Thursday, April 24, 2008

Your Hobby May be Getting out of Hand When...

It seems like we've made several Aquarium related trip over the past two weeks and it may be getting out of hand.
Darrell went in on a Bulk Skimmer order with a bunch of people from the Atlantic Region Reefers Forum (yes that's right there's a forum for just Atlantic Canada..inf act there's three) and we were up last Thursday to pick up the new skimmer in Moncton. While up there, of course we had to drop into Noble Aquariums to see if he had anything new and exciting. Terry told us we should've waited until Sunday when he gets his new salt water order, and told us what was coming in the order. There were actually three fish in it that we wanted, and to simplify matters, his orders come in via AirCanada to the Saint John Airport, so we arranged to meet him there on Sunday. That's right, you didn't misread that, we arranged to meet the plane at the airport to get some fish. PLane came in at 4:30 and Terry drove down from Moncton to meet it. I met him at the airport and we both discovered that the shipment was bumped to a later flight. Terry came back to our place to wait it out, and checked out our system. He liked it. The flight wasn't coming in until 11pm, so I said, "If you don't want to wait around here for 6 hours, you could always go back to Moncton and we could pick the order up and meet you in Sussex."
So sunday at 11:30pm we find ourselves driving to Sussex with five big boxes of fish in the car, only to discover once we get there, that his supplier only sent out the fresh water fish he ordered and his salt water stuff was nowhere to be found. Very disapointing. Made even more disapointing by the fact that there was a group order being done that I got in on and could've ordered the fish I wanted, but didn't because I thought they were coming in Terry's order.
It doesn't end there. The group order that was going on in the forum was being delivered on Tuesday, and I had ordered an urchin, 2 cleaner shrimp, and a clown goby. That order flew into Moncton at 11pm, and we had arranged with a friend in Sussex who was also involved in the order to have him pick everything up and meet at his place, so once again we're on the road to Sussex except this time it's nearly midnight when we leave. We meet Ray only to discover that one of the shrimp and the goby were both DOA, so again we were quite disapointed. On the bright side, the skimmer works awsome, and I took Wednesday off and finally managed to get the last of the cabinet doors glued together. Someday I'm going to finish this project.

On a completely unrelated topic, I was feeling homesick and thinking of trying to plan a trip out west for a visit in July, but it just isn't going to happen, because it's too damn complicated and expensive. The my Mom came to recue and bailed me out of a jam, by cashing in some airmiles for a ticket to Calgary for the week of the May long weekend (my birthday). That means I will be able to go out and see her and my sister and some friends next month, then save some money for a BC trip this time next year, for my 20 year highschool reunion. (okay before someone from the family points it out or says it outloud to themselves... yes I didn't technically graduate with my graduating class... but I did spend 13 years {if you count kindergarten} in school with them, so I plan to go). Traveling out west for a visit is a bit of a logistical nightmare for me, because I have so many places to visit and I have neither the money nor time to visit them all, and then I feel bad. Going home is not supposed to make you feel bad or guilty, so I end up putting it off, and then I feel bad about that...so it's a no win thing. Mom saved me the guilt though. I visit Alberta this year, and BC next year, unless someone in Williams Lake wants to cash in some airmiles in the Summer....hehe

No comments: