How to Read a Calendar

Despite the fact that I am in grad school, apparently I need to go back to Elementary School and learn how to read a calendar. I am currently in a policy class, and it is definitely not a favorite. However, the more I learn, the more I tolerate it.

Anyways, as mentioned in the previous post, we had planned to spend some time together for our anniversary. I had gotten up before Kevin Saturday morning, so I went downstairs and started working on my homework. As I was listening to the teacher’s audio recording, I suddenly got a horrible feeling as it dawned on me that the paper which I thought was due the following Sunday, was actually due the next day. While I had spent time looking for resources and had started some aspects of the paper through my discussion board posts, I really had nothing to show that I had really been working on this paper. I didn’t even have all of my resources.

After my brief moment of panic and reassurance from Kevin that everything really would be okay, I got to work. Over the course of 12 and a quarter hours I was able to hash out a paper with an hour to spare. I usually don’t operate like that. I like to take my time to research, write the paper, and edit in separate steps. On this paper, I did all three steps simultaneously. Most impressively, I even maintained my sanity.

This morning I received my score back. I received the full possible points. Apparently I write exceptionally well under intense pressure. This paper was a large majority of my grade, so I am a bit giddy that I did so well. However, I think I will try to avoid further experiences such as this in the future. I’m really not that big of an adrenaline junkie, and if I were, I would rather get my buzz from doing something much more enjoyable than writing a paper.

3 Years

Kevin and I have made it another year. I won’t say that it has always been easy, but the last year (and the previous two) has been enjoyable and I have enjoyed the opportunity to grow together with Kevin. He really is quite the patient man to put up with me and all of my issues.

Anyways, our anniversary was pretty low-key this year thanks to indecision and my inability to properly read a calendar (more on that in the next post). We both worked on the actual day of our anniversary (April 23), but we had planned to do something over the weekend. We were originally going to go south to St. George or Las Vegas, but never got around to making the reservations. Then Friday we had settled on spending the day at the zoo, but Saturday morning it was stormy (and I had discovered my calendar reading error), so we just went to eat lunch at Crowne Burger. Interestingly enough this is where we ate last year for our anniversary, so maybe we should make it a tradition. 

We also got sidetracked on the way home at an Asian Market in West Jordan, where we exercised self-control and only bought a cookie cooling rack. This place had everything you could think of. From knock-off purses to prom dresses to koi to statues of Buddha and arrowanas to kitchen wares. It was pretty dang amazing. We may have to go back some time.

We also went to Smiths (Exciting, I know.) where Kevin was excited to find that Cheerios and Lucky Charms were on sale. We have discovered that the two mixed together are quite tasty. You should try it some time.

While our anniversary wasn’t quite as exciting as the past two years, I still enjoyed spending a few hours with Kevin.

Fish Update

To avoid a novella like the previous fish post, I’m trying to update a bit sooner, rather than let months lapse.

Last Friday (April 19, 2013), our friends Dane & Alisha brought down four fish we bought from them, two peacock bass and two Oscars (although the Oscars kind of just got thrown in for free because Dane didn’t want them anymore). Another Utah fish forum member came over as well because Dane is fish-sitting for him while he tries to breed two of his really rare peacock bass. As Alisha said, it was a fish-geek get-together.

It amazes me how quickly I am getting sucked into this fish craziness. I honestly used to be terrified of fish because I had a traumatizing incident with a fish skeleton when I was younger (plus, those incidences with the dead fish on the floor at Walmart…), and I always thought I was scarred for life, although some it could be due to my highly dramatic nature. Then I met Kevin, and now I am almost as bad as he is. I am very attached to the fish, and I get rather upset when he sells anything other than the babies. So I guess I am almost as hopeless as Kevin, although I am okay not buying any more fish until they actually turn into a money making enterprise.

Anyways, without further ado, here are some pictures of our new fish. Unfortunately, I didn’t decide to take pictures until after dark, so they aren’t the greatest quality, but you get the general gist.

First the Oscars (they are kind of goofy): 

The bass (The dark was really not nice to them, they are actually much better looking in person.):

And finally, here are some pictures of Jack and the Texas hiding. Jack is slightly terrified of the bass, so he pretty much lives in this flower pot, at least until Kevin rearranged the tank a few days ago. Now the poor guy has to find a new hiding spot.

