Don't Abuse the Cat!

I'm a UNIX geek. The first UNIX-based system I interacted with was in 1989 in the second half of my freshman year at Penn State. I've had them as hobby systems for pretty much the entire time since college. I've also worked with them, in a professional capacity since the mid-90s. So, I've got a bit of experience with using them.

With that much time using UNIX systems, I've developed some habits and something bordering on beliefs about how to use them. When people do things that violate those habits or "beliefs", it kinda hits a nerve. One of the biggest (irrational) annoyances is when people fire up two commands to accomplish what could be done with one. The biggest annoyance in this family of annoyances is piping the output of cat to another program that can read the file directly. The most common of these seems to be the infamous `cat ${file} | grep ${PATTERN}`. The one that probably annoys me the most, however, is `cat ${file} | more`.

Whut. The. Fuck. Seriously? Did you just type that? Worse: did I actually see you write in an operations guide to use that as a standard procedure? FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

Seriously: I die a bit, inside, every time I witness someone write/say "cat file | grep TERM" (or similar). There's been more than a few SA's (team members, customers, etc.) that have heard me bellow, "don't abuse the cat!"

Morning Games

Living with cats is always an olfactory adventure. Even if you keep their box scrupulously clean and the cats are quiet and out of sight, whenever you walk into a home with cats, you know it instantly.

Aside from the ever present scent of eau de cat, other smells can come up. Today was one of those days. I came down from bed to telecommute (it's a documentation week). As I'm sitting on my couch, tapping away at a document with "KLG and Hoda" blaring in the background, I notice a kind of rotty smell. I'd assumed it was something in the trash, but that wasn't it. I didn't see anything within sight that would account for it, either.

I wanted to just ignore it. Unfortunately, it was one of those odors that you couldn't just ignore (and, it was only after finding it's source that I figured out why that was). So, I got up off the couch and began to try to localize the smell. Oddly, no matter which direction away from my couch I went, the smell quickly faded. I thought to myself, "not good: that means the smell is in or under where I'm sitting". Awesome.

I got down on my hands and knees to see if I could spy the source of the smell. Bare knees on hardwood floors sucks, by the way. After wracking my knees, I was at least able to determine that I couldn't see the smell source, but that it appeared to be emanating from under the couch rather than from within it. Small victories, I suppose.

I stood up, and began to clear the area to where I'd need to move the couch. Once cleared, I slid the couch out - muttering under my breath about yet more scratches to the hardwood being caused by the couch grinding grit across the floor. There, dead center of the spot previously covered by the couch was the rotting body of a mouse.

I can only surmise that, due to the prior night's chill, it had snuck into our house for warmth. Usually, when this happens, I find bloody remains scattered about the living-room floor. I can only guess that the cats chased the little guy under the couch where he died of a fear-induced heart attack. Given where he was, there was no way for the cats to fish him out, either.

At any rate: big thanks to my cats for forcing me to start the day with a game of "find that awful smell".

En Garde?

Every time I see the Tampa Bay Lightning's coach, I think, "he must have gotten that scar in a duel."

Seriously, just look at this guy:

Guy Bouche

He looks like he's been in a damned sword-fight (or two). When you see him during a game, all fired up, you're just waiting form him to whip out a gauntlet, slap someone, and then poke him with an Épée.

That's Just About Annoying

I am a StumbleUpon user. It's a great way to kill time. Sometimes, it's amusing; sometimes horrifying; many times it brings you things that can't be "unseen." And, there are times where it brings you stuff that's just fucking annoying. A few minutes ago was one of those annoying Stumbles. Apparently, someone liked something hosted on MSN's entertainment portal. I don't inherently have a problem with MSN or entertainment sites. I don't even particularly have a problem with the main content of the page StumbleUpon sent me to. No, what I have a problem with is this:

All I can think is "Fuck you, Microsoft." I really don't like a websit telling me "use a different browser" particularly to tell me to use their browser (I can be tolerate being told, "this site best viewed in a more standards-compliant browser, but that's about it. Telling me "use our browser so that the you can see all of the nifty standards we've broken rendered correctly" just pisses me off). Even if I was inclined to change browsers, I wouldn't be going back to that site. Shit like this pisses me off. Makes me want to add MSN addresses to my hosts file's loopback list. 

