Another Monkey

Three-day seven-day week

2009-12-14T11:59:00.004-05:00

I was laid off yesterday, so this will be (at best) another three-day, 36-hour week. Fortunately I can pad this out with unused vacation days and turn it into a seven-day week. Which means I will be able to pay the bills that are due in the next few weeks, or at least put a dent in them.

This is going to be the least materialistic Christmas ever.

Teach the Controversy

2009-12-13T23:39:00.005-05:00

From the Wikipedia entry, as of 11:29 PM 12/13/09:

Teach the Controversy is the name of a Discovery Institute campaign to promote intelligent design, a variant of traditional creationism, while discrediting evolution in United States public high school science courses.[1][2][3][4][5][6] A federal court, along with the majority of scientific organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, say the Institute has manufactured the controversy they want to teach by promoting a false perception that evolution is "a theory in crisis" due to it being the subject of purported wide controversy and debate within the scientific community. [7][8][9][10] McGill University Professor Brian Alters, an expert in the creation-evolution controversy, is quoted in an article published by the NIH as stating that "99.9 percent of scientists accept evolution"[11] whereas intelligent design has been rejected by the overwhelming majority of the scientific community. [12][13]

Teach the Controversy is also the name of a line of T-shirts that parodies this manufactured "controversy" of science vs. pseudoscience and mythology. There are two designs that I haven't seen yet - so I've sketched out my own versions. Quite literally "sketched" on a piece of scrap cardstock I happened to have floating around. The first one is actually my first and favorite version* of my sketch of the explanation of solar eclipses through the action of a dragon that eats the sun. I've seen an old image of this in a book, but I can't locate it online. I thought this was in Cosmos, but I've flipped through my well-worn copy several times and haven't been able to find it.

The second is a much rougher thumbnail version of my standard rebuttal to anyone who suggests that Creationism should get equal time with the teaching of evolution because "there are two sides to every story": "Should weather reports give equal time to the 'Weather God' theory of low pressure systems?" In this image is a partial scribble of Thor, the Norse God of Thunder, complete with Mjöllnir and a cartoon/opera horned Viking helmet. Would Thor hang with Zeus / Jupiter, who could throw lightning bolts to accompany Thor's thunder?

Silly stuff, I know. But the pseudoscientific phony "controversies" we see and hear every day are silly - and dangerous. Best to inoculate yourself to the stupidity. Unless you're convinced that inoculations are a government plot, or will give you autism...

* Here are the other two versions:

I am exhausted

2009-12-12T23:10:00.007-05:00

Haven't been sleeping right these past four days off - which just extended into five days. I need to get to bed soon. There's so much left to do, and I'm not getting most of it done this way. At least I took care of one promise today. But that means there's lots more baking ahead in the few free days I have before Christmas.

I think it's the weather. I think my Seasonal Affective Disorder hit me like a train with last Tuesday night's snow, and my body just wants to hibernate. That, and the fact that I appear to be stuck on night shift even on my days off. I'm trying to work through things with St. John's Wort. It's helped in the past. Maybe I should try taking some fish oil, too.

Let's have some holiday music, shall we? I saw this on a friend's site and reposted it to Facebook. It will probably go viral, like the Muppets' version of Bohemian Rhapsody. Here they are with "Ringing of the Bells" (a.k.a. "Carol of the Bells"):

UPDATE: Two hours later, I am wide awake and heading for bed.

Canadian Science Fiction writer Peter Watts assaulted and detained by U.S. border agents

2009-12-11T23:16:00.003-05:00

When I met Chelsea Clinton in Scranton last year I had a few seconds to talk to her. Nothing much. Not that I was being rushed at all, and in fact I could have hung out with Chelsea at a nearby bar/restaurant afterwards, but I didn't want to delay the nice lady who took my picture and her daughter from getting to talk to Chelsea. So I think all I said to her after the picture was taken was something like, "I have a lot of friends who are afraid to travel to America. I hope your mom helps change that." I wasn't just thinking about our culture of violence. I was also thinking of the ever-more-draconian steps that are being taken to discourage any visitors from coming to this country, all in the name of National Security.

When Barack Obama became the Democratic nominee I threw my support behind him. I figured that either Democratic candidate would be more likely to reverse the Bush Administration's many miserably bad decisions than the McCain/Palin team.

On a lot of these, I'm still waiting.

Here's just another example.

