49 Year Old Tank

We got similar airlines to Spirit down here in South Africa.

2 hour flight between Johannesburg and Cape Town. They do come down the aisle with a trolley loaded with Stuff. And with credit card machine in hand.

It is only a real big problem if your company booked you on the flight and you did not realize it before you got onto the plane. Thinking you will get a light meal and something to drink included. Now you sit there hungry and thirsty. Luckily its only a short 2 hour flight, but including time to get onto the plane and eventually off, by that time your stomach is eating away on your spine.

Been lucky enough to be on a few of these flights. I do not even know why they bother with the trolley as I never saw anybody buying anything.
 
I don't care about the money, it is just a pain to find your credit card while you are stuffed into that seat. Just charge me more for the ticket and don't bother me. When I check my luggage I would like to give them 20 bucks and say, let me have some peanuts or a water and don't bother me on the plane.
 
Tomorrow I have an emergency visit with my knee doctor. At this point I am supposed to be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, or at least walk around a Hardware store looking for a nose ring. But after about 50 yards, the thing locks up and I start walking like Neil Armstrong on the moon, and that was way before Michael Jackson invented Moon Walking.

I think maybe he left a loose toggle bolt or put the thing in backwards because I can walk backwards pretty good.

I hope he doesn't have to tear the thing out because I think he threw away my old knee so he can't put that one back.
I have a Caribbean trip coming up soon and I need two knees to dive. If you dive with only one knee working, you tend to swim in circles. :rolleyes:​
 
maybe let him do the other knee as well, then you will not swim in circles...
 
I just came back from the Knee guy and it seems only 1 or 2% of his patients get this. Guess which percent I am?

He said it is rare and I got a bad case of it. Thats Great!!!.
I wanted to be in the One percent with this.

It seems that a ligament that runs along side your knee is rubbing up against the titanium implant and it doesn't like it so it is irritated. So am I.

Now I have to take this heavy duty steroid and one of the side effects is Knee pain. You can't make this stuff up. :confused:

Then I have to go for knee injections. I thought the reason for getting a knee replacement was so you don't have to get any more knee injections.

But I guess this time the needle is filled with WD-40. :eek:
 
I should have done this myself because this is what happens when you hire someone. If you want it done right, you should do it yourself.
The only reason I didn't do that is that I need two hands to use the saw to cut out my old knee and I also need two hands to put my fingers in my ears because my screaming may scare me.
I also would have installed a grease fitting and maybe an adjustment screw. I would have gotten a good American made adjustment screw and not one from Home Depot where their screws come from China and are made out of old I Phone 3s.

If you guys don't have Home Depot, make up something.:cool:
 
We got Builders Warehouse...

Used to be great years ago, Now they are part of the Massmart group which in turn is own by the Walmart group...
 
We are in this new home and our tastes changed a lot since we were young during the Cretaceous period. We always had modern. I wanted my house to look like the StarShip Enterprise. I already look like Capt. Picard so what the heck.
But now we are going for more industrial/Steampunk.

We were looking for an vintage factory window for my wife's bathroom and we just received it. The frame is in very bad shape but I will not replace it as I am looking for that. I need to stabilize it so it doesn't fall apart as it is even hard to pick up because pieces fall off. The wood that doesn't fall off is cracked so much like an alligator that one neighbor ran away as I was carrying it in.

It has some design etchings in it and the center pulls open. I will install it in the room with LED strips behind it.

I am painging the frame black but I "alligatored" the paint on the frame so it still looks very old. I did some test pieces of wood to see what looks best. I don't want it to look like it was just painted but I also can't use the existing frame color which is sort of like the bottom of Columbus boat. It just doesn't go but they thing should look very cool.

This side of the frame is the "Good side"

IMG_2290_zpsujnlgqgd.jpg
 
Yesterday we went to the City to see the Grand Kids. That was uneventful, but when we got home My package arrived. It was a strip LED light for over my kitchen cabinets. (not everything is for fish tanks)
I ran the electric up there a few days ago (I know an electrician )

So I installed the thing and it really looks beautiful. It can change colors and also makes a nice night light when we watch Re runs of
the Sonny and Cher show. :cool:

Anyway, as we were watching Siren on TV (very cool show about Mermaids) my wife asked me to put it louder which I did.
The over the cabinet LEDs changed from white to blue. I did it again and they went to red. Every time I change the volume on the TV, the light changes color. This is very weird especially because to change the color with the supplied LED remote, you have to aim the thing at the light. But I have to aim the volume adjuster at the TV and the color changes.
I didn't go downstairs but maybe the fish tank is also changing colors, if it is, my fish will get PTSD

Now what do I do? :m15:
 
keep on changing channels until the kitchen is the right color. Then watch whatever channel you are on.
 
