Operation "Remove Grit"

Well, as you saw on the previous pics, there is still the packaging grit in with the ants. I needed to remove this as it looked unsightly. One problem - the second that they sense the lid is being removed, they all rush to the lid and try to get out. Call me a wuss, but a few of these are soldiers and would give a nasty bite. I just wouldn't be able to contain them.
So a plan was hatched.
I quickly tipped the whole lot into a glass container and lidded it with clingfilm. This gave me the chance to clean up the tank.
Now, how to get them back in. By this time, a lot of them were up on the clingfilm trying to get out (and who can blame them). Well, I made a little hole in the clingfilm and got a small wooden skewer. Great, I could get one at a time and drop them into the tank. Ahhh, easy with the first, but then I would have to remove the tank lid to get the second one in and the first would make a bid for freedom. Mmmmmmmmmmm.
Right, get the test tube thing they came in. They can't climb up that. I would deposit them one at a time into that and then tip the whole lot into the tank. Sorted.
So, I got it all ready and got the first one out and into the tube. Then it happened.......... click........... powercut!
AAAAAAAAAAArrrrrrgggggggghhhhhh
I had 20 ants in a container all heading for the hole in the clingfilm. I had one ant in a tube in my hand. Pitch dark.
I used a bit of spare film and managed to seal the hole. Fortunately the lights came back on after a few minutes.
This plan worked well and I succeeded in getting all the live ants back into the clean tank.
So we have 15 in total. Just need to get them burrowing now.

Here they are in their cleaner home...

Names

Forgot to mention that I've named some of them already...

Anty Val
Anty Gill
Anty Julia

One of the ones that I unfortunately squished was...

Anty Disestablishmentarianism

I'll miss that one.

More names to follow.

Antworks

So begins a new era in this blog, ANTS!

Don't know if I mentioned this previously, but H got me an Antworks for Christmas. A what? Well, it's a little container filled with blue gel. It was developed by NASA to take ants into space, in an environment that they could survive in. Basically, it's a gel that thy tunnel into. It feeds them and allows them to live freely.
You have the option of collecting your own ants, but with it being winter, there aren't that many about so I sent off for some. They arrived yesterday and were duly installed into their new home.
Unfortunately a few died in the post, but I had to chuck the whole lot in as they're pretty active buggers and were escaping all over the place. Last night I went to take out their test tube (that they were delivered in) and they all made a run for it. Despite me being careful, I still managed to squish two when putting the lid back on. This does not make me very happy.

Anyway, I will chart their progress on here from now on.
Here are the first shots...

Klink

Sunday was an odd day. I spent four hours of it inside a high security prison.
Let me explain.
I was going to have a look round as part of another thing that I'm involved in. There were five of us in total. The prison was Whitemoor. It's one of eight high security prisons in the UK and is situated about half an hour away.
So I'll give you a brief run down on the visit.

Getting in was the first thing. We had to provide quite a few details a while ago for checking. On the day two forms of ID, one of which had to be photo ID. We were then signed in and had to go through security i.e. metal detectors, X-ray machines for jackets, full frisk. Then get photo badges made.
The duty Governor then came down to meet us and take us up to a meeting room. At this point the hairs start to stand up on the back of your neck. The first few doors were electric, sliding ones. As you get further in, starts the constant locking and unlocking of gates. We must have gone through a dozen just to get to this meeting room, and that was still in the office block.
After a chat about the whole place, he then took us on a tour. We didn't have the full clearance for meeting prisoners, so were took on a tour at lunchtime when they are all locked up for about 80 minutes.
It was a very strange feeling and there's no way that I can describe it in words. On the way into the wings, we passed a big notice board with lots of photos of the prisoners on it. One particular section was labelled "Known Hostage Takers" i.e. very dangerous.
We first went to the segregation block and it was really quite bizarre. I could see maybe 20 cell doors, all locked. Knowing that behind each one was someone who had done something to warrant a sentence of possibly in excess of 30 years (the minimum sentence at Whitemoor is 4 years). We looked at various areas throughout the tour including a visit to C-Wing where they are mostly Cat A prisoners and are typically sex offenders, informers and other sorts of prisoners who other prisoners hate. Again, they were all locked away. The security was very, very tight. CCTV cameras everywhere and many of the doors not only had to be unlocked by the Governor, but also were linked back to the Control Room and so required an electronic unlocking with mini cameras to see who was there.
I could go into much more detail, but I guess you've got the idea now.
All in all a very, very interesting visit. It may be something that I get more involved in.

Soon be Christmas

Two things to talk about.
Firstly 12" mixes. The reason being that I got my hands on nine discs worth and am currently wading through them. They're from the 80s, which is of course the best decade that there has been for music ever. I guess that is when 12" mixes were at their peak too, come the 90s and CDs were taking over.
I used to have quite a few 12" records. If I like a particular track, I'd buy it on 12". Some used to be very good, but some were not even remixes at all which is a bit of a con really. Not like the music business to cheat the public out of money is it?

Also, we are now the proud parents of a Wii! Having had it on pre-order since 16th September, it arrived on Friday. It was supposed to be an early birthday present arriving on 8th December. Unfortunately I was not one of the lucky ones to get one on time. Worth the wait? You bet.
Set it up on Friday after work and had quite a play that evening. As a result I now have somewhat sore biceps from boxing way too hard.

What?

29th December?!?!

I haven't blogged once in 2007!
Bah.
H will confirm this, but I mentioned to her that Tim had it easy doing Zach's blog, 'cos he only has to do one entry a week. She turned round to me and says that's pretty much all I do anyway. I just wanted to prove her right or something.

Incidentally, I know I sing the praises of Macs as it is, but I've discovered that OSX has a built in spell checker that works on everything you type, not just in Word or something. I need never have to proof read this blog looking for typos!

Right, what can I tell you about? New Year's Eve? That was pretty good fun actually. I'm not going to go into details, but we were invited round to some friends for a murder, mystery evening. Now, we were just a little apprehensive about something like that and had a bit of a moan about it all week. But we made the effort and got dressed up and stuff. It was actually pretty good fun and I'll let you in on a secret - Ian did it!

Nat's been since then as well, should've got her to do a guest entry really.

I've made a good start to getting back into the fitness routine. We started out on New Year's Day by going out for a nice run. Since then, I've pretty much been going every couple of days. This afternoon being no exception. I actually left work early to ensure that I had time to go before heading out this evening. Jack's mighty appreciative as I took him too.

Oh I know. Have any of you done any grocery shopping from home? We thought we'd give it a go. Mighty impressed we are too. The beauty of it is that you start off with you list as soon as you realise you need something. You then add to it up until the time that you want it delivering. I did wonder initially that we might miss out on the offers etc, but it's even easier to get them online than in store. We've also been given the website of a place that gives out vouchers, so we can get the delivery free too.

Right. That'll do, apart from one thing... Now I don't normally tell H when I've updated this, she just finds out similar to you folk. So this message is just to tell her that she is quite simply the most amazing person that I've ever met. I am incredibly lucky being married to such a wonderful woman.