The Coffee House

Gary A. · Jun 22, 2017

Gary is a cocky photographer.

JonA_CT · Jun 23, 2017

Gary A. said:
Gary is a cocky photographer.

Confident, Gary. Confident. You're only cocky if you can't back it up.

I'm a finalist in another school district, and I have hopefully my last interview for awhile this morning. Wish me luck. This job is a perfect match for me -- much better fit than the high school I interviewed with late last month (who still hasn't made a hiring decision...they had their last finalist in for the last time yesterday). Middle school is really where I'm meant to be, though. And I know all of you think I'm crazy for that...but I'm the guy you want your kids learning to read and write with at that age. (Cocky or confident? Confident, I hope.)

Maybe once I'm not worried about a job, I'll pull my camera out again. It's been bad recently. I also have 4 rolls of film that I literally just need to put into an envelope and throw in a mail box to be processed, and I haven't managed to do that recently.

smoke665 · Jun 23, 2017

JonA_CT said:
Maybe once I'm not worried about a job, I'll pull my camera out again.

Terrible the way life problems get in the way of the fun things!

limr · Jun 23, 2017

Happy Fridays, hosers!

On Sunday, the 11th, I flew to Florida. I worked for the following 7 days. On Monday, I flew back from Florida. Back to work on Tuesday. Done today at noon, though I think I'll probably end up bringing some stuff home and working on it after my hair cut this afternoon.

I need a weekend!

I am still a tad bit disoriented from Tampa. The whole experience is pretty intense - a strange mixture of hyper-organized and chaotic. Only read about 750 essays this year. It's a long and boring explanation that I won't bother with, but the short story is: the group I was assigned to was trained on four different questions (normally, you get trained on one question at the start, and then you read essays for that question all week long.) So that took some time. Also, there were two afternoons when we were either waiting to start training on the next question, or there was a back-up in a different question room and we had to wait for more essays to grade for our assigned question. So both of these things cut down on my total. I can tell, though, that if it weren't for that, I would have surpassed last year's total of about 850, so though I read slower than a lot of people at my table, I read faster than I did last year.

Here's a haiku inspired by the last question we read (about the role of artifice in politics and pop culture):

Artifice is fake!
Politicians lie to us.
A Kardashian.

waday · Jun 23, 2017

limr said:
Artifice is fake!
Politicians lie to us.
A Kardashian.

I like your haiku
Hard to believe its Friday
Ready for a break

Gary A. · Jun 23, 2017

@ Jon and Leo: Welcome back to the world.

limr · Jun 23, 2017

No one's here today
But there is still work to do.
A fly's on my desk.

Gary A. · Jun 23, 2017

Buenas Dias Coffee Hosers. The heatwave is over and we're back to overcast mornings with temps in the mid to low 80's. Gary doesn't mind the heat all that much, but the plants sure take a beating. Gary is fighting a lot of foam in the pond. He figures that the death of the algae bloom left a ton of dissolved organics in its wake. A few days ago Gary turned off the UV light which was an apocalyptic force against the sea of algae. Gary wants some algae for the fish to feed upon and to help trap/consume some of the dissolved organic compounds (DOC's) causing the foam. Gary has recognized the need for more plant life in the pond, but hasn't moved his butt into gear to address said deficiency. He did order and received some floating water vegetation, but realized that those small floating plants would be gobbled up by the skimmer. Gary tossed those plants into the fountain where they are doing quite well. Gary has acquired a number of lotus seeds of various types. But the instructions are not to simply to toss the seeds into the water. He has assigned such nontrivial matter to his better half. In conclusion, today Gary shall perform a deep cleaning of the skimmer and maybe a partial water change. Does anybody know if the DOC's are equally distributed throughout the water or do they tend to congregate at the top of the water column?

Gary A. · Jun 23, 2017

Of late, Gary has encountered many and boisterous shouts from our feathered friends. These calls were not the normal calls from the indigenous birds found in this region. This morning Gary spotted the mysterious source of the many and boisterous birds calls ... parrots. A pandemonium of parrots flew over the house as the Cook and Gary retrieved the morning paper. When Gary lived on the peninsula, companies of large green squawking parrots were fairly common skimming up and down the cliffs. This is a first for Gary seeing them inland.

waday · Jun 23, 2017

Gary A. said:
Does anybody know if the DOC's are equally distributed throughout the water or do they tend to congregate at the top of the water column?

Sounds like you have too many nutrients in your pond, which led to the algal bloom and now foam?

I have no idea about fish/koi ponds, but am somewhat familiar with water chemistry (enough to be dangerous, haha). I'm guessing a water change would help. I'm assuming you use public water and dechlorinate?