The Malawi blue dolphin or cyrtocara moorii is a member of the family Cichlidae. Cichlidae are commonly referred to as cichlids. The Malawi blue dolphin is just one on many species of cichlids native to Lake Malawi in Africa. Cichlids from Lake Malawi are collectively referred to as African cichlids.
Blue dolphins are quite popular among freshwater aquarium keepers because of their brilliant blue hue. They, of course, are not related to dolphins. They were dubbed dolphins because of a nuchal hump on their head and their elongated snouts which gives their heads a vague resemblance to that of a dophin’s. This hump is present on both the males and the females and continues to grow as the fish does.
This is a docile fish. They do not posses the aggressive instinct prevalent in many Africa cichlids. They make great additions to a community tank provided they are not mixed with more aggressive tank-mates. There are, however, a few considerations to take into account before deciding whether they are the right choice for your tank.
Although the blue dolphin is classified as a medium sized cichlid, they will reach up to 8 inches in length. Experts recommend a medium tank size of 100 gallons for raising blue dolphins. Cichlids are shoaling fish. They travel in groups. It is not advisable to add just a single cichlid to a fish tank. In nature, the blue dolphin is found in shallow waters and sandy substrate. They instinctively burrow in the sand looking for food, although they don’t generally dig up plants. Sand is the substrate of choice when keeping blue dolphins. Last but not least, they are a timid creature. They need plenty of plants and rocks to hide in.
Their native waters are slightly alkaline with a pH level of 7.5-8.0. Water temperature ranges between 72-78?F. Any species native to Lake Malawi will thrive under these conditions. Keep your aquarium with in these ranges and you can expect your blue dolphins to live for up to 10 years.
In their natural habitat they eat small crustaceans that live in the sandy lake bottom. In fact, they often follow behind other fish species that dig in the sand and eat any invertebrates that are dug up. In captivity they can be fed cichlid pellets, flakes, and frozen foods.
The male blue dolphin is slightly larger than the female. There color is often enhanced in the breeding cycle.
The male is territorial toward other members of its species. They have polygamist instincts and travel in harems. A male will mark out his territory and entertain the company of several females. It is recommended to keep at least three female to every male when raising blue dolphins.
Blue dolphins are mouth brooders. The female will keep her eggs safely tucked away in her mouth to protect them. She will continue this practice after they hatch until they are large enough to better survive on their own. The fry will have yellowish-orange anal fin when hatched. This will disappear in a few months. Once the fry are released they can fed newly hatched brine shrimp or dry fry food.
It will take roughly two years for the fry to reach sexual maturity and begin to spawn. At this point they will be 4-5 inches long. Juveniles are silver in color and don’t take on color until they start to mature.
Posted in Pets tagged Blue Dolphin, Snouts, Tank Size by Stephen with No comments
As a tool of the ‘Web 2.0′ revolution, Twitter represents everything cutting-edge about the new terminology and has helped to define the user-orientated internet. Social networking sites exploded into life in the mid 2000s, driven primarily by MySpace and Facebook.
Twitter joined the pack in 2006 and has grown rapidly since its inception. It’s a micro-blogging site where users can post no more than 140 characters sharing their thoughts and opinions or they can use their accounts for the purpose of sharing information by posting links with tweets visible to their ‘followers’ who pick them up in their personal feeds.
After a few years in the limelight, is there a continuing appeal that will ensure progressive growth? Some critics rail against Twitter’s celebrity entourage, its publicity obsessed quotient and then there is the trawl through the banal that can encompass the average day in Twitterland.
A major part of the attraction of Twitter is that it counts thousands of celebrities as members, all tweeting away to let fans know what they’ve eaten for breakfast or if they have an album or film due for release. In Britain, high-profile tweeters have included singer Lily Allen and television mainstay, Stephen Fry.
Both have had mixed emotions about the site, leaving for personal reasons or in Fry’s case, because of criticism from another user, and then returning again. Stephen Fry, known as a prolific tweeter, publicly had a self-imposed hiatus to concentrate on his writing although on last inspection, it appears he cannot keep away with many tweets listed in the last few days and weeks.
Alas, is it revealing to have an insight into the mindset of the celebrity, in a world where they can seem awfully detached? Or should we care about every minute detail of their day? Certain celebrities even ask their followers for their thoughts on what they should wear. Interactive it may be, the worthiness of such exercises can be called into question.
Whilst Twitter is indeed a powerful tool of communication as evidenced in its role in sharing information amongst protesters during the aftermath of the turbulent Iranian election of June 2009, it isn’t without its critics. Some say that despite the fluidity Twitter affords those sharing useful information, it does also harbour and encourage the inane. Small, ‘txt speak’ blogs about someone’s favourite colour or what underwear someone is wearing hardly stimulate cogent debate or contribute anything to the already fluff-filled blogosphere however perhaps the ability to pontificate on any subject is another part of its appeal.
