purbeast

I watched Infinity War Friday night and thought it sucked ass.

Avengers Infinity War - 5/10 - convoluted mess that was basically just going between random groups of super heros the entire movie with very little direction. Think I'm just done with Marvel movies for the most part. They just keep getting worse and worse to me.

Yeah I'm not really too concerned about it at this point considering the doctor I talked to 7 years ago and my asthma is the same if not better now. As mentioned I've done SCUBA already and was fine and I probably will do 1 dive while in Grand Cayman even without my certification. I'm just trying to look at the schedule for the classes and they are all on weekends that the Redskins play on Sunday except on September 29th/30th. That is their bye week so I may try to take it that weekend, which is the weekend after I get back from Grand Cayman so that will be a few busy weeks for me. Then I may try to take the trip to Grand Cayman with the class in mid October to get certified, IF my wife is cool with that, but I don't know how she'll like that if I did that lol. I just got my chest X-ray and my PFT tests at the Shady Grove hostpital are schedule for next Wednesday which was the earliest they could get me in.

Well I went to the pulmonoligist yesterday but unfortunately he didn't sign the waiver (yet) because he is requiring me to get 3 different PFT's at the hospital as well as chest X-rays. I did this 6 minute walking test which I easily passed but he needs more. I am pretty confident that as long as my tests come back good he will sign off, he seemed very reasonable about it all and printed this sheet out for me (which I had read before): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25666876 He said that his goal is to get me a signed waiver with verbal promises by me that - 1, I don't SCUBA having used my inhaler less than 48 hours prior (which shouldn't be a problem since I haven't used it in 10 years) and 2, to not use a hookah less than 48 hours prior (which I do maybe once or twice a month with friends) so that won't be an issue. That said, I unfortunately will not be able to sign up to the class this weekend, which means I won't be able to do my checkout dives when in Grand Cayman next month, so it's a bit disappointing, but I'm thinking I will take the class in October and maybe go with the class on a trip to Grand Cayman in December, if my wife is okay with that lol.

Jesus talking about taking major steps backwards.

I like Chad Dukes show quite a bit actually. I hated him when he was with Lavar, but I also hated Lavar. Those 2 guys were like listening to fingernails on the chalkboard. He grew on me a bit with his solo show and is what I listen to when I leave work at 2pm. He has much better guests than the 980 shows at that time. Chad Dukes has some great guests on there too.

I went to my current asthma/allergy doc and did the PFT and other stuff, and she wasn't really aware of this medical waiver so she would not immediately sign it. She said she could recommend me to a pulmonary specialist though and that I could also do an exercise challenge (where you do PFT before and after treadmill running) and that she would do a bit more research on the subject. Well the next day (yesterday) she called me and said that even if I was fine on the exercise test she wouldn't clear me simply because she doesn't fully understand and know the risks involved. Rather she said she'd give a note or something saying that my asthma symptoms do not affect exercise and that I'm fit in that sense, so that if I go to a pulmonary specialist and do some tests there that it would kind of just be more evidence. She did recommend a pulmonary doctor to see though and I now have an appointment next Wednesday with them, and I explained to them that I want to get SCUBA certified and they have some tests they will run. I actually even found my old post on the SCUBA boards from 2011 when I got my initial dive physical, which was an interested read with details I did not remember, if anyone is interested in reading lol. https://www.scubaboard.com/community/threads/asthmatic-looking-to-scuba-dive-had-a-dive-physical-today.366381/ Looking back on that it pisses me off even more that the doc didn't medically clear me, and it pisses me off that I never went back after my first successful SCUBA dive. I believe the methadone test is the one that I'm going to have next week though, or at least part of it.

I must be in the minority but literally every time I tune to 980 (and 1067) and hear Nationals talk, I instantly change the station. I have absolutely zero interest in baseball. If they are both talking about baseball I flip to music until it's something other than baseball.

I would listen to Smoot regularly. He's just entertaining and hilarious for the most part. Maybe I'd get annoyed of his schtick quickly I'm not sure, but so far I have been liking what I hear about him. JP Finlay and him were pretty good today. The Nats were on 1067 and I'd rather listen to pain dry so I was stuck checking out 980.

He's right though. Sitting down in my home theater on a Friday night to watch a movie with a captain and coke in hand after I get off of work after a long week of working, working out, doing yardwork, working on side projects, etc, feels really ****ing good. It feels a lot better than it did before we had our kid and we lived in an apartment and my wife worked every weekend, sometimes until 9pm, where I would basically **** around all day every weekend since I had way less responsibilities. As I've gotten older I've definitely needed to be "doing something" more than I used to have to, otherwise I feel like I'm wasting time if there is stuff that needs to be done. But don't get me wrong, I love when I have nothing to do and can relax, but that is just not nearly as often as it used to be, and as he mentions, it feels better now.

Totally anecdotal, but any time I turn on 980 and it's some nationally syndicated show, I immediately change the channel to anything else.

I can't stand people who think they are funny when they aren't, and Danny thinks he is so funny but he's not even close to being funny. I've changed the station multiple times during the Beltway Blitz and he's talking to JP Finlay (or someone else) and every time he asks a question, he makes up a new "funny" accronym for JP. That **** just grinds my gears. And the whole "winning off the field" that those guys did for about 15 years too long is probably the dumbest segment I've ever heard on radio. I'm not the biggest Grant fan either though, that show is by far my least favorite show on the radio and why Bram takes precedence over that show.

Wow WTF is 980 doing? The past year+ or so they have really been struggling to keep my attention. They are always the second choice for me when in the car at any time, except when I go to lunch and Grant/Danny are on. I'll usually check what Bram is talking about first (even though his nasally voice can be annoying) because Danny is just the worst person on the radio. The past week I thought the stand ins on 980 were just due to summer travels, then when I heard Chick on there yesterday with BMitch I thought it was just some special appearance or something down at Redskins park. Funny that CZabe is the only one to not be phased by this, when to me once Andy left and he said the show would only be 20% local, the show has just not been the same and I rarely listen to it.

