Longklaw.com

Christmas was last Friday. It was another day in quarantine with not much happening.

I worked half a day. I streamed Overwatch for a few hours after work. I had Chinese takeout and watched Wonder Woman 1984 on HBO Max. The food was good, but the movie wasn’t nearly as good as the first one.

Hoping for better times next year. And snow.

What did I get for Christmas and my birthday this year.

a map of Portland neighborhoods poster

lots of fish food

fish cards and stickers

a bristlr worm trap

star wars card deck

an exercise ball

a pack of Reese’s trees

Star Trek: Picard Season 1

Overwatch Monopoly

Wakanda Forever board game

Star Trek Five-Year Mission board game

I treated myself to an Oculus Quest 2, an Xbox Series X, and a PlayStation 5, though the PS5 won’t be here for another couple of weeks.

I’m at a point where I’m tired of hearing about how rough this year has been. Hopefully this will be one of the last times I mention it. Everyone can go into the new year with a new outlook and attitude

There were many positives this year: finally getting a new job, making health a priority, getting to see Xander again, getting into a streaming habit, taking part in all the virtual events with PDX Gaymers, helping elect a new president elected, getting new gadgets, spending so much time with the dogs, and so on.

As soon as the pandemic hit, I decided I wasn’t going to stress over that list of goals I set last year. It’s okay if I wasn’t productive as I wanted to be. I did meet a few of them I think. I’m not going to bother setting any for next year. Hopefully before the end of the year we’ll be able to start having game nights or going to happy hours again.

Time will tell.

Unfortunately, I had to work today and I’m working a half day tomorrow. Tonight, I finished a book to meet my book goal for the year. Now I plan to play video games, watch TV, and chat with friends while enjoying the most expensive bottle of wine I’ve ever bought.

As always, have a great year and take care of each other!

Another busy month. Busy is good, right?

I’m having fun with the dogs. Max is settling in nicely. He finally seems comfortable sleeping in the bedroom with Reese and myself this week. Reese’s leg bothers him sometimes, so I’ve tried not to do anything too strenuous with him. He started limping a little bit last month, but it’s been a while since he’s had any trouble walking as far as I can tell. Fingers crossed. I want to take both of them to some events soon.

I’m dealing with an algae bloom in the saltwater tank. I don’t think I even mentioned here that Xander and I set up one in January. It’s more expensive and more work, but I think it’s worth it. This weekend I’m doing more work on it and cleaning out the filters in all 3 tanks.

I don’t know if the weather getting better has anything to do with it, but I feel so optimistic right now. Life is pretty good. I’ve spending a lot of time with great friends and I’m constantly meeting new people. Work is good. My dogs are good. I got a promotion and a big raise recently. I’m catching up on a lot of things wasn’t making time for before. I think this is going to be a great summer.

I now have fish!

Growing up with my grandparents, I remember having an aquarium. We had gold fish and I’m sure other kinds. I don’t remember much except that sometimes we would wake up to find that sometimes one had jumped out of the tank.

In high school, when I was living with my mom, I decided to get my own tank. All the fish I got quickly died. I didn’t know what I was doing wrong and this was before I had the Internet to use for research.

I think I was in college when I got a betta. I think he died a few months later.

Alex has mentioned to me a few times that he worked in a fish store when he was younger and I told him about the my last unsuccessful attempts at fish ownership. He told me how he had helped friends set up tanks and kind of helped them take care of the fish. A few weeks ago we went to a fish store in Portland called The Wet Spot (heehee) and looked around at all the fish. I figured out about how much I was willing to spend and this past Saturday we went back. I got a 23-gallon tank/stand kit, some decorations and some other necessities. I’m glad Alex was there to tell me what to get. I think being there reminded him of his time working in a fish store, which was one of his favorite jobs. A couple of days later he submitted a resume actually applied for a job there to work around his school schedule. He’s had 2 interviews and thinks he has a good shot at getting the job.  That night we set up that tank at my place and let it warm up. I didn’t have time to go back and get fish the next day, so we went back on Monday. We got a few more decorations for the tank.

Alex helped me pick out some good, hardy starter fish that will help get the tank ready and are not so delicate that they’ll die easily. I have 8 red barbs and 5 black skirt tetras. They all seem to be happy so far.

There’s a lot more that goes into a tank than I realized. The starter fish are going to produce the chemicals that you need for a healthy tank. There’s all this regular maintenance that I’ll have to do one a month or twice a month. It’ll be fun though. I’ve heard that it can be an addictive hobby and that most people have multiple tanks. I’m going to try to limit myself to just one. I wonder what I’ll add to my tank next.