Summer, Just About Over And Done

So it's been 9 months since I posted anything, don't think I'm going to make up for it by posting some incredibly exciting blog from which you can't tear yourself away. You'll be very disappointed if you do. I haven't really done much of anything interesting, I'm pretty boring.

Last night I went to Longwood Gardens to see their last Fountain and Fireworks show of the season. It's a really good show and I hadn't been to one in several years so I figured I was due, plus I know someone who works there so I didn't have to pay to get in. If you plan on coming to the Philadelphia/Baltimore/Delaware area anytime during the summer months I recommend that you try to schedule your trip so that you can make it to one of these events. You can easily spend a day on the property and cap it off with the fireworks.

It's basically a really good 30 minute fireworks display over top of a 5 acre fountain garden with musical accompaniment. The fountains change constantly, both the shapes and sizes of the water jets as well as the colors of the lights, and it's all synchronized and controlled by computer so the fountains, fireworks and music all work together. Here are a few photos of the main fountain garden.

At the end of July and into early August I went on a family vacation, the first in about 25 years. It went better than I expected. We went to Williamsburg and I got to be a kid again, that was fun! We spent one whole day in Busch Gardens where I managed to ride every big, fast ride they had, some of them several times. I think the high temperatures (high 90s) and high fuel costs at the time kept a lot of people away, the lines were short and on one roller coaster we didn't even have to get out, we just stayed in our seat and rode it again. The next day we went to Water Country and rode all the water rides all day, what a great way to spend a hot summer day.

Here I am with one of my nieces waiting for the ride to start.

Everything else is the same as usual. Work has been busier than expected and is getting even busier as we start preparing for my oh so freakin' favorite time of year and it's accompanying six weeks of Hell. The yard has been pretty much taken over by two weeds that just won't die no matter what I spray them with or how much I spray on them. Those little wild violets and that creeping charlie ground ivy seem immune to weed killers. The garden is starting to wind down a little early, the dry summer has pushed many plants into an early dormancy. If I ever get around to organizing and sorting the hundreds of pictures I've taken I may post an album of some of the flower pictures.

That's it, my past 9 months in a nutshell. You may now amuse yourself by making fun of my boring life or by expressing shock and/or surprise at the fact that I got up off of my lazy ass and typed something.

Garden Critters

Assorted critters and insects I've photographed in my garden over the years. Click the slideshow to enable full screen capability at Picasa.

All Good Things Must Come To An End

In the late 80's through most of the 90's I was working in the Open Space Management division of a municipal government in Maryland. One morning in mid-February of 1990 I walked into our tool shed and discovered a trail of oil blobs. I followed them to their end and discovered an even bigger oil blob. I picked it up to see what it was and it let out a pitiful little meow. It was a kitten, she had fallen into a 5 gallon bucket of used motor oil which one of our genius mechanics had left outside and despite her tiny size she had somehow managed to get out.

Being a cat lover I took her home, cleaned her up and waited to see if she'd live. After a couple of days with oil coming from both ends she seemed to be improving so I adopted the poor thing and named her Valdez. This was not long after the massive Exxon Valdez oil spill and she looked like one of it's victims so it seemed a suitable name. She's been my companion for 18 years, the closest thing to a child I'll ever have. She's also been the only real constant in my life during that period.

On January 2, within days of her eighteenth birthday I took her to the vet. She had been eating less and that morning her breathing seemed labored. An x-ray showed fluid in her chest which was preventing her lungs from fully expanding so off to the specialist we went. They tapped her chest and pulled out 4 ounces of fluid, in the process her lung punctured so she still had difficulty breathing. They had to tap her chest several more times to remove air which was having the same effect as the fluid has been. They had to keep her overnight so they could keep her on oxygen and drain the air again if needed.

I got to bring her home late the next afternoon, her lung had sealed and she was breathing normally again and had been eating. The vet told me the bad news, the fluid in her chest had been sent for testing and came back positive for carcinoma. My little girl was dying of cancer. Anything diagnostic or preventive would be invasive or at her age may prove to be worse than the disease itself. So, I took her home to spoil her rotten for the remainder of her life. I refused to allow her last little bit of time to be uncomfortable or traumatic, she deserved better.

