Harry Potter Is Done

I have finished the Harry Potter series.
I started withe book 1 in January 07 and had them all read by July, just so I could get read to start book 7 witch I started about mid September. I did this so that I could connect all the stories into one.
I had reach the end of book seven on October 31, I didn't really plan it that way, but thats how it come out.
The series was really fun to read, it sad that it was to end.
There will be no more books to look forward to.
But then if J.K. Rowling was to start another series, I would bet that the story will not be as big of a hit as Harry Potter was.
Of cores that is my opinion.
And now we have Ben doing a death defying leap over the Harry Potter books, will Harry ever find any rest.

The Old Fire House Cache

I was out caching after work, I hadn't been it seem in about 4 weeks, only seem that way.
And the cache was call the FireHouse cache.

The first time I came to this fire House, I was about 12 years old and it was 1968.
The front was coved with this really big ivy, the stock at the top of the door was as big as my leg,(I had small legs back then).
We had only live in the area about 2 months and the Grants Pass Parks Department, had this thing, where they would take you on a hike some place for $15 or $20, and it was for 2 days and you get stakes to eat and a ride in a van.
Will, my Mom thought this would be good way for me to meet some people and go on a hike.
What I don't remember, Mom saying were the hike was.
What I quickly learns after Mom drop me off and said I will pick up tomorrow at 5 pm.
I was going climb Mt. McLaughlin.
Everyone in the Parks Office said its an easy hike, we have old people hiking.(like 35 or something)Ha Ha
I had this old steel frame smoke jumpers pack. Didn't weigh to much walking around the yard with a sleeping bag in it.LOL
The guide, one guy, about 25 years old and there was about 8 hikers, I think I was the youngest at 12 and the oldest was about 17 years old. Four boys and four girls, And oh ya, the guide had hike the mountain coupe time,ha ha.We going to get lost?
So now I get a good look at the mountain as we're going over Blackwell hill. And what do I see is there is snow down past chicken point.(this is were all the chicken hikes turn around)
We get to the parking area and load are packs on to are backs and I find out, I have to carries my own food, were is the other guide who's going to carry my back?
The plan was to hike up to the lake and set-up camp and spend the night and go up in the morning.
My pack got really heavy quickly, about 1/4 mile in to it. The pack was way heavy for my 65 pound body, the pack must have weighed 50 pounds.
So the hike to the lake was about 1 1/2 miles but it felt like 5 miles. And the other kids in the group, weren't doing any better.
Got the lake about noon and had some food, and I make sure that food in my back got eaten first, I was not going carrier it back out.
It was about 1pm now and the guide says we have enough time to climb to the top and back down if we leave now.
We vote on it as a group, we'd just eaten and we are all dumb and happy and going leave the pack at the lake, and of coarse, you can not see the mountain at all from the lake, actually can't see the top for about 3 more hours up the trail. What a trick that was.
We started hiking and hiking and hiking.
And now we can see the top from the trail, and there is lots of snow.
So now we are in the snow and here the good part.
Four out of nine of the hikers had hiking boots on. the rest had something less than that, like basketball shoes or deck shoes. Luck for me I had boots.
When we reached the snow we took turns kick holes in the snow for the others that did not have boots.
This took some time, as you may guesses.
We hit chicken point about 8 pm and I got to the top by 10 and the last one of the group get there about 11.
And now it was really to dark to hike down, and our guide thought so to, so we stayed on top at 9,995 feet.
We did not have any thing with us, no food, no wood for fire, no sleeping bags or blanks. I did have a jacket as will as some of the others, but our feet were wet, I had wool socks so that helped, as long as I moved around.
We spent the night in the bottom of the old look out, witch was only just the footing, no top.
It was sometime in July, and it didn't get to cold, I would guesses about 45* degrees.
We huddle together to stay harm, and kept trade place from inside the group to the out side, to harm up.
The sun comes up pretty early 9 thousand feet, so it hit the top about 5am, we were standing out in it and harming are self a soon we could.
By 6am we were move down the mountain and staying in the sun that hole time.
Again we had to fight the snow, and got our feet wet again.
Back at the lake by noon, and the stake never tasted so good. And to be harm was wonderful thing to behold.
Took a nape and back to down the hill to the van and back to Grants Pass by 5 and Mom show up.
And I ate again a big dinner and took another nape.
And thats the first time that I was at the fire house.
PS I think the night on the mountain is why my feet are alway cold ??

