If it's over 7 feet and tries to eat you, it's not a goldfish

Well here's a problem we don't have at our Indy...

Shark alert: It's not safe to go in the water at the Indy 300
By DENNIS PASSA, AP Sports WriterOctober 18, 2007
SURFERS PARADISE, Australia (AP) -- Over-exuberant fans at the Indy 300 have been urged not to cool off by jumping into the river that runs through the Surfers Paradise street course because it's full of aggressive bull sharks.
On Friday, race officials said extra security boats have been employed to keep revelers out of the waterways, fearing a shark attack at the prime feeding times of dusk and dawn. Fans arriving by boat and jet skis were urged to stay out of the water.

The Nerang River and many of its canals and lakes have been the site of numerous shark attacks. In 2003, two men, including an 84-year-old former athlete, were killed in attacks in Nerang River tributaries, both by bull sharks.

My goldfish loves me...

My earliest memory of my first goldfish was at county fair.
It was the prize for successfully tossing a ring onto a hoop. I think i won 3 that night, which i excitedly poured into a bowl and filled up with, i think warm water. Two were dead by the next morning and the third was belly up by day three. I think i might have cried but my mom comforted me by saying "don't be sad, goldfish don't live very long anyway."
As it turns out, mom was wrong. According to my buddy Darren the goldfish guy "goldfish can live up to 10 years; in some cases 15 to 20 years if they're taken care of by someone who knows how to do it.

Oh, and one more cool thing...because my goldfish never lived long enough , i never got to know their personality...that's right, personality!

I thought something was pretty weird the second week i had Buddy because he seemed really excited to see me. No one gets that excited to see me, not even the dog, and i feed him! Nope, he justs lifts one ear up...turns his head in my direction, and then goes back to sleep. No, the only person that gets excited to see me is Julie Davidson because she can go home when i get there, but even she doesn't spin around in the studio like Buddy the goldfish does in his tank.

There's even been some scientific studies that show that goldfish know who you are... and apparently it only takes about 2 weeks for that to happen. It's pretty cool, Buddy appears to know who i am...he actually comes up to the top of the tank to beg everytime i see him so of course i'm always feeding him...which could be a potential problem as he has doubled his size since i got him...or as Darren the goldfish guy wanted to know..."is that the same fish i gave you?"

Can i keep Buddy alive? Keep checking back here for updates...or give my "buddy" Darren a call over at Aqua Terra for updates or advice on all your fish needs...414-774-6080 or drop by and say hi Darren at 6410 W. North Avenue.
Cindy

Bowl vs. Tank

When i was a kid, goldfish lived in Bowls.

They just didn't live very long.

No matter how cute the bowl was, or how much food i threw in there, the goldfish usually didn't survive day 3! And the ones that did, usually died shortly after i changed the water.
So i asked my new best friend Darren, the goldfish guy. (ok, i made the last part up but Darren really is his real name) Darren confirmed what i already knew;
Goldfish don't live very long in a Bowl.

So what's the problem? Well, according to Darren...

1. Not enough air surface in a bowl. Something i never realized...goldfish need "air" and tap water doesn't always have enough of it. That's not to say "don't use tap water in your goldfish tank." You can use tap water, i certainly do, but keep in mind that there is probably not enough air in it. So how do you make sure there is enough air in your tank?

2. Make sure you have filtration in your tank. For questions on which one to buy, talk to my friend Darren...i'll post his number at the end.

3. Goldfish grow very fast and need at least 10 gals of water per fish. (goldfish grow to 6")!

4. Goldfish also need light. Darren has Buddy's light on a timer so it's always on when i'm on the air.

Can Cindy keep Buddy Alive?

(Say hi Buddy)

And the answer is...gee, i hope so...Yikes!

You see, about a week ago i had the pleasure of meeting a guy by the name of Darren who just happened to be at my radio station (B93.3) recording a commercial for his pet shop and...

Hey!

I could tell you were starting to doze off...oh yeah, i'm not a psychic or anything but i can kinda tell when i'm getting long winded and HEY!

Your doing it again...
(Thats Buddy going "where the heck

am i?")


(Picture below: how you should introduce your goldfish to his new home.)

O.k, here's the problem...i felt uncomfortable around Darren because here i was helping him with a commercial on goldfish, and yet, i have never been able to keep one goldfish alive ever...

