A poem -- Candle and Flame

the_stacker_muse

A candle supports a flame

The flame asks for too much
The candle too willfully gives

Wax drips, uncontained
There is no vessel to support it

The candle dwindles and wanes

The wax runs and drops from the table
The flame burns
The wax drops

The candle could again be made whole

But the wax would need to be collected
Tweezed from the carpet
Scraped from the table
Molded anew

It would be messy
It would take time
But it could be done

SatAttack

Paulo Freire's warning against "banking education"

As I pushed my last remaining chips towards the middle of the table, and watched as the
dealer slid them over to my opponent, I realized two things: poker is a game of pure skill, and I
was a losing player. I sought help in the form of a poker coach and two years later, with his help,
was able to amass a sample size of 500 table-time hours winning at $9 per hour. Even before the
great monetary expansion event of the COVID Relief Act, $9 an hour was no reason to quit your
day job. But even to this day, earning $9 an hour at a poker table over any meaningful sample
size is a difficult task and one that requires a tremendous amount of discipline and learning. In
poker, we constantly make decisions with limited information. It is a closed-information game
after all. And life is not so different in this regard. We must always weigh what information has
been given to us and act accordingly, even if the information we have is incomplete. Navigating
your decision making at the poker table is similar in execution to our everyday life. Critical
thinking skills, self-reflection, risk-adjusted decisions with limited information, and reflecting
on the world around you are important tools to improve your decision making. But where are
these tools to be acquired? An optimistic answer would be the classroom which presents an
issue. I’d wager that many educated Americans would be hard-pressed to think of a time in their
scholastic past where improving critical thinking skills was the main goal of the day, class, or
school year. It’s so normalized, and now thought of as commonplace, to simply receive
information and as a student be able to reproduce it as a measure of success. Paulo Freire,
Author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, is worried about this style of education and the world it
may lead to. In chapter two of his book Freire introduces the concept of “banking” in education.
He sheds light on a plague in the scholastic system that turns students into receptacles and
teachers into an assembly line full of factoids and dates. In this system, you do not question, and
you certainly do not challenge. You record. When the time is right you had better be prepared to
regurgitate those factoids, or else. Or else you are stupid. Or else you are unfit for society. Or
else you will be poor and unsuccessful. If you cannot conform to this system, you will not be
able to conform to the world–a plague indeed. He says “The banking concept of education,
which serves the interests of oppression, is also necrophilic. Based on a mechanistic, static,
naturalistic, spatialized view of consciousness, it transforms students into receiving objects. It
attempts to control thinking and action, leads women and men to adjust to the world, and
inhibits their creative power.” (Freire 77) It’s clear Freire is worried about oppression in the
classroom where the goal of “banking education” is to shape us as students while being stripped
of the ability or privilege to shape ourselves.

In poker, absolute truths are difficult to find. We are constantly making decisions in the
grey and we deal with the consequences afterwards. Life is similar, all we can do is make the
best decision possible given the information we have available to us. Shortly after putting
together that winning 500-hour sample, despite years of study and effort, I developed a crippling
mindset at the poker table that completely crushed my confidence and my profits: entitlement.
At the table I could quickly recognize in my opponents the lack of work I had done in their play,
and I could tell they were making decisions with a deep misunderstanding of their actions.
Relative to my grounded focus and intent–they had their heads in the sand. Even though, despite
my skill in the game, my own actions grew to be illogical and emotionally based. With feelings
of entitlement, I began to over aggress, involve myself in too many spots, and I would make
passive financial commitments in places I had no business being a part of. I did these things with
a false premise of deserving. Every hand I involved myself in I felt I deserved to win, and it
would cause me to make misguided overreaching decisions that went against the grain of reality.
The reality is that No Limit Texas Holdem is a zero-sum math problem, and it does not/cannot
care about my or anyone's emotional whims. If you are vindictive and act accordingly, you will
underperform. If you are entitled and act accordingly, you will underperform. If you do not work
on yourself outside of the actual game of poker, you will underperform.