Fuckers.

Whatever asshats thought this was a good idea need to die slowly in a fire.

One Step Closer

Just got word back: our adoption papers have been approved (vet and other references checks are passed and the home visit was a "go"). Now, we just gotta get coordinated on when they can bring the new pup over to see if he's good with cats.

Pack Mule

That's Gizmo/Winston with doggy carry-packs on. He's high energy, so, may have to keep him weighted down on walks to help tire him out. And, yes, he's got mismatched eyes.

WTF, Lowes

Sometimes, I don't "get" the phone calls I get from businesses. Case in point, our recent purchase of an outdoor table and chair set from the nearby Lowes. We'd ordered it with delivery and assembly service, with service date being today. This morning, I get a call from the guy at Lowes. They won't be delivering it, today, because they don't have it in stock and that he'd call back, later today, when he had a stock-in date to arrange the delivery. Okay...

Just a few minutes ago, the guy calls back. He informs me that he has spoken to their garden department manager and was informed that they don't carry that item. I note to him that I found this rather odd, as I'd taken the bar-code card off of the set that was sitting on display over in the garden furniture area. He agreed that what he'd said didn't make sense and that he'd have to talk to the garden manager, again, since he wasn't seeing the set as being at other stores or being orderable. I noted that this seemed rather odd, as well, since the bar-code card had an entry in their point-of-sale system that had allowed the cashier to ring up the $780 worth of furniture and delivery/assembly services. He agreed and sounded even more confused, but assured me he'd call back with an answer before he left for the day.

Meanwhile, I've got a $780 charge sitting on my Visa, no furniture and no resolution in site. God how I love modern retail.

A Visitation

So, today we braved the torrential downpours and gale-force winds (I'm exaggerating, but not by very much) to go and meet the dog we first saw online as "Gizmo". Having met him, I can agree with the current fosters that "Gizmo" might not be the right name for him, but neither is the "Winston" they've been trying to rename him to. For now, I'm thinking that if he ends up our, we'll probably call him "Dubz" (or "Dubzy"), as his fosters are, sometimes referring to him as just "W". Look at the picture, below:

Happy-daig

He seems like the kind of dog that may spawn a thousand names ...Much as Puckett did.

At any rate, today's trip seemed like it was a very good meeting. We walked both dogs, side-by-side, throughout the store, outside and back in again. Initially, they mostly ignored each other. Then they exchanged sniffs. Then a few more sniffs. Then the full on doggy greetings. Then back to ignoring each other. Then more sniffs and greetings. There was a little bit of "am I the alpha?" posturing from both, but neither got too revved up and both quickly disengaged without prompting. 

I didn't want to stay too long, because, not yet knowing how well he'll do with our cats, I don't want to fall in love and be disappointed.. The shelter that the fosters had gotten the dog from had indicated that he'd passed basic cat tests, but, we won't know how he does with ours until he comes to our house for a visit. Hopefully, he does well.

On the plus side of it all, while some of his pix made me think of Puckett, meeting him removed my fears that he'll be too much like Puckett. He's very much a different dog. Still, he shows signs of being in a similar class of awesomeness that Puckett was in. I really hope this works out. 

US Bank Online Web Portal(s)

Each and every fucking time I use US Bank's web portal, I hate them more and more.

God. Their web site is just unspeakably horrible.That said, they do seem to make frequent changes to it.

Now, you'd think that they would be changing it to address some of its horribleness. You'd think that they'd try to change it for the better. But, no, such is not the case. Each time they change it, they actually manage to make it worse. I wouldn't think it possible, but, yet, every time they change it, they still manage to fuck it up worse.

This time was a real treat. I'm one of those people that bookmarks websites that I have to visit more than once. Helps with remembering where I need to go. Well, US Bank has decided I shouldn't go directly to that URL, any more. They've now set a redirect on the that URL that now points to a different website. Even better, the navigation on the new site is completely fucking brain-dead. If you click on the "login" button (on the page that has "mortgage" in the URL), it takes you away from the mortgage site and to their personal banking site. Unfortunately, you can't pay your mortgage through that site.

