Unbeknownst to Me

Coworker: “What’s that?”
Me: “A heater. It gets cold in here.”
Coworker: “You’re crazy–it’s not cold in here!”
Me: “…because I have a heater on.”

My dad is totally a backseat driver, er, ASK-21 glider pilot.

I’ve finally gotten around to uploading some photos from my trip to Chicago last June.

And here is a select list–for those who can’t get Apple’s “Photo RSS” to work–of Dominica photos.

If you’re anxious every time you go some place because they usually do something really painful most of the time, is it a “phobia” or just “rational expectations”?

Yeah, I went to the dentist’s today. I think my mouth will be replacing the Franklin Mint as the primary repository of porcelain.

Here are some prettier things. Click on the above photo to go to a Flickr photoset full of them. (OK, there’s also a frog and a reprise of the bear scat. That was one big bear!)

I haven’t been posting much, I know. But I’m in one of those periods where little has really inspired me enough to write everybody in the whole world to tell them about it. I’m a firm believer in “write when you have something to say, not just to hear the sound of your own keyboard clacking.”

I’ve been busy with work, gone out on a couple of dates, gone hiking, and I went to Sonoma, CA for the Online Community Summit and saw my friend Robert in San Francisco that weekend. I might have some nice photos if I can ever get a selection down and get them on Flickr or some such (I’ve pretty much given up on Apple’s solution, until I hear that they’ve decided to have normal RSS feeds the rest of the world can consume).

Oh, I got a shiny new 24″ iMac Core 2 Duo, from which this is written. Maybe I’ve been just gazing at it much as the caveman gazed at the obelisk in 2001, and that’s why I haven’t posted. I’m sure I’ll be grabbing a jawbone and hitting somebody with it any day now.

Squeak continues to be fine. Still no idea what was wrong.

It was like Walking Stick porn everywhere. This one was taking a breather.

I’m backdating this for accuracy’s sake.

So I had a message on my voicemail when I got home–Squeak’s bloodwork came back earlier than I was expecting, and he has his highest calcium yet, and everything else looks good. We’ll double-check in six months, but barring further evidence of distress, he’s Vet-Certified Cockatiel.

Of course, last night he weighed in at 116 grams. The vet said as long as he doesn’t actually get fat (you can still feel his keel bone), the weight is not too much of a concern. He’s now fully on the other of the two healthiest brands of pelleted diet, so he’s keeping all this weight himself.

So presuming he doesn’t break his perch, we’re good to go.

Thanks to everybody who wished him well–something worked. While I still don’t know what it was, it seems to be over for now.

I’ll try to rant about something suitably libertarian soon.

Woke up this morning at 6 with a splitting headache. Hopefully this is one of those “everything else will seem better by comparison” types of days. But it’s Monday, so you never know.

Squeak update: Squeak, by the way, has turned into a little pig-bird. He’s broken 100 grams a couple of times, so I’m trying to figure out how to manage his weight. A bigger cage so he can exercise more is on order.

Just to keep everybody in the loop, as Patty and others were kind enough to ask after Squeak, I thought I’d post an update on his progress.

It’s been really good, so much better than I could even envision three weeks ago. He has been hovering in the 86 to 88 gram range for the past few days, so he is making progress and keeping it on. He’s even eating a more-than-half pellet diet, albeit not the über-healthy pellets he was eating. Still, plenty of time to worry about that after he’s fully recovered. I took him to the vet’s on Saturday for a recheck which went well, and they drew blood for a full panel that will be back on Wednesday or Thursday.

Hopefully at that point I can quit bugging him with his twice-daily meds which he has simultaneously gotten used to and gotten to dislike. He tries to avoid them but once I get him in The Position (flat on his back, wings constrained), he just opens up and nips at the syringe–though he’s still adept at turning his head at the last second, and he tries to avoid getting in The Position if he sees it coming. So I have to mix things up, sometimes bringing the syringes out, sometimes taking him in to them, sometimes bringing them out and then leaving them…

Yes, I am matching wits with a creature posessed of a 3cc brain. I just wished it were more of an uneven contest…