TimesToCome

I have to say I really, really hate shopping for a new car. I hate it so much that the only time I trade in the car is when it is on the back of a tow truck and had one repair too many. This time I managed to drive the car onto the lot, but just barely. Another week or two and it would’ve been going to the lot on the back of a tow truck.

I don’t require much in a car. It needs to be American, weight more than 5,000 pounds and cost less than $25K ( any loan interest included ). I only require $1K for my trade in. I figure it’s the least the dealership can knock off the price to show me he’s glad I chose him.

Simple you’d think. It took three dealers this time.

The first dealer had an acceptable auto listed in the paper at $15K. We arrived at the dealership to find the last one of those had sold. What a surprise. I was expecting the usual ‘But we have one over here for $20K’ routine. No such luck. He had another on the lot alright, several in fact, but at $35K. Wow! I expected the 5K bounce but double the price? That was a pretty outrageous scam even by auto dealer standards.

The next dealer had no cars over 4,000 pounds. He bet people would want lighter cars with better mileage. Probably a good bet for him.

We finally ended up at Mac Haik. We found a car that met the requirements and it was a long but painless ordeal. You’d think they’ve found a way to speed things up but it still takes a couple of hours to run through all the forms.

Anyhow, it’s done, and at an average of 6,000 miles a year I shouldn’t have to do it again for 20 years.

Biorb - all algae eating fish, no need to feed them, just chg a gallon of H2O/week

I went to the pet store a month or so ago to purchase some water plants and a betta fish. I wanted to try growing a small water garden. While there I found this Biorb fish tank. It looked really cool and I decided I’d try my experiment in that.

I’ve never had much luck with fish tanks and I’ve never tried water gardens before so this is all new.

The first betta settled in well, the plants were doing so-so. I thought he might like a bit of company so I brought him a female. She promptly ate him.

Back to the store for betta #3 who is still doing quite well, it’s been about 4 weeks.

It’s been two years now and I’ve found there are three things that seem to make a huge difference in how well the aquarium plants do:
1) Change the water frequently
2) Add aquarium plant fertilizer weekly
3) Keep some algae eating fish in the tank

Bettas and other fish for biorbs