Tag: aquarium

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Shake, Rattle, and Rolls

The girls went home this morning to clean their rooms while I stayed home and took care of pets. The four snails from the 55-gallon tank in the living room don’t seem to want to move around at all, but they’re still alive. The water parameters in the betta bags still seem quite a bit off from the new tank, so I never did get around to actually moving them.

After I finally took a shower, I had the girls meet me at my parents’ house for a late lunch. We were supposed to visit with Uncle Giao, but Mom didn’t tell me until I got there that he wasn’t coming. Summer and Eaddie liked the bánh xèo. There was a pretty big pile of egg rolls there, but I’m not sure we put much of a dent in it. I ended up bringing the leftover cheese pizza home from last week.

When we left my parents’ house, I met the girls at T.J. Maxx for some bargain hunting. I picked up a pink Nautica tie with little whales on it, in spite of the fact that I never wear ties. It effectively doubles my choices for formal wear now though, which isn’t bad for 36 years. We closed down that store and then finished at Ross before deciding we were hungry and wanted milkshakes. We tried Dairy Queen, and probably should have stayed in spite of how busy they were, but we ended up going over to Steak ‘n Shake instead. The employees all looked pretty questionable at best, and it took them a while to get us seated in a mostly empty restaurant. The food came out surprisingly quickly, but the service was otherwise very slow, and we spent most of the evening with empty glasses. At least Eaddie ate free.

After that, Eaddie came back to the house with me while Summer took Autumn home to get some things. I finally moved the snails into the brand new tank. The fish may make that move tomorrow. Hopefully they get along. Summer went to bed pretty quickly. Autumn hid out on the futon while Eaddie watched more Supergirl. I stayed up longer than I should have, especially with how sapped I’ve felt all day. I’m not sure that tomorrow will be much better.

How are these cats taking up so much room in my bed?

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Skate, Rattle, and Roll

I came home this morning and got to work digging out an aquarium to clean up for my new fishy friends. I didn’t spend any time scrubbing glass the way that I usually do because I kind of assume I’ll be tearing this one down sooner than later, but I have to have a place to put these creatures. It took me all afternoon to get everything going, but I think it looks alright.

The girls went to get a gift for Maleea’s birthday, and then went to the park while I did my thing. I was only just getting into the shower when they came over from the park. Once I was ready, we headed to Skate Station where I could just barely keep my head up. I don’t know if I didn’t sleep very well, or long enough, or if I was just tired from messing with the aquarium all afternoon, but I was absolutely beat. The girls skated for a little bit, but I just couldn’t get myself up to do it.

After the party, we went to Walmart so I could pick up another aquarium thermometer, some light bulbs, and Summer wanted some vegetables to eat. Then we went to their house so the girls could get clothes, and I packed the fish up to bring them home. It took me a while to get them situated once we got there, and I still didn’t even get them into the tank. I’ll have to acclimate them slowly tomorrow, but apparently Uncle Giao is coming to visit again, so I really don’t know what the day is going to look like.

Autumn crashed on the couch, Summer went to bed with Grey, and Eaddie sat up watching Supergirl and begging for food to eat.

Most experts say that histamine isn’t the major cause of a runny nose when you have a cold.

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Cards Versus Humanity

Spring break was in the air today. I got up an hour and a half early and made broccoli, rice, and cheese casserole for our potluck, and then had plenty of time to get everything ready for work. We didn’t have anything in the way of group projects, so I just leisurely took care of a few things as they came in.

Ben brought some smoked pork for a potluck, and I think I was the only one that actually made anything myself to contribute, but it was worth it. I haven’t made that stuff in a while, so it was about time. We took a long working lunch, but that didn’t really affect when I was going to leave. I had stuff to do. They got my lift to the junior high so I could replace the band projector bulb. It’s always fun driving heavy machinery around indoors.

After work, I chatted with Ben for a little while before heading home and trying to feed Grey a bit. She managed to get a bit of gravy down along with several treats. Then I went to Walmart to get some stuff for cheese dip before picking Summer up.