Mt. McLaughlin from the top of Pilot Rock, looking NE.

Frog and Snake Oh My

We have a Mr. Frog living in are bird house by the front door.
I sure he in there to catch bugs that fly around the light at night.
He could be to big to get out of there?
(enlarge to see frog)

And then there the snakes who lay on the road to harm them selfs.
(cold blooded) Taken from inside of my car after Molly run over it.

Is Three Heads Better Than One

At one of Daniel's last game He played in-------

The Geo Dog On The Hunt

The Geo dog on the hunt again.


On the hunt, the Geo Dog, found DrDan at the trail head as He was getting ready to head up the trail to find, 3 caches in the area.

The Old Shell Game (FTF)
Beary Sweet Junk
Wheezers Cache
Roadside Ambiance (FTF)
TREE WITH 17 TRUNKS

Called the Enchanted Forest Trail, located off of North Applegate road at the end of Slagle Creek road. The trail I believe goes to the top of the hill or mountain and drop over into Foots Creek area and down to Old 99.
The Geo Dog met there and lead me up the trail to help in finding the other caches, the links are listed above.

I started to walk and I thought, I have the mountain bike in the car why am I doing this, so I walked back and got the bike and rode up the trail and found these cache quickly. The dog stayed with me the hole time and followed me to each cache and waited on the trail for me to go on.

Part of the reason for going after these caches, was one had not been found yet, and its really cool to be the First To Find (FTF) on any caches.

The one cache that was missing, is in a really interest container, home made type, and that is why it was had to find, I actually pick it up and put down before finding it.

This was a good cache day, found two FTF's and out of the five I found.

Bridge Over Trouble Water

Normally when a bridge is build, it is used by people and cars and thing that walk or roll or move around on sold led ground. This bridge was build for a completely different use. Lets start at the beginning of the story.

The Dam was constructed by private moneys starting in the 1920's and was dedicated on November 5, 1921 as Savage Rapids Diversion Dam.
And rebuild and repair by the Bureau of Reclamation in 1949-1955.
The purpose of the dam was for irrigation of 10,000 acres of farm lands in and around Grants Pass and Rogue River area.

My Dad worked 1975 to 80's for the irrigation company that kelp the ditch clean and one of his jobs was to look after the dam's fish screens and check pump oil leaves. He would come in every day and clean the trash that floated down stream into the fish screens. The fish screens purpose is the keep the fish from going into the pumps and getting cut up.
This is how the pump system works, the water coming into the screens is not all pumped into the ditches. They use the falling water to turn the pumps so it takes about 16 to 20 gal. to pump 1 gal. into the ditch.
The water from the pumps goes back into the river.
No electric, or other power is needed to pump the water.
The old farts were pretty smart, cheep cheep water supplies.

Side story, one day dad comes home and say a boat went over the dam and was down in front of the dam. One injury, a broken arm.
Dad said there is a hole or tunnel in the bottom of the dam that you can comes out by the boat.
So this very dark and wet, lots of water noise and thousand of leach hanging off the walls and forming and boiling water.
So I walk out there, trying to keep the camera dry, and took some pictures of the boat.
Cool story.

Back to the Dam story.
The Dam is killing thousands of fish every year because of the fish ladder, much safer then jump up water falls ?


The Dam is being removed, and the water will be pump by electrify.
You know, this is not going to cost anything now.
The water went under the Dam in old days, now the new bridge is so the water can be pumped over the river.
The pit at the end of the bridge is the place for the new pumps.

All this because fish are having and easer time swimming up the fish ladder, then up savage rapids, rapid.

