My New Endeavor

Most probably know by now, but I started grad school in August. I am attending Gonzaga University, participating in their online Masters of Science program, with an emphasis on nurse education. My goal is to be a nursing professor. I take one class each block, so I am enrolled in six credits each semester. So far I have really enjoyed it. I particularly like that I only have to concentrate on one class at a time. I feel like I learn a lot more that way.

My first class was ethics, which I finished last Friday. I definitely learned a lot, and it helped get me back in the swing of things. I have forgot a lot, especially when it comes to APA format, which is sad because I used to be pretty good at it. Supposedly, ethics is the easiest class of the program (I have a coworker who is in her last semester of the program who I get my info from.), but I found it quite manageable. I am definitely not getting all of the things I would like to done around the house, but I do a fairly decent job. 

I will be done in August of 2015, so I have lots of time to perfect my time management skills. I will hopefully share tidbits as I go.

Sting Ray Update

Here is a stingray update from Kevin’s fish forum posting:

Well, I started looking around a little and was going to hold off in a Leo till next year, then I came across this ray. Interesting story. Went with another ray keeper to the local fish auction. I was interested in a royal pleco (sucker fish/plecostamus) they were going to sell and then I saw a gold nugget (also a sucker fish/plecostamus) which I really was interested in. 

Then before the action started I heard another ray keeper talking about a Leo (type of sting ray) at a pet shop, so I tuned in to listen to what they were talking about. They said it had been at the shop for a good while and was up in a tank far in the back up high. Don't know why you would keep such a stellar ray out of view. So, I looked them up on the internet and gave them a call ASAP to see if it was really true. Owner said “Ya we have a Leo and motoro (type of sting ray) here leo is about 12" disk.” My thought was it's a hybrid or maybe a henlie (another type of sting ray) more likely. I was thinking holy crap I need to get out of here and check this ray out. I saw one Leo listed through local classifieds about a year ago. I really don't think any Leos exist anywhere here. 

So, I decided to stay for the pleco auction and then drive over to the pet shop ASAP. I didn't really need the plecos but thought they would be a good add to the tanks I have, but also money not spent on them was money to spend on the ray. Royal went for 20.00 and gold nugget went for 30.00 super good deals. But I had my mind set on checking out this Leo. 

So we left the auction and headed to the fish store. I had never ever been to this shop before and first opinion was good. Looked everywhere and we looked though the tanks and could not fund this Leo. So asked the owner and he was all the way in the back up on the top rack where you could never see him unless you had a ladder.

The owner went to get a ladder and my friend was jumping up to look at him. His first comment was that it was a good size. Then a ladder came and I was able to get up and take a look to do a fast check over. Flag tail check. Everything else fit Leo. Size about 9 inches. Which was great as my other rays are about that size. Kept looking him over and he was super happy to see someone and was looking right at me the whole time. 

Well, I heard he had been there a while so I asked the owner what the bottom $ was and it was great but still figured I could try for a better deal. I know sad right. But I'm not made of a huge amount of money and rays are super costy. But he gave me a bottom dollar amount and we agreed on it. More than anything the pet shop owner was super happy to see the ray go to a person that knew what they were doing and had the proper tank setup. Was nice to see a owner and his wife running the shop doing everything together. They were very nice. Well, they seemed a little lost on how to bag him, so I offered to do it, and they were super happy to let me did that. While up getting ready to bag him I saw a few Massivore pellets and tossed them in and he jumped all over them. Sweet. Great healthy ray. 

Well after a little work got him home and a 45 min drip later, I added him to the tank. He was in a bare bottom tank and still as of now he has never hid in the sand. Super active and does not startle easy at all. Perfect ray so far. and I am fully addicted to my black ray. Well let's get some pics.

This is what he does when he think he is going to get fed. He is worse than a Lunar hound.

That is not a friendly looking tail.

All of the sting rays (minus one) checking Kevin out.

Staycation

This past week (October 5-12), I had the opportunity to take a nice little break. Back in August, I was starting to feel a bit frustrated with work, so I knew I was starting to burn out and needed a break. I have become pretty good at hording my PTO (Although it wasn’t hard because for most of the year I have been in the NICU we seldom got home call.), so I took a couple of days off last week and just relaxed.

Luna and I went up to my parents’ house for conference weekend (Kevin had some tasks he wanted to accomplish plus some hours to make up at work, so he stayed home.). It was really nice to just hang out with my parents. Luna even behaved herself, at least mostly. She did discover that she finds Sissy’s food quite appetizing. I’m not really sure how much Sissy actually ate while we were there. However, other than the food theft, they got along quite well. It was also nice to sit and watch conference without the worry of a certain hound going missing like what happened in April. We also went to a family chicken fry up Weber Canyon. 

