What's shorter than a weekend? A Vacation!

Kristen's birthday is Monday, so we did some early celebrating and activities and had a pretty packed and complete weekend. On top of a birthday, just accepted a great job offer at Media General at a pretty good position which will involve a lot of work, however it'll be an incredible platform to learn and blossom. Friday I met her at work and walked through downtown to the Channelside area to have dinner with the family at Tina Tapas. After dinner, we all attended the Trans-Siberia Orchestra concert at the Tampa Forum nearby. I've always intended to see them throughout the years but never got around to actually going and was thankful for the opportunity. They are most famous for their holiday albums, especially their rendition of 'Carol of the Bells' that tends to get hourly play on most stations the week of Christmas. It was a fairly long concert with the first half dedicated to a Christmas story and associated songs with the second half involving other works that have their same flair for production and 80's style arena rock. I was especially looking forward to their performance of Carl Orff's 'O Fortuna' as they have yet release that album. Carmina Burana is my absolute favorite musical composition and this song is recognizable in a dozen movie musical scores over the decade, especially any scene involving knights riding off into battle against evil.

Saturday involved an early wake-up to pack gear and food for a morning drive to Jupiter, on Florida's east coast, for a couple of dives. I hadn't been in the water since the Australia trip in March and Kristen hadn't been in a couple of years. I spent part of Friday getting gear together and repaired and picked up a saltwater fishing license so we could go lobster hunting. The seas were a tad rough, however the dives themselves were fairly nice and it was good to get back into it again and felt as easy and comfortable as if we had been diving last week. Being typical east coast diving, we saw a nurse shark within a minute of hitting the bottom as well as turtles, spotted and green moray eels, and the usual assortment of fish. I was able to capture one small Spanish lobster, though 3 others go away. Mid-way through the second dive, I started hearing a hissing from the first stage behind my head and felt back to find quite a bit of air escaping from my high pressure hose. Apparently the hose was starting to split and was gradually getting worse. I took off the gear to look at it, probably freaking Kristen out a bit in the process since we were at 75 feet and still swimming with the current, and after inspection figured I would not be able to fix it. So I would not have to cut the dive short, and thus be cold, queasy and bored sitting on the boat, I just put my gear back on and spent the rest of the dive reaching back and turning on the tank just enough to pressurize the regulator to get a breath before turning it off to exhale. At first Kristen was right there with her alternate ready, but finally figured I must know what I'm doing and thus resumed the dive. Eventually we had to call the dive on NDL time. I was able to have a nice chat on the ride back in with an old dive acquaintance I knew through one of the online diving forums when I had been seriously active on the SCUBA forums and found it nice to hear of the divers still active and some of their recent trips.

On Sunday Kristen went to the football game, though I decided to bow out. I'm really not that into professional football and didn't want her to not enjoy the game and be worried that I was bored, so she hung out with her dad at the stadium for the Bucs vs Vikings game while I spent some time working in the garage and getting some things straightened for the party next weekend. Hopefully I'll have a chance to get the hot tub working and the rest of the yard fixed up before everyone arrives next weekend.