Adventures In Driving

 Last month, my cable box partially died, so they sent a replacement.  But they wanted the old one back anyway.  The store in town only handles wireless services.  So I had to either get a shipping label and stand in line at UPS or drive 10 miles.  I hate driving!  But as I posted yesterday, it hurts to stand.  So I decided to drive.

I've lived here 38 years.  But I almost never drive south.  So first, I tried to avoid the highway and take a bypass.  I got lost.  It took 15 miles and 20 minutes to get 5 miles heading south.  And that wasn't the worst part!

I was using a County street book map.  In the town where the cable equipment return was, there were only 2 turns to make off the highway to get to them.  I couldn't find the street.  You are gonna laugh at this...  The book map is oriented north.  I forgot I was driving south!  I got the streets all backwards.  And right turns were left turns.  😭

It took me over an hour to find a place 10 miles away!  At least the drive home only took 15 minutes.  👍

Annoyed Serious Gripe

 I shop at a Safeway store.  They have great produce and I love fresh veggies and fruits.  And it is not a busy store.  Checkout lines are usually just a few people.  But I have a gripe about one checkout woman.  And I've emailed the store about it but gotten no reply.  So I feel like complaining about it somewhere.

I have a store-loyalty card.  You show it to the checkout cashier and they scan it immediately.  But there is one cashier who always says "I'll do that at the end". OK.   But she never remembers to do that.  The first time, OK, she was busy and forgot.  

When I pointed at my loyalty card sitting on the small surface next to her, she said I hadn't shown it to her.  Of course I had.  I had held it right up to her.  Well, fine, people get busy and forget things.

The next time I was in her line, same thing.  But this time I mentioned she had forgotten the last time.  She blew up.  "I never forget that" she said, and then forgot again.  I pointed out that it was the 2nd time.  She blamed me for not showing the card first (I had).

Today, I had to go through her station again (only express lane).  Again she said "I'll do that at the end".  I insisted she did.  She said she never forgets.

This time the same thing.  And she did not have a name label.  I said "I bet your name is "Patsy".  She asked how I knew.  I said because you do the same card-scan-avoidance everytime "for later".  I demanded she scan the card immediately.  And she seemed both aggrieved and angry.

But she did scan it.  In anger, and she practically threw my bags at me afterwards.

What is with some people?  All she has to do is scan cards when presented.  Everyone else does.

Won One Against AOL

When I had email from Verizon, they were happy to grant me 3 email addresses.  I used one for ME, one for The Mews and one for my forum discussions.  When Verizon dumped us onto AOL, AOL wanted only one email per user.  It was supossed to be "identical service", but of course it was not.  I figured out how to get 2, but not the forum one.  I figured that out today, LOL!

It's one per browser...  I had the main email set up on Safari and I discovered I could set up The Mews on Firefox without AOL noticing.

But I'm so stupid, I didn't think about trying Chrome until last night.  It sort of works, but it shows all my emails to me.  Took me all night to get that far.  I'll work on that in a couple days.  Right now, I'm pretty much damn worn out.  I'll take my paltry 1/2 victory and go with it for now.  LOL!  At least I can get gardening emails again...

Does everyone else have to struggle this much?  I feel so damn stupid sometimes. 

Unhappy Camper

 I am NOT in a good mood today.  The tree service company has irritated me beyond belief.

First, let me mention that there is a consolidated public service (Miss Utility) number to call before homeowners or contractors do any excavating around buried public utilities.  Maybe not everyone has that.  But here, they come and paint lines on the lawn where the utilities are.  No one can dig within 18" nearby or down in my area.  Miss Utility promises to do the painting in "2 business days".

If a contractor is doing the digging, they have to call Miss Utility themselves for legal reasons.  The homeowner (according to the website can only arrange for that if they are doing the digging themselves.

Second, the company I called to do the tree removal  is a husband and wife team.  He does the tree removal (with a crew) and she manages the office.  I am embarassed to even mention this, but "English is a second language for both".  But it probably has some consequences to the situation.

