Old Friends and Sentiment

Today I Ran into an a friend that I grew up with, it has been 20 years since Ive seen him. (note: the fact that I can say something happened 20 years ago and it does not involve me learning to walk, scoring a touchdown or some other youthful memory is disconcerting but that is another blog for another time.) This friend is someone that I admired while growing up. He was a hard worker and a high achiever, He had a positive influence on my life that is still part of who I am today. We were only able to spend about 5 minutes catching up and chances are I will not see him again for a long time. I realized how little contact I have now with those who influenced me when I was younger and it seems really sad that they may or may not know the influence they had on my life. We all have people in our lives that influence us to be better people, it is important to express gratitude to them when you have the chance. My friend probably still doesn't know the positive effect he has had on my life, and it would have been difficult to convey in a 5 minute conversation, but I certainly had opportunities before today.

"If I have seen far it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants" Take time to thank the giants in your life you never know if you will have an opportunity again.

Challenges in Technology

We have a fairly new computer and the other day the hard drive started to crap out. Fortunately there was 14 days left on the warranty. The bad news was we lost all of information on that drive because HP could not recover any data. Many years of pictures, Marilyn's recipe book and who knows what else is now gone. I know about backing data up but did not do it as it should be done. Maybe its time to look at a drobo I do not think I want to trust an online service yet. I love technology but sometimes it bites you in the butt. The moral of the story back up... especially those things that really matter.

Follow up on the fish

So in my last post I blogged about killing 2 of my son's fish. A new chapter in the fish saga started last night. Kyle was looking at the tank and said "I think we need to clean this again" Then an excited yell. There are baby fish in here, It looks like we have about 100 baby fish in the tank. There are 2 adult fish standing guard and keeping the others at bay. We now have to separate the babies from the rest of the fish so they do not get eaten.....

Nate do you still want me to take care of your cat?

Somtimes I am too Helpful

So I decided to help my son clean his fish tank. All was well until I started refilling it. All of the sudden Alex said "dad the fish are starting to swim upside down" I looked at the thermometer and realized the water was too hot. We started draining the tank quickly and cooling the water down. When it was all said and done we lost 2 fish but saved the rest. I had to tell Kyle what I had done when he got home. I'm not sure I will help with the tank again. I almost cleaned it too well.