Fairweather Zealot

Hmm, WordPress for iPhone seems to have a little bug – it eats your posts sometimes. Strange. Guess I’ll have to either re-write them or … more likely … shrug it off and keep going.

-2*(-2)=4

On Monday, one of Shari and my Flickr friends, PhotoPatty, was in town with her husband Al, and we decided to get together so that I could show them around the birding hot spots in NJ. Or rather, some of the coastal hot spots (such as they are in the middle of summer). Continue reading

Okay – I’ve already been playing catch-up this month, so here’s just something funny I saw yesterday from the King of Usability, Jeffrey Zeldman:

On Thursday, two good things happened: my cousin Sarah came back from Ecuador, and I got some good news about my heart concerns. Continue reading

I was guiding PhotoPatty and Al around Forsythe NWR when she suddenly points down into the water and says, "I think that’s a shark!". If I hadn’t seen it, I would never have thought I would see a shark (let alone 2, maybe 3) in the east pool of Forsythe NWR.

Funk

I’ve been in a funk lately, one that is especially deep today. I’m not completely sure what it is about, but I can’t seem to break out of it.

I have some ideas of the causes but they shouldn’t be getting me this down. I think the chief concern recently is my health: I dislocated my toe, and it isn’t healing; I’ve been like shit for weeks; I’ve been sleeping like shit for weeks and getting heart palpitations recently, which scares the bejeezus out of me. And to top it off, I haven’t exercised in weeks beyond my daily 1.7 mile walk to and from the train stations – which ends up frustrating me more as I get fat and more out of shape.

And I’ve been just generally stressed, which never works out well for me. It feels like my life has been WORK > CHORES > TV > BED on weekdays, and CHORES > TV > BED on weekends, with little time for personal stuff like birding and design projects.

So, starting today I’m going to do everything I can to get myself together. Positive attitude is the first step, and I’m going to use this blog to help support that by posting at least one positive thing every day in August.

Miles when I found three lumps – squishy ones on his back and belly, and what looked like a pimple that was twice the size it had been a week earlier. That, coupled with his increasing difficulty in getting up off the floor due to stiffness prompted an impromptu vet visit last night.

We got good news and bad news – good news: he doesn’t have cancer, he’s just fat. The lumps were ‘fatty deposits’ that were a combination of getting older and him being a lard ass. The ‘pimple’ was a cyst but nothing to worry about unless it doesn’t resolve in a week or two.

As for his stiffness, that’s the bad news. Miles has burgeoning hip dysplasia in both hips, and it’s causing stress on his bad knees as well. Luckily, the vet thought that him losing about 10 pounds, coupled with more EASY exercise and some OTC meds (anti-inflammatories, glucosamine + chondroitan, omega-3 fatty acids) should relieve many of his symptoms and surgery can be held off. Which is good, because with all of his other health problems, I’m not sure we’d spend the money on the surgery for him.

It’s a hard decision to make, but it’s not only hips – it’s all four knees which would have to be fixed too, and we simply can’t afford $10,000 for a dog who – while very lovable – is prematurely aging and probably won’t be around much longer. I hate thinking that we are already making decisions like that about him – sealing his fate, as it were – but it’s a necessary evil.

In any case, we can treat him and make him feel better, and since he seems generally happy (if a bit bored since we have been too busy to spend enough time with either dog), I hope that will be enough to help him enjoy his life with a minimum of pain.

Last Saturday, I got a bunch of cash out because we needed some for a graduation gift and some for cash on hand. It was in those envelopes that banks give you, which I hate and normally dispose of quickly. For some reason, however, I kept the money in there this time and when we got home from the Phillies game Sunday, I put it down on my desk. Fast forward 3 days, and when I got to look for it, it’s gone. I look everywhere, ranting and raving about how I can’t figure out where it would have gone. Shari looks at me with that knowing look, sure that I have just misplaced it, while I’m sure that I knew where I put it but look elsewhere anyway. I even make a passing joke that maybe the dogs ate it.

So yesterday, I get a message from Shari that she has found the money. Unfortunately, she found it while cleaning the yard of the dogs’ ‘business’. Yes, that’s right – it was in the dog poop. Literally, the dogs did eat the money – about $80 worth. Near as I can figure, the cat – upon NOT getting her way – knocked the envelope to the ground, where our Dog Oakley investigated and, having a distinct penchant for eating paper (napkins, paper towels, coupons, rummy score sheets, etc.) decided that the envelope and its contents looked simply DEE-lish.

What to do, what to do?

Well, if it were $2 or even $20, I would have written that off. But $80 was a little much to just shrug away so I did what might be the second worst job I have ever done*, and I grabbed some latex gloves and went after the money. It wasn’t a pretty job, but a little ‘probing’ provided me with a bunch of scraps of $20 bills. Washing them off in the yard, I realized that I had parts of 4 different bills, but not necessarily ALL of the bills. Back in I went for round 2.

At the end, I had all of the scraps I could find, so I rinsed them off with the hose, then put them in a plastic bag with a ton of rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide to sanitize them. After a couple hours in that solution, I rinsed them a half-dozen times with hot water and then dried them out. This morning, I put them together and taped them. End result:

• 2 bills are completely recovered – both serial numbers intact and most of the bill remaining.
• 1 bill mostly recovered – one serial number intact, the other partially there and a good 75% of the bill.
• 1 bill is very iffy – one serial number and barely 50% of the bill.

Now, according to the rules from the Treasury department, as long as a bill is over 50% present and is identifiable as U.S. currency, the banks have to accept it and give me a new bill. As you can see below, I think I should get all $80 back. But we’ll see.

As for Oakley, I’d prefer if he’s start laying golden eggs instead of recycling my hard-earned cash.

I can not seem to catch up with my writing (or pretty much anything else) lately. And there has been some good stuff happening. Continue reading