We went to Travis’s to play Cards Against Humanity with John and Melissa. Veronica backed out, but she missed a really good time. Travis and Summer had never played before, so it was a lot of fun. Nearing the end of the game, I kept having to tend to my phone to orchestrate the meeting between the internet fish lady and Clint. Eventually they did make the connection, and he shuttled the lot all the way home for me.

Summer and I stayed to chat with Travis for a while, and then left as Clint got closer to town. We met him nearly exactly on time, and I took an armload of fish off his hands. I didn’t have the time or space for them anywhere, so I just ended up opening the bags at Summer’s so they could get some air. I’ll have to take care of them properly in the morning. The girl even sent me some minimal plant trimmings, which was super awesome of her. Just before bed, I also got an invoice for a collection of plants from someone in California. Hopefully this comes together nicely. I have all spring break, after all.

Meeting people on the internet is completely normal and safe in every way.

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Quite Quiet

I did my best not to sleep too late today. We got up and ate a few leftovers, then I tried to make some soda water and realized my tank had completely leaked out. I tried filling it and found it was leaking pretty badly, so I had the bright idea to stick it in my aquarium to help the plants. It was bubbling pretty quickly, so I thought not much of the CO2 would actually diffuse into the water. It’s a good thing I checked after just a couple minutes, because the fish had started freaking out and swimming right around the surface to breathe. I pulled the tank out and just stuck it upside down next to the air pump, hoping that a little bit might find its way to the tank.

Summer headed home to clean up, so I cleaned up a bit myself before playing some Overwatch with Clint. I wanted my Lunar New Year loot boxes for arcade mode, and we really had to work for it. We won our first few games, but then had a horrible losing streak after taking a break for a bit. I don’t know why that always seems to happen.

When Summer finally came back around, we ran to Zaxby’s to split something for dinner and watched an episode of Battlestar Galactica before being denied progress due to a corrupt episode file. I started the long process of rechecking the file, and I perused YouTube for the last little bit until bed.

As far as short weekends go, this was a pretty good one.

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Feeling Flushed

It was a dreary second day of testing at Oakland this morning. Someone brought some toppings to the cafeteria and made some fantastic cinnamon rolls. I had a brown sugar and pecan one at first, and then one of the teachers gave me her fig one that was tasty, though not even half as good as my first. I decided to leave for a regular lunch this time, and I met some of the guys at CJ’s for an overpriced burger. At least the fries were super hot and a little crispy.

After lunch, I took care of some things at the junior high before going back to the shop to deliver a touch panel to Oakland. Just after I got the panel and toolbox out and pulled the truck up, it started to pour down rain, so I had to move the stuff under the awning. Just about then, I saw Crystal pulling the mail van in, so I abandoned all hope and ran the truck back to the lot before she locked the gate. I figured we would just deal with being a little late tomorrow, since Zach, Gary, and I should be able to hang it super fast anyway.

I went home for a bit before heading up to Summer’s for dinner. She picked up a couple buckets of KFC that the three kids destroyed. Autumn originally tried eating leftover buffalo chicken strips instead, but when they turned out dry and rubbery she gnawed on about a quarter of a breast before leaving it to be thrown away. Luckily I spotted it and Summer finished it off, but it’s that kind of wasteful spirit that infuriates me to the point that I want to physically harm her. There’s just no reason someone that age shouldn’t be more thoughtful about those things. They have too many outs when they don’t get their way.

As I finished the last little bit of gravy with a biscuit, I somehow managed to punch a tiny hole into the styrofoam and dripped gravy across the entire house and myself. I just felt so defeated, and ended up taking my shirt off to wash it in the sink. I didn’t stay long, and left after about three episodes of Parks and Recreaetion. I headed toward home to get gas, then clean the cat box and shrimp bowl. I pulled some of the stringy algae out, and thought for a while that I had accidentally pulled out the ghost shrimp as well, just before heading to bed I checked again and found him.

Triumph of the day.

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Don’t Get Testy

This morning was really warm, so I rode the bike in to work. Oakland started ACT Aspire today, so I was stuck there all morning. I was able to use their loaner laptop while I was in the office though, so I kept pretty busy just catching up on old emails. I sat there until a little after noon before ordering some Subway online, and then I picked that up and went to the shop.

