Tangboy's Blog

Well the tank warmed up well, salinity levels were perfect, and when else is a good time to blow some cash on fish? Went to the store this evening and made some new purchases…

2 Dead rocks (just plain old run of the mill rocks)
1 Live rock (rock that has all kinds of wonderful good bacteria and micro creatures on it to help with the “cycle” process)
2 Blue Devil Damsels (these are hardy fish used in “cycling” the tank
1 Green Chromis Damsel (another hardy fish used in “cycling” to add some diversity in the tank)
1 Fake Plant (gotta have something else to look at)
1 Large Fish net
1 Background (to cover up the wires and stuff)

The tank looks good… hard to get pics of the fish because they are moving and flashes with glass don’t work well. So here are pics of what I have…

Picture of the Rock Pile that will be the start to my reef bed:

Picture of the 3 Damsels:

Picture of the plant:

Picture of the tank with background:

Since my fish pics are hard to do with them swimming around so fast here are links to the two types of fish…

Blue Devil Damsel

Green Chromis Damsel

Well Amy and I have a new “thing” in our lives. We have just made the purchase of a 40 gallon breeder tank to start a marine aquarium. I will update everytime we do something new with the tank or everytime something dies in the tank!

Our place of choice for aquarium supplies and knowledge is the aquarium store here in Knoxville next to P.F. Changs restaraunt. They do water testing, sell pond, fresh and salt water fish, sell tanks, supplies, and everything else it seems. You can check out their website for most anything.

So we decided the best place for the tank is near the window, in the corner between our sofa and love seat. This will give us other things to look at besides the TV and provide interesting conversations with guests are over. I will try to keep pictures and facts updated as often as possible.

Ok here is what was done March 9, 2007
Purchased:
40 Gallon Breeder Tank (36X18X16)
TechnoFlo Bio 260 Filter
Theo UL Heater (150 Watt)
Standing Thermometer
Versa Glass Top (Light housing to rest on)
36” Black Strip light
Aqua Life (water treatment)
Hydrometer (test water salinity)
Crystal Sea Marine (salt for water)
Aras-Alive Special Grade (20 lb)
Reef Sand (15 lbs)

Alrighty as you can see from the list there are no fish purchased… this is for a reason. The tank needs to have been set up for about 24-48 hours prior to habitation because the salt needs to be mixed, water heated up etc. So first step was to figure out where to put this massive tank, which we decided to place in the corner of the living room for people to look at etc.

Then we had to clean the tank, fill it, put sand in, get filter running, thermometer running, add water treatment, and then add salt slowly.

Here is a shot of the Filtration system and Heater…

Here is a shot from underwater of Filter intake and Heater.

A marine tank is different from a freshwater tank for several reasons, much harder to take care of, needs to be “cycled” and can’t fill a marine tank up with tons of fish. The fish and items in the tank are usually very picky toward anything. They have a low tolerance for disease and cannot be stressed too much. Also the tanks must be cycled in order to balance out the Ammonia and Nitrate levels with natural bacteria. When you first set up a tank there are barely any natural bacteria present which offsets the ammonia and nitrates produced by fish. So you must place several hardy fish to produce the ammonia and nitrates to help get your bacteria going. As bacteria levels increase the amounts of ammonia and nitrate levels go to zero and you can now start to place other fish and creatures in your tank. Coral can usually be added after about 6 months if water chemicals are good. Also the amount of fish you can have in a tank depend on how big they get and how big of an aquarium you have. The rule of thumb is roughly 1 inch of fish to every 5 gallons of water. So 40 gallons = about 8 inches of fish. We will start with a few damsels to help get through the “cycle” then grab a clown fish and whatever else and add them slowly.

Hello everyone,

Can you believe that February is winding down already?! It’s amazing how fast this school year is flying by! I am excited about lots of things coming up here in the future such as Spring break trip, graduation of my 3rd class of 8th graders, Tommy’s wedding, final summer of Masters etc. Just too many exciting things going on.

This blog finds me in bed already about 7:30 on a Friday evening just tired. The last couple Friday’s I’ve been in bed usually around now and would sleep til about 8:30ish Saturday morning. So about 13 hours of sleep is awesome. Tomorrow I am not sure what I will do, I will either swing in to church and then grab a couple caches while Amy works or I might get up early and take a quick shot down to Chattanooga to do some bouldering with my friends at SAU. I would then head back to get back in Knoxville around 4:00 to get ready for the Winterjam concert Saturday night.

Winterjam is a huge Christian concert that Amy and I would like to go to with some friends and students from the church here. There will be lots of good groups and it’ll just be a good revival kinda thing which I hear is awesome.

