It’s that great day that comes once a year, where people dress up and put out pumpkins to scare away spirits. Maegan carved a great pumpkin this year. She was really into it thanks to the crazy knives her parents got her for her birthday.
I lucked out with the local saltwater shop and picked up two coralife t5 aqualight fixtures. The change has been pretty drastic on the tank. The sharp look is gone, and now it’s kinda washed out blue. I don’t dislike the new light because i think my coraline will grow faster/everywhere where as before a lot of my tank was shadowed.
The corals seem to be adjusting to the light just fine. The new bubble tip anemone seems like it should be ok, but I have no experience with one so I have my fingers crossed. The clowns started to host in it this morning.
Friday I setup the projector with a little help from Chris; he brought over an rca coupler so I could extend my component cables until my 50′ cable arrives from monoprice. The projector is sick in a dark room and not bad when the sun is coming thru our crappy bamboo blinds. I need a heavy curtain.
Yesterday I finished setting up the room; and then moved to my reef tank because the light was not turning on. It turns out that the live wire end of the double ended socket was burned to the point of the wire breaking. Thankfully it didn’t start a little fire, the insulation just hardened and cracked backwards. The main problem I have atm is that there’s no light supply store in my city that supports double ended (hqi) metal halide lamps. I’m pretty fucked time wise for my reef, since it needs light.
I did a bandaid fix yesterday by purchasing marine bulbs for my 48″ t8 fluorescent fixture that was on my freshwater tank, and put it over my 36″ reef tank. It looks ridiculous but the corals inflated under it and my ricordea yuma and other mushrooms (not sure the type) responded very well to the new source of par. Yay for low light?
I’m going to check out the local saltwater shop (Peter’s reef pond) to see if they sell Coralife t5 aqualights, because one would be a nice short term fix until I can afford a t5ho fixture. I really hope they sell them.
Oh yeah, I got a small bubble tip anemone on Friday and my female clown has already started to host in it. It’s so cool to see.
Lastnight Maegan’s uncle Chris came by with a friend to pick up my tv. It seemed sorta odd cause I’ve had it for so long, but damn is my place empty without it. Yay projector!
Ah, fun times at home. It seems some new person moved in and doesn’t like that a few of us smoke.
In lue of the K10D release date changing I cancelled my pre-order and decided that I could easily wait a while before getting the camera. I hung out at Chris’ Friday night / Saturday afternoon and played MotoGP on his new hd projector and I was blown away.
While puffing, he started looking for a screen from softmagic.ca (where he bought the projector) and came across a new model from Optoma which is just below his; with a price difference of nearly $1000. Instant decision to purchase after comparing specs and discovering the only difference is 8bit color vs 10bit. I can live with 8bit.
Maegan isn’t hot on the idea because she has no experience with a projector and thinks we don’t have the space for it. Chris’ setup proves it’s possible and I’d like to change the layout of our apartment anyways. I don’t like the placement of my 4ft. aquarium; it’s kinda floating in the middle of the room.
I offered my current rp-crt (Panasonic) to Maegan’s aunt/uncle lastnight while we were out drinking with them. Hailey wasn’t expecting the tv for free, so she liked that. Normally I’d sell it for the trade-in value if I were going thru ProSound but due to it’s age (5yr almost) and it’s lack of digital connections it’s nearly impossible to get any money for it, even though the picture is very very good. I briefly explained if she wanted to get it recalibrated it’d probably cost a couple of hundred and that’s where she should spend the money. I’ve enjoyed the tv for years, but it just takes up too much space in my place and makes it seemed cramped based on how I have to setup the apt. for it.
So, long story short I ordered an Optoma HD70 and I should have it by the end of the week because it’s coming from Quebec.
The release date of the Pentax K10D was just pushed back another month so I just emailed the retailer I had a preorder with to cancel it. I’m not into waiting another month while a company has a hold on a little over a grand, incase I find it locally or just at a better price when it does come out.
I’m very excited to get this camera body, even though it means I put it on my credit card. The feature set is so far above my DL that I’ll finally be getting the most out of my lenses.
I’m giving my DL to Maegan. She already has a nice canon p&s so the dslr will just be cool for trips where she’d want higher quality pictures. I think it’s feature set will be perfect for her.
