Possum fish

After having 6 goldfish die on us in less than a year, the wife and I decided to stop emulating Dr. Kevorkian and stop buying fish. That's left the sole survivor to be Fabio, the beta fish. Fabio was purchased before any of the goldfish and was kept to himself as his kind will kill goldfish. The kids have seemed to grown attached to Fabio as he is the only fish who hasn't died on them yet. Fabio is a good little fish who has long flowing fins and swims around in his tiny little bowl. He actually has learned that when Lynn holds a pellet of food near the bowl that he should go to the top to eat it.

Last week he learned a new trick that I am not too fond of.

He now knows how to play dead.

I was at the computer (probably on Facebook), when my 10 year old son Jonathan came running over in a panic. "Daddy! Fabio's not moving!!"

"Calm down, he's probably just resting," I replied to assuage his fears.

I get close to the bowl to have a look and I see Fabio laying on his side on the glass beads at the bottom. I couldn't get a good look at his gills and he didn't respond to my tapping on the glass. After a few tries at trying to get his attention, I vigorously shook the bowl. Fabio lifelessly floated with the undulating water. In my best "Alan Alda as Hawkeye serious moment" like voice I declared to my two anxious boys, "I'm sorry guys, it appears that he's dead."

The wailing began again, just as bad as the 1st time they had a fish die. It seemed nothing I said or did would calm their cries. Gabriel ran to his mother upstairs for condolences. So, Lynn came down for a look-see herself and then performed a Christmas miracle. She took a pellet of food and Fabio instantly started to swim to the top. Apparently Lynn had noticed that Fabio's gills were moving and he was in fact alive and breathing. I guess Fabio was bored or sleeping when he was lying still.

The children immediately rejoiced but then started to cry some more because, "What if we had flushed him down the toilet alive?!!"

As usual, Mommy was the hero and Daddy the bad guy. I can live with that fact, but it doesn't help when her pet is in on trying to make me look bad.

I'm the Son of Sam of the goldfish world

I either have no clue as to the correct care of goldfish or experience the worst luck in goldfish health conditions. This past Saturday my wife went to go change the water and clean the tank and she found poor Whitey was floating at the top. His lifeless body caught in the filter.

R.I.P.
Whitey
2008-2008

That's now 4 fish in approximately 3 months. I am at a higher ratio than 1 fish per month. While that's no shakes to people who live in Japan or to those rough and tumble fellows you see on Deadliest Catch, I get the feeling that goldfish feel as if I am the angel of death. I fear the next time I go to the pet store to pick out a replacement that the fish will all cower in the back and low corner of the tank or perhaps behind the shipwreck or the bubbly diver head.

If the Fish Police ever come to arrest me then I will claim insanity and tell them that my dog is Satan and told me to do it. One look at Brutus and you'll know instantly that his gaze hypnotizes you into anything he wants you to do. I often feel myself losing control as he looks at you with puppy dog eyes. It's no wonder that I may be killing fish and doing his bidding.

Brutus can't stand sharing his attention with other pets. If you ever want to call Brutus all you have to do is start petting our other dog, Sammy and he comes running. He'll jump in bewteen you and poor Sam so that he gets all the lovin'. So, I admit, it's possible that Brutus has somehow pulled a Manchurian Candidate on me and I've been killing the goldfish with my lack of knowledge and consent.

You try looking into those eyes...and feel your eyelids getting heavy...heavier...you are getting sleepy...sleepy...

Wildlife Kingdom

I'm no stranger to wildlife. While I'm no Lewis and Clark I have seen some neat animals in my time. Most of it when I was in Boy Scouts. I've seen hawks at Hawk Mountain. I canoed right next to a beaver dam. A rattle snake crossed my path on a hiking trail in New Mexico. I peed down a hill where a baby brown bear was walking its way up on (I don't think I even took the time to zip up before getting out of there!). I snorkled next to a dolphin in the Florida Keys. I stood in the water with a school of sharks. (okay, okay, they were 2ft. long nurse sharks) A good chunk of mammals located in North America I have had the privilege of seeing in its natural habitat. (fortunately, no wolverines or grizzlies)

Since that time, I've pretty much settled into suburbia and see the occasional squirrel, rabbit and deer along with the usual gang of birds. I'm starting to think that the animals miss me and this past year the wildlife must have found me and have gotten the word out.

