Paul B's thread

[Paul B]

I took the boat out for a test sail and it runs perfect. Last week one engine got stuck at a restaurant and it was hard to diagnose because after I got it started it ran fine. So I replaced the spark plugs, gas filters and re built one exhaust manifold. I ran it full speed for a couple of miles and so far it is perfect. I wanted to fix it to squeeze the last few days of summer out before I put it away.
There are a lot more restaurants here I haven't tried out on the water yet.

I don't get it that people can't fix things. When I was a kid we all knew how to fix our car. We didn't have boats then. I wouldn't dream of bringing my car to someone to fix and I never did. Today, sometimes I need to bring it in to the dealer because much of the computer software is proprietary .

But for anything else like brakes, ball joints, shocks, tune ups etc. You have to be nuts to let someone do that.
I am not sure what they charge for brakes but you can put four of them on your car in an hour for like a hundred bucks and the brakes you can get are much better than original brakes from the car manufacturer. Then you will probably get a Jiboni for a "mechanic".

I just don't trust the work people do and I am of the thought that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

Like today, I re-built kind of the exhaust manifold on my boat. When I replaced the bolts, which are about a foot long, I ran a die over the threads to clean them up then I put anti seize lubricant on them so the next time I have to remove them, they come right out. No mechanic is going to take the time to do that. I also painted the manifold so it looks new.

 

[Paul B]

I need another knee. The new one is still rather painful and I still can't kneel so I won't go to Church.
I also can't walk to good but I get there. I am still faster than my wife but not much.
By the time I am 80, I should be sprinting like Angela Jolie in Laura Croft Tomb Raider.

The Dr. told me I tore the meniscuses and tendons in the other knee so I sit around trying to see if I can pick which one hurts more.

It's a good thing I am not a snowflake because I have to take care of my wife so I go outside and all the way around the house if I have to scream.

I don't love the fact that I need another knee because I remember that the first one didn't go to well and it is more painful now than it was before it was replaced. If I get this one done I will be walking like Walter Brennon in "The Real McCoys" (before all you Noobs time, Google it)

 

[Chris A.]

I had my meniscus removed but the doc said I’d need a knee replacement before I’m 55. I’m with you on hesitating on getting it done since I’ve seen so many of my coworkers ending up with more pain than before it.

 

[Paul B]

My "fixed" knee is more painful now than it was before and I can't kneel or bend it much. But Doctors have to make money so I go for these things.
I had five operations before they replaced it. They are probably still operating on that old knee in the dumpster.



It was a little windy on my beach walk this morning and it wasn't low tide so no collecting. My house is up over that cliff.

 

[Paul B]

Today is our annual Cousins pic nic about 60 miles from here on a beach with a shelter and electricity. We have been doing this for about 45 years as my wife has a very big family. Many of us old generation went to the big reef tank in the sky but there are plenty of Kids, Grand kids and Great Grand kids to take over. Many of them I don't even know.

My whiteworm culture isn't doing so good as it was taken over by flies. (even though I feed them cultured yogurt) If I open the thing in my house I get a swarm of these tiny fruit fly looking things which I don't want in my house so they are outside now.
There are still worms and yesterday I flooded them for an hour but apparently these flies or their larvae have SCUBA gear so they don't drown.

Now I am going to seal them and put them in my fridge to see if the worms can tolerate the cold better than the flies.
If that doesn't work I am going to have to throw it out and start a new culture.
I hesitate to do that because I have had these worms for ten years and they evolved into much bigger and fatter creatures, much different then the skinny, Girly worms you get in a culture. I'm not sure if they are a different species or if they somehow got into steroids like Sylvester Stallone.

Look at the difference in size from the early batch of worms and the worms now.
There were a lot of them, but they were wimpy. Now they are fat like Gov. Chris Christie, (Who I kind of like)

 

[Paul B]

A few weeks ago I built a Nitrate De-nitrifer out of a calcium reactor that I had laying around. I ran it for about 3 weeks and it turns 30 ppm of nitrate into zero in a few minutes.

Today it's raining and the thing was in my way on my workbench so I installed it. I don't really have much of a nitrate problem but I felt like experimenting. I doubt it will lower my nitrates much as they are now about 25 but I like putzing so it is what it is.

It's the thing with the yellow pellets. I didn't use a calcium chamber for the effluent because it dumps into my reverse UG filter which is made out of dolomite so calcium shouldn't be needed.
If my tank crashes in a week or two, I was wrong.

 

[Paul B]

Today is the day the pilgrims left Europe to come here and screw up this country and start religious freedom. Of course they started to burn people as witches, excommunicate them if they texted in church and if they caught them chewing gum on Sunday, they would tie them up and dunk them in ASW that was cycled with a live shrimp.

They had their first Thanksgiving and invited the Native Americans (who they called Indians because they weren't politically correct like I am, but even the native Americans called themselves Indians, then they started baseball teams )

The "Indians" showed them how to cook corn and turkey and we showed them how to get lung cancer by smoking. Actually I think they gave that to us. I am not sure but they didn't invent HMOs yet which is why there are no more Pilgrims.
Then Bernie Sanders offered them free health insurance, college, diapers and paper clips which made all the people we left in Europe broke which caused Brixit.

Here where I live we have quite a few Native Americans because Long Island was owned by them.
We gave them some Toyota parts along with a few eggplants and now they are required to live on a small reservation where they sell cigarettes and 8 track tape recorders.

 

[Paul B]

My tank is doing great. My hippo tang didn't get ich, dropsy, mononucleosis or anything else as some of the tang police said he would get if I didn't quarantine him (God Forbid) He also never gets algae clips or nori.

My watchman gobies will spawn soon and my Janss pipefish is so healthy he does aerobics every morning. I am really surprised that particular fish lived so long as they are supposed to be so delicate.

I want another pair of bluestriped pipefish as they lived out their life like they were supposed to and croak of old age which for them is only a few years. I think they spawned themselves to death.

My old Fireclown is about 28 years old and still spawning although I am surprised he is not tired of that yet. I think those guys live into their 30s.

A few months ago I bought a quart of clams for bait. I only went fishing once so I have been using them for the fish.
I am not sure how old those clams are, but I am not eating them and the fish ain't complaining.
My Copperband could probably eat the entire thing by himself. I don't know how old he is, I barely know how old I am and if my birthday wasn't on Christmas, I wouldn't remember that.
These guys are also still doing well

 

[Paul B]

 

[Paul B]

Today we are going to this very calm, un occupied lagoon with some friends to relax. If it's low tide I will try to collect some mud, amphipods, seaweed and maybe snails.
It's a beautiful day and we want to take advantage of it as long as the nice weather is around.



I had a little argument with my wife this morning, and we never fight.

She threw out our blender that we have had as one of our engagement gifts in 1973.
Yes, there was electricity then, and fire.

She bought a new blender which I am sure is made in China, Japan, Sri Lanka, India, Peru, Tunisia or someplace that is not in America. I am sure they make great blenders in those countries and I think the local people should use them and be very proud. But as an American, I care more about American people working. Not that I want to see any body else starve, but my first priority is to my country.

My family all came from Sicily but I am not Sicilian, I am American.

The old blender was running just fine and I use it every week to make my wife's "Jumping Juice" that takes away her pain.

The new blender, I think it's a "Kitchen Aid" is 100% plastic and sounds like an outboard motor. It may have been an outboard motor at one time. It is harder to clean and it will probably last a couple of years and also probably has no parts you can fix after it croaks.

To Me it is sacrilege to throw out a good, working American appliance just to get a new, shiny red one that is not as good and will never last as long.

Of course I rescued it and will give it to the American Legion or some other American organization so that they can use it at their bar.

 

[gobyvin]

Keep it Paul. It will outlive the new one. When that one brakes you can take it out and tell your wife you saved it because it reminded you of how beautiful she is and always has been.

I should follow my own advice...

 

[Paul B]

It's 5:45 am and as soon as I can see a little light I will be taking by bike out and heading for the beach.
I got to keep these old bones working and walking up and down a cliff, 176 steps is all I need.

I can't believe with two bum knees I can still do that. The steps don't bother me as long as I don't turn either knee to one side even a little. That makes it hard to turn so I have to keep walking in a straight line.

Yesterday I couldn't find my bubble coral. I had just used my diatom filter to clean some cyano and I must have blew the thing away.
I found it all the way in the back under rocks and I had to remove a lot of rock to rescue it. My fireclown kept biting me. You would think that after 28 years he would start losing his teeth, or at least start going senile. But I think he will outlast me in that respect.

 

[Paul B]

I'm back from my early morning Bike ride and I didn't get eaten by any deer. I did notice some of them being beamed up to a UFO though

This was over the golf course across the street from my house. But I don't play golf.

 

[Paul B]

I just got a great deal. I went into an LFS and got a bunch of acropora pieces about 6" long and a really nice gorgonian for $60.00
Of course I am covered in crazy glue and epoxy, but it was worth it.

It's all in my tank and so far looks real happy.

 

[Chris A.]

Jackpot

 

[Paul B]

This weekend was pretty good. We went with another couple who have been our good friends for over 40 years to a very small town in Vermont called Poultney. Don't look on a map.
Our Daughter owns a vacation home there. Anyway we live on Long Island so we took the ferry to Bridgeport Connecticut.
This is the Port Jefferson/Bridgeport Conn. Ferry.


The ride is a little over an hour. But it's a nice ride and the weather was perfect. The ship crosses over the Long Island Sound where I did most of my boating.


After the ferry we drove almost 5 hours to the house which is on a mountain up a dirt road, a few miles from anything that resembles civilization.
It's a really nice farm house.
They also have a couple of these, that we used to go up and around the mountain. Our friends also had one and he had to keep stopping every time his wife saw a wildflower she wanted.


That pond there is man made and is loaded with frogs, like millions of them. It was a stream and they dammed it up a little to make that pond. They used to stock it with trout and maybe Manta Rays but now there are only frogs and newts.
We couldn't make it all the way up the mountain like we normally do because one of the 17 bridges was out and looked like if a small horseshoe crab tip toed across it, it would collapse sending you about 5' down a small, rocky ravine.


