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Tank birthday and I'm a Geezer

Paul B

NJRC Member
When my wife and I first got married we would say when we saw old people holding hands that some day that would be us. Little did we know, we would turn into them. It is a great feeling having a spouse like that. Much better than not having to quarantine and worry about silly parasites. :oops:

My only worry is about my wife, kids and Grand Kids. I no longer have to think about my job, Thank God. Don't have to think about making money, never worry about hair cuts. ;)

I used to be a construction electrician foremen in Manhattan where we built big buildings all over the City, Sometimes I would have 150 men (and a few women) working for me and it was very stressful.

(Thats $18,000.00 payroll a day, including benefits)
Every day it was very expensive decisions and the unrealistic schedules added to the personalities of the workers, breaking up fights etc, was not something I miss. I was a very good foreman and my jobs always made money but it took a huge toll on my psyche

Of course Viet Nam was not exactly a picnic and I think it made me a much better and tougher person.

Remember I spent the entire year in the jungle, only coming out once for a day to go to Saigon to get a tooth pulled, Which was an hour helicopter trip. Then when that was the wrong tooth, I went back to get the next one pulled. :oops:

Those 2 dentist days were my only time out of the jungle. (Jungle means sleeping in the mud under the stars, no roof and getting sprayed with Agent Orange all the time not to mention the combat stuff)
If you don't go through life changing or close to life ending things, most things in your life will be tough.

I hear people on here talking about a fish as if we were curing cancer, Teraforming Mars for colonization by Liberals or exfoliating your face. :rolleyes: ( I don't even know what that is but I know it's a thing)

I like my fish, I don't love them. I loved the flounder I had for dinner last night and the macadamia encrusted grouper I had the night before and the calamari before that.

Behind my house and down 176 steps is the ocean. Many times when the tide goes out I can find hundreds of little fish caught in a tide pool behind a sand dune and they die. It makes the seagulls gush with happiness.

It's part of life, if you want to be a fish, you have to expect that. I am sure many of the ones that get back to the sea get eaten by the cousins of that Grouper I had for dinner. I never think about the demise of those fish.

Last week my female ruby red dragonette jumped out. A few days ago the male jumped out. (I guess he was like me and couldn't live without his main squeeze) yesterday I was working near my tank and found another stiff. I don't even know what fish it was.

It's not a big deal. In the sea he probably would have gotten eaten by a tuna.
I would rather the fish stayed in my tank and I try to cover all the holes, but it's a fish and it was his choice to jump. I didn't push him and he may have been a fish that was happily in my tank for 10 years.

I have so many fish that hide all the time and most of them are pairs so I can't be sure what fish it was.
I can't even name all my fish for that reason. :D

Fish tanks are easy, we make it complicated. Life is much more important and if we live long enough, as we age we will get much more serious things to be concerned with.

Now at my age many phone calls are not about going on the boat, where are we going to dinner, how many friends are coming to the lake to have canoe fights etc.
Now phone calls are more about which lifelong friend is sick. Whose parent died, so and so has cancer, etc.
My happiest times now are spending time with my wife, hoping she feels good and thinking up things to do for her. Her birthday is tomorrow. :)



"Teaching" my Grand Son's class about sea life. You can see they are really paying attention.

 

myrjon

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Wow what a well rounded life you have had . I only met you once ,but always read your stories. And can relate to you as a friend .Sounds like your job was stressful. I can relate.. keep on keeping on.
 

Paul B

NJRC Member
Thats why I am here.
The Lady next to me was 103 years old. She was nice but what I didn't like about her, is that, she looked better than I do. :confused:

A Supermodel gave me the shot so i was all excited. After the shot you have to wait there for 15 minutes. While I was waiting, I asked her if she would like to go for a cup of caramel Latte across the street at Starbucks. She didn't. During that time, If you grow two heads, turn orange or drop dead they are supposed to inform some Government agency. Probably the "Men in Black".

