Holiday Letter 2009
January 11th, 2010Wedding Website is Up!
January 8th, 2010A Return to Life
October 24th, 2009There are so few things that are truly magical in this world. When time stops and your heart races, adrenaline and energy flows between so many people with innumerous emotions. After finding such a fulfilling endeavor, it is hard to live without it. In this techno world of instant gratification, constant commercial bombardment and the incessant money grabs of the modern media-crazed-corporate-theocracy, it’s easy to get distracted. It is easy to listen to the hype, the snake oil salesmen and the drug toting sleazes, that your creation is ready for the mass consumption of Frank Zappa’s infamous teenage material consuming “Debbie.”
Life throws in some turns. All of sudden, you hate it all: the scene, the work, the people, the “friends.” And what was once precious is gone, evaporated, dissolved.
Life can also throw you back on the path. Time off, reflection, reconnection. To go on without that pure and innocent energy would be folly. It’s the reason why amateur athletes and honest performers offer the most mind-blowing experiences because they lose themselves in the moment. Not in their stats or sales or reviews.
I will be picking up one of my greatest loves again. With the renewed energy and passion that existed before the wheeling and dealing, before the salesmen, and before the numbness.
Stay tuned.
Don’t sue your briefs manufacturer
October 23rd, 2009Thanks to my honey for sending this gem.
http://abovethelaw.com/2009/10/lawsuit_of_the_day_defective_u.php
Windows 7: “I’m up here, boys!”
October 22nd, 2009From user tenzig_112 (213387) on Slashdot, upon the release of Windows 7. This is along the same vein as my “band/girlfriend relationship” philosophy applied to new operating systems. Pretty damn funny.
I get the impression that the Windows 7 launch is a lot like seeing an old girlfriend suddenly show up on your doorstep wanting to get back together. She’s had some work done, apparently: stomach stapling to take off some of the weight, breast augmentation, and a radical nosejob to make her look as much like your current girlfriend as medical science will allow.
She’s pretty, of course, almost too pretty. She still wears far too much makeup and carries that desperate look in her eyes. The fragrant haze around her is the perfume she overuses to mask the scent of failure.
But standing there in that low-cut top, you’d almost forget for a moment what a psycho she was- how she used to shut down in the middle of a date and forget everything you were talking about and how she was only happy when you were buying her things. You’d almost forget about carrying around her legacy baggage or those nights when, for seemingly no reason at all, she would simply stop speaking to you and when you asked what was wrong she’d just spit a string of hex code at you and expect you to figure it out.
You complained about her for years before finally deciding to get rid of her, and here she is again. Though, somehow she seems like a completely different person now.
“I’m up here,” she says when she catches you staring at her chest.
Tempted though you may be, you know that over time she’ll get bored and slow down on you just like she always does. And then you’ll be right back where you started: trapped. She keeps you by convincing you that you don’t have a choice. You’re just not smart enough for one option or rich enough to afford the other.
“But I’m different now,” she says, batting her eyes innocently. “I’ve changed.”
Indeed she has. Apparently, she’s really into Cabala now or something like that. It’s helped her discover loads of untapped potential in herself. But it also means that you’ll have to buy all new furniture to fit with her understanding of feng shui. That’s not the only change she has in store for you. The minute you let her move in, she’ll have a new alarm system put in that succeeds only in preventing your friends from coming over on poker night.
She doesn’t love you, but she doesn’t hate you, either. The truth is that she couldn’t care less one way or the other. She’s here because she doesn’t want to be alone. Like all human beings, especially those well past their prime, she wants to feel wanted and, after a string of lost jobs and bad investments, she needs a place to stay.
But all in all, she’s OK. She’s a seven. She’ll do, I guess.
Roxy the pitbull
October 18th, 2009It occurs to me I have never posted pictures of our dog Roxy here. Which is odd, cause on Facebook she is everywhere.
SWC Xtreme HOT Review (cont’d)
October 18th, 2009For the rest of my review, check out this reefcentral.com thread.
SWC Xtreme HOT Review
July 19th, 2009After months of convincing, begging, saving, and massive research, I upgraded the protein skimmer on my 40G aquarium. I replaced my Tunze 9002 with a Saltwater Connection’s (SWC) Extreme Hang on Tank skimmer, purchased from Reef Filtration. Luke is a great guy to work with and was great in answering all my questions.
At the beginning of this summer I decided to replace my 9002, which was purchased in February. I didn’t feel I was getting very good performance out of it. Dry skimming on the unit seemed useless as all the gunk would built-up in the neck and never spill over. Wet skimming gave me an overflowing collection cup full of clear water. The unit also sat in the “sump” section of my AIO tank, and it just didn’t have the power to pull out the big gunk, which sits at the bottom and it just a cesspool of bacteria. Ironically the pump in the Tunze died the day I ordered the SWC and I’ve been happier with the old backup BakPak I put on in the interim. I have a primarily SPS dominated tank with 4 fish (2x clowns, Golden Tonga Blenny and a mandarin dragonnet) with a few LPS and a zoanthid rock (maybe my favorite part of the whole tank). I have a tailspot blenny and maybe a small school of chromis left on my fish list. When my mother purchased an Octopus BH-1000 for her tank and performed better than anything I’ve ever had, well I guess that would be the last straw.
