September 2024 – The ExhaustNotes Blog

Indonesia: Part 3

By Mike Huber

Having found myself in Flores, Indonesia (one of the scuba diving meccas of Southeast Asia) I took it upon myself to dive as much as I could. On my second dive of the first day I saw some manta rays up close and personal and I managed to get a lot of sea urchin spines under my fingernails, hands, and pretty much everywhere. I was bleeding green as I was deep enough underwater that colors would change, and it looked like I had been rolling around in some saguaro cactus or been on the losing side of a fight with a porcupine. I had spines sticking out from every part of my wetsuit.

This was part of the adventure and part of the learning. What I didn’t expect was upon our ascent my air ran out, even though moments earlier I had checked and confirmed I was at about 25%. This was another “So this is how it ends” moment. There wasn’t much time to think about that as I was not prepared for running out of air. I figured I just had moments before I would black out due to no oxygen. Being about 10 meters deep I knew I could have just surfaced quickly to get air and many people probably would have done that. Well, just as in jumping out of airplanes, you train for these type of scenarios. Also, the approach is to take your time as you have the rest of your life to resolve the no air issues, just as you would with a parachute malfunction. The problem with that mindset is that the end of your life is only seconds away.

Fortunately, my dive partner was only a short swim away. I swam over to him as quickly as possible, signaled him I had no air, and calmly (I was actually panicking by this point) grabbed his secondary air hose, and took a much-needed breath in.

That first breath in was a relief on every level you can possibly imagine. We then performed our 3-minute safety stop off using both of his air supplies before we surfaced. Even with my fingers still bleeding from the sea urchin spines and having run out of air, I managed to make a couple jokes as we swam back to the safety of the boat. This is where we learned that my regulator was faulty and provided a false reading on the amount of air remaining. That was a bit of a relief that it wasn’t some rookie mistake by me.

The joking ended on my next dive that day. As soon as I hit the water I had some massive anxiety about the no air issues and going under. It was so intense that everyone on the team had already submerged and I was just sitting there on the surface having fear to let the air out of my BCD to sink and join the rest.

After a few moments, it passed and I did join them. I don’t think I have ever swam as close to a dive partner as I did on that dive. My air barely lasted 32 minutes as my stress and anxiety were causing me to breathe faster, using up my air rather quickly. This was fine with me, as I really had no interest in staying underwater.

Once back on the boat, I was seriously thinking that scuba diving wasn’t for me and would bow out of it using one excuse or another. The lack of air experience was that traumatizing. I began to think back to the Army and our jumps. Whenever someone had a bad jump the best thing to overcome it was to put them on the very next jump ton regain their confidence so they could continue to be effective. Since diving and jumping had so many parallels, I thought this would be the best way. I booked three more dives the next day with the mindset if I didn’t overcome it I would quit diving. I owed it to myself to give it one more try.

More epic adventures are here!

Tony Soprano’s Home

By Joe Berk

The scenes and the locations are iconic, and I take pride in recognizing every one of them in The Sopranos opening credits. The music, the New Jersey Turnpike toll booth, the aged industrial locations, Pizzaland, and motoring up that long driveway at 14 Aspen Drive in North Caldwell, New Jersey. Today’s topic is the home you see at the beginning of every episode in what is unquestionably the best television series that ever aired.

I had originally seen the series sometime after it first ran on HBO. I didn’t at first recognize how wonderful the show was and how it would come to be known throughout the world. It was so good that many people think Tony Soprano is real. I was in Scotland for a consulting gig when my driver, an elderly gentleman, recognized my American accent but told me I didn’t sound “like California.”

“I’m originally from New Jersey,” I explained.

My driver grew silent. He was thinking. Finally, the Question: “Do you know Tony Soprano?” He was dead serious. We were in Glasgow on a motorway taking me to my destination, and here was this Scot asking me about a fictional character. One who obviously seemed all too real to anyone who watched the show.

“I never actually met the man,” I truthfully answered, “But I know people who knew him.”

What I told the driver was true, sort of. James Gandolfini, one of Tony’s many aliases, was a Jersey boy like me. He graduated from my alma mater, Rutgers University. I could identify with The Sopranos and its New Jersey setting. I knew people who spoke with the same accent and who most likely knew the DeCavalcante crime family (the real-world gangsters The Sopranos modeled). Hell, I speak with the same accent, and that old Scot picked up on it in Glasgow. Did I know Tony? Hey, I could name names, but I don’t want to sleep with the fish. I’m no rat.

