North Tahoe AYSO: U14 Girls "Double Trouble Bubble"

Coaches Justin Jelnek and Will Dawson, both from Truckee, CA, (neither one having a daughter on the team) had another fantastic year working with North Lake Tahoe's U14 "Double Trouble Bubble" girls team.
Will and Justin will have a short break until the snow flies and then they're back to coaching local youths at Squaw Valley USA's Ski Team Programs. This was my daughter Madison's final year playing AYSO soccer and ended her last game with a goal off of a penalty kick.This was Sierra Saltwater Systems fifth year sponsoring an AYSO team and I have done it all from coaching, refereeing and being involved with helping the youth girls of my area progress as teammates and reach personal and team goals.
But...I am not giving up now that Madison is done with AYSO and I have let a few parents with younger children know that I am available to sponsor their future teams. There is nothing quite like spending a sunny fall day watching kids having a blast running up and down the field and I plan on cheering any kid that gives 100 percent for a few more years! To the right is Madison celebrating with her friend Shelby Foster, this is what AYSO is all about. Madison is located in the center of the front row in the team photo.

Happy Mac: Pomacanthus maculosus

It wasn't the first time, nor will it be the last.
What to do when a fish has outgrown a clients display?
I have run into this issue a number of times and to be honest, although it is a sad day to remove a fish, it is also a great sign of success. Today I relocated (donated) a beautiful prized Pomacanthus maculosus or Yellow Banded Angelfish from Peggy and Carl's 245 gallon aquarium in Crystal Bay, NV to the John Ascuaga's Nugget Trader Dick's 5,000 gallon restaurant display in Sparks, NV. This expensive, gorgeous & hardy fish hails from the Red Sea and is very disease resistant, accepting greedily all types of fresh and prepared foods, and gets along behaviorally with almost all other species. The Angelfish was simply too large at over 10 inches to live out its life in Peggy and Carl's five foot aquarium. With the Nugget's aquarium being over forty feet long the fish will have plenty of area to swim and with their diligent engineering department and Jack Ross, aquarium manager looking after the fish, it will be in great hands. The Nugget's aquarium currently house over a hundred different fish including a Flagfin, Queen, Coral Beauty, Flame and Passer Angelfish, Yellow, Naso, Sailfin, Blue Hippo, Purple and Unicorn Tangs, Threadfin Butterfly and a variety of Clownfish, Damsels, Rabbitfish and Chromis.

Remember, you can click on any photo on my blog to see the image in its original size.

Jake Adams: Fishidea

I had the opportunity to spend a few minutes with Jake Adams at Reef-a-palooza, Orange County Fairgrounds, October 11 & 12, 2008, creator of Coralidea, a downloadable free coral identification guide to use with your PDA, iPhone or other digital device. He has just released a wonderful new addition to Coralidea with Fishidea. Fishidea is great for the hobbyist that is walking into a fish store without a particular purchase in mind. The digital reference will allow a perspective purchaser to find the difficulty of care, what an animal prefers to feed upon, coral and invert safety and other great references before they make a purchase.

Please support the companies that support Jake and allows him to make these great reference guides; Reef Nutrition, Fins Reef, Prodibio and Ecotech Marine.

From Jake's website:
10.8.8 It was about this time last year that we released the ground-breaking Coralidea free guide to corals. After a really long year of development and content production we are now very pleased to present you the Fishidea free guide to reef fish. With over 500 species including many rare and unusual species, the digital file is just at 15 Megabytes.

Whereas the Coralidea guide originally only provided a coral identification, the Fishidea guide includes Latin and common names, average maximum size in inches and centimeters as well as symbols to represent hardiness, food preference and fish, invertebrate and coral compatibility. There is a simple and intuitive english symbol legend in each fish chapter and we have also included a german translation of the symbol legend which was kindly provided to us by Rainer Schindwolf.


Download Fishidea HERE.

Download Coralidea HERE.

Jake Adams will be speaking to the Marine Aquarist Roundtable of Sacramento on November 21st with his presentation on the importance of water movement in the reef aquarium. Directions to the MARS meeting can be found HERE.

Break Time: Golfing With De At Montreux

I usually have a half a day off every other Tuesday that is spent ordering dry goods, researching, billing, cleaning my shop or picking up a livestock delivery at air cargo in Reno. But after over two years of an open invitation from my client, former Major League Baseball player, DeWayne, I decided to take the day off and join him and couple of other friends for a round of golf at Montreux Golf and Country Club in Reno, NV.

Montreux is a Jack Nicklaus Signature Design Golf Course, a private, 18-hole masterpiece that Nicklaus himself designated as one of his top five designs. The private, gated community contains some of the grandest real estate in the Reno area.

Although I have removed an aquarium from a residence in Montreux, I am not fortunate enough to have a client in this neighborhood. But then again, that might be a good thing because the time spent on the golf course was very enjoyable and if I was coming into the neighborhood more often, I would need to find a way to work on my game!. De did mention that he would like to purchase a home in Montreux. Hmmmm....

The photo on the left is on hole number 17, 464 yards, Par 4, Montreux's signature hole. A dramatic tee shot from an elevated tee about 100 feet above the fairway. You must drive it as far as possible to use a short club to approach the very narrow green. The fairway is wider than it looks and is protected on the left by Galena Creek.

THAT WAS FUN! (now back to work)

EDIT: 10/7/08 Okay... I have had a couple of emails and snide remarks about my footwear. I do not golf in sandals! (Although I have been known to wear open open toed shoes to the grocery store in the middle of winter, as long as it is not wet out!) My most intelligent daughter gave me this pair of FootJoy golf shoes (yes, with spikes!) about ten years ago as a Fathers Day gift. They are the best shoes for golfing!

Click HERE for a link to De's tank when it was under construction back in late 2005. The remodel of his home took a very long time and the aquarium was filled in March of 2008 and is coming along nicely. (I think it may be time for an updated post.)