You wouldn't croak, but that ATV wouldn't fare to well.
They have this swing next to the pond under the apple trees.


Coming down back to the house we noticed this cow. Being born in Brooklyn I don't know too much about cows except that they squeeze them to get milk.


Also, being I went to high school and everything I noticed he was on the "road" and not a few feet away behind the "enclosure", which was a piece of wire about 18" off the ground, so I figured cows were not the smartest creatures.
I told my Son N Laws Father who lives there about the cow. He called the caretaker, who is a close to 80 year old Lady who can hardly walk to go and rustle the cow back to where ever cows live.
She wasn't real happy about that but I can't write the "colorful" language she used here as my computer would catch fire.
I am not sure how she was able to lift the cow the 18" over the wire to put her back either.
On Saturday they had the biggest event that they have in this town. I am fairly sure it is the only event they have in that town. It's a chili cook off where they all make chili and people vote on which is the best. You buy a cup for $7.00 and you can taste all the chili.
All the townspeople come to this, all 12 of them. I noticed a sign informing you of the rules on what you can put in the chili, and in big letters it read, "NO ROAD KILL OF ANY KIND" at this event. So I assumed at other events you can use that as it is all over the place. We saw (and smelled) Skunks, porcupines, possums, many racoons, deer, beavers, birds, and I swear one of them was an Emu.
The chili I assume was delicious but I didn't try it as I am sure there was something in it that would kill me.
They have a General Store there that is also the post office. It was built in 1730 and still has the horse hitching posts outside. They sell some ready made food but That sign about the road kill turned me off to that.
WE got to the ferry an hour early and we tried to get on that earlier boat. They were not sure if they could fit us on, but they squeezed and that is my car, that red Jeep. I told them I would get on even if my back wheels were off the back.


On our way home, from the ferry I saw my next boat.

 

[Paul B]

The pipefish, possum wrasse, perchlet, mandarins, hawkfish and a few others are camera shy

 

[Paul B]

I found my "almost" complete Log book from 1971 to the 90s. I see I was having trouble keeping corals but my Alk was 3 and my calcium was about 125

I think I know the problem now.

I also saw that I lost an awful lot of fish, but not from disease. I really didn't know what I was doing and the food available was horrendous. I had fish killing each other, I also used to remove all the dead bleached corals weekly to bleach so they were nice and white and during that fish would jump out or the residual bleach would kill them.

My tank was "40 gallons" and I had, at the same time a French Angel, Moorish Idol and copperband along with a bunch of other fish.
I would buy or get for free sick fish and try to cure them with Human burn ointment or human medications as there was nothing for fish.

I really feel bad for all the fish killed.

I wrote it i free hand in pencil until about 1976, then I lost some pages but it turns up again typed on an Apple computer which was basically a typewriter as there was no internet.

 

[Paul B]

We just got back from Connecticut for a couple of days in a B&B for our 46th (I think) anniversary.

It poured the entire time.

We took the ferry there and it was fairly calm. As I looked over the side at the sea, I saw this large fin slicing through the water. I have been out there in the middle of the Long Island Sound many times but I never saw a large shark there.

I know a few weeks ago they reported a 12' Great White Shark there so I figured it was one of those.
Then as we got closer I saw a Sea Gull land right in front of it. I figured the gull was going to be a small lunch for the shark.

Then I noticed the fin bending from side to side and I know shark fins don't do that as they are made out of aluminum and are very stiff.

All of a sudden this huge fish jumps completely out of the water and slaps down again. It was maybe 4' or 5' long and almost as high.

It was an Ocean Sunfish or Mola Mola.
It jumped three or four times and after every jump it would lay on it's side at the surface and the sea gull would stand on it and eat parasites off it's sides.

Our boat was moving pretty fast so I could only see this for about 30 seconds but it made my day.
I have only seen an ocean sunfish once or twice before but that was far out to sea. This was about 8 miles out.
Sunfish are the largest bony fish and can reach over 2,000 lbs. or as much as some of my old girlfriends.

Very cool.

Coming home it was so windy that they cancelled our ferry due to high winds and rain. I think the Captain noticed there were some Sissy, Girly Men Snowflakes on line and figured they would get the horrors and croak.
This ferry is a big boat holding maybe 100 or more cars.

We drove for an hour to Bridgeport Conn. and got a different ferry to Long Island so we didn't do to bad.

I got good news when I got home and found out my book, "The Avant-Garde Marine Aquarist" is back in print on Amazon so I ordered myself some copies in case I forgot what I wrote.

Just in case anyone believes I am going to get wealthy beyond my wildest dreams with this book, (and movie) I would like you to know that 100% of any profits from this book will be donated to MS
(Multiple Sclerosis) research in my wife's name.

She has had the disease for 20 years and is not really doing very well with it as MS is so far a disease that can't be cured.

Besides, my wildest dreams involves a flounder, two Supermodels, a bowling ball and a door handle from a 1967 Oldsmobile Cutlass.

 

[serwobow]

Wow! unbelievable!
I have seen one of these only in the Monterey Bay aquarium. They are the strangest looking things ever. And to think they use seaguls as their cleaners...