Pilot Rock, View From The Top

Picture L to R and down.
Daniel looking down from top with sun behind him.
Group shot, John, Molly, Ben, and Rochelle.
Top, looking down the trail toward freeway.
John hiking on trail, to base.

We hike or crawl to the top, we meaning Dan, Rochelle, Ben, Daniel, Molly and John.
We went up and back in about 2 hours. Very steep in places, like crawling on your belly.
Found PilotRock register, we left a note and read some of the funny ones.

A View of Pilot Rock.

This is a hike that I would like to do one of these days. Not a long one, its about 1.5 miles to the top, from the parking area. The only thing is that as you get closer to the top, you have to crawl over the rock for the last 300 yards. I was there about mid August and was checking it out, and you could easy do this in 1 to 2 hours.
Pilot Rock can been seen from most place on I-5 when passing through the area.

The Metric Ride Of the Century

Molly and my self started out from the park about 8:45 and head out of Rogue River by the mill on N. River road.
We rode about 16 miles to the 1st rest stop, not a bad run, only stayed about 15 minutes and move on before the other 100 or so bikes left.
As we rode into Jacksonville, this guy yelled out from his car "what are you doing on fat tire bike" and than as we turn the corner to start up the Hill With No Top He yell something about what a way tough rider, I did not know what He was talking about till I found the Hill With No Top.

At the 2nd rest stop, at the Applegate store.
At the 1st rest stop on Old Stage Road.

We did find the top of the Hill, it must have come down out of the clouds or something. Molly had to pass me at this point, I saw a 5 dollar bill alone side the road and had to stop to get, (and thats my story and I sticking to it).

We rode into Applegate Cafe at 12 noon, there was a real party going on here. Lots of food and about 200 + riders. We stay about 20 minutes.
We had traveled 36 miles at this time.
At 42 miles my leg seem to have run out of gas, and it was really had to push on, I was sure I could push through it. It took about 7 miles before I come really push again, we we're on New Hope road and a good name, at the time for our hopes was re-newed.
(50 miles)

Dan at the begining of the ride in Rogue River.

Molly at the begining of the ride.

At the last rest stop, at the Reinhart Park, we still had about 10 miles to go with on 2 hills to go over and one really good down hill, Molly and I got up to 40 mph and coasted about 1/2 witch was ok.
We got into Rogue River about 3:30pm, at 68.25 miles.
Rochelle met use there and we set in the grass under the tree and had a nice dinner and rested and rested and rested.
At the time I was sure I was never going to do this again.
Its now been about 3 days and I'm thinking, just maybe JUST MAYBE, I can to the 100 miler next year. LOL.
Oh yeah, The fat tire bike made it in, the only fat tire, to ride the 68.
FAT TIRES RULE.

The Really Grape Story

This story starts out with Grape in the birthing center.
This area usually is dark and moist, these are the key factors.
They start out as cute little flowers, as most of use are in the beginning. This area is kept dark so that the moister that they receive will be used wisely, to help them grow into healthy adults.
When the time is right the birthing proses begins, and I bet you are wondering when that is, will a good sign of when this is to take place is when you see the top of the head poking out between the,(will I think you know what I'm talking about here, so I will go no farther with any more details).
There is a painful part of the birthing, that is require and that must take place to come out into the bright and shinning world, that is the cutting of the cord, so as to be able to separate the little ones from the birth parent.
This is done by a highly skilled surgeon, who uses the sharpest of tools, so that the lest amount of pain is felt.
The little ones live in a nurser( as seem above) for a short time before moving in with the family.
This pried is a short stay, maybe 24 hours at most, but they are watch over to make sure that the cat dose not play to hard with them or the dog eats them.
Now the tripe home is the most impotent one, you go to the Vat Room and wait for the time to be call down the tube to there new families.
There are in the purest form at this time, being only juice, as we all know, families are the most Godly way to live with others, in the Grape community
The place were there live, is in condos, as can be seen below.
There is about 50 condos in a community.
Then one day there are called up to go to heaven, witch is the greatest thing that could every happen to good Grapes.
The top of the condos are opened and releasing all to inter the great O in the center of the face of the Great Lord Rochelle, who is the greatest and kindest of all the great ones.
With help from the lower being, Dan, who helps in the releasing of the Grape on to the the great O.
This season had 4 nursers and 50 condos.
The Tomato occult, keeps trying to move to the upper class of the Grape Community.
But with the occults, blood sacrifice, the Grapes will never let them move in.

