Finally some flipp'n rain!

Hey Mr. Weatherman, if your gonna shut down half of a bloody State over a little bit of bad weather, at least let it RAIN the first day. The anticipation is driving me NUTS! I have done more walking in the sunshine today then I have in a good long time. What's the big idea, waiting until night before you send the rain. I can't watch it pour out in the dark! Your taking all the fun out of the bad weather Mr. Weatherman.

Ok, enough complaining.

I have today and tomarrow off. Well, I did work a little today. I walked over to the office to close the last of the hurricane shutters that we left up so the cleaning crew could do their job. It was rolled down when I got there, so maybe the cleaners did it? The other thing I did was add the words "and Wednesday, August 30, 2006" to the website. I hope this means I get paid for a full day of work!

It looks like Cuba took all the fight out of Ernesto. I am glad I am not on the north east coast of Cuba right now. 

Crazy couple of weeks!

The last couple of weeks has been crazy! My apologizies to those who read this (that's just you mom) for not posting recently.

I finially got myself something frivolious. My trusty PDA & cell phone is finally dieing - the screen is going bad. So I am replacing it 1 piece at a time. The PDA is being replaced with a Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. I bought one off of eBay the Thursdy before the Dave concert. I absolutly love it, it has no contact management software, it's very slow, and doesn't have enough memory, but it's the coolest thing ever! I am actually in bed right now pecking this post out.

I have no idea where the time goes. I haven't even gotten much of a chance to play with the Nokia much. I have been absolutely exhausted after work. I have been going to bed early. Nothing has gotten done. I haven't even been playing UO during the week.

I had 2 friend's birthdays to go to. Last weekend 7 of went out to Taverna Opa for dinner, which was a lot of fun if not too loud. Gabby and I went to Kyojin's for sushi again, it was her turn this time which was good otherwise I couldn't have gone as the birthdays and weekend soaked up all my mad-money. Somewhere in there was a PHP meetup, and maybe a Webdesign meetup, or was that the week before? I don't remember.

Tonight was Supper Club night. I made the Cheesey Potato Soup that I had made for one of the birthday parties. Tonights came out better, I didn't curdle the milk this time. Everyone's dishes were good tonight. There was even Mt. Dew to drink!

I was invited to go out to a club by a friend with some of her friends tonight, but I guess it would have been $20 for me to get in. I could have scratched that together, but that is too much money to go somewhere that is too loud for me. I just have a hard time enjoying myself when I am shut off from everyone because of the noise.

I ended up stopping by a place called Pat's Place which was a few blocks from where dinner was tonight. A gal from work sings there regularly and had asked several times if people from work wanted to stop in.

Maybe it's because I am doing stuff and having fun that the time is flying? Who'd a thunk that!

Dave Mathiews Band

I went to a Dave Mathiews concert on Saturday. A friend of a friend had an extra lawn seat ticket, so $40 later, I had something to do yesterday. We did the tailgating thing, getting up to West Palm Beach around 3 for the 7 oclock show. It was increadiably hot out, so we needed to bring a tent. One of the couples that drove down for the Saturday show (it was a 2 night show, Friday and Saturday) brought the tent so we had some shade. I guess Friday was unbearable without any shade.


John Downs drove his 100th Anneversary Harley Davidson up to the tailgate party.


There where 18 or 20 of us total driving in from all over the state as well as 1 couple who came all the way from Aruba just for the show.


We broke the party down around 6 oclock with a few people going in early to set up the blankets so we all had a space to sit together.

The concert was pretty good. I am not all that big of a Dave fan, only really likeing his hits. I am not sure that it would have been worth the money I spent if it wasn't for the tailgating. 

