Jason Halstead's Blog, page 58

On the Rocks

And now, only moments later, part two of the ongoing reef tank set up. A 37 gallon tank is not a large aquarium, either for freshwater or saltwater. Sure, in fish stores you see tons of fish swimming around in 20 gallon tanks but those are overpopulated and typically very stressful environments for the fish. To insure happy fish that live a long life you need adequate room and hiding places for them, as well as proper food and water quality. Saltwater fish, in particular, can get pretty darn big and have large space requirements. Thus the 37 is a small aquarium, at least in my opinion.

So why go with something small? Multiple reasons. The space we decided to put the aquarium would not support a larger fish tank. It fits almost perfectly in a corner, whereas something longer and larger would not have physically fit. Reason number two is that I wanted to go small to keep it more easily manageable – maintenance on a saltwater tank can be time consuming. The third and final reason to keep it small is cost. Marine tank setups are expensive, but I'll be getting to that shortly.

So the tank, stand, and a single light / hood came at a package deal from Pet Supplies Plus. I don't remember the cost, but it was up there. By the time I threw in the necessary add-ons (salt, sand, filter, powerheads, heater, thermostat, and water testing kit, another hood with a 50/50 actinic light in it) I think the cost was getting close to $500. No protein skimmer or sump tank because, frankly, I don't have room for it. Pity, since those can really round out a saltwater tank and improve the water and tank experience.

So I put it all together, mixed the salt and water and started up the tank. Then I let it run, hoping the live sand (sand harvested from the ocean or a marine set up elsewhere) would help start the cycling process. A week and a half later, with my ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels in great places I picked up 30 pounds of live rock (90% of it fully cured, 10% partially cured) and a dragon goby (bottom dwelling scavenger style fish). They acclimated well to the tank. Live rock, for those not in the know, is nothing more than rock harvested from the ocean or elsewhere that is full of holes and beneficial (hopefully) bacteria. This bacteria serves as a filter that helps remove and process harmful chemicals and waste from the water. Not to mention it provides landscaping and hiding places for fish.

One week later, with my chemical levels still looking great, I went back and picked up three ocellaris clownfish, a magnificent anemone, and three emerald crabs. The clownfish are the Nemos everyone knows so well. The kids love 'em and they are a lot of fun to watch, especially with an anemone. The emerald crabs are part of a cuc, or clean up crew. They exist to scavenge up uneaten food, eat algae, and keep the tank natural and in good shape. The magnificent anemone was not something I'd intended to purchase. As such I had done no research on it and wasn't sure what I was getting into. We saw it at the fish store and thought it was pretty cool. It was about 6 – 8 inches across.

The anemone and clowns did great together at first. By the end of the first week things had changed. The anemone had moved from the bottom up to the top of the tank, then started back down towards the bottom. It was looking rougher as time went by, then finally just yesterday I noticed two of the clowns had abandoned it and the third was still hanging around, but it was nipping and tearing at the flesh of its 'foot'. If I had to make a guess I reckon it was a few hours away from being dead, if not closer.

Words of wisdom to any beginning marine aquarist – stay away from anemones at first. They are cool and very tempting, but until your tank is fully cycled and has been running great for a while (read: months), they can be very complicated to keep. They have high lighting requirements and need very pristine water. I had good water flow, but as time went by my chemical levels started to rise. The anemone wasn't meant to be, or at least not for a while.

My rising chemical levels are far from critical to most things, but the anemones are sensitive. I'm sure they are climbing because of the anemone. One that size puts out waste equivalent to 3 – 5 fish, or so I've read. What's worse is that it was sick and dying and putting out even more bad stuff into the water. Anemone is now gone and the clowns are doing fine without it.

I also noticed some algae coming in. Some on the glass, but mostly on the sand and rocks. Algae's not bad, it's a natural food source and helps with filtration. It can also be unsightly and can take over the tank, which is bad. So on the same day the anemone went buh-byes we scoped out a new fish store just west of Cleveland. Very nice place with some great livestock and tons of rocks and coral. Couple of cool display tanks too, as well as a few massive fish available for sale. Massive as in you could go deep sea fishing for a couple of those guys!

