C.J. Cherryh's Blog, page 214

Not much, except that nothing exploded today. That's a good day.

The fish tank lights are working. The fish are fine. I got a little work done.

Tomorrow I'm planning to really bear down and get going.

We've had glorious weather: 72 to 85 degrees daytime, in August, no less. I went out and watered everything, just because I could. Our koi have about doubled in size since we got them, and they have begun tracking us around the pond…where we walk, they go, in hopes that food will fall off our fingers.

Jane got a bunch of plants while I was gone: dahlias, various ot

how to start a reef tank

You're probably tired of my rant about trackpoints… :lol:…

But for those of you who are interested, this is how to start/run a marine tank.

There are 2 paths: 1, an all-in-one, an aquapod or its ilk: will handle gobies and blennies, hermits; or—2 percula or skunk clowns (NOT the red clowns!) and a small anemone. If gobies and blennies and no anemone, no clowns, you can do leather corals, button corals, or mushrooms, even stony bubble coral.

Advantages: portability: draw the water down to 1/3 (savin

worthless without a trackpoint mouse…

An online survey by users show a majority prefer a trackpoint (pointing stick) mouse. Reviewers are 90 percent otherwise. What's wrong with this picture. I went out to various sites to look at laptops…and all the help-me-choose features completely omit the pointing device as a criterion.

In picking a new laptop, if I get down to that, I swear to you, more than screens or other stuff, more than fancy covers, lighted keys (I couldn't care less)—it's the pointing device, stupid. If you use a laptop

Annnddd….the new light blew out. Back to the fish store…

Couldn't believe it. It burned for 4 hours and died.

We now have a new lamp, and we took the metal halide's ballast apart to be sure the starter hadn't blown. Must have been new-thingie-syndrome.

One more trip to the Valley, but this time at least we came back without additional purchases.

We knew the fish tank ballast had blown; then we discovered…

…after getting a new one..(or its parts)…it didn't fit. We did get a foxfaced rabbitfish (one-spot variety) to eat the cursed caulerpa weed (see Discovery Channel: Killer Algae) which has been the bane of this tank setup.

But the tang hated him. We got him because the tang wouldn't eat the stuff. So this time Mr. Tang had to go back to the fish store to find a new (and larger home) because he spent all last night blustering at Mr. Foxface. So…

We took the water out of the tank and caught Mr. Tang,

Still moving slowly

I got a little work done this morning. We went out shopping for hose washers (yep) so we don't have a leak in the back yard. But a little after that I came down with a rare case of the hungries…I mean, if I didn't get food in the next fifteen minutes, I was going to collapse.

So we happened by the Peking Palace, which turned out to have really good, cheap food—We had what amounted to a supper (we had no idea it would be that size) and I folded for the afternoon. I haven't slept well in a long tim

I am back.

Jane spent the time trying to get the marine tank into shape: I came back to discover she'd bravely resolved the plumbing problems with the tank, moved and cleaned all the equipment, worked out the water quality problem…What more can you ask?

I have more to say about the airlines…Lord! what a mess! I've flown in Turkey on an airline where they closed the doors DURING the takeoff run, an airline in which goats figured…and it ran more smoothly. Passengers are glum, nobody talks. On three of my flig

A personal note…

My mother passed away yesterday. She was in her late nineties. She stood about five four, the granddaughter of western pioneers: she was born in an Oklahoma farmhouse just after statehood, and didn't have a birth certificate until it began to matter.  She grew up on an Oklahoma farm, rode to a one room schoolhouse on a horse, and was so tiny they had to put books under her feet so she could use a regular desk. Around the time of  the Oklahoma dustbowl, she was introduced to my father, who worked

Monday was OSG's birthday…we just caught up…and we heard from Lynn…

…and had a real nice birthday lunch at Anthony's for Sharon, with Joan. We had the corner window seats, by the falls. Salmon fish and chips, yum. The only possible flaw in it was the chips, which, I swear I'm going to drop a note to the chef, are just too ordinary—the best with salmon in that role is sweet potato chips. Very yum!

Lynn has been fielding a couple of personal emergencies, and reports she is back on track. We are glad!

Jane's doing covers again…this time for her own books.

She has a neat slideshow up on her site. And I'm going to have to design a new cover for Rusalka.