HAWP

Am I the only one that has a strange affinity for these videos? They're stupid, but smart. Dumb, but entertaining...I love them.

This is probably their best one....

You can find the rest of them here.

# 1 Reason I Married Him

I think my husband is hilarious...

At his work the Senior Vice President of Human Resources sent this email to the entire company:

Good Morning,

Many of you rely on the ice machine several times a day. It's obvious that it has not been working well for some time -- not producing ice consistently and leaking badly. We have had the machine repaired multiple times. I am very disappointed to say that recently we have received many reports of employees shaking and hitting the machine. This knocks parts and tubes loose and contributes to additional leaking and failure to produce ice. A new ice machine has been under consideration, but frankly, I'm not sure we will order one considering the reports of abuse we are receiving.
 

In response, Dean went to the store and bought some ice and sent this email to his department (and the HR woman). He's been working there for 17 years. He tends to get away with a few things.

Seeing as all my calls to FEMA have gone unanswered (big surprise!), I have taken it upon myself to step-up in this time of crisis to help alleviate human suffering.  Now, I'm not calling myself a hero, but.....

I have managed to procure a limited supply of ice - 5 lbs. of sweet, delicious ice.  I have stored this ice in the freezer of the 2nd floor refrigerator.  Now, I'm sure your first instinct is to rush the freezer, take as much ice as possible, and horde it.  Please, recognize the fact that every human has an inalienable right to ice (or at least the ones in our department), and conduct yourself in a socially responsible manner.
This ice has to sustain all of our needs for an indefinite period.  I do not want to be forced to impose an ice rationing policy, but I am prepared to do so.

If you do not find the ice in the freezer, DO NOT HIT THE REFRIGERATOR!
This will only exacerbate our already perilous situation.

Further, I have heard rumors of a method for creating ice by cooling water to a certain temperature.  I will research this method further, but the technology involved in such a process may be prohibitive.

Do not give up!

Dean Dragert
Senior Business Analyst & Hero

Fun with camera...

Bought a fancy DSLR camera a couple weeks ago. I'm going to take a class next week to learn how to use it better. And then I have a few more classes scheduled after that. Here are a couple pictures I took today that I'm pretty happy with...

A Lady Slipper cropped up close:

And the very cool eyes and horns of our new Russell's Lionfish

I think the Eel from my last blog is still my favorite though...

NOM!

Back in July Dean became a 90-gallon saltwater fish aquarist after shit-canning our 55 gallon freshwater tank. I was against the whole idea - it's expensive and a shit-ton of work. He finally broke down and said "But Tara...It's been my life dream for 20 years to have a tank like this." He was drunk and being ridiculously dramatic when he said this, but if your husband is going to pull out that "life dream" bullshit, you just say "yes".

Fast forward about 3 months. The tank is rocking. Everything looks beautiful. All of a sudden - death. Everything. Everything dead within weeks. WTF? We bought top of the line shit. Followed every little instruction. Read books. Researched on countless websites. Enlisted the help of the expert fish store owner...The water tests out perfectly for any test kit that could be found. Hundreds of dollars in fish and coral down the shitter...The "told ya so" backlash began.

A couple months after that we started calling the tank "Auschwitz". (Perhaps a poor taste joke, but that's us). Dead fish swimming. We bought several fish after any remedial action we could think of and they'd quickly die after a couple days. Hubby was about to give up and just make it a rock tank. I told him "the fuck you are - you're figuring this out." It was a sore subject. After several stops to the local fish store, the owner finally offered to come to our house and check things out. He was baffled too by our countless conversations.

On a Thursday about 2 weeks ago he stopped out and looked everything over, tested yet again and found nothing wrong. He asked Dean some questions about the nutrients he had been adding to the tank and BAM we have an answer. The bottle on the iodide says 2 capfuls every 2-3 days, not 5. For whatever reason, Dean had it in his head that it was 5 capfuls of iodide every 2-3 days. He had been adding more than double doses for several months. I guess after about 3 months it built up to lethal levels capable of wiping out any life (except for hermit crabs and snails.) Fuck-in-A.

"So are you happy that you got it figured out finally? Or pissed that it was all your fault for not reading instructions?"

"I'm happy that it's figured out - but it's the coral's fault for needing all those nutrients."

Yep - the man has a hard (impossible) time accepting blame, but that's alright. I accepted that a long time ago.

Well after much frustration, much expense, and a 70 gallon water change - we're back in action. We said "fuck you" to corals and we're going with a fish-only tank.

Here's our first-post-Auschwitz inhabitant - a Snowflake Eel. He's fat and happy and about a foot long. And over time he'll be joined by a puffer, lionfish, and trigger....

NOM!

I got flowers...I think

Last week before going to see my Grandma, Dean and I stopped to get some flowers for her. I picked out some yellow, happy looking flowers. He urged me to get fillers for a winter arrangement that aren't even flowers because he thought they were cool. I ignored him.

Today I asked him to stop by the grocery to get breadsticks to accompany the lasagna. I got "flowers". I think they're like a live Viva Pinata "weed bomb."