It started last winter when I grazed a deer with the car. It didn't do much damage and the deer seemed to have survived as it ran away into the small forest of trees 2 miles from my house. Then I had the ciggie bird build a nest and hatch a baby in my trash can. (see previous post) I also had another nest in my front door light box. I couldn't get rid of a wasp's nest as they came back twice after copious amount of poisons were applied to its nest. I have a grounhog that tresspasses in my backyard time to time, much to my dog's chagrin. Of course, I recently posted about the baby bunny massacre that said dog had committed. That brings us up to today-

Wednesday morning before I even get to work the garbage truck comes and empties our dumpster at my work. That means on Tuesday I make sure I empty all the boxes, straps, trash and such into the dumpster to get it filled in time for Wednesday morning. (the vice-president puts out the trash? HARRRUMPHH!!) We have our dumpster right up against the back wall underneath a bay door to make it easy to empty. I opened the door this morning and saw what appeared to be a dead raccoon curled up in a ball in the corner of the dumpster. Flies were swirling all about the dumpster.

"Ugh, gross!" I thought to myself, "I'd better share this with my employee Rocco."

I went up to the office to cajole Rocco out of the office to see the dead raccoon. Rocco is from South Philly, used to body build, his last name ends in a vowel, and stands under 5 foot 8 inches- I'm sure you've met the type if you've lived in this area before. Rocco is a city boy and is used to pigeons and squirrels, the prospect of seeing a raccoon wasn't very appealing to him. I had to use my executive powers of boss-dom to get him to have a look-see. I told him to look at the back corner of the dumpster and he slowly inched up towards the edge of bay door and looked back at me and said,

"Are you fuckin with me?"

I glanced at the back corner and there was no raccoon!!

"Holy shit!! It must've still been alive!" I exclaimed as Rocco gave me a look of disbelief, "I swear it was there!!" He got closer and looked down into the dumpster and saw the raccoon standing on its hind legs looking up back at him. Rocco quickly jumped back with some fear, "OMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD!!" He skipped away from the door.

We surmised that the raccoon had climbed its way into the dumpster but couldn't get out since it the walls were slanted inwards and too sheer. I decided to help it on its way by carefully piling the trash in the dumpster so it could use the trash to climb its way out. Rocco did help with putting in the trash but you could see how uncomfortable he was being near a live raccoon. I informed Rocco that I was naming the raccoon after him and Beatles's song, Rocky Raccoon.

After we piled the trash in, we closed the door and started to sweep around the warehouse for a few minutes. After the sweeping was done we needed to sweep the rest into the dumpster. I told Rocco to open the door, figuring that Rocky hadn't climbed its way out of the dumpster yet, and I would sweep the remaining trash out. As soon as Rocco opened the door he started to scream like a girl as Rocky was standing looking at both of us out of the dumpster and on the ledge of the bay door. He slammed the door shut.

At that point I was full of uncontrolable laughter. Watching my macho employee get scared like that was too much. Anyways- here's a pic of Rocky after he jumped down and took residence near a pile of pallets-

The poor thing was more scared than Rocco was. I just wish these animals would give a call or email before they show up at my home or work. Sheesh, who ever thought that wild animals could be so rude?!

Animal Planet

This past weekend we took the plunge and decided to give it another go with raising goldfish. I guess the empty tank was too depressing for me to look at and fish are cheap anyways if you already have the hardware. We were in even bigger luck as the pet store was having a 75% off fish sale. I let my 2 kids pick their fish and I picked out a white and orange fish that I named Whitey. I guess I'm either still missing Richie Ashburn or I'm a closet racist. The kids named their fish Kingdra (named after a Pokemon) and Leo Jr. (in honor of Leo Sr. RIP).

The fish took to their new tank like a duck to water. Hopefully whatever killed the first fish isn't present any more. They have survived 4 days, so far, so good. The rabbits in my yard, however, aren't as lucky...

This morning my wife called in a tizzy as our youngest cocker spaniel, Brutus, had brought in a present from outside- a dead mutilated baby bunny. Not only did he kill a baby bunny but he also killed its 2 siblings and destroyed a nest underneath our porch. While my wife found it disturbing, I merely view it as "pest control". Hopefully Momma Rabbit gets the hint. My older cocker, Sammy, in her younger days has caught at least 6 mice outside. Cockers have a hunting/retreival instinct bred into them. I guess Brutus has a taste more akin to french food. His pallete is much more refined I suppose. In either case, I say "good riddance" to small rodents and mammals living in my back yard.