Monday, was unfortunately spent on writing a paper, which I had procrastinated, so that day was not very relaxing (other than the massage I got in the morning). However, I did get an A- on the paper, so that is always exciting. Fortunately, I quickly finished the rest of the reading for the class, so I was able to spend time doing other activities rather than just homework. I actually accomplished a fair amount of stuff on my to do list. It felt pretty good. I still would have loved to accomplish more, but that is always my sentiment. 

It was bittersweet to go back to work, but having a break does renew my energy, which was important because I’ve had a rough five days. I’ve worked 56+ hours in the past five days (It is sad how long it took me to calculate that. Fingers were used.). I don’t do stuff like that, but I do have six days off to recuperate. While it won’t be as cushy as my staycation (as I am just starting a class rather than finishing it), I am looking forward to it.

Brigham City Temple

On September 14, Kevin and I went to the Brigham City Temple Open House. The temple of course was beautiful, and I enjoyed seeing it. This was the first open house we have been to since we were married, and it is a bit different when you have a better idea what goes on inside the rooms you are looking at. 

After we enjoyed our cookies, we headed over to Smiths to buy some pie for our dinner with our fish friends Dane and his wife. We had quite a bit of time to kill so we explored Brigham City. We even drove a little ways up Sardine Canyon. We found quite a few yards that I was quite jealous of. Someday I will have time to garden, or at least stay on top of the flower gardens I have.

We had pizza and chocolate pie at Dane’s house. After we ate, Kevin and Dane went downstairs to look at Dane’s gun, while Dane’s wife and I stayed upstairs and shared hospital battle stories. All of the sudden we heard a very loud boom, followed by silence. After a few stunned seconds, we ran downstairs where we found a bewildered Kevin and Dane. Dane’s gun had accidently gone off, and Kevin had shot a hole in the basement ceiling and into the trimboard around the front door. Fortunately the only thing injured were their eardrums. Fortunately, they are easy going people, so we think we might get another invitation to visit them sometime.

Shortly after this eventful happening, we called it a night and headed back home.

The next weekend we had the opportunity to attend the temple dedication at our stake center (it was broadcast there). I had it a priority to have that day off, and I am glad I did. Temple dedications are just so spiritually uplifting. I just like the feeling I have when I attend, it just reaffirms my love for the temple and my testimony of the ordinances that take place there. Now if it could give me a newfound dedication to actually go more often, that would be ideal.

Sting Ray Pictures

Some of John's (the guy we bought the sting rays from) rays:

One of the moms to our sting rays.

The mom liked to swim constantly.

John's set-up. Kevin's new fish dream.

This is all in his garage. He also has another big fish tank and a smaller pond. Kevin was very covetous.

The sting rays after the long trek home:

Moses Lake Sting Ray Trip

Written by Kevin.

RAY TRIP- All the sudden, but well worth it.

Alright I will start this off with the trip in full and then add the pictures in other post, those of you that want can and will just skip to the pictures.

Tank has been up and running well for a good while, no problems at all fish were eating like crazy, fish are breeding so I knew it was time to look for the primary tank mates that I got this tank for. STINGRAYS!!!!

We have a few great people on here that are doing a great job at producing rays. I knew that Black rays or even the more grey ones were out of the price range and here local people have motoros because of the couple breeders here all ready. So I wanted something different but also figured it was a way to get my feet wet with rays.

I really wanted to get marbles as my first rays to start with, but after seeing JohnG’s group of Mantillas, I thought that as another great options in the ray department and something I would like to get when available and further down the road, and I am from Washington, so figured I would make a trip back there to see family and stop by and pick up some rays. I talked to John about this months ago and he was game to show me his setup and rays of course. (Note really really great guy will help you with so much information on everything.) Not just from me, another local guy told me the same when asking him about pond setups and everything.

I have a friend here that breeds motoros but sold his breeding group to another guy here local who I didn’t know at all. But I Emailed him about 2 weeks ago saying I was looking for 2 females because my other good friend here local already got two males for the original breeder, so we figured we would put them together and have as many rays as needed later down the road.

I did not hear back from him and had started to reach out to other people on here looking to see what might be available really soon.

I sent a message to JohnG on the 29th Wednesday asking him what he had available as I was near ready for rays. I got a message back saying he was planning on closing shop for a while and everything was going for sale, SAD was first thought, second was I need to get me some of those rays. Of course if you all know most of his stock does not fit into the budget of most of us here, but I did remember he had the Mantilla pups back a while ago and asked about those, he said he still had 6 from the two females he has and they were available if I wanted to drive up and get them. This was Wednesday evening, 4 hours later I said I was all in and would make the trip on Saturday to then get the pups Sunday morning and drive back, From here to Moses lake its a little over 700 miles and that is about 11.5 hours of driving, and before all that I had allot of work to do to prepare. And I needed the oil changed on my truck, so I called it in asap for Friday at 3:30pm, free 20K from Toyota thank you. John was great with the ray info as he stopped feeding them so it would be a better trip for them.

