Tank birthday and I'm a Geezer

[Paul B]

After I came home from taking apart the boat I came home to relax. My wife went to her friends house so it was nice and peaceful. I poured a nice glass of Grand Marnier and laid on the couch.
I asked Alexa to put on peaceful rain sounds and I almost drifted off to sleep.

Then the rain sounds started to get violent and I told Alexa to cancel.
I started to drift off.
The sounds got louder. I yelled :
"ALEXA. CANCEL"
She said, "There is nothing to cancel."

Just then I heard this very loud, very annoying noise from my cell phone and like in stereo, from my house phone at the same time.

"SEVERE TORNADO ALERT IN EFECT, DANGEROUS LIGHTNING, HURRICAIN FORCE WINDS, STAY INSIDE, DON'T EVEN THINK OF GOING OUT EVEN IF THERE IS A 50% OFF PURPLE TANG SALE AT THE LFS".

I look out the window and it was dark. It looked like I was trying to see through sheet metal, not that cheap 18 gauge sheet metal like they sell in Home Depot, I mean Manly 12 gauge, galvanized sheet metal like they make Greyhound busses out of.

The rain was coming down as if it was being dumped out of Cadillac trunks and not those new Sissy Cadillac's. I mean a 1957 Pink Cadillac that had trunks you could put three Toyota's in and still have room for the full size spare tire.

The lightning was deafening. I looked at my tank and all the fish were huddled in the corner with a wide eyed look on their faces kind of like Nancy Pelosi sometimes gets. They even let the anemone and long spined urchin squeeze in with them.

There is a huge tree across the street from my house and the branches were bending like Mick Jagger's legs "AND" my car was parked under it.

OMG, I grabbed the keys and ran out there to move it. The lightning looked like Poseidon's Trident
and the rain was pushing me down just by it's sheer weight but I knew I had to move the car so the limbs wouldn't fall on it.

I get in the car and I am soaked in places I haven't seen or felt in decades.

I get the car started and the windshield wipers don't move fast enough but I manage to get the car in front of my garage where there are no trees.

;Wideyed
I count to three and run out of the car and in one quick movement I spin around and close the door.

The only problem was that in my haste, while I was spinning around, I threw the keys backwards where they flew, very fast towards the car.

I said OOOOOHHHNNNNNnnooooo because as everyone knows keys are now like little expensive High def, flat screen TVs and cost as much. They are also not water proof.

OMG!!

I can't kneel down because my knees are like fine crystal about to break so I lay down flat on the pavement in an inch of water. I can't see because of the rain and the lightning is screwing up my vision, not to mention that it's LIGHTNING!!!! and you are not supposed to be laying in a lake while it is crashing all around you.

But I remembered that I am not a Snowflake so the lightning will only tickle me.

I look under the car and can't see the keys. Then I run around to the other side of the car and lay on the ground. No keys. I now inch my way like a nudibranch to the rear tires and reach my hand under the tires but NO KEYS!!!

Then I remembered that I have my cell phone in my pocket and my pocket is as wet as a 10 gallon pico reef that was just set up and is cycling, not with a live shrimp, but a dead one. ;Bucktooth
I got up and threw the phone in the car.

I opened the garage and got a big push broom and I am pulling water from under the car hoping they would somehow emerge, but no keys.

Now I am frantic and the lightning is getting closer. My life was flashing before my eyes and all I could think about was my poor horrified fish. How will they get along with out me.

Now five minutes have gone by and I still can't find the keys. I know I couldn't have thrown them too far and they don't float so they have to be someplace. But where?

Finally I think to look in a place where I know they couldn't be. On top of the car.

Yep, sitting there right on top.

I quickly brought them in and took out the battery and now they are drying but I don't know if they will work. Time will tell.

 

[diana a]

Love your story telling abilities....filled with suspense and makes you giggle at times.

 

[reefsandrotts]

So were your fish mad that you were mocking them floundering around in the water??

 

[Paul B]

My fish always mock me. The light didn't even come on yet and they are mocking me. Now I am going down to the boat to put the thing back together.

 

[Paul B]

I took the boat out for a test sail and it runs perfect. Last week one engine got stuck at a restaurant and it was hard to diagnose because after I got it started it ran fine. So I replaced the spark plugs, gas filters and re built one exhaust manifold. I ran it full speed for a couple of miles and so far it is perfect. I wanted to fix it to squeeze the last few days of summer out before I put it away.
There are a lot more restaurants here I haven't tried out on the water yet.