I ate there and chatted with Gary for a while. It wasn’t too long after lunch until I had to go back to Oakland to meet with the guys that are running the robotics tournament this weekend. I had to find out what they needed from me, and luckily it sounded like a couple people from Tech should be around to help as well so we won’t all be completely without guidance.

By the time we finished there, school had let out, so I spent the rest of the afternoon at the shop just kind of vaguely working. When I got home, Bác Vân was sitting out back resting, so I chatted with her for a while until Julie got home so I could swing by to get the apple pie moonshine she didn’t want. We ended up talking for a little while too, but the sun was setting and I didn’t want to be out too late on the bike, so I headed to Gary’s place to give him the moonshine. I went in just because I had never seen his place before, and we chatted for just a few minutes before the girls blew up my phone.

I ran home to get the car and went to Walmart to look at some sandpaper for Autumn’s project. While I was there, I picked up a new bulb for the lamp to put over the shrimp bowl. I did a little Googling and decided that sandpaper wouldn’t work well for the papier-mâché, and left with just my bulbs. Autumn was making some slow but steady progress on her Challenger rockets. I had a little bite of what Eaddie didn’t finish for dinner, and then I had to run back home to test some aquarium water.

Earlier when I had checked on the shrimp bowl, the little baby fish was having trouble swimming. He seemed fine this morning, but couldn’t stay upright or swim straight in the evening. I wanted to test the water and try to fix it, but by the time I got home it was already dead. One of the shrimp even started to pick at it a little bit, so I just left it in the bowl. For some reason, the water was really alkaline in the bowl, but both of my big tanks have been really heavily acidic. I didn’t test the water in the 35 gallon since it’s just been sitting stagnant for years, but I’ll probably do that sometime soon. It definitely doesn’t look very good. In the end, I added a small piece of driftwood to try and bring the pH down a little bit, and got my new lamp set up on the timer.

WHATTUP FISH TANK PEOPLE

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Detlef Shrimp

I got up this morning and warmed up the last of the leftover quesadillas for breakfast. Eaddie continued watching Legends of Tomorrow until they left for home to get the house cleaned up. I’d like to say I cleaned up as well, but truthfully I spent most of my time staring at the shrimp. I ended up moving all four of them to the little bowl after deciding that the darker “ghost shrimp” may be a lighter male cherry red. Then I threw the clear ghost shrimp in as well just because I felt bad leaving it in the larger tank with the tetras. One of the reds molted at some point, and I was upset to have missed it.

I eventually got a shower and headed to Summer’s for dinner. She warmed up some leftover barbecue and made some really good cheesy potato pancake things out of the really gross nacho cheese potatoes. We watched an episode of Parks and Recreation while we ate, and then Summer continued helping Autumn with her papier-mâché rockets for history day. I played Breath of the Wild for the rest of the night, trying and failing repeatedly to defeat the island challenge. I’m going to have to step up my creativity.

It takes shrimp to make shrimp!

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Jack of All Your Labors

Summer had a quiz bowl tournament today, so I slept in a little before warming up some leftovers for brunch and heading home. Back home I played a little Overwatch to get my weekly loot boxes, then spent quite a while sifting through rocks so I could make a shrimp bowl with only black gravel. I found some plants that were still alive in my 35 gallon tank, so I pulled them out and threw them in along with the two cherry red shrimp and my last little baby molly.

By the time I finished with all of that and had a shower, Summer was done and brought Eaddie over to go have dinner with Mom. She picked up a bunch of giò in Houston and made noodles for it today. Then we spent an hour trying to dissect a jackfruit without getting all of its sticky sap everywhere. I tried following a guide I found on YouTube, but it seemed like ours wasn’t ripe enough to pull apart like that.

When I finished with that, Uncle Mai called and gave me several minutes of advice and let me know that the value of his gift to me didn’t matter as long as I would use it at least once and that I liked it. Everyone was pretty tired by then, so we headed back to my house where Summer crashed, Eaddie loaded up Legends of Tomorrow, and I dug around to see if I had a lamp I could use to light the new shrimp bowl. Spoiler alert: I need to go to Walmart.