For 2 days she ate like a little pig but today she was again having trouble breathing so I took her back to the emergency clinic for another x-ray. The results of the exam weren't good, as a result she died in my arms calmly, quietly and peacefully. She was a sweet, gentle and loving companion and I feel lucky to have had her in my life for such a long time. She brought me nothing but joy and I can only hope that I gave her as much happiness as she gave me.

For Your Amusement...

I thought this may amuse some of you so I'll relate how I began my Saturday, Dec 8. It started like any other day, the usual wake-up, shower, shave and dress. I took the laptop out to the truck then headed back inside to get my phone, wallet, gloves etc... before leaving for work. That's when I ran into a wee little problem, the doorknob lock was locked and they keys I had grabbed to unlock the truck were the spare truck keys, no house key and no work keys. Oops.

So I start the trip around the house, checking every window and door along the way. I get across the front, no luck. I head down the left side, no luck. I check across the back, still no luck. Everything with potential would have required breaking glass or ripping out screen and I was trying to avoid that. So I'm on my way down the last side of the house when I spot my salvation, a small kitchen window which appeared unlocked. Unfortunately it's over a flower bed which was a bit muddy. So I walk to the far rear of the yard, grab a bag of mulch I had not yet used and drag it back to the house through the sloppy melting snow so I had something to stand on.

 First problem, the kitchen has the only two windows in the house which are not over 100 years old. They are double pane insulated windows with screens which are not intended to be removed. My only tools? My truck key, lol. It took a bit but I did manage to get the screen removed without doing it any damage then slid the window up.

 Next problem, orchids. Six of them right in front of the window; four on the kitchen counter and two hanging from the handles of the cupboards above the window. Three are blooming and one has three spikes which will soon be flowering so I didn't really want to damage them. The window is fairly small and was chest high so I had a difficult time moving them all out of the way but eventually after much hopping up and down, wiggling, kicking and reaching I finally managed to clear them all out of my way. The whole time this is going on Zeus is staring at me all bug-eyed from his favorite place to lay. I had tried the whole "Zeus, bring daddy his keys" thing to no avail. Some training may be in his immediate future. Anyway, I have a clear shot in now so I'm thinking "Success!"

Silly me for thinking it would be that easy. The window was too damned small! I couldn't get myself through it. I needed to remove both the top and bottom window sashes to make the opening big enough. Yay for long arms. I was able to reach the top of the bottom sash, find the tilt release and figure out how it worked, then tilt the sash in to the house. After getting the locks caught in the sheer curtain inside and ripping the curtain rod off the wall I was able to figure out how to get the thing completely out of the frame, then repeated the process for the top one.

Finally! Now I could fit through the opening so I laid my jacket across the sill, jumped up and wiggled my way through the window and across the counter, and promptly fell to the floor. But I was in! I cleaned up the muddy footprints then went back out to get the windows so I could put them back in. Forty-five minutes after locking myself out I was finally ready to go to work. Nothing was broken, and the police didn't show up so it ended well.

There you have it, another excellent way to not begin your day. Now that I have amused you I am off to do some Christmas shopping on what will most likely be my last day off of work before Christmas.

Catching Up

Oops, it's been a month since I blogged about anything, I guess I should put something here so I don't get yelled at.

I got to meet up with Steph and hang out with her for a day. I drove down to Virginia to meet her when she was dropping off her son for the next phase of his National Guard training. The little town was mostly closed (it was a Sunday) but it was still fun walking around checking out the sites. I showed my pig side when we went to an Outback for dinner and I wolfed down a 20 ounce Porterhouse steak plus bread, veggies and a bunch of cheese fries. Oink! It was good to finally be able to meet her after years of talking online and I'll most likely be driving back down in January to meet her again. She's not even close to as scary as she tries to be.   :P

I am once again sick, some stupid virus or flu or cold or wtf ever. Ever since the whole Lyme thing and the resultant diet of antibiotics and antiprotozoals I seem to catch every bug out there. This time of year makes it gets worse, probably because all day long I handle one of the dirtiest things known to mankind. No not that, I bathe dammit, I'm talking about money. I had one bug which made me cough for a while, and another which made me unable to breathe through my nose for a while, and this current one is now causing me to alternate between sneezing and blowing my nose. Germs piss me off. Imagine that.