However as co-founder Biz Stone delighted in telling all users in a recent email, Twitter continues to grow. “In the course of a year, registered Twitter accounts have grown more than 1,500% and our team has grown 500%”, he beamed, adding that the company had just hired its 140th employee.
On the flip side, how many of these new users are merely cynical e-marketeers, insistent on jamming our feeds with all of their spam? Plus according to reports representing the back end of 2009, Twitter showed a 2% decline in traffic last October.
All of its major rivals continued to show positive growth and MySpace, which has lost some of its lustre since the advent of Facebook, has announced plans for an overhaul to strengthen its position. Whereas Twitter on the other hand, is criticised by some for its failure to evolve sufficiently to provide the features offered by its competitors (third-party applications, photos, games etc).
If Twitter is to ensure a successful future and maintain user loyalty, there will have to be an evolution to keep people interested and to maintain long-term viability.
There’s no doubting the benefits. Functions such as the ‘retweet’ enable micro-blogs and their useful information to be shared amongst a large audience. There is of course the added attraction of access into the celebrity mindset that isn’t necessarily restricted to a fan page where content is controlled by a management company.
Twitter might not be able to get rid of the marketeers who can smell a fast buck however it does need more to distract attention from the multitude selling their wares and the rest of us peddling our fluff.
Posted in Internet And Businesses Online tagged Facebook, Limelight, Mainstay by Stephen with No comments
Of all the places in all the World that I have ever been, the one which evokes the most interest is Baghdad. There are several reasons for this, the town still evokes images of the Arabian Nights and Sinbad the sailor, it has that exotic tinge reserved for those far away destinations most people never see except in their dreams, but when people talk to me of the land of the two rivers they have something else in mind other than Turkish delight and dancing girls. I was the man who built Saddam’s bunkers and spent two and a half years in Baghdad supervising their construction, and the subject still fascinates they who meet me for the first time.
The story starts in prosaic enough fashion with an advertisement in the Daily Telegraph, on behalf of some outfit looking for a body who knew a mite more about concrete than how to spell it. I adjudged that I more or less fitted the bill. Having answered the advert, I was summoned to an interview in a rather elegant house in Berkley Square. Like the nightingale of fable I sang beautifully, so beautifully did I warble that I got the job and fetched up in Baghdad.
This was the period of the Iran Iraq war, and Iraq together with it’s capital city was chaotic and very dangerous, with bombs going off occasionally, and not all of those were of foreign origin, Saddam was not popular with his people, and now and again their hatred overcame their fear of the tyrant. In the south of the country the war was known as Saddam’s war.
The Iraqi Government had commissioned thirty four bomb shelters, plus one control centre. These were not any old shelters. The bunkers were designed to take a direct nuclear strike, as Iran was suspected of being close to developing a nuclear capability and the Iraqi authorities wanted some protection for the populace. Not that I am here referring to the hoi poloi, far from it, these structures were to be built for the protection of the hierarchy of the al Bath party, the poor bloody infantry could fry in the event of an attack.
These structures were the most technically challenging of my career, in terms of concrete, I had to re-invent physics in order to make the production feasible. First there was the excavation. Baghdad is situated between two of the World’s greatest rivers, this means that you only have to stick a shovel in the ground to hit the water table, this meant that pumps had to be installed to remove the ground water during the construction process, Each shelter contained ten thousand cubic metres of dense impermeable concrete, that is four thousand metric tons of cement, you could build a lot of patios with amount of the grey powder.
After the hole had been excavated, the soil had to be compacted to make a base capable of supporting the structure. Once that had been done, a layer of base course was put down. Base course is compacted lumps of large stone, in this case it was a metre thick. After the base course came the blinding, this serves no structural purpose, it is simply there to provide an even surface for the following construction. After the base course, the nitty gritty actually starts.
First the base of the shelter is laid down, this is a slab of reinforced concrete one metre thick, dense and impermeable, i.e., the ground water will not seep into the shelter. Onto the base are added the outer walls, again a metre thick. Naturally there was a roof, we gave our structures all the mod cons.
While all this intense activity was going on, and make no mistake, we were working twelve hours a day six days a week, and, in the heat of the summer all through the night as well, life in Baghdad continued at it’s frenetic pace. Things were tight in the town, food was scarce, onions had not been seen on the streets of Baghdad for six months and if you saw a queue of people snaking around the block it was Lombard Street to a China orange that some one had eggs to sell. That was life for the average Joe in this town, but for we of the elite, life was very different. Our food was trucked in from abroad, we had access to special shops from which the locals were banned, in those emporia they accepted any currency under the sun except the Iraqi Dinar. And then there were the night clubs, pulsating with the rhythms of the belly dancers and choked with folk who could afford to spend ?75 on a bottle of whiskey, and remember, this was back in 1982. I could not help wondering if this was like Berlin had been in the dark days of the war, a people terrified of what was to come and trying frantically to blot such images from their minds.
