Tank birthday, 47+ years

OP
OP
Paul B

Paul B

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 3, 2010
Messages
17,950
Reaction score
60,785
Location
Long Island NY
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Early this morning at 1:36 I heard this big noise. My wife went to the bathroom like most ladies do for some reason in the middle of the night and she fell. Pretty hard. She has a cane and it is clear acrylic and kind of heavy which made a really loud noise on the wood floor.

Of course It woke me up and I had to get out of bed and help her back into bed. She didn't seem to get hurt too bad which I am very grateful for. I cringe every time I hear a loud noise because she is falling more and more now.

Last week she also fell while I was holding her. We were walking into a winery and she fell on gravel where she got a huge black and blue. I generally fall coming out of a winery. :oops:

Last week I got her a walker that she uses when she is getting around, but doesn't use it in the middle of the night.

I think we may have to change that procedure.

thumbnail.jpg
 

atoll

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 20, 2012
Messages
4,742
Reaction score
8,095
Location
Wales UK
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Early this morning at 1:36 I heard this big noise. My wife went to the bathroom like most ladies do for some reason in the middle of the night and she fell. Pretty hard. She has a cane and it is clear acrylic and kind of heavy which made a really loud noise on the wood floor.

Of course It woke me up and I had to get out of bed and help her back into bed. She didn't seem to get hurt too bad which I am very grateful for. I cringe every time I hear a loud noise because she is falling more and more now.

Last week she also fell while I was holding her. We were walking into a winery and she fell on gravel where she got a huge black and blue. I generally fall coming out of a winery. :oops:

Last week I got her a walker that she uses when she is getting around, but doesn't use it in the middle of the night.

I think we may have to change that procedure.

thumbnail.jpg
Glad she is OK following her fall, lucky there, could have been serious as you know.
 
OP
OP
Paul B

Paul B

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 3, 2010
Messages
17,950
Reaction score
60,785
Location
Long Island NY
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Yes, I well know. She has been lucky so far with just black and blues.
 
OP
OP
Paul B

Paul B

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 3, 2010
Messages
17,950
Reaction score
60,785
Location
Long Island NY
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
This morning we went to Walmart, and I never go to Walmart. There is one close by and I think I was there twice, counting today. I needed 9 gallons of boat antifreeze and they have it for like $2.50. Home Depot charges $5.00.

While we were there my wife saw this elliptical machine which normally sells for like 4 or 5 hundred bucks and they had it for $150.00 which is stupid cheap.

I tried to buy it but it was chained to the rack 5' high and the thing is like 200lbs so I needed help. Of course no one works there and the few people who do work there have no idea what I was talking about.

The thought of buying something that was chained to a rack was totally foreign to them and they didn't know how to call anyone who knew how to unchain this thing.

Now I know why I never go to Walmart.

On our way out, with just the antifreeze I saw they had a "Customer Service" counter so I stopped there. They actually had someone standing there and she was a Supermodel. I wanted to ask her why such a beautiful and apparently intelligent person would work there for probably minimum wage, but I didn't.

She said she could "probably" find someone to go there and un chain the machine but I declined because I figured it would be a big waste of time. :rolleyes:

Thats why people buy from Amazon and these stores wonder why they are going out of business.
They also have like 20 check out lanes, but only one was open. ;Meh Horrible place and I will not go back until next year when I need antifreeze.
 
OP
OP
Paul B

Paul B

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 3, 2010
Messages
17,950
Reaction score
60,785
Location
Long Island NY
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
This morning like most days I got up and took a walk outside to watch the sunrise and nature in general. Today I surprisingly didn't see any deer, woodchucks, Muskrat Sally's, hawks, peacocks, supermodels or road kill.

A school bus did stop near me at about 6:15 which I thought was a little early for kids to go to school. I think when I went to school it started at about 8:00 but we didn't really have any clocks in my one room school house so I am not sure.

As I walked, the first thing I came across was this "Deer Crossing" sign and I rushed past that because I didn't want to get hit by any deer at that time in the morning.
deer sign.jpg


There also wasn't any mist hanging over the grass like there usually is. It was quieter than normal and totally beautiful. I was wishing my wife could have come along but then in all that quiet she would have said something like:

"You know today you should really paint the front door, figure out what we are doing with the spare bedroom, go buy the paint for the hall way, call the car dealer because I want a new car as soon as they come out, see if our accountant can come over for dinner, ask our Daughter what the plans are for Thanksgiving etc.".

And that would be the end of the peacefullness.

I knew I was getting near the end of the road from the smell of wet horse. This is an affluent neighborhood and you can tell if you look close and pay attention. One thing that stood out is that the horses wear designer boots.
horse.jpg


So I walked about a mile and a half to the end of the country road where it ends at a larger road. At that junction there is this windmill. It’s a silly place for a windmill and I am sure it was someplace else a hundred and fifty years ago. The thing is there because there is a catering hall nearby and brides go there to take pictures. They have to be quick because as you can see it is totally falling apart and if any actual wind hit it, it would collapse into a large pile of termite infested sticks.

windmill.jpg

I don't see the attraction of taking a wedding picture in front of a defunct, dilapidated excuse for a windmill unless maybe the Happy couple want to try to convince people they had a destination wedding in Holland.

I am sure Holland has much better windmills so the people there most likely take pictures in font of Starbucks.

Behind the windmill is a dirt road which I have never been on so I went that way. It led to this "shed" which seems to have been built at the same time as the windmill by Columbus. I went in being careful the roof didn't collapse and I listened closely to make sure Otis the town drunk wasn't living in it.
shed.jpg


The only things in it were ancient lawn mowers in varying degrees of rusting into the ground. I looked around for something to use for a steam punk project with no luck so I left as the place was making me itchy.

I bet not long ago someone went in there and something scared him out of his underwear. No, really! I saw someone's underwear stuck in a tree and for that to happen, you really have to be running pretty fast.
underwear.jpg


I don't know what scared him but I wouldn’t know how to describe how my underwear ended up in a tree so I got away from there.

About two thirds of my way home, there was dense brush on both sides of me. To dense for anyone or anything to get through. But a sort of clearing opened up where I could see back into the thicket.
thicket.jpg


I didn’t want to get too close as the sun wasn’t really up yet and I didn’t notice any underwear in the trees but all of a sudden, out of the quietness I heard this very low, very close rumbling. Exactly like a lion sounds just before he pounces on the gazelle on the African Savanna, ripping it to pieces before swallowing it alive, not that I have ever been on the African savanna or saw a gazelle being eaten alive but I do watch David Attenbury describe it on National Geographic TV.

A thousand thoughts went through my head like how many lions are on Long Island New York? Not many I thought and the nearest lion was probably in the Bronx Zoo 100 miles away.

But maybe it was a pet that got away. Maybe it escaped from the Bronx Zoo and walked the hundred miles along the expressway undetected.

I wasn’t sure what it was but it sure sounded like the low rumble of a lion. A very big, very hungry lion.

I heard it again and I started walking faster, much faster. Almost running now and at my age, running doesn’t mean going so fast that bugs get caught in my teeth.

Then, all of a sudden, I heard the unmistakable sound of a tractor trailer horn. It was the diesel engine of the truck echoing through the brush and I assume the driver had it in the wrong gear.

OMG was I relieved.
 
OP
OP
Paul B

Paul B

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 3, 2010
Messages
17,950
Reaction score
60,785
Location
Long Island NY
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I slept in our spare room last night as we are waiting for the Murphy bed to arrive so there is only a mattress on the floor and not much else in there.

My wife was in quite a bit of pain last night so I went in there to sleep. This morning, very early I heard her get up and I wanted to "rush" in there to see if she was OK.

She was, but I didn't realize I was on the floor so when I tried to "jump" out of bed, I just rolled across the floor into the wall which is unnerving at 6:00 in the pitch dark. :(
 
OP
OP
Paul B

Paul B

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 3, 2010
Messages
17,950
Reaction score
60,785
Location
Long Island NY
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I had to take my wife somewhere today and it was near a LFS so I went in. Total waste of time. All he had was a bunch of Bangai cardinals. I bought two small ones just because i was there but I don't know why he even opened.
He didn't even have a hermit crab, not that I want one.

