2016 - A year to make things fun

This year has been the year of doing. Doing around the house and the most fun doing outside of the house. We've been a few places and have plans to go to others but the around the house stuff has been the most fun. A few builds of things like a door i owed my wife for I don't know the last five years or so and several little festivals that were cheap to free but loads of fun for the little girl.  This is the way life should be, minor to major concerns ignored in the background but family and doing put first over the other things that really don't mean much. This last couple weeks I've been working on taking the three aquariums we have and merging them into a single Freshwater tank of about 120 gallons. To do this I had one plan but both impatience, excitement and dollars are stopping me form pursuing the initial plan. So I'm changing it up a bit, a more simplified split tank than I originally envisioned but sometimes skill level and dollar amount change the plan, this is life.

The current Idea is taking the 120 gallon aquarium and spiting it into two, one about 30 gallons and the other well 90-ish. This has been done with a small piece of plex with many 1/4" holes drilled through it. Thinking the one side will have feeders and plants mostly I want an occasional fish to find its way through the holes and randomly feed the main tank. That portion is set up and cycling the tank. This tank is huge, I mean for my living space it is giant. I set it about 4 1/2 inches off the wall which is more than normal for any tank I know. I have it up on a mat with holes, the rubber ones used in garages for work areas or restaurant kitchens, I figure this will allow any minor water to evaporate off the wood floors underneath. It has a sump with an overflow box, this isn't my first choice but I can not drill the tank, issue is the overflow is 4 3/4" thick, so I can not put it behind the tank. I also made the mistake of not water testing the overflow before installing it on the side, well Learned that lesson as it dripped, I was obviously watching it to check for leaks but still upsetting since it was a used tank, I just assumed. Another reason to double check others work. I replaced the bulk heads that were causing the leak and now besides some minor tightening the sump is working well. Just used some CPVC and a couple hose connectors to bring it back into the tank.

I have a bunch of round pond stone and coral stone for the layout currently but do not think I'm going to permanently use either. Maybe the coral because it is more holey than than the pond round stones and more of a white color for the look i think I'm going to go for. Right now the 30 side has black substrate and is planted with some of the plants and a piece of drift wood I had in the old tank. Some Corey's and feeders are swimming happily in there with a few ghost shrimp cycling the overall tank. The 90 side will have Africans, not sure 100% on what type but I'm leaning towards Malawi Peacock's.  Well more to come as the ideas and time to write stuff up appears. Cycle cycle cycle..
Thanks,

Almost 2

Well the little girl is almost two now. Does that make me old? Doubtful. She has changed so much in the last year. It's truly amazing, and wonderful how she is growing. You can see the little girl getting smarter and understanding more and more. You can see her frustration when her daddy can't understand what shes trying to say because while she may think she saying something specific, my ears are incapable of understanding the words. Like every other woman it's the mans fault they can't understand.

 

Thanks to my wonderful sister we have some great 2 year old pictures. Well technically shes 1 and 9/10 but whatever, right? Here are a couple for your enjoyment:

 

As you can plainly see she is awesome. Mommy is planning her Birthday bash, and it is going to be an awesome one. Thanks again to the awesome sisters connections there shall be a bounce house within budget. Cool stuff there. Benefit of being an outgoing freely communicating person.

 

Now onto the life report. I'm well into school now. Only 2 classes so the workload while heavy in my mind in reality isn't that bad at all. A good start to the return to the education wheel. I may even attempt 3 classes next session. Dropping back into the school world is a little different. They say we are preparing you for the real world, but being in the real world already, they are wrong. Out of all the places I've worked Not a single one has been even closely similar to academia.

 

Academia is truly a world of its own. Other things going on, some plans didn't end up working out as I had hoped, but life is what life is. So other routes I am pursuing. We will see when, where and how life's road is paved. As of now it is the same but with the focus on this great little girl and school. I don't mind those at all. so now to come to an abrupt end with this blog as I have work to do that is calling. Enjoy your day and life.



 

Thoughts

My thoughts so scattered fragmented and random. The stuff in my head travels faster than dark, light and all the rest. Anyways. I started a new blog about stuff i'm doing at work\working with. Most wont care and I'm more less just doing it for me. It will grow as I grow and learn about that particular topic. As a matter of fact I think i may make a few more about other topics that I sit and learn about to solve some stupid issue I'm having.

Back to the thoughts. I was looking through old blog posts mostly about Riley. I sit there and look at those pictures and think, That's not the same girl... I find it amazing how she has changed so much so quickly. I was reading the post about the words she knew only a couple of months ago. Now she can count to 10 (kind of, she says the words but doesn't know what shes doing). She can say her ABC's (Kind of again). So many more words. Words that are starting to come together into sentences. She sings songs she hears often. You can tell she likes some things and dislikes others.

She is a little person and it freaks me out a little. How does it happen? Are we doing the right stuff? Plans never really work out and I always want to do more for the girl. We try to treat her like a little kid and a grown up at the same time. It's impossible to do the right thing honestly because everyone has a different opinion of what the right thing is. So I guess I'll just keep doing. If she turns out wonderful the Great!. If she turns out horrible well then I'm sorry. I think she will turn out pretty doggone good though.

I have on in the background the show through the wormhole with morgan freeman. It's distracting, but it brings up more things I've thought about and if I was smarter I would probably pursue. I always thought we were just a piece of a bigger being. Amazes me to this day that we look like our models of molecules that make us up. Why can't we just be a very small part of a unimaginable human or ferret like creature. One of an infinite number of universes, cosmoses, If time is relative it wouldn't mean a thing to us. A billion years to us could be a second to something so large. Anyways see how my brain jumps.. Don't even want to get into the cubits they are talking about now.....


I'm out enjoy....

RileyVideosBlog

Video Blog entry - Riley's first birthday. Look for more videos to be added as I get them.

Video of Riley Eating her smash cake


The light version of her smash cake



Riley Enjoying her pre birthday storm game


Hope you all enjoy....

Here is the link to a large number of pictures..

Flickr Images

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1st Birthday

It's an interesting thing to know my daughter is turning 1 in 2 months. The time really does seem to fly by. Looking at her baby picture you see all the changes just in her face. Its amazing. Now she stands on her own, crawls, plays with toys. To think a couple of months before that she could hold anything without her death monkey grip being used. Now she can pick up tiny objects and put them directly in he mouth. It is awesome and scary at the exact same time. I always look forward to the next day and what new things it bring. Shes just today for the first time actually said stuff to me through the phone. Words?  no not at all but they were for her.

Back to the birthday, we've reserved a pavilion at a local park, one close to the playground that has swings and all that fun stuff for little ones. No big big plans other than some cake and snacks. Created the invites, still need to have them printed. Apparently they are to low quality for wally world to print them as post cards... That's ok printing them as pictures saves me 70 cents per card, and we were considering mailing them in an envelope anyways. Melissa should be designing the rest of the fun, she has been excited to do this for months. Now that I've made the reservation she will go into over drive....

I have no doubt I'll post more before then, I have a couple food things I'd like to try... Good day everyone and enjoy life...