Back on site things were moving at frenetic pace, we had three years to complete the project, believe me, that took some doing. The shelters were divided into two distinct sections. There was the part of the structure which was below ground, this was where the people would congregate in the event of an attack. Each shelter was designed so that fifteen hundred souls could live there for thirty days independent of the outside world. What if you were unfortunate enough to pop your clogs while in residence? No problem, each shelter was equipped with its own crematorium.
The second part of the bunkers were above ground, this section was for use as libraries, leisure centres etc. In the event of an attack the designated tenants would be herded down into the lower section, and the bomb proof doors would be sealed. This is where people ask “How come part of the shelter was above ground?” Easy. A nuclear device is not triggered by percussion, the detonation is effected by barometric pressure, when the device reaches a certain level above ground, it is detonated by the air pressure, it destroys by blast. It was blast the bunkers had to withstand, not the vibration of impact. It was one of these shelters which was attacked during the first gulf war, a homing device was attached to the ventilation shaft, the smart bomb went down the shaft and the results went round the World courtesy of the media.
Every good story should have a sting in the tail, and this one is no different. Many years after the events described here, I found myself in the middle of the Sahara Desert, as one does. There I met a man who had been in Baghdad at the time of the war, and he told me a curious tale. The shelter targeted by the Americans had been used by the Iraqi intelligence services, and the impending attack was known about. Prior to the attack, all intelligence equipment was moved out of the premises and civilians were moved in, many of whom were killed in the attack, providing sympathetic propaganda in favour of the government. Now, I can not attest to the veracity of what I had been told, but what I do know is that the exterior of the shelter had been modified from the original, and that the people killed had been in the upper section of the shelter not in the more secure lower area. This to me suggests there may have been some truth in the tale I was told, but, who knows?
Posted in News And Society tagged Bunkers, Something Else In Mind, Two And A Half Years by Stephen with No comments
The major corporate climate debate of the moment is whether business should be solely answerable to stockholders or whether much broader stakeholder responsibilities must be brought into play. In this article I discuss “Business Ethics” and how old-fashioned views of stockholders alone are broadening out into a wider conception of value creation.
I have avoided Twitter for some time. My reluctance stemmed from the fear of another social networking site tearing chunks of time out of my day. However, I’ve surrendered, and despite my first inclination to only follow the likes of Stephen Fry and other celebs I’ve actually found it rather thought provoking. Of course, there are many mundane tweets which don’t put a spark in my day (such as trips to the dentists or school runs) – but there are others which have made me stop and think about some of the bigger business questions of our day.
A recent Tweet was ‘Business ethics is an oxymoron’ – a well used phrase but one which never fails to get my goat. My initial reaction was to reply saying, “Why is it that we feel we must accept an outdated view of business as ‘dog-eat-dog, each bastard for themselves’? Can’t we instead embrace the social collaboration of value creation that modern capitalism can be if only we all try?” – but that was more than 140 characters. So I thought perhaps I’d try to explain my view in a bit more fully.
A successful business is obviously one who seeks and achieves economic growth. Milton Friedman’s famous assertion that “A business’s only responsibility is to its shareholders” is often quoted as the ethical foundation of capitalism. In seeking to act responsibly to anyone other than the stockholders of the business, owners and managers are actually behaving unethically. But does this argument really hold much water?
If a successful business is one which seeks and achieves (sustainable) economic growth, how does it do this? It is likely to be working with suppliers who understand its needs and works innovatively to provide it with the best product or service. It is likely to provide value-rich products or services for its customers. It will be complying with legislation and working in all ways to act justly. In short, it will be taking into account multiple stakeholders to achieve the best possible return for each.
This much broader view of responsibilities – Stakeholder Theory – has been around for quite some time and owes much to the work of R. Edward Freeman. In his words, “For any business to be successful it has to create value for customers, suppliers, employees, communities and financiers (shareholders, banks, the people with the money).”
The interests of all the stakeholders must be considered and best integrated in a broad-fronted quest for value creation. In finding the common ground of these stakeholders – rather than seeking only to mitigate against conflict and searching for trade-offs – businesses are better able to create value for all.
Business cannot be values-free or ethics-free simply because it is not people-free. Customers, suppliers, financiers, employees and communities are all made up of humans with names and faces. The co-creation of value for all of these stakeholders relies heavily on collaboration.
Is “Business Ethics” an oxymoron?. No – in fact the phrase itself is actually more of an irrelevance than an oxymoron. Good ethics in all parts of our lives actually come back to common sense.
Now I just need to shrink that down to 140 characters.