My health is good, been on an exercise routine that has me working out 6 nights a week that keeps me in shape. I am trying to build my muscles back up for lots of climbing and biking this spring and summer as well as running around in Chatt working on my Masters. Once done with my Masters I will make my students call me “Master White”… hey if you have your doctorate you can make people call you Dr. so and so! Anyway everyone have a Happy Sabbath!

Yes, I too have succumed to the common “cold” and am sniffling to my hearts content. Things have been kind of busy lately so let me catch you up.

As you know from last blog I had my PET scan and it was a wonderful ordeal. The results are back and the doc said that things look good. He still wants to scan every 6 months but we can do the less expensive scan! Unfortunately this scan requires me to chug some rather interesting liquids which act as a contrast and show ya on a scan what things look like in my tummy. The flavor of the day is Mountain Berry Berium (stop licking your lips, I know it sounds yummy but you cannot have any… really you can’t!) which I get to chug 16 ounces of the night before and 16 ounces 2 hours before to make sure my system is thoroughly saturated. This is also the scan that they give you an IV for and when they inject the other contrast it makes you feel like you poohed yourself! I can’t wait!

In about a week (the 12th) I will be turning 1/2 of 54, which for you unmathimatical peoples is 27. Amy has some big thing planned which I am not supposed to know about or find out about. She said that I could never guess what it is in a million years so I shouldn’t even try. Of course that get’s my mind going and I want to google all kinds of things, but she said the internet is off limits and I cannot research the subject! The nerve of her to dangle the worm in my face and I cannot even sniff it!

In about a month Amy and I will be adventuring down to the wonderful land of St. Thomas again. We have been invited back down to visit with Sharon and John while they travel nurse in the islands again. This trip promises some better times because this time I will not have chemo drugs running through my veins making me sick over the smallest little bump in the road, turbulance in the plane, or wave in da boat. Also there are 12 or so geocaches on the island that I am looking forward to finding! This will be my first “out-of-country-geocaching-experience”. Which I am totally excited for of course! It will be a fun trip and we will report our adventures once they occur.

Right now Amy and I are about to sit down with a warm cup of hot cider, plop ourselves in front of the laptop and watch the finale of “Top chef” and see who will be this years “Top chef”. So with that, we hope that you had yourself a WARM Sabbath and that this finds you happy. Have an excellent evening!

Alrighty, today is P-day…

P stands for PET and PET stands for… well… okay I am not really sure. Anyhoo basically it’s a pleasant scan that shows if there is any cancerous activity in your body. “Great, why doens’t everyone have one of these every year to check if they have cancer?” – you ask out loud and startle another person in the room because you’re talking outloud instead of inside your head like normal.

Here let me enlighten you. Here is a summary of what goes on.

Gotta be at hospital by 7:30am
Login/register about 7:45-8:00
Head to the scanning labs
Login/register again 8:00-8:15
Get called to the back where a very nice friendly young man pulls out a wonderful needle and announces “this will hurt a bit” and procedes to shove it up your vein!
Get a shot of something that adheres to you blood cells.
Get a shot of something in a lead syringe that adheres to the stuff that adheres to your blood cells.
Go back into a room where you’re not supposed to move, just lay on a comfy chair.
Snuggle into a warm blanket.
Sleep.
Sleep.
Wake up to the loud nurse talking about “dumb patients” (just kidding, she was just not awake yet)
Sleep.
Sleep.
Sleep.
Wake up from some deep sleep to a nurse trying to wake you up to come back to the “coffin” room.
Lay on table after emptying your pockets and assuring you have no belt on.
Snuggle down with warm blanket on odd shaped table (looks like a diving board)
Get your arms strapped down so you don’t move.
Slide into cave like place while machine makes funny noises.
Sleep.
Sleep.
etc
Wake up, go home.
2-8 months later get $1000 medical bill (yes after insurance has gone through)

Now why list all this? There is no price on your life, we must do what we must do to make sure we’re alive and well and ready to live each day to it’s fullest.

I have had the scan 3 times and it’s not fun but I know that God is in contorl of whatever happens to me or my body and allows some things to happen for odd and interesting reasons. We need to look for the exciting/interesting/painful/learned/eventful results of what happens to us. Keep your chin up, realize God has a plan for you if you let Him. Anyway I have been resting up after the scan and am ready to return back to work!

Hope you all are doing well and having a splended day!
-me

Morning everyone,

Tis a beautiful day today, very crisp and clear… a perfect day for caching (geocaching that is!). I am sitting here this Friday morning while my students are mentoring to some of the lower graders, had song service and are reading bible stories to them. It is a neat experience we face every Friday, need to figure out some new things to keep the kids attention, I think the bible stories are getting a little boring/old?!

