Devastation

Before I start, I should say that things could be much, much worse. I feel very blessed that they aren't. Nobody has cancer. Nobody's injured. The house is still standing. Still, this is a hard trial to deal with. That new fish tank we were so excited about? Yeah, last night I got a call at 4:00 P.M. My frantic wife let me know it was leaking. My boss gave me the go ahead, and I drove home as quickly as I was safely and legally able to (which turns out to be very fast, actually).

I got home to find nearly no water in the tank. The fish were expiring. I quickly grabbed the tank and got it outside. Then the stand. Adrenaline works. They didn't feel like they weighed anything. Later when I moved them to a more permanent location, they certainly felt heavy again.

Pulling back the carpet and running fans wasn't going to be enough to save the floor, so we had to cut the carpet out, and pull up the pad. That just wasn't easy to do. It really hurts to have to cut out carpet to save your home. Still, carpet is cheaper than floor, so we got it out, and quickly.

A visual inspection under the house today didn't turn up any sign of moisture through the sub floor, so hopefully several days of drying will do the trick and we can just recarpet. We've already filed an incident report with the store that sold the tank. A massive crack opened up in the bottom of the tank. That seems impossible, as the tank was properly supported on the stand designed for it, but that's what happened. It must have had a hairline fracture in the glass, or chip, or something when it was sold to us, though I visually inspected the tank before filling and didn't see any problems. I'm told it can be very small and still sufficient to cause a problem in a filled tank.

I hope the store will make this right. They're already offering to refund all the money we spent with them, and that's a start, but they shouldn't have sold an old or damaged tank, so we'll expect them to make any repairs needed to the home. I don't like costing a store money in these economically difficult times, but this wasn't our fault, and we couldn't afford to fix this.

The potential damage to the house is scary, but the loss of the pets was very sad. We bought the tank just 11 days ago. The fish already felt like our pets, though. R.I.P. Blackie (our black molly), Clovis (a black finned orange platy that looked a bit tigerish), Lightning, Sally, Kiesha (our frog), our two platys, our two guppies (one of which was pregnant and seemed to be nearing her time to birth), and our two neon tetras. I know it seems silly and sentimental, but you were fun to watch, and you'll be missed.

Perhaps worst of all is that although I know a faulty tank is rare, I don't see us feeling safe with a fish tank in the house again. I know this one was probably a display model that was out for years, and may have suffered who knows what in that time. Still, I could never put another fish tank in the room this one was in, just in case, and that's really the only room where we'd sit and enjoy them the way we did. With the carpet gone, we can't even use the sitting room now. That sounds fancy, but if you saw it, you'd understand. It's not big, and it's not fancy, but it was nice, and a relaxing place to do some family reading and fish watching. It really is a loss.

Wow. This really hurts to look at. Here's the room just a few days ago:



Here are some shots of the affected area and the carpet and padding afterward:

Accidentally deleted these while cleaning out the album. I forgot I'd linked them.

Here's what happened to the tank:

Note: Same thing as above. Oops.

These photos are a bit painful to look at. Spawn was so happy reading and looking at fish. Hopefully soon we'll at least be reading in there, even if we don't feel good about ever exposing that floor to 30 gallons of water again.

My suggestion: never buy the display model. Ever. I would guess it had been treated roughly, had things dropped in, etc. When its full load of 28 gallons was introduced, the weak spots took the stress for as long as possible, then they cracked.

I'm glad it didn't happen earlier in the day, when I was in Delaware, or when we were all away, but this was bad enough.

Tired, but happy

I've spent the past two days in Delaware! It was fun and informative,but I missed my family. My company does business development classes yearly, and this year I did business communications. I thought It might be basic stuff I'd know, but it wasn't just the basics. The class was really good, and I learned quite a bit and resolved to do things to improve my skills.

It had been years since I'd flown anywhere. The last time I flew very far was 1996, when I returned from New York. I was thinking that was the last time I'd flown, but I forgot a short hop to Oregon in 2000. I don't think I'd ever flown much at night, so this was different and cool.

Things I saw on the way out include the inevitable tops of clouds (which are still fascinating to me even though they're always about the same as bottoms of clouds) and Chicago from 35,000 feet at night. I have to say, Chicago lit up at night is pretty amazing from the sky. It's absolutely huge.

On the way back we had to divert around a thunderstorm, and although I saw no dark clouds (good job diverting, Mr. Pilot guy!), I did see cloud columns that seemed to go up forever given the limited view of my airplane window. We also flew over the contrail of another aircraft. Naturally, the other plane wasn't anywhere to be seen (good job controlling, air traffic control!) but the single contrail was an impressive sight from only a few hundred feet above. I'm used to seeing them way up in the sky from the ground. It was different to see it up close. The second leg of that flight saw us making our own contrails at 36,000 feet.

The only problem with going all the way to Delaware for training from the Sacramento area is the brutal travel. On Wednesday I had a 1:00 PM flight out of Sacramento, and arrived in Delaware about 11:30 PM. I'd lost 3 hours to time zones, so that wasn't so terrible. Delta was good--just a one and a half hour layover in Salt Lake City and on to Delaware. Once there the shuttle was a bit wild. Part of it wasn't really his fault; I notified the ground transportation desk and had to wait until about 12:00 AM for the shuttle to show.