Sick of the Slowskys

They're hard to miss. Those Comcast high speed cable internet commercials with the turtle family named the Slowskys. The turtles are slow and want their world to be slow including their internet service, so of course, they have DSL. Why the Slowskys don't use AOL dial up is beyond me. It's even slower than DSL. Hell, they can have my old 2600 baud rate modem if they like it really slow. I guess Comcast feels that they compete more with Verizon more than anyone else.

The problem with the Slowskys, aside from the fact that I see the commercials 3 times in a half hour program, is that they're quite cranky- even for reptiles. I like the anti-hero as much as the next fellow but the Slowskys' antics are quite unbecoming. Carol is a passive aggressive and Bill is flat out nasty at times. He even berated the postal service worker who delivered his mail. You'd think Bill would have an affinity for the mailman since he likes things slow.

I'm also amazed that the anti-defamation league hasn't gotten involved. Considering that the turtles name end in "sky" it's not a far fetched leap to think they are Polish. Calling Pollacks "slow" is quite offensive to many Americans of eastern European decent as they have battled this notion ever since the it's been said it takes three of them to change a light bulb. The ink on the patent from Edison was hardly dry when that joke came about and yet here we are in 2008 still battling prejudices and stereotypes in the media. Next thing you know Comcast will have a Kangaroo family named the Goldbergs who will be putting all their loose change in their pouches because they saved money by using the Comcast triple play deal.

Well Bill and Carol Slowsky, I hope you are fast when it comes to leaving my TV screen.

I hate poker

well....not really, but it sure has been frustrating lately when I keep getting cold cards.

I mentioned that I played poorly in a tourney last Saturday. My demise came when my AK met pocket queens and didn't improve. Last night at Lottery Larry's tournament of champions game, I had deja vu when I was short stacked and was faced with 5 limpers and I was in the small blind with jack seven suited. My hand was meaningless as there was 25% of my stack in the pot including the blinds and if I could use my short stack while it still had fold equity I could make a push and pick up a nice pot. Even if I get called by one of the limpers It's very likely I have 2 "live cards". It's doubtful I was facing a big pair as no one but the first limper would try to foray into a limped pot with a big pair. So I made it look like I had a good hand and pushed all in and the big blind, the only person that I had no reasonable read on, woke up with pocket queens and went all in himself. The others folded and even though I technically hit a full house (the board was 88833), he had a better full house and I was on the rail.

I can at least claim that my early night was due to grief. My wife called me just as the tournament started to let me know that our last goldfish, Michael, had finally succumbed to whatever ailment his two compatriots had fallen to.

RIP
Michael
2007-2008

While the fish were dying at my house, the fish seemed to be thriving at Lottery Larry's house. I am reluctant to mention hands and names as Lottery Larry has recently taken passages from my blog without permission and put it into his trip report. (he'll be hearing from my lawyers Dewey, Phuc M, Goode, & Howe) I don't wish to publicly call anyone a bad player and criticize their hands. Especially since I am no big shakes myself. I like to think I am always improving in poker, but I most certainly don't make all the right moves nor claim to be an expert. I'll just say that worst hand kept winning. Over and over and over again. Even in the low limit cash game I played in afterwards, I had my aces cracked by 67 with a CAPPED PREFLOP POT! (in other words, the bets were raised and reraised 4 times- the most allowed.)

I can't complain all that much, I had fun joking around and I didn't lose very much money. The best line of the night came from the razz specialist, Dan. A player came over to the cash game from the tourney and started complaining that he was knocked out on the bubble. He started playing alot of crappy hands like 10 4 off suit and was winning big pots. He then claimed in defense of his bad play-

"I was a two-thirds favorite to win that hand on the bubble and I lost, so why should I play good hands if that doesn't seem to work?"

Dan quickly remarked, "Because two out of three times you aren't going out on the bubble?"

ahhh...nerd humor...

The fish are dropping like flies!!

RIP Leo
2007-2008


Yet another dead fish in the tank this morning. I didn't say anything to kids this time as I needed to drop them off at camp and get to work. My lack of being up front with the news of their pet's passing was based solely on their previous over the top reaction to the death of their first fish. I would have been at least a half hour late if I informed them of Leo's demise. But really, I do think Leo would have wanted it that way. I am the main fish food dispenser after all, so one can logically assume that he did like me. Thus, I'm positive he wouldn't want me to be late for work on his account. The least I can do is respect the wishes of a dead fish. Besides, Lynn can break it to them when she picks them up.