Well this weekend Amy has off so it looks like we will be doing something fun, maybe hiking House Mountain Saturday afternoon with the dogs? I would like to grab a couple geocaches around Knoxville, just found my 100th cache a couple days ago, pretty stoaked about that but need to keep the numbers going before my father catches up with me!

It looks like Tuesday, the 23rd, I have my PET scan which will let us know if I am clear of my cancer for awhile longer, at least til the next check up. This scan requires me to go in, get an IV and an injection. I have to sit in a room all by myself for an hour while the meds adhere to my blood cells and then get a huge injection of radiation that attaches to that stuff that is sticking to my blood cells. Then lay on a table for about 30-45 minutes, grab a nap and relax (as much as I can with an IV in my arm). I will be radioactive for a bit so I will probably not go to school afterwards because I am not sure how long it will take or how good it is for me to be around little kiddies while glowing green.

I am a bit more anxious about this scan then the last one because I haven’t had any treatments in awhile and I really do not want to restart them if something shows up on the scan. I know that the Lord is in control and knows what was, is, and will be, but that doens’t neccesarily make things easier. If it is His will then I will follow that and live my life to the best that I can.

So my question to you is, if you had a check up with the doctor and found out that you have cancer, how would that change your day, week, month, year, lifetime? What would you do differently? How would you feel? How would you interact with your loved ones, or even better, how would you act to those you don’t get along with? What would change. I challenge you to take some time and think about how cancer would make a difference in your life and what you would do with the time that you may have left.

Sorry if that sounds a bit rough for a Friday morning but I always have a lot on my mind. I hope you all have a great weekend and enjoy your wonderful Sabbath!
-me

Here I sit this unusually warm Friday the 5th of January. The weather has just been really odd lately and it’s kinda rough going from shorts and a t-shirt to winter jacket all in the span of 8 hours.

Things have been going very good as of late. Spent some time up in VA with my family for the first part of the holidays. Then a quick stay at home and relax. Off to Asheville, North Carolina to visit the meinhardt clan and visit the Biltmore estates during the evening. Back to Knoxville for a couple days and then down to Chattanooga to visit the Knickerbockers.

It just seemed like the time flew by as we were driving from one destination to another. Too many things to do and too little time.

Now we are on the downhill side of school. We have arrived safely (for the most part) on the second semester and it just seems like we can cruise on through til Graduation in May right?!

I have a scan coming up here soon to get a check on the cancer stuff and whatnot. Ok student’s bothering me right now about their Sudoku issues (past time for them during the day when they have free time) so take it easy and I’ll catch u all later!
-me

We have a new member of the family. To join our growing number of children we have added a third to the roster in the white family. Dakota and Cheyenne have a new little brother (at least we think that’s what this little creature is) Ash. He is a little 6-week old kitten that came from a church member.

We went camping last weekend with some church members and one of my students had the cutest little kitten with her. So we asked her where she got it and played with it and cuddled with it and fell in love. So getting some directions we headed out Friday afternoon to check out the two remaining kittens. One was an all grey little chicken and the other a grey backed, black legged, white footed, white nosed little fiesty fella. I went with the intention of getting the all grey and calling it “Sterling” after a cat that I knew back at CBR.

The multicolored cat was the one that wasn’t so affraid or babyish. So I asked Amy what she thought and she loved the patterns/character of the multicolored one. We asked if we could have it and wisked it away to the store to get all the things cats need. I swear cats are like woman, they need a 1000 different things just to survive the day. Kitty litter, litter box, kitty food, kitty water, kitty toys, kitty bed, kitty water dish, kitty food dish, kitty this and kitty that. *sigh* wow that is a lot of stuff.

We discused several names for the cat and couldn’t find anything we really wanted to stick. Examples are Captain Jack Sparrow (call em Jack for short after the now famous character from Pirates of the Caribbean), Rambo (short for Rambunctious = no I can’t spell). Ash just seemed to fit (Amy joked about giving him the full name Ash Ton Kutcher) because his feet look like clean ashes, his legs look like burnt wood, and his back looks like the grey dirty ashes!

Pics are up under the gallery!

Was an awesome trip. If you are not familiar Horse Pens 40 is an AWESOME bouldering place that is just fantastic!

I took off after school last Friday around 3:30 and arrived at SAU around 4:45. Grabbed Matthew, Michael, Seth, Marissa, and Lizzy and saddled up the cars for about a two hour drive down to Steele AL. We arrived at HP40 around 8:00 and registered ($8 a night to camp and boulder) then set up some tents and had some dinner. After sitting around the fire we got pretty antsy about climbing and went to explore along some boulders.

