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i felt nauseous and sick to my stomach this morning so i quickly ran into the bathroom. unfortunately an tao was inside, but he was only brushing his teeth so i didn't see anything embarrassing. i didn't puke but while i was on the toilet i tried to figure out what happened. was it something i ate? that's weird, because if anything was going to happen, why did it wait 12+ hours? i went back to bed after using the bathroom, but a few minutes later i came back for round 2. i thought maybe it might be a stomach virus, but after i went to the bathroom a second time, i felt better and was able to go back to bed.

speaking of sickness, i noticed today that one of the male guppies is looking awfully ragged. i looked through my fish books to find a matching disease: the closest is dropsy, because some of his scales are sticking out, but he's not bloated. it could also be some sort of irritation and he's just been scraping against the gravel. it's weird, because this is the same aggressive alpha male that chased the other male around the tank when i originally split the tank, so it's ironic to see him in such a sorry state now. maybe he contracted something from the dead female guppy, who was also his mate. since she died, he's just been swimming around the tank on his own. in any case, i immediately scooped out this guppy and put him in the 5 minibow hospital tank, along with some antibiotics. the temperature in the tank was too warm (82 degrees) - i'd raised it because i wanted to accelerate the cycling. i ended up turning it down (it was still warm, 78 degrees, the old heater is broken) before adding the fish. he seemed to be doing okay in his new house, although he does spend a lot of timer near the surface. maybe he's hungry, maybe that's his usual spot, or maybe the water is bad - although i did dechlorinate it a few days ago (if anything, it'd just have a higher level of ammonia, but not off the charts though - my ammonia neutralizing solution won't arrive until next week). if i can rescue this one fish it'll be cool, but if he dies, there's plenty more to take his place.

once again i partitioned the 10 aquarium. i just can't stand the idea of a tank full of guppies breeding indiscriminately. now on one side is one healthy adult male and possibly his offspring, one young adult male. on the other side is the one surviving adult female along with a bunch of large fries. once i can figure out which ones are males i'll move them over to the other half. as for the males fighting with each other, i haven't seen that yet (the more aggressive male is currently in the hospital tank), so hopefully these new pair will be okay. i rather have the males fight each other than an unchecked population explosion.

for some reason it felt like a friday (maybe just wishful thinking). client B contacted me unexpectedly, said an interactive i built early last year was malfunctioning and that i needed to fly out to hoover dam to fix it. this was the same client that sent me down to georgia. always game for anything out of the ordinary, i agreed to go (the details will be ironed out next week). i think their technology guy might be going with me, but i'm more than happy to go alone; that way after i'm done i can go visit las vegas just 30 miles away.

tonight i learned how to play with the flash exposure compensative function of the 350d. i learned to dial it down (-2) so the flash isn't as harsh and gives off a soft glow instead.