Peaks and Valleys

Little new news to report today, as my activities have chiefly centered around the improvement of my aquarium, which can be quite tedious and boring for non reef geeks, I'm sure. Suffice it to say that I'm much happier with what I have, things are much more automated and organized, and the life ( or livestock? ) seems to be flourishing once again. I'm going mad with anticipation for my new lights, which I probably won't get to have until the coming weekend. Then it will be a few weeks of gradually adjusting my light cycle so that the inhabitants of Reef Corbin don't burn up through sudden exposure to 12 hours of ~650 watts of light.

My roommate's tank is doing well, and everyone has survived the move. His retelling of the story of what happened seems to get funnier and funnier with each telling, though I somehow end up sounding more and more feeble. Meh, I've come to expect as much.

While every entry had me laughing, the winner for the unofficial caption contest is: Tangent! Congratulations to Tangent, who I will now have to photograph in a compromising way for the next contest. Yay!

Calamity Clownfish

To begin this tale of woe, I shall comfort my readers with the knowledge that the calamity alluded to in the title does not relate to my aquarium. Rather, it involves my roommate's aquarium.

I didn't have much sleep Friday night, as I was up late gaming at the local LAN party. ( We were playing Red Alert 2, for which I've always had a special place in my heart. ) I got home around 1am, then had to do a load of laundry so I would have something to wear today. I finally fell asleep between 2 and 3. Today started early, as it was one of the rare Saturdays that I had to work. Waking up sucked, as you might imagine, but once I had some coffee in me I started to feel better and actually had a pretty productive day.

Once I got out of work, I was in an aquarium mood. I made a few calls to check on the status of various parts I was expecting this weekend, and then I went shopping at Home Depot to grab some supplies for a wiring job. ( The job involved wiring two fans into my aquarium's canopy, which were needed to cool the lights I'm getting. I planned to use two 120mm PC case fans, one pushing air in and the other pulling air out. These will be wired to an old AT power supply mounted under the aquarium. )

Sitting in the drive-thru to grab dinner, I got a call from my roommate. He was hoping I'd be home soon, so that I could help him carry something into the house. He was giddy with excitement, and when I questioned him about his latest purchase, he just laughed and said I'd have to wait and see. Well, I didn't have to wait long, because when I pulled in to our complex he met me outside. Sitting on the bed of his truck was a new 110 gallon aquarium.

It was quite nice, and it wound up being a really good deal. ( Tank, stand, lights and heater was less than $400 ) We started to move it inside, and my roommate laughed at a warning sticker on the new tank.

"Warning: Do not lift tank by the center brace." The center brace was just a thin plastic brace running from front to back at the top of the tank. Anyone who looked at it would surely recognise that it was not suitabel for tank carrying purposes.

"They might as well take the damn thing off, it's not like it does anything," said my comrade.

"Actually, without that the glass would bow under the pressure from the water and break."

"I dunno, the brace on my 55 gallon has been cracked since I got it, I haven't had any problems."

We set it on the stand, and talked about how we were going to transfer the contents of his 55 gallon tank. It wasn't going to be tonight, as he had to mix salt, get it up to temperature, blah blah blah. When we finished, I came into my room so I could feed my fish and add vitamin supplements to the water.

"Crack!"... "Help!"

I jumped up and ran into the living room. He was leaning his body weight against the side of his 55 gallon tank. It seems that he was inspecting the lights and other equipment that would need to be transferred to the new tank, when the center brace broke. Every time he shifted his body, I could see the glass bowing out, trying to break free from the pressure of it's contents. We quickly agreed that we needed to transplant everything to the new tank now, before the 55 broke and spilled out all over the stereo, TV, and furniture. ( Not to mention that it would probably mean the death of 80% of his livestock. )

Fortunately, we own about a gazillion 5 gallon buckets, as well as a siphon hose used to do water changes. I immediately grabbed some buckets and started to siphon salt water out. Roomie's job was simple, but difficult: He had to stand there holding back the water.