So far nothing happened to me and I stopped looking in the mirror to see if I grew any hair.

No luck yet. Now I have to start getting up in the middle of the night to see If I can get my wife the shot as it isn't easy. There are like 7,000,000 people here on Long Island and they have only one Supermodel give one shot at a time, then fill out paper work for 15 minutes while another person, maybe a 103 year old person waits there. I told them to take her first. Every minute for her is valuable.

I know there is a shortage of Supermodels but I think anyone can give this shot as long as they have a nice personality. I wonder if you have to go to high school to know how to do this because it seems pretty simple to me. :cool:
 

Paul B

NJRC Member
This is from 4 years ago so I am sure it is on here somewhere. I had nothing to do and my wife is not feeling well so I figured while I was waiting for her to feel better, I would re post this here. If you don't want to read it. (I don't) go and watch Rachel Ray make ravioli with broccoli rob .


Remember my tank is far from perfect. A month ago I put in a garden eel, I have not seen it since so it is either croaked or under the UG filter. But it probably croaked. A week or two ago I added two ruby red dragonettes, havent' seen either one yet so they are either hanging out with the garden eel or dried up on the floor somewhere. If a fish lives a week, it generally lives forever, but the first week is crucial. I also lose corals, sometimes in a very short while, sometimes inexplicably after years. No one knows why but it is not the silly parameters that everyone is so worried about. If the majority of your creatures live to be older then Myley Cyrus, the parameters are fine. :cool:

I was just reading about refractometers and how you need to calibrate them to be exactly what ever. Why would you care about that? Your salinity should be close to what it was where your fish came from, but it need not be exactly in the center of the line, the fish or corals can't read your refractometer and don't care. The salinity all over the earth varies, so what are we setting it at? Let me check my salinity right now................It is hard to tell exactly what it is with my ancient swing arm hydrometer but I brought the thing with me many times to the tropics and drew lines on it where the arm was floating so I have to guess. I also tested it against a refractometer.

My salinity now is much lower than the salinity in Florida is, about 21. I am going to change the water tonight and I like to have my new water close to my old water so I check it. I will mix my new water to a salinity of 25 (or 1.025 for the perfectionists) this way my overall salinity will come up a little. This is perfectly fine and the fish and corals will not get the horrors from this minor change. I am changing 20% of the water so the overall salinity will probably rise one degree. :p


You would be amazed at the salinity variations our fish and corals can live at. Of course we want it close to something like 25 but IMO close is close enough. It's the same with the temperature. Mine stays about 78 in the winter to about 82 in the summer but it has gone to about 87 which is too high, although I never lost anything to salinity, parameters or temperature.
RAP music maybe but not from my house. :rolleyes:
As for changing too much water, I stick with that. Why is it that new tanks look lousy? If new water was so great why is so much water changed to kill algae even though that never works. When people see ich, they change water, like the ick parasite cares. Maybe ich likes new water, who knows.

We need more common sense IMO than medications and controllers.
I don't have any controllers or dosers. They are not bad, I just see no need for them. I also have no sump, nothing wrong with them, they were just not invented when I started my tank.

The secret to keeping salt water is live bacteria. That's mostly it. The majority of people never allow live bacteria into their tank because they only use store bought frozen fish food that is frozen to the temperature of Antartica and is irradiated to kill bacteria so the stuff lasts longer.

That is great for fish food manufacturers and I use some commercially sold food every day, but I also add live bacteria in the live worms and clams I feed every day. That is the main reason my fish never get sick. But it usually falls on deaf ears which is why we have need for those "disease forums". ;Happy
 

Paul B

NJRC Member
I think there should be a thread on respect. As I get old-er, I notice all around me, in all aspects of life that respect for many things is all but gone.

I know I sound like my parents but my Mother lived to 99 and she used to tell me this all the time. I didn't listen then or believe it but she was right.

