Bug Dye

This is awesome. My friend just asked me if I’d like to help her turn the bugs that are infesting her cactus into yarn dye. From her description, I think they are scale bugs and I’m trying to remember where I read an article about them. I will need to find it! But not tonight as it’s late and I have to get up earlier than usual to finish packing for my 2 day trip to San Diego to see my college roommate.

Flooding and Rescued Fishies

All I can say is, thank goodness this happened while we were all there. Otherwise our department would have gotten wetter than it did, bad things could have happened to electrical outlets, and our fish would have died. It all started on Thursday, when the pump that normally oxygenates our fishes’ water stopped working. While I wasn’t at work that day, I was told what had happened and that we’d have to keep an eye on the fish until we got a replacement. I came in to work on Sunday to find that the tank was filled pretty much to the top so that the fish would have enough dissolved oxygen to get them through the next few days. I fed them as usual and didn’t think too much about it (i.e., I didn’t think of the fact that the tank we were using is actually a terrarium and is not designed to be filled to the top with water). Then yesterday we were all out since it was Christmas, and when we got in this morning, all was apparently fine.

Then around 11 am, I heard a slight popping noise, and then I heard the sound of water rushing out of something. I turned around and found water gushing out of a crack in the front of the tank. We had to contain the water and save the fish. We found a bucket, but the amount of water that was rushing out was going to be too much for it. So we grabbed a large recycling bin and put it under the pouring water. Then the rescue operation started. I was holding the bucket while someone else caught the fish with the net and deposited them in the bucket. The fish were stressed out and were harder to catch than usual, especially Crazy Fishy, who is always trying to jump out of the tank. Finally we had most of the fish in the bucket, but we couldn’t find the algae eaters. Around this time I also realized that if I didn’t leave right then I would be late for a presentation. So I rushed off and thought about the fish during my whole presentation. By the time I got back, I found that all the fish had been rescued and had been placed in a 5-gallon jug that had had the top cut off to house our fish temporarily. It turned out that the algae eaters had tucked themselves into a spot in the tank where they couldn’t be fished out with the net and had to be scooped out by hand. I also found a carpet dryer blowing papers around the room, and that the outlets on the ground near the fish tank had been pulled out of the ground to dry properly. What I didn’t know until later this afternoon is that we almost had an electrical fire. A member of our department was there with her son today, and he noticed that something was making a “sizzling noise.” Sure enough, bad things were happening in the wet ground and luckily it didn’t go farther than that.

So our fish are spending the night in a 5-gallon jug covered with some mesh so that Crazy Fishy won’t jump out (he’s been insane ever since his conspecific friend died a month or so ago). I think someone is bringing a spare tank from their house tomorrow so that the fish can once again have more room to swim. And I bought some more algae wafers for the algae eaters since we ran out of their food about a week ago. Maybe it will reduce their stress level to latch onto the algae discs. I just hope they don’t all freak out overnight.

Christmas!

It’s hard to believe that Tim and I have spent our 5th Christmas together—how time flies! Actually we exchanged gifts back on Thursday since Tim had to work today and we both had to work yesterday, so we figured if we did it early we’d have a few days to play with our new toys before going back to work. And since Wednesday was our “Christmas Eve” Tim insisted that we should give each other one gift that night. Clearly he gets very excited at Christmastime. In addition to the stuff we got for each other, Santa brought us some neat stuff (and he was also kind enough to bring it a few days before the 25th so we could go through with our plan to celebrate early). Tim received a deep fryer and a branding iron that says “Bite Me”—and no, he is not going to try it on Lena. I received a gift card to JoAnn (and I’m, of course, already thinking of the yarn I will get with it) and a DVD set of the complete 1st and 2nd seasons of Dinosaurs (“Not the momma!”) We also received some delicious Belgian cheeses, some candles, a few DVDs, and some flashlights that don’t require batteries. I got Tim a couple of cookbooks—one is a cheesecake book, and the other one is about cooking with beer (goes well with the deep fryer he received!) And he was a really smart guy and got me a book not only of knitting stitches—it also has crochet stitches since he knows I’ve been trying to learn how to crochet as well. He really thought that one through—extra credit for Tim! Funny thing is that his second choice was a book on cables that I’d actually gotten for myself a few days before since I had a 30% off coupon for Borders.