I call in to find out just what the fuck is going on. I'm told, "no, you don't click on the login button," (which, was pattently obvious, the first time you click on it and get redirected to someplace stupid). Instead, "you have to scroll down to the very bottom of the page and click on 'Manage & Pay Mortgage' link." How completely obvious was this bit of navigational daring-do?

At any rate, it's this "Manage & Pay" link that then takes you to the mortgage-specific login. And, to add insult to injury, that mortgage-specific login is the exact same damned page that my bookmark was set to, it's just now at a slightly different URL. Whut. The. Fuck?

The whole point of an online banking system is to make things so that your customer doesn't have to interact with an expensive to employ/maintain human. It really rather defeats the purpose when your web site is set up so horribly that people have to call in, navigate your equally horrible call-tree, find they have to call three different phone numbers (because the "call this number for assistance" phone number takes you to the wrong department and the person at that department can't forward you and refers you to yet another incorrect number...)

I hate you, US Bank. I really do. I have no idea how your CSR's haven't gone on murder sprees, because I gotta think that the number of frustrated people calling in has to be rather high and a non-trivial percentage of those people are a lot less nice about things.

Too Close for Comfort

So, was searching through PetFinder to see if we could find a pup to help fill some of the gigantic hole left by Puckett's departure. It's kind of a depressing process. You see all these dogs in need, and part of you wishes you could help them all. You know you can't, but still...

At any rate, neither the local shelter nor the rescue organizations we got Puckett or Lana and Cira through seem to have any candidates of interest. Thus, I expanded my search. I have American Bulldog Rescue as a page I'm a fan of on FaceBook. Most of their pups are far away (PA, Florida, deep into the boonies of Maryland). However, when I looked at their "local" affiliate (their Maryland pet listings), I found a link to a dog named Gizmo (apparently, now "Winston"). This was a courtesy posting for BullyPaws. So, I went to their site and looked at his profile.

He looked like a nice dog and is listed as cat and dog compatible. Since we have a staffie and two bengals, this was kind of an important consideration. So, I sent in a "we're interested" email and filled out the initial adoption application form. Yesterday, we got email back, directing us to the person that was actually fostering him. One of BullyPaws' volunteers called to go over the forms with us, to ensure that we knew what we might be getting into (if Winston works out, he'd be our fourth bully rescue and about my seventh dog). We had a nice conversation that gives me hope that we'll be able to work with them.

Winston's foster family got in touch with me via email. They sent me a link to their web site, since they'd posted up pictures of him and stories on his progress. He seems a really nifty dog ...but, oh my, does he have a startling resemblance to Puckett (that I'd not noticed  nearly so much in his BullyPaws profile).

We're set to go meet him, this weekend. We'd visit sooner, but he's about an hour's drive away and life is currently getting in the way of running out to see him. I'm hoping that the resemblance isn't too unsettling. I don't want to have unreasonable expectations. But, then again, maybe it just hints at a dog that's going to turn out to be as great as Puckett was. Tough act to follow, but one can hope, right?

Eerie Likenesses

Saw this girl  on BullyPaws.Org and wondered who'd cloned Lana:

This dog's name is "Serenity". Her ears are a bit different. Other pix make it look like she's got much less jacked-up teeth (they look normal rather than as though she'd chewed through a heavy chain to free herself (Lana was found as a stray in the Carolinas, if I remember her back-story correctly - probably after freeing herself from a fight-breeder). And her proportions are a bit different. But a couple of her pictures are an eerie likeness.

It's the Little Things That Hurt

Today, I was digging through my laptop, trying to find every last picture of Puckett and Lana that I'd yet to upload to Picasa. As I was prepping the pix to upload, I had a depressing realization: I'll need to remove Puckett and Lana from my Picasa quick-tagging options.

This was perhaps one of my favorite pictures of them. They were sitting on the floor at my couch begging for whatever I was eating at the time (actually, I think they were hanging out long after I'd finished eating). I got my camera to take a picture. As I was about to hit the capture button, Lana started to yawn and the flash made Puckett squint. The result is a picture that looks like her guffaw'ing and him snickering. I've had it as my cellphone wallpaper for nearly two, years, now.