As a little kid, last century, :rolleyes: On weekends my Dad, who died at age 47 when I was 10, used to drive us to Brooklyn to visit his parents (my Grand Parents) I hated to go there because I had to dress up in a suit and tie and my Grand Parents were born in Sicily and didn't speak a word of English.

But every Sunday we would go there. I remember off to the left they were building the Varrizano Bridge. Anyway at the house we would always stay in the basement. I don't know what it is about Italian families but they lived in the basement. Even in my house we had a finished basement and we lived there. Upstairs was just for company, but I never remember anyone going upstairs except to sleep.

When we walked in my Dad would always go up to his Dad and give him a kiss, then to his Mother.

We would sit for dinner still wearing our suits and they would all speak in Italian and I had to sit there being quiet. I didn't speak Italian anyway so I wouldn't add much to the conversation.

My cousin had a small fresh water fish tank so I would look at that and the stuffed pheasant they had on the TV.

My Daughter comes here to my house and says "Whats up?" then sits down. That is her Hello. My Grand Kids run past my wife and I looking for toys or candy while never looking up from their tablet not saying anything.

They go behind some furniture and stay there until I bring out something new for them.

The Kids may eat something but rarely while the rest of us are eating. I think they live on pretzels.
I just don't see any respect.

Yesterday I got my Covid shot and now they are only giving it to Geezers like me. But I was one of the younger Geezers there as the Lady next to me was 103.

I didn't know this Lady but I had great respect for her just because I know she has lived longer than me. A lot longer. She lived through WW2 and saw many more things than I did and probably had more wisdom, so she deserved respect and I gave it to her as did the much younger people working there giving out the shots.

I always go up to an older person and ask how they are doing and if I know it is a Veteran I shake their hand (before Covid) and tell them, "welcome home Veteran".

There aren't many people older than I am any more but when I find one, I try to be very respectful as that is what I was taught. I call them Sir or Miss.

In school a teacher would hit me if I was talking or making noise during a lesson and when I got home and told my Mother she would smack me more and maybe even call the teacher to thank her.

Today that teacher would be sued or go to jail. It's the same with police. I was taught to trust the police and do what they say. Now police are in many cases the enemy. But in an emergency, they are the first people we call.
Many of my friends are retired cops and they tell me all the time no one respects them any more.

Veterans also. When I wear my Viet Nam Veteran hat I often get respect from older people. But rarely from younger people. It's like the Patriots who fought in WW2 didn't do anything for us and they are taken for granted. We have very few WW2 Vets left but we still have Korean War Vets and like myself Viet Nam Vets.

I fear that the next generation respect will all be forgotten and people will all just live in their own world, worrying about their own problems without ever thinking of how and why we live in a beautiful and free country. I am old so I hope I never see that day.
 
When my wife and I first got married we would say when we saw old people holding hands that some day that would be us. Little did we know, we would turn into them. It is a great feeling having a spouse like that. Much better than not having to quarantine and worry about silly parasites. :oops:

My only worry is about my wife, kids and Grand Kids. I no longer have to think about my job, Thank God. Don't have to think about making money, never worry about hair cuts. ;)

I used to be a construction electrician foremen in Manhattan where we built big buildings all over the City, Sometimes I would have 150 men (and a few women) working for me and it was very stressful.

(Thats $18,000.00 payroll a day, including benefits)
Every day it was very expensive decisions and the unrealistic schedules added to the personalities of the workers, breaking up fights etc, was not something I miss. I was a very good foreman and my jobs always made money but it took a huge toll on my psyche

Of course Viet Nam was not exactly a picnic and I think it made me a much better and tougher person.

Remember I spent the entire year in the jungle, only coming out once for a day to go to Saigon to get a tooth pulled, Which was an hour helicopter trip. Then when that was the wrong tooth, I went back to get the next one pulled. :oops:

Those 2 dentist days were my only time out of the jungle. (Jungle means sleeping in the mud under the stars, no roof and getting sprayed with Agent Orange all the time not to mention the combat stuff)
If you don't go through life changing or close to life ending things, most things in your life will be tough.