After running a couple of buckets over to the new tank, we decided it was time to start moving rock over, which was a delicate process because they had corals growing all over them. It started out bad because I was just too short to reach my arm all the way into the taller new tank, and dropping the rocks in was not an option. Fortunately, my roommate's girlfriend walked in the door. She was light enough to stand on the coffee table, which we moved over in front of the tank for her.

It was also time to start taking fish out of the old tank, as they were starting to stress out. They found temporary shelter in buckets, as we didn't want them in the new tank until we finished with the rocks.

When the smoke cleared, it looks like most of his stock is going to make it. There is one fish who is not breathing well, so we'll have to keep an eye on him. Also, since we didn't have a chance to mix any new salt water, we only had enough to fill the new tank around 40% of the way. This means that none of the filters can reach down into the water, so we have no filtration on the tank tonight. As long as we can have the rest of the tank filled by tomorrow, though, I think we'll be OK.

Refugium Power - Activate!

At long last, the refugium for my aquarium is back in action. For those who are not up on aquarium geek talk, a refugium is a second tank or other container which is connected to the main tank. Water flows back and forth between them using a pump system. Why would anyone want this? Well, the refugium is usually hidden out of sight, making it the perfect place to put all the ugly equipment involved in running a successful aquarium. Examples include the heaters, skimmers and filters, biological mediums such as macro algae, and other stuff that just clutters up the display tank.

With a little luck, my new lights will come in this weekend, bringing all the equipment up to speed on the aquarium and allowing me to concentrate on improving the display itself.

I'm happy to see that several entries have already been submitted in the caption contest that I "almost" wanted to run. ;-) It's already going to be hard to choose from among the current captions, but I'm going to give it another day or two to make sure none of my other readers want to jump on board.

Also, I'd like to point out the trailer for Phillip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly, for those who haven't already seen it. I must say I love the animated live action look they achieved. I may have to visit the theater for this one.

Sensual Media

My good and dear friend, Mr. Garibald.. er, I mean Media Man was gracious enough to titillate my readers with this action shot last night during our media festivities. I almost want to create a caption contest for the photo. The winner of said contest could win.... ummm... their very own photo on my blog for others to make captions about, and then the circle of life shall be complete. ::cough::

We made it through the first two Survivors of the new season, which includes a new twist on the game that will probably get me watching for the rest of the season. Afterwards, I presented The I.T. Crowd, which seemed to go over well. If you enjoy British comedy and you 'ave any familiarity with the world of computer technology, you'll enjoy the show. Some of you will have me to force it on you in the near future ( Evil Spaniard, I'm looking in your direction ), so don't rush out to download it just yet.

Today marked a particularly busy workday for me, as we're missing two of our workforce for the next week or two. I also had a three hour one on one with a customer as we networked two dual-booting machines together and got them sharing files between all four OSes. ( Windows and Linux mixed ) It wasn't all bad, as I was well complemented for my efforts, both with verbiage and tippiage. Sometimes your administrator has a really hard job to do, so please be sure to complement them when they go the extra mile. It really makes a difference in their day. ( If you're married to your administrator, go give 'em a big hug and a kiss. Go head, I'll wait right here until you get back. )

As for this evening, I hit Home Depot and finally got the PVC needed to get my refugium's return pump plumbed in. There's a growing part of me that really enjoys shopping at home improvement stores. I've loved to build things ever since I got my first set of Lincon Logs, and walking into a Home Depot or Lowes awakens that long slumbering passion. I'm sure that if I had to build houses for a living, it wouldn't excite me at all, but such is the way of things.

Well, guess I'll go get my workout done so I can eat dinner. Night all.

Weekend Wrap-up

Astute readers of Cellar Door may have noticed a complete lack of updates on what I've been doing since just after Valentine's Day. While my immediate comment would be "Not much", that would, in fact, be a lie. Several things have happened, and while none of them is particularly interesting or ripe for a story, taken as a whole I may be able to write something worthy of a post.