We stopped several places but weren’t satisfied with the level of the problems in the dark so we headed to some familiar spots. Seth has a favorite problem near Hot Chicks V1. It is an unamed problem but is rated a V2 that requires a nasty slopper slap followed by a funny high step. If you have the friction and foot work you have to edge your way up a water groove and top out on an easy mantle. Marissa found this to be a very challenging problem and proceded to stay put until roughly 2am Saturday morning.

Lizzy found Hot Chicks V1 to be her problem of choice and sent it after about an hour or so of different moves. Hot Chicks is basically several decent sized holds with a nice side pull for the final move to a huge jug at the mantle. Only problem is the feet along the middle of the section are just kinda silly and can be difficult for a beginner.

After spending several hours with head lamps and a Mag light climbing around we headed back to the tents to crash for what little sleep we could get since there was a Biker rally going on.

8:30 and the birds wouldn’t shut up! Boy I hate getting up early on the weekend but with sunlight pouring in and Bikers throttling up on their bikes to warm em up, we drug ourselves out of bed all stiff and sore from the night before (woot I’m a poet!). Breakfast for most of us was some quick prep food or cold pop tarts (I love pop tarts). I went up and rented a bouldering pad for $5 for the day and roused the crew for a long day of intense bouldering.

Marissa wasn’t able to send her problem the night before so we headed directly to Hot Chicks and some of the other problems around. While Marissa kept getting coached and Lizzy was testing out other problems Matthew and I tried some sloping problem next to Marissas V2. There was a V2 that was just awful in that it required a nasty match start on a thin rail with some nasty feet. You then shot up a left or right to some different slopes to try and mantle to the to with a down push. Just nasty on the fingertips!

I found a nice little V4 problem around the corner right next to Millipede and Centipede which are two of HP40s famous problems. This V4 had an awesome undercling and sidepull start up to more slopers! Seth and I played on this for about 45-60 minutes before I finally sent it with some muttered curses and grunts. Of course I had to send it since I had taken my shirt off to show off my new 165 lb body Seth tried some different techniques and almost sent it several times. Michael slide on over after hearing some yells and whatnot to see if he could master the problem. Seth and Michael spent all day trying to figure physically and mentally how to conquer that problem. They both vowed to send it on the next trip in November.

Other problems of interest were Groove Rider V3 which is my favorite “high ball” problem. Scarey problem requiring some funny body movements and fine footwork. I did fall on one of the moves and everyone at least gave it a good hearted attempt.

Near the end of the day we just had to pay our respects to Mortal Combat V3 which has been pictured in several climbing magazines for its scarey foot work and laybacks. It is an arrete problem that requires you to lay back on the arete with your feet pressed on the edge of the arete. The problem is if you “barn door” (swing around) your feet could slip off or you could fall forward somehow and fall the 10 or so feet down a hill if your spotters missed you. It does require some kahonas and some very good flexibility or agility. Maybe one day we will have the guts to conquer that one.

We played on some V1s and V0s before the day was over. Everyone had blown forearms and bloody finger tips (except for yours truly thanks to his Metolius Rockrings) so we made a hastey exit. I dropped everyone off around 8:30 and didn’t get home til about 11:30. It was a great weekend and we’re planning another trip come November 10th and 11th.

You can see pictures of our adventures on Matthews website. I will try and post some on here soon!

Aye… morning… not sure if it’s good yet but we’ll start optomistic like.

I don’t know about you but I was up early this morning. I got up around 3 this morning to use the restroom and grab a swig of chocolate milk. Low and behold as I walk into th kitchen what do I hear? A very loud *beep beep beep* To my horror I knew what this beeping was, it was a giant BOMB sitting in my refrigerator! No not really, actually it was the beeping of Dakotas shock collar system. The beeping means that the circuit has been broken somewhere along the perimeter.

Out the door I shoot to go and find the break as quickly as possible before my toes break off from frost bite. To my anguish I could not find the break anywhere along the wire. It must have gotten wet during the dew and shorted it out. In my frustration and lack of thinking I pulled ALL the wife up from the bottom of the fence and started to restring it along the top of the fence. This way I will no longer have to fear a rabbit chewing through the cable, weedwacking the cable into pieces, or Cheyenne digging through the cable in her haste to chase a rabbit.

As I neared the end of the cable stringing process I found the break at the very end connection at the bottom of the fence. I finally connected the wires, crawled into the house, washed my grassy feet, and quietly crawled into bed to look at the alarm clock that read 5:00. *Sigh* Amy gets up in 30 minutes for work. So I lay awake there in bed til 5:30 then got up with Amy.

Rough day but I got an email from a friend today who lives in Australia asking me to be a groomsman in his wedding in April. I am not sure if I will be able to attend but it makes you feel all warm and comfortable inside!

Yeah… I’m hungry… almost time for lunch!