So, 3 years into treating poker very seriously, I pursued a mental game coach. Uri was a
professional online poker player living in Israel and he was also a psychologist. He built a good
reputation for himself in the poker community at the time for getting players with various
mental blocks back on the road to optimal performance. After a few sessions, Uri was able to
portray poker to me in a way that calmed my entitled tendencies, and my game started to
improve again. His main plan for me was not to improve the quality of my decisions but rather
to improve the process I was using to make them. Each decision point in poker is heavy with
nuance, with endless variables that all need to be considered, and if you are blinded by emotion
and bias you likely won’t reach a sound logical conclusion. Additionally, he helped me
understand that to win at poker I needed to stop trying to win. Hello?! I understand this sounds
counterintuitive but what Uri is getting at is I need to put my desire and feelings of entitlement
to the side and simply solve the problem in front of me at any given time. Results of the poker
hand be damned, when you make your decision after considering the information you had
available to you without bias, you’ve done all that can be done.

Equipped with this new process of critically evaluating my decisions I was able to
quickly apply it at the table. Uri is the type of educator Freire wants our scholastic system to
represent. His role as an educator was absolutely fulfilled--he had taught me how to think
critically, confront my personal biases and emotions, and figure out the complex issue in front of
me. I have never felt the need to revisit Uri after our last session because the navigational tools
given to me will never expire. We need more Uri’s in the world. We need our educators to
inspire learning and cultivate the desire to improve, learn, and question. Not to adhere to an
absolute structure of memorization for memorization’s sake. Without a teacher guiding us
through this process, how are we ever supposed to learn to do it? Freire wants us–all of us–to be
similarly equipped and he feels that if a student is to be able to confront him/herself then that is
exactly the practice that should be happening in the classroom.

He writes: “In problem-posing education, people develop their power to perceive
critically the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves; they
come to see the world not as a static reality, but as a reality in process, in transformation.”
(Freire 83) Freire wants us to see the world as ever-changing, nuanced, and complex and he
wants our scholastic system to prepare us to deal with it. In contrast to problem-posing
education, “banking education” limits the critical thinker. Banking education teaches us to
simply accept fact for fact when facts are given. Freire understands the dangers of “banking”
education. He knows that learning in an environment in which you cannot question or challenge
authority will inevitably produce a people without the ability to question or challenge
themselves or the world around them. Perhaps this is by design, perhaps not. But what is
obvious to me is that there’s an endless amount of nuance to the world and if we aren’t careful in
our perception of it, we are doomed as individuals. Through discourse, perspective, discussion,
honesty, transparency, and acceptance, we can together gain real understanding of life around us
and us around life. This is what the teacher’s obligation is, according to Freire. Create a space
where the student, living up to his or her own obligations in the classroom, can safely express or
explore any curiosity or outlandish thought they may have. Allow the challenges and the
questions. Consider the why’s of the information given to us. Challenge even the reason for any
particular piece of information being presented. Teach people to teach themselves and you have
a strong, independent, sovereign individual.

In one tiny niche way, Uri gave me this. I have never stopped being a student of the
game of poker and today, with Uri’s help, I literally have been able to quit my day job. He taught
me how to approach the mental game of poker–arguably the most important part–with honesty
and transparency. He solidified the importance of self-reflection and self-correction relative to
the environment I’m in at any given time. I often recognize in my opponents these days the
consequences of “banking education.” They take actions based on what they saw on Youtube or
perhaps what a friend has told them to do. There’s no adjustment to the ever-changing table
dynamics, no self-adjustment or emotional control, simply actions that were given to them from
someone else labeled as “correct”. Uri was the educator Freire wants to see and I am the product
that our current scholastic system does not want to produce. There are many parallels between
the game of No Limit Texas Holdem and life but a glaring opposite is in poker, it’s you against
the world. Every man for himself. In life however, we are a part of something grand–a
collective. Improvement of self, skills to seek understanding, and navigating through life with
critical thinking are of utmost importance and we should be given those skills in the classroom.
When we strengthen each individual, we strengthen the collective. We strengthen humanity
itself.

