nereas:
I love trimix. I dove with it twice just yesterday (7/28/2007). I keep 2 sets of doubles ready to go with TMX 20/40 for any dives in the range of 100-200 fsw, and another 2 sets of doubles ready to go with TMX 30/30 for any dives in the range of 100 fsw.
I compute my SAC rates for every dive, and always log it into my notebook.
My gear costs a fortune, since I buy only the best of the best (ScubaPro, PST, Sartek, X-Scooter, etc.)
For your diving, having fun means having sweet mixes, doing the math, and buying the good stuff. For my diving, while I don't use trimix (I very rarely see a third digit in depth), I'm usually in a drysuit with Jets and all that, and the only dives I *don't* compute SAC for are the training dives working with OW students. (I don't compute SAC, as I don't have a way to find a valid average depth or dive time for those.) The thing is, none of that matters. Dork Divers are defined merely by enjoying their diving and not browbeating others.
nereas:
When I think of a dork diver, I think of someone who:
1) leaves their snorkel behind on open water dives;
2) uses split fins;
3) has their tank dangling so low on their B/C by a single tank strap that it is bound to fall off sometime during this dive or the next;
4) does fins-on entries on beach dives;
5) crawls on beach exits;
6) wears their mask on their forehead;
7) drags their console and/or octo around without securing it;
8) does not check their SPG and runs OOA;
9) is a huge liability to anyone else in the water.
3, 4, 7, 8, and 9 aren't Dork Diver traits. They're just poor diver traits.
1 and 6 aren't the best ideas -- there are places they're *bad* ideas, but there are also places they're not a problem at all. As for 5, it isn't ideal, but it doesn't make you a doofus; it just means that you need to work on it or perhaps that you're just wiped after having your lunch handed to you by Neptune.
Now, as for your number 2, correlation does not equal causation. Bad divers may wear splits, but even I, a Jet aficionado to the core, have a pair of splits for touring dives. I don't use them much, but they're better than Jets for those dives. (They're also apparently useful if you've got really, really bad joints.)
Anyway, your concept of Dork Divers is apparently your concept of "divers you'd call dorks", but Dork Divers are not at all the same thing. Dork Divers simply make it a point to have fun and not be jerks. We can see a train wreck and try to help him, but we're not going to see someone diving perfectly well in splits and call them an idiot because they're not wearing Jets with spring straps.
