New Fish

I put a bunch of new fish in the aquarium today.

One of the fish that I added was some sort of long finned tetera whose name already escapes me (pictured to the right).

I also added a bleeding heart tetera pictured below. You can kind of see the red spot on it that gives it, its name.









When adding fish to an aquarium it is not unusual to have conflict between the new arrivals and the existing residents. Today was particularly bad. Within five minutes one of the rabrorsas that I added was gutted by one of the gouramis, ironically the one that had so recentley been a victim of bullying. The other rarborsa is now hiding behind the heater.

I also added a silver hatchet fish, which unfortunately I have yet to take a good picture of

What Does an Urban Planner Do?

Inevitabley when I tell people that I am an urban planner they ask "what does a planner do?" Well now I have any easy way to answer them. I just finshed a blow by blow report of an eight month planning. So if you have ever wondered what a planner does this will tell you.

Sun Room

Recently we got new furniture for the sun room. It has dramatically improved the usability of the room. The old table and chairs that we had in there were not bad, but for whatever reason the room was just not comfortable so we never would up using the room.

We were at Kohls the other day when found this patio set, composed of two chairs and a love seat. It was extremely comfortable and we really liked how it looked. Unfortunately they wanted about $600 for the set, a lot more than we were prepared to spend.

However they were having a 10% off sale which brought the price down, but not enough. My wife turns to me at tells me that she thinks that she can get an even better price on it. I had no idea what she was talking about but told her to go ahead and see what she could do.

She then went and got the manager and began to haggle. I wandered off
at this point. I am no haggler and would just cramp her style. After about a half hour of looking at running shoes, she calls me over and told me that gotten manage to reduce the price to $250. She got them to knock back the price for, it being a floor model, having a dents, and opening a store credit card (since closed).

I have to say that she impresses me, who even knew you could haggle at stores like that? This is not the first time I have seen her do this. We got our fish tank cabinet at a much reduced price after bargaining with manage at PetSmart. I am so different, to me prices have always been like the speed of light, unchangeable. Good thing I married someone smarter than me.

The sun room is now a lovely place to spend time. I can hardly wait for cooler weather so that we can use it even more.

More Fun With the New Camera

I love letting the dogs run off leash. They are such natural born runners. They just just look so natural flying across the desert floor. I only wish that I could run so natural and free.

With my old camera I had a hard time taking pictures of the dogs when they were in motion. So this morning I took the dogs and the new camera and went out into the empty field behind my neighborhood and let them fly. While
they ran around I tested out the new camera. I am very happy with the results. I was able to capture Zack & Berkeley in their full high speed glory.

Now that I have a new camera and as a result good pictures, I have dusted off my old disused Flickr account and have started to add pictures again.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pikap347/

New Camera

We got a new camera tonight, so Berkeley hammed it up.




















I also got two fish for my aquarium, a red and blue female beta, so far no fish warfare.

Miscellaneous

An update on this post, the gouramis are now getting, even being able to coexist within inches of each other without fighting. I wonder how fish are able work disputes like this out. Their quick resolution of the conflict makes we wonder if in some ways gourami are smarter than people.

I am going to add another fish and plant to aquarium this weekend, despite the resolution of the conflict I think I will back off my plan to add another gourami for a while. Right now I think want something red, both fish and plant. I will have to see what PetSmart has along these lines.

Keeping with the aquarium theme my wife is picking up a fully equipped 55 gallon aquarium that she found for $50 in classifieds today. She going to set it up in her classroom next year. I think that every science classroom needs some sort of live creatures in it. I can't wait to set it up for her.

I also would like to bitch about the temperature that they have been keeping the office. It is so cold that about half the people are wearing sweaters. Considering that it is over 110 degrees out right now, this is beyond farcical. I shudder to think of the amount of electricity that it takes to keep a building 40 to 50 degrees cooler than the outside temperature.

Happy Anniversery

Today is my wife and I’s fourth wedding anniversary. We got married on a riverboat on the Mississippi in New Orleans. A month prior we had moved to Louisiana from Peoria, Illinois, so that I could attend grad school. We bought our first house in Madisonville, across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans, so we decided have the wedding in Louisiana, rather than in California or Colorado, where our families where. Also a riverboat wedding in New Orleans just sounded like fun.

The one downside to having the wedding in Louisiana is that all of our friends and family had to travel from several states away to attend. However because our friends and family are so spread out, no matter where we had the wedding a large percentage would be traveling from several states away it seemed to be the most fair just make everyone travel. Besides a trip to New Orleans is not exactly a hardship. Though the required travel kept the wedding on the small side, a surprising number of people did make the trek. The nice was that all the people that we truly cared about made the trip.

From what I can remember Bourbon Street was a hell of a place to have a bachelor party. I have never had random strangers buy drinks like that before. My wife reports a similar experience at her bachelorette party which was also held on Bourbon Street. Bourbon Street really is perfect for these sorts of events

For our wedding we charted the John James Audubon, which normally ferries tourists from the aquarium upriver to the zoo. The ceremony started with the ship tied up in front of the aquarium, the ceremony was preformed by the ship’s captain. Interestingly I was watching show on the history channel about the Mississippi River a few years later, and the Captain that married us was interviewed, which was cool. Once the ceremony was done, the ship went on couple hour cruised down the Mississippi while we had reception on board.

An outdoor ceremony on the first day of summer in New Orleans, showed our total ignorance of the climate that we were moving into. The heat and humidity were wicked, however I was so amped up for wedding that I didn’t notice despite wearing a tuxedo, however I think our guest were grateful for the brief nature of our ceremony, after which everyone retreated below deck for the reception. As the ship departed for the reception cruise one of New Orleans wandering jazzmen played an impromptu serenade on the wharf.

An outdoor ceremony on the first day of summer in New Orleans, showed our total ignorance of the climate that we were moving into. The heat and humidity were wicked, however I was so amped up for wedding that I didn’t notice despite wearing a tuxedo, however I think our guest were grateful for the brief nature of our ceremony, after which everyone retreated below deck for the reception. As the ship departed for the reception cruise one of New Orleans wandering jazzmen played an impromptu serenade on the wharf.

The reception was blur of congratulations. One thing that do remember is how tasty the cake was. Usually wedding cakes tend to rather vile tasting, but this one good. People went back for second and thirds, to point when I went back for seconds the cake was gone. I also remember how good the jazz band we had for the reception was. It seemed like the cruise/reception was over in a heartbeat, though I can’t complain at all about what followed that night.

I have now been married for years, without question they have been the best four years of my life. I am still deeply in love with my wife, without question marrying her was the best thing that I have ever done. To me this is what made that day so magic