--315 days

--Dammit. I hate aquarium dilemmas. I am so attached to my plants, which are flourishing...that I'm having trouble trying to debate how I'm going to get rid of the ich in the tank without hurting the plants. Most ich medication hurts or kills them. And, I'm too lazy-ish to do what this one guy (our normal guy wasn't there today!) said was the only really good way to do it, which was to get a bucket, pull the plants out of the aquarium and put them in the bucket. My problem with that is two-fold (other than the laziness part). (1) If the plants are currently eating all the waste product from the fish and doing well, that means there's good balance. If I take the plants out, guess what grows in its place--f'in algae. I don't want that. (2) What, exactly, is going to feed the plants while they're basically floating in the bucket? Plus, how "deformed" are the plants going to get while floating in the bucket? This just doesn't seem like it's a good option either.

I thought about treating the tank ever so slightly, way under the suggested dose (I have to underdose anyway, because we have tetra, which can't handle the regular dose), and hope that does the trick without killing the plants.

But we have to do something...we lost a Platy last night, and it was, of course, the only male. There goes the possibility of babies (which would become food, I know, but still...).

--Otherwise, go Sox! :)

--316 days.

--Well, for the most part, the tank seems to be doing OK. Except that the Panda Cory died. Figures, the most expensive fish of them all. That'll be the last time I get one of those, since I've tried twice in my life and neither time did they survive very long at all, even though they're supposed to be pretty hardy. But we haven't had a fish death (knock on wood) in several days. Yet, there is now a touch of ich on a couple fish. I had hoped they'd hold out (it's a very minor infection right now) until tomorrow, and (again, knock on wood) so far, so good. Tomorrow I have to get the water checked, so I'll ask the guy about how to treat ich without killing the plants. That would suck, given the current success I'm having. The problem is that most of those medications kill plants, or at least really hamper them. My plants are doing really well too, and there's been pretty much no algae (knock, wood, third time). So we'll see.

--Currently, I'd be leaving for Oak Lawn softball, but we had to forfeit today...not enough girls. The season's nearly over, so we're certainly going out in a blaze of glory, since we won't realistically be able to play next year, with five team members getting married during the summer/fall months. Too much havoc wreaked upon availability.

--Meanwhile, my work team has found a bar to hang out at, at least for the moment...if people don't get fed up with some of the financial quirks of the place...but they don't understand that, just because we'd been there twice, doesn't mean that the owner guy is going to waive our cover charge (bands play there most Thursdays). Maybe down the road, but not at the moment anyway. But the guy is friendly and serves us well, and the place is nice and uncrowded and cheaper for the North/Northwest suburbs. So, we'll see how it goes. We only have one game left, anyway, in the regular season, and we'll need some help to get in the playoffs.

--Interesting information: My former coworkers and my current coworkers (and myself) go to the same Chipotle for lunch quite frequently. No big deal, lots of people are there (wait in line between 12 and 1:30 and you'll know). But apparently, the PFW guys noticed my coworkers ages ago and dubbed them "Bizarro PFW" before they even knew they were my current coworkers. If you've seen the "Seinfeld" episode this refers to, you can imagine the hilarious position I'm in. If not, this is completely lost on you... :)

--Gina and I met with our probable videographer for the wedding earlier this week. He took over the company and is friends with Barb and Pete (though the original owner was as well). But the best news is that he lowered prices some $400-$500 per package! That's huge, because that allows us, within our budget, to have two videographers the whole night. With the amount of people we'll be having at this thing, those of you who want to make idiots of yourselves and be forever emblazoned on film will appreciate that. :) (That sentence, by no means, prevents you from making idiots of yourselves...the more idiots other than me out there, the better...because it's all about the fun and stupidity of a once-in-a-lifetime event!) Should give a great amount of flexibility in the editing process, and we get that much more raw footage! Yay for raw footage, where you might overhear Andy say, "Shut up, Laz!" or "This chicken sucks," or "I just didn't hit Sir-Mix-a-Lot just right today; I've ruined everything."

--It's hot, isn't it? At least (maybe) your car air conditioner works. Mine decided to crap out about, oh, two days ago. Bastard car. But then again, I'm OK with it, honestly...I may not even get it fixed, especially given that my car has a staggering 193,000 miles on it and is paid off. I'll just drive it for the next year or two, hoping it doesn't completely crap out on me and go from there. Gotta get the C.C. debt out of the way anyway before I choose to add a car payment...now, if I'm forced to do it, well, then that's the way it goes. But (do I hear knocking on wood, again!?) the car runs well still, it just looks not so good and some of the dashboard lights don't work, etc. It's just minor things, ya know? So we'll see how it goes. I am excited about the potential of getting another car (truck) anyway, down the road here.

--As of now, I'm at "Eve 6" in my bid to transfer all my CDs (some with only certain tracks selected) onto my iPod. Did I mention that iPod rocks. Let me give you an analogy:
"Laz is to TiVo as Andy is to iPod." That about sums it up.

--321 days. It's been awhile.

--I figured I'd post here before church, just to say hi. And Happy Father's Day to any fathers out there, though I don't think there are any. Oh well...I'm not well-read. :)

--We had our first fish death last night. One of the little Neons' bodies was stuck, dead, in our fake plant, picked apart, of course. We had to change about 30% of the water yesterday, because it was high in nitrites. Supposedly, that should fix it. We'll need to bring a water sample in again next Saturday. But the tank is well-stocked, well-planted and looks good. Hopefully, the algae will be nonexistent/under control. We'll see.

--Got my yearly review to fill out. Looks like I'm getting a nice raise, which is great. I say nice, only because it actually computes to more in one year at my current job than I got at my last job in three and a half years. Can life get any better? I submit that it cannot. Unless, of course, the figure I saw was negotiable. ;)

--Ah well, off to praise God and then praise my Dad and Gina's Dad.