Roommate Get-together 2013

Last Wednesday (April 17, 2013), I had a get-together with my three of my roommates from Belmont Apartments, Shannon, Kristy, and Stormie. Stormie, who now lives in Texas, was in town for her sister’s wedding, so the four of us met at her parents’ house in Highland. I was there on time, but Shannon and Kristy were about half an hour late, so I only got to hang out with them for half an hour before I had to leave to get back to scouts. Despite the briefness of the visit, it was still very enjoyable. I haven’t seen Stormie for a  couple of years, so I was especially excited to see her. 

The only downfall was that I didn’t get a picture. In addition to the short time frame, I did not look my finest, and I did not want to preserve my scariness for posterity.

Refinance

A few weeks ago, I received a text from Kevin suggesting we look into refinancing our house through Discover Card. A coworker had recently refinanced her home and informed Kevin that Discover Card employees didn’t have to pay any closing costs. That was one of the things that was holding us back was the closing costs. So Kevin looked into it, and we started filling out the application. Last Monday (April 15), we closed on our loan. It was much different than when I originally bought the house as we had a traveling notary, so everything was done in our kitchen. It was a lot nicer than having to drive across the valley. 

One of the things that excited us about doing our home loan through Discover Card was the opportunity to pay our mortgage with our card and get 1% cash back. That would be a lot cash back added up over 30 years. Unfortunately, Discover Card sold our loan to Wells Fargo. I guess at least we did get a 1.75% interest decrease, and our payment is like $140 or so less each month, so I will try to not miss our many vacations I was planning to pay for with our cash back.  

Latest Fish Adventures

Geos

Kevin’s major focus with the fish has been the stingrays for the last little while; however, during the last couple of months he got the itch to start getting more regular fish (the non-circular variety). Kevin had been watching KSL quite regularly, but had controlled himself and not bought anything. However, he saw some free Geo Tapios Redheads, so we went and picked them up, then while I was at work one day, I received a text that he had picked up six more free Geos bringing our total up to twelve (two were later victims of the stingrays’ newfound appetite for live fish). For free fish they are actually quite pretty. They are the silverish, pinkish fish in the picture below.

Free Fish

Our next KSL imitated adventures was to a condo in Midvale. The guy was moving to New York for a job and needed to sell his fish and tank quickly, so he was giving them away for free. Kevin is always up for a good deal, especially a free one, so he jumped on it super quickly. Once we got to the guy’s condo, it was horrible to see the living conditions of the fish. If they would have been dogs or cats, the poor fish could have been on an episode of Animal Cops. The water was so filthy and full of algae that you honestly couldn’t see the fish. Kevin found one dead fish while he was getting them out, and another one died on the ride to our house. The smell of the tank was horrible. When we got the fish home, we set up a tank for them (we didn’t know if they were diseased, so we didn’t want to put them in with our other fish and have a fish apocalypse) and they seemed really happy to have clean water. We went to bed, not knowing if they would still be alive in the morning. However, they pulled through and we were able to sell the red –finned shark (the grey fish with red fins), and the rest (there were some rosy barbs and a guarami that are not pictured) were given away for free (we had no takers for $1 fish). We did keep the Chinese Algae Eaters (the long, orange fish) because we are always in need of an algae eater. Kevin sold the tank for $100. So all-in-all, I think we made a little bit of profit on our free tank.

Jaguars

Once Kevin sold all of the fish in the 30 gallon tank (the one the free fish were in), I guess he felt the need to fill it again, so he headed to the fish auction. (There is a local fish club that has auctions quite often. We have been before and bought fish, but I don’t have any pictures of those particular fish.) When I got home from work, we were the proud owners of a pair of jaguar cichlids, or so we thought. A little over a week ago, the one laid eggs on one of the rocks in the tank, but nothing happened. Then one night this past week, there were more eggs. And we discovered that both fish were female. So they were booted out of their private tank and put in with the other fish in the 600 gallon tank. Here is a picture of one of them in their private accommodations. The pictures with both of them were not quite as good.

