Is this the end?

Cingular 8125, originally uploaded by Geis.

My Cingular 8125 consumes SIM cards... For real. (Fo' rhea)

The day before my wedding, my cell phone stopped communicating with Cingular's towers, so I paid a visit to the closest Cingular store. The salesperson convinced me that it was simply a faulty SIM card, issued me a new one, cleared all my data off the device (thanks), and guaranteed me it wouldn't happen again.

Sometime this summer, the phone bricked once again, so I trucked on down to the same store, and this time had the same SIM card re-initialized with the necessary information to start communicating with Cingular again.

Finally, this last Friday, this gorgeous POS decided to SIM barf, denying the ever-so-necessary call to my wife inquiring the evening's dining gameplan.

So to shorten this lengthening story, I called Cingular this weekend and after a good hour and a half total call time (on my wife's cellphone), I was able to ensure them that the phone had issues and I needed a new one. I was pleased to find out that my warranty expires on February 23rd; this upcoming Friday.

So that's the situation. I'm waiting for a new device to arrive in the mail (and thanks to all the Presidents for postponing its arrival one more day) and hope to be available once again in a few days.

Until then, long live SKYPE.

Peppermint Shrimp

Peppermint Shrimp, originally uploaded by Geis.

The peppermint shrimp finally decided to emerge from his safe haven between the two large rocks in our saltwater tank.

A bunch more pictures can be seen on my flickr account. I almost got a shot of him cleaning the angel fish, but it was pretty tricky with the low light and quickness of the fish.

Anyway, check 'em out.

New Saltwater Tank Additions

Pyramid Snail, originally uploaded by Geis.

Now that the fish from the Denoviches have grown accustom to the new tank and surrounding, Heather and I decided to add a few hardy invertibrites to the group. We picked up a Pyramid snail which can be seen in the picture attached to this blog; a blue-legged hermit crab which so far has stayed out of the view of the camera; and a Peppermint shrimp which is a tricky photography subject and has eluded me thus far in the taking of a quality shot.

The gameplan was to get a few crawlers to sort of stir up the bottom and eat some of the algae in the tank. Interestingly enough, the shrimp immediately began cleaning the fish in the tank with its long antennae. The black angel-like fish has been seen on a number of occasions to be hanging out within the reach of the shrimp's antennae for a cleaning.

Hopefully more pictures to come.

14 Pounds of Sushi

14 Pounds of Sushi, originally uploaded by Geis.

Mike Ressler, Matt Nichols, and I prepared 14 pounds of sushi on Sunday afternoon for the Superbowl/WoW gaming day. Total prep time was probably somewhere around 3 and a half hours.

Different sushi ingredients used included a preseasoned eel, salmon, tuna, crab meat, cucumber, avacado and creamcheese (with a little chili powder mixed in).

All of this accompanied by a fresh draught of Brooklyn Brown Ale from ther kegerator.

Freakin' Snow!

Jack sprinting throught the fresh snow, originally uploaded by Geis.

The title is my attempt to capture Jack's enthusiasm, or excitement at least, as he sprinted through the 2 inches of freshly fallen powder.

Not long after this backyard hangout, his antics were accompanied by a much larger, much smellier dog named Alex.

Alex, a matching gigantor participant of the Ressler squad, is a Collie with a bit less speed than Jack; on the other hand, his arm his twice Jack's weight. This makes the brawling excitement a test of time before hilarity ensues.

Hopefully more pics of Alex + Jack to come.