Now my fingers smell like sweet, fruity butt.

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Something Fishy

I should have dug out the battery charger last night so we could charge Summer’s car. I spent most of the morning stressing over whether I would be getting a group gas discount with my parents at Kroger, and after I finally gave up after waiting all day, I found out that Julie used all of the fuel points by herself. I ran on fumes all day long just to end up getting a couple gallons to last me until Wednesday for 10 cents off per gallon.

We started the day by taking Autumn to her friend’s birthday party. Then we stopped by my house for the battery charger and so I could check on the house. To my surprise, the betta was super dead, and looked to have most of the color drained out of her overnight. She was alive when I left last night, so I don’t know what happened so suddenly. I knew she looked a little pale and I wanted to change the water last night, but I figured I’d have time today. It looked like she laid a bunch more eggs again, and then just died. I was super disappointed after nursing her back to health over the course of a month. She seemed really healthy again, so this caught me by complete surprise.

From there, I dropped Summer off at the gym and went back to her house to charge her car battery, shower, and try to plan the rest of my day. Eaddie failed to shower early or quickly enough, so by the time I actually took mine the water was ice cold. As soon as I finished, I went straight to the water heater and raised both thermostats quite a bit. Then I went to pick up Summer at the gym and Autumn at Hourglass Escape Rooms. They just barely finished the room in time, so I was proud of their accomplishment. Finally I took them back home and got things ready to go back to my house and start dinner.

I had a roast thawed out for Saturday, so I had to get it cooked. I tried using an Instant Pot recipe using some of the homemade wine that Allen gave me, and it turned out pretty good. It would have been even better with the dry rub, but I just barely had enough time to get it done for the kids to go back home and to bed. They came over and watched Criminal Minds while it cooked for 35 minutes, then Emogenius while they ate. Then I got dishes started before crashing myself.

So much for planning.

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Endless Roeing

I’ve been forcing myself up earlier, so I had plenty of time to fish another frog out of my aquarium this morning. There’s only one left, and it’s almost completely lost its tail. I went by Oakland first, did a couple things there, then went to the shop for a little while. I took a stack of phones to the junior high with me and stayed busy until lunch.

Zach, Sara, Allen, and I went to Morello’s where I got the lunch special with three enchiladas. It was pretty good, but I kept staring longingly at Zach’s and Sara’s fajita burritos. We made it back in time for another perfect lunch hour for my time clock, but really we wanted to go to Zona K-Tracha but were afraid of the amount of time that would take.

I spent a little more time at the shop before going to Oakland to replace a ridiculously complicated Chromebook keyboard. Rather than have a keyboard as a component, they built it into the chassis and I had to gut the entire Chromebook and move it to a new chassis, all for two missing keys. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon wrapping up work orders at the junior high. Summer had to stay late for quiz bowl, so I took Eaddie to karate before heading home.

I had started to feel a little sour in the stomach in the afternoon, so I stayed in and read up on aquarium lighting for plants. The betta seems to be doing much better after I basically overdosed her with meds. The spot with the “stuffing” coming out seems to be completely gone, and she was quite active in her tank. She was even swimming around eating in front of me, so I gave her some of her old pellets after being on mostly nothing with a few freeze dried bloodworms. This was the first time I’d seen her eat in over a month, so I was super relieved. It looked like she released a few more eggs that floated up in the water as well, and she gobbled those up as well. I’ll give her a little more time in the meds before I do a water change, and then hopefully soon I can get her back into a regular tank.

To wrap the evening up, I finally pulled my old, dinged-up glass screen protector off of my phone and installed the spare I had stored away. The screen was still pristine, but this protector didn’t go on nearly as well, with quite a bit of haze between the glass and the screen. I really envy Summer’s screen since it doesn’t curve quite as much and can keep a screen protector without too much of a halo. I guess there’s always the Pixel 4.

Won’t be long for CO₂ now!