Friday evening was spent at Butters' place, with friends in tow to celebrate the fact that we actually managed to congregate in one area. While the celebration was shorter than I may have liked, and despite having no real plan, we had quite a bit of fun. My energy level was much higher that normal, which hopefully added a bit of flair to the evening. ( I'm up to 9 pieces of flair now, by the way. ) I don't know if I should attribute my energy to the combined presence of so many friends, or the fact that I was still wound up from a really good workout just before I came. Either way, I think we all agreed that it needs to happen with greater frequency. ( The get togethers, not my energy. )

What did I do Saturday? "Michael, I did nothing. I did nothing and it was everything I thought it could be." I almost didn't leave my room Saturday. I caught up on some long overdue rest, and read about 600 pages. ( Which, for me, means I pretty much read all day. ) Little else I can add here really, so I'll take a little bow.

Today started off with a trip to John Newbie's Coral Reef Aquatics. I finally ordered the metal halide lights I've been wanting for forever ( 2 250watt @ 14k, for saltwater geeks who may be reading ). They should be in stock in about a week. Today I picked up about 35lb of beautiful Tonga rock, and 5 Blue Chromis. The Chromis are cool because they'll kinda school together, which I always thought was quite a beautiful thing to watch fish do.

For the sake of this update, I've just snapped a few quick tank shots and upped them to my Flickr account ( link on the right ). Please excuse the mess my tank is currently in, but my lazy ass still hasn't set up the refugium, so the heaters, pumps, and skimmer are still dangling at all angles from the display tank itself. I should be motivated to clean all that up this week, since it will need to be moved to make room on top for the new lights.

Also had a chance to work out with both my brothers today, which I don't think we've ever done before. Hopefully we'll be trying to make a habit out of it every Sunday. Afterward, we settled in to watch the NBA All-Star game, which was pretty fun. I haven't watched an All-Star game since the early 90s.

Well, that about wraps it up. Tomorrow night will be a visit with Jonathan, so hopefully we'll have some cool new shows under our belt when next I blog.

Too Many Choices

A visit to a local health store ( where a fellow Blogger used to work ) landed me a free copy of the magazine Energy Times. While the magazine in and of itself was a fine read, I found the subscription insert card to be the greatest example of stupidity by a marketing yahoo since the Double Cola fiasco of 1987. I have highlighted the area of greatest disconcert for your ease and comfort:


Now, I am not the reincarnation of Einstein. I have no doctorate, nor do I have a photographic memory. Hell, half of the time I can't even spell simple words correctly. So perhaps I am missing something here, and the stupidity is mine. However, I simply can not wrap my mind around the idea of someone going through the trouble of filling out this form and sending it postage paid through the US Mail, only to refuse the free subscription. I am boggled beyond ignominy. I mean, it's not as if these good publishers are sitting on pins and needles awaiting your RSVP. They don't even know you have the damned thing.

Another part of me wonders what their mail clerk would do upon receiving a card with a negative response. I mean, he can't just send it up to the subscription department, can he? Perhaps it goes to the hassle department, whereby the company sends you phone calls and letters harassing you to accept the free health magazine offer or else. It may start innocent enough like, "Accept our free offer or else your health may be in jeopardy!" but after a few tries it may become more sinister. "Accept our free offer or else we're gonna send Louie over with a bat, and then your health may be in jeopardy!" I wonder if Louie gets a 401k.

Time Warp

Not much time to post today, as I just got home and I'm pretty tired. Plus, there hasn't been much of interest going on with my life. Spent the evening pushing iron with my brother, and then we settled in to watch our respective NBA teams ( my Washington Wizards and his Dallas Mavericks ) duke it out.

