New Residents

Arn swung by tonight and brought me a whole bunch of fish, a ton of fake plants, a pump, and some scenery. I finally took the 20 gallon tank out of the back of the truck (it’s been in there for about a month), cleaned it out and filled it with water and threw some fake plants. Even though this is just a temporary setup, I still treated and pH balanced the water. I’ll tear this and the 10g tank apart next weekend and then everyone will live happily in the same tank.

Tomorrow I’m heading up to Alex and Nel’s to watch the kids for them for the weekend while they go off to St. Augustine to celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary. I’m so happy to be able to do this – I’ve even lined up a little surprise for them.

I should be at their house around 3:00pm, and then they’re out of there soon after not to be home until Monday afternoon. I have a TON of activities planned with the kids. I’m SO excited to be spending time with them, acting like a kid, and just having fun and relaxing. And, I’m able to give Alex and Nel a great time by themselves on a special weekend to boot. Love them all!

Discs

Stopped at Best Buy this morning and picked up a copy of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves: Game of the Year Edition and started to play it a bit. Gotta say: I didn’t think this franchise could get any better. I’ve only made it three chapters into the game, but it looks and plays amazing. I hope Naughty Dog continues this series beyond Uncharted 3 (due in November). Added it to the Museum too.

Got a copy of National Lampoon’s Vacation on Blu-ray too.

Think I’m going to watch Kick Ass on NetFlix in a minute.

Pancakes, Pucks, and pH

Friday night I had dinner with a former co-worker at Hooters. We caught up on a ton of things for a few hours and I generally enjoyed myself.

Saturday, Alex and the kids met with me for breakfast at Tampa North, who was having a pancake breakfast to support the Civil Air Patrol chapter that is based out of the airport. I took the kids down to the flight line to see the planes and we all went over to see a helicopter that came. Generally, I think it was a great turnout, as several pilots flew in for the event.

Alex invited me over to watch the Lightning game that night (the first of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Bruins), so I ended up hanging out all day in the Luts/Wesley Chapel area. I flew, went shopping, and had some great pork chops at Primebar. Around 7:00pm, I got to Alex & Nel’s. I brought a couple presents for the kids, including a couple of books I got that show how to draw comic book characters. Alex and I had talked about how Brandon needed to evolve to the next level of drawing, so I got the books that I had used when younger. I think he’ll learn a lot from them and Alex said he’s going to work with Brandon to learn the techniques outlined in the books. We had some beers, pizza, talked a lot and watched the game. I love hanging out there, and it’s been a while. Had a tone of fun.

Today was work, work, work. I did take a little time out to pop Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune into the PS3 adn finish it. Overall, great game.

And speaking of games, I added the video games section of the Museum up here. Yeah, I’m rebuilding all that from the old site.

Did the usual to the fish tank today by swapping out five gallons of water from a jug Arn gave me Thursday night. I tested the pH from his jug, and it came out to about 6.0, which is pretty acidic. However, my tank has been running around 7.4 lately, and I was hoping the new infusion would balance the pH naturally. It did: 7.0.

Hammers, Soup, and Bits

I took Friday night off to grab some dinner at Chipotle and go see Thor with Arn. We decided to not see it in 3D, as I’ve heard it’s not worth the extra money. All-in-all, I thought it was a pretty awesome movie. Definitely portrayed Thor’s power well. And was a lot of fun to watch this franchise come to life. Asguard was beautiful. Best part: The sound that the Destroyer made was incredible and really projected how menacing of a device it is.

Saturday I went with Arn to Auburndale to go pick up a large saltwater tank he wanted to get. I helped him take it apart, load it in the truck, and unload it at his place. We then grabbed a bite to eat at Holy Hog BBQ.

After running a few errands on Saturday, I ended up coming home to work on Allie’s project and spent most of the day Sunday doing the same. Oh, I did make a big pot of some simple vegetable soup with mushrooms, celery, rice, and onions too.

Upswing

General health issues aside, I actually felt better today than I have in a while. Probably not coincidence that this was the first day I took my new multi-vitamins. I’m sure my energy will return over the next few days. I just hope I start feeling better.

I celebrated Cinco de Mayo by working all night on Allie’s project and making a bean, steak, and salsa burrito.

I’ve been having tons of headaches the past few weeks. I hope it’s the stress I’ve been under with all the work. If it doesn’t go away after I’m done working this weekend, I probably should go see a doctor.

Here’s a fun picture I found on failblog.org:

Image not available

Feeling… Eh.

So, lately I’ve been noticing that I have very little energy. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I’ve been working non-stop for weeks, haven’t been eating right, and my workouts aren’t long enough. The workload will taper off very soon, as I’ll finish Allie’s project in the next few nights. As for eating, well, I need to do better on that (not today though – I just ordered some hot wings). And I intensified my workout tonight to see if that helps. I also stopped off at CVS to pick up some multi-vitamins with lots of B12 and B6 in them.

I get home, walk in the door and look at the fish tank and see the two Moneywort plants I bought floating on the surface. What the fuck. These plecostomus’ have to go this weekend. I went to Target for a couple minutes today to see if they had pH conditioner for the tank to get the levels down to around 6.8, but no luck. I’ll have to get that on Saturday I guess.

Well, back to work…

Lost Another One

Was able to get a bunch of sleep last night for the first time in quite a while. Feel a lot sharper mentally today, although the coffee I have will no doubt help that along.

Last night I tested the fish tank and found the pH to be around 7.6, which is high. This may explain the recent die-offs I’ve been having, including another victim this morning – an orange tetra. This guy had been sick for a bit, I believe, as he had some weird molting going on. This weekend, I’m getting rid of the plecos and getting some new algae eaters along with a kit to bring the pH down to a more acidic level (6.8 or so).

I played through some Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune last night since I didn’t have any work to do. With the PlayStation Network being hacked recently, I also spent some time changing some passwords on some accounts around the inter-webs. Me thinks Sony’s gonna get sued big time over this one.

Relief

I think I have the night off. Tried to do some work, and the system that the vendor was supposed to fix is still broken. Never been more relieved that software is broken.

Think I’ll cook some smoked sausage and play some Gran Turismo 5.

And for the record, the military killed Osama bin Laden yesterday. Just figued I’d mention it here to bookmark it.

Cook and Work

Woke up and rinsed the beans… That sounds funny…

Anyway, put together the ingredients for a simple bean soup in the crock pot. Pinto, lentil, and black beans with mushrooms, celery, and onions all seasoned with onion power, salt, and pepper, and a little garlic. Cranked the setting to high and let ‘er rip. Should have a good soup for dinner tonight.