So...  Sept 1st, she called to say they would arrive Sunday  Sept 4th.  I asked if they had called Miss Utility about the 2 tree stumps near the utilities.  She didn't know.  The husband called back to say it wasn't necessary.  I explained that 2 of the stumps they needed to grind were near utility lines.  I explained that the law said the contractor had to call Miss Utility.  He said he would.  

On Sunday, the lines had not been painted, so the contractor said he would return when they were to do the stump-grinding.  OK.  Seemed reasonable.  They removed the trees and I paid him half the quote.

By Thursday (4 business days, the lines were not painted).  I called Miss Utility to ask about that.  They had no work order for my address.  After being transferred a couple of times, I reached a very helpful person who finally advised me there was no work order within a few blocks of me.  But she opened one (in spite of me not being the contractor).  They will arrive Sept 14th (5 business days) and she gave m e a ticket number.  I thanked her very much.

So I called the tree removal company to ask them what their ticket number for the utility-painting was.

That's where everything went bad...

I could hardly understand her to begin with, but I blamed myself (I have always had trouble with accents domestic or foreign and as I say, blame myself for that).  But all I was asking was for the ticket number for their original call to Miss Utility.  Seemed like a simple question.

During our 15 minute telephone call, I was not allowed to finish One... Single... Sentence!  Please understand that, in the office doing some trouble-shooting work, my co-workers sometimes expressed their surprise at my patience.  It doesn't come naturally to me, but I tried to be "Mr Spock". It helped me solve a lot of problems...

It is hard to summarize a frustrating 15 minute telephone call, but I try to get at the gist of it.  And note, I had to struggle to ask any questions because she kept talking before I finished, so this is actually an rather perfected version of how the conversation went (baby screaming in the background - that matters)...

ME:  Can you give me the ticket number of the Miss Utility work order?

HER:  They cancelled the ticket twice.

ME:  Can I please have the ticket number?

HER:  We will be there then they tell us the lines are painted.

ME:  OK, so they cancelled the work order?

HER:  Yes.

ME:  What did you do about that?

HER:  Nothing we can do when they cancel the work order.

ME:  What did you intend to do after they cancelled the work order?  I need the stumps grinded down.

HER:  They cancelled the work order.

It went around in circles from there.  I couldn't get their ticket number, any explanation of what they intended to do about that, or what would happen next.  She seemed to expect to wait (for a cancelled work order?)

I finally gave up and ended the call.  I waited 20 minutes and called the husband's number (same baby screaming).  He speaks better English than she does (and they both speak English than I speak Spanish - 56 years ago in high school, so they are better at languages than I am).

To my surprise, I got the same run-around from him.

I think they never called Miss Utility.  The nearest work order they (Miss Utility) had was 4 blocks away.  And I am supposed to call them (the tree company) when the lines are painted.

I won't call them.  I don't want them to darken my door again, ever.  I paid them half the cost of the work for the half they did.  The woman is *%#^ing nuts and the husband is apparently not far behind her.  There are reasons why some business fail.

I'm going to cover the areas they were "supposed" to grind out with "Brush-B-Gone" and heavy black plastic.  They will rot out in time (I'm a patient person).  Be assured I would have been glad to pay them to complete the job.  I may call another tree service about the stumps and roots...

But damn I'm annoyed about this!

Idiots Everywhere

My next door neighbor cut down most of the hedge between her and the farther neighbor 2 months ago.  It might have been by agreement, but I wonder if they know (as only I do being here before both of them) that the hedge was planted by the previous owner of the OTHER house. 

Not all that important, but that same immediate neighbor decided to burn the dried hedge material in the back yard.  Under small dry trees.  Among other dry debris.  Next to my wood fence...

Fortunately, I happened to step out side and heard the very distinct sound of a crackling fire.

Seriously, there was dry brush from the original burning spot all the way to my fence.  I told her it was very dangerous for several obvious reasons and that she needed to put it out.  She said OK and told her child to bring water.  It came in a child's pail which the woman splashed around a bit.  But they did that several times and it appeared to be extinguished.  The woman went inside; I stayed out to watch.  Fortunately it really was out.

