A little backstory for how I wound up with this...
So I have a small problem with flies in my office at work. Not a huge problem, just a minor annoyance. Like when the weather is warm I'll usually end up with between 1 and 4 flies per day buzzing around the windows which gets a little annoying. And it gets gross having fly guts on the windows from smashing them, and then having to take the time to clean the fly guts off also gets annoying. It's not that it's gross in my office or anything or that I have flies spawning everywhere, there's just a lot of windows that aren't airtight and plenty of places for flies to sneak in apparently.
So for Christmas my boss got me a Venus Fly Trap. I put it in a little bowl of water and put it by one of the windows to get some sun. Later that week I found a small aquarium in an abandoned office of an abandoned building at work and decided to take it for my flytrap. I figured I could put the flies in there with it so that their only was out was into the mouth of the flytrap.
It's been a pretty mild winter and I've actually gotten a few flies since then, but the aquarium I found left a lot to be desired. The humidity would build up so much inside it that you couldn't see inside most of the day, and the flies would end up drowning on the walls of the aquarium. Also there was a period of a few days in the 50s a couple weeks ago when I had 3 flies in one day and I realized that when the weather got warmer one flytrap would never be able to keep up (it takes about a week to digest 1 fly and for that mouth to reopen). So I decided I needed more flytraps and something better to keep them in.
So I got online and ordered myself some more carnivorous plants: 3 more regular venus flytraps, 1 red dragon venus flytrap (slightly bigger, and red instead of green), and 2 sundews. Then I bought a terrarium and some decorations, and with my husband's help put together a much better place to keep all my carnivorous plants. There's mesh up top to let the humidity escape, a hole cut through the mesh to drop the flies into and a cover for the hole the rest of the time. There's also a little hole + cover for piping water in to the plants without having to remover the lid and letting flies escape!
I've had it up for about a week now and have only gotten one fly since then. The fly wandered around inside during the day, but was gone the next morning and one of the mouths of the red dragon flytrap was shut so I'm guessing it got eaten.
So that's my weird/interesting/unique office decoration! Some people find it interesting and come over to see what's going on in it, some people find it rather odd, and one guy in particular seems a little creeped out by me having it. Flytraps are apparently very picky plants and difficult to grow successfully, but I've been reading up on them and think I'll be okay. Any questions about flytraps, or my set up, feel free to ask. I'm curious what you all think of it, and...
I want to hear about any interesting things you have around your room/house/office/wherever!
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"For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love." --Carl Sagan
Very nice work on the terrarium! I had one in my room when I was a kid that helped brighten up my room. I also owned a venus fly trap briefly, but as you point out they're finicky plants, and mine died rather quickly.
I had a miniature Zen garden for a while that was a cute, though I have no idea where it is now. The only thing I still have at my current desk is a Vincent van Gogh* action figure
*-Thanks to Matt for this correction. Now we all know why I majored in Chemistry instead of Art History
That is such a cool terrarium with the cute little flytraps.
The strange decoration in my office is a Halloween skeleton decoration that we've named Ralphie. He is wearing a hat and a scarf (that I knitted), and he has become a year-round decoration. We decided we liked him so much, we'd just keep him around.
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I liek Phelddagrifs.
Official Knitter of the Crafters.
Currently knitting: It's a surprise!
I've got a beaker I pour all my salt and sugar solutions into, and I just let it evaporate rather than dump it out. Whenever I'm just doing a lot of surgeries, sample prep, or data processing the amount of water lowers enough to make neat crystalline structures. Right now it's got an island that is anchored to the bottom with pillar. Sometimes crystals will be free floating platforms, and very rarely there will be crystals that are suspended in the middle of the solution with no visible anchor. I'm not sure if it just a phenomenon of perfect density ratios or if there are microscopic salt bridges.
I also have some fetuses with blue skeletons. I dyed the cartilage and cleared out the soft tissue. They look pretty creepy/neat.
I have a taxidermied alligator head sitting on my desk with his mouth open, probably from about a 3 foot gator. I hang rubber bands around the top of his snout.
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Think the MtgStaff is just swell? Join today! You too can be involved in an 8 year grudge and delete nearly 9000 of kpaca's posts!
Coolest thing in my room is an autographed bat from Ronnie Belliard. Not much weird stuff... I do have a corkboard full of postcards though. That's kinda cool.
About Frox: for nearly 10 years, Frox has been helping women look good and feel great in easy-fit, mix-and-match, and work-to-weekend with just a few pieces by helping them make the right choices when it comes to clothing and accessories.
I like the little touches on the terrarium, especially the name "Garden of Despair." Great band name right there. Makes me think there should be a cactus in there somewhere, although it's probably the wrong environment for one.
I have:
a) A knitted Dalek, one of my most cherished possessions that got me crowned "King of all nerds" once.
b) An origami cuckoo clock, made entirely out of paper/cardboard (not even any glue). It works, and keeps accurate time, but sadly it's just too much of a pain to rewind to be worth it.