Used Brazilian Dimensional Embrodery Thread

Is it sad that I am buying somebody else's USED threads? One would think that

Mother and I were looking online for a place in Florida to buy thread. I found a place... eBay! They sell everything! Somebody in Florida was selling off their Edmar Rayon thread, and I bought up all 7 sets of it. I got combined shipping on it, so I ended up getting it for less then half price. Most of the colors have more then half of the threads left, so I guess it is a pretty good deal. These are old though, the tags are all one color - I think all the new tags are color coded to the size of thread. I also ended up with a few duplicate colors, and the used colors are a bit faded compared to the ones Mother got me new for Christmas. It could just be lot differences, but I thought these weren't supposed to fade at all.

I am busy sorting the new (used) threads into my existing stock. What a pain! 

Homemade DIY CO2 Reactor Video

Here is a video of my brand spanking new, already modified Carbon DiOxide aquarium reactor.

The water flows into the top in the big hose, which is coming from my external canister filter. The CO2 is coming from a pair of old juice bottles which have water, baking yeast and sugar in them. This all gets mixed up in all the splashing fun as it goes down the tube with the bio-balls.

At the end of the video you can see my little CO₂ monitor in the fish tank - that little bell thingy stuck to the side of the tank. Blue means low CO2, green means good CO2, and if you notice it is more green then it is blue. This is even after the old method of CO2 injection was showing blue, and I hadn't refreshed my Yeast Bottles yet. This new device appears to be more effective at CO2 Injection then the old feed-it-through-the-canistor-filter method. 

CO2 Reactor Modifications

I did a little research last night on the internet about how other people where building their CO₂ reactors. Nothing like researching after the fact, right? I was looking to see if anybody else was building their reactor the same way I was. I didn't find reference to it, but, there are hundreds of DIY Reactors out there, so I not too worried about not finding one. I did stumble across a person who used an RC airplane part called a Bulkhead Fitting. This looked to be a much cleaner way of attaching the airline tubing to my reactor.

Big Al's was having it's 1 year anniversary this weekend, and the "plant guy" was giving a demonstration on how to build a proper planted tank. I figured I wouldn't learn much, but it was something to do with my Saterday, so I went. I was right, his song and dance was for new peeps, and not experienced planted tank creators. More importantly, there is a hobby shop next to Big Al's, so I could pick up this part.

At the hobby store, in the RC airplane section, I found my new fitting. It is a "Large Bulkhead Fitting, 1/8 inch I.D." packaged by a company called "Fourmost Products". It is designed to be used as a fuel line connector.

These modifications replace the previous steps I have posted to my blog.


Here is my old (heh, 2 whole days!) airline connection using a airline tube elbow fitting. I had zip-tied it together. I had managed to make the whole reactor without any glue, and it didn't leak (much)!

Here is the top part of my new fitting. I think this looks much better then the old fitting did. I used the old part of the hose that had the old fitting cut into it to make a seal for my new fitting. I don't have any small O-rings for this yet, so I had to improvise. Getting proper O-Rings is on my todo list.

Here is the inside view of my new fitting. Don't do what I did, and make the hole too close to the outside of the endcap so the nut won't set square. I still put it together like this because I am way to impatient to go get some silicone, and seal the hole up, and drill a new one. My fitting does leak just a tiny little bit, but not enough to worry about it today.

Here is the finished reactor modification. I really like that the blue fitting matches the blue bioballs. The fitting seems just the right size for my airline tubing.

I am going to use the other fitting that came in the two-pack and replace one of my CO₂ bottles where the current glued together mess is coming apart. 

Do It Yourself CO2 Reactor Construction Details

As promised, here are some more details on the construction of my Home Made CO₂ Reactor. This CO₂ Reactor is made from a couple of aquarium siphons, and an airline tubing splice connector.

I drilled a hole in the top Siphon Cap the same size as the airline tubing splice connector. I chose to drill the hole as close to the edge of the ridged plastic in hopes that I can give the connection some mechanical strength. I left as much room as I could so there would be enough surface area to make a watertight connection.

Here I am drilling a hole through the plastic siphon hose after I had slipped it back onto the end of the siphon cap. This hole is the same size as the inside of the plastic airline splice peice. I wanted the rubbery hose to form a tight seal around the airline splice.

After a lot of cleaning of the burs in the hose and pushing hard, I finally got the splice to fit inside the hole.