Daniel and Soccer

Daniel is the family soccer player.
He had his second game on Tuesday, He played really will, He plays in the forward position.
The team play will together, for not play at all the last season.
The game was play at Rogue River High School, aginst IV School.
Our team won 5 to 0 and Daniel made two of the goals.
One of the goals was very exsiting to watch, Daniel start at about the 40 yards from the goal post.
He was near the side line and the ball started to roll over the line, at about 12 inch from line, Daniel had fallen down on his side and He toe hooked back into him self and got up all at the same time, and made line for the goal, He cut in and out of the other plays and kick the ball between the legs of other player, and at about 20 feet or less He made and goal. This is hard to put into words, but you had to be there.
I hope the rest of the season is as much fun as this game was.

Going For It

Yesterday I started riding at 8:15AM from the house and rode down West Evans to the golf course on Williams highway, thats 20 miles from the house.
The return tripe I came down Rogue River highway to Rogue River a than back on East Evans to the house at 11:45AM
Rode 40 mile in 3 1/2 house.
This was a test ride to see if I could do the Ride The Rouge on September 22.
There is a ride that starts in Rogue River and goes out Williams highway to Jacksonvil than to Gold Hill and than back to Rogue River, 60 miles total.
I did the 40 miles in 3 1/2 hours, that is about a mile every 5 1/4 minutes or 11 to 12 mph.
So this 60 miles should be about 5 1/2 to 6 hours to ride, maybe.
Molly said she going to ride with me, I do know if she registered yet ?

A Face Lift

The old card was cool, but this one is really nice. The color is what makes this card nice to look at.
It makes it interesting because it seem to all most change when you move it around.
And the round corners seem to feel different when holding it, verse the square corners.
Molly make these card, as a side business, dose all the art work and makes the order with the printer.
My way cool kids. :)

Really Tall People

On Monday morning I met my daughter on Roxy Ann at 6:30AM to ride around the loop road, up there and catch the sun rise.
I got there and found that my front tire was really flat, I did have had another tube but I would reath ride so I just pumped it up, and hope it would last the 5 miles around the base.
We started out with our sweat shirt on till we got to the hill by the rock pit, way steep hill, got about 50 feet up it be for stopping, could have rode harder and made it, but I would have had to wait for Molly any ways, so walk up with Molly.
The sun was up when we top the steep hill, a great view from here, this is were we met these really tall people.
There were really nice people, had a great time talking and catching up on things from the last time we were up here.
At this time there was a terrible 2 bike accident with one person involved ?
This is what happens when you try to ride two, will two mountain bikes on a mountain trail.
Now if this had been on two road bikes, this would have never happened, because there build different and this could just never happen, will the only thing that I've heared that happens on road bikes is that you can get your ring finger cut by reaching back to turn on the light or something like that anyway.
We had a great morning ride around the base of the mountain.
Oh yal, we had some close call with one deer and a snake, but the great riders that we are, we slipped by then with out any trouble at all.

Gary Turns 400

Yep, Gray turns 400 just last week, and he still feels good and moving down the road ok.
He came into are family on May 26, 2007, bright new and shinny.
Gary now has 400 mile on his odeimeter.
Its been 96 days ago.
That is 4.166 miles per day.
And that is .1735 miles per hour.
And that means about.002891 miles per second.
Or at two ride a week that comes out to 14.28 miles a ride.
What we do to have fun.