Moments of Loss

Death is an interesting thing. Doesn't matter whether it's someone you loved - family, friend, dear pet, etc. - or someone you just spent a fair amount of time with (such as a co-worker), it has an effect on the survivors. The effects are immediate and they can be "here and there" for a long time.

It's the latter that are the most interesting, as you never know when they're going to happen or what's going to trigger them. I've come to refer to these as "moments of loss".With the recent loss of Puckett, we're still in that period where lots of little "moments of loss" occur.

My first real moment of loss, the day after we put Puckett down, was waking up to an empty dog pillow. When I turned to get out of bed, my feet didn't bump warm, slumbering dog-body. They just hit a cold, empty dog-pillow.

Donna's first real moment of loss came as she was preparing dinner. Puckett was always underfoot, particularly during food-prep - especially when Donna was chopping onions. Bad as onions can be for dogs, Puckett always loved them. As she prepped dinner, an errant piece of onion flew from her cutting board and landed on the floor. No dog was hovering at the ready to scarf it up. It just lay there, unclaimed.

End Times

So, we'd thought that we were going to have to put Puckett down, tomorrow. His cancer was aggressively advancing and he was looking thinner by the day. He was starting to have trouble holding down food or having interest in but all the most favorite morsels - fresh meats, peanutbutter, cheeses and the like. He'd lost interest in his rice and was eating around it. So, we'd switched to all meat & vegetable  dinners and hand-feeding him bits of meat, peanutbutter, and cheese any time we passed through the kitchen.

Sometime before I woke up, this morning, he'd scratched open the tumor on his head. Not wanting him to get an infection - even if there might only be a few days (or less) left - I brought him into the bathroom to clean up and treat the wound. My bathroom's a little on the small side. So, to get the door closed to prevent dog-escapes, I have to manhandle him. I decided to just lift him up from his bed and carry him in to make the whole thing easier. It was at that point that I realized just how much weight the cancer had taken from him: he was noticably lighter than his normal 57lbs; he was noticeably lighter than Lana had been when I'd had to carry her body from the vet's; he felt like he might actually even be approaching Cira's 42lbs. So, I knew we were close.

While I knew we were close to the end-date, we thought we had a little more time. We'd already gotten our prefered vets' schedules for the week when Donna had gone in to get him the anti-nausea medications. Friday, both of our regular vets were scheduled to be in. So, we figured, given the recent rate of decline and our preferred vets' schedules, that we'd do it Friday.

Today, when I came home from work, he was still taking handouts, but he seemed like he was doing it because it was his favorites, not because he had any real interest. So, I called and made the appointment. Then, we went out for one last walk, because it was a really beautiful day. I'd have put him in my convertible and taken him for a drive in the open air, but, it was the thick of Northern Virginia rushour (and would have been pointless). Donna had already taken Cira out from a longish walk. I was only intending to take him down to the end of the block and back. The effort of even that was noticeably wearing on him. But, as I was about to turn us around and head home, I noticed Donna and Cira coming up the next street. So, I waited for them to get closer, figuring the four of us could walk back home, together.

Donna wanted to take Puckett on one last visit to our local boarding kennel (Royal Pet Kennel). One of Donna's friends is on staff and was fond of Puckett (in all honesty, I don't know anyone that spent any time with him that wasn't fond of him). So, we extended our walk a little bit and went to see if Donna's friend was in. She was, so, we hung out a bit and let her say her goodbyes to him. Then, we walked home.

Donna opted to stay out on the front porch and enjoy some sun-time  in her rocking chair. She fetched up a bag of chips and a drink, got a pillow for Cira to lay on and hung out.

I went in to get Puckett a drink and try to feed him some more treats. He drank heartily - with the sloppy gusto that he'd always sloshed his water dish with. Though, in retrospect, there was a bit of desperation to it rather than just gusto. We'd kind of been thinking that the cancer may have been spreading from his lungs to his kidneys. The water said that was probably true. I left him out into the back yard so he could go to the bathroom. He took what, for recent trends, was a very short break. He didn't seem terribly interested in the usual sniffing about and lolly-gagging that he always indulged in on days as temparate and sunny as today.

