Category Archives: Fish

Furnishing the New Home

Posted on March 2, 2008 | 3 Comments

I’ve been sick three times this year, enough to put me into the bed. Normally I am only sick once a year for half a week. This is getting annoying. This latest bout took me home a couple hours early on Friday, leaving me in bed until Saturday morning. I would have stayed there, but this weekend was our weekend to move our furniture to the new home.

Living room couches are gone. The piano is my brother’s to take.

The dining room set is gone too.

The goldfish barrel was a much easier move than I originally anticipated. All the goldfish are doing great in their new home. The 20 gallon tank made the move as well, and all the Dwarf Crayfish are doing fine as well.

Almost all the big pieces of furniture have been moved, but that is the easy part. Living twenty two years in one place, you collect a lot of junk. We have multiple boxes in the garage and attic of Transformers, Star Wars, and other toys that my brother and I used to play with when we were younger. My mom also saved boxes of our school awards. For some unknown reason my brother’s name is on twice as many boxes as mine, probably just a mislabeling. All these little things are going to be a pain in the butt to move.

Michelle enjoyed the view from the new house.

Michelle was tired from all the moving she didn’t do. She was kind enough to test out my new bed.

→ 3 Comments

Posted in Fish, Photo

Tagged house, ill

Where Have the Fish Gone?

Posted on January 10, 2008 | 3 Comments

It’s been over a month since I’ve written anything about my fish. No, I haven’t given up on the hobby. Things are just as addicting as ever. I even have some new arrivals showing up in the mail in the next day or two. So if I’m still obsessed with fish keeping, why am I not sharing my joy?

I actually bought another domain dedicated to my fish keeping hobby. I don’t know yet if that means I will spare you my fish stories here. I may just duplicate my entries. Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to present to you, Box of Water! Although most of you aren’t into fish like I am, let me know what you guys think.

→ 3 Comments

Posted in Fish, Geek

Tagged Fish, website

Another Weekend. This One I Remember.

Posted on December 9, 2007 | 2 Comments

Another weekend has passed, and tomorrow it’s back to the grindstone. I wasn’t smashed out of my head this weekend, so I remember it. Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of pictures to prove what went on, or what didn’t go on this weekend. I dropped my camera Friday night and it’s out of service. You’ll just have to take my work that there was no gay sex.

Friday was Julieann’s birthday, so Michelle, Alice, and I headed to Blue Velvet to hang out with a bunch of kids that graduated same year we did, but from high school and not college. It was fun to get out to a new place, but at one point Julieann and Christine started getting belligerent and directing their towards me and saying, “Stupid Randall! Who wants to be a doctor anyway?” Women…

Here are the girls with the birthday girl.

Here are a set of lights that I thought looked like toasted marshmallows. This was one of the last pictures I took with my camera as I dropped it after leaving the party.

Saturday was fish care day. For the 90% of you that don’t care about this, please skip to the next paragraph. I cleaned up my tanks, and for the first time ever I got pearling from my Java Moss. Pearling is the term used when plants produce oxygen bubbles during the photosynthesis process. It’s supposed to be pretty common in high light fertilized tanks, but this is my low light tank with no fertilizers. Still, it’s a success.

Those tiny dots are oxygen bubbles. This was taken with my mom’s camera.

Saturday night I headed out again with Michelle and Alice to a house party held by one of Des’ friends. It was a decent sized house, but it had way too many people in it. Before you get to thinking that it was some crazy party, it was definitely not that. These were mostly church folk, probably a hundred of them. It was a wine tasting party with jazz. It’s not really the kind of party that keeps you awake. After two hours of that, we had enough and headed home for the night.

Today was spent helping my dad and my uncle clean out more of my grandma’s stuff. I don’t know what it is about old people, but they like to collect stuff they will never use. Among the things in my grandma’s garage were 10-year old water, 5-year old rice (uncooked but still gross), a baby stroller, clothes from the 60′s (not the cool vintage kind), and rocks (a pain to move). Yet with all the stuff in there, there was not a single thing of value, no old baseball cards, comic books, or records. It really goes to show you that most of us live lives of over indulgence. There’s something to be said about simplicity.

See you online from work, everyone.