Life Is A Peach

Rochelle started canning peaches about 4:30pm and by 11:00pm she had finshed 50 jars.
They are fortyniner peach, that were right at peak of ripeness no bad spots or hard green areas.
And Rochelle is real fast, all I did was go find more jars and rings and then get them in the dish washer so that there would be reddy when she started placing them in the jars.
This is way cool to see all these peach. See picture.

The Rest Of The Story

That is what Paul Harvey used to say. A radio commentator.
He told a story about this cargo ship in the 1950s that was used to move coffee beans. A very large ship, the bean were stored in the hole and on the deck in bags of 100 pounds each.
The ship was able to transport 1 million pounds of coffee beans.
The ship had to cross a large stretch of oceans to deliver the beans to a factory to be processed into grind coffee.
At the time of this trip the ship sailed in to hurricane and big one at that, the waves were so big that they came over the bow of the ship causing everything on deck and as will and every thing in the hole of the boat be become soaked.
The owners of the ship and cargo now had a million pounds of coffee beans that was wet.
And had this million pounds of beans stayed dry it would have be worth 2 million dollars.
Now it was going cost money to deposes the the wet beans.
So the owners had the beans off loaded at the docks so the ship could go on.
The Company's R and D team was told to find out what the beans could be used for if anything at all.
After much testing, they found that the beans were missing a key ingredient for coffee.
The caffeine was missing from the coffee beans.
The sea water that had washed over the deck had salt in it, and that had remove the caffeine.
So now we know how de-caffated coffee came about.

But the rest of my story is.
I took the hand gun to the State police and that was a story in its self.
I left the gun in the car and walk in and informed the lady behind 2 inch bullet prof-glass that I
had found a gun in the river on Saturday and that I would like to have the serial numbers run to see if it is a stoled gun and the gun is in the car.
There looked at me for about 3 minutes like, this has never happed before, so we have no ideal what to do.
A officer sir came out from the back office and started talking to me and I told my story of how that I had found it and He came around from behind the glass and we went out to the car.
I had place the gun in a z-lock bag to keep the oil off the seat.
So I opened the car door and handed the bag to the police and go back into the police station.
The police said is the a klock, He got a little exsitered till I told him that is was a XD-40.
There took the gun and told me to wait, a little later he came out with some paper work on how to keep some thing that was found worth more than a $100.
You have to report to the county clerk what you found then place and ad in newspaper for 3 weeks and then after 90 days you take the prof of the ad into the clerk and then you can keep what you found.
Will, it turns out that the gun was stoled in the Lane county area,(Eugine) and so it will go back to the owner of the gun or insurance company.
And that is the rest of the story from me.

Gone Diving In Gold Hill

Ben and my self dove at the Gold Hill, Train Bridge on Saturday.
Temperature was about 80 degrees out, and the water was 61* degrees.
We geared up by the car, I used only one layer of wet suite and Ben put on both layers.
We used the 72 cu. ft. tank thinking it would be a short dive, about 37 minutes.
In the water we drop down to about 33 feet to start with, and cut across the river to the east bank and then go up stream about 300 feet and than back across to the west bank and surface.
Saw 4 or 5 dead salmen, found some golf balls and out side mirror to a 1964 chevy.
Also a pendent with a cross attached, a toy helmet, and lots of soda cans.
The vizes was about 5 to 8 feet, so it was a little hard at times, I thought I lost Ben a coupe times, but I would catch a glimpse of his fins and we would be back together again.
We came up, on the west side up stream from were are start point was and we had about 750 psi of air left, and we had to go back down stream about 150 feet to pull out point.
At this time we dropped down and went with the current and came back to are start.
I check my air and it was about 450 psi, signaled to be to start up from 35 feet.
As we started up this under water rock cliff, (this made you feel like super man flying up and over a rocky mountain).
Any ways back to the story, as we came up, a white mark caught my eye, and reach out and pick it up, as I did so it turn into 45* auto hand gum.
Woo! thats weird, its got be a toy gum or something, got home and cleaned up it up and its a XD-40 hand gun, 40 caliber.
It has a plastic grip and steel slider and bolt, like a klock pistol, also had a light and lazer site on the bottom side of the barrel.
This gun sell for about $400 to $500 new, I going check with state police tomorrow to see it stoled or was use in a crime.
I would say its been in the water from 1 to 2 months or less.