On Tuesday, Dec. 8th, Canadian science fiction author Dr. Peter Watts was arrested and beaten while returning to Canada after reportedly helping a friend move in Nebraska.

According to Cory Doctorow (a personal friend of Dr. Watts), as border guards were inspecting his car, Dr. Watts got out and questioned what they were doing. He was subsequently punched, pepper-sprayed, beaten, handcuffed, and jailed. The witnesses in the car reported that Dr. Watts did nothing to provoke the guards into this response.
Dear President Obama: WTF? We hired you to fix these problems. This is the sort of crap I would expect under your predecessor. But I expect better from you.

See also:

Legal fundraiser for Dr. Peter Watts, SF writer Deanna Hoak (this is how I became aware of this story)

Dr Peter Watts, Canadian science fiction writer, beaten and arrested at US border - Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing

Not the Best of Possible Worlds. - Peter Watts' account of the situation. Contains some harsh language, understandably.

Science fiction writer charged after bridge struggle thetimesherald.com The Times Herald - A report in a Michigan paper from Port Huron, where this incident took place. Contains several inaccuracies and errors, which Watts addresses in the post linked below. Some of these inaccuracies and errors may actually be present in the official police report, though this was only verbally delivered to the reporter by Port Huron police Captain Jim Jones.

Squidgate. Update. - more from Peter Watts, including corrections to some of the reports floating around out there.

Here I go

2009-12-10T22:55:00.002-05:00

Commencing preparations for Christmas in 3...2...1...

...hey, I wonder if anyone has updated their blogs or Facebook statuses in the last thirty seconds? Let me check...

UPDATE, 12/11/09, 2:40 AM: Twelve dozen oatmeal chocolate chip cookies made. Not a bad start. CHRISTMAS PREPARATIONS HAVE BEGUN.

Glowing spiral over Norway

2009-12-09T23:19:00.005-05:00

I am in serious danger of becoming the sort of blogger who just links to other people's blogs or online articles. Not that that's a bad thing - there's a lot of good, cool, and interesting stuff I'm reading out there that I'd like to share. (Actually, Blogger has a "Blog This" function that I suppose I could be using. Hmmm...)

Anyway, here's something from Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy website about a mysterious glowing spiral that appeared over northern Norway early on the morning of December 9, 2009. Clicking on the image above takes you to the original Norwegian article (in Norwegian) with a larger version of the picture, and Phil's article has more images and links. The most likely explanation for this is that it is from a failed rocket launch, possibly from Russia, spiraling and venting exhaust.

A few - OK, more than twenty years ago, my father told me about a strange glowing, swirling cloud he saw in the night sky. Later that week I was talking with a girl with whom I was having a long-distance relationship and she mentioned to me that she had also seen something very much like this at about the same time. As she lived about 100 miles to the West, I realized that whatever they both had seen had to be pretty high up in the atmosphere. A few days later a small article in the newspaper noted that people all over the Eastern seaboard had reported seeing this, and it was just part of a Russian (well, Soviet Union) rocket launch that had gone up at an unusual time on an unusual trajectory, which is why such things hadn't been noticed during previous launches.

It's very unusual, very beautiful, rare but not unheard-of. If anyone reading this happens to be from Norway or thereabouts, please let me know if you witnessed this personally.

See also:
Strange 'Norway spiral' likely an out-of-control missile - space - 10 December 2009 - New Scientist

Ice storm in the morning?

2009-12-08T09:25:00.002-05:00

Yessir, sounds like there's some interesting weather coming tonight. While I'm at work. Will the various local and state agencies tasked with keeping the highways open and safe spring into action for the early-morning commuters? Another big advantage of working night shift: I won't be driving in at god-knows-when in the morning through this stuff, hoping to get to work on time. I can take my time getting home, especially since this is the last day of the rotation.

Two day week

2009-12-07T15:45:00.003-05:00

Back to work today for the last two days of my rotation. This would have been a 36-hour week, but now is a 24-hour week since we were laid off yesterday. I could use my remaining vacation days to make up the difference, but I think I'll file for unemployment for this week as long as I'm eligible. (My unemployment compensation will be based in part on all the extra time I put in this summer.) I would have to be laid off two days next week - which is scheduled as a 48 hour week - to be eligible for unemployment then, and I'm hoping that won't happen. But I will probably take my remaining vacation days for my unscheduled days next week, to maximize that paycheck. There are a lot of bills coming up in the next few months, city taxes and school taxes and garbage fees and house insurance and other stuff. Plus, electrical rates are expected to jump by 30% after rate caps come off on the first of the year.