Work has been busy, and getting busier. Merchandise is leaving here pretty quick, I'm hoping I can keep enough new product coming in to keep the place full. Between sales and the fairly constant deliveries to replace it all I end up actually having to do stuff for almost the entire day every day. We have extended hours now too, so no more slacking for me. I have 2 days off next week then I'm on for 14 straight until Christmas. Ew, I wrote that word. Bah fkn humbug!

On the "Welcome to the twentieth century, better late than never" front I finally broke down and got a laptop computer. I got a wireless router too so now I can play online anywhere in the house, probably even in the yard too. Plus now I have something to play with in my off time at work. I think it's ended up confusing me even more than I already was (hold the smartass comments thank you very much). The work computer is a Mac laptop, then I go home to my Windows XP pc and in between I'm on a Windows Vista laptop. God forbid they all do things the same way.

Ignore the smell of smoke, that's just me trying to think what else is going on. I tore down my pool and hauled it to the landfill. I'm two thirds of the way done ripping out the deck around it and hauling that away too but haven't had the weather lately to finish. Nobody but me ever got in it and I was tired of the work and expense of maintaining it, plus it was getting quite old (22 years) and I had doubts regarding it's structural integrity. I wasn't overly enthused about the possibility of ten thousand gallons of water rushing downhill at my house if it collapsed.

That's about it I think. The cats are alive and well, my wife is still a lazy slob and I'm still as cheery and optimistic as ever.

Until next time .......

Music Playlists and Copyright Infringement

I recently changed my settings on my Multiply Inbox so that I'd be shown updates by contacts of my contacts. The overwhelming majority of these updates were music playlists, a whole lot of music in fact. All of the ones that I checked were visible to me on each user's page, and all appeared with a "Download" link next to them on each user's page.

I hate to be a party pooper but this basically offers a way to share copyright protected music. Anyone with access to the playlist can simply download the song from your page. Aside from potentially violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act it's also a clear violation of the Multiply Terms of Service and Use, the penalty for which can be the termination of your Multiply account. I asked Multiply customer service for clarification and received the following as part of their reply, "sharing unauthorized copyrighted material (including music) violates our terms. So yes, you can share music, as long as it is not unauthorized copyrighted music."

You may want to make all of your playlists private, just to be safe. Edit each playlist, select the "Advanced" access option then uncheck all of the boxes and save. Each playlist will state "For you" in the upper right corner once you've properly edited it.

Given the increasingly litigated legal issues surrounding music I suspect that the abilities to download, embed and/or share music will soon be severely limited.

This concludes this public service announcement, we now return to your regularly scheduled multiplying.

Holy Moly It's E-Mail Hell!

My first multiply.com mistake? My e-mail alerts settings. I got e-mail alerts for each entry posted by all my contacts. Each blog entry, each photo album, each comment, every single entry imported to multiply from 360° by all of my contacts. It was hundreds upon hundreds of e-mails. So ... the first multiply lesson learned is to turn off those damned e-mail alerts!!

"How do you do that?" you may ask, well I'll tell you. If your inbox is getting inundated with multiply alerts click the "my account" link at top right of any multiply page then click "My E-mail Alerts". I highly recommend unchecking the "Posts by my contacts" option and keeping it that way for a while. If you leave it schecked you'll get a separate e-mail for everything any new contact imports from another blog plus everything new.

My latest round was a total of 171 mails, and that was at least the third time. Screw that!! Once most everyone has migrated to multiply or wherever else they are going to go I'll turn them back on ... maybe. They all show in your Multiply Inbox when you log in anyway.