On a recent trip, I thought it might be fun to Waze my way to a few of The Sopranos locations. The list was long, as the show was mostly shot in New Jersey (as were most of the guys and a couple of gals who fell from Tony’s favor). The first location I would visit, of course, had to be Tony and Carmela’s mansion. Waze knew the way. The Garden State Parkway took me there, and that seemed fitting.

When we arrived, the cul-de-sac was way smaller than it had appeared each morning when a bathrobe-clad Tony waddled down the driveway to pick up his Newark Star Ledger (a paper I used to read, by the way). I couldn’t see too much of the mansion, the result of 25 years of landscaping doing what landscaping does. The trees and bushes had grown to obscure the view from the street. It’s what Tony (or any organized crime figure) would have wanted. Best to keep a low profile, free from Agent Harris’s probing eyes.

When a guy like Tony Soprano posts a sign like this, I pay attention. Nah, not really. What’s he gonna do? Coincidentally, we had that same mailbox in front of our house for years. It leaked and we grew tired of wet mail.

There it was, tucked away behind the vegetation, most definitely the mansion featured in so many episodes and, as mentioned above, in the opening at the start of every episode. Even though the current occupants obviously discouraged visitors, we still took our chances. As I was snapping photos midmorning on this New Jersey weekday, others appeared and did the same. Some of them might have been FBI agents. The fans of fame kept the flame burning bright, almost three decades after the music and the scenes first appeared. Note to self: Make the next visit in the dead of winter when the trees are bare, and do so late in the afternoon when the sun is in a better position. The lighting was not good when I gathered this evidence; a good lawyer could get the photos thrown out in court (a junior G-Man I’m not).

14 Aspen Drive. If you listen carefully, you can hear Carmela bitching.

The sign’s admonitions notwithstanding, I looked around and started working the Nikon’s shutter (I’m not gonna lay down for some mailbox sign). The neighborhood was befitting a kingpin like Tony Soprano. The home on the other side of the cul-de-sac was better lit by the sun’s mid-morning rays, so I had to shoot it, too. Collateral damage; couldn’t be helped. An impressive zip code, to be sure.

A home across the street from Tony’s place. This is an exclusive neighborhood.

I liked The Sopranos television series then and I like it now. I watch The Sopranos episodes on my cellphone (it’s running on Max) when I’m working out. I get through an episode or so each time I visit the gym. I’ve been through the entire series four times (and I’m into Season 5 for the fifth time now). I started binge watching The Sopranos 18 pounds ago. The Sopranos have been very good to me, my waistline, my cholesterol, and my A1C. I need to buy a new belt, and Tony is the guy who made that happen.

So what’s next? Paterson Falls, my friend. It’s where Mikey Palmici threw a drug dealer off the bridge. Stay tuned if you know what’s good for you.

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A Tale of Two Old Warhorses

By Joe Berk

Today’s story is on two old assault rifles. Not the AR15s and other Rambo stuff that’s in the news all the time, but two really old rifles, with designs reaching back more than a century. I’ve spent many enjoyable days on the range with these rifles, and they are two of my favorites.

The one on the top is a Mosin-Nagant 91/30, which is a Russian rifle originally designed in 1891 and then modified in 1930. These old Mosin Nagant rifles were Russia’s primary infantry weapon in World War II. They were plentiful for a while, and then they all but dried up and the prices have increased significantly.

Before I bought my Mosin, I marveled at all the excitement over what I thought was a junk rifle. I had to find out for myself what these were all about, so I bought one labeled as “excellent” (it was anything but). That old Russian rifle is about as crude as it gets, but boy oh boy, can it shoot! It is very accurate, as you can see in the photo below.

The other rifle in the photo above is an Argentine 1909 Mauser. Here’s another photo of it.