I don't get it that people can't fix things. ( I know Diana can fix things) When I was a kid we all knew how to fix our car. We didn't have boats then. I wouldn't dream of bringing my car to someone to fix and I never did. Today, sometimes I need to bring it in to the dealer because much of the computer software is proprietary .

But for anything else like brakes, ball joints, shocks, tune ups etc. You have to be nuts to let someone do that.
I am not sure what they charge for brakes but you can put four of them on your car in an hour for like a hundred bucks and the brakes you can get are much better than original brakes from the car manufacturer. Then you will probably get a Jiboni for a "mechanic".

I just don't trust the work people do and I am of the thought that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

Like today, I re-built kind of the exhaust manifold on my boat. When I replaced the bolts, which are about a foot long, I ran a die over the threads to clean them up then I put anti seize lubricant on them so the next time I have to remove them, they come right out. No mechanic is going to take the time to do that. I also painted the manifold so it looks new.

 

[Paul B]

. A few Jeeps ago we got a new Cherokee home and the first day the thing died right in the middle of a busy street. My wife was driving and she called me. There was no lights, no engine noise, no nothing. The car had 4 miles on it so I said call Jeep.

A truck came and they carried it back to the dealership. The next day they gave me the paper with all the things they fixed (on a car with 4 miles)

The next day the same thing happens to my wife and she called Jeep.

Again they gave me a list of all the things they fixed on a car with about 6 miles on it.
The guy said, if it happens again we will give you a new car. I said how new will it be? This one has 6 miles on it so how long do these cars last?

Two days went by and the same thing happened. I said "Don't call Jeep"

I got out the schematic and found the problem. There is about a fifty pin connector behind a kick plate on the rider's side of the car and one prong in the center was bent over so the thing wouldn't make a good connection.

I then cut out a 2' cardboard arrow and taped it to the dashboard pointing at the connector and on it I wrote "Fix this and don't touch anything else"

Then I called Jeep.

 

[Paul B]

I need another knee. The new one is still rather painful and I still can't kneel so I won't go to Church.
I also can't walk to good but I get there. I am still faster than my wife but not much.
By the time I am 80, I should be sprinting like Angela Jolie in Laura Croft Tomb Raider.

The Dr. told me I tore the meniscuses and tendons in the other knee so I sit around trying to see if I can pick which one hurts more.

It's a good thing I am not a snowflake because I have to take care of my wife so I go outside and all the way around the house if I have to scream.

I don't love the fact that I need another knee because I remember that the first one didn't go to well and it is more painful now than it was before it was replaced. If I get this one done I will be walking like Walter Brennon in "The Real McCoys" (before all you Noobs time, Google it)

 

[diana a]

Never heard of the show but I just watched an episode on Youtube .

I am sorry to read that you now need the other knee replaced.

 

[Paul B]

They are only knees. Not a big deal. I can still walk these stairs and you can only see half of them here.

It was a little windy on my beach walk this morning and it wasn't low tide so no collecting. My house is up over that cliff.

 

[diana a]

Nice to have a beach sooo close. What do you collect at the beach during low tide?

 

[Paul B]

I get my water from there at high tide and I can collect amphipods at low tide. But I get much more amphipods in Peconic on the other side of the north fork on Long Island in this lagoon.

 

[Paul B]

Today is our annual Cousins pic nic about 60 miles from here on a beach with a shelter and electricity. We have been doing this for about 45 years as my wife has a very big family. Many of us old generation went to the big reef tank in the sky but there are plenty of Kids, Grand kids and Great Grand kids to take over. Many of them I don't even know.

My whiteworm culture isn't doing so good as it was taken over by flies. (even though I feed them cultured yogurt) If I open the thing in my house I get a swarm of these tiny fruit fly looking things which I don't want in my house so they are outside now.
There are still worms and yesterday I flooded them for an hour but apparently these flies or their larvae have SCUBA gear so they don't drown.
Now I am going to seal them and put them in my fridge to see if the worms can tolerate the cold better than the flies.

If that doesn't work I am going to have to throw it out and start a new culture.
I hesitate to do that because I have had these worms for ten years and they evolved into much bigger and fatter creatures, much different then the skinny, Girly worms you get in a culture. I'm not sure if they are a different species or if they somehow got into steroids like Sylvester Stallone.
Look at the difference in size from the early batch of worms and the worms now.

There were a lot of them, but they were wimpy. Now they are fat like Chris Christie, (Who I kind of like)

 

[Paul B]

A few weeks ago I built a Nitrate De-nitrifer out of a calcium reactor that I had laying around. I ran it for about 3 weeks and it turns 30 ppm of nitrate into zero in a few minutes.

