Filed under: Update
Bully, the Malawi Cichlid
When I got him, he was just under an inch long. Bright blue with black stripes and eyes that glared just as boldly as they’re doing in the photo above. Bully was one of four mixed breed Malawi Cichlids I purchased in 2001 to replace the three that were killed by an Auratus that dominated the brand new aquarium in my study in San Diego. For the first few days, little Bully hid in the crevices of river rock that lined the bottom of the tank, just like the rest of the cichlids. After a while he got used to his surroundings and was brave enough to guard his little hiding hole whenever another fish swam nearby. But the Auratus still ruled. It killed one more fish right in front of my eyes just two weeks after I brought the lot home.
One day, about a month later, I left for a three-day weekend to the Bay Area. I bought one of those slow-dissolving food pyramids for the tank and dropped it right down in the middle so that all the fish could access the food when it was released. Bully watched me drop it in from the safety of his hole. Crazy little guy. Guess he was still afraid of that Auratus.
I spent the entire weekend wondering how many fish would remain in the tank when I got back. I was betting on two, maybe three. But when I got back home, all of the fish had survived. They were all hiding. Even … the Auratus? Really? Yep, it was hiding in the top right corner of the tank behind the thermostat. Bully, on the other hand, wasn’t hiding. He was hovering – right above the near fully dissolved food pyramid, fins erect and eyes emblazoned.
Three days later Bully killed the Auratus.
He’s been my number one fish for eight years. He survived three failed filters, an incident with a malfunctioning thermostat, water chemistry imbalances, a swim bladder infection, swollen eyes, and even a 10-hour drive up the length of California in the front seat of a moving truck four years ago when I moved out of San Diego. It was always fun to watch him re-landscape his environment. He’d blow the silver sand around to hollow out a bowl-shaped space below his home under the rocks. He’d even try to push the thermostat and airstone out of the way. His last few years were calm and uneventful. Mostly because I didn’t bother him with other tankmates. He’d killed a total of ten over the years.
Bully died last week while I was in the hospital. I was told that he went peacefully, that there was nothing wrong with the water chemistry or filtration or heating. He had no visible injuries or anomalies. He just plain died of old age. It was probably a good thing I didn’t get to see him lying belly up in the bottom of his tank. It would’ve seemed surreal to me, this fish that survived so much with its fighting spirit. At the time of death he was six inches long and one and a half inches wide. Bright yellow and eyes emblazoned as always. I’ll miss him.
Filed under: Reading
It’s been a while since I last posted a reading list. This one I’m really excited about because the books came highly recommended from the staff at Book Passage and Green Apple Books. There’s also two titles from Powell’s Indispensible Book Club, plus one pick I found while surfing Borders dot com.
- The Halfway House by Guillermo Rosales – a novella that I’m currently reading in chunks because the scenes are quite vivid and intense.
- Alive in Necropolis by Doug Durst – San Francisco’s current One City One Book selection with a story based in Colma, CA.
- The Tenant by Roland Topor – something about the premise of this book reminded me of Kafka’s The Trial, one of my favorite novels.
- A Good and Happy Child by Justin Evans – the cashier at Book Passage told me to brace myself before diving into this one. I’m intrigued.
- City of Thieves by David Benioff – saw this title sitting on three different staff pick tables at three different book shops, so naturally I went for it.
- Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen – read a couple passages while browsing at Green Apple and got sold on it.
- Into the Beutiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea – if it’s anything like The Hummingbird’s Daughter, then I’ll be a happy reader.
- How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall – got it in the mail from Powell’s and I trust their judgment completely.
- Johannes Cabal the Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard – just in time for Halloween.
Eventually I’ll write a review about one or two of these books. Until then, it’s back to reading for me!
Filed under: Technology
I’m typing on it right now, because it’s AWESOME. The silver chicklet-style keys of the Toshiba NB205 netbook. My latest acquisition and go-to business traveller.
Don’t get me wrong, I liked my gen 2 Asus Eee PC. Praised it in a blog entry last year. But I need my space. Hard drive space. And I need my keys to be, well, comfortable to type on.
So I did my homework and opted for the Toshiba. Took it on a road trip just two days after taking it out of the box. And it held up real good. Here’s the dish:
A 4-day excursion to sunny San Diego for a conference and to get work done on the side. I needed to connect to the ‘Net, type (a LOT), and carry the netbook everywhere because I really didn’t want to leave the little guy in my room while I was out sipping margaritas – er – billing extra time. Yeah.
The Toshiba satisfied most of my needs. I was limited only by WiFi reception (abysmal in the lobby and conference rooms, excellent in my hotel room). Portability was a dream. I toted the Toshiba, seminar papers, my sunglasses case, BlackBerry, three pens, a bottle of Vitamin Water, and one envelope in the 12×10x1 inch cloth messenger bag they distributed to us convention attendees. And it didn’t kill my shoulder.
