Month: April 2011

Success

Posted on by Chewbode

I went out and ran some errands today and got a few new things for the fish tank. I’m still using the 10gal tank, but I wanted to add some toys. I got a 25lb. bag of lighter-colored gravel (mostly for the new tank), two Sword plants, two Moneywort plants, some plant food, a freshwater testing kit, and some new 15-watt accent light bulbs for the ballast. I added some of the gravel in to thicken the bed so the plants had rooting area. Then, I added the plants in. The fish seem to be interested and genuinely like the additions. I’ll let everything settle until tomorrow then will test the water.

Also, got the slow-cooker. Currently am soaking 3lbs. or beans and will be making a soup tomorrow morning.

Fish Tanks and Slow Cookers

Posted on by Chewbode

On Thursday, I got a new fish tank from Arn, who picked it up in a deal on Craig’s List. It’s still sitting in the back of my truck, but I plan on getting it up into the apartment this weekend and cleaning it out. There’s some brightly-colored gravel and a large fake rock reef that came with it along with a lighting fixture. I believe it’s a 20 gallon tank. Hopefully it’s still small enough to fit on he existing stand.

I’ve also decided to pick up a crock pot this weekend. I want to start slow-cooking things; it’d be nice to put food in it in the morning and come home from work with dinner already made (dinner for multiple days even). I’m going to start out with some soups, to learn the heat settings and understand fully what to expect out of the cooker. This won’t be my fist crock pot, but I’ve learned over the years that the different types and shapes can change the cooking times.

This’ll hopefully be the last weekend where I need to work. If I can accomplish all the stuff for Allie’s project, then I reward myself with some fish time and slow-cooker goodness.

To The Semis

Posted on by Chewbode

While working on Allie’s project tonight, I listened to the Lightning game on the 620 WDAE internet stream and was really happy that our team is advancing from the quarterfinals to the semifinals. They nudged out the Penguins 1 to 0 to win the series 4 games to 3. The last two minutes of the game, I was literally sitting at my desk intently focused on every word that came from Dave Mishkin‘s mouth, hands sweating.

A Little Update

Posted on by Chewbode

Today I moved over the September and October 2005 blog posts. I’ve decided that I really don’t want this site to be too involved right now. The current to-do list to complete the migration is:

  1. Migrate all blog entries.
  2. Migrate all photos.
  3. Migrate all backend data files.
  4. Move the chewbode.com domain name.
  5. Decommission, archive, and delete the old site and the hosting plan.
  6. Reskin this site.

I’m hoping to have all of this completed no later than June 1st.

Right now, I’m just listening to some podcasts before starting some work tonight. I need to cut up the boxes my bed came in and put them in a trash bag. Now’s a good time to do that.

The Migration Continues…

Posted on by Chewbode

The old blog site has newer entries from October 2010 to January 2011 and then old blog entries from April 2004 to December 2005. So far the newer entries have been migrated to this site and I have November and December 2005 migrated as well. I’m going to try to migrate at least two months’ worth of entries every night.

I did a lot of coding tonight on Allie’s project.

Had a good dinner of steak and summer squash. I cheated a little and had some chips and a couple tablespoons of some really nice salsa a guy at work gave me to try.

Worked out some too.

Off The Floor

Posted on by Chewbode

I woke up this morning with a lot of energy and a good outlook on the day. Amazingly enough, I was pretty productive at work too. I think it’s a result of the fact I actually bought a bed yesterday – finally. For the last six months or so, I’ve been sleeping on a queen-sized air mattress on the floor (including while I was in Los Angeles). My back would ache from time to time, so it was a very uncomfortable situation.

I’m taking advantage of this good mental state and am doing the work I need to do for Allie tonight. I’ve been able to extend the delivery date by one more week. After which, I’m going to be relaxing a lot.

Buried

Posted on by Chewbode

Earlier today I listened to the American Cinematographer Podcast with Eduard Grau, the Director of Photography for the movie Buried. After hearing about how he shot the film, I was intrigued, so this evening I rented the movie on iTunes and gave it a watch. I have to say, it really kept me on the edge of my seat.

The premise of the story is that Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds) is buried alive in an old pine coffin. He has a few things in the box with him, including a cell phone that he uses to communicate with the outside world and a Zippo-style lighter.

Grau had to be incredibly creative with the shots and lighting throughout the production. He and the director, Rodrigo Cortes, really wanted to vary the scenes as much as possible (there are only so many ways to shoot coffin scenes). The result was very interesting, stylized shots that weren’t to artsy.

Reynolds was really good in the film and I definately found myself sympathizing with his plight. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience. Give it a watch when you can.

Blub, blub.

Posted on by Chewbode

A couple of week ago Arnold picked up a complete freshwater fish tank for me. I got it home, scrubbed it down and cleaned it real good, put new gravel in it, clean water, and changed out the filters.

Currently, I have two large plecos (they’re going away soon to be replaced with snails), two neon tetras, one lemon tetra, five orange tetras, and some blue fish – I’m not sure what it is yet.

Moving Data

Posted on by Chewbode

I’ve grown tired with the complexities of DotNetNuke for my personal site, so I brought the blog to Squarespace. I spent last night moving a bunch of data over. It’s painstaking, as there’s no real export feature on the old site, so I’m having to move each blog entry over one at a time. As soon as all the data comes over, then I’ll migrate the domain name.