Who is dumb enough to burn dry brush under dry trees near a wood fence?

Just a few minutes ago, I went to the local 7-11 literally midnight, and there was a teenager who just sailed through a busy intersection (with no overhead lights) on a black push scooter.  Wearing black clothes.  I only saw him in the headlights as I turned.  And I hit the brakes.  Another driver turning oppositely almost hit him too. 

Is there something in the water that is making people stupid?

Bad Day

I'm not sure if I sure mention this, lest you all think I'm a crazy person.  But I'll type it out and decide whether to post it afterwards.

I get frustrated sometimes by inanimate objects.  The computer develops a problem that takes time to solve, the car doesn't want to start, old equipment doesn't want to work,  doors suddenly stick, etc.  I'm tenacious about solving problems, but that doesn't mean I don't get angry about them sometimes.

Recently, I'm been trying to download software that claims to let you play old games on modern computers.  By which, I mean that some old games programmed to work on old computers don't work on new ones.  Its usually that old games are in 16 bit processors and new ones work at 64 bit so the old ones just can't can't work fast enough.

My favorite game of all time is Civilization 2.  I understand the game.  There are versions up to Civ6 now that work on new computers.  I don't like them.  Why I don't like them doesn't really matter.

I would just like to play Civ2 again.  There are sites that claim to "upspeed" the old program to 64 bit compatibility.  I can follow instructions, but I have never been able to make those work.  There are some that claim to make it work on a Mac.  I can't get those to work.  And there are sites that discuss how to partion a part of a modern Windows computer to operate in older Windows versions to play old games like Civ2.  I can't get those to work.  Some of the suggestions involved connecting a Windows computer to my Mac (or vice versa) and those didn't work either. 

And apparently, I'm not alone.  While some posters at thge sites claimed to have made the changes work, most said they couldn't in spite of having a decent level on computer experience.

But I made a 2 day try at following the various instructions this past weekend.  I discovered that the options mentioned in the instructions didn't exist or that the options did exist and had no affect or that the downloads (loaded into partition files) were not accessible, etc.

The people who write the instructions might actually be correct, but leave out steps that they consider "obvious".  Or they might be just making stuff up to look smart on a site and never visit there again.  Who knows?

The best suggestion was from a Gen Xer who said he just bought a cheap old Windows laptop that matched the Civ 2 requirements and his Dad was successfully and happily playing Civ2 every few nights.  I'm the age of that guy's Dad...

After several years of fighting about this with the modern computers (because I would really rather not have more computers), I think I will visit the local Windows computer store and see if they have an old one that will play Civ2.  I thought of that a year ago and never followed up on that.

So what does all of this have to do with my anger?  Well, with all the rewiring I had to do connecting and changing connections between my Mac and Windows computers and an old Windows (but not old "enough"), I had this telephone cable that kept getting in the way.

Given the level of frustration I was feeling at the time, I suddenly started yanking on it to get it loose.

It eventually came loose and I lost my telephone signal!  I didn't realize that immediately, of course.  It was only 2 days later when I tried to place a call that I discovered a problem.  I tried to track it down another day.  Then I looked at the end of the ripped-out wire and saw a dozen small frayed wires all tangled.

I was getting ready to email my ISP and request a service visit.  But then a took a pair of scissors and snipped the cord clean.  My telephone service worked again immediately.

It was SO EMBARRASSING!  I'd shorted my wires...

My life is Not Going Right

Have you ever felt that too many things are just mostly not going right?  That you thought it was all OK, and then suddenly you wanted to screaming out into the night looking for a clue about how it should be going? 

I shouldn't be at 68, but I am.  Maybe I have lived alone for too long and it is finally catching up to me.  But I can't imagine living with another person 24/7.