First Wal-Mart trip back a couple months ago I remember seeing 100 gallon storage tubs available and was thinking one of those could work perfectly for the trip. As I went to Wal-Mart (3 different locations) target (1 location) I only found about 50 gallon tubs, which really looked big enough over all for the pups and the trip. I purchased the tub Friday.

Wednesday I finally heard back from the new guy with the Motoro rays saying he had a female he wanted to sell also and that he just had too many rays at this point in the Motoro type as his Marbles seem to have breed and might have pups. Talked to him a good bit and finally decided that that would fill the gap in wanting three females. So made a trip over to pick up that ray and made a new ray friend who I am glad to know about and be able to work with on stuff. 1st ray in the tank. 6 more to go still, lol, funny how nothing happens and then all the sudden BOOM all at once.

Heat and Air, temperature reading constantly - digital love :-) - I wanted both for the trip, so I planned an inverter to carry that load in the truck. I was thinking of just taking my 250 watt heater out of the 55 gallon tank and using it, but the inverter I got from my dad is good for 140 watts constant use. Well I figured a 250 watt heater would not work then, so I went to the pet store looking for 100 watt heaters, HOLY CRAP EXPENSIVE!!!! I buy all that stuff online and it is cheap, this 100 watt heater on sale was like 37.00 NO JOKE, so I plan to return it, and I decided at the same time I would grab an air pump which was like 25.00 walked out with 60.00 for two stupid items that online I would pay like 25.00 or less for them. So as I said I will be returning those ASAP.

Problem- Heater Burn, Rays cannot come into contact with the heater or they get burned. So I needed to protect them from the heater, first though wrap it in dried silicon I had around, Fail still was hot to my touch and probably reduced the heating power, but might have worked, next I placed the heater in a pvc pipe I had around and put a zip tie onto the end to hold it from going further down which also made if from going up, sweet when things work out nice. So I got an air stone tubing heater and pulled the truck out onto the driveway for my testing starting at like 7pm or so.

Testing- Air worked no problems at all, its super easy and the pump was silent. Heater in the tub was working showed a nice little blue light for working but the temp was not going up rather it was going down, so I tuned it up a bit, nothing, turned it up some more, nothing, hummm really odd this thing should be able to heat like 15 gallons of water or less easy. So then I decided to put the lid on and take a little drive to see what the digital thermometer would read at, it started to go up as I drove around which was good and I started seeing hope where before I was seeing frozen stingrays not making the trip. THEN BAM it hit me the truck moving was just like the pumps we have in the tanks making the water circulate into the heater cover and out again. AHHHH light bulb moment. So I knew I was good to go but I wanted to make sure so I decided to also insulate the tub with some moving blankets I had around here. I also took the opportunity to put some aquarium silicon onto the zip tie part that I cut off as it was sharp and could have cut a ray really easy at any part of the trip.

Load up- That night I loaded everything up in the truck and got it all ready so all we would have to do was get up and get going which I planned for 5am wake up time.

5am, Up and awake, grabbed the last few things made sure the silicon was good on the heater and dry and set out on the trip, first stop was BK (Burger King) breakfast, I got us two things of orange juice and one biscuit muffin for my wife and me two burritos (both cold half frozen in the middle) and a muffin deal as well which was good, overall cost was like 7.00, I’ll come back to this, but the worst part that I was worried about was the stupid slow speeds and having to let someone else fill up my gas tank in Oregon. I am capable thank you. We were able to leave the house at 5:40 which was great since my wife was going and a little less motivated as I was. I slept well though so I was all good to go. we stopped about 4 times and I drove the whole trip up there and we didn’t even have to get gas in Oregon, YAHOOO, I do have a Valentine One Radar detector though in my truck as it use to live in my Evo which was a better fit for it but it keeps me safe even when going over just a little bit.

I forgot the time change and we made it up to John's place around 4:30pm which was great time in my opinion. We met with John talked rays, filtration, showed him my make shift setup. WOW what a setup he has, more or less 3 large tanks ponds in the garage of his house. I took a good amount of photos of everything just to show it all once again to people. It does exist and is great to see. I want to build one right now. lol, I wish I had lots of money and I would have loved to buy it all but my wife started her masters and honestly that amount of money for everything is just not possible on my income right now, I could only hope someday to have such a collection. I could build the tank setup and do that but stocking it would be another thing. John is a great guy, said we could come by anytime in the morning to load them up, didn’t matter when, just give him a call. He also had blue pills for the water to reduce stress and ammonia in the water. This guy knows his stuff.