I went out front to let Donna know he was seeming a bit out of it. She'd had enough of her chips and handed me them to bring back into the house. I figured, offer one to Puckett. He had no interest. Worried, I went into the kitchen and dipped my index finger into the jar of Jif and offered it to him. No interest. At that point, I knew that we couldn't wait for the planned exit. If he was refusing a finger of peanutbutter, he was in dire straights - probably in pain or discomfort that he couldn't communicate in any other effective way. I went out onto the front porch to show Donna the untouched peanutbutter. We agreed that we should take him down to the vet, post-haste. So, I called and got the ok to bring him in, immediately.

For better or worse, our vets' practice is just down the hill from us. So, it was a short trip - the only thing keeping us from getting there in under five minutes being the traffic along the one-mile route. I was already starting to fall apart, so, I had Donna go in and sign him in while I waited with him in the car. It was a short wait. They sent her out to get me and prepped the room while she did so. I walked him in, taking him down the very long hallway to the euthanasia room. The sign on the door said, "in use," so I thought, "damn: bad day for pets." No, the "in use" was to indicate that the room was waiting for us. They opened the door and directed us in, then summoned the duty-vet.

While we waited, they went through the paperwork with us. It was all too familiar, having just been through it only five months previous with Lana. Yes, we wanted to be in the room for the proceedings. Yes, we wanted the paw print. No, we didn't want to send his remains off for cremation - we'd already called Sunset Pet Services to let them know we'd need to use their after hours service. Then, they took Puckett out to get his catheter put in.

While he was off getting his catheter, I went up to take care of paying. Recently, I've been pumping most of my expenses through my Visa. Apparently, I'd left it at home. All I had with me was my AmEx - the same AmEx I'd paid for Lana's services with. I remarked that AmEx was apparently my personal death-card. Yeah, that's me - find the absurd and grim humor in any given situation. I'm perky like that.

They brought Puck back from getting his catheter in. The vet came in a short time later. She wanted to confirm that we really wanted to be present. She wanted to make sure we were ready for what we were about to see. I cut her off - letting her know we appreciated the cautions, but that we'd been through it just a few months previous, so were well aware of how it could go down and the steps involved.

Pets should never become sick in such short succession to each other that your vet's euthenasia discussion feels like when the stewardesses go through their seatbelt and breathing-mask spiel.

The vet laid a towel down on the floor and Puckett sorta laid half on and half off of it. Mook: always had to be goofy with things.

She prepped her syringes: the three salines for clearing the line; the knock-down anesthetic of milky bliss (Propofol); and the vial I've come to think of a "pink death" (probably some kind of sodium pentobarbital cocktail). Much like the euthanasia talk shouldn't be like the stewardess speech, one should never be familiar enough with the chemical agents to have nicknames for them. Dunno how vets are able to do it - it's such an awful task. Then again, I used to have problems watching the emergency vet shows on Animal Planet.

She pumped in the first of the salines to ensure that the catheter was clear. Then, came the milky bliss. Within seconds, he was pancaked. The last voluntary motion from him being a final, vigorous wag of the tail. It happened quicker than Lana's had. Didn't even really have time to see him flutter his eyes. Then, another syringe of saline to make way for the pink death. Finally, the pink death was started in. I felt him leave even before the last of the vial was gone. The vet seemed kind of surprised for me to say it, because it usually takes longer. But, when she applied her stethoscope, she confirmed that he had in fact passed.

Death is funny: you can feel "something" leave; you can see the eyes go from alive to being utterly empty. What was them is just suddenly gone. Even more, you can feel it - whether they were previously conscious or if they've been comatose. Never really understood it until I watched family die. It was really driven home by recently watching two pets be euthanised. I'm not spiritual. I'm not religious. But, when you're there for the moment that someone or something passes from alive to dead, you feel it.

The vet asked if we wanted time with his body before they took him for cleanup. Such an odd question. 