I just finished my new motorized Steam Punk lamp. It has a "fire" inside and when you turn the valve handles, it winds the mechanism on the Grand Fathers clock and spins the gears and tiny bicycle chain for about 5 minutes. The right valve handle moves the gong hammer. It can be dimmed.

Video


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So I went away for 2 days and last night after I came home I found my male Mandarin dead. This is very unusual because I never find a dead fish and my fish don't get sick. I "think" I saw him eating a few days ago but I didn't notice anything weird with him as he was full bodied and smiled a lot.
I did notice that he hasn't paid any attention to the really good looking female mandarin in a few months.
I also have not used my Mandarin feeder since I moved here 8 months ago because I just have not had time to set up my brine shrimp hatchery. But he was not thin at all so I don't think I needed it and there are bluestripe pipefish and a scooter bleeny that are also fat and fine after a few years.

I am not sure how long Mandarins live and I don't remember when I got this one so it could have been ten years or more ago. He outlived two females, one died from being egg bound and I think the other one jumped out. Maybe he broke her heart. I do have a lousy memory and have not kept a log book in decades. He was dead to long to do a necropsy but I am sure it would not show anything.

Normally when other fish die of old age, they stop eating for a few days and hide a lot. He was not eaten by bristle worms but Mandarins have a thick slime that keeps other fish from eating them and maybe bristle worms don't find them tasty. I have bristle worms that could finish off a halibut in a few hours.
 
I have been feeding an awful lot since I moved and now my nitrates creeped up to about 20, which is fine. Before I moved here I built a Sulphur denitrator just for an experiment but I never used it. It is a cool looking thing and I think, if I get time I will fire it up as an experiment.
I love to experiment. I live near the sea and can easily change as much water as I like especially now when the sea is full of ice bergs. :rolleyes:

I built this thing out of some sort of reactor, calcium I think. I couldn't install it sooner because my tank had no measurable nitrates. Now I have been feeding this stuff (I forget what it is) but it is red and mushy. I use it for my pipefish and anthius that don't eat larger food. The corals also seem to eat it. But it makes a mess and just this week I started rinsing off the "juices" from the stuff.

I think it is the cause of my fast nitrate spike. The nitrates are good because now, I can try to lower them with this thing. Or, of course, it may crash my tank and I will have to dump out all my dead fish and use the tank for duck billed platypuses. :eek:

 
A little while ago I took out my bicycle. I am supposed to ride the thing to exercise the knee, and the rest of me. I used to swim 3 times a week then after a few silly, but manly surgeries I had to give up swimming. Now I can do it again, but it is 20 degrees and my boat is in a snow drift.
So I rode the bike for about a mile or so and it was much easier than I thought. Then I noticed it was mostly down hill. Coming back was another story and I was straining to get back. My ears were also getting frostbite. So I was peddling and peddling, working harder and harder and I thought I was going to get a heart attack. If my lips were bigger I would have put them over my nose and given myself CPR.
Since my knee operation I haven't exercised to much and I need to get back into shape so I can resume my job as a Male model.
If my bicycle would have fit in an ambulance I would have called 911.
But I made it back. Sat down and had a nice glass of Grand Marnier and a piece of dark chocolate just for medicinal purposes of course. :drool5:
 
Last night I noticed one of my long growing corals bleached and croaked. Another one has a bleached part so I had to look for a test kit. I found an alk kit but I think it is old because it’s in a wooden box .

I used it anyway and the alk is so low that that it is only good for goldfish. I quickly searched through my tank and couldn’t find any goldfish.. OMG. I ran to my favorite LFS. And their goldfish were getting last rites so I figured I had to go with my saltwater stuff. I needed to drastically raise the alk.