I hear people on here talking about a fish as if we were curing cancer, Teraforming Mars for colonization by Liberals or exfoliating your face. :rolleyes: ( I don't even know what that is but I know it's a thing)

I like my fish, I don't love them. I loved the flounder I had for dinner last night and the macadamia encrusted grouper I had the night before and the calamari before that.

Behind my house and down 176 steps is the ocean. Many times when the tide goes out I can find hundreds of little fish caught in a tide pool behind a sand dune and they die. It makes the seagulls gush with happiness.

It's part of life, if you want to be a fish, you have to expect that. I am sure many of the ones that get back to the sea get eaten by the cousins of that Grouper I had for dinner. I never think about the demise of those fish.

Last week my female ruby red dragonette jumped out. A few days ago the male jumped out. (I guess he was like me and couldn't live without his main squeeze) yesterday I was working near my tank and found another stiff. I don't even know what fish it was.

It's not a big deal. In the sea he probably would have gotten eaten by a tuna.
I would rather the fish stayed in my tank and I try to cover all the holes, but it's a fish and it was his choice to jump. I didn't push him and he may have been a fish that was happily in my tank for 10 years.

I have so many fish that hide all the time and most of them are pairs so I can't be sure what fish it was.
I can't even name all my fish for that reason. :D

Fish tanks are easy, we make it complicated. Life is much more important and if we live long enough, as we age we will get much more serious things to be concerned with.

Now at my age many phone calls are not about going on the boat, where are we going to dinner, how many friends are coming to the lake to have canoe fights etc.
Now phone calls are more about which lifelong friend is sick. Whose parent died, so and so has cancer, etc.
My happiest times now are spending time with my wife, hoping she feels good and thinking up things to do for her. Her birthday is tomorrow. :)



"Teaching" my Grand Son's class about sea life. You can see they are really paying attention.

Absolutely love this post MR. B. ,,,, totally jealous of 176 steps to the ocean, I’m close but not that close,, got an extra room I can stay in???
 
Thats why I am here.
The Lady next to me was 103 years old. She was nice but what I didn't like about her, is that, she looked better than I do. :confused:

A Supermodel gave me the shot so i was all excited. After the shot you have to wait there for 15 minutes. While I was waiting, I asked her if she would like to go for a cup of caramel Latte across the street at Starbucks. She didn't. During that time, If you grow two heads, turn orange or drop dead they are supposed to inform some Government agency. Probably the "Men in Black".

So far nothing happened to me and I stopped looking in the mirror to see if I grew any hair.

No luck yet. Now I have to start getting up in the middle of the night to see If I can get my wife the shot as it isn't easy. There are like 7,000,000 people here on Long Island and they have only one Supermodel give one shot at a time, then fill out paper work for 15 minutes while another person, maybe a 103 year old person waits there. I told them to take her first. Every minute for her is valuable.

I know there is a shortage of Supermodels but I think anyone can give this shot as long as they have a nice personality. I wonder if you have to go to high school to know how to do this because it seems pretty simple to me. :cool:
You couldn’t get Christie to help you out???
 

Paul B

NJRC Member
On another note about respect.
As I said I have been married to my wife for 47 years. I still open doors for her, pull out her chair and help put her coat on.
That is called respect and if I wasn't going to respect her, I would have remained single as I was doing OK before I got married.

But I am much happier now. :)
 

Paul B

NJRC Member
Diana, I know you sometimes accidentally stumble onto my thread and read some posts. This is for you.
A priest who is friends with my wife sent this to her just now.

*woman*. . . . . . . . .

When God created the woman He worked late on Friday .......

An angel came and asked. "Why spend so much time on it?"

Replied the lord. "Did you see all the specifications I had to meet in order to design it?"