The big thing that we did this Christmas is that we finally moved into the digital age—we purchased our first digital camera. Woohoo!! Of course now we have to figure out how to use it. We’ve been able to take some pictures and all that, but we haven’t even scratched the surface of all the features that our camera has. It’s so exciting! In this age of impatience and instant gratification, a digital camera is a wonderful thing. We can send pictures out right away, upload them from home for printing, and take as many pictures as necessary without having to worry about having a spare roll of film. (And we purchased a 2Gb memory card so that we’d have plenty of room.) I do have to say I’ll miss my faithful little Olympus camera, though. It has served me well for the past 9½ years, and I think it will remain as backup.

Geminid Fiasco

I have yet to see a meteor shower. Tim and I tried on Wednesday night, going out late to try to see some of the Geminid meteors. We drove down Gilbert Road into the Gila River Indian Reservation, figuring we’d have a better view with fewer lights around. We found a spot to pull into off the side of the road, shut off the engine and started looking east, somewhere midway between the horizon and the zenith. A thin cloud started rolling in. At first we thought it might be inside the car, caused by our breath clouding the windshield. But no, it was a real cloud. To make matters worse, we saw a vehicle moving toward us behind a fence on the opposite side of the road. It seemed to have its brights on. We thought it would open the gate, go through it and leave, but no such luck. The driver sat in the truck, with his brights on facing toward us until we decided he wasn’t going anywhere so we left. We pulled into a different pullout and by then the cloud was thicker (and we were seeing blue spots in our eyes from the truck’s headlights). I did manage to see 2 meteors, but it wasn’t much of a shower. It was so disappointing! I’ve always wanted to see a meteor shower, and anytime there is one, either I’m not aware that one is taking place, or I’m aware and then forget the night it’s supposed to happen. But by seeing those 2 meteors I’ve at least doubled the number of meteors I’ve seen in my life. I know that should make me feel better, but I’m still disappointed. Especially since I stayed up late for nothing, was exhausted yesterday morning and for the rest of the day, and then after I came home yesterday from dinner with Tim I fell asleep almost instantly!

The Murder of Tutankhamen

This evening I attended a fascinating lecture on the theory that Tutankhamen was murdered (not a new theory, clearly, but one that has taken many forms as different researchers point to different aspects of the evidence available). The speaker was Bob Brier, an Egyptologist who is an expert on mummies and who has been studying the possibility of Tutankhamen’s murder for years. I’m so glad that Kristen, one of our volunteers at work, told me about the lecture! And I’m also grateful that she and her husband Jeff took me with them because without them I would surely have gotten lost in the Arizona State University campus in Tempe.

It was such an interesting lecture, and I learned about Tutankhamen’s lineage and also the about the state Egypt was in when he inherited the throne. Aside from how interesting the story was in itself, Dr. Brier also had funny stories about his work, such as when he called the museum in Berlin that was supposed to have the ring showing that Tutankhamen’s wife had married his adviser Aye after her husband’s death and was told they didn’t have it. It turned out that they did have it, but after the museums in East and West Berlin had merged, not everyone knew what the full collection contained and so at first Dr. Brier had been erroneously told that they did not have the ring. He also told us that the mummies of Tutankhamen’s two young babies (who were both born prematurely and died shortly thereafter) were lost for several decades until Dr. Brier called a hospital that had studied the mummies and, sure enough, that’s where the two tiny mummies had been all along.

Reading more about Dr. Brier, I’ve realized that I’ve seen him before on television. I watched his show on TLC called “Mummy Detective: Crypt of the Medici” in which he and an Italian archaeologist opened the crypt of the Medici in order to find out whether Cosimo’s sons were murdered or died of other causes. That show was fascinating as well—I’ll have to keep an eye out for more of Dr. Brier’s work.

As I was leaving the lecture hall, I left a business card in the fishbowl they set out so I’ll be included in mailings about future lectures. I’m looking forward to the next one!