My desk is sadly overflowing with work-related "decorations" (stacks of papers, books, and notes for my discussion sections).
But! I do have an attractive string of double sided tape covered in packing peanuts from the last time I was gone for a couple days. My group mates got me back for filling their drawers with said packing peanuts. I left it up because it 'brightens' up the place!
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The explosion that... destroyed our city, razed our home, and turned our fields into wasteland was nothing compared to what was now happening to those who survived.
I put a 4 foot x 2-1/2 photomosaic mural on my wall that forms Picasso's Guernica if you step bak 20 feet away. It consists entirely of about 1000 personal photographs from my childhood and my wife's childhood plus pics of us together.
I stitched it using the free andreamosaic program (awesome program btw).
I ran the Program on sections of the art piece then put them together, so the left side of the painting is formed from my wife's childhood, and the right side with my pictures, and the middle is out combined stuff and wedding photos. I printed it on heavy glossy photo paper in high res at very high quality on glossy 8.5x11 edge to edge, and overlapped the pieces by about 1/2 inch, so no gaps. It's like maybe 6 or 7 sheets wide and 2.5 tall, all portrait.
It's taped directly to the wall in the basement, and it's quite a good conversation piece because there are just so many photos tucked into it, and months after I made it, we still stumble on photos we didn't remember were in there.
Great way to display so many digital pics that nobody would normally get to see.
It's actually a beta piece for my bigger mosaic I want to do, with multiple themes and sections, forming a very subtle original Chinese valley landscape in fog wih birds painting by a local artist, that I know. I have the scan ready. It will probably be maybe 7x4, portrait oriented, with sections devoted to family and friends, college, etc.
Unfortunately I keep putting it off because I want to get scans of my parents' and her parents' older pictures so I can use those in the ultimate print. They have hundreds in albums and I have no scans of them yet. Bought the scanner to do it, but no time to go get the pics.
My desk is sadly overflowing with work-related "decorations" (stacks of papers, books, and notes for my discussion sections).
But! I do have an attractive string of double sided tape covered in packing peanuts from the last time I was gone for a couple days. My group mates got me back for filling their drawers with said packing peanuts. I left it up because it 'brightens' up the place!
You guys have cool stuff. I used to have a stock market bull/bear set of Stress Toys. The bull was a better squeeze, but they didn't return them when I left.
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Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
Portrait I drew of a laughing elderly comic in a suit, forgot his name, with hell fire behind him done in pencil. Get a lot of the "that guy looks like Satan."
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Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
I have a Rubik's cube that looks exactly like the one in the pic, with stand and everything, on my office desk.
It's a little worn out, as I constantly scramble it and solve it. People often get shocked that I can solve it in 2-4 minutes, which really is an extremely long time for real cubers.
All I have are a bunch of vintage advertisement posters (1890s to 1920s) on my walls, as well as some toy dinosaurs that are my girlfriends.
ZemogFC, one of them is that Chat Noir poster over my fireplace. It looks very nice
I use to have a very nice handcrafted... thing... it looked like a shield, but it didn't have a handle on the back. I have no idea what it was, I guess it's to hard to explain. Either way, my mother gave it to me then took it back
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So I have a small problem with flies in my office at work. Not a huge problem, just a minor annoyance. Like when the weather is warm I'll usually end up with between 1 and 4 flies per day buzzing around the windows which gets a little annoying. And it gets gross having fly guts on the windows from smashing them, and then having to take the time to clean the fly guts off also gets annoying. It's not that it's gross in my office or anything or that I have flies spawning everywhere, there's just a lot of windows that aren't airtight and plenty of places for flies to sneak in apparently.
So for Christmas my boss got me a Venus Fly Trap. I put it in a little bowl of water and put it by one of the windows to get some sun. Later that week I found a small aquarium in an abandoned office of an abandoned building at work and decided to take it for my flytrap. I figured I could put the flies in there with it so that their only was out was into the mouth of the flytrap.
It's been a pretty mild winter and I've actually gotten a few flies since then, but the aquarium I found left a lot to be desired. The humidity would build up so much inside it that you couldn't see inside most of the day, and the flies would end up drowning on the walls of the aquarium. Also there was a period of a few days in the 50s a couple weeks ago when I had 3 flies in one day and I realized that when the weather got warmer one flytrap would never be able to keep up (it takes about a week to digest 1 fly and for that mouth to reopen). So I decided I needed more flytraps and something better to keep them in.
So I got online and ordered myself some more carnivorous plants: 3 more regular venus flytraps, 1 red dragon venus flytrap (slightly bigger, and red instead of green), and 2 sundews. Then I bought a terrarium and some decorations, and with my husband's help put together a much better place to keep all my carnivorous plants. There's mesh up top to let the humidity escape, a hole cut through the mesh to drop the flies into and a cover for the hole the rest of the time. There's also a little hole + cover for piping water in to the plants without having to remover the lid and letting flies escape!
I've had it up for about a week now and have only gotten one fly since then. The fly wandered around inside during the day, but was gone the next morning and one of the mouths of the red dragon flytrap was shut so I'm guessing it got eaten.