I had some 2 part stuff and quickly mixed it up. I dumped a bunch in and watched the white cloud spread around the tank.

A half an hour later I dumped more in. (I really like to watch that white cloud).

I tested the alk. OMG. It only raised it half a point so I dumped in more. Then more. I got the alk up to where I can keep kissing Gouramies. I then had to leave to watch my Grand Kids so I am not sure if my tank will make it to 49 years old.

Today I will get home and see what I have. If anything.
Apparently the Long Island Sound water is very low in alk so if the tank is still running I should test it next time I change it.

That, or look for Goldfish :D:cool:
 
This reminds me of a story. Everything reminds me of a story and 10 years ago I may have posted this on here. When I was about 14 or so I lived in Queens New York. At that time it was mostly empty lots and I used to walk through them to go to school. (Now Queens is more crowded than midtown Manhattan) There was even a horse stable next to my school. Now to find a horse, you have to drive 80 miles out on Long Island to where I live now or look at the ingredients on a dog food can.
:rolleyes:


Anyway, in those days I had a load of friends and none of us was Sissy Snowflakes and we spent all of our time outside. In one of those lots there was a defunct greenhouse that must have went out of business many years before and all the windows were broken. Of course we helped break the windows.

Next to that thing we decided to build an underground fort. That's what kids did then as there was only 7 channels on TV, all in black and white and TVs had tubes so the picture wasn't very good and there was nothing on for kids.

So we got shovels. Shovels are something your Grand Father can tell you about. They had a wooden handle and a metal blade. There was no USB port, they had no batteries, and they didn't do anything on there own. You actually had to pick it up to use it. (they are heavy so you may have to get an old person to help you)

You put the metal part in the dirt (dirt is stuff outside your front door. You may see some if you have to travel to your mail box to get your new I Phone 15. It's the brown stuff that trees are stuck in. )

You put your foot on the metal part of the shovel and push down, then you pick up the dirt. If you do this long enough you make a hole and you may even get some muscles, (Those are bumps on your arms, girls used to like boys with muscles and didn't much like Girly men)

After a couple of weeks we had our hole dug big enough to put on the roof. That was made from logs, which come from trees. Then we put on plywood (made from flat trees
:rolleyes:
) Then you cover that with dirt.
When it was done we went inside. This was very cool.
In the fort we
made these rubber band guns in there that shot pieces of Linoleum (Google it)
Then it rained. So we had a swimming hole, a very muddy swimming hole. Eventually we got tired of that and we grew up a little and got cars, girlfriends and forgot about that underground fort. When we didn't have girlfriends we spent virtually all of our time looking for girls. That's what men did then. When we found a girl that we wanted to go out with, we had to speak to her with our mouth and actually look at her, face to face. I know this is a hard concept to understand but our thumbs were big and muscular so even if we had a phone we wouldn't go on "So many Fish", "E Harmony", "Match . Com" or "Who wants to Date a Nerdy looking guy . com" like so many people have to do today.
If you told a girl she looked nice, she didn't get mad and think you were a Perv. She blushed and said Thank You. And didn't think you were a sexist. WE didn't even have the term sexist.
When you took the girl out, you opened the door for her and you paid for the meal. The entire meal, tip and all. If you were not a Girly Man you knew how to talk to the girl and compliment her and not talk about yourself and show her your muscles or your I Phone.
:cool:


Back to the fort. Eventually
trees grew on top of it and it looked like the rest of the lot. I was working at a Gulf Gas station across the street from there and they were going to build a shopping center there with an A&P. We had no Supermarkets then (or Supermodels that I can remember). All we had was a deli so our Moms were thrilled.

Anyway, one day I was watching the bulldozer. (real Men love to watch bulldozers because they are big heavy machines that make a lot of noise and break things)
The bulldozer was leveling the land and knocking all the trees down.
As the driver backed up, I noticed that the blade of the thing went straight up in the air and the machine disappeared.
It was then that I remembered the underground fort.
:eek:


I ran over there to see if the driver was OK as he was climbing out of the hole. Not in a real good mood and bulldozer drivers were Real Men with Tattoos and all. He was fine but he had to come to the gas station I was working in to make a phone call. Cell phones were not invented and if they were, they would have been made out of wood like our TVs were.

