Monthly Archives: April 2009

Birthing pains

Is not quite the right phrase. It tends to mean that something new is the result. Not here.

I feel extruded. But that makes me feel like a pile of play-dough.

Under the last few days, my week has been a little "full". School is finishing this week, and while the evil English class has been conquered, it’s time for the Photography class to be a little more demanding.

The Third Annual Guys’ Trip (tagline: Bigger, Better, and a Whole Lot More Manish) is this weekend, and my life is all the more complicated. I thought I could do it all by myself. While it’s fairly easy, and basically just doing food shopping (something i’m quite pro at) and getting it all as ready as can be (I’m a good cook too), it’s just a tad too much with everything that’s going on. Thankfully my friends (and attendees of the trip) have been more than helpful. Props to Andrew H.

AND one of the things that have been casting a huge shadow and making things just a little more complicated is a fish tank. This isn’t just any old fish tank. This is THE fish tank. The fish tank that my step dad has had since before I’ve know him, that has moved with my mom and stepdad for ages, and it is the tank that I picture in my head when you say "fish tank".

A few years ago, my step dad’s fish died, and my sister’s then boyfriend (who was into fish at the time) got the tank and has had it ever since. But he recently contacted my sister to let her know that he was getting rid of it, and she knew that I wanted it and told me.

So I drove up to Sacramento yesterday and picked it up. ( I got to stop and see Marla too, in her new consignment store in Sacramento) My sister’s exboyfriend was just getting out of the hobby and didn’t want any of his aquarium equipment. So I loaded THE fish tank, 2 20 gallon tanks, 1 10 gallon tank, and 4 buckets of gravel, and a tote full of stuff into the back of the truck. See:

Truck load
It barely fit. Yes, I was quite good at Tetris and did play with a lot of LEGOs. (I don’t know what happened, but I KNOW that the tank is straight.)

I then drove home. (Scary drive, just one wrong bump and KABLAM! I have a truck full of deadly shards of glass). Unloaded the stuff and got to setting up the big tank. I had to set it up quick, since I not only got all the aquarium equipment, I also got all the aquarium fish.

Knifefish Big dark sucker Orange Sucker fish Little fish Red Tailed Black Shark
Glass Catfish
Angelfish
Spiny Catfish
The Mess

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A lot of the fish were in really bad shape. And I’m not sure some of them will make it. So that’s something I have to care for now.

But today, Photography and the Trip will be done. I have nothing that I have to do my weekday nights (weekends are a completely different thing). And I’ll be free. Free! FREE! FREEEE! (Don’t let my dead husband come back, k?)

Day 3: IM Conversation

Andrew Heisinger
Did you ride today?

Andrew!
stupid bike

Andrew Heisinger
So is that a no?

Andrew!
i got all ready
started riding and then noticed my back tire was low
so i stopped to pump it up, but my bike pump sucks
and I can never get it on
so i fought with it and fought with it
“an epic battle ensued”

Andrew Heisinger
ah

Andrew!
and eventually got it working and pumped it up a lot
but i think durning the battle i mortally wounded the stem

Andrew Heisinger
oh dear

Andrew!
cause after that I went a little bit and noticed that the tire was starting to get flatter and flatter
so i said “f this”
and turned around and got my car

Andrew Heisinger
aw, how far up the hill were you?

Andrew!
not far
probably a hundred yards after the mound on the trail

Battle wounds for the epic bike tire battle

Battle wounds for the epic bike tire battle

Day 1: Twitter and Sinuses

Last night, I pretty much died and this morning I woke up with full sinuses and feeling horrible. So I “rode” this to work:

img_0242

It only took 10 minutes. 🙂

Now for Twitter. Twitter is discontinuing the “auto-follow” feature. And this has been getting some mixed results. I am really wondering how this will play out.

There are two ways that I have seen auto following work:
1. I have a MyMileMarker account and they use twitter so I could direct message them my odometer reading when I fill up, and for them autofollowing makes sense – you can’t DM people who aren’t following you.

2. In the Internet Marketer/Social Marketer arena. When ever anyone follows you, you follow them automatically. How do you know they are even worth reading? And if you aren’t reading them, how do you know they are reading you? And if they aren’t reading you, they are probably marketers themselves who are pushing their affiliate links. I think that Twitter loses something when that happens, it stops being a two way street of information and conversation and becomes two one way conversations where no one’s listening. Here’s an interesting article about this. It’s by Michel Fortin, one of the biggest names in Copywriting, but not Internet Marketing (I think that would be Rich Schefren), so take it with a grain of salt.

I do have some really good friends in that industry that I wish only the best for them, and I feel for the fact that things are changing for them. Twitter is still very young and is still figuring out how it wants to be used. Like Facebook suddenly becoming more of a MyClassReunion website for our parents than a Myspace alternative for the cool college kids, Twitter is still working out if it wants to fight for it’s microbloging or if it just wants to be turned into a marketing tool. Heck, Twitter is so young that there hasn’t been a crime (that I know of) committed using it, like Myspace, Facebook, or Xanga…

Just some thoughts.

What are yours?