Sigh. This is what my life has come to.

Unexpected day off

2009-12-06T23:27:00.004-05:00

I have tonight off. This would have been my second night of work for this rotation. Four days off, one day on, one day off, two days on, four days off...it gets confusing.

I tried to be semi-productive today, sort of. Grocery day is usually Tuesday, but when the shift starts on Saturday the apples and grapes I bought several days before tend to be less-than-fresh, or by Saturday have already been consumed beyond what will carry me through the next four days. This morning I only had to shop for two days, so I didn't really have to worry about the grapes lasting too long. Which is good, because the bag of grapes that I bought - the last one of the type that I like - looks well past its peak.

I took my mom to church this morning. 11:00 mass. By then I had already been up something like twenty-one hours. I nearly passed out several times, which would have been amusing, as I probably would have wrenched one or more of the pews off its moorings if I had fallen. I experienced a near-passing-out thing that I've never had before: everything went momentarily brown, with a shotgun-blast pattern of bright red in the center of my vision, a Gaussian distribution of red dots. This happened twice. I caught myself both times. After church I went home and slept for five hours.

This is almost, but not quite, what it looked like. If I spent a few more hours on this image, I could probably get it just right. Or I could have just grabbed an image of a globular cluster and colored all the stars red!

I did do something massively useful today: I figured out hot to get Hotmail to filter all of my Facebook e-mails into a separate Facebook folder. That way these e-mails don't crowd out everything else, and I can go to a single folder to catch up on what I haven't read from Facebook.

I also started reviewing some emails from an old friend who is no longer a friend anymore. Probably nothing will come of it, but I'd like to see where things went wrong.

For anyone who's interested, here's my work/off schedule for the rest of the year:

Work: Dec. 7, 8
Off: Dec. 9, 10, 11, 12
Work: Dec. 13, 14, 15, 16
Off: Dec. 17, 18, 19, 20
Work: Dec. 21, 22, 23
Off: Dec. 24, 25, 26, 27, 28
Work: Dec. 29, 30
Off: Dec. 31, Jan. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Please keep in mind that "Work" indicates a 12-hour work night, and I will be unavailable all of that day and part of the next (if I am not scheduled to work the next night.) All dates are subject to change due to layoff and overtime.

Snow, glorious snow

2009-12-05T15:39:00.006-05:00

The first measurable snow of the season. (We had some back in October, but that doesn't count.)

And in an hour or so, I have to drive to work through it!

Wiped out

2009-12-04T20:11:00.004-05:00

Wow, am I tired. I've been staying up late, later than I should, because my body still thinks it's on night shift. But now it's just after 8:00 at night and I'm falling asleep...and I start back on four days of night shift tomorrow night.

I've been doing a lot of yard work these last three days. All the leaves from the yard here are either serving as mulch or are bagged and stacked in wire compost bins to start the process of decaying into leaf mold.

Across town I pulled out my garden, put away the tomato stakes, began pruning the grapevines, and mowed the lawn one last time. I then put away the lawnmower and all the garden tools for the winter.

I also decorated the house over there for Christmas. Noting fancy.

Took Bowie to the vet today to get her spaying sutures removed. No problems there, but I nearly vomited when I heard the insipid glurge of "The Christmas Shoes."

Still haven't started on the cookies. Dammit. I'm gonna be doing a lot of baking next week.

Some fun stuff courtesy of Gwyd the Unusual , who I saw perform at the Sideshow Gathering and am now friends with on Facebook: "Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods", a guidebook to strange and mostly unknown creatures said to haunt the woodlands of America. Published in 1910!
I still have to finish my Sideshow Gathering posts...and my Stained Glass Window Project posts...and my Christmas Shopping...and my bills...

They'll Do It Every Time...for Christmas

2009-12-03T10:37:00.004-05:00

It's still five days before the second anniversary of the death of longtime They'll Do It Every Time artist and writer Al Scaduto. (Whaaaa...? Only two years? It feels, like, forever!) But every year at this time I think of him, and the submission I wish I had made:

Every year Barfo puts away the Christmas decorations all nice and neat and orderly...
(Picture of Barfo in obligatory black sweater-vest looking proud of himself as he puts decorations away in neat little boxes marked "lights", "wreaths", etc...)

...but every year when he goes to pull them out again...
(Picture of Barfo saying "Wha-a-a???", projectile-sweating and google-eyed as he looks at chaotic tangle of strings of lights, cords, ornaments, candy canes, etc., all of which have managed to escape their orderly boxes and create the same mess Barfo had encountered the year before!)

The URGE!

Miss you, Al.

The Comics Curmudgeon archive of They'll Do It Every Time comics
The Comic Strip Archives: TDIET from the Houston Chronicle, Jan. 1 2004 - Feb. 3 2008

NEPA Blogs: Uncornered Market

2009-12-02T09:50:00.002-05:00

I started NEPA Blogs nearly four years ago with a simple idea: to create a network of interlinked blogs that would increase each other's traffic, Google rank and advertising revenue.

It didn't quite work out that way. Maybe if I had informed each blogger as I linked to them, and asked them to provide a link back to the central site... But I didn't. Oh well.

What emerged instead was a NEPA Blogs that has lived up to its stated goal: "A clearinghouse providing links to blogs and other sites about Northeastern Pennsylvania or by people from Northeastern Pennsylvania." Thanks in large part to the efforts of fellow blog administrators Gort and Michelle, we are up to over 150 blogs linked on the NEPA Blogs sidebar and continue to add new ones all the time.

One of the more fascinating blogs that I have seen anywhere is one that was added a few weeks ago as a result of this e-mail:

Hi D.B.,

Would be grateful if would add Uncornered Market to the blogroll/mentions on NEPAblogs:
http://www.uncorneredmarket.com/

I grew up in Scranton before going to school at Cornell, moving to DC, San Francisco and Prague. My wife and I have been traveling the world and living out of backpacks for almost 3 years. We were profiled in the Scranton Times lifestyles section back in early 2008. Would give you a link, but the Times is apparently not keen on keeping online archives more than 18 months these days.

My ode to Scranton based on our last visit there:
http://www.uncorneredmarket.com/2008/12/scranton-pennsylvania-small-town-big-shadow/

You can find us on Twitter: @umarket

Cheers and thanks,
Dan

--
Daniel Noll
http://www.uncorneredmarket.com/
measuring the Earth with our feet...

To get a taste of why I find this blog so fascinating, I recommend this post:

From Ecuador to Turkmenistan: Ten Memorable Border Crossings We Have Known

It's blogs like this that might disabuse me of the notion that the blogosphere is dying.

So much for Jury Duty

2009-12-01T14:40:00.002-05:00

Jury Duty lasted all of two hours. They told us there's a light schedule for the rest of the month/year, and that amounted to two whole cases for the week - neither of which required juries. My check for $9 is in the mail.

I am tired. I am going to bed now.

And now, a word from my employer...

2009-11-30T15:51:00.002-05:00

From our company newsletter:

Spread the industry news: FYI: Walmart.com and Amazon.com are accepting orders for the Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince DVD release on December 8th. COST under $10 - free shipping.

Blu-Ray is available for $20 - free shipping.

I haven't confirmed the "free shipping" part, but I have verified that these are the prices for the single-disc widescreen version. (Actually, it looks like Walmart has the Blu-Ray for $15.32, and Amazon for $15.99.) These prices are for the single-disc version. The two-disc version is $18.86 at Walmart and $19.99 at Amazon. And while the full-frame single-disc version is also $9.99 at Amazon, for some reason it is $14.86 at Walmart.

In the past I have argued for buying locally, even from big-box stores, because they provide jobs to people within your community. But money is tight, and if you can save more than a few dollars by buying online, do it. Besides, if everybody buys a copy (or several!), you'll be helping keep me gainfully employed!

Belgian Coma Guy: Miracle, or cruel hoax?

2009-11-29T15:50:00.002-05:00

Last week the wires were ablaze with news about the man in Belgium who had apparently been in a coma for twenty-three years, only to emerge from it to tell the world that he had been conscious and aware of his surroundings the whole time!

How horrifying! How shocking! How shameful for the medical community! How...waitaminute.

I first heard about this story on the radio, on NPR, and it sounded pretty unbelievable. The next time I saw it it was accompanied by a photo showing the man in a chair and a woman holding his hand.

Uh-oh. Facilitated Communication. It's a hoax.

Facilitated Communication is one of those things like dowsing or Essiac that its proponents will swear up and down is real and legitimate, but which come circumscribed by so many caveats and restrictions that apparently only someone with highly specialized training - and someone who believes - is capable of doing it right. I don't have time to go into details right now, but some simple research will let you know both the brad strokes and the details.