A goodbye letter to my wife

Goodbye, dear wife. 

Relative to the length of our history, and the likely long future ahead of us, I won’t be gone long. Only eight months on the other side of the country, twenty-seven hundred miles away. I fear for your struggle. I fear for you. We’ve experienced many five, seven, and even twenty-five-day separation, and they haven’t gone well. Eight months is a long time. The early days will be very hard, but as always, I am confident you will surprise yourself with your strength. A strength I've always seen, bright as the sun, that for some reason only you can’t see. On January 5th, I will be starting my first day of the eight-month job, far away. Eleven days later, we will spend our eleventh wedding anniversary over twenty-seven hundred miles apart. Then the same distance for your birthday on the 23rd. This won’t be easy. I concede, I’ll handle the distance well. Distracted by adventure and exploration. New relationships, new challenges, new rocks to uncover, new smells. As you (painfully) know, I thrive in solitude. I rest there and recover there. I know you struggle with this part of myself. Resent me for it, at times. I promise though, you are needed. I need you and I am so proud of the person you have become. This time and distance, I am thinking, will be good for us. Perhaps we are both feeling that the timing of this trip could be soothing. Maybe while I’m gone, I will recharge fully. And come back with a shored-up foundation and ample energy to support you how you need and deserve. Maybe the eight months will be a challenging opportunity for you to care for yourself. Work for yourself!  Love and admire yourself. You MUST take care of yourself, mi amor. For me. For you. For us. Geographical separation does not mean you’re alone or that you’re not on a team. We are forever a team. I will miss you deeply. I have never witnessed an example of strength and resilience equal to yours. Right away, all those years ago, I recognized it. You can do this! You are a fighter, in nearly every sense of the word. 


Con amor y paciencia,
Amorcito


I wrote an essay for English class about bitcoin in San Diego

Hey stackers,

I wrote an essay for my English class and thought I'd share it here. It was very challenging writing an essay to an audience that does not know of or care about bitcoin, but I really enjoy how it turned out. I'd appreciate some of the Musers opinions and critiques. I am really starting to enjoy writing, but I'm novice.  Sats for all.


In an expanding digital world commerce on the internet has never stopped growing since it started. All on-line commerce is facilitated by a trust-based model because an intermediary is required to facilitate a transaction between two parties. Just for two people to transact online there are a minimum of five parties involved: the two transactors, a bank with a permissioned account owned by each of them, and a payments network such as Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, or Venmo. In fact, our entire monetary network is based on trust. We need to trust the government who issues our by-decree currency, we need to trust the banks who handle our deposits and withdrawals, and we need to trust the payment networks to facilitate the transactions that take place. We don’t have any other options outside of these trust based models yet the history of them is littered with infarctions of that trust. Governments expand the monetary supply to fund war or to bail out “too big to fail” businesses, banks use our deposits to assume risk where they personalize their gains but socialize their losses, and payments networks exclude people from using them with bias towards their sex, religion, or what they may have said on social media that week. 

On October 31st, 2008 an anonymous person or persons under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto proposed a solution via a white paper: Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (Nakamoto). In this eight page proposal, Satoshi laid out the framework for a distributed monetary network run purely by volunteers. Every participant in the network hosts a ledger of every transaction in the order that they happen, validifies and routes transactions, and shares this information with their connected peers. The Bitcoin network uses a unit of account called bitcoin for its transactions. The rules governing what a bitcoin is are clear, transparent, and can only be changed through consensus of the network participants. Satoshi’s idea was that in this digital age, humans need a tool to use for money that cannot be debased by any single party, does not require the need for bank accounts, permission, or identity, and could be transacted between only two people; no intermediaries. On January 9th, 2009, bitcoin was released to the public as free open-source software, and just three days later, the late cryptographer Hal Finney became the second (to Satoshi) person to join the network. He famously tweeted “running bitcoin” January 12th, 2009. Since then, the Bitcoin network and ideals have permeated nearly every corner of the world. Now there are hundreds of thousands of people “running bitcoin” and millions in the world using it every day to solve real-world problems. There is a huge disparity, however, between where and how it is being used. 

