Aquascaping...it's my thing ;)

     So, I'm engaged now! I've also recently lost about ninety pounds (remember those Atkins bars and shakes?) so, I'm feeling pretty damned good too. Life is good! Now, it's time to put on another demonstration!

     I hate getting these things ready and feeling as though I'm going to bore the audience. As I'm putting together the powerpoint, which only needed tweeked from my last one, I kept running over certain areas trying to make them more interesting...nope! Sometimes it's just boring shit. I guess it's all in the demonstration which everyone always raves about afterwards however, putting these things together makes me want to drink Maalox for a week.

     Emarco Rocks apparently heard about our presentation and decided to donate rock if we named him as the sponsor of the meeting. I had told Rich I was up in the air about this as we were teaching people how to use a more economical approach with the emaco concrete (which is the same thing...you should know this if you've read my other posts) but, if he wanted to accept the donations, it was his club, his choice. He did.

     I tweeked the presentation a little more to not so much deter people away from our meeting sponsor but, it still gave money comparisons at the end for the two concretes.

     Day of....Rich introduced us to the small crowd of people that gathered in the Providence area they have selected to have their monthly meetings. Despite all the advertising, there was only one or two newcomers to this presentation. OSRAS is having a hard time getting people to come aboard...

     Then I start the presentation (I look suuuuper smart here right?)

     While Chris builds small structures to raffle off at the end of the presentation. 

     Rich shows off his piece to the crowd in order to not only show off my masterpiece and what he will be putting in his tank at home but, to show everyone how well the concrete holds once cured.

     Chris also shows everyone one of his favorite tricks. Placing epoxy into the tank to put in a large colony and then propping it up with sticks (we use skewers) overnight while it cures. We wanted to show this to people at the CTARS presentation as well but, Ego never gave us the chance. 

This Photo Courtesy of Rich Hogan

     A look at the structures after they were built...and yet another clueless look on my face. Can't anyone snap a photo of my looking intellectual? 

This Photo Courtesy of Rich Hogan

     I always ask people to send me photo's of their structures later on down the road so I can see how they are doing and possibly use them in later demo's. I can't remember who won these structures so, I can't ask or look for their tank photo's anywhere. However, on a search I did happen to find Rich's. He built the rest of his in his tank with the remaining concrete and the one we made for him is over on the right hand side. Rich has never been able to keep a tank very well. Chris was helping him for a while (more on that later) and with these photo's it goes to show that he still needs some major areas of improvement on his tank knowledge and care. 

Photo found on OSRAS.com

Photo found on OSRAS.com

     Someone even posted a message that he had some corals ready for fragging. Huh?!!

     *Sigh* Anyway, until next time, smart reefing & happy aquascaping!! 





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A Salty Propostition

     I've lived with Chris now for just about ten years. We will hit that official mark in December. We've been together for a little over twelve. That's a long time...it's a really long time to still have the names Woomer and Messier on our mailbox too.

     We had actually been talking about the idea of getting married possibly in 2013 but, 2012 came and went and there was no proposal or really any money to have the kind of wedding that Chris wanted. (This is also debatable...Fiji or big party...or big party after getting married in Fiji. I won't get married without my kids being there though so, Fiji is out!)

     Now, for every year, for every holiday, Chris tells me that I'm getting a new frag or a piece of equipment for the tank. I always laughs, tell him he's an asshole and usually a few minutes or, sometimes even hours, later Chris will present me with my real gift which was never anything to do with the fish tank. Good thing for him too because I'd ring his neck!

     This year for my birthday I opened my card and it reads, "I hope you love your new frag," so I assumed he was merely being his usual smartass self again. I even call him an asshole...with a smile of course.

     I'm sitting on the couch for a few minutes and he asks if I want to see my frag. Oh, so we are still going with the frag story? Okay, whatever. I roll my eyes as he takes me by my hands and leads me over to the tank. 

     But this time there was a frag...

    

     He had it on a frag plug...my new frag!!! I couldn't believe it, and I felt so bad for not taking the card seriously and for calling him an asshole!!! He took the ring out of the tank and after all these years (and lots of saltwater!!) we are finally engaged! 


You can see Chris' way of announcing our engagement by going to his favorite forum: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2265515

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Just Call Me the Aquascaper!

     It's February now and I'm losing my mind with Rich and Brenda's phone calls and messages. However, I keep my cool (most of the time) and press on. The screaming and swearing usually happens before or after the phone calls with Rich. The calls/emails usually went a little like this...

Day ten of question one: "Seriously man, how many times do I have to explain to you that I'm not going to post about the conference every day? Why? Because it will piss off the few people that we do have that have liked the page! Please trust me okay? Okay." 

Day fifteen of question 1,568,034: "Whhhhyyyy did you post an invitation  to the conference on your Facebook when there is already one on the OSRAS Facebook page? This is going to confuse people. Please take it down.

Day sixteen: "Please?" 

Day seventeen: "Please?" 

Day eighteen: "Please!" 

Day twenty: "PLEASE!" 

Day thirty-nine: "Oh my god! Fucking take it down!"

Day forty-one: "What do you mean you don't know how?!" 

Day forty-four: "No, I never had access to your Richard Facebook page! What are you talking about?!"

Day forty-five: "This is the info on how to add the 'like Facebook' to the OSRAS page you requested" (insert html and website info here)

Day forty-six: (this is me ignoring Rich's message about not understanding how to add the 'like Facebook' to the OSRAS website)

     Anyway, I'm sure you catch my drift here. I have learned to have patience over the years, far more than I did when I was younger but, its still far thinner than most peoples. Especially when people are just plain untrainable or think that they are right when they are just plain dumb. I have a life outside of OSRAS and that means I do not have time to argue over petty shit. Please try to remember, I'm doing you a favor here buddy...this is not my job. 