The Portlan 8 Bridge Ride 4 (more pic)

The Porland 8 Bridge Ride 3 (more pic)

The Portland 8 Bridge Bide 2

This is the start.
We got ther about 7:00AM and had to chang our 10 bridge red shirt to and green 8 bridge shirt. We were gaven the wrong ones, the night before the ride.

I learn a day or two later that this was the biggest turn out of bike rider, there was 20,000 riders at the start.
If you look closely the bikes go back about 5 blocks or more and we are about 1 block from the start.

The start was a lot easer then I thought it was going to be.
There was no pushing or any thing like that, no one fellow over.
Everone started pushing there bikes and after 100 feet or so, there started to ride.



I shot is picture over my shoulder as I was riding alone, in the begain of the ride.
Daniel was right be hind me, as you can see by the picture.
The Weather was just right, the temperature was about 75 degrees and over cast.
At the 17 mile mark, I felt some rain for about 5 minutes, but that was it.

Dad, Ben, Sam and Daniel start the ride together, but broke off into pares, Ben and Daniel, Dan and Sam.

The Portland 8 Bridge Ride 1

On Sunday August 11, The Boys, Ben, Sam and Daniel and my self rode the 26 mile 8 bridge ride around Portland Oregon.
More pictures to come of the cool ride.

Really Old Bikers

On Friday August 10, I took a day off and drove up into the mountains, geocaching in the Kirby Peak area.
I was looking for the so called shorter trail to the peak, I didn't find it, but I have two more ideals as to where it is.
As I was look for this short trail to the peak, I met this lady who was driving ahead of the group of people on road bikes.
I talk to her about where and when they had started.
They had start on first part of the week, I believe that she mint Sunday, that they had started in Gold Hill, Oregon and rode over Bear Camp road to the cost to Gold Beach, and then down the cost to Brookings and then in on Smith River Road and had started in Cave Juntions that morning and would finsh up in Gold Hill tonight.
She said its about 650 miles, at about 70 to 90 miles a day.
The avarage age of the riders is 65 years old, with one rider who is 82 years old, and He still ride circals arnoud the the younger riders, (So, everone is a younger rider to him?LOL).
When I left these riders they where coming on a place called Deer creek with a about a 3000 feet change at about 10 mile long.
This makes me tired thinking about doing that.

A Member of the Family Is Sold

This member join the family about six years ago, to serve and protect the your men of the family.
The 1980 Volvo was found at a tow yard auction in Medford. It had been abandon and towed in and set for about 3 or 4 months, that was in 2001.
I bit $25 as the first bit and a women was biding also, she stop biding at $45 and I won the bid at $50.
It had a died battery so I couldn't tell if it would even run at the time. I did turn the engine over by hand and check the oil and what have you, and every thing looked ok. So cross my fingers and some luck, it would be and easy fix.
Got Randy's Suburb and a car trailer from some friend from church and took it home.
Got home and had it running in about 15 minutes, the alter was bad.
The owner before me had run the battery died and left the car behind.
I pull the alter down and found the the bushes were bad, pick up some bushes at the part house for $3 and that fix it.
I really brought it for Sam to drive as His first car, and turn out that it was Daniel first car also.
It had a slate 4 cyl. and a 4 speed trans and 4 wheel dic brakes, and build like tank as the body goes. I had to replace the out side door handle about 4 or 5 time in the six years that I had it.
The inside of the doors had this big chuck of steel inside of the door to protect the driver and passagers for side hits.
I do know that Daniel did hit a deer and all the damage that it did was damage the grill, and we found another on E-bay for $40 and it was in good shape again.
With 2 different teenagers driving it, I'm sure it hit lots of thing that I will never know about.
I later fixed the right rear corner that was bent up some, I bet it out and bondod it and painted, It look better than did before.
Over the years I spent about $600 fixing it and keeping it running.
I put it in the nicko paper to sell for $300, I got about 10 call on it.
A funny thing happened, on Sunday a Brain call and said He would be out Monday night to buy the car. Will when I got home Monday, Daniel said that I had a call from Brain, and Daniel gave me the phone number and I called and Brain said wasn;t sure if he could buy the car and said could I come down the price and went me to bring it to him and on and on and on.
This is wried and so I check the phone number and found that is was different from the Sunday night call so I called and it was a different Brain, and that He would be out in a short time and get it for the $300.
And any ways It left home and now live in Cental Point. Not to far from home.
The little car did a good job of protecting Sam and Daniel, and if the car could talk I sure it would have tails to tell.