Anyhow, I came back how with three good sized Tonga snails which are doing a great job of burrowing into my sand and stirring it up, 3 Mexican turbo snails (for cleaning up the rocks and the glass), and 5 hermit crabs. Oh, and my wife has been taken with the though of getting a powder blue tang so we got one of those too. One day later the tank is doing great. The cuc is making it look clean and pretty and all the fish seem to be establishing themselves nicely. The only additional fish I plan to get is a flame angel, and preferably one that has some experience in a tank with corals and does not nip at them. Aside from the fish I want a few corals as well, although the exact kind and type remains to be determined (leathers, mushrooms, brains, colts…I'm just not sure).

So, between the $500ish in the tank, the $200 in rocks and such, and then another $200 in fish and invertebrates (and a dead anemone), I'm closing in on the $1000 mark for a little 37 gallon aquarium. I need some better lighting still too. In a few years when we move from renting to owning we're talking about a much larger saltwater tank – 125 gallon or bigger. That's going to get pricey!

Reefer Madness

This post has nothing to do with marijuana, sorry to disappoint. Instead it's me beginning to chronicle a revisit to an old hobby: that of being an aquarist. WTF is an aquarist? It means I've got an aquarium with fish and stuff in it. Pretty deep, eh?

In the past I've had lots of aquariums, sometimes more than one at a time. 20 gallon, 39 gallon, 55 gallon, 80 gallon (acrylic bowfront – let me strongly suggest never purchasing an aquarium like this), and 90 gallon. I've had freshwater community tanks (random tropical fish designed to get along well together), freshwater cichlid tanks (cichlids are brighter and generally larger fish that come from South America, Africa, or even Texas. They tend to be a little more fiesty too, but they're fun freshwater fish.

I've also had a saltwater tank in the past. It was in my 80 gallon aquarium and it was fun, but it just got too costly to maintain when I had a $40 fish that kept jumping out and dying. Well, there are other costs associated that make it expensive too, but more on that later. Anyhow, I sold my fish and live rocks back, then traded in the tank and stand for a bigger tank and stand (90 gallons) that became my largest cichlid tank. A few moves later and I got rid of all my aquariums (moving 2 hours with a 90 gallon aquarium is one thing, moving 1500 miles is another!). Now I've moved back to a civilized part of the world and I'm getting back into the hobby.

In fact, my intent was to start up an aquarium to add color and interactivity to the house and because my daughter really liked the last community tank I had (29 gallon). We went to a pet store to check things out and ended up walking out with a rabbit instead. Yeah, I'm still not sure how that worked. Later that week after thorough discussions with my wife we decided to go ahead with the aquarium anyhow. Or perhaps more appropriately she insisted I quit whining about how much it would cost and just go and get it so I'd stop whining about it. Yeah, she's my personal enabler.

After searching high and low, both locally and not-so-locally, I ended up finding the aquarium I wanted practically next door. It's a 37 gallon cube tank that I decided to set up as a saltwater tank. More to follow…

Mind control

A powerful and terrifying concept, mind control. Like usual, I don't intend this post to have anything to do with reading other people's thoughts or controlling their minds. That's the stuff of teenage fantasy most of the time.

Instead I'm referring to the ability to control our own minds. The human mind is an amazing device. We're able to do incredible things with it, sometimes even coming up with true works of originality. Other times we take an existing idea and put a spin on it to add our own flair. Such is the work of most movies, books, and other creative pieces. Call it artistic license.

But as powerful as the human mind is, it's also a terrifying thing. Not for our ability to envision and develop weapons of incredible destruction, but rather our ability – no, our need – to rationalize. I believe I've posted about the human mind being a rational thing rather than a logical thing. We rationalize our decisions based on the information at hand and how we can make that information fit the way we want things to go. Generally, it's not such a terrible thing.

But in some cases it doesn't turn out so well. Some times it can work out so it takes a while and the rationalization builds and builds, feeding on itself and twisting things around. It's a trick to make ones self believe a lie. It's one way to beat a lie detector test. It's another way to work successfully undercover, either as a cop or as a double agent.

It can also be used catastrophically to trick yourself into believing horrible things that cause you to do things a "normal" person would never do. The question of sanity may not be applicable – the thinking process is sound, it's a matter of having a baseline built up of flawed perceptions. The power of what the human mind can do is awesome and terrifying – far more dangerous than any narcotic or firearm.

I posted a few months ago about a friend of mine who seems to have gone bat-shit crazy and killed his girlfriend and later himself. It's an example of how powerful the human mind is. To my way of thinking it's pure insanity. Was it the same for him, or was it a case of built up rationalizations that only chummed the waters and made it harder and harder for him to see the things that everybody else saw?

Reality is a matter of perspective.