Maybe I''ve just lived just lived in the same house too long.  But I can't find anything wrong with the house.  It is actually easy to live in, a nice circular arrangement of kitchen, living room and TV room with 1 and a half baths and 3 bedrooms at the other.  The yard is a 1/2 acre and that's not bad. 

Maybe politics is getting under my skin.  Sometimes it seems to me that we are collectively going crazy.  The world is getting crazier.  Nations are becoming more partisan and controlled by crazy people.  Evil people are learning to control the world again.  I used to think the United Nations could solve some things.  I don't think that now. 

Or maybe it is just domestic politics.  I used to think things were getting better there, but they seem to be getting worse too.  I used to hope about elections; now I just dread them.  Everytime the political commentators say we have hit the bottom, the bottom gets deeper.

Well, maybe the yard has gotten out of my control.  I was 36 when I moved here and felt I could tackle any problem.  32 years seems like yesterday in one sense, but ages ago in another.  I can't do what I used to do.

Or maybe it is just the same old same old furniture.  I've lived like a college guy in his first apartment with hand-me-downs.  And the furniture does mean something to me being old family stuff.  But I don't want "House Beautiful" either.  I live a relaxed style.  My parents once asked us kids what we wanted from their house when they moved to a Florida rowhouse.  I waited for my siblings to choose and then named some furniture after they chose what they wanted.  Dad kept bugging me to chose "something".  I didn't expect them to be alive when the time came to "claim the stuff". 

I didn't want what I had "claimed".  It was a fancy walnut dining table with chairs, china cabinet, lowboy, etc.  That's not me.  And I'm introspective to understand "why".  When I was a child, I wasn't allowed to do any rough stuff on the "fancy furniture".  Maybe if I bought fancy furniture on my own it would be different, but who knows? 

Rosewood seems interesting, but I would be afraid to live with the stuff.

The garden is frustrating.  Not enough sunlight.  I could poison a few trees to make enough sunlight get through, but I can't get myself to do that.  I found a spot where the sun shines brightest,  and planted 3 tomato plants there in July.  And I got more heirloom tomatoes from there in the past 2 weeks than I got in the regular garden all Summer.  All at once of course.  I picked 7 tomatoes today.  I can't eat 7 tomatoes today.

I understand this doesn't match the problems some people have.  But they are MY problems

But together, it means I'm not in the right place, I'm not happy here,  I want a different house (all one level) and I'm on emotional tear here.   I don't like my life.  I need to make some serious changes. 

And I think I am "losing it".  I'm going altogether nuts.  I want to move, but I'm afraid to because I have so much "stuff".  I'm afraid of losing my good city water.  I'm afraid of losing my Verizon cable service.    But I also want to get a good garden and escape this traffic jam of a city. 

When I moved here 32 years ago, it was on the outskirts of residential places, there were no trees round, and life was great.  Now it is a traffic jam morning to evening, I get no sun for gardening, and light pollution is so bad I haven't seen the stars at night for years. 

I'm being stupid.  But also real for me.   

Bad Lawn Overseeding Advice

So, to make sure I didn't forget anything since the last time I overseeded my lawn, I went to the internet.  OMG, what nonsense I found.

WikiHow seemed like a good place to start.  What they said at first matched what I remembered.  But then it got weird.

They had 2 sections; overseeding an existing lawn and seeding a new lawn.  I ONLY looked at the overseeding part.  They said to cut the grass short (right), and dethatch if necessary (right) and rough up bare spots (right).

But then they said to till the soil 1-2" deep and rake the debris away.  Whoa!  Why cut the grass and then till it away?  That is for new lawns.  They messed up their instructions.

So I looked at another site about lawn care.  They said to overseed your fescue lawn in early September (here) when the high temperature is 55-70F.  OOPS!  The temp isn't 55-70 until mid October at best (here).  And fescue germinates best at 75-85F.  Another fail!

Where do these sites get their information?  Do they just ask some random stranger?  Do they just make it up?

I'm going to visit WikiHow and see if there is a way I can correct their disinformation.

