High Adventure on an Inland Sea!

As some of you may already know, I'm a member of Toastmasters. Since I've joined I've become more aware of the things I say and I work hard at trying to say things so that my point is concise and that it is easily understood. This doesn't always work but I'm getting better. Someone asked to read a speech I wrote so I'm including it in this blog. The purpose of this speech was to be animated and so I acted out some of my experiences.
Here is... High Adventure on an Inland Sea, not really.

As children many of us dream of different things we want to be as adults. Some of us wanted to be doctors, magicians, ballerinas, veterinarians and astronauts. With a show of hands, how many of you can say you are doing the job you dreamed about as a child? If you are congratulations, if you are not congratulations, our interests change as we get older and we sometimes learn that the job we thought we always wanted turns out to be the job we never wanted. In my case, as a child, I wanted to be a scuba diver who discovered lost shipwrecks full of treasure. When I was kid I would memorize the colorful pictures of tropical waters in the Caribbean with sharks and scuba divers, shipwrecks and buried treasure that were printed in the high gloss pages of National Geographic. I would leaf through them with amazement and wonder at all the fantastic and exotic places in the world and underwater. When Mel Fisher discovered the Atocha in 1985 its treasures were plastered throughout National Geographic and my young mind was convinced this was something I would do some day in the future.

Flash forward to 2006, I’m married working at a job I detest doing nothing with my archaeology degree thinking to myself where did I go wrong? As I pondered Graduate school I thought about going to school for Nautical Archaeology which remained an interest of mine from childhood but was something I never followed through with, but there was a fundamental flaw in this idea… I wasn’t a certified scuba diver; I’ve never even been scuba diving. My first step would be to become certified. No problem. I love being in the water, so it seems only natural that I’d also love scuba diving right?

My certification process for becoming a PADI Open Water Diver was filled with many moments of discouragement that put my pursuit of becoming a scuba diver in jeopardy. Keep in mind that I’ve been waiting nearly twenty years to do this. While completing my final dives for certification I suffered the worst panic attack of my life. My eyes popped out of my skull, I began sucking in major gasps of air from my regulator and I got tunnel vision, and this is all happening under forty feet of water. I managed to take control of my fear and I pushed through the exercises without giving up. Back on land, after I had successfully gained my certificate I wasn’t elated but relieved and I had no intention to get back in the water anytime soon.

Even after my unfortunate experience my interest in underwater archaeology didn’t subside and I discovered a group called M.A.S.T. which stands for the Maritime Archaeological Surveying Team, a non-profit organization who uses volunteer scuba divers to help conduct surveys of shipwrecks in the Great Lakes for documentation and preservation. I thought to myself (go humph) this might be a great opportunity, I’ll get to do underwater archaeology without going back to school and borrowing thousands of dollars to find out if I even like underwater archaeology. I missed the training program for 2007 so I waited a year and took the course in the spring of 2008. In June I went on my first underwater dive for an archaeological survey.

We set out from the Black River in Lorain County aboard the Holiday captained by a man who sounded like a cross between; Mr. Magoo, W.C. Fields, Christopher Walken and who looked like Patrick Stewart from Star Trek with a white chin beard and a white captain’s hat. My favorite quote of his was- “On this voyage of surf and sun, we do not flush for #1, but should you go #2 do us a favor and flush it through.”


















Now, Lake Erie is known for its rough seas and even though a friend of mine warned me about this, I neglected to heed his advice and take Dramamine. I mean, why would I? I’m a man. (Take a wide superhero stance) I’m of Norwegian descent, sailing is in my blood. I’ve never been sea-sick before. Guess what happened? As soon as I set foot on the Holiday rocking to and fro from the waves on the river, I became sick. I cursed myself for my stupidity. Here I am sick on a fishing vessel with not much room for the twenty people on board let alone twenty scuba divers and all their gear, the majority of them are over weight middle aged men with disposable income exemplified in the immense amount of gear they have with them. Needless to say space was limited. After an hour of fighting off the dizziness and complete lack of proper motor function, it was time for me to suit up and go scuba diving. Picture yourself five miles away from shore on a boat rocking wildly back and forth, being sea sick and trying to put on a rubber suit without your body’s cooperation and you get a good picture of what I must have looked like that day.

I wasn’t sick to my stomach, I just felt extremely dizzy as if I had just got off a really violent roller coaster. It reminded me of that joke by Dean Martin when he says- “You’re not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.” When I finally had all my gear on I had to waddle my way from the bow of the boat to the stern down a narrow passage while I was over heating, nearly losing consciousness and swaying from left to right as I’m hunched over with nearly fifty pounds of weight strapped to my back. (Do the scuba diver shuffle) As the crew is rushing me to get in the water I’m trying not to black out and I’m telling them I’m not going to make it. They convince my body to get in the water and somehow it obliges. As soon as I hit the turquoise water my suit is filled with its refreshing coolness. I’m right as rain and ready to submerge.