Spent Monday night's Jonathan visit watching the Wedding Crashers, which was much funnier than I was originally expecting. Valentine's night was spent catching up on some books that were loaned to me a few months ago, as well as doing some research on digestion, nutrition, and the way our bodies use what we feed them. ( That was, of course, after performing my annual "Sim Sob". ;-) ) I'm finding the nutritional stuff pretty interesting, though anyone who's known me for any length of time can testify to the fact that I enjoy expanding the horizons between my ears on most any subject.

Still haven't played any of the plethora of games that everyone has been trying to interest me in. My last foray into a game, The Movies, lasted all of about two days. It's not that I don't have any desire to try these games, but rather that every time I sit down and think about it, I can list several things that I ought to be doing instead. Now, board games, chess, poker, console games with friends... I don't mind these as much because they're multiplayer, social affairs. So, to borrow a term from the OEM Channel, they're "value added" and therefore figure more prominently on my priority list.

In addition, I'm frankly getting tired of spending my life in front of the computer. A few years ago you would never have heard me say that, and back when I was 18 I would have actively hated someone who spoke poorly of my beloved PC. I'm seeing it more as a simple tool to accomplish tasks and goals, and less as the goal itself. Not sure if that will make sense to anyone but me, but there it is none the less.

Since computing was the goal for such a big part of my life, I guess I'm feeling a vacuum in my life as it departs center stage. There's nothing to fill that vacuum yet, which will probably mean that I'll bounce around from one interest to another, in two week intervals no doubt, until something or some things take it's place. Quite honestly, it's about time. I've always thought of myself as a jack-of-all trades, or an explorer, yet I have lingered in front of a monitor for many years.

Hmm, this was supposed to be a quick "nothing going on, blah blah" post. I guess there's nothing like having an open mic to help you vocalize what you haven't yet told yourself.

Ballad of Bilbo Baggins

Just some quickie links today, as I'm rushing out the door to go hang out with my brothers and Jonathan tonight:

• Leonard Nimoy sings the Ballad of Bilbo Baggins
• Interesting notes on the psychology of colors.
• Studies show that we're getting less sunlight than we used to.
• Looks like my little computer shop will be locked out of being able to assemble you a computer than can playback HD-DVD.

...and the peasants rejoiced...

Winter Wonderland

Well well well... North Alabama has finally been on the receiving end of a little light snow. It's nothing that will stick of course. That honor is reserved for those lucky northern states who actually get to have a winter. If I sound jealous, it's because I am.

I grew up in the northern states. I spent many of my childhood days out playing in the snow. We did everything: snowball fights, building snowmen, sledding, snow angels... One year in New Hampshire the snow was so deep we built intricate tunnels and igloos. Our school had a huge playground and field, and they held a contest to see who could build the most creative snow sculpture. I forgot what won, but there were some very talented students.

Another strong memory was from Michigan. It was about a week before Christmas, and there was a good snow storm that gave us about 18" of snow. It was after dusk, so all the Christmas lights were on, and their colors were reflecting off the snow in a dazzling display. I remember holding my cup of hot cocoa close to my face, letting the steam roll off my chin and nose, standing in the middle of the yard. I could turn around and watch the tumultuous waves of Lake Michigan swirl about in anger, as the storm's winds whipped over them. I must have stood there for an hour or more, letting fat flakes pile high on the hood of my arctic coat.

If it sounds like I have some romantic sentiments over a bunch of frozen water, I do. The whole curling up in front of the fireplace thing... yeah, I'm a sucker for that. To walk outside and smell dozens of wood burning stoves in the crisp air would also be something quite magical. So, dear friends, when I whoop and holler over a few flurries in a land that sees an average of less than a quarter inch of accumulation per year, I hope you understand where I am coming from.

Today's flurries have been going off and on for several hours, and has begun to accumulate on unused cars and in some patches of grass. Hoping to enjoy some of nature's festivities, I put on my thick white arctic coat and headed for my personal observatory over the Tennessee River.