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Fish, Photo, Play

Tagged birthday, family, friends

Aquascaping 101

Posted on November 20, 2007 | Leave a comment

I’ve been inspired to redesign my fish tank. I have decided to set aside a little bit of time to make sure I clean up the look of my tanks. Why the sudden interest again? Practical Fishkeeping published the results to the annual aquascaping competition. These guys are the cool kids in the “It’s still fish keeping and therefore still kind of lame” world. I want to be like these guys, the king of the losers! See my initial tank transformation after the jump.

Here is my tank with lots of the same plant. It’s a bit too green, kind of boring.

I received some new plants with a few more colors, shapes, and sizes. I am not sure how I want to finalize the look, so I just planted the plants in various locations for now to watch them grow out.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Fish, Photo

Tagged aquarium, Fish, planted

Happy Bee Day!

Posted on October 21, 2007 | 11 Comments

After much delay, we finally decided to go out for Fred’s birthday. Korean BBQ was on the agenda. Unfortunately, Fred has lost his wedding planner ways and neglected to make reservations. For an hour some of us went back to Mo’s place, one block away to start celebrating Fred’s birthday, without Fred.

Cheers! Where’s Fred?

We went back to the restaurant and stuffed our fat faces with meat, meat, and more meat. Those Koreans sure know how to prepare a meal. Fred was going to try the “water soju switch-a-roo” he is so famous for, but I kept Andrew filling up his glass with the real stuff. He complained at each shot he took, even though it was a total of four with the meal.

“This is my bottle I brought from home. I filled it with water and resealed it.”

We got him a forty, because damn it feels good to be a gangster.

That is all Fred could muster up to drink. Michelle also says, “Yech!”

Fred made a comment of preferring straight vodka or rum to malt liquor. So we obliged him with a cup of Ketel on the rocks. Soon after, the guys decided to play Halo 3, and we added the rule that every time Fred got killed, he would have to take a shot of his cup of vodka. Fred put the cup up to his lips and tipped the cup, but he never opened his lips. What a wuss!

Spectators engrossed in Halo 3.

Two people that drank more than Fred.

Another person that drank more than Fred.

All in all it was good friends, plentiful food, and good fun.

Before I forget and people wonder why I spelled the title of this post the way I did, this is why. For some odd reason, bees are attracted to my water lettuce in my goldfish barrel. At first it was one or two, but their numbers kept growing. It makes no sense to me, because there is no flower on the plant. Feeding time for the fish is getting dangerous.

Here is a swarm of bees, hanging on to the water lettuce.

Here is a short clip of the little buggers at work.

→ 11 Comments

Posted in Fish, Photo, Play, Video

Tagged birthday, Fish, friends, insects

Aquarium Updates

Posted on September 12, 2007 | 1 Comment

I added a large amount of Java Moss in my Dwarf Crayfish tank. They are happily climbing around in the tangled jungle. There are quite a few of them carrying eggs. That means more crayfish are on their way!

I added some Oto Catfish to my large tank. They swim together and suck on the glass, rocks, and leaves of plants. They’re a bit plain in color, but they swim around very slowly and seemingly very purposefully. They are fun to watch.

Full tank shot. Plants are coming in nicely.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Fish, Photo

Tagged aquarium, crayfish, Fish

Labor Day Weekend (Lots of Fun and Pictures)

Posted on September 4, 2007 | 1 Comment

It was a hot Labor Day Weekend. No one can deny that it was miserably hot, but it was also jam packed full of fun. Let’s skip the chit chat and get right into it.

Friday after work, we went to The Edison in Downtown Los Angeles. I knew we were going, but I didn’t think about it, so I had no clothes to wear. A quick stop at Ross fixed that problem right up.

You’d think the old Edison building would have more lights.

Saturday was the day for Lorenzo’s surprise birthday party. The best part was that he prepared all of the food thinking it was for some other event. That’s classic. We went to hang out by the pool and even played a game of Stupid Pong.

Look at the surprise on this guy’s face.

Rule of thirds. One of these three guys is gay. Here’s a hint. It’s not me.

Girlfriends all talking. This can lead to no good.

Thanks for the food, Lo.

Sunday was a day spent at the Aquarium of the Pacific. Michelle was going along to fulfill her duty as the faithful girlfriend and to get a Bubba Gump’s shrimp meal beforehand, but she really ended up liking it. We took the normal admission as well as a behind the scenes tour of the place. Every single parent in a forty mile radius brought their kids here for the long weekend. Since 80% of the parents were Hispanic, there was an average of five kids per pair of parents. You can see some of my videos, including feeding time for the Leafy Sea Dragons and a cleaner shrimp cleaning my hand.