After looking at a ton of Octopus hang ons, I narrowed it down to the 800s, and randomly found a link to the SWC. I decided on the SWC for two reasons: 1) bigger neck and 2) input and output design. The last thing I want to do on a new skimmer is mod it, and cutting off pinwheels or drilling holes in the skimmer body – which it seems everyone with an 800s has to do – was not very attractive. The SWC has a much larger neck (3″x5″, essentially a SWC 160) that eliminates the overflow story heard by EVERY 800s owner I’ve ever spoken with.
If you take a look at the input and output design of the SWC, it is just ingenious! The preskimmer can be adjusted up or down depending on your water level. The output bends into a bubble trap before entering the tank. Yes the part in the tank is white and we would all prefer black, but that just means more corals to purchase to cover it up . . .
The Deltec MCE600 fell out of favor, numerous reviews I found thought it was a good skimmer but not for the money. An ATB Multi use would be at the top of my list if I had $650 to blow. But for that price I would just buy a bigger tank with a sump and a SWC/MSX in-sump.
The skimmer arrives Tuesday via UPS, expect much more to come . . .
Updated Tank Shots
June 4th, 2009This is a pretty current series of shots of my tank. Enjoy!
And now the rest of the story . . .
May 17th, 2009So our wedding date is set, our invite list is almost complete, our house is in escrow, I figured I should post the answer to the one question I repeatedly get: how did you propose?
Now if you are getting the impression I shiver to retell the tale au contraire. Typically the women and men adore it, not for my style but mostly because I can’t stop smiling nor can I relive the moment with any sort of pith.
The beginning of January Liz and I were talking on the computer, she was most likely working diligently while I was sorting out some medical insurance nonsense. The wily girl mentioned how I wouldn’t be having this paperwork debacle if I were on her work insurance plan – with a big instant messaging smiley face at the end of her sentence. Well if you know Liz and I at all we love to have a good back and forth, and I was in the middle of typing how I can just jump the gun and ask her to marry me while we vacation in Utah with her family six weeks from now.
I stopped typing and thought to myself, “Holy shit. That’s a great idea.” It is hard to think up a proposal plan and here in jest I brewed one up and was about to give it up for free! I jumped onto a calendar: 6 weeks. I could pull it off in six weeks, right? I consulted my parents and thought it would be a pretty cute idea, snow drifts and all. I sent a message to my boys hoping to rally them for a boy meeting, we couldn’t get together but they knew what I was up to.
So the search began and ended at Tiffany’s, I mean how can you go wrong? A young woman named Kathryn Moore was more than helpful with my selection at Rodeo Drive. So Beverly Hills I know. I was ready to roll to San Diego to have dinner with Liz’s parents, call me traditional but even after 14 years of friendship, you have to get the blessing. Bumps in the diamond road followed, my stone had been SOLD! Kathryn was the greatest, she had an identical stone en route delivered by 3PM.
Having never purchased an engagement ring or asked for a parents’ permission to steal their only daughter, I thought a suit and tie would be appropriate attire for the day. I dragged them to Ruth’s Chris and I don’t think I’ve seen Cathy Graham smile in front of a piece of jewelry like that before. I was pretty jazzed. As expected, Hank asked me with a huge smile what I would do if he said no. I didn’t think of the response then, but I should have said, “Then you’re picking up the bill.”
Just over four weeks to go until our vacation. Four weeks of obsessively opening my office drawer looking at this beautiful ring I got for the love of my life. By day two, I cracked like stucco in an earthquake.
I got the right answer from my mom. What a fantastic enabler: “Well you don’t have any memories or special significance in Utah together, it’s just a trip. A nice one, and the snow is nice, but your lives and memories now are in LA, why wait?”
Why wait indeed. I made a late night reservation at Boa in West Hollywood, amazing steakhouse, even rivals my own personal favorite Donovan’s if you can believe that. But Liz is no fool. ”Honey, we don’t need to blow that kind of money unless we are doing something special.” I forced her to plan on going without giving up anything. Well that’s not entirely true, I am a total tease.
What an amazing place, the atmosphere was very personal and intimate, by no means a cookie-cutter restaurant. As our meal wound down I jokingly said to Liz, “Well maybe you should go to the bathroom and there will be some champagne glasses here with a ring in one of them.” She scowled at me and left. I took out the ring box – which I had so slyly kept hidden even during a pat-down by my future fiancé before leaving our apartment – out from under my thigh and called the waiter. All I did was open it.
“I need one shot of Patron silver here before she comes back, I need two glasses of champagne, but I’m not going to put the ring in it.” He couldn’t stop laughing and smiling, it would be pretty damn cool to play a hand in something so significant for someone. My shot of liquid steel arrived and I dispatched with it post-haste. Liz came back and moments later two glasses of champagne arrived. She grinned and started to inspect it, I got another scowl when she saw it contained no carbon.
We actually started talking about our wedding. It’s come up before, it’s no secret; we live together, have a dog, and known each other more than half our lives. At random I interjected and said I wanted to propose in Utah. She looked kind of dumbfounded, pondering why I would mention it. I know she did the math in her head: four more weeks.
We were always debating where our wedding would be, in San Diego or Los Angeles. The topic came up again and I interrupted. I said, “Before we do anything else, there is one thing I need to do in LA.”
“What?” she replied.
BAM! I had her walk right into it. I got out the box and opened it in front of her, “I need to propose to you in LA.” That’s when I dropped on one knee and the grand finale . . .
Let’s just say Liz has a new favorite steakhouse.