Ty McClelland

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Early morning dive

On a recent morning dive, this morning actually, I experienced something unusual. My sinuses have been acting up, but that's mostly because I haven't been diving in a few weeks. At least not in the volume before now.

The short sightedness of local management has "blessed" me with being in charge of my own scuba shop temporarily. It's really cramping my style.

I can't really teach because I work in the shop on the weekends, and most people plan to dive at this time, because they work during the week, when I'm off. So I'm making due with what I can, but then a domino of 'things' keep occurring; pools closed, another pool manager is a jerk, people can't drive that far, people don't have cars, people don't care...

Regardless, I still have to get in the water. Did a shallow exploratory dive a few days ago, and the sinuses acted up a little. Today, I could 'feel' bubbles moving through. A little blockage now, and kinda sore. I'm also tired.

Rest is not on the menu however, as this morning it was 0500 and driving to dive in the water; after the dive, rush off and go open the store. (Timing was good though, so now I think I can do this again, and again, and again...)

I love early morning time. I'm one of those sick morning people. I remember being awake before the whole house when I was a kid, eating cereal and watching cartoons, sometimes out in the woods before the house is up. Now I drink coffee and go diving with my best dive buddy in the world. (Sorry, a little sappy, but still.)

Mr. 328359

Took a different angle on things today. There's tons of plankton and small fish right now, everyone is complaining about visibility, not realizing that right now it's food they see for all the sea life they get to enjoy.

Anyway, below are some pictures of our dive buddies from this morning, I really missed them and was happy to see so many friends around. Took some liberty with creativity today as well, not something I commonly do. Hope you enjoy.

Friday, May 10, 2013

A funny thing happened on the way to...

I forget exactly where I was going, or what I was doing.

I just looked and thought;
Huh, I'm stopping here and looking inside.

One man's junk, another man's treasure. I wandered around looking at all the stuff. Some things I had no clue what they were for, others, were a blast from the past. I love going to these and seeing all the stuff, the imagination goes rampant (I could use this in the kitchen, oooo I remember my grandmother had one of those...)

I looking around, and out of the blue:

wait.....no that's not right...

ahh, that's more like it...

Sitting in a dusty case, in a dusty store, I sat down on the dusty floor.

That's expensive I thought. I don't know if I can justify the cost for something that is not guaranteed to work. Quickly I researched the Welta, yeah, it's old. But I couldn't really tell much from the phone search, so it was time for a gamble. When the guy let me negotiate down to ¥10,000 I motioned to the Diana and said "Together?"

Beautiful typical Japanese response of the sigh, eh-to, and the head cocked to the side (he did this the whole time I was looking at the camera, nervously trying to make the sale.)

'OK' he said.

Wait, did I just score TWO cameras for $100? I did...wait....yeah he's dusting them off (LITERALLY) and putting them together...holy cow.

I feel like a criminal.

Not really.

So, the Welta Welti is at the youngest, 1950. There doesn't seem to be a solid way to pin down the exact date, and honestly I haven't worked that hard to figure it out since I wasn't sure it would work or not. The Diana Mini is pretty much a current build used by instagram hipsters who want to feel cool and shoot film. I shot film. In 1980. I don't really know when I stopped, probably when I had to get a job and pay for college and things. Kept shooting though. MANY rolls of film never seen again as at one point I moved 8 times over a period of 5 years, by the time the moving was done, I didn't have much to speak of.

I digress. Hipsters, yeah. Go ahead, because an old guy is back with film cameras, and he's proud of his photos from two cameras he never used before, that he took a gamble on, that he picked up from a junk shop, that work. Photos below same ones on my flickr.