Meanwhile, my plans to overseed the lawn are at a standstill.  Not because of bad internet advice, but because of weather.  I thought I had things planned well.  The soil was wet, but there was a 4 day forecast of non-rain.  The first morning, I would aerate the lawn and mow the existing grass short, rake a few bare spots caused by my trailer to help the seed settle in, and spread the seed.

As mentioned previously, I got half the yard aerated and mowed when the mower ran out of gas.  It was afternoon the next day before I got it running again and finished the job just in time for a surprise rainstorm (and it rained the next day too).  You can't spread seed in wet grass.  It sticks to the exiting grass blades (now reaching the soil), and rain makes the seeds rot.

Well, I could wait a few days for it to dry out.  No such luck.  It kept drizzling off and on for several more days.  Then there were thunderstorms for a couple days.  And now there is Hurricane Florence coming.  Heavy rain will loosen rooting grass and kill it, and unrooted seeds will wash into ripples across the lawn downslope. 

So I've been forced to wait.  The good news is that Hurricane Florence is predicted to take a more westerly course when it makes landfall in 3 days.  And then it should move east again as it weakens.  So maybe now more rain for a while after the weekend.  Then I can do the preparation all over again and finally spread the grass seed. 

We have had an bizarre number of rainy days this summer, and some weeks have had a lot of volume of rain as well.  My 6" capacity rain gauge has been filled a couple times, and 2" every couple days is routine. 

This is really unusual.  A decade ago, it was routine to have the soil in my lawn crack open from dryness in August and the grass go brown and dormant until late September.  Today, I pushed a 12" screwdriver into the soil easily right to the handle.

Weather variations are maddening!

The Old Car Blues

I drive a 2005 Toyota Highlander.  Wonderful vehicle.  I don't drive very much, so MPG don't matter (10 years old and 25,000 miles).  Its even garage-kept and the garage is in the house.  The temperature never gets below 45F  Maybe 50F.

But the darn thing just won't start in the Winter.  The dealership says I don't drive the car often enough for the battery to stay charged.  I doubt that.  The past 3 Winters, I kept jump-starting the battery from 2 old boat batteries and THEY sat around in the car and the garage for months fully charged even using them to start the car every few days.

There has to be something in the electrical system going wrong, right?  The internet says (and we all know the internet is never wrong *koff, koff*), that the starter solenoid brushes have gone bad.   The dealership says that the startes don't HAVE brushes anymore (but upon my interrogation, they admitted that actually, they do, but they just replace the whole starter when needed).  So they lie without shame...

I'm waiting for a call back about the cost of replacing the whole starter unit (like it takes them hours to figure the cost of replacing a starter?).  I know the part costs $200, so they will probably want $600 for the job.  I hope solves the problem, but it might not and the options are to jump start the car all Winter (AGAIN) every time I want to drive out for an errand, or buy a new car.

I told the TOYOTA dealership that if I replace the car it will be with a Subaru Forrester.  That got some attention.

But is seems stupid to replace a car with only 25,000 miles on it.  I'm not into having the latest car or new gadgets.  I tend to buy highly-rated cars and drive them until they DIE!   And I don't care WHAT car it is or how old, 25,000 miles is too new to die.  I'm still on the original tires!

I can't wait to see what weird explanation the dealership offers when they call back.  I suppose I will have to go to Corporate HQ for some more expert solution.  But I will be hopeful until I can't be...

Mark

Oh I Did A Stupid...

I kept calling the car dealership yesterday.  Kept leaving messages with the Service Department.  Got at the online chat help, etc, to try and get an answer to a battery problem...

It was Sunday... I thought it was Monday...  ERK!  No wonder no one answered the phones...

Being retired is like that sometimes.

When I retired, I told my co-workers I didn't want some fake gold plaque, I wanted a big digital display gadget that simply showed the day of the week!  This is why.

LOL!

And yes there IS this...

And YES, I did just order this...  It wasn't available when I retired.  Trust me, I searched...

What annoys me is that some time in the future, there will be a version that shows the YEAR.  And I will buy IT...