I tested the salinity in the water that they were in and I could have drank it as it was almost fresh water. My swing arm hydrometer didn't even float a little.

But I threw the fish in after about 15 minutes and they were eating in 20 minutes. :cool:
 
Last edited:
OP
OP
Paul B

Paul B

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 3, 2010
Messages
17,950
Reaction score
60,785
Location
Long Island NY
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I will be going out to visit a friend in a little while and possibly do some crabbing and I have five minutes. I was perusing threads and I am still dumbfounded at the amount of sick fish and all the steps performed to "cure" them even though most of them die anyway. I am still convinced that it is quarantine and drugs that are killing all these fish.

But what do I know? :rolleyes:
 
OP
OP
Paul B

Paul B

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 3, 2010
Messages
17,950
Reaction score
60,785
Location
Long Island NY
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
This morning at about 6:00 I took my morning walk. I try to go about half an hour, then turn back so I get an hour walk in. I started out and it was fifty degrees so a little cool, but nice and brisk. There were deer all over the place but I think they know me now so wait until I get really close before they run away in fear. I hate to see the summer go but the fall is really nice up here in New York. It's just to short. I feel like I just put my boat in the water and I didn't even fully stock it yet, soon I have to go down there and empty it out of everything that can freeze. :oops:

Wine, beer, sun tan stuff, bug killing stuff, tick killing stuff, cleaning stuff etc. That stuff will freeze making a real mess in the spring.
I don't live in a Girly climate like you Floridians as we have real, Man weather here. Or at least we used to. Last year we got about 1/4" of Sissy snow. ;Meh
When I was a kid in the 50s it would start to snow in November and that snow wouldn't melt until April. The lakes would freeze and we would ice skate all winter. Now the lakes stay so warm you could raise Achilles tangs in them in January. :D

Anyway, about half my way through my walk. my right knee gave out. My age is so exciting because you never know which part will fail at the most in opportune time. Like for instance if I were on "Dancing with the Stars" doing the Fox Trot with Nancy Pelosi and my tennis elbow snapped right at the time where I threw Nancy over my left shoulder and I was preparing to spin her around three times for a final triple axle crescendo. :rolleyes:

It could happen.

Anyway, the pain was pretty severe and if I were a Snowflake I would have sat on the street and called an Uber. But I am not a Snowflake so I just waited a while, then took a few steps to work it out then concentrated on the beautiful scenery and thought about all the parts of me that are still working fantasticall. I made it home with no Uber. :)
 
OP
OP
Paul B

Paul B

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 3, 2010
Messages
17,950
Reaction score
60,785
Location
Long Island NY
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I took my wife to a really good Italian market this morning and it is near a LFS that I like to go to. The place is probably 50 years old and I think the last time the bathroom was cleaned was 55 years ago. I won't go near it, and I am a combat Veteran. ;Yuck
The tanks are also filthy and a good portion of them are empty.

But I got this pair of Ruby Red dragonettes for $30.00 for both of them. I know in the nice clean stores many people like to go to they are closer to $50.00 bucks each.

I got my sunburst anthius there for I think $25.00. Those are $60.00 in Florida. Copperbands for about $25.00.

I don't have to go into the bathroom, make friends with the guy or live in his tanks. The livestock is very healthy and cheap.
Those fish, after a 10 minute acclimation (because the salinity was high enough to turn Lot's wife into a pillar of salt ,Google her) are happily swimming around in my tank, making friends and soon will start doing the macarana. :giggle:

They look great but are young. In a month or two, when they age a bit, they will spawn. :)
thumbnail.jpg
 

NJDragonet

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Jan 23, 2020
Messages
494
Reaction score
582
Location
Ocean, Earth
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I took my wife to a really good Italian market this morning and it is near a LFS that I like to go to. The place is probably 50 years old and I think the last time the bathroom was cleaned was 55 years ago. I won't go near it, and I am a combat Veteran. ;Yuck
The tanks are also filthy and a good portion of them are empty.