The Mauser uses a cartridge (7.65 x 53 Argentine Mauser) that is just about impossible to find today, so for that one I bought the tools that let me make cartridges from .30 06 brass. Doing so was fun. You run the 30 06 case into a special die that reforms it into the 7.65 Argentine cartridge, you trim the newly-formed case to the correct length, and then you reload the new case using the right dies for that cartridge. The photo below sort of shows the forming steps and the finished ammo…that’s a 30 06 round on top and two of my newly-minted 7.65 Argentine rounds on the bottom…

I was surprised at how well it all turned out, and I was really pleased with how well the old Mauser shot. It shoots 1-inch groups with iron sights, but with the rear sight at the lowest setting it shoots a foot too high. After researching this issue on the Internet, I found out that’s what those old German engineers intended. It’s zeroed for 300 yards at the lowest setting! The theory is that you aim at the center of your target for any distance up to 300 yards and you’ll hit it (as long as your target is about the size of an enemy soldier).

Looking at those two rifles, the Mauser has vastly finer machining, fit, and finish, and the Germans really got carried away serializing things. Even the cleaning rod has a serial number.

That got me to thinking about the Mosin Nagant and how rough it was compared to the Mauser. Even with its crude build quality, though, that old Russian rifle shot just as well as the Mauser.

You know, they say there’s nothing new under the sun, and to a great extent, that’s true. Paul Mauser invented the bolt action rifle, and it’s said he got the idea from a gate latch. The theme became the cover of my book on Unleashing Engineering Creativity, and it became the cover shot (featuring the very same rifle you see here). You can buy Unleashing Engineering Creativity by clicking on the title or the photo below.

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Indonesia: Part 2

By Mike Huber

It took about a week to get to Flores, Indonesia from Bali, as it is over 1,000 kilometers away. This was accomplished via three ferries and finally, a 4-day cruise. The cruise was a blast, but once aboard I realized it was a one-way cruise and I would have to find a ferry back (which could take up to 36 hours) or book a return flight to Bali. Normally this would alarm most people, but I had time to kill and quickly learned Flores was an Indonesian scuba diving mecca. Some of the most beautiful wildlife could be seen diving here. This was not a bad place to have a several-day layover.

It didn’t take long to find a scuba company. It had only been a few days since my prior dive and I was already itching to get back underwater. I chose a dive center based on its three-dives-in-one-day regimen. Most the other dive centers only offered two dives in one day. This would help rack up my dive numbers (and my experience, as I would soon learn).

Diving the Komodo Islands is just amazing on so many levels. The biggest draw is the wildlife. The second draw is the strength of the underwater currents. On an average dive we would float with the current for close to an hour and travel several kilometers during the dive. The current was a constant underwater river that was at times overwhelming, depending on the direction it was taking you.

If you got caught in a side current it would feel like you were on the Space Station and someone just cut your tether and you were floating off into nothingness. Feelings of anxiety emerged when this happened, and this caused me to go through more of my air and shorten my dive. It was always important to remain calm, move slowly, and not over-react. That’s easier said than done.

The cool part about these currents is when I was in a “controlled” area I could just watch the beautiful corals go by. The downside was if I saw a turtle or another cool species of wildlife, I really couldn’t get to it as I was swept along with the current. We were told, if possible, to get low to the ocean floor and grab a large rock as an anchor so we could enjoy the wildlife.

I took this rock grabbing suggestion as I happened upon three beautiful manta rays. They were huge, about 12 feet in width. While blowing by them in the current it was like they were in an underwater thermal hovering in place motionless unaffected by the strong currents. It was like watching a stealth fighter Jet hover. Meanwhile I was doing my best to slow down to try to remain close to them. As I descended to the ocean floor seeking refuge from the currents behind a large piece of coral, I grabbed a rock. I instantly felt something sharp on my fingers. I had accidently grabbed a sea urchin and the spines were in all my fingers to include deep under my fingernail. Almost instantly a large gushing of green fluid began pouring out of my fingers. This is when I learned you bleed green when you are deep under water.

Realizing there was nothing I could do about the bleeding until I surfaced, my focus was on watching the manta rays flying by as the current pulled me just underneath them. During this time, I religiously checked my air levels on my respirator. Once I hit 60 bar (25%) it would be time to slowly return to the surface.

We began our ascent to a 3-minute safety stop at 5 meters below the surface to allow our bodies to adjust to the pressure. At around 10 meters and still being abused by the strong currents I went to breathe in and there was nothing there. It was as though I was breathing through a straw and then suddenly someone put their finger over the end. I was out of air. This was a good time to see how much of the training I actually retained and how much of I ignored while being distracted by the beautiful scuba instructor in Australia.

More epic adventures are here!