I made an improvised clamp system out of 3 nylon zip ties to hold this whole area toghether. This area leaked a little bit, so I ended up wrapping another zip tie around the elbow of the airline tubing and the siphon tube, to press the airline tubing more tightly against the rubbery hose in hopes of creating a better seal. The water leak seems to have stopped.

In looking at how the completed arrangement thing functions, I may move the airline tubing down into the larger part of the siphon tube. With the airline tubing fitting where it currently is in the hose, a lot of water preasure is trying to make the whole thing leak. I think by moving the airline fitting out of the hose, and into the larger tube, where there is mostly gas as opposed to moving water, I can eleminate the chance of this fitting creating a leak. I also think that I would be able be able to change out one of my Yeast & Sugar CO₂ bottles without water trying to flow down the airline tubes when the whole thing is mounted higher then the water level on the fish tank. 

Home Made CO2 Reactor

My friend Matt flew in yesterday from Arizona. We ended up going to Big Al's pet store. We where looking at the planted tank accessories, and noticed that they want $130 for a CO2 Reactor. We put one together for under $40.

A CO2 Reactor is a device used with planted tanks that will help push Carbon Dioxide into the aquarium water. Plants LOVE carbon dioxide. It is a major fertilizer.


Here are the $40 worth of parts I needed to make my Homemade CO2 Reactor. These parts include a couple of Siphon aquarium Cleaners, some Bio-Balls, airline tubing and couplers, and an Eheim Filter part I used for a water line splice.

We disasembled one of the aquarium siphons and attached the hose to the other siphon. These are Python brand siphons, they are fitted by compression - no glue, so just pull hard, they will come apart. There are enough bio-balls inside to completely fill the tube.

Here Matt and I are leak-testing the Do It Yourself CO2 Reactor in my bathroom. We hooked it up to my Ehiem Canistor Filter, ran it into a bucket of water, and turned it on. Can you believe? It works! Only a minor leak too!

Here you can see the CO2 Reactor installed on my fish tank. I wanted it to be visable, so I mounted it right up front. I just think this gadget looks so darn cool!

More complete assembly details to be coming soon. 

Wood Carving a dragon onto a small chest

Just what I need, another craft or hobby.

So, I have today off. Went to lunch with a friend from work just to tease him that I had the day off and he had to work. Well, I was hungry too, so not just to tease him I guess. Anyway, afterwards, I went to a rather large craft store by my house called Pearl's to find a fabric pencil that will write on black cloth.

I wandered around, and wandered around, and found this really nifty small wooden chest. I looked it over, and thought, that would be kinda neat to have. I put it back, and continued my hunt for the fabric pencil. I wandered across some wood carving tools.

Well, hell.

I just couldn't help myself. I picked up the carving tools, and went BACK to the boxes. I looked them all over once again, and picked one out. At least this hobby isn't all that expensive - twelve dollars for the tools and nine dollars for the box. I didn't even get the most expensive of the tools they had! I just got the most expensive of the "cheap" sets.

Oh, I DID eventually find a nice set of fabric pencils, incase you were wondering if I am THAT flighty! I used it to draw the dragon outline on my new wooden box.


I bought a 12 pack of really cheap wood carving tools. They even fit in the box! I have a place to store my tools while I am carving the box now.

I pulled out my latest Brizilian Dimensional Embrodery project, a dragon head, and copied that image onto the side of my box. I thought I would be clever and position the mouth on the seam of the lid, so when the box opens, the dragon opens it's mouth.

I started the carving by first cutting the background to depth. I carved in in only about an eight of an inch. I probably could have gone in deeper, but I guess I will save that incase I want to touch this carving up in the future.

I think that if you squint your eyes and get really drunk, it might look good. I am not happy with the top half of the head. The scales really turned out well though. I spent 4 hours outside in the heat working on this silly thing. I guess I will get some sun somehow!

I have a few more sides to do in the future, so maybe I will like the rest of the box when I am finished.