Maturity Ensues

Sherry (my best friend in the world) just got a promotion with a scary title: Senior Manager of Strategic Planning. Sure, some of my cohort (myself included) have grown up to become "managers" but I think Sherry wins the scary-grown-up award. (My friend Beata who went to medical school doesn't count, cause she was a scary grown up even in high school.) Growing up is scary. Maybe that's why it's taking me 10 years to finish college.

I finished a great book last night: "Thursday Next: First Among Sequels." It definitely made good on its subtitle. I've often felt that the rest of the Thursday Next series ("Lost in a Good Book," "The Well of Lost Plots," and "Something Rotten") never lived up to the hype of the first novel in the series, "The Eyre Affair." But the latest book, TN:FAS was really great. It was full of the inside book jokes and blatant puns that made the first book so wonderful. While the other three books were a little bit off, they were definitely still enjoyable, just not as polished as "The Eyre Affair." Despite minor flaws, all of his books are consistently funny, and I'd rather read Jasper Fforde's worst offerings than just about anyone else's best efforts.

To be clear, his books are not for everyone. If you are not well-versed in classic literature, you might still enjoy his books, but you'll be missing out on most of the jokes. And if you don't like puns at all, I highly suggest you avoid everything he has written. I, who love both the classics and a good pun, find his writing laugh-out-loud funny, and recommend his books to all of my bibliophile friends.

In addition to "The Kite Runner," which Bernie was kind enough to loan me, I purchased several books to read on my vacation (which starts on Saturday):

• "Prep" by Curtis Sittenfield [I bought this one cause it looked good]
  
• "Stormy Weather" by Carl Hiassen [this one to reminisce about FL]
  
• "The Phantom Tollbooth" by Norton Juster [never read it, love the movie]
  
• and "The Neverending Story" by Michael Ende [never read it, love the movie]

I imagine those four books will get me through the two weeks at my father's house, although I may need to pick up some more for the trip to Alaska. I'll be sure to keep my blog updated while I'm in Colorado, cause I'll mostly be sitting around and golfing. :)

In aquarium news, one of my emerald crabs molted. I thought for a minute that he might have died, cause the shell was picked clean, but he had only molted as he turned up this morning. I added some iodine (despite my intention not to dose my tank with any supplements) out of concern for the ability of my tank members to mature properly.

The age of aquariums

Here are two photos of my aquarium: one from May, when I first got the livestock (top), and one from last week, when I added the two emerald crabs (bottom). As you can see, the progression of coralline algae has been quite wonderful, despite the fact that I am using Compact Fluorescent lighting rather than the preferred Metal Halide lighting. Obviously my "dream" tank would have MH lighting, but I'm not quite willing to spend $400 on lighting alone. Not to mention the recurring cost of replacing the bulbs.

Also, I've added ZERO supplements to the tank. The people who sell "live rock" would have you believe that you need to add calcium and iodine to encourage the growth of this stuff, but I contend that you do not. I did use a synthetic sea salt mix that contains supplemental minerals to make the seawater, but I have not added additional chemicals to this tank, whatsoever.

So, the time difference between the photo at the top and the photo at the bottom is approximately three months. I'm starting to see some less desirable macro algae (which my emerald crabs have eradicated) and some more desirable tiny sealife (likely amphipods). I think that I've also got some tiny hard coral growing, but because I'm not dosing the tank with any supplements, I doubt that it will thrive. I'm not making this tank to keep corals, so I'm not worried about it.

Emerald Crabs do the job!

All my bubble algae is gone! The emerald crabs seemed like they were only interested in the smaller "bubbles" so I plucked off the bigger ones from the picture last posting, and just let the crabs go to town on the smaller ones. The problem appears to have been eradicated in just three days. Now I'm worried I'm going to have to feed the little guys, cause there just isn't enough algae to sustain them. I have such high-choice problems.

Mike loves the new crabs. They're on the ugly side, and they're certainly much tougher looking than the little red hermits. Of course, they might be mean to the future inhabitants of my tank (I'm building this tank specifically to house a pair of cardinalfish and a single psychodelic mandarin) so they'll be on probation when the new fishies join the fold. I'm still a good six months away from getting the mandarin, but I'll probably get the cardinals in the next couple months.

I'm also going to have to begin my extensive pod culture to feed the mandarin in the next month or so. That will be interesting. I'm planning on using some Oceanpods to get the cultures going, and then seeding the tank and keeping a set of several sustaining cultures going to feed the mandarin. All told I estimate that I'll need a segmented 10 gallon refugium of pods culturing for 6 months to be able to feed just one of these 3 inch fish. They're pretty voracious, and very selective feeders.

Per the request of the other half of my Hudosh readership (Hi Steven) I'll try to add some more photos of the tank to my posts. Right now, I'm too lazy to set up the camera, but I just took pictures four days ago, so the rest of them will get on there eventually.

Superbad = super awesome

Superbad was so good! It reminded me of a John Hughes movie. I've been waiting for someone to start making 80's-style schlocky comedies that are both heart-warming and ludicrous. Thank you, Seth Rogen, you have satisfied my comedy cravings.

I've added some new critters to my aquarium: two new Emerald Green crabs to take care of the increasingly undesirable bubble algae problem I've been having. When I only had one or two bubbles it was cute, now that there are more than ten I just couldn't handle it any more, so I bought "Brownie" and "Greenie" the emerald crab twins. Presumably at least one of them will have an appetite for valonia and I'll wind up with fewer of the pesky macro algae, otherwise, I'm going to have to take the rocks out and pluck them myself. :(

On a happier note, my summer job has come to an end, so I'll be posting more frequently. It's usually more bittersweet when it's over, but with all the health problems and trickle-down nonsense, I'm definitely feeling more relieved than sad. Now I just need to write a 20 page paper for my Spring internship, get an endoscopy, travel to Colorado to visit my dad, and then set-sail on the cruise of a lifetime, all before classes begin again September 26th. Endoscopy notwithstanding, the last month of my summer could easily make up for the first two. I'm pretty excited.

So, for those of you who haven't heard from me all summer: I'm sorry!!! Let's catch up sometime in the next two weeks.