“Surrender don’t come natural to me
I’d rather fight You for something I don’t really want
Than to take what You give that I need
And I’ve beat my head against so many walls
Now I’m falling down, I’m falling on my knees”
(from the song “Hold Me Jesus” by Rich Mullins)
Click “more” to see a list of all of the interesting web sites I found this week. I keep track of my favorite sites using del.icio.us, a free web site where you can access your favorite links from any computer and share them with friends. You can also see all of my favorite links (not just the ones from this week).
Joy and I went on a retreat with our Sunday school class last night. We were basically just enjoying fellowship with one another and also trying to see what direction we should take in the coming year. It was a neat time to get to spend with some people that are very special to Joy and I. In addition to our planning, praying, worship, and discussion, we also managed to squeeze in a game of Settlers of Catan late Friday night. We started about 11 PM and finished up shortly after 2 AM. So that makes two weekends in a row with late night Settlers on Friday evening. I think we need to figure out a way to start our games a little earlier so we don’t go so late. :-) Anyway, we played Seafarers and Cities and Knights together, with a discovery board layout for Seafarers. I ended up getting very lucky with a long string of land (instead of water) on my discovery route, and I think that let me fly under the radar as I built up the longest road and a number of settlements along my discovery path. I eventually won the game in a tight finish. Mark, who won last week, was very close to me, and it basically came down to who could secure the longest road as it went back and forth between various people. I actually had to use the merchant on one of my hexes to get the final point to win. If we had gone around the board one more time, I think there is a good chance that Mark would have pulled it off instead of me. So it really was very close.
The chiller for the reef tank arrived yesterday. Joy was actually out on an errand when FedEx came by to deliver it, so we had to go pick it up at the FedEx office in the evening (but the office wasn’t too far away, so that wasn’t really a big deal). It’s smaller than I thought it might be, and Joy even commented on how much smaller it was than the traditional refrigerant-based chiller we had on our previous aquarium. While small is nice, I really picked this one for the quiet operation and lower energy consumption.
“I’m trying to work things out
I’m trying to comprehend
Am I the chance result
Of some great accident
I hear a rhythm call me
The echo of a grand design
I spend each night in the backyard
Staring up at the stars in the sky”
(from the song “Maybe There’s A Loving God” by Sara Groves)
I got a call from Socal Creations this evening saying they had my sumps finished already. Wow! They weren’t supposed to be done until next week, but they finished them early. And Premium Aquatics is supposed to receive the light fixture from PFO either today or tomorrow, so it looks like I’m getting extremely close to finally having all of the pieces in place to actually get some water in the new tank!
Click “more” to see a list of all of the interesting web sites I found this week. I keep track of my favorite sites using del.icio.us, a free web site where you can access your favorite links from any computer and share them with friends. You can also see all of my favorite links (not just the ones from this week).
Our Sunday school class had a Settlers of Catan game night last night. It turns out that a lot of people in our class play Settlers, so we thought it would be fun to get together and go all out. There were also some people there who weren’t as crazy about Settlers as the rest of us, so they played a few other games while the rest of us participated in four separate Settlers tables (one table of 6 players using Seafarers, and three tables of the standard 4 player game). In that first portion of the evening when the four separate games were going, I managed to win my table (barely) using an ore-wheat strategy. I got boxed in about half way through the game and I was completely unable to expand (not good planning on my part). I ended up winning with three cities, the largest army, and two victory point cards in a very close game.
After all the simultaneous games ended, most people left, but seven of us stayed for a final game together. We played with both Seafarers and Cities and Knights (my first time with Cities and Knights) in a 6 player game. Joy actually sat the final game out because Settlers really isn’t her favorite (she spent the first part of the night on Scrabble and Scattergories). Anyway, I did not win the final game, which went to Mark in a well-earned victory after a long drawn out end game where he got kind of stuck because no one would trade with him and the robber perpetually resided on his hexes. But he eventually pulled it off at 2 AM and set us all free to go home and sleep!
FYI - In the final game, I vastly underestimated the importance of commodities, which I will need to pay much more attention to next time in my initial placements and early expansions.
I realize I’ve been writing quite a few of these “some-aquarium-device has arrived” posts lately, but that’s because I’m getting very close to having everything in place to actually fill the tank with water.
Anyway, after the stand arrived a week or two ago I was finally able to get an accurate measurement of the space available under the stand, and it turned out that the standard skimmer body would fit, so I went ahead and took a standard body as a replacement for the custom short one that arrived broken. The standard body arrived a couple of days ago, packed very well with lots of bubble wrap and packing peanuts, and it came all in one piece and in perfect condition. The skimmer looks great and I’m excited to actually get it running. Joy commented that the skimmer looks awfully big for the size tank we are setting up. Nothing like a little bit of overkill I always say. :-)
The other thing I was able to do with the stand actually in my house was to finalize the plans for my custom sumps. In order to maximize the space available under the stand, I’m going to use two smaller sumps instead of one larger one. I sent out requests to several places for a quote to build the sumps to my specifications, and after getting all of the information back, I decided to go with SoCal Creations. They offered me a very good price, and they were able to get the sumps done the quickest. They should ship out on September 25, which to me is just amazingly fast for a pair of custom built sumps. I don’t know how long this link will be good for, but SoCal Creations posts “work in progress” photos as they build sumps and tanks, so here’s a link to my sumps in progress (click on the small pictures to see them larger).
Besides the sumps, there are really only two other things I’m waiting for. I have a chiller on order that’s coming from Italy. The shipment should arrive at the distributor any day now, and then it’s just a one day shipment to get to me, so hopefully it will come in later this week. It’s a new chiller on the market that is based on Peltier devices instead of a normal refrigerant system. That allows the chiller to be very small and almost silent. It also means that it can vary its power draw from very low (15 watts) on up to its maximum power based on how much cooling is actually needed. That should save some electricity over a standard chiller because refrigerant chillers are either off or full power with nothing in between. I’m also waiting for the lights to arrive. I was originally going to go with a pair of metal halide bulbs, but I changed my mind and ordered one of the new LED based Solaris fixtures from PFO instead. The Solaris fixtures are brand new and I have one reserved from the initial shipment that Premium Aquatics will receive. So whenever they get their shipment (which should be any time now), it should arrive here a few days later.
“Nobody tells you when you get born here
How much you’ll come to love it
And how you’ll never belong here
So I call you my country
And I’ll be lonely for my home
And I wish that I could take you there with me”
(from the song “Land Of My Sojourn” by Rich Mullins)