I'm generally not the most emotionally demonstrative person in the world. I didn't really cry at the death of my grandparents. I didn't even really grieve all that much when my dad died, two Novembers ago. But damned if I wasn't absolutely racked with great, heaving sobs of grief. For a dog. Not a human. Not my blood relations. For a dog. The rational part of me just can't rectify it other than that the deaths of humans I've witnessed or attended to, I played no part in. Even when you know it's the right thing, seeing to the death of a loved one - even if it's just a pet - is unbelievably hard.

After I got through the worst of it, Donna asked if she should go get the vet staff so they could take care of Puckett's body. Body. Yep. At that point, that's all it was: just a body. Puckett was gone - well and truly gone. She left the room and sought out a staffer. While she was gone, another wave of grief wracked me. It suddenly struck me, "crap: this might trigger a seizure." It was probably just the hyperventilation making me feel weird, but I didn't trust that I wouldn't have a seizure. So, I gave Donna the keys to the SUV and asked that she drive. 

The vet techs came in and asked if we wanted him put in a coffin. I've been down that road many years ago when cancer took my rabbit, BamBam. In vet parlance, a "coffin" is little more than a cardboard box barely large enough to hold the body. Sorry, but this was a family member, not something I'm gonna send via FedEx. We'd brought a large towel and his death-shrouds, at any rate. So, I politely declined the box, indicating we'd brought the towel. The techs and I carefully ensconced Puckett's body in the towel - they were nice enough to bring diaper-like pads to help control any post-mortem leakage on the journey home. I picked up the awkward yet disturbingly-light bundle and carried him out to the truck, bundled him into the back seat and set next to him, on it.

Donna drove us home. Traffic seemed oddly light. Then again, the sun sets later this time of year. Puckett's heart had stopped right around sunset, it seems. It was actually well after seven at this point - we'd apparently arrived a little before six PM. What feels like such a quick process actually takes surprisingly long. For both Lana and Puckett, we were at the vet for over an hour's time, each.

She pulled into the driveway. I got out of the truck, went into the house and into the back yard so I could unlatch and open the back gate. I came back down to the truck and carried his body to the back porch so Donna could prepare his body for delivery to the cremation service.

When a pet dies, Donna likes to send them off the right way. She likes to make them a set of shrouds to wrap them in and cover the outside of the bundle with the various names we'd called the pet during their life. The suddenness with which Lana's decline had crept up on us had meant she'd had to place the names using a sharpie. The slow nature of Puckett's decline meant she'd had time to hand-embroider his names into the sunny yellow exterior cloth. With blue embroidery floss, she'd placed names like: Puckett; Pucketty-Puck, Mook, Mooktastic, Mookenstein, Pucklehead and Indawä. The last was just a way of putting into a single word his tendency to always be under foot or "in the way". The yellow cloth was to commemorate the sunniness that was his personality.

It was kind of an odd, yet very fitting procedure. When I laid him down on the back porch, he kind of rolled over onto his back, his body assuming the same playful pose he often had in life. The way his lips sort of drew away (by gravity) even looked kind of like he was smiling.

We got the blue cloth, and placed him carfully on it, tucking his legs up against his body and tucking his chin towards his chest. Then we began to roll him up into the first cloth. As we got near the end of that length of cloth, his tail flopped out. It was like he was trying to wag his tail one last time. We carefully tucked his tail back in and then began rolling him into the embroidered, yellow cloth. Once wrapped up, Donna began to stich him into it. It occurred to me, if we're sending him off this way, we should send him off with a favorite. So, I grabbed one of the previous night's remaining hamburger rolls, slathered it with peanutbutter, and had Donna tuck it in with him.

I came out a while later to check on the progress. Donna had him all but completely stiched in. Much as he'd seemed to try to wag his tail while we did the initial wrap, he'd slobbered through his shrouds. Lana hadn't done that during her wrapup. So, it seemed like yet another, last, Puckett-y thing.

I called Sunset and let them know we were on the way. We drove out the all too familiar route to Sunset. When we got there, I got out and rang the night-bell. The staffer came out, we put his body on the cart, then went inside to fill out the paperwork. Paperwork done, I joined Donna at Puckett's body and we bid one more tearful goodbye to him. Then, we drove home.