That leaves Michael as the sole survivor of the upstairs tank. We have a Betta named Fabio in a small bowl downstairs. You can't put the Bettas in with the goldfish as they will continue to attack them until they are dead. Had I known Leo was so close to meet his maker I would have put him in the bowl with Fabio. That way he could have gone out with some panache and style. Plus it would entertain poor Fabio who seems rather bored with his existence lately.

I'm debating whether or not to get more fish. If the kids have another wailing fest like they did last time I don't think I could handle any more pet deaths. The little hypocrites hardly ever fed the fish or merely gaze at them in their tank very often. I think we should give them fish sticks for dinner as we break the news to them so the event would be compete with irony.

RIP Oogley Googley

My children have just experienced their first pet death. We have had three gold fish since September and last night I noticed that the one that had bulging eyes looked white and was limp and caught in the filter. His cause of death is unknown but hey, it's a fish and I'm not doing an autopsy on the way to the toilet. My nonchalance attitude about Oogley Googley's demise was quite the opposite reaction that my children had.

The kids were brushing their teeth before bed and I informed Lynn as to the dead fish. She grabbed the net and scooped him into a container and we decided to let the kids say goodbye before flushing him away to his final watery grave.

"Jonathan and Gabriel" Lynn said as she walked into the bathroom with the corpse, "I have some bad news, Oogley Googley has died." (Try saying that with a straight face!!)

Immediately both kids started bawling and howling as if they were told I was dead or all of their Pokemon cards burned up in a freak fire. Tears streamed down their faces as they loudly lamented the news of his death. While I wasn't expecting them to be happy about the news, I was somewhat shocked about how hard they took it. Their wails were reminiscent of Muslim women at funerals in the middle east. They were bawling so loudly that it became comical to my wife and I and I even had to leave the room to laugh as Lynn hugged them close so she could smile without them seeing. I know that sounds insensitive but the complete overreaction was a sight to behold. It was just a fish after all.

Nevertheless, we consoled them as best as we could as toothpaste dribbled out of their crying mouths. Jonathan informed us that he may want to stay home the next day so he could grieve. I would've thought it was good angle shoot but his concern was genuine so I didn't answer him right away. They seemed fine this morning and they went to camp seemingly unaffected.

They expressed their wishes that if we were to get another fish that we would honor him and name him Oogley Googley II. Death hits us all differently. In some ways having fish is a good growth tool as children can learn about mortality without having true tragedy.

So, thanks for brightening our lives a little bit Oogley Googley, it was nice knowin' ya!

Oogley Googley
2007-2008
RIP

Genetically altered bugs that poop oil

Sounds crazy, right?

It's true!

I found that news story linked on a message board today. To summarize for the lazy-genetically altered yeast producing bacteria and E. Coli Bacteria can ferment sugars to produce carbonless petroleum. The company has just started and obviously mass production isn't possible at this stage, but they could conceivably produce oil at $50 a barrel (current pricing is over $138).

The wonderful thing about capitalism is that if you have a need, someone ultimately fills that need. While a totally unchecked free market creates some inequity and problems (ie. Enron), it does come thru in the clutch.

I look forward to putting bug poop into my car and I hope I see the day.

Hatching a smoke

Just got back from my trip- don't have much time to tell you all about it yet, but a quick update- The baby birds are hatching!!

Who says smoking is bad for the environment?!

In some ways I'm embarrassed to show this picture but it's too funny to keep to myself.

Today is my son Gabriel's 7th birthday. He was out in the back yard playing with his friends and dinner time was approaching. Since it was his birthday I needed to ask him what he wanted to eat so he could choose his favorite. (He chose mac and cheese) I was in the bedroom at the time and we have a small upstairs patio that you can access thru a door from the bedroom. I opened the door and went onto the patio to ask Gabriel what he wanted. I haven't been out on this patio since I quit smoking (I would never smoke in the house). I guess I prefer my patio on the ground.

Now here's the embarrassing part. I used to dump my ash tray into a trash can that was on the patio. I guess since I haven't been on the patio in so long I've forgotten to empty the trash can which is filled about 2/5's of the way up with cigarette butts. Pretty gross, I know. I'm a slob, I admit it.

Just as I was about to shout down to Gabriel I noticed the trash can and a bird that made it's nest inside of it!! I can't tell if there's eggs in the nest of butts and twigs that the bird had made for itself, but I don't have the heart to chase the bird away.

Anyways, here's a picture that my wife took of the bird. You can click on it for a blown up view. I truly hope she doesn't get addicted to the butts.