● It must function in all kinds of situations.
● She must be able to adopt several children at once.
● Have a hug that can heal anything from a bruised knee to a broken heart.
● She must do it all with just two hands.
● She heals herself when she is sick and can work 18 hours a day.

The angel was impressed "Only two hands ..... impossible!

And this is the standard model? "

The angel approached and touched the woman.
"But you made her so soft, Lord."
"She's soft," God said.
"But I made her strong. You can not imagine what she can endure and overcome"

"Can she think?" Asked the angel ...
Replied the lord. "Not only can she think, she can reason and negotiate."

The angel touched her cheek ....
"God, this piece seems to be leaking! You've put too much of a burden on it."
"She's not leaking ... it's a tear." The Lord corrected the angel ...

"What is it for?" Asked the angel ......
Said the lord. "Tears are her way of expressing her sorrow, her doubts, her love, her loneliness, her suffering and her pride." ...

It made a great impression on the angel,
"God, you're a genius. You thought of everything.
A truly wonderful woman "

Said the Lord. "Indeed she is.
■ She has the power to amaze a man.
■ It can handle troubles and carry heavy loads.
■ She holds happiness, love and opinions.
■ She smiles when she feels like screaming.
■ She sings when she feels like crying, cries when she's happy and laughs when she's scared.
■ She fights for what she believes in.
■ Her love is unconditional.
"Her heart breaks when a relative or friend dies, but she finds the strength to continue living."

The angel asked: So she is a perfect being?
The Lord replied: No. It has only one drawback.
"She often forgets what she's worth."
 

Paul B

NJRC Member
I took a nice walk early this morning on the snow covered roads. I like to go out early because it is dead quiet. The sea is about 100 yards down at the end of the street and because of the extreme quiet I thought I could barely hear a whale. They make these beautiful songs. As I listened it got louder, then louder.

It sounded like the whale was in trouble, maybe had a little gas.
Then I saw blinking yellow lights. OMG, what kind of whale is that?

OK, so it was a garbage truck. :oops:

Snowy street.jpeg
 

diana a

Staff member
NJRC Member
Moderator
Diana, I know you sometimes accidentally stumble onto my thread and read some posts. This is for you.
A priest who is friends with my wife sent this to her just now.

*woman*. . . . . . . . .

When God created the woman He worked late on Friday .......

An angel came and asked. "Why spend so much time on it?"

Replied the lord. "Did you see all the specifications I had to meet in order to design it?"

● It must function in all kinds of situations.
● She must be able to adopt several children at once.
● Have a hug that can heal anything from a bruised knee to a broken heart.
● She must do it all with just two hands.
● She heals herself when she is sick and can work 18 hours a day.

The angel was impressed "Only two hands ..... impossible!

And this is the standard model? "

The angel approached and touched the woman.
"But you made her so soft, Lord."
"She's soft," God said.
"But I made her strong. You can not imagine what she can endure and overcome"

"Can she think?" Asked the angel ...
Replied the lord. "Not only can she think, she can reason and negotiate."

The angel touched her cheek ....
"God, this piece seems to be leaking! You've put too much of a burden on it."
"She's not leaking ... it's a tear." The Lord corrected the angel ...

"What is it for?" Asked the angel ......
Said the lord. "Tears are her way of expressing her sorrow, her doubts, her love, her loneliness, her suffering and her pride." ...

It made a great impression on the angel,
"God, you're a genius. You thought of everything.
A truly wonderful woman "

Said the Lord. "Indeed she is.
■ She has the power to amaze a man.
■ It can handle troubles and carry heavy loads.
■ She holds happiness, love and opinions.
■ She smiles when she feels like screaming.
■ She sings when she feels like crying, cries when she's happy and laughs when she's scared.
■ She fights for what she believes in.
■ Her love is unconditional.
"Her heart breaks when a relative or friend dies, but she finds the strength to continue living."

