![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Exciting! New! Things!
Feb. 14th, 2013 09:00 amYou guys. You guys. YOU GUYS! I'm finally getting my seahorse tank!
First it was "I should wait until I get a steady job and am not traveling so much." Then I got a steady job that required a lot of travel. Then it was "Well, when I'm done with all this traveling." Then I quit that job and started over. Then I got a great job that will keep me in the area and it became "Why get an aquarium now when we're probably moving soon?" Then it was "All finances go toward the house." Finally, we are settled into the house, finances are in order, and I'm ready to get going with this. So I went to the aquarium store in NE Portland after work to talk about setting up a seahorse tank. Why NE Portland instead of one of the many pet/fish stores closer to me? Well, that one specializes in seahorses, and I'd talked to the owner before and he definitely has the expertise specific to what I want. And I'm gonna do this thing RIGHT, y'all. Which means it'll be like two more months before I actually have any fish, but the ball is rolling for realsies.
Last night I picked out a tank -- a 60-gallon tank with a wood stand and canopy that will fit nicely in my kitchen dining nook area. Today, the owner is drawing up quotes for all the different possible equipment I'll need and/or want, and then likely tomorrow night, he'll deliver it to my house and I can get the setup started. It'll take several weeks to go from a dry tank to one that seahorses can make a home in, so for a little while, I'll just be waiting for the water to cycle and get to where it needs to be. I think that takes around six weeks. So in that time I'll just be monitoring the water and getting some other basics set up. I'll get seaweed going, and I'm also basically going to be farming bacteria that the seahorses will eat. Once I have a good crop of that stuff, I think it will be time to actually introduce the fish. Seahorses are fish, just to be clear. So when I talk about the fish that will be in there, I mean the seahorses. I'm not planning on having any others for now. So, if all goes according to schedule, I'll be getting some new pets right around my birthday. I'm so excited!
The other exciting new thing going on right now is that I picked up a new freelance gig. My former executive editor from Aol co-founded a media brokerage company that is just getting started right now, and asked me to do some work with them. The company is called CODE20, and what they do is broker amateur video to professional news agencies, primarily for breaking news stories. My work with them is mainly dealing in social media for now, as the company creates a presence for itself. Breaking news isn't just police chases and mass homicides (we really don't want video of that), but basically anything from which a news station might want a little video. So my job is to keep an eye/ear out for these events (today I covered a pillow fight flash mob), write a blip on our website about it, compose a few tweets and facebook updates, and try to get users to upload video. Then other people on the CODE20 team work to get those user-submitted videos on television or a news website. If you're interested in supporting me in this endeavor, please go to the CODE20 Facebook page and like us, and follow @code20news on twitter. There's a smartphone app, too. If you ever do take film of a breaking news event (using the word "news" liberally), you can upload it to us and we pay you if it gets on air anywhere.
The people behind CODE20 are really bright, fun, good people. I loved working for Robin at Aol and it's so great working with her again. She really appreciates me and I love working for someone who values me as much as she does. I think it's going to be really interesting. My work with them is really just about an hour or so a day, so it's not taking the place of any of my other work or extracurriculars, and shouldn't add much stress to my life. We don't know if it'll be a raging success or not, but it definitely has potential, and I'm psyched to be involved. I'd love it if you guys would check it out and spread the word if you feel so inclined.
First it was "I should wait until I get a steady job and am not traveling so much." Then I got a steady job that required a lot of travel. Then it was "Well, when I'm done with all this traveling." Then I quit that job and started over. Then I got a great job that will keep me in the area and it became "Why get an aquarium now when we're probably moving soon?" Then it was "All finances go toward the house." Finally, we are settled into the house, finances are in order, and I'm ready to get going with this. So I went to the aquarium store in NE Portland after work to talk about setting up a seahorse tank. Why NE Portland instead of one of the many pet/fish stores closer to me? Well, that one specializes in seahorses, and I'd talked to the owner before and he definitely has the expertise specific to what I want. And I'm gonna do this thing RIGHT, y'all. Which means it'll be like two more months before I actually have any fish, but the ball is rolling for realsies.
Last night I picked out a tank -- a 60-gallon tank with a wood stand and canopy that will fit nicely in my kitchen dining nook area. Today, the owner is drawing up quotes for all the different possible equipment I'll need and/or want, and then likely tomorrow night, he'll deliver it to my house and I can get the setup started. It'll take several weeks to go from a dry tank to one that seahorses can make a home in, so for a little while, I'll just be waiting for the water to cycle and get to where it needs to be. I think that takes around six weeks. So in that time I'll just be monitoring the water and getting some other basics set up. I'll get seaweed going, and I'm also basically going to be farming bacteria that the seahorses will eat. Once I have a good crop of that stuff, I think it will be time to actually introduce the fish. Seahorses are fish, just to be clear. So when I talk about the fish that will be in there, I mean the seahorses. I'm not planning on having any others for now. So, if all goes according to schedule, I'll be getting some new pets right around my birthday. I'm so excited!
The other exciting new thing going on right now is that I picked up a new freelance gig. My former executive editor from Aol co-founded a media brokerage company that is just getting started right now, and asked me to do some work with them. The company is called CODE20, and what they do is broker amateur video to professional news agencies, primarily for breaking news stories. My work with them is mainly dealing in social media for now, as the company creates a presence for itself. Breaking news isn't just police chases and mass homicides (we really don't want video of that), but basically anything from which a news station might want a little video. So my job is to keep an eye/ear out for these events (today I covered a pillow fight flash mob), write a blip on our website about it, compose a few tweets and facebook updates, and try to get users to upload video. Then other people on the CODE20 team work to get those user-submitted videos on television or a news website. If you're interested in supporting me in this endeavor, please go to the CODE20 Facebook page and like us, and follow @code20news on twitter. There's a smartphone app, too. If you ever do take film of a breaking news event (using the word "news" liberally), you can upload it to us and we pay you if it gets on air anywhere.
The people behind CODE20 are really bright, fun, good people. I loved working for Robin at Aol and it's so great working with her again. She really appreciates me and I love working for someone who values me as much as she does. I think it's going to be really interesting. My work with them is really just about an hour or so a day, so it's not taking the place of any of my other work or extracurriculars, and shouldn't add much stress to my life. We don't know if it'll be a raging success or not, but it definitely has potential, and I'm psyched to be involved. I'd love it if you guys would check it out and spread the word if you feel so inclined.