I hesitate to break the mood, but I'm proud to announce that I was actually able to fully zip up my arctic coat. You see, when you're a complete fatass trying to lose weight, and you haven't been able to zip up this particular coat in years, it really gives you a great feeling and sense of accomplishment.

Anyway, the actual snowfall during my brief winter wanderlust was light. I watched as a salt truck moved slowly across the bridges on Highway 31, and I watched as a train passed below my feet, headed south. Deeply I breathed it's diesel fumes and watched as all it's cars were topped with snow gathered in lands far north of here. The cold winter wind licked the lobes of my ears and the tip of my nose, and for a brief moment... I remembered.

Breathe and Unwind

Just finished an evening at the Corbin Compound, which among other things, concluded my viewing of the second season of Deadwood. I'll refrain from engaging in discourse over it's content, out of consideration for those still viewing, except to say that I am more than pleased with the show's current course. Season three can't come soon enough.

With the week at an end, I feel that I might now have a moment to breathe, as the opportunity to do so has been rare these last few days. I've eaten more than one dinner well after 9pm, on account of my spreading good cheer and generally trying to raise my karma through good acts. Please don't misunderstand; I am grateful for the opportunities to assist others, and I genuinely enjoy drinking the milk of human kindness ( an homage to the musical Scrooge, which is my favorite of the yarn's tellings ). Now, however, I seek the chance to unwind with a book or movie, both of which I have in droves, waiting for my perusal.

As an aside for the computer geeks out there, a new Window Manager has been developed for Linux that takes full advantage of the 3D acceleration in your video card. The effects are nothing short of impressive, though I imagine that as developers get used to the idea of a fully three dimensional user interface, the entire concept of the desktop and windows will be destroyed as we know it today. You can check out Compiz at this link, but please be sure to check out the video there. It is much more impressive than the screenshots.

Tongue Firmly In Cheek

Me went to fix computer for nice lady. She own fitness store. Me no fix computer, but me like her bench that for sale. Her want only nine-d-nine dollars. Me say I come back. I did. Me buyed bench. Then me take bench to brother house, cuz me apartment is too littler for big bench. Now me can exercise on me new bench. I like this.

I shan't infuriate your senses any longer as I feel my point has been adequately made: Take a man's vocabulary, and you take the man. Er, hmm. That didn't come out right. Just, ya know, remember what you could be reading instead of a lush cornucopia of verbiage. ;-)

So yes, I've had a secret crush on getting a weightlifting bench for over a decade, which happens to be how long ago I bought an olympic bar and some weights from a friend. There's only so much you can do without a bench, though, and the price on this unit was just right. It's used, but in near perfect condition. I'm sure I won't use it as much as I would have, had it come to my apartment, but we all have to make due with what we have sometimes.

It appears that this weekend's poker game has been postponed, due to the short cash funds of several key players. To quote a friend, "le sigh". I'm still going to practice my mad shuffling skillz, just in case.

Quixotic

I've enjoyed my idealistic thoughts of late, but are they impractical? Not at all, I hope. They are lofty goals to be sure, but I somehow doubt I've yet reached a point where I'm tilting at windmills. Perhaps the mountains seem so high because I've shied away from climbing them for so long. If, however, I were to awaken one morning in a cocoon of clean white padding, I may concede my positions.

For those scratching their heads ( or pointing their mouse at the back button ), you will have to excuse the vacuities of my previous paragraph. Caveat lector: My mind is often fond of adumbrating it's contents upon the huddled masses, grinning wryly to itself and secretly wishing for it's true meanings to be discovered by a crafty and resourceful mind. Hey, some people play checkers when they're bored. I adumbrate. Zutto.

