Weekend Fun

Saturday was the day for the BAR frag swap. BAR stands for Bay Area Reefers, which is the saltwater/corals club that I'm a member of (so no, it's not a drug thing!). Once a year, they hold an event called a frag swap, which is basically when members will "frag" or cut off pieces of corals that they have, and donate them to a large swap meet. The idea is that it helps to propogate and diversify corals in captivity. I actually had stuff to donate this year (nothing exciting though), so it was kind of fun.

Friday night I spent a bunch of time basically preparing my "frags." Then Saturday morning I had to wake up early to get them all packed up for the swap. I basically took each little frag and put them in Glad miniround containers filled with water. They were kind of cute, actually.

I went to the swap early to help set up and stuff. That was actually pretty fun, because I got to meet a lot of people. Last year I sort of just sat by myself, and didn't really talk to anyone. And, because I was helping, I got to stand around amongst the frag tables and see what goodies there were!

I got a few nice corals in the swap, but I also made out like a bandit in the raffle. They had a ton of raffle prizes, and I bought $20 worth of tickets, and won 5 things! Some people bought like $40 worth of tickets and only won two things. It was great, because I normally never win anything.

I didn't get home until almost 5, and then spent the next two hours acclimating everything and getting all my new corals in the tank. I need to take some pictures, but our tripod broke. :(

Sunday morning we picked up my brothers and the four of us drove down to Monterey to go to the Aquarium. I hadn't been there in a long time, so it was very cool to see. The otters and penguins were especially cute. Took a ton of pictures there, so I'll have to get those posted soon.

We also met up with a guy there who I was buying some corals from (yes, more). He was basically getting out of the hobby and selling everything, so when we met up, he had a few leftover pieces that he didn't know what to do with, so he was just giving them to me. One of the extra pieces turned out to be very cool - a very neat bright orange/pink coral. Very tiny, but I found out that frags of this coral are selling for $90!

Oh, and to continue my little "freebie" streak, I found out yesterday that I won a drawing from the vendor conference I went to in Palm Springs! Turns out I won a Mr. Potato Head dressed as either Darth Vader or Boba Fett. I haven't gotten it yet, so I don't know. Will definitely take a picture of it when I get it. So totally excited about it.