They had to bring in a big crane to get that bulldozer out. That was real cool to watch.
:D
 
Last night, or actually this morning at 3:00am I hear: "YOU HAVE A REMINDER, THE COMPUTER GEEK IS COMING OVER TO FIX THE COMPUTER"
It was the Alexa on the other side of my house. When I set the reminder I neglected to tell it PM and not AM and usually the thing asks me but I was probably sipping a glass of Grand Marnier and didn't pay attention to it and said something like : "Whatever".

10 Seconds later the Alexa in our bedroom says the same thing. (This is a condo and not real big but my 2 Alexa's seem to be in different time zones because they tell me the same thing 10 seconds apart.)

I quickly get out of bed so as not to wake my wife and I put my mouth right near it's "ear" and whisper. "Alexa, Shut Up"
The thing lights up and says: "SORRY, I DIDN'T GET THAT. YOU CAN ASK ME THINGS LIKE, HOW DO YOU SHUT THE DOOR, OR WHATS UP OR ASK THE TIME IN COOS BAY OREGON OR, WHAT WAS GEORGE WASHINGTON'S SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER" WAS THAT HELPFUL?"

I looked around and my wife just stirred a little. I again whispered to Alexa, "Alexa, thank you, go to sleep, stop talking.
Alexa again lit up and said:

I DIDN'T GET THAT, I CAN PLAY AMBIENT SOUNDS TO PUT YOU TO SLEEP OR LOUD SOUNDS TO WAKE YOU UP. I CAN PLAY ROY ORBISON MUSIC OR TELL YOU FACTS ABOUT NANCY PELOSI. DID THAT ANSWER YOUR QUESTION? "

Alexa, No and thank you.
"SORRY, I COULDN'T HELP YOU, BUT THANKS FOR THE FEEDBACK:

So I finally got it to shut up.

Then I hear the other Alexa in the dining room but it is far away so I run there to see what it wants. It is still reminding me of the computer Geek.
I close the bedroom door and hope we can't hear it. But these doors were probably from Home Depot and made out of three or four layers of Scott toilet tissue. The good three ply ones but it didn't matter, I can still hear her.

Then I hear: BEEP. Aparently if Alexa thinks you didn't hear her, she just Beeps all night about every 2 minutes. BEEP,,,,,,,,,BEEP,,,,,,BEEP ETC.
Try to sleep with that. So I go to the thing and say :Alexa, Thank you, now be quiet. She says "THANK ME FOR WHAT? YOU HAVE NO MORE REMINDERS, WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR YOUR REMINDERS.

Nooooooooooo. Alexa, just go to sleep.

"WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO PLAY AMBIENT SOUNDS BLAH, BLAH,BLAH "

I unplugged her and go back to bed

"BEEP,,,,,BEEP,,,,,,BEEP"
Every 2 minutes "BEEP,,,BEEP,,,,BEEP.
I put the pillow over my head. I thought maybe I just dreamt that I unplugged her so I go to check. Yep, the plug is on the floor so I head back to my bed.

"BEEP"

Oh no. Now what do I do? It's 3:05 am and I don't want to get up. I figure maybe I am getting abducted by Aliens or worse "Liberals".
I go back into the kitchen and again check Alexa. She is dead. Then I look around and on the stove, the timer is saying, "Dinner is done" and beeping.

My wife shutoff the oven yesterday but apparently the times was still on.
So now I am not sure if I am awake typing this, or in an Alien Space Ship in a galaxy far far away. :eek:



 
First world problems...
At 3 this morning my whole house was without electricity power. In fact my whole neighborhood had no power. And the same scenario was all over our country, about 6% of the country had to lie in bed listening to generators running drowning out the sound of hungry mosquitoes...

Best of it all, the same will happen AGAIN tomorrow morning at 3 for me. Yeah!

How I wish that I only had Alexa bothering me.
 
Paul B said:
Why is the power out and why will it be out tomorrow?
Click to expand...
Our power grid is under pressure and will collapse if they don't cut the power at certain stages in certain areas. We call it load shedding (yes, its an actual thing with a name and maybe it will be in the Oxford dictionary next year).
Please can you call Oprah and let her know then she can maybe phone a friend and sort this out or send her number to our people in charge so that she can explain to them how to fix this.:whistling:
 
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