I've been thinking about starting a fish tank for a few years and happened to mention this to a friend of mine. She, having a nearly complete zoo herself, suggested that saltwater fish were a lot of fun and asked what I was waiting for and so I started looking around for what it'd cost, etc.

Knowing that salt water tanks are harder than fresh water thanks, and that fresh water tanks are harder than the goldfish we had when I was a kid, I figured doing some quick learning might be a good idea. With that in mind, I bought several books on the subject, did a lot of reading, and started looking at various websites and for-sale listings.

That first book is fairly short, mostly focused on the setup and care of saltwater tanks. It has a smallish section on some of the more common and popular species of fish and invertebrates. It mostly ignores plant life. The second book is much longer and covers a very broad range of marine life. Both books are just full of pictures, which is cool.

I found a for-sale posting from a college kid who was about to graduate and was preparing to move. He had a nice smallish tank (30 gallons) and some nice looking fish (see below). After a few emails and some serious thinking on my part, I told him I would be interested in taking the entire tank over if he was interested and willing to help me move it. To get an idea of the effort involved, salt water weighs about 8.5 pounds per gallon. The rocks are obviously even heavier. So, figure about 300 pounds for the tank and everything in it. He also had a stand for it to sit on. On May 8th he and I moved it to my house.

Pictures:

Tonight I setup a webcam for the tank. If you want the userid and password, send me mail. I don't have sufficient bandwidth to just make it open to the public, sorry.

I think I have my work cut out for me. Fairly frequent algea removal, water testing, water changing, etc. Also, I need to setup a maintenance log so that I can keep track of important events and upcoming larger maintenance needs.

It's been just over 2 weeks now, and I'm happy to say that other than faster algea growth than I think is 'normal', the fish, shrimp, snails, hermit crabs, and starfish are all doing well.

Coming soon.. a household changing event. (don'tcha just love anticipation?)

A few entries ago I suggested that I'd use my reading as a way to keep up my posting. It's not working as well as I expected, but that hasn't stopped me from doing a lot of reading.

I picked up (most of?) the Thieves' World series. It's unusual in that it's a long series that started off as an experiment. Basically, some relatively young authors were discussing how the writing of various authors kept having to re-invent the worlds every time a new book or series was written. It takes a lot of time and effort to create a coherent and cohesive setting. Re-doing this over and over inevitably leads to both duplication of world attributes, lots of wasted effort, etc.

So, the experiment: design a setting and let lots of authors play in the same space. There were a collection of characters, each author having their own primary character(s) but were allowed to use the other characters in minor roles. The result suprised the authors and he publishers. Anthologies typically don't do well. Scifi anthologies even less well. These were popular.

I've finished the first three:
Thieves' World
Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn
Shadows of Sanctuary

I've just started the fourth:
Storm Season

Sorry, no cover art available, they're old out of print books and amazon doesn't have the images. I was lucky to find a vendor at coastcon that had most of the series, at least the first 9.

A few months ago one of my sisters, Cathy, did something either insane or impressive, maybe both. She ran in and completed a marathon. It's taken me way longer than it should have, but I've finally gotten pictures of the event put up:

I decided to go to Coastcon this year. I started going many many years ago back when I lived in Baton Rouge. After I left for green pastures I continued going until one year I just couldn't for some reason, work related. Once the chain was broken I stopped going altogether, until now. I sent email to of my brothers, Mike, who lives in the area to see if he was interested. He was, I went, a good time was had by all.

This was the 28th year they've held the convention. The oldest badge I could find (yes, I am that much of a packrat) was CC11, and newest was CC21 I could have sworn it hadn't been 7 years since I last attended, but that's possible I guess. I would have gussed 5.

The special guests included Walter Koenig and Arlene Martel, of Star Trek fame. Other notable guests, Carl Lundgren and Dave Arneson. There were a dozen or so others which I won't list here. The only really memorable guest moment for me was during a showing of Star Trek: New Voyages, some fan produced episodes. I was outside while Mike took a smoke break and we saw Walter through the doors walk up to the back of the audience. He was visibly drunk, and took a long look at the screen. He could tell it was ST, but was probably trying to figure out who the people on the silver screen were.

Most of the weekend was spent just talking with my brother. Saturday evening we went to his house where he lives with another brother, Steve, and their old friend, Merlin. Everyone's apparantly heavily addicted to the latest in a growing number of massively multiplayer online role playing games, World of Warcraft. The game looks gorgeous and I can see how it'd be addictive. I resisted, successfully.

On the plane ride, I finished reading:

(written on May 08, 2005. back dated to the day after the convention)

Running the family online photo gallery is kinda fun. I've accumulated a handful which are now available here...

As I mentioned in the previous entry, I've been reading Weapons of Choice and have just about finished it. If you're a history buff or enjoy alternate histories, I recommend it. The basic premise involves a battle group of near future naval vessels accidentally appearing in 1942 just before the battle of Midway. Chaos ensues.

One way I hope to keep myself motivated to update my journal will be to keep a list of the books I've been reading.

Recently finished:

Baxter falls into the hard-scifi category. He plays with universes built from the leading edge of theoretical astrophysics. If you like toying with the stuff the universe is made of, then you ought to be entertained.

Dune.. classics.. what can I say. I intend to continue the series soon, but Herbert writes incredibly complex and fast paced stories and I needed to read something lighter for a while.

Right now I'm reading:

Next on my list:

Atlanta Nights (no picture)