So that's my weird/interesting/unique office decoration! Some people find it interesting and come over to see what's going on in it, some people find it rather odd, and one guy in particular seems a little creeped out by me having it. Flytraps are apparently very picky plants and difficult to grow successfully, but I've been reading up on them and think I'll be okay. Any questions about flytraps, or my set up, feel free to ask. I'm curious what you all think of it, and...
I want to hear about any interesting things you have around your room/house/office/wherever!
I had a miniature Zen garden for a while that was a cute, though I have no idea where it is now. The only thing I still have at my current desk is a Vincent van Gogh* action figure
*-Thanks to Matt for this correction. Now we all know why I majored in Chemistry instead of Art History
The strange decoration in my office is a Halloween skeleton decoration that we've named Ralphie. He is wearing a hat and a scarf (that I knitted), and he has become a year-round decoration. We decided we liked him so much, we'd just keep him around.
Official Knitter of the Crafters.
Currently knitting: It's a surprise!
That's Vincent van Gogh right there
I've got a beaker I pour all my salt and sugar solutions into, and I just let it evaporate rather than dump it out. Whenever I'm just doing a lot of surgeries, sample prep, or data processing the amount of water lowers enough to make neat crystalline structures. Right now it's got an island that is anchored to the bottom with pillar. Sometimes crystals will be free floating platforms, and very rarely there will be crystals that are suspended in the middle of the solution with no visible anchor. I'm not sure if it just a phenomenon of perfect density ratios or if there are microscopic salt bridges.
I also have some fetuses with blue skeletons. I dyed the cartilage and cleared out the soft tissue. They look pretty creepy/neat.
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About Frox: for nearly 10 years, Frox has been helping women look good and feel great in easy-fit, mix-and-match, and work-to-weekend with just a few pieces by helping them make the right choices when it comes to clothing and accessories.
I have:
a) A knitted Dalek, one of my most cherished possessions that got me crowned "King of all nerds" once.
b) An origami cuckoo clock, made entirely out of paper/cardboard (not even any glue). It works, and keeps accurate time, but sadly it's just too much of a pain to rewind to be worth it.
But! I do have an attractive string of double sided tape covered in packing peanuts from the last time I was gone for a couple days. My group mates got me back for filling their drawers with said packing peanuts. I left it up because it 'brightens' up the place!
The explosion that... destroyed our city, razed our home, and turned our fields into wasteland was nothing compared to what was now happening to those who survived.
I stitched it using the free andreamosaic program (awesome program btw).
I ran the Program on sections of the art piece then put them together, so the left side of the painting is formed from my wife's childhood, and the right side with my pictures, and the middle is out combined stuff and wedding photos. I printed it on heavy glossy photo paper in high res at very high quality on glossy 8.5x11 edge to edge, and overlapped the pieces by about 1/2 inch, so no gaps. It's like maybe 6 or 7 sheets wide and 2.5 tall, all portrait.
It's taped directly to the wall in the basement, and it's quite a good conversation piece because there are just so many photos tucked into it, and months after I made it, we still stumble on photos we didn't remember were in there.
Great way to display so many digital pics that nobody would normally get to see.
It's actually a beta piece for my bigger mosaic I want to do, with multiple themes and sections, forming a very subtle original Chinese valley landscape in fog wih birds painting by a local artist, that I know. I have the scan ready. It will probably be maybe 7x4, portrait oriented, with sections devoted to family and friends, college, etc.
Unfortunately I keep putting it off because I want to get scans of my parents' and her parents' older pictures so I can use those in the ultimate print. They have hundreds in albums and I have no scans of them yet. Bought the scanner to do it, but no time to go get the pics.
My desk is covered in MTG Cards. There's a Riftstone Portal, a See Beyond, a Brave the Elements... oh wait.
You guys have cool stuff. I used to have a stock market bull/bear set of Stress Toys. The bull was a better squeeze, but they didn't return them when I left.
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
B Lover Since '09 ~
Standard:
meh.
Modern:
Urzatron GR
Vintage:
Contol-Slaver UBR
EDH:
Drana B
Jhoira UR
Savra BG
Turned into:
Adun Oakenshield BGR
Sharuum BUW
Turned into:
Memnarch U
KiKi-Jiki R
Turned into:
Godo R
Turned into:
Aurelia RW
The Mimeoplasm UBG
Rasputin Dreamweaver UW
Turned into:
Geist of Saint Traft -French 1v1 UW
Nekusar UBR
It's a little worn out, as I constantly scramble it and solve it. People often get shocked that I can solve it in 2-4 minutes, which really is an extremely long time for real cubers.
My YouTube Channel
I could never stand having a wall like that in my house but I think yours is really cool and well done.
ZemogFC, one of them is that Chat Noir poster over my fireplace. It looks very nice
I use to have a very nice handcrafted... thing... it looked like a shield, but it didn't have a handle on the back. I have no idea what it was, I guess it's to hard to explain. Either way, my mother gave it to me then took it back