Bitcoin gives electronic banking ability to those in the world who are denied it. Take the case of Afghan woman Roya Mahboob as a strong example. Alex Gladstein, chief strategy officer at the Human Rights Foundation covers her story in his article Why Bitcoin is Freedom Money, which was recently published by the Journal of Democracy. Roya saw her first computer in an internet cafe as a young girl in 2001 shortly after her family was able to move back to their home in Afghanistan post U.S. invasion and was intrigued right away. The problem? Women were not allowed to use the computers. With persistence and perseverance she eventually convinced the shop owner to allow her to use it before shop hours began. During those morning hours she became a self-taught computer repair specialist. Years later, she started the Afghan Citadel Software Company and employed women throughout the county teaching them to do online work, write blogs, repair and create software. She had a big problem with paying her employees however. If they were married, their possessions were their husbands. If they were paid in cash, husbands would often seize the payments of her employees. Banking inclusion for women in Afghanistan is a struggle today but it was far worse then. Through her software engineer journey she had heard of Satoshi’s invention and decided to give it a try.  In 2013, Roya began paying her employees with bitcoin, the uncensorable money. During this time, one of her employees was forced to flee Afghanistan and sought refuge in Germany, where she was able to access her bitcoins; preserving the time and energy she gave to Roya’s company, stored in a currency that cannot be debased and could be easily moved across borders. In 2021, when the Taliban re-took control of Kabul, many had to flee, leaving their possessions and their money that could not cross borders behind. Roya, however, was able to flee, and later access her bitcoin elsewhere. Today Roya is an advocate for women being denied education and is a large reason underground schools in Afghanistan still exist. Her and her team pay the teachers at these underground schools with bitcoin and help spread education on how to turn their bitcoins into local cash, or with finding places to spend it directly, peer-to-peer. Alex points out “it is impossible to use the US dollar banking system to do this critical work, but with bitcoin, it is simple.”

In the west, it can be difficult to conclude why we would need such a system as Bitcoin. Here, it’s trivial to get a bank account, our dollar is among the most trusted and strongest currencies among nations, and payment network conglomerates like Visa make electronic payments quick and easy with just a tap or a swipe. But in other parts of the world, it’s not so easy. Access to banking infrastructure is limited to the minority in places like Africa, where according to TheGlobalEconomy.com, of 28 countries bank account ownership averages to just 34%. Additionally, not everyone is financially privileged enough to be born into a currency that holds its value as well as the U.S. Dollar does, which you wouldn’t know by the amount of complaining Americans do about inflation on the internet. According to Venezuelan consumer price index data(TradingEconomics), the  Venezuelan Bolivar has seen an average of 3,527% inflation from the years 1973 to 2025. How are you supposed to build and plan for a future when the currency you are forced to use loses its value this quickly? It’s no wonder bitcoin is better understood and used more in Africa and Venezuela than here in the west (BTCmaps). Being subject to extreme financial inequality, they understand the need for neutral alternative currencies like bitcoin. 
Bitcoin use and education, especially where I’m local to, is important to me. Bitcoin is a network, and the value of any peer-to-peer network is directly proportional to the number of network participants. I am sickened by the idea of people being robbed by weaponized currency debasement, and so I think it is very important to champion bitcoin everywhere and do my part to expand the network. Even here in San Diego California. It is objectively true that bitcoin is being used as money here in San Diego, but the question is: to what degree?
 
