ramblings

I took off a few days of work last week and am off all this week since my folks were out. My mom is out here now, she's been here for a few days, and my dad will be out tomorrow. Once my dad is out we are going to go out an look for ancient coins for my birthday. Hopefully we will find something cool - if I am lucky I might find a Julius Caesar or Augustus for a reasonable price, that or a cool Greek coin. My mom gave me a few Constantine coins she found at an antique store. The one is pretty cool since it has a cool reverse with VOT XX in a wreath with a legend around it. Not a common reverse.

I sent in an resumé for a job working for the Order management people. They want a PHP/Perl/MySQL person to maintain their current stuff and work on reporting tools. I have spent a lot of time with that type of stuff. I expect that I have no chance since other applicants will be more qualified, but I figured I had to try.

I have been working on the verdant fish paradise that is my aquarium lately. It has filled out really nicely, but since it is so well filled out I never get to buy any new plants. The current plants are happily bubbling up oxygen, so things are good. I want to get a few new cryptocorynes at some point, since they are easy to sneak into shaded spots under the mega-growth above. The fish are all doing well, as are the shrimp.

On Fri. Sophia went to a friend's birthday party at a bowling alley. I hadn't been in a bowling alley in many many years. They still seem the same, like they are all frozen in time. Sophie bowled, but they didn't have an open slot for Max, so he and I went checking out the pet stores in the area. I like going into pet stores. We went to Herpeton, and beheld the glory of huge snakes, and iguanas, and many other various lizards. They were very cool. They had a brilliant aquarium set up with about a half foot of soil, a waterfall, and nice plants. There were mosses, ferns, and various exotics. There was a snake in there and a few other critters. Then we went to another exotic pet place. They have some great turtles, and snakes. They also had Sugar Gliders. Max now wants a Sugar Glider. I have to admit they seem really cool, though they are kind of expensive. I am worried that if we got one Cowboy might try to eat it.

I saw Pops last Wed. again. We worked at a few songs - mostly 'Brother Can You Spare a Dime,' and 'Egyptian Ella.' On my own I have been working on "Makin' Whoopee," (awful name, but great melody) "All Of Me," "Rubber Ducky," and "As Time Goes By." The first and last in the list are chord solo type things - more complex, but they sound cool. I am still working on my tremolo, it is hard to get it just right, but I keep practicing.

I still have a kidney stone, but I think I will be seeing a urologist before too long. Hopefully.