Gary Has A Bad Day

When up on Fielder Mountain the other day Gary got a hole in his rear tire in the side wall.
As I start to ride off, I felt this like something was blowing on my ankle repeatedly and I look at my ankle to see what was going on, and couldn't see what had happened. I started to move out and the tire was flat.
When I unloaded the bike and got my gear on and rode to the gate and started around the post and I rode over some rocks and I must have slid side ways and cut the side wall.
the cut is about 1/2 inch long. So much for riding up the hill.
Went back to the car and load the bike and walked up to the cache.

Cleaning Up On The Caches

Took Friday off and played around, on Fielder Mountain, I removed two cache because 1, its a long driver to get these ones and if you miss a turn , you could drive around for some time, and 2, with the price of gas at $3.00 gallon these days.
So I took the hard ones, to find and left the one cache on top, its a drive a hike and not much driving around to look for this one and it as great view of the Rogue River and Savage creek area. The cache name is Old Bike parts with a view, the cache has old dirt bike parts from the days when I dirt biked on this mountain. And it was reported missing so it need checking.
I add some pic to the cache page to help those hunting, to better find this one after the trip up to the top.

More Up To Date Info

The end of June, the family went to Seattle, to dive in Puget Sound.
Had a really good time. I did 9 dives in about 6 days.
Dove at Edomen dive park, saw 4 foot lecode and there was this cabizon with very big head, about 18 inch acrossed.
Lots of small boats, in the dive park 15 to 30 foot long, way cool to see.
At a place called 100 foot rock. You dive on a rock thats 100 feet to the bottom, pretty dark, down there, and some fish.
But as I was coming up and came these red string things, I looked above me about 10 feet, and about 20 ahead was this red jelly fish, with a body about 12 across.
The string spread out over about 35 to 40 foot area, very cool to see.
I kept swimming to the right to get around it and missed most of the string, but one got me on the upper lip, not to bad, but weird.
We dove at Mukoto ferry area, look around for a boat, but could find it, one of the other divers frecked out at 95 feet because of the cold and being very dark, I took them to the top, and all was ok.
We did dive here again to make this my deepest dive to date, got down to 126 feet, and Rochelle beat that by going to 131 feet, I was off the bottom about 6 or 7 feet to keep from stirning up the mud. As we came up we did a 3 minute safty stop, we found this rope and came up it to bouy, we stop at about 20 to 15 feet, and held on to the rope.
I was watching dive computer to track the time and turn it over to look at the detph and found the we move up about 10 feet and I hadn't move on the rope, so I drop down 5 feet to get back down to 15 feet and stay there.
What had happed was with that the 5 of use coming up the rope we pulled the bouy down about 10 and with high tide, it was under water about 5 feet.
All so a funny thing happpened, as we hanging on the rope, these little, weed look thing got all over our gloves and wet suit, as we were taking our gear off, I saw that there were moving, and I looked closer and there looked like little shurimb or skorpins, and they dug into our gloves and wet suits, had to pick each one out as they wigged around.
Lots of thing like this happend all week, to many to list.