Speaking of mindless fun and games, my next foray into the world of Texas Hold'em Poker approaches this Saturday night. I am aquiver with anticipation. Some may remember that my only previous attempt at the game with real live humans resulted in the substantial fattening of my wallet, a feat which I still can not consciously recognize as having happened in the real world. Now that I'm not an unknown, I won't have quite the advantage. People were not familiar with my body language, making it difficult to read my hand. ( I was told this by two of the participants. ) I'll now have to try and throw off my body language on purpose, in an attempt to stay ahead of the curve. It is in this aspect of the game that I find myself most excited. Less exciting is my embarrassing card shuffling skills. I really need to buy a deck and practice this week.

Flotsam

Aside from inflicting feelings of inadequacy upon very adequate people without volition, the sum of my time over the last 48 has been dedicated to an equal array of both mundane and inane tasks. I must confide in you, my dear reader, that an overlapping of the aforementioned categories at this late hour would not be without precedent.

My precious hopes and dreams for a flake or two from the heavens were dashed without so much as an evil sneer from the climatologists who service my particular corner of the earth. However, more opportunities are forecast for this upcoming Thursday. Yeah, right.

Note to self: Cheering on your bossman's favorite sports team while they win a coveted award for the first time since the 1970's does not guarantee an increase in your hourly wages. If only my guidance councilor had warned me...

Note to everyone else: Never complain to anyone that your VIA powered laptop computer running at 733MHz is slow when running Windows XP. It was on social security when it left the assembly line.

My dragonfly candle-holder has green and yellow wings. ( Yeah, wrap your noodles around that one. )

Learn to expect the best complements from the most unlikely of sources.

Always count on having problems with your internet connection when you're trying to publish a blog entry. Grrr...

Birth Related Revelry

All in all, this has been the best Birthday I've had since at least the new millennium. Lots of quality time was spent with friends and family ( though it never seems like enough ), many excellent meals were had ( both homemade and in Decatur's finest, Simp McGee's ), my aquarium is having it's best week ever, got asked out by someone for the first time in God knows how many years ( it was her birthday too ), watched an exciting Superbowl that actually went the way I wanted it, got my first pre-approved credit card offer ( hey, it's important to me ;-) ) , and now the possibility that I might get to see some snow accumulation for the first time in years. ( Too bad it'll only last a few hours though. ) As Eddie would say, "I'm a busy man! I've got a lot on my mind." ;-)

Yeah, I'm flying pretty high right now. Grabbed my dad's camera an hour ago, on the off chance that it starts snowing before I go to bed. I'd like to get a few shots of it ( since, ya know, it might be another few years ). It would be especially nice if I could get those shots up on a little foot bridge near where I live. The view can be quite nice, especially if you're a railfan. I'll try to get some good ones and start a Flickr account or something.

Ask a Ninja

I've already added this to my del.icio.us tags, but this blog is funny enough to deserve a front page entry. I recommend starting with this video first, then check out the older ones. Funny, funny stuff.

Fiscal Playground

I'm probably the only one I know that will admit that I love to sit and play with financial planning software, like Quicken. Not that I have a lot of money to play around with, but I love squeezing a few tenths of a percent in one column to watch the other column swell. I'm actually enthralled with the retirement planner, in which I ( theoretically ) will retire at 67 with enough left over to tide me over through 18 years of retirement, but not before buying a home in 2015 using my saving from account J as the down payment which I've been squirreling away since.... Well, you get the idea. Yes folks, I actually find this stuff fun. Why yes, I DO enjoy simManagment games, how did you know?

This reminds me of the fact that it's tax season. Taxes are not quite as fun, because you've always got this fear that somewhere, somehow, you're going to magically end up in major debt with The Man. I don't really consider it as much a chore as some folks do, but then my taxes are pretty simple.

Looking forward to a pretty active weekend, with the climax Sunday evening of Superbowl 40. This year is going to be as close to a Superbowl party as I've ever come, with my brother and my boss coming over to watch the game. I've never watched football with my boss, but there are two key notes about him I'll have to keep in mind:

1. I hear he's very animated when watching football.
2. He's a diehard Steelers fan.

Yep, this should be interesting. :-)