For you younger ones, don't laff TOO loud; for you there will be an App for that...   And you'll buy it.    Well, OK, you will just ask your implant what day it is.  But you get the idea...   ;)


"They're coming to take me away ho ho he he ha ha
To the happy home with trees and flowers and chirping birds
And basket weavers who sit and smile and twiddle their thumbs and toes
They're coming to take me away ha ha."

I hope.
Its a joke,
But you never noke.

..  Mark

Banks and Money

I almost hesitate to post about this.  It involves moving money around and, if you don't have it, reading about it is probably awkward and and annoying.

I have an account at a Credit Union from my career days.  And I have an account at a regular commercial bank.  I recently discovered that my Credit Union pays somewhat better interest on savings accounts than my commercial bank does.  So it made sense to transfer money from my commercial bank savings account to my Credit Union savings account.

My point of writing about this is how HARD it is to transfer the savings and it doesn't mter how much is involved. 

These days, you can do almost any financial transfer online.  But apparently not between a commercial bank and a credit union!  There is some barrier between them.

I called the credit union first.  I assumed there was some information about them I needed to enter into the commercial bank website.  They disabused me of that notion real fast.  "Can't be done online", even though I'm online with both the credit union and the commercial bank. 

"Can only be done by 'wire transfer' ".  And by the 10th piece of information, with more to come, I called a halt!  I asked, what if I just gave you a check from my commercial bank?  Couldn't you just deposit it in my credit union account? 

"Sure", they said, "just mail it to us, but we need to look up how to receive a check and we'll call you back".

ARGGGGHHHH!   "Dumber than a bag of sand" comes to mind.

It never occurred to my credit union "helper" to mention that to begin with?

Its not like I'm Donald Trump trying to send them a billion dollar check.  I just would prefer to get .35% on my savings at the credit union as opposed to .01% at the commercial bank.  Its not like the difference is going to get me a world cruise or anything, but why deliberately get less, right?

I'm only going through this because my credit union is an hour away now, and I'm beginning to wish I HAD just driven there and handed them a check.

No wonder that rich people have accountants to tell to do things like this.  If I was Donald Trump, I'd have an specialist bank accountant too.  Its maddening!  You would think I was trying to convert Russian Rubles into Swiss Francs through some fly-by-night African bank. 

And here I sit, waiting for some "expert" at the credit union to call me back with details on how to send them a simple check safely.  Feeling like an idiot for causing a fuss... 

I'm sure glad I didn't spend my working years involved in finances...

This Day

No terrible act is remembered forever in history.  But I will remember THIS day 11 years ago all MY life.

December 7, 1941 is etched in my memory, though I was not alive them.  I know it from history, but what was recent history to me when I aged enough.

November 22, 1963 is part of my childhood memory as a day of great sadness.  I remember looking up at the public address system of the school when it was announced that the President had been killed.  The PA box was blonde wood, rounded square shaped,  slightly wider at the top than the bottom, with brown cloth covering the speaker.  You remember the strangest things sometimes.

I was older of course on 9-11.  The day started with an announcement on the radio about a small plane crashing into a World Trade Center Building.  I mentioned it in passing to my supervisor.  The next few reports made it seem worse.

Then I felt a THUMP under my feet at 9:37.  I didn't know that the Pentagon had been struck.  But I realized after that, that I had felt the strike. I happened to look at my watch.  Seared in memory.

My govt office had some Emergency Management functions, so there was a special TV in a conference room.  Most of us ended up in there.  I was out on the roof at the time the first Tower went down, so I didn't see it in real time.

I saw the 2nd Tower go down though.  Most thought it a replay of the 1st Tower, but I saw the difference and called attention to it.  We all stared in horror.

There are evil vicious cruel acts occurring all over the world on a daily basis.  Victims have their lives shattered every day.  No one is free of them.  I will not make guesses on "worst".

There are reasons given for all destructive killing acts.  Most of them are pathetically weak.  But some are more unsensible and evil than others.