We are going Saturday to Saturday so I plan on doing my dives most likely on Sunday and Monday. Monday we are planning on getting professional pictures taken for our 10 year anniversary so I'll have to make sure it's a morning dive. I'm still waiting on booking anything until I get my medical waiver signed and my appointment isn't until next Tuesday so hopefully they sign it. I also (as of now) don't plan on doing more dives other than the 4 certification dives while on this trip, unless I did one more at Stingray City or something. That's good to know that you can bring a small cooler into Rum Point, that was my plan but I read you can't. Maybe they have signs but don't enforce it, kind of like how beaches in the US say no alcohol but everyone does it anyways.

That's good to know, I have never considered cooking a full chicken like that but one day hope to give it a try.

Cool I will look into them when doing my 4 certification dives. And yeah we rented a car last time and loved driving around to different beaches with no crowds. We also loved the food and did not have 1 bad meal and they were all pretty much fantastic. I've been hearing that Rum Point has had some sea weed issues recently too so I'm going to be on the lookout for that too. We were going to go on our last day there when we were there last year but the weather looked a bit iffy up there, and I also read we can't bring our own coolers and food/drinks there so that turned me off a bit.

Cool thanks for the info. We're going back for our 2nd time in September and staying on SMB again. But we're there for a week this time and plan on venturing out around the island more this time, including the east side as well as up north at Rum Point.

Damn that looks good. What is the total cook time on a full chicken of that size?

@UKskins well the instructor said that regardless where you do the final dives you need the medical waiver signed. He organizes a class trip to Grand Cayman so that is his normal spot he goes to which I'm guessing requires it. You mentioned you got certified a while back I think so maybe things have just changed since then? I know back in the mid 90's that if you had asthma at all they would NOT let you dive, but things have changed the past 2 decades so they've changed their thought process on that. While I've never dove in Grand Cayman the snorkeling there was fantastic. It's probably the clearest water I've ever been in my entire life too and I've been to a decent variety of places. From all accounts I've heard as well, it's one of the best places to SCUBA in the Caribbean.

Will do! The plan right now is to do the weekend course August 18th and 19th, and then when I go to Grand Cayman with my wife and son in September to do the checkout dives. My wife is cool with me taking 2 mornings to go do the dives. If I could find a friend to go with I'd try to weasel my wife into being cool with me going with a buddy on the class trip to Grand Cayman that they do every month strictly to dive. But I am not signing up just yet. In the orientation the instructor said that with the medical waiver form, regardless of you answering NO to every question, that for the checkout dives, you still need a medical release form signed by your doctor. Well I have asthma and have had it my whole life, but for the past 10-15 years it's been EXTREMELY mild, to the point that I haven't used my inhaler in years and I use Advair not even every day. I really just use it before I workout, and it's more preventitive and in my gym bag all the time so I use it. I'll go 3 days on the weekend without even using it though and be fine. Additionally I have not had an "asthma attack" in probably 2 decades. All that said, I did a dive physical with someone at Hopkins like 7 years ago when I wanted to do this. It involved a lot of tests and had to get xray's of my chest and like a checklist of 8 things. After doing all of that he basically concluded that with how I treat my asthma I don't clinically even have asthma. That said, he still would not sign my waiver for some reason, probably just to cover his ass IN CASE something happened. But he did tell me that I can answer NO to that question on the form since I don't have it based on those tests. Lookin back I really wish I still had that form signed by him because I wouldn't even have this problem right now, but whatever, he was a one off doctor I see. So I'm hoping at my appointment next Tuesday (my asthma doc) that I can get a pass on the waiver and they can sign it for me. If they can't sign it for me, I'm going to try and go to my general physician, which I don't even have one right now, so I'll have to do get one. But I'm really hoping that my asthma doc will sign it for me after I go over this with them in details. I'm even going to bring my divers log book that I have that shows I've dove twice last year, just so they see I've already dove and was fine. Also looking at the waiver, the "risk" level is "relative" which to me means that the risk is really only there just based on how severe the asthma is and how it's being treated.

I don't know if you all have ever watched any novelas on the spanish channels, but my wife is Nicaraguan and watches them daily, and holy **** the women on that **** are all ****ing perfect 10's with guys who are fat slobs and like 20 years older than they are.

Good info on the advanced stuff and it makes total sense. I've done SCUBA 2 times before (one 1 tank dive, and then two 1 tank dives another time) and I'm somewhat comfortable already however I'm doing the certification so that I can get really comfortable doing it but you're right, I don't know if I'd be that comfortable that quickly to do some of those. The 5 extra dives included a wall dive, a wreck dive, a buoyancy control, navigation, and one other type. I'm a big time snorkeler so I'm pretty familiar with the different types of fish that are in the Caribbean already so when they point out fish I should be pretty familiar with what they are looking at. I do have one of the more popular fish ID books already though so I could definitely brush up on that as well for the more uncommon fish that are down there.

I went to the orientation thing tonight and I'm pretty convinced that I'd like to do the dive trip they do to Grand Cayman but with the class. That's where I would do my referral dive anyways, but it would be during a vacation with my wife and kid in September, so it would take up time together. But with the class trip, it's basically a dive trip where that's the focus. And they also do an advanced certification if you want too that is a couple hundred bucks more, which I'd maybe do. At this point though my main concern is the 10 minutes of treading you have to do in the pool lol. I suck at treading and am just a dense dude who doesn't float as I'm like 200lbs but a fit/athletic 200lbs.