Posted in Business by Stephen with No comments
Oscar Wilde is one of the most iconic figures from late Victorian society. Enjoying a meteoric rise loto the top of society. His wit, humour and intelligence shine through his plays and writings. For his sexuality he suffered the indignity and shame of imprisonment. For ang time his name was synonymous with scandal and intrigue. However with changing social attitudes he is remembered with great affection for his biting social criticism, wit and linguistic skills.
“To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early or be respectable.”
- Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde was born on 16th October 1854. in Dublin, Ireland. His parents were well known and attracted their fare share of gossip for their extravangant lifestyles. In 1964 his father Wille Wilde was knighted for his services to medicine. However his pride in receiving this honour was overshadowed by an allegation of rape by one of his patients. Although never proved, it cast a shadow over William Wilde.
Oscar Wilde proved to be a student of great talent. He was awarded a scholarship to Trinity College Dublin. Here he studied the classics, in particular developing an interest in the Greek philosophers and the Hellenistic view of life. From Trinity college he won a scholarship to Magdalen College Oxford University. He enjoyed his time in Oxford and was able to develop his poetic sensibilities and love of literature. He also became more conscious of his bisexual nature. For his increasing “femine” dress he often received stick from more “traditional” Oxford students. He was a brilliant scholar but also increasingly rebellious. In one academic year he got rusticated for turning up to College 3 weeks after the start of term. Thus after a while he lost interest in pursuing an academic career in Oxford and moved to London. It was in London that he was able to skilfully enter into high society, soon becoming well known as a playwright and noted wit. Oscar Wilde became famous throughout London society. He was one of the early “celebrities” in some respects he was famous for being famous. His dress was a target for satire in the cartoons, but Wilde didn’t seem to mind. In fact he learnt the art of self-publicity and seemed to revel in it, at least up until his trial in 1898.
Oscar Wilde’s trial gripped the nation, the subject matter a source of intense gossip and speculation. For his “crime” of homosexual acts Wilde was subject to 2 years hard labour in Wandsworth and then Reading Gaol. It is no understatement to say this experience deeply shocked and affected the previously ebullient Wilde. In some respects he never really recovered, on his release he left for Paris where he lived in comparative anonymity. However he retained his wit and continued to write, heavily influenced by his chastening experiences. Of these post gaol writings, his poem “Ballad of Reading Gaol is perhaps the most well known, illustrating a new dimension to Wilde’s writing.
“I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky.”
Although Wilde couldn’t return to his previous level of writing he developed new capacities, whilst retaining his sharp intellect. As Johnathon fryer commented on Oscar Wilde’s final part of life he was.
“beaten but not bowed, still a clown behind a mask of tragedy.”
The Life of Wilde was turbulent and volatile. Never short of incident. It reflected his own inner paradoxes and revolutionary views. In some ways he was both a saint and sinner at the same time. Rightly or wrongly Wilde is remembered as much for his life as his writings. However he himself said.
“I have put my talent into writing, my genius I have saved for living.”
His writings reflect in part his paradoxical view of life, suggesting things were not always as they appeared. As his biographer Richard Ellman said of Wilde.
“Along with Blake and Nietzche , he was proposing that good and evil are not what they seem, and that moral tabs cannot cope with the complexity of behaviour”
Whatever one may make of Wilde’s life, his capacity for writing remains undeniable. His greatest work and comedy is arguably “The importance of being Earnest” Here the plotline is thin to say the least but Wilde brings it alive through his scintillating repertoire of wit and biting humour.
“Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die.”
- Algernon, Act I
Wilde was not an overtly political commentator but through his plays there is an underlying critique of social norms that are illumined for their absurdities.
Wilde remains a fascinating character. One who lived life to the full, experiencing both the joy and tragedy of society’s vacillating judgements. With the distance of over a century it is easier to judge Wilde for his unique contributions to literature rather than through the eyes of Victorian moral standards. His quotes have become immortal a fitting tribute to a genius of the witticism
As Stephen Fry wrote of Oscar Wilde.
“What of Wilde the man? He stood for Art. He stood for nothing less all his life.. He is still enormously underestimated as an artist and a thinker.. Wilde was a great writer and a great man.”
References
Oscar Wilde – “Nothing … except Genius” – Stephen Fry
Wilde – Johnathan Fryer
Posted in Arts And Entertainment tagged Academic Career, Greek Philosophers, Magdalen College Oxford by Stephen with No comments
My dad and mom purchased our camp on beautiful Meddybemps Lake Maine in 1946. They bought our camp (what cottages are called in downeast Maine) from “Donkey” Smith of Calais. There was just our camp and Tommy Denyer’s cottage next to Reynolds Beach. Dad painted our place “Red” so from then on, we were known as the “red camp” near the beach. Cliff Reynolds owned the beach but our family had beach rights. Mr Reynolds also owned the camps on our right side and he had them all rented during the summer. Cliff had quite a business with the beach, his camps and boats to rent. He had a place for people to tent and camp out in his field just opposite the beach, complete with a hand pump for drawing well water, a snack bar and a place to launch boats. I used to dive off our pier growing up there in front of our red camp and I would swim diagonally all the way out to the beach raft. It was usually crowded on that float, especially on a hot summer’s day. It was fun being a kid in those days. Dad worked in a paper mill(St.Croix Paper Co) in nearby “Woodland” in Baileyville, Maine. When the Woodland schools let out for summer vacation, we Sprague children and our mom would move right out there and stay until Labor Day.