     Part of my not-job was to prepare for yet another presentation for the club. This one wasn't too big of a deal though because we already had most of the presentation done because we had done it for CTARS already; our aquascaping presentation. 

Flyer for the Presentation

     Rich and Brenda gave us the money to get the concrete while holding yet another BoD meeting at our home and at the January meeting gave us some rock to build them a structure for their tank to show the meeting. Wait, what?! Hold on one second! They wanted us to build them a structure for their tank with the concrete bought with OSRAS money? What the fuck! I thought this shady shit was the entire reasoning they started their club. Whatever. Then they asked me to make kits with the concrete to raffle out at the meeting too. Okay. No problem! 

     So, one fine sunny day Chris and I started the project....

I start by making the structure I want first...

     My dog Sparky decided he wanted to help too. His idea of helping is just dancing around like a little ballerina I think because he's half chihuahua and that's all I usually see these dogs doing...that or talking about taco's. 

Told you I was losing my mind! 

     Then came the process of actually putting the scape together.

     Chris also worked on large and small disks to raffle off at the meeting.

  

     Now, imagine that this next photo is me saying something along the lines like "this is one kick ass scape." I'm really in all reality saying something like, "we need to move this really soon so that we can get the pot roast on the table for dinner tonight." I prefer the first version better, it's just more fitting with the hand gesture I'm making. 

     When we were all done I went out to Walmart and bought these cool containers that I'm sure some of you will actually recognize, bread bags and used some old water bottles for the Acryl 60 mix and made five and ten pound kits for the meeting. I was extremely happy with the results of these. When I sent the picture to Rich he called me up and asked if there would be enough concrete and mix left for him after the presentation to finish his aquascaping in his tank? Seriously? Okay, I get it. And yeah, there will be plenty.  

    I didn't let Rich see his structure until the day of the meeting and I'm happy to report that he was extremely pleased with the finished product. Those pictures will follow later.  

     This aquascaping thing is actually one of my favorite aspects of the hobby. Give me some live rock and leave me alone with a tank and I'll be happy. Give me some live rock and this concrete and I'm even happier! 

     Until the next blog....happy reefing!

A Meeting and A Christmas Party

     So the Ocean State Reef Aquarium Society is underway. Rich and Brenda call a meeting of the BoD at our home to discuss the nature of of affairs with the club and what direction it should go in. Rich, Brenda and Charleen all attend. It's been decided after a conversation Rich had with Jeff, the prior president of CTARS, that a conference will be put on next year by OSRAS. Okay. Good idea? Maybe, if they can come up with some money because the club only has a few paying members. They have made me Facebook Coordinator. I can handle this no problem. Go on Facebook a couple of times a day to see if there is anyone trying to contact me, upload pictures taken at meetings, update status whenever requested. Brenda seems adamant that she doesn't want to really open all the books to the the club members and dammit! One of these people broke my toilet seat while they were in my home and didn't have the decency to tell either me or Chris!! 

     I'll look past the toilet seat for the time being and just try to have some fun with new club members and see how this Facebook thing goes. There is a Christmas party coming up for the club and a Secret Santa. I plan on making my famous pumpkin pie for the event and Chris plans on giving away one of his frags as a secret santa gift. But, our phones ring constantly and our Reef Central inboxes are getting full with requests and questions on how to do things....these are very needy people! They really want Chris and his father to go set up tanks again to sell their frags as well as donate some of them for their raffles and they are very insistent on this. Chris says he'll see what he can do. He prefers to offer, not be asked...Smile, Missie, smile! You love this hobby!!!

Yes, they gave in and brought their corals, their setting up here.

Emery showing his coral

(Picture Courtesy of George Atkins)

Frags

(Picture Courtesy of George Atkins)

     The day of the meeting comes. 

Filling out name tags

(Picture Courtesy of George Atkins)

Secret Santa table

(Picture Courtesy of George Atkins)

     There is a woman named Deb there. I know her. She's very nice. She looks pissed. I ask her what the problem is. She's upset because she made all the food for the party and Rich is ignoring her. Oh, for crying out loud! Are you kidding me?! Drama, really? Does it seriously have to find me here too? 

(Picture Courtesy of George Atkins)

(Picture Courtesy of George Atkins)

     I spend a majority of the party in the hallway listening to the life story of how she has been there for Rich when him and Brenda split up and how dare he treat her like this, she paid for their oil when they had none last year and blah, blah, blah....I run to Chris when I see him and tell him I think there is some sort of crazy fucked up love triangle going on that I just got myself in the middle of and to help me get the fuck out of it! 

     He laughs, makes fun of me for always finding drama and asks for my help with something. Eventually we make our way over to the party area. (By the way, the food was wonderful and eventually I did talk Rich into thanking her and she came into the party...by the door if I do remember correctly.) 

    Then we went on to the Secret Santa part of the party which was actually a lot of fun. 

(Picture Courtesy of George Atkins)

      All in all the party was actually a good time. We had some great reef discussions with other members of the club. Afterwards, Rich and Brenda needed a ride home and wanted Chris' advice on how to bring their tank back to life anyway. We figured why not. That was an adventure all in itself. The tank they had set up was...dead. There was no living organism in it what-so-ever. The coral that was in it was skeleton that they were 'hoping' would somehow return from the dead. The live rock was white, no coralline, no algae, nothing. It was basically as if they has simply poured bleach in their tank...months ago. They had been adding so many different types of additives that they never needed to add for a tank that wasn't even close to being alive, it was purely insane. Chris gave them a few quick tips to get the tank started and we had to get out of there. (If you want a further explanation to that statement, ask me personally). 

     On a really good note, the BoD for CTARS is completely new and after the Christmas party that they had this month as well, Ego and his minions are gone!