1 Fish, 2 Fish, Dead Fish, Undead Fish

So I'm not much of an animal person, but I have had fish for a few years. They are a unique kind from Asia, White Cloud Minnows. They are somewhat colorful small and difficult to kill. Not that I am trying to kill them on purpose, I just was less successful with other kinds of fish. I believe the words they used were resilient, to temperature changes and pH level changes, etc.  They were just the right kind of fish for me.
  However, since I have moved 3 times in the past 5 years, moving them has become less fun each time. After the last move, I decided that I would not maintain the typical number of minnows to 5-7, I would just let them die, naturally....In their own time. I started with 4, and one died a couple months ago. They strangest thing happened last week though. I had a fish come back to life. Seriously, he was stuck in the filter. I thought I would get him out the next day so I wouldn't smell fish on my hands since I was going to bed.

I tried to take pictures of my tank, but even with the underwater setting it just wasn't working, so I'll try my best to illustrate my point. Here you can see that one fish is stuck in the filter.

This is the next day. Two fish are again swimming in the water....

First I was shocked, doubting that he was ever really stuck in the filter. I quickly reminded myself that he really was stuck in there. Are there any life lessons I can learn from this? I would have put more that to that, except that that fish was on his side in the bottom of the tank that evening. I guess I can say that they are true to the advertisement: Die Hard minnows.
Here is his final resting place (between the rock and the leave plant you should be able to see his red tail attached to his silvery body).

If there were room in the label,  I would change this one to, "stranger than fiction."

How to Clean a Banjo

I wanted to learn how to play the banjo, because I thought it would be fun, but I don't have any money to buy one.  So, I got a loaner banjo from a friends' attic. It smelled horrible. I did not bring the chipboard case into the house and it needed some serious cleaning. Now you can benefit from my experience.

 

 First take it all outside, paper towels, window cleaner and a dust cloth. I used the dust cloth on everything first, then took the window cleaner and paper towels to the drum head (round plastic part of the banjo).

This banjo has had some abuse, probably some water damage on top of being old. Like original parts made in the 1950s and coming from KCMO - making it unofficially a ghetto banjo.

You can see where some wear is showing on the upper frets. I guess banjoist use that region a lot....

Well, the towels got black, not even kidding, it was disgusting. After wiping everything down, I realized it still looks like a ghetto banjo. Style points! 

So the next step would be, how to tune a banjo, or getting a strap or restringing a banjo or finding a case that isn't moldy... Never-mind, we need to name it, "Elliott."

Thus makes the beginning of yet another adventure....How to Play the banjo...