I could swim all day, fish and go boating. Guess I never realized how lucky I was at the time. I could jump in the boat and drive to the town dock. I’d tie up to the dock and walk up to Palmeter’s store. They sold gas there and I could get candy and ice cream or a few groceries. The Palmeter family were always friendly. There was Curtis “Chub” Palmeter and his wife Alberta, daughters Betty, Maxine and Myrtle and a son Curtis. Charlie Bridges worked there too and was a good guy. The store was a gathering spot for Meddybempsters and the summer campers. There were guides and caretakers like Cecil Ward and Ronald Cousins. I enjoyed seeing Howard Allen there and I’d sometimes visit him at his nearby house. I hung around with Mark Ketchum, Jeff Orchard, Dale Sherrard, Johnny Hanson, Roger Holst , Jon Mahar and a few others. Sometimes, mom would have me run errands.
I’d sometimes go to the post office which was just a short walk from there over the bridge by Harry Smith’s Dam and Lottie Lombards store to the the PO which was in the Everett Gillespie home. Once in a while, I’d get a glimpse of his pretty daughters, Nancy and Frannie. Later the PO moved further down Route 191 and Lottie’s store was closed. I can still remember all the baskets hanging there and the distinct smell of sweetgrass from those indian baskets. Palmeter, s store remains as a friendly part of past days on the lake. After my chores, I would head back to the dock right past the little white church, a bubbling brook and back to my boat. Dad always had a power boat to use growing up and when I got a little older, I built my own hydroplane which I enjoyed skimming across the water. Kip Keneap had a hydroplace too but his was much faster than mine. Another one was owned by Ronnie Denyer.
Since we only had one car in those days, dad would bring bags of groceries that he purchased at Coulter’s store in Woodland after work. On the weekend, we might go into Calais to shop or get food from the A&P or IGA. My favorite store was Western Auto and Todds Hardware but there was also a 5&10, W T Grants, Woolworth’s, Fishman’s, Bernadini’s Peanuts (they had large hot peanuts and cashews that were greasy in the brown sack), Downeast TV and a few other places we liked to go. Those peanuts were so good, they rarely made it all the way back to camp. We ate them. Sometimes dad would take mom, me and my sisters to the St Croix Valley Drive-In Theatre. I can remember we always burnt a circular green smudge wick on the car dash. The were so many mosquitoes and black flies.
In those days, the speakers were on a pole. You put it in the window. This was before you could tune into a special frequency on the radio. A few other times we went to the movies in St Stephen, New Brunswick at the Queen Theatre. The Canadian border was only about 16 miles from our camp. Ever since the state theatre burned down, Calais was without a movie house. The last movie played there was “A hot tin roof”. How ironic. It was a good life when life was simple. We had company most all summer long plus Cliff’s cottages brought plenty of friends to play with. Many of his camps had the same tenants year after year. Most stayed two weeks at a time. In later summers, I had my “Ham” radio gear and my sisters had boyfriends. We played cards on rainy days, water skied on hot days and swam every day. Those thunder and lightning storms at the lake were memorable. Bolts of lightning would hit the lake with load noise, white caps streamed down the lake. It was quite a sight. Once, I remember a bolt of lightning came in the window and bounced off the black kitchen stove. A few of the campers were scared but it was exciting just the same to me.
Meddybemps Lake attracted a lot of people from Maine and other eastern states. The lake is quite large being 8 miles long, 7 miles wide with fifty-two islands. Some had nick-named it Calendar lake for this reason.There were cottages on most of those islands and most had big boats. I was always a little envious of the Islanders. One boat I remember as a small child was called the “Dixie Clipper” owned by the Graham family. I had heard they had something to do with the dixie cup company. That was never verified to my knowledge. It might just as well have been a rumor but that family were quite well off just the same and had a huge cottage and a mile of shorefront. Some of the boats on the lake were more designed for ocean use, I thought.
Meddybemps was deep water in parts but was also known for it’s many rocks. There were quite a few boats and motors that were damaged on that body of water. I soon learned where most of the rocks were. Many of these bolders just below the surface were soon marked with paint or buoys but every once in a while, we realized that some of them were overlooked. I managed to shear a few pins or two through the years and had to fix the outboard motor numerous times. I also remember the seaplanes that would land on the lake and sometimes we got to take a ride up above the lake. Ed Ketchum had a plane and so did Ed Arbo. Of course, so did the fish and game warden so we had to make sure we had our license with us and measured the length of our catch. Dad liked to go fishing after work and we’d generally have a fish fry 2 or 3 nights a week. We’d fry, bake and barbecue them.
I had the honor of filleting and cleaning the perch, bass and pickerel on occasion. The latter species usually ended up in a fish chowder. Mom was a good chowder maker and dad was known for his homemade clam chowder. Mom was also an expert pie maker. We ate well at the lake. Berries were also numerous. We would pick wild strawberries in July and raspberries and blueberries in Aug. They were good on cereal or in a large bowl with whipped cream. At the end of summer, this part of Maine had fields of blueberries to rake and be winnowed and then sent to Stewart’s or Wyman’s factories. There was lots of work for us children for at least two full weeks. We could earn enough money to buy our own school clothes or anything else we wished. I would usually work for Howard Allen or Forest Sadler way up on Conant’s Hill. I could rake a lot of berries but my back was always sore at the end of the day. If you wanted really clean berries, they were hand picked elsewhere. Strawberry shortcake and blueberry cake were my favorites.
On Lake Meddybemps, we had the best sunsets too. We enjoyed many of them from our front screened porch.The sky was pitch black at night and you could see every star in the sky. Eventually I had a telescope on the porch but I must admit, it pointed at the beach on some occasions. We rode bikes on the camp road and had some baseball games in Reynold’s field. Tommy Denyer each summer would get bunnies to raise from the rabbit man in Charlotte. Nelson Craig would let Tommy keep them in cages in his back camp yard and then take them back at the end of the summer. We children enjoyed those bunnies. They were all different colors. Grey, black, mixed and white.
Another interesting thing about Meddybemps Lake was that everyone waved to each other out on the water, even though we didn’t know most of them. It was just a friendly gesture we all did. The lake was pleasant and even the elm trees were pretty and welcoming around the village. Eventually, the dutch elm disease took it’s toll on those trees. Soon bright street lights were installed around the shore and on the highway. Upon Cliff’s death, his son erected his new home on the beach.
Unfortunately, life doesn’t stand still. However, I still proposed to my wife on that beach under a starry sky one summer evening. Later we bought the red camp from my folks. One of the first projects was to paint the camp another color. It was now the blue camp. Everyone now complained that they missed the red camp. I did add hot water and a shower which received approval never-the-less. We did get good use of that place growing up in a nearby town. We would view the foliage in the Fall. Dad would hunt there in Nov. His brothers and other hunters would stay right out there for a couple weeks every year. In the winter, we would drive out there to skate and play in the snow. Then, we’ve warm up by the wood stove and have lunch and drink hot chocolate. Spring would bring ice-out in late April. Sometimes, we were there when the ice disappeared and hopefully left the dock on the shore. Many a year, we had to repair or build new piers.
In the mid eighties, my wife and I moved to Calais from Massachusetts, started a business, and hoped to enjoy the camp like in the old days and my son might have an experience like I had. Having a self employment business, unfortunately doesn’t always provide enough free time. This was the case for me but my wife and son did get to enjoy Meddybemps for a few years. Nothing stays the same of course, so I cling to those happy memories of long ago.
Posted in Travel And Leisure tagged Cecil Ward, Meddybemps Lake, Well Water by Stephen with No comments
Guppies or Poecilia reticulate are some of the most colorfully decorated freshwater fish available on the market. Robert John Lechmere is accredited with discovering this tiny fish in Trinidad in 1866. Guppies are native to Barbados, Brazil, Guyana, Netherlands Antilles, Trinidad, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Venezuela.
Just like goldfish and betta fish, guppies have been selectively bred to increase their coloration and exaggerate their dorsal fins. There are guppy societies devoted to breeding the next generation of show guppies. Some of these show class guppies can fetch a rather high price. The more generic fancy guppies found in fish stores are quite stunning in appearance and not that expensive.
Guppies are docile fish and make the perfect addition to community tanks. To insure their safety only keep them with other mild mannered fish and avoid mixing them with larger varieties who will view them as food.
The guppy thrives in neutral water with a temperature range between 72-83 ?F.
Guppies are omnivores. They can survive just fine on common tropical fish flakes.
Adult males only grow to about 1.2 inches in length. The females can easily reach twice that length. Even with their dramatic difference in size, males have been known to bully the females. To keep domestic violence down to a minimum it is best to have two or three females for every male. Providing plants for the females to hide in is also a good idea.
Breeding Guppies
Guppies are among the easiest freshwater fish to breed. Unlike most fish, guppies engage in internal fertilization. The anal fin of the male is used to inseminate the female. Once inseminated, the female stores sperm in her body for several months. She can produce multiple broods without the need for further fertilization.
Once impregnated, the female will develop a dark spot on her abdomen and the abdomen will start to swell. Guppies are live bearing fish. The fry will emerge from the mother fully developed. The fry emerge colorless. They will start to develop color in a few weeks.
Adult guppies will eat the newly hatched fry. The best way to avoid this is with a breeding trap. Breeding traps are inexpensive and readily available at fish stores. Breeding traps are transparent plastic containers comprised of two compartments. Place the impregnated female in the top compartment. As the female gives birth the fry drop through to the bottom compartment. After the female is done giving birth remove her from the trap. The plastic piece that separates the trap into two compartments can then be removed to give the fry more room to maneuver. The fry can be kept in the trap while they are young. But remember that they are in an isolated compartment for their own protection. Replace part of the water with aquarium water regularly to keep it fresh.
Guppy fry can be fed newly hatched brine shrimp, or finely crushed dry food. Fry food specially formulated for live bearing fish is available at most fish stores.
Posted in Pets tagged Dorsal Fins, Fish Flakes, Lechmere by Stephen with No comments
The goldfish or Carassius auratus is a genetic mutation of the Crucian Carp (Carassius Carassius). Goldfish were originally a drab olive color. The reddish-orange color was a result of selective breeding in china over a thousand years ago.
The Chinese have bred goldfish since as far back as the Sung Era, approximately 1000 A.D. Goldfish were the first historically documented fish to be domesticated. The modern goldfish was exported to Japan and Korea in 1500 A.D. and made its way to Europe in the early 1600s. It was first introduced to the United States in 1876 and achieved notoriety at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893. The goldfish is one of the most commonly kept fish among freshwater aquarium enthusiast and pond owners throughout the world.
Selective breeding has produced several varieties of modern goldfish including the Ranchu, Celestial, Bubbleye, Comet, Shubunkin and Pearlscal. They come in an assortment of colors including red, orange, white black and calico. Goldfish have been reported to live up to 43 years.
Depending on its specific variety, goldfish can reach an adult length of up to thirteen inches. They are extremely adaptable fish. They can tolerate temperatures anywhere from 50-86 ?F. It is their ability to survive in such a wide temperature range that led to them being raised in fishbowls.
Fishbowls are not suitable environments for goldfish. They need properly aerated adequately filtered water in order to thrive, just like any other fish.
Think of their potential adult size before deciding to add goldfish to your community tank. They need plenty of room to swim and grow or their growth can be stunted. They are acceptable community dwellers. They do have a tendency to pick on smaller fish.
Goldfish will eat absolutely anything you feed them. Although, I have never tried peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.
Breeding Goldfish
Male and female goldfish have identical coloration. The Females are generally wider and have fuller bodies than males. Males have small bumps on their gills called tubercles. The tubercles turn white when the male is ready to breed.
Gold fish can be conditioned to breed. Start by feeding them a high protein diet such as brine shrimp, tubifex or bloodworms. Keep the breeding tank between 65-75 ?F.
Goldfish scatter their eggs. All egg scatterers will eat their un-hatched eggs. Placing a layer of marbles on the aquarium floor will prevent this from happening. You still want to remove the adults from the breeding tank after spawning has taken place.
The eggs will normally turn a shade of yellow. Goldfish eggs are prone to fungus growth. Remove any infested eggs from the tank to prevent spreading. The eggs will hatch in about a week. You can expedite the process by raising the water temperature.
Goldfish fry hatch with their yoke sac still attached. This is normal. No need to be concerned. Newly hatched fry can be fed liquid fry food or powdered eggs. In a few days they can graduate to newly hatched brine shrimp and then finely crushed tropical fish flakes.
Posted in Pets tagged Carassius Auratus, Pond Owners, Temperature Range by Stephen with No comments
The pearl gourami or Trichogaster leeri is a member of the family Belontiidae. Pearl Gouramis inhabit the lowland swap waters of Sumatra, Borneo, Malaysia and Thailand.
All gouramis belong to the suborder Anabantid. The members of this suborder evolved in poorly oxygenated environments. They subsequently developed an auxiliary breathing apparatus in addition to their gills. This lung-like organ, the labyrinth organ, allows them to breathe atmospheric oxygen. At some point in the evolutionary process they became dependent on both as a means of survival. They will die without a combination of dissolved and airborne oxygen. This is why they are frequently seen at the water’s surface.
Unlike the paradise fish, the pearl gourami is a timid creature. They are good additions to a community tank if they are provided with plants, rocks and aquarium d?cor in which to hide. There optimum water condition is a neutral pH with a water temperature around 78 ?F.
Pearl gouramis reach a length of approximately 5 inches and have a life expectancy of 5 years.