Then a big family coming back from Costa Rica boarded along with one other gentleman. The big family from Costa Rica was first to be let off. They lived in Greenville. Their home was very impressive. That shouldn't be a surprise. Two driveways down was the house of a president of a major financial company. I'm trying to recall which (I was exhausted). Ameri Bank Corp. or something like that. I should have tried to remember better, but the next house was Joe Biden's. You can see his mother's residence from the street, but his house is evidently down a longer driveway. Usually there are secret service posted there, but evidently he was out of town, because that night there weren't any. I thought perhaps the family was yanking my chain, but on googling it and seeing some pictures, they weren't. They really live just a few lots from Joe Biden. I don't think Senators or even vice presidents are rock stars, but it was fun to see a notable residence in passing.

The company put all out of towners up at the Sheraton Suites Hotel. It was tremendous. I can't say enough about the hotel. It may have been chosen simply for location, as it was near the office where we did the class, but the hotel itself was very plesant. The staff was great, and the beds and bathrooms were excellent.

I met a bunch of coworkers from other locations I'd have never met in person otherwise, and it was fantastic. One of them is also a big fan of novels, and we chatted quite a bit. They were all friendly and fun to work with. It was nice to put names with faces, and I hope I entertained and enlightened them as much as they did me.

My boss's boss's boss was also in the class, and he is a riot. No courtesy laughs were required when he cracked a joke; it was genuinely funny. I'd met him several times before, but normally he's very occupied by the business at hand. Seeing him in a setting where he could relax a bit was quite different. He has a great sense of humor and the time he could devote to chatting he did very happily. He seems to enjoy people and has a very quick wit.

Coming home last night was a bear. I came back on Northwest Airlines and had tried to schedule the latest reasonable flight so as not to miss much of the end of class. I should have flown Delta again with a couple of my coworkers, but I didn't know. Oh, well. We had some takeoff delays on the last part of the journey. Actual flight time was about 7 hours, but door to door was about 13. That left me really ready to be off the sardine tins they call aircraft.

Note: I think I prefer the Airbuss A320 to the Boeing 757. Maybe it was the Northwest seats compared to the Delta seats, but I felt like I had more room. The airbus also felt more modern.

I'm glad I went for the class, and doubly glad to be back with my family. Today we're going to celebrate after some yard work. I also need to get a nap in. I woke up at my normal time this morning after sleeping only 5 hours or so. I guess my body is that routinized (let me tell you, it didn't like the jet lag or the time difference in DE!). Still, going back to one's regular schedule is an effective way to combat jet lag, and I was only gone two days (three, really, with all the travel, but only two calendar days in Delaware). I should be able to catch up on sleep and go back to normal quickly.

They kept me busy in Delaware, but I still really missed my family. My greatest joy in life is them, and I often take for granted the comfort of knowing Bubbles is sleeping nearby and Spawn is playing in her room. They're everything to me, and being apart just isn't easy. It's good to be home.

New Fishtank!

We finally did it. Spawn has wanted a pet and she loves fish, so it was time to get a fish tank. So, we went to get one last night. We got an incredible deal, buying the entire thing for less than half of the listed cost. Spawn is delighted, of course.

Note: I deleted the pictures during a clean up of an album. Oops. However, you can see the setup before the disaster in a later post.

Free at last!

It's a good evening. I'm tired, I'm sore, but it's good.

The first weekend of April we spent up with family. We stayed at my older brother's (Dangerdad) and enjoyed an incredibly well-planned birthday party for one of our nieces. It was a Jedi party, as she's crazy into Star Wars right now. It was tremendous fun.

Afterward, when all the kiddos were off for a fun little excursion to Grandma's house, my brother, Bubbles and I went out to a range area. We put holes in targets for a while, and I was gratified to see both the rifle that I'd fixed and cleaned and Bubbles' pistol working very well. Many targets were blasted, and Bubbles demonstrated she's a better shot than I am. I can still keep it on paper most of the time, but she's better. I need practice.

This morning I went to court and had a contract recognized and entered into court records to resolve a matter between a younger brother (not Dangerdad, our families are close). Due to the contract, I can't say more than that, but the process did cost me my relationship with my parents and my youngest brother, who sided with the opposing party. I'll probably never understand why, but my family is safe, and shielded from hostility, and that's what really matters to me.

This evening, after I'd gotten home from work, we planted two maple trees in the front yard. Just yesterday we had a massive ash tree removed from the front (and another from the back). One of the maples needed to go fairly close to the site of the ash, and I encountered some of the biggest roots I've had to deal with in any yard work. I can still swing an axe, and axes still work on roots. I'm going to have blisters, but I think it will have been worth it. I hope that little maple does okay. It has significant cleared space, and once it establishes itself it may be able to wrap around the old dead roots and gain nutrients from them as they decay. I hope so anyway. I may simply be displaying my horticultural naivete.

Here's to a good week and hoping for more to come. Well, maybe with a bit less stress.