Gator Eats Beagle

Best. Halloween costume. Ever.

Well, I'm all done with trapping - at least for now. I did infact have a whole family - mom, dad and 4 kittens (one male, three female.) All have been spayed or neutered and the mom and dad have already been released back to where they were trapped. The kittens have been released into a large room at our new IDA NW office. They're pretty feral and are going to need a lot of coaxing to get them to come around. The male, who was caught first, is close to coming out of his shell, but the females are all really wild.

Fingers-crossed, I've hopefully jumped through my last hoop on my pending litigation against the toolbag who hit me back in February. This has dragged on and on and has been a super pain in the ass. Worst part, my hand is jacked up and won't ever be the same. I should know in 4-6 weeks what sort of settlement to expect.

Trappin'

Trying to make her as comfortable as possible in my tiny laundry room.

I'm working late tonight trapping some feral cats that are around my building. I started last night and was surprised to find more than I had initially suspected - there are at least 6 and I had only seen 3-4. Looks like a mama, daddy and 4 kittens around the age of 12-14 weeks I'd guess. There's also a really sweet long-haired gray cat as well who won't stop following me and eating the canned food I put out to draw the ferals over. Tonight the gray cat tripped one of the traps, so hopefully I've seen the last of her - at least while I'm trapping.

Unfortunately, Portland is really no better than any other part of the country and there are limited resources to pay for the spays and neuters these cats are about to undergo. Connie, my co-worker, has been a real help in finding resources. It's still going to cost us around $30 per cat for the surgeries.

The kitten I trapped last night was of course terrified. She was however, very gentle and didn't take the many opportunities I gave her to tear me a new one, so I have hope that we can work with her and the rest of the kittens to make them adoptable. We are in the process of moving the office here to a much larger space, so we should be able to keep them there while we work on them - which is good because I really got an awakening last night as to just how small my apartment is in trying to keep this one kitten sequestered from my cats. Lot to love about my apartment, but size aint one of those things.

Hopefully I can fill the 3 traps I've got set and get these cats in to surgery tomorrow. And hopefully I won't be up to 3 a.m. making that happen.

The Donkey

My father, who was more of a Democrat that he would like to admit, used to say that my grandfather's side of the family was so strongly Democrat they'd vote for the donkey if he/she ran.

They do things a little differently here in Oregon than in Virginia. Here in Oregon, they mail you a ballot (mine arrived Friday) and a Voter's Pamphlet and you essentially vote from the privacy of your home. You then either mail back the ballot or drop it off. Pretty quick and easy and there's a paper trail, so it's tougher for Carl Rove and his cronies to tamper with. Not that I have to be concerned with that here in my blue state. I mailed mine off today, so I'm all done. It's up to the rest of you people to do the right thing now. (And by 'right thing' I of course mean vote for Obama - don't fuck this up!)

Little House on the Prairie

Hey Jebediah, flip it over to Ice Road Truckers, will ya?

A couple of weeks ago I turned in my digital cable box to Comcast. At the time, and in fact up until the very moment that I handed the box to the guy at the counter, I was still wrestling with just what I was going to do. I was waffling hard between just cutting off the digital cable or getting rid of cable entirely. I imagined living without cable to be not unlike what Laura Ingalls Wilder's life was like on the prairie. I had imagined myself reading books by candlelight, going to bed at 7:30 and waking at 4 to milk cows or work the fields. For whatever reason, I went this route rather than continue to pay for TV.

There are several reasons I chose to get rid of cable. First and foremost, I was watching too damn much TV. And I'll watch anything, seriously. Ever heard of Ice Road Truckers? I knew I had a problem when I started to really care about what misadventures Bear and the boys would find themselves in this week.

Secondly, I hate paying for TV. I have never enjoyed giving my money every month to Cox or Comcast. And cable is expensive. Hell, I was paying close to $50 a month and I was still under a discount plan I signed up for when I moved to Portland. In another month or two it was going to creep up to close to $80.

Lastly, all the best TV is free! OK, so this isn't exactly true. I mean, if that were true then I'd be able to receive Ice Road Truckers through my newly purchased Radio Shack antenna and clearly I cannot - and believe me I've tried. But for free I do get The Office, 30 Rock, SNL, OPB, etc. I can even get Hole in the Wall, which is like the Ice Road Truckers of Fox.

My biggest concern with going off the grid (or as close as I wanna get) was not being able to receive NFL football games on Sunday. As many of you probably know, I'm kind of a big football fan. It's my only vice. OK, that's a lie. But it's my biggest vice. Not true either. Anyway, I went pretty much without football all last season when I was working in Mississippi and it sucked. Fortunately, I can get most of the games (the exception being ESPN's Monday night game) and with relative clarity. At least clear enough that, for free, I can live with it.

So for now, I'm living the simple life. Spending more time with the kitties (well, Pants anyway), reading more, and watching a hell of a lot of crap on free TV. Have you seen Hole in the Wall? It's funny as hell.

Ugh, sick

I haven't been sick in FOREVER. Seriously, it's been years and I've been like a super-human, but last night it started - sore throat, stuffy head, the works. I'm not sure if I picked up a bug form the HSUS workshop or on the very cold bike ride last night to the Oregon Manifest Filmed by Bike movie showing. Either way, I'm screwed now.

The Filmed by Bike movie showing last night was awesome - almost worth getting the plague for. It was shown at a huge advertising agency in the Pearl District (Portland's swankiest area.) The advertising agency's space was incredible. It's a huge converted old warehouse. When I walked in it seemed like a pretty small space - crowded with hipster douchebags wearing all manner of bicycle related stuff - but when I walked upstairs to the viewing area - wow. It was a gigantic space. The viewing area was like a basketball court with two huge projectors and giant screens. The warehouse must be 8 stories tall at least. All their work spaces were in this area, too. It was just really an amazing space. Here's are a couple of photos from my iPhone of the movie viewing area.

This is a shot of the entrance.

This is the screen and some of the bleachers.

Workshop

I'll be in Everett, WA for the next few days attending a DART workshop with my coworker Connie. Connie comes from a huge family of something like ten brothers and sisters, so she has family all over the Pacific Northwest and we'll be staying at her cousin's house.

I'm looking forward to the training, but I will miss my cats like crazy. Working from home this past year I've gotten so attached to having them around and it's hard to leave for any length of time. Hopefully her cousin has a cat I can use as a stand-in while I'm there.

In the meantime, enjoy Jens Lekman. I love this guy, his music is corny, but awesome.

Fasting

I woke up Tuesday and for some unknown reason decided I would not eat for the entire day. I didn't include coffee nor did I include the smoothie I had around 2 o'clock. I figured if I drink the bananas, mango and strawberries it wasn't cheating. I was hungry sure, but felt really good. I damn near made it, too, but with mere hours to go, I remembered the chips and salsa in the kitchen and threw in the towel. I sort of felt bad afterward, but not really. What can I say, I'd make a shitty muslim.

Tomorrow I'll take what I learned from my first failed attempt and try again. I'm hoping to make this a weekly thing. No idea why. Perhaps in preparation of the leaner times to come in the economy - better to practice now, right?

On a completely unrelated topic, I was working on a short edit for work which included a video my predecessor, Gabe, put together shortly after Hurricane Katrina. It was three years ago today that I arrive in Waveland, MS to help. Crazy how time flies - enjoy the video.