House feels empty, somehow. I've got another dog, laying on her dog bed, working on a bone-toy. I've got a cat curled up at my hip as I write. Another cat is skulking about the house. Donna is sitting behind me quilting as we have a really awful zombie flick on NetFlix Streaming. Still, with all this life around me and the noise from the TV, the house feels quiet and empty.

 

If anyone actually reads this, sorry it was so long. I had to spill this all out so I have it to re-read later. It's gonna take a while for me to process. In the meantime, I can do a version of retail therapy and look through PetFinder.Com in hopes of finding another bundle of life to fill the gaping hole left by Puckett's departure.

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This would be about the time that you have to whip out the Benny Hill Look #5

Morning Revelations

Got up, this morning to start my daily routine. The last couple weeks, this routine has included letting Puckett out. Used to be, I'd go about my morning routines, alone, and Donna would let the pets out when she got up. Since being put on the steroids, Puckett's allowable time between bathroom breaks is greatly-reduced (he's drinking a lot of water and, naturally, is also producing a lot of urine).

When I brought him down, this morning, I'd noticed he'd scratched one of his tumors open. So, after feeding him some peanut-covered bread and a peanut-covered rice-ball, I took him back upstairs so I could take my shower. Before hopping in the shower, I decided to clean out where he'd scratched himself open. I dunno that he has enough time left for it to get infected, but I don't want to take the chance, either. So, I picked him up to go wash out the wound (he tends to resist going into the bathroom for cleanings and I didn't feel like the fight). He's definitely lost/losing weight. He feels like he weighs less than Lana did and probably not much more than Cira does. So, it's probably safe to assume he's dropped out of the 50lb range. This in a dog whose life-long, healthy weight was around 57lbs.

The Time Draws Close

Ugh. I feel like one of those sign-whackos you see out in front of public spaces. I feel like I should have a sign saying "the end is nigh".

Now that I'm home from work, I'm able to see that Puckett's noticeably skinnier, this evening, than he was last night before bed. I can actually see his heart beating through his chest (though, at least, his breathing doesn't seem labored, right now) and his face is so bony-looking.

I'd end it, tonight, but I'm not about to do something that requires me using the "night depository" at the pet crematorium. He deserves better than being left in a drop-box, even if what would be left wouldn't really be him.

I've got stuff at work that pretty much has to be done, or I"d do it tomorrow, during the day. Fortunately, both the vets that have been seeing after him, the past few years, are on duty, Friday. So, assuming he can wait that long (or doesn't experience some kind of miracle before then), we'll take him in and send him off.

Just Number Psychology

So, I'm at work and, while waiting for a program to run, decide to bop on over to CNN's website to see what the latest developments in the ongoing nuclear drama were. The one article cited extremely high levels of radioactivity, indicating levels in the area of 1000 millisieverts.

As may have come through in prior writings, I'm a bit of a geek. I work with computers, so, it's almost a requirement. Part of being a tech-geek is understaning the concept of "units". Along with that is understanding what the various unit-modifiers mean. Now, while I'm not advocating the US going out and switching from our current measurment system to metric, I do appreciate (and understand) base-ten unit modifiers. So, when I see someone say the equivalent of "one thousand thousandths" (or one million millionths, for that matter), it makes my OCD senses tingel.

When I see that kind of units-abuse,  I have to wonder, "is the author just stupid or are they scare-mongering by using (apparently) bigger numbers?" I've had other geeks try to suggest that said authors might be trying to indicate precision, but that gets blown out of the water the moment a reporter couches things in terms of estimates or "about".

The vast majority of readers out there aren't going to know that 1000mSv is equivalent to 1Sv. Few people know what an Sv is to even begin to understand what an mSv or μSv might mean. Worse, since many of the readers of CNN will be US readers with little to know background in the metric system, there won't be any automatic "milli equals one thousandth of something". No. All that most readers will see is "there's a thousand of these thingies happening every hour. That sounds like a LOT!" and, granted, it is, but no more than one of the base-unit would be.

