Joe and Jamie's Blog

I was finally able to redeem my Christmas present on President’s Day. Jamie had bought me tickets to go see my favorite hockey team play, the Pittsburgh Penguins. They were playing the New York Islanders at the Islanders arena, the Nassau Coliseum in Long Island.

I have been to a couple hockey games before with my father, but this was the first time Jamie had ever gone to one. She enjoyed watching the game, so I was very happy. I like the sport, actually my most favorite to watch. It is constant action, not like baseball that takes 40 minutes just to strike out or football that has 15 seconds of game time for every 20 minutes of TV timeouts.

This was my first trip to the Nassau Coliseum though, the other times I went my father got tickets to the New Jersey Devil’s arena, called the Continental Airlines Arena at the time, now the Prudential Center I believe. The stadium was very nice and well kept, crowds weren’t that bad at all considering it was a day off for most people. I just love the highway robbery at the concessions though, but that is everywhere now.

Maybe we can snag some more tickets later in the season. I want to see some other teams play, so we should be able to find some open games. It’s tough getting tickets because these local teams only play the Penguins so often at home. I’m still loyal to my Penguins, even though many years ago they traded my favorite player…now get this, to the team I hate the most (New York Rangers)! Just swell!

The Islanders wound up winning the game in a shootout. For those of you not up to what happens in a tie in hockey, they play a 5 minute period with only four guys on each time (normally five). If it is a tie after that, three players from each team go to a one-on-one shootout with the goalie, whoever scores more wins, if it still ties then it is a tie. Final score after shootout, Islanders 3, Penguins 2. Enjoy some pics from inside the arena.

Scoreboard

Rink before the game, nice and smooth

Shot of stands at Nassau Coliseum

Penguins trying to score

Go Penguings Go!

Waiting for ice girls to finish shoveling the ice

Full rink shot during game

Faceoff down near Pittsburgh's end

FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! Yes there is always one in hockey!

Happy 21st Birthday Jamie!!

PPPPAAAAARRRRRRTTTTYYYYY!!!!!!

Now we can finally order a drink together when we eat out! :)

Sunday the 7th was our four year anniversary. To be honest, it seems like it has been so much longer. We can’t believe all that we have done in just four years, and how much we still can do in the years to come. We kept it simple this year, just nice little gifts for each other and going out to eat. Jamie came up with a cool gift of getting me some chocolate covered strawberries from Edible Arrangements. She knows how much I love to eat fruit. I got her a new Fossil watch to replace the one I got her last year; it was really scratched up from using it at her job. She likes the brown color metal they are making now.

We decided to eat at Greenbaum and Gilhooley’s Steak and Seafood House in Wappingers Falls. We have never eaten there before so we gave it a shot. One of my new things lately is trying to eat someplace new each time we go out, enough of the same places over and over again. Greenbaum and Gilhooley’s has a very Irish homey feeling to it. It is styled just like every old Irish house I have ever been to. The food was absolutely delicious. Jamie ordered the poached salmon and I had the chicken marsala; best marsala sauce I have ever tasted. We played some Quick Draw while eating, just something to do for fun. We didn’t win anything.

Besides the night being incredibly cold, we had an excellent night. Looking forward to another great year together.

It has been getting really tough lately. Yeah I know, old news, but its starting to get worse faster than before. So I just have to ask, how is everyone? Work has been doing great until now. There has been so many lay offs everywhere else that we just have less people working to mess their computers up. It’s starting to scare me because I would hate to have to get a part time job somewhere. That’s even if I could find a part time job out there now, which just adds to the scariness.

Well Christmas is just around the corner, something to look forward too. Good thing I did 90% of my shopping before Thanksgiving so not much left to worry about there. Online shopping has had great deals lately. I have always hated going to the mall on the slowest day possible, so you can imagine how I avoid the mall now. I just cant deal with that many idiots shoved into one area, drives me to the point of almost having a heart attack from frustration.

Sunday is our four year anniversary. Seems like it has been much longer. I have to pick somewhere fancy-schmancy to eat that we haven’t been to yet. I’ll remember to take some pictures of the restaurant I choose for all of you.

While we picked up the African frogs, we also picked out some new playmates for Bubbles. Jamie liked the Calico Fantails and I liked the Black Moor goldfish. Splotch is the Calico Fantail and Brutis is the Black Moor. Splotch has a black spot on one side and not the other, kind of like a splotch of paint on the floor, hence the name Splotch. I named the Black Moor Brutis, after the big guy in Popeye that always beat on Popeye and went after Olive Oil, because as soon as he was let out of the store’s bag he went after Splotch and was bullying him around. Thankfully he stopped after the first few minutes and hasn’t done it since, but it gave me the idea for his name. I guess Brutis needed to show dominance, but Bubbles is almost twice his size so he calmed down when he came over.