According to BTCmap.org, there are several places listed in San Diego where you are able to spend your bitcoin if you’re willing: A restaurant/pub, a coffee shop, a piercing shop, a dentist, pottery shop, an indoor plant store, and a few others. These numbers are very low relative to Vancouver Canada where there are hundreds of shops posted on BTCmaps.You can live on bitcoin there. I called around to verify the truth behind the BTCmap listings and the news I got was underwhelming, at best. The restaurant Phileas Foggs does still accept bitcoin for payments, and will even give you a 10% discount if you are so inclined, but they informed me they are closing within the next month. The dentist listed said no, they no longer accept it due to lack of interest. The rest however all verified they would accept it and were happy to do so. There is some new hope: a bakery named Paleo Treats in North Park, who just recently started to accept bitcoin as a payment method according to a recently published Yahoo Finance article but they are also accepting other “crypto currencies.” This is disappointing  and a clear deviation from  the message many in the bitcoin community are trying to spread; money should not be controlled or owned by ANY single entity, be it government or cooperation. Bitcoin is special and stands alone from other “crypto currencies” because there is no leader, no company, no marketing team, no VC funding, only a network of volunteers running and hosting free open source software all around the world with no central authority. From the looks of BTCmap, bitcoin adoption in San Diego is bleak. There is a strong, if small, social movement however in the form of multiple monthly meetups in Pacific Breach, La Mesa, and Escondido. Once a month, San Diego bitcoiners meet up at these various locations to encourage merchant adoption, host educational clinics, talk and share bitcoin stories. If there is bitcoin adoption to be found in San Diego, looking to these places would be a good place to start.

On October 22, 2025 (Field notes 1) I went to the Escondido bitcoin meetup at a pizzeria called Goli. I was surprised by the big "Bitcoin accepted here" sign out front because I had asked the meet-up starter and host Duncan Palmer a few months prior if they would accept our bitcoin for beers on at least meet up nights and it was a negative then. Inside was dimly lit, with dark-wood chairs and granite tables, beautiful tube lamps hung from the ceiling, abstract art pieces on every wall, shelves with many wines and wine glasses all around, and only a few people. As I was taking it in, inspecting my surroundings, I locked eyes with the bartender. "you're here for the bitcoin thing?" he asked.  You caught me. Was it the wrinkled shirt, backpack, and worn sandals that separated me from his usual clientele? I assured him I was indeed there for the meet up and told him I noticed the big red bitcoin sign out there and asked if he would accept my bitcoin for beers and he said no, which was deflating. A small gust of wind lifted my sails when he said "not yet anyway" as he went to pour my Booze Brothers Green Eyed Amber from Vista, California. Handing me the beer, he pointed me towards the back of the restaurant where the meet up was being held.  It was a very inviting and intimate setting. There were tables grouped together to form a large square that would fit twenty people all facing inward to inspire conversation. Our table had the only black tablecloth and there were many large bottles of water and more glasses for anyone attending. This pizzeria is located on one long main road, and there had been an accident, causing bad traffic, and we were already getting messages of late appearances and cancellations.  At this time there were only four people, including myself. The host, Duncan, a tattoo artist from Vancouver who seemed to use his own body as an advertisement, and an older gentleman with American flag suspenders. In the corner near our table there was a TV that was to be used for a presentation titled "micropayments" which I looked forward to. I introduced myself, and re-introduced myself respectively, took a seat, and sipped my beer in anticipation for a good Bitcoin conversation. Right away, I got what I came for. 