I have a background in history.  Phenomenally and nearly innumerable horrible acts abound through the ages.  Pol Pot, Nazis, Colonialism, Inquisitions, Witch-Burnings, European Christian Crusades, Islamist invasions, Mongol and Hun attacks, Viking slaughters, and back on through the lost times of history.  No age is free of vicious and pointless deaths.

But I will remember 9-11 all my life with a line I read in the book 'Dune'.  "Never forgive, never forget".

But I should.  When I read about some cultural group angry about something that happened 500 years ago, I have to wonder about the "never forgetting" part.  There was the December 7th attack, but we think of Japan as an ally now.  As Germany is a democracy now, as is Italy.  Forgiveness is possible.

There may be a day when I will forgive the Islamists for the 9-11 attack.

But today is not that day.  

The Aquarium

I mentioned weeks ago I had a problem with the fresh water "30 gallon high" aquarium.  It popped a fracture in the glass and leaked slowly.  I spend a long afternoon dragging stuff out of a deep closet to finally get at an old "20 gallon long aquarium" (same base size as 30 gal high).  I successfully moved all the fish to the 20 gallon long sitting on the floor (so I could siphon the water down).

I emptied the 30 gallon high of water, took out the plastic plants, and scooped out the gravel, and let it dry for days.   Then I bought a silicon aquarium sealer and applied it.  I let it dry for several days.  When I refilled it, it leaked again.

I drained it, let it dry, dried it mechanically  with paper towels and left the vaccuum cleaner exhaust blowing on it for hours, waited a few days, and re-sealed it.  It leaked again.  So I gave up and bought a new 30 gal high aquarium.  A 30 gallon high glass aquarium is not light.  I struggled to get it into the car from Petco (they had the vastly better price for the same aquarium).

I spent an hour removing all the plants from the old aquarium and scooping the gravel out.  Square food containers do a wonderful job of that!   It took some lifting to get the old leaking aquarium off the stand and onto a chair.  Then the new one in place.  I spent several minutes making sure the new aquarium was positioned properly on the stand.  That was after removing the background sheet from the old one and attaching it to the new tank.  It's just a colored sheet, but it gives a sense of depth to the tank.

So I filled up the new tank slowly, watching for any leaks at each rise in water level.  I didn't see any.  Sand first with square food container.  Then water, 2 qts at a time.  Man that is tedious.  A 2 qt pitcher takes 30 fills to get 1/2 way up!

But at least I could put the plastic plants back in at that point.  At least it looked better this time than the last.  I grouped the several styles better.  But having arranged the plants in the gravel, I couldn't just randomly pour new water in from a pitcher. Water-force too strong that way.  So I filled up a 5 gallon bucket on the top  and siphoned the water in slowly.   I filled the upper bucket continuously until it neared the top. 

I had an 12" long air bubbler working on the bottom to recirculate the water while the chlorine got evaporated out.  I remembered I had some powder that claimed to eliminate chlorine, chloromate/chloromine, and ammonia immediately, so I added some of that.  But I will still wait til tomorrow to add the fish back.  The old an new aquaria are both at room temperature right now so the fish won't suffer any temperature shock.  But room temp is too low for them in the long term.  As soon as the fish are transferred back to the new aquarium, I will raise the temp 1 degree per day to get the tank temp up to 76 where I think they do best.  I know, some people say 78 degrees, but they live longer at slightly cooler temps.

It will be great to have the fishtank working again.

But I have to tell you something that made me laugh about getting the new tank home.

I found the fine print of the guarantee on a small sticker inside the tank, facing away from view...

1.  They specified that the 5 year warranty only applied to their tanks on their own brand of stands.    What are the odds of that?  My aquarium stand is 50 years old and as solid as rock.  No new company builds them that solid anymore.  But it invalidates the warranty.

2.  They also demand that "the aquarium has not been lifted by the frame"...  Um, do you know any other way to transport one from store to stand other than handling the frame?  At some point, don't you HAVE to lift an aquarium onto a stand?  But there goes the warranty.  Who writes these things?

Idiots...   LOL!