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WEEK 41 2013

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Saturday 12 October 2013

Saturday - Working away on this and that, not a lot to say. Out to lunch with friends at the Asian Buffet, formerly the Blue Koi. I was fine, but my friends reported various intestinal issues afterwards. I didn't do anything fish related, so that may be part of it.

In the evening was a performance at the LPAC, "Ring of Fire: The Music of Johnny Cash". It was a lot of fun. A lot more gospel than I realized, but still entertaining. Sort of an abbreviated biography set to his own music.

During the day I'm keeping Jim in the master bath, isolated from the other cats. He is becoming more energetic, and is interested in escaping, but needs to stay in for three or four days. Riley's hiss and occasional paw under the door don't seem to faze him much. Mostly he wants to crawl on the human, and rub on the human, get petted, and purr, purr, purr. I put about an hour in, several times a day, so as not to let him get too lonely. I then take a shower afterwards, and change clothes, so as not to transmit any notional diseases.

He has a bit of a cough, but apparently that can just be from the endo-traecheal tube they stick down a cats throat when "fixing" him. He shows no sign of other problem, no runny eyes, no runny nose, etc. He's pretty thin, and eats like a horse, and there is finally something in the litter box for me to handle.

Friday 11 October 2013

Friday - So, a busy day. And a nice day - in the 60's after the storm earlier in the week, blue sky with a few puffy clouds here and there. Unusual for this town.

I purchased a shot kit for the kitten. Sheryl, looking on line, discovered that the way to give a cat a shot is to wait until it's hungry, give it a bowl of its favorite food, then stick it in the neck while it's eating. And this worked perfectly for Suzy. To deter her biting I've started using a squirt bottle with water. It only took two spritzes for her to realize that the attacks had caused a response, and what the response was. It took the better part of a day, however, for her to (mostly) give up on the idea. She's a determined little creature, unwilling to admit defeat.

Then we went by and picked up Jim from the pound. They'd 'fixed' him, and gave him his shots, and a microchip, and so on. It took the better part of an hour to get him out of hock, lots of forms and stamps, licenses and so on. Classic bureaucrats. He was very happy to be with people again. To avoid transferring 'kennel cough' or whatever he may have picked up in the pound I have him in one of the bathrooms, with towels and toys and string to play with, and try to spend a hour at a time with him, several times a day.

He was absolutely ravenous, devouring his food in seconds. I'd give him more, but the post surgical leaflet said 1/4 cup, so that's what he got.

While sitting in there with rambunctious kitty Riley would wait outside the bathroom door, hissing occasionally, and now and then sticking a paw under the door.

Honestly, though I'm a little stunned by my actions here I think the two kittens, Jim & Suzy, will be happier together in the end.

I did pick up some more vitamin medicine for Riley as well, and confirmed that a colace pill is OK for his occasional constipation. So that's good to know.

Thursday 10 October 2013

Thursday - A busy day. A friend had a medical appointment at UCLA, so I volunteered to be the driver. It was a long trip down - several accidents and stalls, then a nice lunch afterwards at the gnocchi place (Pomodoro Tratorria), and another tedious drive home - a big slowdown on the 405 past a major accident. About 8am to 4pm when all was said and done.

Then I volunteered to be on a review board for an Eagle Scout's "palm" award in the early evening. So, I didn't really have much time to do anything else.

I did hear from my boss that he had to go out to the Saticoy construction site today, because of an issue with the contractor and his storm water diversion, so no inspection tomorrow, he covered that while he was out there...

The kitten is a biter, and I've been trying to cure her of that. I was told to flip her on the nose with my finger when she bites - but she essentially has taken it as a "So, you really want fight?" challenge. Since her reactions are already faster than mine this isn't a battle I can win.

I'll try a spray bottle of water next. Since she's started attacking the drapes I'll need to spritz her then as well.

Tomorrow afternoon I'll pick up Jim, the new kitten. He's friendly and likes people, as opposed to the rather wild Suzy. Hopefully he'll civilize her a bit. Riley has been boxing her ears when she pounces on him or his (irresistible) tail, but he is about 5x her size.

I have to keep him separate from the other cats for a week or so - lot's of disease going around in the pound, though he seems clean right now.

Wednesday 9 October 2013

Wednesday - Working away on the EDR thing. There are some issues - I'm not sure if it's a Win7 thing or an Office Excel 2007 issue.

The kitten and Riley continue to sort of get along. She stalks him, he stalks her, they touch noses, he boxes her ears. I've known human couples like that...