The angel asked: So she is a perfect being?
The Lord replied: No. It has only one drawback.
"She often forgets what she's worth."

Absolutely love the read!!!
 

Paul B

NJRC Member
This morning I baked a really nice loaf of bread. I was up all night trying to get my wife an appointment for a Covid shot. I got mine but couldn't get one for her because she got a shingles shot a couple of weeks ago and you have to wait 4 weeks to get the Covid shot. We didn't know that at the time she got the shot.

MS is an auto immune disease and she wouldn't fare well getting Covid and she is old enough to get it, but it is a Scam and really hard to get an appointment because there are millions of people all trying to get a shot in 6 places on 100 mile long Long Island.

The roll out of this is really stupid and there is no logic. Instead of having the Geezers, many of whom don't know a computer from an AM radio in a 1955 Oldsmobile Starfire trying to get shots by asking their 50 year old children to ask their 25 year old children to get them an appointment.

There should be some sort of criteria and not just that you have to be older than 65 as that encompasses half the people in the world.

It should go by age but a much narrower band like 100 year olds first. There are maybe 8 of those. Then 90 year olds, so another 1,000 of them. then 80 year olds. and so on. When they are done, go to younger people. At least have some sort of plan like the people who came up with this at least went to high school to maybe 8th grade. It's embarrassing to have a stupid system like this.

Criminals in Jail for heinous crimes don't need it but Jay walkers should be in line.

People with auto immune diseases or cancer should be in there maybe right after the 80 year olds and before the bald people.
If you have a reef tank that really shouldn't have any bearing on where they place you.

Bread.jpeg
 

diana a

Staff member
NJRC Member
Moderator
If the government wasn't involved, there would be plenty of vaccines. One would use insurance and then pay out of pocket. Manufactures could dedicate another area of the plant to produce more for the demand. But if the government will only pay the manufacturers, let's say $10 per vaccine, there isn't enough profit to the manufacture.

I was talking to my husband about those who are 65 and older. I don't understand how the government would think that the elderly would be able to navigate the internet to book an appointment for the vaccine. My parents (85 & 87) don't even have a computer and have never used one. They had an iphone a year ago (gift). We had to get rid of it because they would forget how to open (swipe) it. They are back to a simple flip phone
 
This morning I baked a really nice loaf of bread. I was up all night trying to get my wife an appointment for a Covid shot. I got mine but couldn't get one for her because she got a shingles shot a couple of weeks ago and you have to wait 4 weeks to get the Covid shot. We didn't know that at the time she got the shot.

MS is an auto immune disease and she wouldn't fare well getting Covid and she is old enough to get it, but it is a Scam and really hard to get an appointment because there are millions of people all trying to get a shot in 6 places on 100 mile long Long Island.

The roll out of this is really stupid and there is no logic. Instead of having the Geezers, many of whom don't know a computer from an AM radio in a 1955 Oldsmobile Starfire trying to get shots by asking their 50 year old children to ask their 25 year old children to get them an appointment.

There should be some sort of criteria and not just that you have to be older than 65 as that encompasses half the people in the world.

It should go by age but a much narrower band like 100 year olds first. There are maybe 8 of those. Then 90 year olds, so another 1,000 of them. then 80 year olds. and so on. When they are done, go to younger people. At least have some sort of plan like the people who came up with this at least went to high school to maybe 8th grade. It's embarrassing to have a stupid system like this.

Criminals in Jail for heinous crimes don't need it but Jay walkers should be in line.

People with auto immune diseases or cancer should be in there maybe right after the 80 year olds and before the bald people.
If you have a reef tank that really shouldn't have any bearing on where they place you.

Bread.jpeg
Sorry to hear that buddy,, it’s a shame the way their handling this situation in OUR country,, way I see it the generation you all survived should be first on line,,, heck you can have my appointment as I don’t plan on getting the vaccine shot,,, heck COVID couldn’t survive my system let alone effect mine,, lol
 
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