Flower horns

Last summer, Kevin bought a fish called a flower horn (actually he traded a free fish for her). He tried to hook her and Jack (our fish we have had since Kevin lived in Washington) up, but despite our best efforts, that didn’t work, so he decided he needed to find a male flowerhorn. We actually ended up buying him from the same guy we bought our fresh water lion fish from last year, so that was kind of funny. So far, the male has only tried to beat the tar out of the female, and no eggs have been laid, so I guess it is just a waiting game. Right now they are separated because we want our female to stay alive. (The male is the pinker fish.)

Frontosa Sexing

Prior to buying the stingrays last summer, we bought a colony of ten Frontosas off of KSL for a really good deal.

Kevin had hoped they would reproduce, but so far that hasn’t happened. To determine whether or not we had a chance at breeding baby Frontosas (which are actually quite cute), Kevin decided to “sex them” or “vent them.” Basically this involves turning them upside down and checking out the holes on their underbellies. We ended up having about three females out of the ten. As you can imagine the fish weren’t big fans of the procedure. Here is a picture of the procedure, including Kevin’s very helpful assistant. 

The fish were very happy to be back in the tank with their friends, but they kept an eye on the top of the tank to avoid being snatched again.

We ended up selling four of them for a good profit, making almost as much money as we had spent on all ten.

Bass

Last summer we had four bass, but they all died through tank malfunctions. Last month Kevin saw an ad for some bass on KSL and arranged a meeting with the guy. They guy come over with his two young daughters who soon attempted to destroy our house while the dad sat downstairs talking to Kevin and looking at the sting rays. The girls actually broke the crown on my nutcracker. After about three to four crashes, he yanked them out to the car and left. 

I thought we were done with them, but then Kevin said we were going over to their house to look at some bass to possibly trade for a stingray. We drove over to the true ghetto of West Valley, to a total hole of an apartment with a huge fish tank and a pit bull (who I did not like as well as our pit bull friend Felony in Brigham City). The fish were not fantastic looking, especially one that Kevin was planning to buy. We had to get to scouts, so Kevin told the guy he would think about and get back to him after scouts. 

I was totally against the sale. A) because I hate Peacock Bass because they seem like the spawn of Satan to me (primarily because so many fish disappeared while we had the first three) and B) I didn’t want this guy to have any of our stingrays because I didn’t want them to go to a bad home. I’ve become attached to them just a bit. 

Anyways, Kevin didn’t listen to me and went through on the trade. It was an even trade, two peacock bass for one of our mantilla stingray males. The trade was actually in our favor because we only paid $85 for the stingray when we got him (plus the trip to Moses Lake, Washington), and we got two really expensive fish. Unfortunately, one of the fish was dead the next morning. Kevin sent a text to the guy informing him of the death, and they arranged to meet up later that afternoon to talk about Kevin buying one of the guy’s other bass. However, the meeting did not go well, and the end result was the guy showing Kevin what a douche he was. Fortunately, all ties have been severed, so we don’t need to worry about him and his destructive spawn.

This is the surviving bass. She is actually a quite exotic breed. Kevin has found very few other fish-keepers who have this particular type.

 

 

Oscar & Guppies

A couple of weeks ago, Kevin decided that he needed to add some color to the stingray side of the tank. He found an ad for an Albino Oscar on KSL, so we went and checked it out. We ended up buying him, along with a ten gallon tank and a bunch of guppies. At first the Oscar didn’t get along the greatest with the sting rays or Jack, so we had to move him on the other side of tank. We have since been able to move him back, and he hasn’t had any further problems. Here he is in all of his ugliness.

 

 

The guppies are supposedly for when we get baby bass. Apparently, they are only able to eat live fish when they are little. That is my least favorite part of fish keeping, but I guess that is life. Here is a picture of the tank.

Baby Plecostomuses

And to bring this marathon post to a close, our albino bushy-nose plecostomuses (sucker fish) had babies. About 200 of them. Right now they are in the breeder basket in the same tank as the guppies. Apparently we can get $2 per fish, so potentially this can be a very profitable fish. While we have had a breeding trio for a year or so, this is the longest the babies have ever survived, so we are pretty excited. Here is their slightly overcrowded tank space, or at least part of it. You can also see them in the guppy picture above.