They are omnivorous. But they tend to function better on a balanced variety of tropical fish flakes and protein whether freeze-dried, frozen or live.
This species is sexually dimorphic, meaning each sex possesses traits specific to their gender such as size and coloration. Males are typically larger and more colorful than females. The males also exhibit an orange tinge to their fins with the exception of the tail fin. Males have a bright orange region around their throat area. This distinctive coloring is not present in juveniles. It develops as the fish reaches sexual maturity. The color intensifies prior to spawning and is used to attract the female of the species.
Breeding Gouramis
Gouramis have a natural inclination to pair up. Gouramis spawn in still water in their natural habitat. Turn the filter capacity in your breeding tank down prior to spawning. The color of the male’s throat region will indicate that he is ready to spawn. A sponge filter works well to simulate mating conditions. And you have the added bonus of not having to worry about the fry getting sucked up into the filter.
Provide plants for the breeding tank. The male will use his labyrinth to build a bubble nest on the water’s surface. He will use some of the provided plant matter to help the nest stay together.
Gouramis instinctively spawn underneath the bubble nest. Once fertilization occurs, the male gourami will gather up the eggs with his mouth and spit them into the bubble nest to mature.
Remove the female gourami from the breeding tank after they have spawned. It is the male’s job to tend to the nest. He will guard and care for the eggs until they hatch. You will find the male a very attentive custodian of his future offspring.
The fry will hatch in approximately 24 hours. They will be free swimming in 2-3 days. It is now time to remove the male to insure that he does not eat the fry. Once free swimming, the fry can be fed infusoria, or rotifers. When they get about a week old feed them powdered fry food, or newly hatched brine shrimp. An economical alternative is powdered eggs. Make sure not to over feed the fry or you will foul up the water in your tank.
Posted in Pets tagged Community Tank, Filter Capacity, Orange Tinge by Stephen with No comments
You have probably heard the phrase that most people would rather die than present the eulogy at the funeral. Yes, public speaking brings on performance anxiety (a form of social anxiety disorder) in most of us. Performing artists, job interviewees, sports people and exam participants are also performers and are susceptible to performance anxiety.
While many of us feel anxious when we have to perform, anxiety itself is not bad. When you are stimulated, scared or anxious a flood of adrenaline and cortisol is released into your body. This prepares
you to give the highest performance, one with excitement and focus. So anxiety does serve a purpose. Most experienced performers feel concerned if they do not feel any anxiety as this can lead to a flat and dull performance.
Performance anxiety is feelings of ‘butterflies in the stomach’ or in severe cases ’stage fright’. It is the response to ‘fight or flight’.
In some people this reaction is so debilitating that they become paralyzed by fear, unable to speak or think clearly. For someone with social anxiety disorder they may even go to the extent of refusing a promotion at work if there is any likelihood of having to do a presentation at any time.
But there are ways to help prepare to perform and to lower your state of anxiety.
Change your thinking to change the way you feel. If you start thinking about your sweating palms, racing heart and wondering if you will remember your speech your attention is divided and not on the job at hand — that of giving the speech. If you are thinking about the outcome you are distracting yourself from the task. Focus on the task at hand, the presentation you are going to give. Perceive your presentation as a challenge rather than a threat.
You wouldn’t expect someone to tell you that you were useless before you went out to perform but that’s what we tend to do to ourselves — telling ourselves that we are no good at speaking, or that we’ll be glad when it’s all over. This negative self talk needs to change into something positive — “I am well prepared and will show them what I can do.”
A good way to counteract negative thinking is to practice new thinking and create new habits. For each stage of the performance process write a set of positive self talk.
1. Preparation: The time from when you know you are to give your talk until you arrive at the venue.
a. “I am looking forward to this challenge”
b. “If I feel nervous this is natural and means that the performance is important to me”
2. Before: The time before you go on stage.
a. “I have done this in practice and can do it here”
b. Remind yourself of breathing and meditation techniques to calm yourself, and breathe easily.
3. During the performance
a. “Focus on the present”
b. Remember that if you forget something your audience has no idea that it has been left out, after all you wrote the notes.
c. A tip is that pauses are effective in a speech making, use a pause to gather your thoughts.
d. Another tip is to look just above your audience’s heads. It will appear that you are looking at them.
4. After the performance
a. “What can I learn from this performance?”
b. “Next time I’ll do even better.”
The key to your presentation of course is to be prepared. And to practice, practice, practice. Self talk will not help you if you have not prepared and do not know your subject
Many well known performers have admitted to being troubled by performance anxiety. Kim Basinger Stephen Fry, Barbara Streisand, Carly Simon and even the late Pavarotti have all suffered the affliction. These performers have made a conscious effort to control their anxiety and you can too.
Posted in Business tagged Feelings, Flood, Stomach by Stephen with No comments
