Random crap with Uno.

[Unorthodox]

God damned monkeys are at it again today. 

[Geo]

Flog them! Flog them mercilessly!

[Unorthodox]

Pithenge mini update. 

So, there's a stone place about a mile from work.  With this week being a slow time anyway, I headed over there at lunch yesterday.  Unfortunately they're closed for the holiday, so I couldn't go wandering the whole lot, but got a few pics from the road of potential workable items. 

While I'd prefer a bit taller, these narrow slabs could certainly WORK. 



"Cherokee Red" slabs.  Mostly picturing to see if hEt likes the color.  I'm not sold on it. 



This stuff looks like it could make some good pillars. 



More of that thick slab stuff.  The color behind that pole was real nice, but they only had smaller pieces.  Also the "stairs" in the back could work, though I don't like that yellow too much. 

[E_T]

Would you "decorate" them after you install them?

[Geo]

Would you "decorate" them after you install them?

Runes!

[Unorthodox]

Would you "decorate" them after you install them?

No plans yet.  I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed.

[Unorthodox]

Another advantage of those slabs.  I likely could make reasonable fascimiles for “more” of them throughout the yard or to alter design as I wish. 

[Unorthodox]

Ardgroom.  Roughly what we'd end up with if we use the slabs above. 

[Unorthodox]

Sooooo.....

If you've been following me for a LONG time, this won't come as a terribly surprise. 

Some of the rest of you are in for a little bit of a shock. 

I have 2 big projects for the year.  Pithenge is number one. 

Number 2, then, it stands to reason is...

The aquarium. 

Joe just made that hobby more of a sustaining one rather than an active one.  And he was really just meant to be a filler when the kids accidentally killed my actual design back in 2009. 

That said, having Joe was a lot of fun, and he had a lot of personality.  So, I'm thinking along the lines of something along the lines of Joe, but small enough to have more than just a wet pet. 

First I need to find a centerpiece though...

First up for consideration is the one I almost got in place of Joe to begin with.  Just chance the store didn't have any at the time. 

Jack Dempsey.



Slightly smaller than Joe, but not by much.  Personality similar, but a little more tolerant of mates.   

2nd in line, "The poor man's Discus"

AKA Severum. 




Even smaller.  Available in a slew of colors. 

Moving down the size chart, Salvini. 

These guys might actually end up as a mate to either above, but as a feature, small enough to have a couple and easy to find mates for. 



And about the same size, the Blue Acara. 




(It just struck me that a pair of Blue Acara and a couple Salvini would be quite similar to our first Cichlid tank, but supersized. )

[Spacy]

Have you ever considered corals?

I don't know enough about how to grow and raise them, but it sounds cool and I expect it would look cool in a larger sized tank.

[Unorthodox]

Have you ever considered corals?

I don't know enough about how to grow and raise them, but it sounds cool and I expect it would look cool in a larger sized tank.

I don't do salt water.  Cost of maintenance is just too much. 

[Unorthodox]

Back to Pithenge, tossing this out to hEt. 

Well, I need to map it out in the yard in the spring to get a REAL good look at it, and how it aligns with the yard, but I'll start a drawing before that.  Been thinking a lot about alignment of the circle, and started plugging things into some mapping programs. 

It's less "circle" and more couple arcs, but it would MEAN something.  Looking semi-random, I could do the kid's birthdays sunrise/sunset stones real easy. And, there's Something to be said about just 6 stones representing the kid's in the circle.   

I'd like to add anniversary and Winter Solstice to that, but it becomes a little messy with some of them overlapping too close to the kid's stones...however, adding Anniversary and Winter Solstice stones for MOON location for certain specific years yields two nice 5 stone arcs, or we could just do the setting arc (the rise side would be against the house, not that I mind that, but if price becomes an issue, I'd sacrifice that side first, or put much smaller ones to that side).  This makes a nice little 5 stone arc (about a quarter circle) out towards the west.  One for each child's birthday, and 2 significant dates for us.  We can just form the rest of the circle shape with the flagstone around the fire pit.  If that looks funny a couple North/South stones to further define the shape wouldn't be terrible. 

[Rusty Edge]

It sounds really cool, but it only looks like a black X.

[Unorthodox]

It's not much to look at, really, but going to take me a while to get used to the new method Google is using to get the actual picture links...

[Rusty Edge]

I was looking at the fish and I had the same thought I usually do when making a selection or expressing a preference-
"I like the blue ones!"  I'm so predictable. My dog is the same way about brown dogs.