The entire night the conversation was, as I often find in San Diego meetups, refreshing. Early on we discussed why America is leading the way in bitcoin political and traditional finance adoption but had such a relatively weak circular economy. Duncan asked a wonderful question to Vancouver: "We (the meetup) are all about circular economy, how can we move in the direction Vancouver has gone?" Which led to discussion as to why Vancouver's circular adoption is through the roof while their federal law and traditional finance bitcoin adoption was nearly non-existent. We talked about Canada's weaker and faster-debasing currency, Bitcoin-supportive mayor Ken Sim, the largest protest in Canadian history (truckers against vaccines), and general greater distrust in government especially in the Vancouver area as reasons for what's happening there now. Soon after, Duncan introduced to us his new website for the meetup and a badass north county bitcoin meetup business card with a link to a new site promoting the meetup and also local businesses willing to accept bitcoin!

My favorite part about the new site is the marketplace tab. There locals are encouraged and able to post their skill sets in exchange for bitcoin! There seems to be more businesses there than BTCmaps would let on. There are multiple auto mechanics, a non-profit organization that helps families who have lost children, a tattoo artist (Vancouver), a Singer/song writer, IT/computer help, and others.  Duncan is a true champion for bitcoin and he's putting in the work. Overall, wonderful meetup. It's so refreshing for me to have conversations with bitcoiners where we can talk and share our different viewpoints of the world under one unifying idea of what money should be. In any bitcoin gathering you'll find plenty of diversity in religion, lifestyle, politics, tech expertise, but everyone agrees that money should be free of debasement, agnostic to political or religious opinions, and uncensorable. It feels really good to just converse with bitcoiners for a change instead of explaining this "radical" idea to the uncaring friends, family, or peers in my life. Bitcoin adoption is beginning to simmer here in San Diego. I foresee a roaring boil in the future and Duncan is a burning source of heat. He is actively taking steps to build the world he wants to see; it's awesome and motivating to see and be a part of.

To further my research, I wanted to go to one of the businesses hosted on BTCmaps and see for myself if I could exchange bitcoin for a good or service. On October 30th, 2025(field notes 2) My wife and I went to Caffe Di Talya, an Italian coffee shop in pacific beach. The only seating is all out doors but there is plenty of shade and clean tables in the expansive area. There are real trees and plants all over offering privacy by foliage and the entire setting feels green and refreshing. It was time to order. Before we came, I had practiced with my wife to familiarize her with spending bitcoin. She wanted to use her Cashapp bitcoin wallet to pay for our coffees. But there’s an issue. When I asked if we could pay in bitcoin the barista pointed to the “we accept bitcoin sign” with an email written underneath it. That email, believe it or not, is a bitcoin receiving address. New tech built just within the last couple years. Yovana types this email into the “send” section of her Cashapp bitcoin wallet a couple times but each time the transaction fails. I have to do it on my phone with a different wallet, and the payment succeeds right away. 

We sit at our table, there are five other people in the large foliage-covered seating area busying themselves with laptops, all of them. We are close to the street and as I nibble our almond croissant and sip my italian-bean cappuccino I notice a sticker on a street light with the bitcoin symbol on it. Underneath it shows the web-address bitcoin.org and on top of the sticker it says “choose your own money.” Fascinating. I don’t think this sticker was put there by the owner, but rather someone else in town using bitcoin as money and perhaps here at this very location. Encouraged, I walk back to the barista, pull her attention away from her phone, and ask the question. “How often do you get people asking to pay with bitcoin?” she replies“It’s only you.” OOF. Well, UGH. There are bitcoin meetups all over San Diego County, this place is one of the few advertising they accept bitcoin, and since I’d last come here six months ago I’ve been the only one to pay with bitcoin? Sad. Disappointing. At that moment, I’m disappointed in the “bitcoiners” in our area. Where are they? Why aren’t they spending their bitcoin here at this wonderful location? Don’t they care? Refusal to use bitcoin is a refusal to participate in and grow the network that people like Roya depend on to overcome financial oppression and inequality. Bitcoin's power comes directly from its users using it. Not hoarding it on a company balance sheet or squirrelled away for its anti-inflationary use.

