RoboTastic

It looks like there is finally a bar / club in DC that is appropriate for sciencey Nerds… maybe. It at least looks like they have lots of fun beers, which is nice. I would rather pay a lot for a good beer than a cocktail. They are much less spilly:

Passersby might wonder what lurks behind the heavy doors and etched glass windows — a place where men and women in lab coats gather to discuss Newtonian physics or string theory? A debating society for biologists?

Not exactly — it’s downtown Washington’s newest lounge and nightspot, but one that owner Steve Maguire hopes is a little more cerebral than most.

Science Club

I have a crayfish in my aqurium. I was worried that I wasn’t feeding it the right stuff. May last two crayfish haven’t done too well. They usaully end up being fish food. Apparently crayfish will eat just about anything though:

“Your crayfish will eat just about anything. We typically feed ours large flake fish food and occasionally a small cut up potato or carrot. We have also heard of people feeding them Purina cat chow and occasionally egg shells (egg shells may help the crayfish out after the molting process by supplying needed calcium to help harden their exoskeleton).”

http://crayfish.byu.edu/faq.htm

I think they also like leafs alot… I am going to check more on this. I think they like the bacteria and fungi on decomposing leaves…

Good to know:
“Pennies made before 1982 are better for squishing because they are mostly copper. Newer pennies are mostly zinc, which doesn’t crush quite as well.”

To the tune of Row-Row-Row-Your-Boat:’

Bike, bike, bike your bike steadily down the street,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, this ride is quite a feat

Well it has been about 20 days since I set up the Lee Valley Self Watering Seed Starter… and it is working great! All of my seeds except the Swiss chard came up. I think that is the fault of the seeds though. Of all the seeds that came up, I think only one square had nothing that came up. Since there are about 24 squares in each planter, that is about a 1/24 success ratio… and that is pretty. Also all the seedlings are doing really well. They are growing great and seem very healthy. Since there is a resivour for water, the seedlings can draw as much water as they need, and you don’t have to worry about watering them daily.

I highly recommend these seed starters. They take alot of the daily work out starting seeds.

Loving the: Lee Valley Self Watering Seed Starter

I just got the Self-Watering Seed Starter from Lee Valley. It is a lot like all of those other plastic mini-greenhouses except that it always keeps the soil moist by drawing water from a reservoir underneath. This is really nice, because it should keep the seeds at the right moisture level.

It is pretty easy to put together and setup. It is made out of some plastic material that looks sort of like sytrofoam, but seems denser. It actually seems sturdy to me, hopefully it is. one you have it setup and filled with soil, you plant some seeds and fill up the reservoir. The directions say you are supposed to use a mixture of percilite, vermcilite and peat moss, but I couldn’t find all this so I simply used some potting soil. Anyhow I pressed it down pretty good because I thought it would help the capillary action.

I bought two trays, and plant a total of 6 different seeds. Since there are 24 “pots” in each tray I planted a total of 8 of each seed… and actually a bit more because I wanted to make sure at least one grew in each “pot”. I planted:

• Sweet Basil
• A Lettuce Mix
• Chives
• Sweet 100 Tomatoes
• Romenesca Broccoli
• Swiss Chard

I am not really sure what I am going to do with them all once they come up… I am a little short on space and light. Guess I will worry about that if everything actually comes up!

Self-Watering Seed Starter ~ $16 – Lee-Valley

I finally got a photo of the cardinal at the birdfeeder. I also got a ton of him sitting around in tree. Cardinals are really red… I know that sounds dumb, but it is really pretty shocking to see in person. You gotta wonder how they evolved like that…

I managed to get a photo of the male Cardinal that has been hanging around our birdfeeder. There is also a female, but I couldn’t get a good photo of here. The females are sort of a brown-orange with an orange beak. It seems like they have coupled up and hang around a bit together. Who knows, maybe in the spring there will be some baby cardinals at the feeder!

While I was home for the holidays I got a fun House Sparrow Stuffed Animal.
It is not only cute looking, but plays it’s bird song when it is squeezed. Unfortunatly it song is rather annoying, but I thought I should get this one since they are always at the feeder.

It is made by Wild Republic and they have lots of different (more fun) types of birds available. And they all play their authentic bird call. What could be more fun?!

Wild Republic – Audubon Bird with real bird calls!

Over the weekend I put a webcam near to bird feeder and set to start recording when ever there was motion. I found that the squerrils is eating lots and lots. I also got a movie of the woodpecker, Woody. So here is the first feature film for Robotastic: