Doug vs. the interweb

June 24th, 2010 12:53 AM

Amphibian shuffle

I just spent the entire time, from coming back from work until now, reworking one of the aquariums. It was the one in which I was again foolishly trying to mimic some kind of ecosystem. I say foolish not because it wasn't successful (I raised almost 15 frogs and numerous toads from tadpoles, while a turtle, newts, salamander, and a few other frogs took up the rest of the tank, with moss and plants growing and all that) -- rather, it was an extraordinary bit of work getting the dang thing clean, which I had to do before starting over again with a new design.

My essential problem was that I have two new baby snapping turtles, and I found out right away that they indeed do not get along (as I have read they tend to do). One was just snapping away at the other whenever there was food in the tank, so I had to put them in separate buckets. Obviously, this meant that whichever one of the two that I kept, I wouldn't be able to put him in with anything else, and being so tiny, it wouldn't make sense for him to get an entire tank to himself yet.

So, my solution: rework the long 20 gallon tank so it's mainly aquatic, with an insurmountable divider in the center, so I can have the painted turtle on one side, and the snapping turtle on the other. A simple plan: all I had to do was take all the creatures out of that tank, take all the rocks out, take all the moss and plants out, take all the dirt out, take all the gravel out, clean off the dirt and gravel, etc. etc. This was complicated even moreso by having to keep the various creatures segregated correctly. The larger frogs are certainly capable of eating the smaller frogs, which wasn't a big problem in the tank, as there was a huge amount of room and a lot of cover, but in a tiny temporary tank, there'd be sure to be problems. Plus I had some tadpoles that were almost frogs, but not quite -- had to make sure they'd have adequate water as well as a little land. I couldn't keep the baby newts with the tadpoles because the tadpoles would periodically schiz out and turn the jar into a whirlpool, which left the absolutely tiny newts swirling about helplessly. And so on.

In summary: a massive endeavor, not just in terms of time, but also physically (hauling buckets of water over and over, scrubbing and cleaning, and then later arranging big rocks, sifting buckets of gravel) and mentally (planning out how to create a divider that will be extremely stable, trying to provide ramps and places to bask that do not interfere with swimming room and that are likewise sturdy, figuring out how to deal with muck and dirt and rocks and moss without making an even worse mess) draining. That was probably the most ungainly sentence I've written in a while, and I've certainly written some ungainly sentences in my time.

I also had to let a bunch of the dudes go. Turns out I had about five new frogs since the last transmogrification, most of which were pickerel frogs. I've taken to just letting the frogs go once their tails are gone completely. There was also a new peeper, and of course the salamander -- that dude's been with me for potentially the longest of all of my current creatures. But with the new tank setup, none of them really can fit there anymore. I still have the wood frog, and a larger pickerel frog and green frog, but they're in a temporary bucket for now. It'll break my heart to let the wood frog go, but I don't know what else I can do with the guy.

Alright, so enough of the creatures. Margot and I went to Great Adventure (or perhaps you just know it as Six Flags?) on Monday, and it was actually quite fun. Exhausting, certainly. That was quite some extended sun and heat. But apart from a slightly long line for El Toro (which even still was only about ten minutes), almost all of the lines were almost non-existent. One of my major complaints with that place is the lines; if you're going to spend a ludicrous amount to go there, how can you enjoy just standing about, usually with the sun beating you over the head? So luckily that wasn't an issue, and I got to ride some of the old classics, and tried out some of the 'new' rides (from the past decade).

As for classics, Batman was still quite enjoyable. I felt I was going to lose my glasses the entire time, which kind of spoiled things, so I had to go get some nerd bands to hold them into my face more reliably. I gave Rolling Thunder another ride, and immediately after decided that I am perfectly fine with that being my last ride on it. I am well aware of its brain-jumbling abilities already, but time has either dulled my memories or aged the coaster further, because it was mind-smashingly painful on my thoughtstuff. I then got to compare old to new by trying out El Toro: likewise a wooden roller coaster, but seemingly twice as high. The lift at the beginning had none of Rolling Thunder's slow build-up anticipation; this one instead rocketed you right up to the top, where you then were treated to a nice view of the park before turning around and oh goodness. I was made genuinely frightened of roller coasters again. Luckily, it's a much smoother ride than its shorter counterpart, so it was all the thrill without anywhere near as much of the pain.

We also took some antique photos since Margot's friend works there, which was a sweaty mess of a time (you lie, it was not air conditioned!). The one place I would've been willing to buy extremely marked-up food from (the mexican place) was closed for some inexplicable reason. We had a much-hyped funnel cake, and while it was delicious, it was pretty much precisely what you'd expect from such a confection. I was distracted for a bit, trying to see if there were any creatures in the swampy pond, and though there were signs of life, nothing directly was seen. Also, Margot made some preposterous faces for the ride cameras, which will need to be added to the growing list of photos that need to get up here.

Anyway, I am exhausted. There was probably a lot else we did at the park, but I can think of little else but sleep. I really need to just.. relax after work sometime.