As we descend my heart is beating (pause- beat chest) and my eyes are wide and focused. The visibility was poor but I didn’t care I was diving on a schooner that sank nearly 150 years ago! I had done it. I lived out a childhood fantasy. Although I was still too sea sick to accomplish the next dive I did come back the following day and completed my two other dives. I did enjoy the three dives that I completed that weekend but I can’t say that I enjoyed them so much that I’m in a rush to do it again.

My experiences have shown me that; maybe I’m just not that into scuba diving, a graduate program in underwater archaeology might not be the best fit for me, and that what I wanted to do so badly as a child isn’t necessarily something I have to want to do as an adult, especially now that I’ve actually done it and that’s o.k., I can accept that. I still love free diving and I do get some enjoyment from scuba diving, so who knows, one day I just might be diving somewhere in the Caribbean only to discover some sunken treasure and if I don’t that’s o.k. too.

Tea for Two and Two for Tea

Saturday my wife held a fantastic tea party for our nieces, mothers and grandmothers on each side. My grandma Olmstead was not in attendance due to her living in a barely habitable part of Texas. Meghan had it decorated beautifully with considerate and thoughtful little nuances throughout, you can see pics here. She asked me if I would tell the girls a story with my puppet Francois to fill some time as she printed out pictures of the event to give as gifts to the mothers. I didn't really know what to do so Meghan suggested telling a story revolving around the three girls. I didn't want to make it three fairies or three princesses so I switched it up a bit. Elliot is really into playing princess, especially her take on the Sleeping Beauty story. Malia likes princesses as well but she has recently really taken to water, I mean for four years old she is much more adept at swimming than I was at her age. She must have inherited the fish gene from the Olmstead side because that girl is like Esther Williams doing underwater flips and so-on, so I made her a mermaid. Emily is really goofy and curious, she is easy going and happy go-lucky so I made her the fairy.
The story was a basic plot of a goblin named Wortemer Wormbread,or Wort for short. He is a dirty, lazy goblin who never cleans so he kidnaps the princess, the mermaid and the fairy to clean his house. The worried parents of the missing girls ask Francois to save them, he reluctantly agrees. He sets out to find the girls and...
I guess you should watch the clip to see how the story ends.

A New Addiction

Meghan has made claim that I am addicted to post-it notes. I suppose this is due to the massive amount of random sticky notes she finds strewn about the house. She doesn't seem to understand that I need the sticky note, the small scrap piece of paper or the post-it note to keep my mind from all the creative clutter or that I need a mental break, to wander around aimlessly in the meadow of my mind at work so I can escape for a brief moment before going back to the hum-drum doldrums of my less than exciting job of donor form letters, copying and filing. I've been a doodler since the day I learned to draw a car on some old bank deposit slips over at my grandmother's house. I draw a circle than it takes on a life of its own. I come up with my characters that way, like the dragon, Iggy and Francois and I need to keep those little pieces of paper so that when it is time for me to put them into some sort of context I can copy them from the original concept. Last week she became tiresome of the random drawing and placed a small collection of them in an envelope near the printer. I applaud her for her smart thinking in having some type of system for storage.

Here is one of the latest post-its taken from a brief break at work...

Hallow Gallow Poll

As many of you are surely aware Halloween is soon approaching. Maynan and I enjoy Halloween more than any other holiday in the whole world. We are planning on hosting another eerie event to celebrate the occasion with the time and date to be determined. The theme has not been decided upon but I'm leaning toward a certain something but I can't say too much. Here is a CLUE...











M is for Meghan who was murdered with a mace.

K is for Kirk who was stabbed with a knife by the kindliest killer who vanished without a trace.

I could see Meghan painted up like a Gustav Klimt painting. I would require one of my mustaches to pull off the Victorian look or I'd have to go sans facial hair.

What thoughts or ideas for a most horrifying Halloween can you offer? If they're good enough maybe we'll kil...I mean, er... invite you.
Happy Haunting!

*UPDATE*

Estivator sent Meghan and I the most delicious postcard in the mail. I think she might get a gold star for the week. So yes, I was thinking of decorating the house and grounds in an Edward Gorey motif. I thought topiaries, mournful lovers, suicidal figures and ghastly visitors could deck the walls and fly about. I cannot divulge too much or there will be nothing to surprise you with.

Thanks for the postcard! Indeed, I think it was the hood ornament!