I'm going to get another kitten. She clearly needs someone to play with, and it's probably not going to be a 14 year old Siamese in poor health. My friend S has found a likely candidate at the pound, so I went over and paid the various fees. They demanded to see my ID - odd, you don't even need that to vote after all.... Since they are going to fix him (it's a he) and give him some shots I can't take him home until Friday. I'll probably be out of town then, so S will pick him up for me.

And, yeah, supposedly we are going down to look at the work the Contractor has been doing,Friday. Things are a bit delayed since a storm has blown in and they can't work in the rain. Also an upstream farmer has apparently been irrigating.

Since the PM has apparently been verbally changing things I'm not sure we should even go - we were the design team, and if you've changed the design then what need to you have of us? It's an uncomfortable situation to be in. I've suggested to my boss that we try to get a copy of all the changes and directives in writing.

Tuesday 8 October 2013

Tuesday - Went by in the morning and picked up the kitten. A happy, but rambunctious soul. I think she and Riley are playing, but it's hard to tell with cats. There is still the occasional snarl and hiss, on either side...

It's very windy, looks like a storm is blowing through. Well, it is October already. There may be rain tonight.

Working away on the 'other things'.

The first is the EDR stuff. It's mostly done, but I've moved from the old PC I did it on, and have to try it out on Win7 and see that everything is in order and document it, then send it off. I'll try a Dropbox link, since there are issues in sending executables (*.vbs) files through email.

The second is the GIS update stuff. This pause while I worked on the big contract and went to class helped give my mind time to go over things, and I've thought of some improvements to the process, so that's good. And the laptop has been updated to 2GB, so I can run the GIS and, say, Excel, at the same time. It still takes nearly 10 minutes to load a map - that's processor and disk dependent I guess, but any improvement is welcomed.

Third is the iPad stuff. I've settled on Singletons for dealing with global data, and am working on version 3 of the color app, but I just need some distraction free time .

Monday 7 October 2013

Monday - Each morning, when I let the Riley out for his morning constitutional, I check the side yard for stray tomcats and that the gate is closed.

This morning I didn't, preoccupied by the kitten. Around noon a neighbor came by and said "Did you know your gate was open?".

Uh, no. Riley had been in and out of the patio doors several times already by then, and that side yard with it's exposure to the morning sun and good windbreak properties is his favorite spot. I guess he wasn't feeling adventurous.

I made preparations to head south for more inspection on Tuesday, but got a call late in the evening (after I'd dropped off the kitten at R&S's) that it had been canceled. So I can take care of some other things I guess.

Sunday 6 October 2013

Sunday - A quiet morning, not much going on. Doing various chores around the house, playing with the kitten.

Supposedly we are supposed to do more inspection on Tuesday, but really haven't heard back from the County on the issues we saw on Friday morning. I know they do the 9/80 thing there, and I suppose they don't check their mail over the weekend; that's something people in small private firms do. I think Dave is going to try to contact someone by text anyway.

In the mean time I've lots to do. There are a couple of small contracts I need to finish up, so that Dave can bill them out.

Riley seems somewhat better. I went ahead and gave him the contents of a Colace gelcap. He hated it, foamed up at the mouth horribly, and fought to get away. I'd taken the medicine out of the gel cap, but apparently that just made the taste worse. Next time I'll just pill him, he puts up with that. Anyway, he had some small BM's and didn't seem to be in distress, so maybe that worked out.

He and the kitten continue to be somewhat stand offish. They shared my lap for an hour while ignoring each other last night, for example. Later, when Suzy the kitten got frenetic Riley batted her right off the sofa. She ran and hissed at him from under the footstool. A feisty little scrapper. No injuries, I checked, so he's just boxing, no claws.

She'll need to learn who's alpha cat, that's how the process works with felines, but it's a bit nerve wracking to observe.

I see that Obama, with help and support from the Democrats, is being just as petty and mean as he can be with the government furlough.

I was talking to someone who blamed it on the Republicans. I pointed out that it was Obama who refused to sign the budget. He said it was the Republicans fault for putting the repeal in. I pointed out that if it was OK to pass and fund Obamacare on a straight party line vote, then it was just as OK to defund it in a straight party line vote, so the extra little cherry on top of a furlough was entirely O's fault. He didn't really have any real counter argument, few so-called liberals do, just talking points from the media.

Picture of the Week

The constellation Orion, via T3i, September 2013.

Photo Notes: Orion, via the T3i, September 2013.

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