Interesting Saturday Night

We were sitting in the living room, watching TV, deciding whether to go to bed or watch a movie, online (we really know how to rock a Saturday night, eh?) when we heard a "boom" rattle the windows. Initially, I'd processed it as the house next door's front door slamming. This struck me as odd, given that the previous tenants had moved out a few days ago. I noticed a car with Maryland plates parked out front. This seemed suspicious, so, we called the EMS non-emergency dispatch number to see if they could send a car by to check things out.>/p>
As I was standing on the front porch, I noticed a strange pickup truck sitting across the street with white smoke curling out the windows. Initially I thought, "some idiot decided to park on my street to hit a doob. If they're smart, they'll notice I'm on the phone and roll out before the cops get here and really didn't think much further of it.
Apparently, the boom we'd heard wasn't from next door. Apparently, something had exploded inside the truck's cab and the smoke was the interior burning. Wasn't until another neighbor, woken by what had turned out to be the truck going "boom", decided to investigate the smoking truck. He walked over, jiggled on the door and it popped open. Thick, white smoke came billowing out. With the sudden influx of fresh air, the smoking interior became a firey interior. So, I informed the dispatcher I was on the phone with that they probably needed to treat this as a 911 fire call.
A little less than five minutes later, Fairfax County police cars started rolling up. One officer pulled an extinguisher out of his car and attempted to extinguish the fire that was now licking up from where the hood and windshield meet. It didn't work.
A minute or so later, the fire trucks rolled up. A fireman walked up, fully fitted out with helmet, fire clothing and oxygen mask and opened the door, fully. Fire came billowing out.
Unfortunately, my camera's ability to cope with the bright light of the fire against the dark of the night meant I couldn't get good photos of the fire. It was pretty much just an orange flare in the center of the image. After they got the fire knocked down, I was able to take the below picture.

EMS are still outside dealing with the aftermath. I imagine, once they've determined the fire is fully out, they'll flatbed the truck away.
If you're from Manassas (cop that came up asked if we'd seen it before since it was registered to a Manassas address) and missing a big, white crew-cab pickup truck, I think I know where it might have gotten left (and, presumably, set on fire by whoever boosted it). Fairfax County Police Department will be able to tell you where to go pick up the burnt-out husk. Hopefully, your insurance company totals it: I know I wouldn't want it back, at this point.

Too Short A Time

Looking back through pictures, earliest I can find of Puckett are late-June 2004. So, I did some research. Looks like we got him on or about 6/20/2004 (though, our first encounter with him was a week or so earlier). Still... We'll have had him not even 7 years when we finally have to send him on his way. 

Note to self: don't dig for answers you might not like. It was gut-punch enough getting the news of his impending demise. Pinning down the date to one that was far later that you'd specifically recalled just "piles on".

Fire-and-Forget Memories

So, a lot of people I know write stuff online. They write on LiveJournal. They write on Blogger/BlogSpot. They write on Twitter. They write on FaceBook. They write on any of dozens of other sites. Many, like me, frequently choose to write about things both personal/private and more mundane "public" stuff. However, I wonder if the people that write all this stuff are like me in why they write.

For me, writing online is about preserving memories. Part of preserving memories is going back and periodically reviewing things. For me, it can act as a grounding-force. I can tell whether the high/low/whatever of the current moment is normal, an aberation or part of some kind of a pattern. It can help me remember - or even just refresh - the character, the feeling or flavor of the things written about. It can also remind me of "promises" I've made to myself and to see how well I've done in those.

A big part of why I scatter my writings in so many places (and make the vast majority findable by search engines) is so that they don't become lost. If one site goes away, I don't lose an entire chunk of memories - of my life. To me, what I've written for myself is critical.

As I do with my own writings, I sometimes look back through things friends have written. Sometimes it's just a random perusal. Sometimes it's with a purpose. Sadly, it seems that in a non-trivial number of cases, people write things so that they can get them off their chest ...and then summarily forget them. It makes me wonder, why they're committing it to "Internet Memory" at all? Wouldn't it make just as much sense to write it on a piece of paper and then just burn it? Or, for that matter, why write it down at all? Introspection absent review isn't really introspection.

I swear: the longer I'm around and the more I interact with - or even merely observe - people, the less I understand them.