Wow, Time Flys

I thought it had alone been a couple weeks that I last post something, June 2, its been about 8 weeks. The new system is still new, but now we (the shop personal) have figered out some trick to the system, some back doors so to speak.
Tuesday we will do the first part inventory with this system, should be interesting.
What else happened in the past 8 weeks.
Gray the new bike tryied to kill me two times, front wheel in chuck hole and me over the handle bars, and about a week later I hit a tree with my left shoulder on a skinny trail on waters creek trail, I was only going about 8 mph, it knocked me off the trail and down the hill side about 15 feet. It seem that nothing was broken or the Gray did have any trouble.
About week later I was diving in Seattle, and my left shoulder started aking like a bone brake would hurt, so I think I cracked something in my left should area. Started carriering the dive gear on the right shoulder more it is seems ok after that.
I found the the seat that came with the bike had very little padding on it, and it seem to be hurting more then should so I got another seat, and when I was install it, I found out that the seat was bent and crocked.

The Beast Is Out

The new system rolled out this last week, and I think it roll right over the shop.
After 3 days of training, I'm still not sure what I'm doing. The manual is open all the time just to create WO ( was and is in ever other shop call and RO repair order).
You can see who wrote the soft ware for the system is a soft ware writer only, no ideal about mechanic world.
The system was set-up for the bean counter world, not the real shop world, were time is every thing, the the real work is making the bus safe for kides to ride. Not look for the most $ you can turn on a bus.
The mechanic has to log in and log out of ever job he is doing. Meaning if he is doing a A inspection and a tail light fix comes in he most log off the A and on to the light inspection. The time to do the log off and on, adds about 5 minutes to each job, because he is not standing next to the termal, so now he walks to unit, log off, then create WO log on, go inspect job, then walk back in log off inspection and log on to fix, get part and fix bus, then walk back in and log off fix, then log back on A inspection.
We can do 2 dozen fix a day like this, between 3 shop.
And the icing on the cake is that there to cheap to put and termal in the RR shop. So now the mechanic write up everything and I have to hand inter ever thing for the day till he comes into the GP shop.

Now on to fun stuff.

New Record set by Dan.
I dived last week in the Smith River and had my longest dive on a 80 cu. tank of 63 minutes at 48 feet, most of the dive was at about 25 to 30 feet.

Purchested new mountain bike, Gray Fisher, wahoo, 19", realy nice to ride, I'm trying to ride 25 mile a week, had to make up 5 miles this AM, took about 30 minutes.
Bying the bike has to be cheaper then a gym fee, and I will have it forever. Trying to ride about 4 to 5 days a week, till after june then because of heat, drop to 2 days a week till it cool off.
I'm working on cleaning up on the lots of geocache that I have not been getting, after schools out June 13.
There is about 100 + to get around Grants Pass and Medford area close in, and 300 + all round the both areas.

No Time For Fun

Lots of thing going on.
The new computer system is planned to go live on May 29.
I have 12 hours of training and each shop man has to have 3 hours each, in the next 2 weeks.
The roll out is taking in the parts inventory so every thing has to be right on the nickel to make it work right. We will soon see.
Been riding the old mountain bike, it about one of the 1st ones. Its about 13 years old I'm gussesing.
I injury the arch on my right foot, I let it heal about 2 weeks and went back the hiking and I kelp re-injuring it. So about first part of April I started to ride the old bike and did not hurt my foot.
I was riding on the green way trail by the new brigde and run out to the Valley of the Rogue park.
I would turn around at the rest area. Best I could tell was that it was about 3 mile one way.
At first is was prettty slow, in first gear the hole time (only have 18 gears). I got up to 2 and 3 most of the way, avaged about 8 mph.
I moved to Catheral Hill monday and had to pick and trail that I could go part way up.
I having to push it up the last 300 to 400 feet. The plan is to be able to ride this in about 2 weeks. The ride down is about one and half miles.
The hole ride takes about 30 minutes. If I feel good by the end, I will add and small half mile loop one.
Looking at buying a new bike, 24 speed. Its a Gray Fisher 19 inch.