A Garand Day At The Range

By Joe Berk

I had the Garand out a couple of weeks ago and I had a blast. I was on the range by 7:00 a.m., I had the place to myself, and the sun was at my back. In those early morning sessions with the sun directly behind me and low in the sky, the front sight is sharp and at just the right distance from my aging eyes. I can focus on it, and when you’re shooting any firearm with iron sights, that’s the only place you want to be focused.

My Garand is nothing fancy; in fact, it’s sort of a mutt. I bought it several years ago from a small shop in Corona, and it’s a kluge of parts. The receiver is from CAI (which is supposed to be one that’s not very good, but my rifle doesn’t know that), the trigger group is from Beretta (they made a Garand-based rifle years ago), and the rest of the parts are a “who knows?” collection. My Garand wouldn’t cycle reliably when I bought it, so I bought a new gas cylinder (new to me; it was a well used part but it met spec) from SARCO in Philadelphia and that fixed the problem.

I ran into another issue, and that was the first shot always going significantly low left (about 10 inches at 100 yards). I couldn’t find what was causing that problem, and then one day I took the rear sight apart when it felt a little loose. I greased everything, adjusted it to where I wanted it to be, and then tightened the elevation adjustment screw to remove any play. That did it: The low left first round issue went away.

I’ve experimented with a few different loads, and I found what everyone else has found: The secret sauce is 47.0 grains of IMR 4064 and either the Sierra 168-grain jacketed hollowpoint boattail Matchking bullet, or its clone from Speer. My rifle is more accurate with the Sierra bullets, but their price is nearly twice what Speer gets for their bullets. The ammo you see here used the last of my Speer bullets; my next loads will be with Sierra Matchkings.

Reloaded Garand ammo on the bench at the range.

I’m not scaring any National Match competitors, but for an old dude with weak eyesight, I can still do okay. “Okay” is a relative term, I know. Here’s what 20 shots at 100 yards look like from that day on the range.

20 shots at 100 yards. Speer 168 gr FMJBT, 47.0 gr IMR 4064, a cartridge overall length of 3.295 inches, and Winchester primers at 100 yards. Close enough for government work, as our soldiers found out in World War II and Korea. I used mixed brass from PMC and PPU; the group would have been better had I used only one brand.

Here’s the Garmin chronograph data for the above 20 shots:

The Garmin is well worth the money. I am enjoying mine.

I love military rifles, and I love shooting the Garand. I shoot mine regularly. My daughter once got a shot of me on the range and she caught the brass case in midair (it’s the photo you see at the top of this blog). We have other stories on the Garand as well as other military surplus rifles (see our Tales of the Gun page). If you have a Garand (or any military surplus rifle you enjoy shooting), we’d love to hear about it. Please leave a comment below.

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Indonesia: Part 1

Mike Huber

My visa was nearing expiration in Australia (I had 90 days left), and my speeding tickets were exceeding $1700 Australian. The speeding tickets were from cameras. In the United States, the Constitution protects us (you can fight and win those tickets 100% of the time in the USA, but not in Australia). It was time to choose a new country to visit, at least for a short while. To me it made sense to leave my beloved Oceania and head north. Looking at the map, Southeast Asia beckoned.

Indonesia, in particular, seemed to be the best choice, and it would be my next destination. Bali, to be exact. This would provide a less westernized culture than the previous countries I had visited. Another advantage was it appealed to my new interest. I kept hearing how magnificent the scuba diving was there. So that would be incorporated into my adventures.

After the whirlwind trip through Australia, the first three days in Bali (except for some morning surfing) were spent resting in my hotel room. I needed the time to recharge and just sit back and pretend I was on vacation. Yes, I know I am sort of always on vacation, but even with this laid-back lifestyle the constant moving becomes a fulltime job.

Once rested it was time to book several ferries and boats out to Komodo National Park (it isn’t easy to get to). Visiting this epic National Park would provide me with the chance to see Komodo dragons, the largest lizard on Earth, as well as plenty of opportunities to hone my new skills as a diver. This was an experience that I could not miss while visiting Indonesia.

The day trip to Komodo Island was fantastic. What made it most memorable was actually seeing a few of these giant reptiles in the wild, as up close and personal as I was comfortable with. That distance happened to be about 6 feet for me I soon learned. Even though being in a tour group of 20 people when the Komodo dragon chose a path, our group was instructed to let it through. The crowd parted like the Red Sea and the giant reptile chose the direction it wanted, and it moved with a purpose!

