WEEK 46 2013
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Saturday 16 November
2013
Saturday - Not much going on. Cold and blustery - my tree in the front is starting to lose its leaves.
I
did some yard work in the morning, and thought about the paver issues
in the side yard. I would like to slope them away from the house but
that would leave the concrete path raised about an inch above the
pavers - a tripping hazard. I could come out level with the outside
edge of the concrete path, 3', then angle down, but that means I have
to either rip the 4x4 to get the angle, or leave a fairly substantial
gap. In addition there is some sort of concrete pad near the front of
the house that would prevent me from fastening down a 3' section of 4x4
retainer using the steel forming stakes I bought earlier this summer.
I picked up a few more pavers for the front rose bed, from Lowe's to match the ones I already had.
I
also went by Harbor Freight and picked up some cheap tools for the car
tool chests. I'd actually bought some in July, but can't find them. I
suspect I left them on the counter or in the shopping cart at HF. Well,
it's just $20 or so, and now I have wrenches and pliers. The Explorer
is pushing 250K and the Probe 300K miles, so I like to have stuff on
hand for emergencies.
Speaking
of emergencies, I also need to update my earthquake kit. I discovered,
early in the summer, that all the canned food was gone from my bin.
It's possible that I didn't
put any in there, but more likely that a certain individual helped
themself. Oh well, it'd be time to replace it by now anyway.
Went to lunch at the sushi bar over on 10th street. Excellent as always.
Worked
a bit on some Access stuff in the afternoon, but the cats were
absolutely berserk. I had brought the laptop down out of the office to
work - not a good idea. But early evening I was so upset by the
constant interruptions from them, and other issues, that I just gave up
and watched bad TV.
Friday
- Book #46 was Children of the Sky, by Vernor Vinge. This is the third in his Zones of Thought
series, though more of a YA novel than the others. I've had it sitting
on my Kindle for over a year, and finally got around to reading it
recently. It's a bit slow, and I think the characterization is a bit
weak, but it's actually a pretty good book. It came out in 2011, so we
should be hearing about a fourth volume soon, I think.
The dog is affectionate, but she just can't resist
chasing the kittens. She doesn't mess with Riley - he outweighs her -
but the little fuzzy guys are just too great a temptation, when I'm not
in view. So she's caged a bit more than I would like to do, but it's
her own fault. She also eats cat toys and cat ... litter. Litter being a euphemism for what the cats leave in the litter, if you follow my drift.
Still, things are better. In the past month or so I had a sick older cat, then a sick kitten,
then another sick kitten, then the old cat was sick, then I got a sick
dog....who is on the mend.
On top of the confusion and trouble the two kittens get into on their own, when healthy, it's all a bit much.
Jimmy and Suzy napping on the small couch.
Working on a couple of things here.
Word
is that the contractor will start on a new repair type Monday, so I
will probably go down to observe that, though I suspect they'll just be
prepping before doing the epoxy injection on Tuesday.
Thursday 14 November 2013
Thursday
- OTR. Well, down to Thousand Oaks and back. There was an issue, maybe.
But they should be done down there next week, God willing and the crick
don't rise. I've rarely been happier to see work go away....
Well, I fixed that doubling up of Week #45. It was a bit odd, apparently for this week I started a new page with the exactly the same number and dates as last week. Had me a bit confused, and my multitude of readers were in absolute despair.
I see that Obamacare is crashing and burning. The presidents fix is to add more
illegal and unconstitutional requirements, and to try to shift the
blame. He's a fascist by nature, but you'd think he'd get a clue from
the real world. But I suppose, like most presidents, by the second term
the 'real world' is a pretty distant memory.
Only
two weeks until Thanksgiving. Hard to believe. Time flies. I have a
whole stack of birthday cards on my desk, that I meant to send out on
the first. Yikes. November is the biggest month for them and I
completely flubbed it.
Dogs and cats are all healthy, more or less. The dog still has a bit of a cough, but it's getting better.
Wednesday 13 November
2013
Wednesday
- Working away on things. I can't even recall what, but I kept busy....
The story is now that Angel did
have her shots, a 6-in-1 set, and is due for a 5-in-1 set in a few
weeks --- but nobody wants her near other dogs until she's cleared of
the croup.
S. came by and we did some more clicker training of the dog. She learns fast.
In other pet news: Riley woke me up a 3am to feed him some dry food. So things are back to normal there.
Tuesday
- Worked on the report for the county, and an accounting of hours for
Dave's invoice for the same. A lot more hours than I expected, even
being fairly stingy on the last few days hours. Ah well.
Things
are going OK with Angel. I took her for a couple of walks, and let her
run around the back yard. She's pretty rambunctious back there - we may
need to escape-proof Ann's back yard before delivering the dog. She
hasn't a clue about playing fetch, or heeling, or anything else. But
she's sweet, and attentive, and fairly smart, so I don't think there
will be too many issues.
S came by in the early evening and we worked on some initial "clicker"
training.
S made some calls, and Angel hadn't
had all her shots, which the rescue people sort of said she had. Not a
big deal, but it explains the kennel cough and of course it's another
expense and another vet clinic visit a week or two down the road.
Riley seems to be just about back to normal, for a fifteen year old
cat.
I
had talked to the vet Monday, and he said the kidney issues weren't the
problem, it was probably a bladder infection, and that the antibiotic
shot he'd given Riley should clear it up. So that's good news.
Monday
- Veteran's Day.
I see Obama decided not to give a speech at Gettysburgh. No surprise
there. Incompetent and
without class.
S
is back, and I have the new dog. It was code named "Delilah", but after
seeing a picture Ann decided that it should be named "Angel". Angel,
it turns out, has a case of kennel cough, and can't be around Sheryl's
dogs for a bit. So I have her. She is untrained, but not ferocious
about cats. If they run she'll chase, otherwise everyone is pretty much
keeping each other at a distance. I hadn't disassembled the big cage,
so it all works out. She has the run of the house when I'm around, and
a big cage - that she's very happy with - when I'm not.
Working
away on the mapping update stuff for Ventura County. Everything takes
so much longer than I expect. The good thing is that doing it this slow
way gives me a lot of insight into how to set up the Update Form
properly - I'm up to revision six already. But it's mostly done, I need
to write a final report, run it by Dave and Tim for vetting, then send
it off to the county.
Sadly my county contact isn't around, he
had an unexpected death in the family, so I can't talk to him about it
until next week sometime.
Sunday
- The kittens are back to normal, healthy and rambunctious.
Riley
is better. He didn't want to eat but I smeared liver pate on his muzzle
from time to time, forcing him to lick it off. By evening he deigned to
even eat a little dry cat food on his own. Yay!
Sad news. Rosie,
my friend's mother's dog, passed away. She had been having seizures for
some time, so it wasn't entirely unexpected. However S had to make an
emergency trip down to San Diego to help deal with things.
What
I forgot to write about yesterday was that we'd picked up a young dog
from a rescue group, as Rosie's companion and eventual replacement. We
just didn't think she'd be needed quite so soon. S is going to train
her a bit - she has a habit of bolting towards an opened door - and
then deliver her to her mom.
