Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Aspen 2008

So after a couple years of not skiing, my dad set up a fly somewhere to ski trip. This year it was Aspen. And it was awesome. The town is small and hard to get to (the airport is often shut down due to snow) and that makes it all the better for me. I don't like people all that much, so the fact that there are 10 or more ski areas between Denver and Aspen, combined with Aspen having the most expensive lift tickets, means there is hardly anyone actually skiing. The snow was awesome, the weather was OK, but the no people thing really put me over the top. They seem to really do up the town for wintertime:
We (hubby and me) ended up driving with a couple other people from Denver because it was too snowy and foggy to land (the plane made one attempt, but them veered up at the last minute. It was scary.) It was about 5 hours driving sensibly (not terribly slow, not dangerously fast). We got in around 11 pm, just in time to get to the airport and check on our bags. They ended up getting to the Hotel in the morning and finally up to ours rooms before noon.

It was snowy and foggy for skiing Saturday (once I finally got my gear from the airport):
There are some restaurants around, and reservations should be made. Everything is very expensive. Saturday night we ate at Ruth's Chris Steak House, and it might have been better than the other ones I've been to. My parents ate at Olives, the restaurant in the St. Regis, where we stayed. It's small and they liked the food. In the morning this is where they serve breakfast. Sunday night we ate mexican at Blue Maize. I liked the food, and I thought the prices were the most fair I had seen. For breakfast and a lunch we ate at a cafe called Poppycock's. It was very good, but the place can only fit about 10 tables.

Didn't actually get an incredibly huge amount of skiing in, just because I'm lazy and out of shape slob. But it was spread over two days and the military discount was phenomenal. I feel like I got my (dad's) money's worth. The second day of skiing was clearer (you like my mitten in the corner?):

We drove back to Denver too, this it was me, hubby, and my parents. So now hubby is fully initiated into the family, having experienced 5 hours of my mother's complaining and yelling at my dad. Drove through a nice pretty canyon that we didn't see in the dark on Friday:


Then we got to try and find the rental car my dad misplaced in the garage. After a couple hours (our flight out of Denver was delayed, so we had time, while my parents had to hurry) of being driven around by the parking enforcers, the car was finally found and we took it back to the rental place. He says he owes me for that; I wonder if I can get another ski trip out of him? Click for full post and comments

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

more fish stuff

I got my big tank filed up quite a while ago, but never put up a picture of the completed thing, so here it is. There's live plants: Amazon and melon swords, Italian vals, bacopa, and java ferns. Also there are some driftwood pieces that are just awesome. Now a few months after plants the plants (the vals especially) have really taken off. I don't have any CO2 going, so my capacity for plant life will be limited. The melon swords don't seem to be doing so well, but hey are still alive.


The tank is going to be a discus tank, so it limits the types of plants that can be in it. I had moved over my two Bolivian rams, and they seem to really love it in there. Apparently they are male and female, because they made a batch of babies. I couldn't capture them because every day I saw fewer of them. I don't know if they got sucked into the sump, or if Pleco ate them. So now I'm waiting for another batch, and I'll catch them. 

About the cichlid tank: they're all dead. There was a fungal infection, I took out the sick one, treated any secondary bacterial infections with Mycin-II. I should have found some anti-fungal medicine, but I think the pet store didn't have any. Anyway, te infected one did get better in the medicine tank, but eventually died. The rest of the tank is something else: I put a smaller dose of the Mycin-II in the big tank as a prophylactic, but it killed the biological filter, and then all the fish died. It was a total mess, very disgusting. There are two lessons here: don't medicate a tank that's not sick; and use the right medicine.

Lesson learned

But the future discus tank is doing really well, at least.




Click for full post and comments