Although well-intended sentiment is easy to find here in San Diego, it seems there is a huge lack of people actually using bitcoin for its intended purpose: peer-to-peer electronic cash. Bitcoin use is growing at a surprising pace in parts of the world where non-existent banking infrastructure, hyper inflating currencies, financial censorship, and governments weaponizing the currencies they force their citizens to use are prevalent. I encourage you, dear reader, to look past western media coverage on bitcoin, and peer into the Philippines, South and Central Americas, and Africa. Real people are using bitcoin as a safe haven and peacefully protesting financial oppression by simply opting out of their born-into monetary systems, and into an open, permissionless, transparent, inclusive one. Bitcoin doesn’t care who you are, where you were born, what religion you are, or the color of your skin. It’s being adopted in these places because it simply works as intended and provides large amounts of people access to global monetary networks for the first time ever. In the west, it can be difficult to conceptualize the need for any of this. With a false conflation with right-wing politics, a "commodity” classification by the IRS subjecting every transaction to capital gains tax, and easy access to trusted banking systems with strong payment networks, it really is not surprising how little bitcoin is being used here. I plead with you though, especially if you care about equality, to look for yourself. Look to the under-developed nations. Look to places like Boracay, Philippines now dubbed “bitcoin island,” or Lake Atitlan, Guatemala now dubbed “bitcoin lake.” Look to Sub-Saharan Africa where bitcoin is being used to combat the financial oppression of the French Franc. Open your eyes, and your mind, and just look. Bitcoin is freedom money, and the largest peaceful protest in the history of humanity, and it’s winning. But you wouldn’t know if you don’t LOOK.

Gladstein, Alex. “Why Bitcoin Is Freedom Money.” Journal of Democracy, vol. 36, no. 4, Oct. 2025, pp. 20–35.
Nakamoto, Satoshi. Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. bitcoin.org, https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

“Percent People with Bank Accounts in Africa.” TheGlobalEconomy.com, The Global Economy, 2025, https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/percent_people_bank_accounts/Africa/

“Venezuela Inflation Rate (CPI).” TradingEconomics, Trading Economics, https://tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/inflation-cpi

“BTC Map.” BTC Map, btcmap.org/map#13/32.78525/-117.15125. Accessed 5 Nov. 2025.

“Popular Bakery Accepts Crypto Payments Ahead of Halloween.” Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo Inc., 31 Oct. 2025, 
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/popular-bakery-accepts-crypto-payments-164214410.html

Escondido Bitcoin Meetup. “Bring It! (Our Bitcoin Marketplace).” Escondido Bitcoin Meetup, 2025, https://escondidobitcoin.com/bring-it/.

Two close calls commercial diving.

Two times in my diving career I have had what most people would call very close calls. Each one resulted in a burst of laughter from my dive buddy and myself. The first, we were in Pearl Harbor Hawaii removing the secondary propeller from a fast-attack submarine. These secondary propellers are hydraulically lowered from inside the ballast tanks of the submarine when it needs to be used. To accommodate this design, there is a large “skid plate” below and attached to the propeller itself. When it’s raised and put away, this skid plate contours to the submarine and you would never know it was there if you didn’t know where to look. In order for us to work on it, we had to attach a watertight box that completely surrounds the opening of the prop. Once installed, we pump the space full of air to dewater it and give us a dry place to work while under water. Scaffolding is installed at the bottom of the box so we can stand, and the prop is lowered down allowing us work. One of the first steps is to remove that skid plate and send it up to the surface via crane. 36 bolts later we had it free and removed. But this thing is wide, heavy, and awkward to hold. There were three of us inside the de-watered box at this time and the plan was to hand it from the guy standing on the highest point to the middle guy, and then to me, standing on the metal scaffolding in rubber soled booties. The hand off went well. When the plate made it to me, Mark, the middleman still had a hand on it, we made eye contact, he asked if I had it, I gave him a confident yes yes. He let go, and I slipped. There’s forty feet of dirty industrial sea water from the bottom of our containment to the soot-riddle bottom of the bay, and I was holding something that weighed 60% of my body weight. I was instantly underwater, hands still clutching the plate, my umbilical and dive hat all detached from me and hung inside the containment. I’m under water, everything is blurry, but fortunately something saved me from rocketing down to the bottom. When I slipped, the corner of the plate hit the scaffolding I was previously standing on. About an inch of it. It was enough time for the two divers inside the containment to grab the parts still exposed to them and prevent me and the 90-pound metal rectangle from disappearing into the depths. Once I gather my wits I slowly come back to the surface, into the containment that is now rumbling with laughter from my other dive buddies. I couldn’t help but join in and I tell them “I told you I got it.” We finished the job incident free, and after the day was done, it really wasn’t ever brought up again.