We cleaned out their tank before we purchased them Saturday. As you can see this was the main highlight of the day. It took a long time to clean out both tanks completely. They are very happy together. What I learned from the unfortunate Doodle accident, I am pretty sure these fish will be fine. We started them all out together in clean water so they can muck it up as a family. Enjoy the pics and flick at the end.

Saturday Jamie and I went down to Petco to get some fish and frogs. During our last visit we noticed some African frogs that were in a tank with some fish. We were interested because it was odd to see frogs in with fish, mainly because we didn’t think frogs stayed in the water 100% of the time. Apparently these frogs do. The African frogs don’t grow more than 2.5 inches.

We had set up the old five gallon wish tank prior to going to the store. Just had to pick up a heater and a filter for the tank. We needed a cover as well, but they store was out of them. I had to rig a top with some leftover fiberglass mesh to replace screen windows. Essentially the same stuff without the nice plastic edge around it.

We bought three of the frogs and decided to name them Bud, Weis, and Er, after the famous three frogs from the Budweiser campaign a few years back. I know, I know, how original. Eh, whatever, I own the Budweiser frogs and you don’t

Enjoy the pictures and the video.

I have some unfortunate news, Doodle has passed away.

When I woke up this morning Doodle was acting very strange. He was near the top of the tank barely moving, just floating with the current. I went near him, but he swam to the bottom so I figured it couldn’t be that bad. I started to research this while at work today and found several reasons why this could be happening.

1. Overfeeding or bad diet can cause digestive problems. – I rule this out because Doodle was new and he didn’t eat much at all. Bubbles comes to the top to eat and would eat all the flakes before Doodle got them. I also hand fed Doodle because of this, so I know he only ate a flake or two since Saturday.
2. Swim Bladder issues – I rule this out because he had no problem swimming around until this morning. So unless he developed it overnight (which now I think he actually did) then it wasn’t this.
3. Dirty water conditions – I still think this is why. Bubbles was in that water for two weeks before Doodle, so Bubbles was used to the conditions, Doodle was not. With just Bubbles all I did was change the water once a month which was fine, but now that there was two I should take out at least 15% of the water each week.

I had Jamie run to the store and get two gallons of water and change it out because of #3. Doodle responded better for a bit, but didn’t recover. Jamie went to the store to get test kits for the water when my mother found Doodle behind the filter on his side.

So farewell Doodle, we barely knew ye. You were the best looking Telescope goldfish Petco had, sorry you had to go.

Off to Petco to get some test kits now, possibly a Doodle2 later tonight….maybe Doddle Jr or Doodler, not sure how the sequel name will go yet.

[UPDATE]

Jamie and I went back to Petco last night and grab a test kit and then headed home. We tested the water and the pH, hardness and nitrate leves were just fine. Nitrite was a bit high and the ammonia levels were a bit more on the stress than safe side.  We plan to change out two additional gallons of water this weekend before purchasing another fish. I talked with the people at Petco for a long time last night, going over everything. I learned that we did pretty much everything correctly and that it could have been anything that killed the fish. They said that it could have just been the fish itself and that it probably wasn’t anything serious that would affect the other fish. I tend to agree with them now, especially after Jamie read that Telescope Goldfish are the hardest goldfish to care for. They are not recommended for beginners (that’s what we are obviously) and that they are prone to disease and die more often than others.

So we think we may hold off on the Telescope Goldfish again, unless we use our second smaller tank for it by itself. We now have our eye on a Black Moor or Calico Fantail. We’ll see this weekend which one wins I guess.

As I said in the last pet post, we have had our eye on a certain fish, a companion for Bubbles. Well this weekend Petco finally restocked their Telescope Goldfish, so we just had to get one!

Meet Doodle. Unlike Bubbles, Doodle likes to just float around the bottom, swimming here and there. Bubbles is the one that non-stop swims around the tank. I think Doodle is just getting adjusted. I was surprised how Bubbles reacted with another fish in the tank, it was as if the other wish wasn’t even there. Now they swim around together and I have no worries of coming home and finding only one fish. I caught them playing what looked like tag today which was fun to watch for a bit.

Next we plan to get a tropical fish since we need to put the smaller tank to good use. We saw this shark looking fish with a flat white bottom with whiskers like a catfish. I forget the name and can’t find a picture online so you’ll just have to wait till we get one to show you what I mean.