And it's not just goldfish...it's the lawn, Ford Tempos, and even hostas!!!

(even the turtle get nervous around me and those pets live to be 75 years, although, poor thing, living with me has probably knocked him down to 25 instead!)

Long story short...i told Darren this...and guess what?! Darren thinks i can keep a goldfish alive and

isn't he a cutie?!

I named him Buddy after one of my favorite singers...um, one of my favorite dead singers and i just want you to know that was totally unintentional...dead or not, Buddy Holly-the goldfish- just rocks! (softly, of course)...and Buddy...well, that just seemed, (opps! past tense) seems like a good name for a, well, goldfish.

This is Darren showing me how to adjust the light fixture on the tank so that the light is always on when i'm working...all the better to enjoy my buddy, Buddy! (it seems easy enough when Darren was doing this, but honestly, i have no idea what he did...if they ever put me on overnites i'm screwed...i wonder if Darren will mind me calling him at 3 am in the morning...i'm sure he won't mind)
Now this picture here might seem strange, but really, this is Buddy in a bag ...wow...yeah, that does sound strange doesn't it? But honestly, according to Darren, this is the best way to introduce your new goldfish to his new home. He also put a some kind of oil-i forgot what it was called so i'll have to ask him next time i see him-which calms Buddy down, because moving your goldfish to a new home in a plastic bag can be stressful to your fish...something i'll think about next time i see a bag full of goldfishes at the fair...(or maybe they were just stressed because they saw me "oh great, if Huber wins me, notify my next of kin!")

That's actually the face my goldfish is making...i'm making this face because i have doubts about whether i can do this or not...and i don't want to kill another goldfish!

Can i keep Buddy alive? Keep checking back here for updates...or give my "buddy" Darren a call over at Aqua Terra for updates or advice on all your fish needs...414-774-6080 or drop by and say hi Darren at 6410 W. North Avenue.

Cindy

In Memory

It's hard to believe my uncle, Robert (Bob) Falt has been gone a year. He actually passed away a year ago yesterday (September 9, 2006), but i actually didn't get the news until the next day, right before i went to an appearance at the Milwaukee County Zoo...which was somewhat appropriate.
My uncle loved animals...he bought a puppy 4 months before his death...how optimistic was that?! My mom (his sister) and i visited him at his new apartment in Tucson, Arizona last April...after he defiantly checked himself out of a nursing home he had been staying in (he suffered terribly from poor health due to diabetes). Yet, about 6 months before he died, he decided he wasn't going to spend whatever time he had left in a home and out he went...ironically, he did bring one thing home from the nursing home...a new love for small dogs...because up til then, my uncle who could keep anything alive, including real live seahorses (in his basement no less!) was a big dog lover.
He was also a smoker which prompted my mom to make a deal with him...stop smoking and we will get you a puppy, because that's what you do for someone whose dying...you get him a puppy, right?! So basically, my mom and my uncle pored over the newspaper ads looking for shiatzu's (which was the nursing home mascot at the place he stayed at). I was the killjoy who kept questioning my mom (in private of course) "what the heck are you doing, he's gonna have a dog peeing all over the place while he's suffering from cigarette withdrawal..." No one listened to me of course, and one day after we got to Tuscon, we ended up with a puppy named Buddy...who totally ignored my mom and me and went straight to my uncle like he was a big chew toy...which unfortunately, he was...my uncle had no feeling on his feet and legs and i kept begging him to wear socks and slippers so the dog wouldn't chew on him...but, my uncle just smiled at me and told me to quit sassing him and let him enjoy his dog...which i finally did.
We later found out that Buddy was at his side with him when he died, and that he brought my uncle an incredible amount of happiness at the end of his life.
I did mention he raised seahorses didn't i? Last year i bought some bearded german iris's which i planted in his honor but they didn't bloom this year (no surprise, i suck at gardening), so i did something else i thought i'd never do...and no it wasn't seahorses...they don't even sell those anymore because their almost impossible to keep alive...i thought i'd start small...a goldfish. That's right, a single solitary goldfish...i think i actually kept one alive for 3 days once...but today, in memory of my uncle Bob, i'm going to attempt to do something i've never been able to do in my life...raise a goldfish. I thought i'd start small, work my way up... a goldfish this year, maybe a shark or electric eel next year...just kidding...i think i'll probably have my hands full with the goldfish. I named him Buddy. I don't think my uncle would mind.