Overpriced but delicious.

Stroller parking took up the whole hall.

These guys are on my list of fish to get when I get a saltwater tank.

Michelle, petting a stingray.

Poking a starfish in the behind the scenes tour.

Divers coming out of the exhibit after feeding.

Standing on top of the tropical reef exhibit.

The girl behind me mentioned “Deuce Bigalow” when we saw this exhibit.

Monday Michelle wanted to check out this small block party held by the owners of The Hundreds brand. It was way too hot out for any kind of outdoor activity other than swimming. I fail to understand how any fashion style can become more than pieces of clothing. There were kids wearing jeans and hoodies in sweltering heat. It makes little sense to me, but more power to those that are able to create a brand name that commands so much power.

They converted the store into an open bar.

I bet they didn’t even have to turn the grill on to cook the meat.

This last picture I took driving home this weekend. I was turning off the road, so it was no longer my problem. Only in Palos Verdes do you see this. That is a long four miles to spend staring at the rears of 30+ cyclists.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Fish, Photo, Play

Tagged aquarium, birthday, Fish, friends

Fishtastic

Posted on August 30, 2007 | Leave a comment

‘m going to need everyone to stay calm. PetCo is having a sale through this weekend on glass fish tanks. The price is $1.00 per gallon for tank 20-55 gallons! It is time for everyone to get a fish tank. I upgraded my 10-gallon tank to a 20-gallon. It’s kind of empty as there is a lot more room for the crayfish, but I also decided to add some Guppies. I need to decorate it and add some plants to fill it in a bit.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Fish, Photo

Tagged aquarium, Fish

Planted Aquarium Tanks

Posted on August 14, 2007 | 2 Comments

It’s been almost a year now since I started into my aquarium hobby. Normally I’d be bored with new things I learn, but there are so many different things to learn with aquariums. I started with the fish. Then I learned about the other critters in the tank, like shrimp, crayfish, clams, and snails. I am currently learning about planted aquariums, learning about the different types of plants and how to aquascape them.

This is the jungle look. It’s a bit much as it gets hard to see the fish on the bottom.

I like how this tank looks like there are mountains rising up from the landscape.

This is a great example of ground cover. The tank is simple and clean.

This guy is my planted aquarium hero. Takashi Amano.

This is the picture of the tank from the US store’s website. Crazy.

Just another gorgeous tank.

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Fish, Photo

Weekend Keeps Getting Better

Posted on August 12, 2007 | Leave a comment

Friday night was spent working for me. I had a lot of things to look over. That was definitely a bummer, because the original plan for Friday was to finally see The Simpsons Movie. I still have yet to see that movie.

Saturday was a productive day, starting with breakfast in the morning. I never get up for breakfast. Then I headed over to the gym to get my Nintendo DS session for the week, also known as stationary cycling. I headed home afterwards to take care of the fish tanks, which are doing fantastic. Check out the big tank here. Dinner was an always delicious trip to C & O, followed by Wii session with drinks by the pool at Spencer’s place.

The weekend was capped off with the biggest birthday celebration I’ve seen, other than those Super Sweet Sixteen parties on MTV. There were three birthday guests of honor, two of them being Michelle’s sorority sisters. I hopped on a yacht with a UC Irvine reunion group and drank for four hours.

Our boat is the big one.

Drinks, anyone?

This is nicer than my living room at home.

Gorgeous day on the water.

Desiree being Desiree.

The cake came out after we got off the boat for some reason.

Jenny, enjoying her birthday cake.

Christina, enjoying her birthday cake.

Do you want to go home now? OK.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Fish, Photo, Play

Category Archives: Fish

Furnishing the New Home

Where Have the Fish Gone?

Another Weekend. This One I Remember.

Aquascaping 101

Happy Bee Day!

Aquarium Updates

Labor Day Weekend (Lots of Fun and Pictures)

Fishtastic

Planted Aquarium Tanks

Weekend Keeps Getting Better

Me

What I'm Doing...

Recent Comments

Categories

Archives

Category Archives: Fish

Me

What I'm Doing...

Recent Comments

Categories

Archives

Tags