The second time my near demise resulted in guttural laughter was a few years later. Mark, the same diver from before, was with me for an offshore hull cleaning of a huge cargo ship. We were in Hawaii again and for environmental reasons all big hull cleanings must happen at least three miles off shore so as to not introduce any potential foreign wildlife clinging to the hull into coastal waters. That far out at sea ocean conditions vary a lot and can change at a moment's notice. Today it was seemingly mild. On the starboard, east side of the ship there was a lot of chop and a lot of water movement. But on the port side the conditions were very calm with the ship itself acting like a shield to the elements. So that’s where we moored up our water taxi and prepared for the dive. To accurately paint a picture of the dire situation I ended up in I need to mention a few things about the company we worked for at the time. They were the definition of penny pinchers and would consistently sacrifice safety and regulation in order to maximize profits. This meant that we were doing this hull cleaning in SCUBA instead of surface supplied air. It meant that we would dive alone, untethered to anything or anyone, only being attached to our water taxi by holding the pneumatic airbrush that we used to clean. The brushes were pretty fun to use. They were big. As you held onto it, air would blow in such a way to both spin the brush but also suck itself into the hull of the ship. It would also propel you forward so you could just hold on, squeeze the trigger, and allow it to drive you all around the ship like a snail leaving a slime trail. Except we were removing slime.

Mark and I had decided to work together and drive our brushes from bow to stern (front to back). Each of us would attempt to accomplish about five feet of width; him above, me below. We are nearing the back end of the ship, and I can see the propeller extending 15 feet out from the end of the ship being supported by its struts. Just another 20 feet or so and we would be done with this pass where we would then return to the taxi, swap out our air bottles, have a snack, and get back in for another bow to stern pass. I’m getting close to the edge now; Mark is above and maybe 10 feet behind me when I feel a strange sensation. My hair started “blowing” away from the ship in a violent manner. Strange. What didn’t occur to me before it was too late was why. Seconds later I’m ripped from the ship flipping and spinning uncontrollably, pneumatic brush being the only thing keeping me attached to my team. The ship was blocking a ripping current and when I came close to the end of the hull, it swept me away like a leaf on a windy fall day. I have zero control over myself, and I am whipped down and outwards around to the other side of the ship. The last thing I noticed before I lost sight of the port side, my dive buddy, and our taxi was a huge cloud of bubbles streaming from Mark's regulator and mask. He’s laughing uncontrollably! I’m whipped to the starboard side now, still clutching my brush, and I'm pinned underneath the bilge keel. If you don’t know, a bilge keel is like a long fin running the length of the ship on each side. Its purpose is to reduce the amount of rolling the ship does from side to side. Very common on large ships like this. And I’m stuck under it. I can’t even pry my torso from the hull because the current is pushing me into it with tremendous force. Luckily, I still had my brush. I grab the pneumatic hose with both hands, allowing the brush to fall, and start to pull, hand over hand, back to safety. It doesn’t take long until I'm back on the safe and calm side of the ship, where the journey then gets easy. A couple minutes of hand over hand and I’m back to my water taxi, exhausted. Mark was on the taxi already and was kind enough to fetch my next bottle so we could return to the water and do our next pass. Punk ass.