Today it's raining and the thing was in my way on my workbench so I installed it. I don't really have much of a nitrate problem but I felt like experimenting. I doubt it will lower my nitrates much as they are now about 25 but I like putzing so it is what it is.

It's the thing with the yellow pellets. I didn't use a calcium chamber for the effluent because it dumps into my reverse UG filter which is made out of dolomite so calcium shouldn't be needed.
If my tank crashes in a week or two, I was wrong.

 

[Paul B]

Today is the day the pilgrims left Europe to come here and screw up this country and start religious freedom. Of course they started to burn people as witches, excommunicate them if they texted in church and if they caught them chewing gum on Sunday, they would tie them up and dunk them in ASW that was cycled with a live shrimp.

They had their first Thanksgiving and invited the Native Americans (who they called Indians because they weren't politically correct like I am, but even the native Americans called themselves Indians, then they started baseball teams )

The "Indians" showed them how to cook corn and turkey and we showed them how to get lung cancer by smoking. Actually I think they gave that to us. I am not sure but they didn't invent HMOs yet which is why there are no more Pilgrims.
Then Bernie Sanders offered them free health insurance, college, diapers and paper clips which made all the people we left in Europe broke which caused Brixit.

Here where I live we have quite a few Native Americans because Long Island was owned by them.
We gave them some Toyota parts along with a few eggplants and now they are required to live on a small reservation where they sell cigarettes and 8 track tape recorders.

 

[reefsandrotts]

I dont know what made me laugh harder the bernie sanders health care ot the 8 tracks

 

[Paul B]

My tank is doing great. My hippo tang didn't get ich, dropsy, mononucleosis or anything else as some of the tang police said he would get if I didn't quarantine him (God Forbid) He also never gets algae clips or nori.

My watchman gobies will spawn soon and my Janss pipefish is so healthy he does aerobics every morning. I am really surprised that particular fish lived so long as they are supposed to be so delicate.

I want another pair of bluestriped pipefish as they lived out their life like they were supposed to and croak of old age which for them is only a few years. I think they spawned themselves to death.

My old Fireclown is about 28 years old and still spawning although I am surprised he is not tired of that yet. I think those guys live into their 30s.

A few months ago I bought a quart of clams for bait. I only went fishing once so I have been using them for the fish.
I am not sure how old those clams are, but I am not eating them and the fish ain't complaining.
My Copperband could probably eat the entire thing by himself. I don't know how old he is, I barely know how old I am and if my birthday wasn't on Christmas, I wouldn't remember that.
These guys are also still doing well

 

[Paul B]

 

[Paul B]

Today we are going to this very calm, un occupied lagoon with some friends to relax. If it's low tide I will try to collect some mud, amphipods, seaweed and maybe snails.
It's a beautiful day and we want to take advantage of it as long as the nice weather is around.



I had a little argument with my wife this morning, and we never fight.

She threw out our blender that we have had as one of our engagement gifts in 1973.
Yes, there was electricity then, and fire.

She bought a new blender which I am sure is made in China, Japan, Sri Lanka, India, Peru, Tunisia or someplace that is not in America. I am sure they make great blenders in those countries and I think the local people should use them and be very proud. But as an American, I care more about American people working. Not that I want to see any body else starve, but my first priority is to my country.

My family all came from Sicily but I am not Sicilian, I am American.

The old blender was running just fine and I use it every week to make my wife's "Jumping Juice" that takes away her pain.

The new blender, I think it's a "Kitchen Aid" is 100% plastic and sounds like an outboard motor. It may have been an outboard motor at one time. It is harder to clean and it will probably last a couple of years and also probably has no parts you can fix after it croaks.

To Me it is sacrilege to throw out a good, working American appliance just to get a new, shiny red one that is not as good and will never last as long.

Of course I rescued it and will give it to the American Legion or some other American organization so that they can use it at their bar.

 

[reefsandrotts]

Hide it in the fish room so when the new one breaks you can give her the engagement present

 

[Paul B]

It's 5:45 am and as soon as I can see a little light I will be taking by bike out and heading for the beach.
I got to keep these old bones working and walking up and down a cliff, 176 steps is all I need.

I can't believe with two bum knees I can still do that. The steps don't bother me as long as I don't turn either knee to one side even a little. That makes it hard to turn so I have to keep walking in a straight line.

Yesterday I couldn't find my bubble coral. I had just used my diatom filter to clean some cyano and I must have blew the thing away.
I found it all the way in the back under rocks and I had to remove a lot of rock to rescue it. My fireclown kept biting me. You would think that after 28 years he would start losing his teeth, or at least start going senile. But I think he will outlast me in that respect.