Here vs There

The benefit of being here is that I'm always there, no matter where here is. Deep, I know.

On the matter of living in Ohio versus living in Moab, Utah, I had some thoughts a little bit ago. My wife brought the topic up first, but it made me think on what I'd be doing if I still loved in Utah. I had no good answer for it, but I did realize I would not have been shoveling snow out of my three car wide driveway. It's not like living in the snow belt off of Lake Michigan was when we lived near Kalamazoo, but we're still catching lake effect snow from lake Erie here in eastern Ohio.

Good exercise and it's light fluffy snow, so why bitch about it? Heck, temps in the teens without any noticeable wind chill even made sure I didn't overheat. The problem was the sore back I've been milking for a week or so. Something went awry while squatting at the gym a few weeks ago, but I seem to have mostly recovered from that. Between a persisting soreness and adjusting to a new mattress, it remains aggravated. It probably didn't help that my gym allows me to use chalk and that has me back to doing partial deadlifts over 500 pounds for reps.

Working out is a wonderful thing. Burns calories, keeps me strong and healthy (usually), and keeps me prepared for the physical surprises life throws at me. On the other hand, the stronger you get, the greater the chance that a screw turns catastrophic. Another fine example of being careful what you wish for.

Still, even with threats of broken bones, slipped discs, or cracked skulls on icy patches of driveway – I'll take being here versus there any day. Beneath all this damn snow the grass really is greener.

An old friend pays a visit

I've done a lot of things in my life that some people might classify as unfortunate. Others, stupid. Almost without exception those "things" ended up in some sort of injury or other pain-inducing scenario. What makes me more worthy of complaining about it than anybody else? Probably nothing, but maybe I can entertain a few people in the process. My pain is your gain.

Past incidents, just to set a baseline, include shifting and popping bones in my wrist during a powerlifting competition. That one took a while to stop bugging me. Nothing broken, just stretched out tendons that let the bones migrate for the winter to a different part of my wrist. Another example would be a notorious separation of muscle and tendons from my left pectoral to my left humerus. That one required surgery and a 6 month recovery (truth be told I'm still recovering over a year later). Various knee and hip pains, some old broken bones, a few concussions…you get the idea.

So with that said, last night at the gym was going great. Everything seemed spot on until my second to last set of squats. I went down, felt a splash of napalm across my lower back for half a second, then felt some awkwardness and unpleasantness on my way back up from the squat. I racked the weights and was more or less done for the night. Barely able to get out of bed this morning and make it in to work…but the part even I laughed at was how many different ways I had to try and contort myself to be able to get my socks on and, later, tie my shoes. I suspect I may have invented a couple of new yoga positions.

Pain killers and movement to stay somewhat flexible seem to be the keys to staying productive. I expect I should be in traction on a couch or a bed somewhere, but that's not my style. If I can be miserable anywhere, I might as well make the best of it and get something done while I'm at it. Especially since a muscle spasm is not contagious.

No advice to offer anyone else this time either. Usually when I get hurt it's because I did something stupid. This time I can't find anything wrong with the events preceding the injury. Sure, there are a few people who might claim squatting 365lbs for reps is stupid, but I don't generally spend any time thinking about that, especially since that's only about 75% of my max. Ah well, at least my wife had a great workout that left me impressed and very proud of her.

2011 and counting

I'm back in the full swing of being way too busy, so not much going on. Trying to read a first book from a fellow writer for a review (like it so far, though it seems to be stretching on rather long), learning a new job, back to regular 3 / week workouts, and I'm back in school winding down towards the end of my MBA. I'll finish it up this year, only a couple of classes left.

So posting on here has taken a hit. Trying to keep it up and happening, but for both of my readers I thought I owed you an explanation. In the world of me writing stuff down I have submitted a couple more pieces for publishing, and I'm still waiting for cover art on my freebie novella I wrote late last year. I may stop waiting very soon and seek an alternate option for it though. When it is up, look for it on Smashwords.

Oh, and on the topic of books sales I did a decent amount of them, considering my woefully inadequate amount of marketing and publicizing. At least for Q2 and Q3 of last year I did okay. Not enough to live on by any means – or do much more than buy the newspaper and a cup of coffee. Still, it's a start and the trend shows things picking up. Not only that, but the more I get out there, the more those numbers also grow. Hoping to have a fund set up for marketing / publicizing real soon as well – that can only make it better, right? The trick is to realize more in sales than the marketing costs. See, that college education wasn't entirely wasted after all!