The best part was the keyboard. I looked at a lot of netbook models. Tried each one with a test sentence* “the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs,” and found the Toshiba’s keyboard quick, responsive, durable, and spacious. Both Shift keys are big and accessible. The Tab key, though small, was easy to distinguish from the letter Q right next to it. And there are ridges on the F and J keys to help you place your fingers when you’re typing in low light.
The Toshiba’s touchpad is large and sensitive enough for moving the mouse pointer along. It also defaults to a left-click when you tap on it. But I found the up/down scrolling feature a bit testy. You have to drag your finger along the right edge of the touchpad to scroll up or down, but only after applying some serious pressure on the top right corner. It’s not as sensitive to that action as, say, the MacBook’s two-finger up/down scrolling.
The speaker is puny and the screen could use more real estate and less bezel. There’s also a feature that will temporarily stop the hard drive from spinning if vibration is detected. Great for bumpy roads, not so great when you’re typing heavily while lying atop your bed like I’m doing right now.
But the battery life is killer. Toshiba claims up to 9 hours on battery and I tested that statement. It’s just about right. Throughout the convention, I kept putting it on standby and restarting it less than an hour later. I was also typing copious notes into Microsoft Word, checking webmail, and doing all of this while boldly and intentionally leaving the power cord in my hotel room. I was also accessing my firm’s server via Citrix (also known as You’re Never Really Away From Work Y’Know) to run a database loaded with lots of TIFF images and Excel spreadsheets. I did a lot of mousing around an clicking then. And the Toshiba’s battery held up. Took five hours to drop from 95 to 51% capacity. Not bad!
So, from a strict business traveller standpoint, I’m happy with the Toshiba NB205. It’s got enough storage and juice to run Office, stream a couple YouTube clips, and bill like crazy on the ActiveX-based Citrix remote server. Plus it’s stylin’ Everyone else at the conference had blah black laptops. Snore!
…
* This test sentence, btw, uses every letter of the alphabet at least once. It’s a cool way to test keyboards.
Filed under: Photography
I haven’t touched film in two months. I’ll blame that on work.
Dug out a box of color photos, some of them really old, and selected three to post on my photoblog. Looking through the pictures I recalled each time I took them. There was an idea brewing in my noggin’ which either worked or didn’t. This was me, the amateur, shooting. Some of the photos came out real cool thanks to the equipment. Others not so cool. Back then you had to wait an hour to a few days to see how well you shot it, and there was no ‘delete’ button.
Anyway, I still shoot every now and then. Mostly through my cell phone because summer in the City is lively and I can shoot and Twitter at will. Last week while toying around with some swag from last month’s Comic Con in San Diego, I took this picture of a glow in the dark Icebat:
that's one ugly vinyl, no?
I had to use the monopod and the Night Setting on my G10 to take it. One of these days I’ll try it again using the Holga. Just for the hell of it.
Live music, small venue. Can’t beat that. I swear though that I almost fell on my face walking down the stairs into the speakeasy at Cafe du Nord on Wednesday night because it was so dark down there yet still sunny outside. Summer evenings get started late like the opening act. I’m an aging Gen-Xer, opting for nice yet inventive sounds in a laid back environment instead of the drunken din of a dive bar. Good thing they didn’t have two drink minimums at the bars I went to because I would’ve been ushered out long before the stage lights dimmed.
I’m here for the music. And this past week I hit the trifecta. It began on the 12th with Sara Lov at the Hotel Utah Saloon, continued with Laura Veirs at Cafe du Nord, and ended earlier this evening with Trespassers William at the Hemlock Tavern. Three of my favorite musicians with a talent for combining rich melodies with insightful lyrics. Great shows – not just from them but also from the supporting acts that rounded out each evening. Robert Gomez was great earlier tonight. Eric Anderson from Cataldo impressed me just a few days prior.
I had my BlackBerry on hand for each show, and I took this photo of Sara during her sound check:
Sara Lov at the Hotel Utah Saloon
She had joked about just doing a sound check onstage and then leaving right afterwards. Apparently the sound guy was being very precise and it took a while to get everything set up before her performance.
At Cafe du Nord, I edged my way right up to the foot of the stage because last time I got a crook in my neck from watching an entire show from the dining seats on the right hand side. Laura Veirs sang directly in front of me:
Laura Veirs at Cafe du Nord
She has a real knack for engaging the audience, sharing stories and getting everyone in the room to clap along with the music. And speaking of engaging, I finally mustered the courage to ask for a photo with Matt Brown and Anna-Lynne Williams of Trespassers William earlier this evening. A stranger took this shot:
Me with Trespassers William at the Hemlock Tavern
This was about the fourth time I’ve seen them live in the past three years. The fan geek thing was long overdue.
So eventually I’ll sleep tonight after a week of great live music. Old favorites mixed with soon to be released goodies. And when those new albums arrive I’ll be there. For the music.