These giants can move up to 12 miles per hour. Some weigh as much as 150 pounds. They can take down local deer and they have no natural enemies. This meant we were guests on their island and without a stick or other type of weapon we were not on the top of the food chain. It’s always a humbling moment when you realize this.

After a day exploring Komodo National Park with large sticks in hand, I found myself in Flores, Indonesia. It’s a small island about an hour’s boat ride from Komodo National Park. Little did I realize how much of a scuba diving mecca this was (see any of my previous articles about my lack of planning). There were literally dive shops and tours every three to four buildings. It was that densely populated with the scuba community. It was perfect. This would be a great home base for a week or so to dive and continue catching up on rest from the Australia travels. It now was time to book a scuba adventure in Bali, Indonesia.

More epic adventures are here!

Scuba: Part 2

By Mike Huber

It was 0700 and the location was a pier in Cairns Australia as 30 of us were boarding a live-aboard boat to perform 9 scuba dives over the next 3 days and 2 nights. There were only 3 of us that had never performed an open water scuba dive before, and I was one of them. It would take 5 dives while completing our drills for us to obtain our PADI open water certification. We were ready.

It took the boat about 3 hours to get out to the reef for our first dive. 27 of the others were seasoned divers, so as the newbies we felt privileged they’d help us gear up and make jokes about our fumbling around prior to getting into the water.

Others may disagree with me and that is fine, but I have sky dived and to me, nothing felt closer to jumping out of an airplane as a paratrooper than scuba diving. You suit up, perform checks on your gear and your scuba buddy’s gear, shuffle to the edge of the boat, give an OK to the dive master who checks your air is on (I always stuck my hand out and yelled “ALL OK JUMPMASTER!” just to get into the moment a bit more), and jump off the boat into the water. I understand the two experiences are almost polar opposites, but what isn’t is the comradery and the procedures prior to diving (or jumping out of an airplane).

As soon as I hit the ocean waters of the Great Barrier Reef in full scuba gear I felt two things: A brief moment of anxiety, just as I felt in the pool during onshore training, and when we signaled to go down. This was a moment of bliss and freedom as you leave the world you know and enter a realm of tranquility beneath the ocean. It was so similar to exiting an aircraft as you leave the chaos and perform the 4-second count prior to your parachute opening. Both are moments when you have a quick chat with the big guy upstairs and are alone in the world. There are few experiences in life that compare to these. I was instantly hooked on scuba diving.

Our first five dives were work. They encompassed the same drills over and over that we performed in the pool. The objective was to review the same emergency procedures for a multitude of issues that you can face while underwater, and how to calmly overcome them. This was another similarity to being a paratrooper. The only big difference is there was less yelling for your mistakes, but the instructor did have a whiteboard to correct any errors you were making while on the dive. Another reason I knew my instructor was great was when she wrote my mistakes on her whiteboard for, I literally could hear her stern voice in my head just as clear and loud as if we were above water.

Upon all three of us successfully meeting the criteria we were now PADI Certified Open Water Scuba Divers. Now it was time to begin having fun and enjoying the benefits of diving. We were on The Great Barrier Reef after all and the coral and wildlife we saw over the next 3 days was magical. We were literally in God’s aquarium. Each of the dive sites we experienced had something unique to offer, from schools of colorful fish, to sea turtles, to even a couple nurse and reef sharks. If I wasn’t hooked before on this new hobby, I surely was now.

The remainder of the days were passed with dives, delicious food, and wonderful new friends. The beauty of this live aboard boat were absolutely the people I was surrounded by. We each had different experience levels in diving, and were from countries all around the World, yet we all bonded over this one passion, scuba diving. Once the evening festivities died down instead of returning to the tight quarters below deck a few of us decided to sleep on the open upper deck of the vessel. This was the perfect way to wind down. We would tell a few jokes while staring at the Southern Cross as it slowly made its way across the sky until we fell asleep, and in the morning awaking to the sunrise hitting this spectacular part of the World and lighting up the Australian Flag as the sun rose. A feeling of accomplishment washed across me each day and evening of this trip. It may have been the most rewarding time along my travels to this day, and for good reason. I had found a new way to add even further adventure to my travels.