But I got this pair of Ruby Red dragonettes for $30.00 for both of them. I know in the nice clean stores many people like to go to they are closer to $50.00 bucks each.

I got my sunburst anthius there for I think $25.00. Those are $60.00 in Florida. Copperbands for about $25.00.

I don't have to go into the bathroom, make friends with the guy or live in his tanks. The livestock is very healthy and cheap.
Those fish, after a 10 minute acclimation (because the salinity was high enough to turn Lot's wife into a pillar of salt ,Google her) are happily swimming around in my tank, making friends and soon will start doing the macarana. :giggle:

They look great but are young. In a month or two, when they age a bit, they will spawn. :)
thumbnail.jpg
Beautiful!
 
OP
OP
Paul B

Paul B

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 3, 2010
Messages
17,950
Reaction score
60,785
Location
Long Island NY
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I am enrolled in the Agent Orange Registry due to my exposure to the stuff in Viet Nam. My good friend Tommy, in the background died recently from presumed Covid but he suffered for the last couple of years from Parkinsons disease. Just last year the VA deemed service for the Blue Water Navy to be included in the Registry. (The Blue Water Navy is the ocean going Naval ships and not the smaller inshore Navy vessels used in Nam)

Tommy served on an Aircraft Carrier off Viet Nam for 4 years and even before he died, they have been trying to get aid for him and his wife because Parkinson's is one of the diseases that could have been caused by Agent Orange and Tommy assisted in filling the planes and helicopters with the stuff to be sprayed over the jungles (and over troops like me) He also had "Boots on the ground" for a while there)

I have been trying to help his wife get his disability benefits but sometimes as with any large agency you get a run around that could, and always does take years. It's a shame that sometimes American Hero's have to go through all this red tape after serving their country and it is sometimes so easy to get Government assistance for civilian things like food stamps, housing or medical care.

Tommy and his wife has been trying to get this for 3 or 4 years now with no end in sight. The poor guy already died and it is still tied up in red tape.

Agent Orange, if you don't know was a defoliant used over the jungles of Viet Nam to kill all the vegetation so we could easily see the enemy troops.
It was used almost everywhere and was sprayed over myself many times. Most of the people who used to spray the stuff already died from cancer or other debilitation fatal diseases and it could take many decades for it to show up. It could even affect your children.
Most of the guys I served with already died.


Agent Orange
Military herbicide
Agent Orange is an herbicide and defoliant chemical, one of the "tactical use" Rainbow Herbicides. It is widely known for its use by the U.S. military as part of its chemical warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971. It is a mixture of equal parts of two herbicides, 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D. en.wikipedia.org


Me and Tommy.jpeg


Here is one Firebase I lived on for a week or so. This is in the jungle and you can see there is nothing growing near there. I spent my year on this one and similar, but mostly smaller firebases or LZs.



 
OP
OP
Paul B

Paul B

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 3, 2010
Messages
17,950
Reaction score
60,785
Location
Long Island NY
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I got this Murphy bed yesterday and the manufacturer told me the biggest part, the one you see when you lift the bed back to the wall weighed about 100 lbs. I said, Oh 100 lbs is no problem. I can get that up the stairs with one other person.

I unpacked the 4 large boxes, all of which were very heavy but the one piece that is supposed to be about 100 lbs was a little off. The screws that hold it together weighed about 100 lbs. It was one massive piece of furniture that was closer to 350 lbs and 7' X 8'.

I called the manufacturer to see if I could take that one piece apart and I could. They didn't recommend it and if I wanted to sleep in the grass in front of my house it would be no problem. Hundreds of screws and about 5 hours later I got the thing down to about 7 pieces each one was about 100 lbs which was manageable. 5 hours later I had it upstairs and all put together.

The thing was made in Utah (I don't do China or India) and it is solid wood. No particle or flake board. It took 6 weeks to build and it is kind of nice looking.

I am building a gym in a spare bedroom for my wife. The carpet and exercise machines are on order.

My wife is cleaning it now so I can't get a picture of it up. I will take that later if I don't fall asleep on it.

thumbnail.jpg

Bed.jpg
 
Back
Top