Endler's Livebearers and File Gumbo

Ricardo came by for dinner tonight. Its nice having company, easier to cook for several rather than one, and it is good to give something back to someone who has been so generous to me over the years. File gumbo was the experiment of the day, and it came out well. I'd never made a Cajun gumbo before, only okra and roux based Creole recipes. It was dark and smoky, though it would have benefited from a bit more chicken stock. Making new things is always exciting, and it was made even more so by the fact that I had a captive audience to mock me if all went wrong. I had thought it would be done by about seven or so, but was a bit off on my estimate. Only by two hours though.

Yesterday night Jeremy came over with a fistful of fish. It was rather a surprise for both of us. He had gone to pick up a few cuttings from a club member only to find he had an overabundance of Endler's livebearers. These little fishes have the most remarkable coloration and a nice background story. I happen to like stories. Come on over sometime and I will tell it to you. I like small fish, and I have a lot of open space in my new 55 gallon tank with way too few fishes to fill it. Endler's breed extraordinarily fast, so before long the twenty or so juveniles and the few adults ought to fill that tank nicely. I am rather looking forward to seeing the blinding colors flashing through that tank. After a bit of research I found that my little friends are a pure strain (which I desired) rather than a hybridized strain which is much more common in the fish stores. The colors look (so far) as though they breed a little too true. Dr. Endler reported that in the wild the colors of these fish seemed to have a huge variation, though after some few generations and the possible hybridization with guppies, the colors have started to breed true from parent to fry. It might be an interesting study to find another pure strain and try crossing them with mine in order to broaden the gene pool enough so that the random colors start popping again.

Two cherries and a plum

I did a bit more investigating of the slot machine this week. There is not much information out there on the internet about these old nickel slots, but there is something. Mostly I found a number of people talking about the machines and very little useful information on the workings thereof. After some time of poking around I did find a number of pictures. One of which showed a slot machine that was very similar to mine, with several small differences. I did more research and eventually came to a cautious conclusion. It is a Caille Cadet nickel slot made somewhere in the year 1936. It was one of the last machines made by Caille before they stopped manufacturing. Also, stuck in the works I found a nickel dated 1940. It had a bit of wear on it, so it wasn't new when it got lost, but still, it does remind one of the age of this toy.

Damn cat

My cat just tried to drill a hole in the back of my head. I brought him in for his dinner as I do every night, and as every night he decided that he didn't want to go back out again. We play around for a few minutes before I take him out, mostly as a means of getting me close enough to him to let me pick him up. After he finishes eating he does one of two things. Either he walks to the door and imperiously demands that I let him out, or he curls up beneath my jewelers bench and tries to fall asleep. Considering that he hasn't got a litterbox in the house, I refuse to let him stay for much more than an hour or so after he eats. Usually we play a little bit to get him out from under the bench. I had to get down there with him in order to hook him back out again. He stepped back when he saw my hand coming for him and put one paw quite firmly on the control pedal for my flex-shaft. I payed a bit more for the extra sensitive pedal upgrade, so it doesn't take a cat quite as heavy as Chance to activate it. I also hadn't realized that the hand piece of the flex-shaft was resting on the back of my head as I reached for my cat. I think it rather scared both of us when that thing went off.

Jackpot, almost literally

Dad came by yesterday when I was in the canyon building east toward Pleasanton. He dropped off a load of firewood for me. I didn't even notice. It was rather dark, seeing as the sun doesn't shine this far out in the country. I'm not that far out actually. It might just be because the sun went down. All scientific questions aside, I found the pile of wood after I listened to Dad's message on the machine. Dad doesn't usually give up all his firewood, but he's decided to move himself off to Willow Glen. That in itself is something I never thought I'd hear. He has a very comfortable house he spent thirty years getting just right, with a large beautiful yard and a swimming pool. Its just weird thinking he might leave it all behind. I called him back to thank him for the wood, and he asked if I could help him store his tent-trailer for a time. I happen to have a bit of empty barn space just now, so he came by with the trailer this morning. He also brought some odds and ends my grandfather picked up somewhere along the line. And a slot machine. It worked when he first brought it home, but somewhere in the early nineties, one of my sisters boyfriends broke it and it has been gathering dust ever since. Dad would never let me open it up and see if I could fix it, perhaps from the concern that I might damage something. Of course, I am a bit older now, and a metalsmith by trade. I happen to be qualified to fix or re-create anything I might break. Dad and I got the trailer and the wood into the barn and he helped tow me and the forklift out of the field when the wheels decided the grass was too slick for traction. It was good to spend a day with him. We don't take the time often enough. After he left, I spent the afternoon pulling the slot machine apart. There were several problems, but none of them major. The mechanism was full of old nickels, the jackpot reserve was overflowing, the coin advance was not advancing, and an adjustment was off. That last being the problem. I think sister's old boyfriend jammed the mechanism then kept pulling the lever, shoving the coin advance far enough out of whack that it could no longer tell if you had actually inserted a coin. All is well now, and the old machine has a place of honor in the entry way. I haven't been able to put a date to the machine yet, but I believe it to have been built in 1935 at the latest. Possibly a few years before, even. Very cool.