For my sake and yours, I hope I can abstain from these early morning posts. Not much makes sense and I hate to drive the few readers I have away with the inane posts.

Paypal part 2

I called Paypal today and somebody answered. I spoke with a customer service agent who was helpful and seemed genuinely apologetic for the flaming hoops I'd jumped through. Without me doing much in the way of complaining he cleared up the limitations on my account. He had seen all that I had done and took care of me. Congrats to him. Ryan, if you happen to hear of this, I'll buy you a frosty beverage of your choosing the next time I see you.

Now it's not all sunshine and roses. Why didn't any of the emails I'd received from Paypal indicate that I could contact them via phone to resolve the issue? I could have cleared this up weeks ago. Hopefully Paypal is an organization interested in improving customer service and constantly evolving their business.

Paypal, AKA the web payment service that failed

I've heard more than a fair share of Paypal horror stories over the years. I'd never had that much hassle with them though, so I figured people had special situations or they were just finicky. I also rarely ever used Paypal – although I did heavily investigate the sandbox a while back while developing some websites and getting them all set up to accept payments through Paypal APIs.

Recently all that changed. I forgot my password and managed to get it reset through Paypal, but then they went and put restrictions on my account until I verify my identity and my location. Annoyed, I did so, even scanning in my photo ID and sending it to them. The response I got was that my scan was too small to be legible. Bullshit, it was perfectly legible and if they bothered to print it out, it would be the same size of a normal driver's license. It's nearly X-mas now, but I plan on calling tomorrow to see if I can get them to stop acting like douche bags.

But wait, it gets better. I received Q2 and Q3 royalty payments today for books sold at Fido Publishing. Not only was I surprised, but I owe Fido an apology – multiple books sold through other distribution channels that Fido operates. Anyhow, apology aside, Paypal emailed me to let me know they were challenging the authenticity of the transaction. I had to respond notifying them it was legitimate, and then I suspect Fido had to do the same (they did). Several hours later Paypal released the transaction and life was good…except my account remains restricted and I can not access or utilize the funds. Merry Christmas to me from Paypal.

Success comes in many forms

First came being accepted by a publisher, which was all kinds of cool. Following that I had some independent sales via another medium which brought in some (small) success. More coolness there. Generating more and more interest with my attempts at ramping up publicity, not priceless but on its way. And now the latest sign of success, some two bit hack, who moonlights as a troll that lurks under bridges and scares small children, has stolen one of my stories I wrote over a decade ago and included it in a book of stolen stories she claims are her own.

I wrote the story, called Yamara, back in the 90s. Back when I didn't really know how to write well, or at least not in a way that was pleasing for an audience of anyone other than myself. Fantasy genre, and actually a second book in a series. I'd posted it on a website a friend owned that catered to sword and sorcery style stories. I did a chapter by chapter posting, rough draft and ugly. The woman in question snatched it up at some point before 2007. Before it was finished. Before I even did a rewrite to boost it up to something better. I have not published it in a making-money kind of fashion, but I have put it out there under my name and copyrighted it.

Today comes an email from an unknown person who had somehow managed to track down the pen name I had written it under to my real name. Not so difficult, but a sign of someone who cares. This person is also an author who has had their work stolen in the past, by this person no less. They offered up suggestions for dealing with it, suggestions I was happy to champion after I verified the truth of it.

Once I got past the shock and some outrage, I took it with a healthy dose of humor. She's been selling this book since 1997, I've only been doing it since 2009! Why the hell didn't I know about this back then?! I might have started this up a while ago! They say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, so I'm keeping that in mind.

Mid-week ramblings

I have no idea what to babble about, but it seemed like I should be babbling. Sometimes inspiration comes thusly, from just typing until something that sounds both intelligent and non-random emerges. So far though, no luck.

I suspect a combination of being tired, recuperating from the move / packing / unpacking, and learning a new job is taking its toll on me. Things are going well though, I have to say. My kids seem to really love the new place, and all in all I'm in a position some might find enviable.

Then a damn Twilight commercial comes on the TV and all the good mood and karma I was building up goes out the window. I'm filled with wrath and a desire for little more than the chance to punch that pretentious metrosexual douche bag vampire fan boy main character in the face and break his pretty boy nose. Don't get me started on how I really feel…

So yeah, nothing came out of this worth writing or reading. Sorry if you made it this far. Guess I'll go work on my latest masterpiece, the third installment in my Voidhawk series.