and like our face book page from there, as well as our shop scuba views . We really enjoy the follows and likes. Any comments or help you want to offer is welcomed.

Thanks for reading and happy diving

Trav