Having lived in Washington I was a bit familiar with the area and saw some places I had visited before being over there. Moses Lake is more or less a Vacation town with lots of summer water skiing, but it is really far away from everything else. Gas was 3.99 at the cheapest there, while in Utah its $3.45 at Costco,

We ate dinner at J's Teriyaki which is right in town from Johns place, it was good and something I miss that Washington has and Utah does not have. The hotel was ghetto, 98.00 a night and was a joke, too bad everything else was full. I didn’t sleep much at all, and knew I would be hurting the next morning. I even woke up before 4am to go fill the truck with last little bit of gas I could get into the tank and get everything 100 percent ready. Found I could fit 1.5 extra gallons into the tank even after the auto shut off turned the flow off. That’s like 35 extra miles. Finally it was time, and we grabbed our stuff, packed up, and left the hotel, and I went to look for the Burger King to try breakfast again, Not Open, so McDonald’s was the option. I remember as a kid thinking it was great, but I love the $1.00 menu, BK has that for every meal, MC does not, so we got two McMuffins and two horrible out of the fountain machine orange juice for over 10.00 OUCH, and never again will I go there, Denny’s is cheaper and better give or take for the food you get. I did have the lady at the window fill up our water bottles with ice and water though and made everyone wait like 15 minutes for her to do that, she could not figure how to have the dispenser fill up the bottles and had to ask for help because they have the settings for size. NO JOKE.

Finally made it to Johns place and took my bucket and took 2 scoops out of the pond and put them into the tub, then started the heater and air and checked temp, 79.5, sweet. Tub was little cold so probably cooled the water a bit as it was like 45 degrees in Washington that night. That was the goal keep it right at 79.5. Then we started catching rays and putting them into the tub one at a time, after they were all in we added the blue pills (bag buddies I think). And my wife drove and I watched the tub for the next 4 hours, I adjusted the heater two times when I saw it go a touch higher to 79.7 and then it was perfect staying at 79.7 to 79.5 all the time which was perfect. I set my GPS to get us back towards home because the first parts getting out of there is crazy with lots of road changes. I checked the temp about every 5 minutes no joke and every hour I looked into the tub with a flashlight to see what was going on. They all seemed really well, after a few hours of this, I knew all was well and then traded off to drive. After 4 hours, the loss of sleep caught up with me and I felt the trip was almost impossible, but I had my wife drive a little and only sleeping 30 minutes did it for me and I drove the last hour or so home. Towards the end of the trip I kind of noticed two of the rays seemed a bit sluggish. One, I think they were tired of all the sloshing around, but also it was really time for a nap more than anything, but I raced to get them home and into the tank just to make sure, as I sure did not want to lose a single one of these rays.
  

Home- 6:30pm what a long drive, Finally- Wanted to get the drip going a.s.a.p. and get them into the tank and then also drop in the worms which I still needed to run and get from Wal-Mart which is super close to us. I put the tub at the base of my 120 where I figured would be the best place for them to get food and get back into the grove of things. Other tank just had far too many fish in it and they would never see any food at this point. I dripped for a long time, probably like an hour and a half, kept the air stone going and heater in also just to help bring it up a little, in Utah weather is hot and my tank increased to 81.5 so I needed to get close to that. so I left it dripping ran the 4 min to Wal-Mart go worms and ran back, waited more and more, the rays all got super active other than the two, both which were more or less my favorites and sure did not want to lose at all.

Once I had about 3 times the water in the tub and all looked good I went for it. One after the other after the other into the tank, they all stayed active and were looking around other than the two who stayed more or less still, after about 30 minute I dropped in the worms and the two non-active stated to be the most active and probably ate almost all the worms themselves, today they are still the best eating and the largest out of the group. They all ate the first day back in the tank, the tub never changed more than a degree, and max was 79.9 min was 79.3.  Everything went more or less perfect. I must say a big thank you to John, I got my dream fish and saw a dream setup all at the same time. I must also thank my wife for driving when I could not as I needed sleep badly. I was just so excited I guess. So at this point I have 7 rays in my tank, all are eating like pigs and doing well, and I am keeping up crazy with water changes and making plans for moving them to the big house. I do not think I will need rays for a really long time. Out of the group the Light Female is the star at this point, she looks just like her mom and out of all the rays, John had he said she was his favorite and I must agree looking at all them she was mine also. WOW what a trip and I am so thankful for the opportunity to have these amazing rays here for my tank. Hope you enjoyed and stay tune for more as we are going to grow.