Turns out I'm not the only one who got this impression. James Randi posted his analysis at the James Randi Educational Foundation website:

This Cruel Farce Has To Stop!

This story seems to have fallen off the radar. News cycles being what they are, this is more likely because the world has simply moved on, and not because people have seen through this hoax. So perhaps we will never know what will become of this man in Belgium and his family. I hope he continues to receive legitimate treatment, and no one is allowed to exploit him for their own selfish purposes.

Off to work...and then to the Courthouse

2009-11-28T15:26:00.003-05:00

Well, I'm off to a holiday-shortened three-day workweek. I would've been glad for a little more time, but I'm also glad to be earning a little more money. For the record, for this week I will have earned twelve hours of "overtime" pay (paid at straight time), eight hours of holiday pay, and twelve hours of regular pay. For next week, assuming I'm not laid off at any point, I'll earn twelve hours each on Sunday and Monday nights, and then another twelve next Saturday.

But...starting Tuesday, unless I'm cancelled, I'll be on Jury Duty! Whoo-hoo! Making nine dollars a day! (What century was that pay rate established in, anyway?) My first day will be pretty interesting, seeing as how I'll be coming straight from having worked all night, probably by way of breakfast at Cracker Barrel.

Given the way things have been going at the Luzerne County Courthouse, I won't be surprised if some of us in the jury pool get tapped to be judges.

The Big Picture: Mars

2009-11-27T16:21:00.005-05:00

Nothing much to say today, so I decided to rummage around in the box of rainy-day post ideas. Here's one that I put in there waaaay back on the day before yesterday. It's from Alan Taylor's breathtaking Boston Globe photojournalism series The Big Picture, and was originally posted there on November 6 (while I was attending the Sideshow Gathering - and I still have to complete my posts on that!) This was found on the Livejournal of Chuck Anziulewicz, a native of Northeastern Pennsylvania who lives elsewhere but is linked through NEPA Blogs. Check out these astonishing Martian landscapes:

Martian landscapes - The Big Picture - Boston.com

Since 2006, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been orbiting Mars, currently circling approximately 300 km (187 mi) above the Martian surface. On board the MRO is HiRISE, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera, which has been photographing the planet for several years now at resolutions as fine as mere inches per pixel. Collected here is a group of images from HiRISE over the past few years, in either false color or grayscale, showing intricate details of landscapes both familiar and alien, from the surface of our neighboring planet, Mars. I invite you to take your time looking through these, imagining the settings - very cold, dry and distant, yet real.

MARS! A whole other world! One that you can actually explore for yourself!

As the good Doctor said,

How lucky we are to live in this time
The first moment in human history
When we are in fact visiting other worlds

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T12:12:00.001-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

And remember, refrigerate all leftovers promptly, and freeze anything you won't be eating in a day or two. Don't want anybody coming down with a "stomach virus" next week!

Holiday reruns: The Littlest Turkey

2009-11-25T09:19:00.002-05:00

Yes, it's that time of the year again! Time to do the repost of the complete version of The Littlest Turkey. Enjoy!

What's more traditional during the holidays than reruns of your favorite holiday specials? In that spirit, and the spirit of not having very much time this year, I present to you The Littlest Turkey complete in one post!

The Littlest Turkey was originally posted November 16 (Part 1) and 17 (Part 2 and Conclusion), 2005, and was originally posted complete in one post on November 24, 2005.

THE LITTLEST TURKEY
by
D.B. Echo

Once upon a time there was a farm where turkeys lived. All of them were young and plump, big and strong and proud. All of them except one. He was smaller than all the other turkeys. He was called the Littlest Turkey.

The Littlest Turkey wanted to run and play with the other turkeys, but they didn't want to play with him. "Go away, Littlest Turkey," they would say. "Come back when you've gotten bigger."

But the Littlest Turkey was sure he was as big as he was going to get. He tried to eat as much as he could, but he never seemed to get as big and plump as the other turkeys. And he knew that unless he got big and plump like the other turkeys, he would never get to go to the Laughter House.

The Laughter House was a wonderful place. The Littlest Turkey had never been in there. He knew that only the big and plump turkeys would get to go inside the Laughter House. He had seen them go in once, and had heard their squawks and gobbles of laughter for a little while. It must be wonderful in there, the Littlest Turkey thought. All those turkeys go in to laugh, and none of them had ever come out again. How much fun they must be having!

The Littlest Turkey decided that, big and plump or not, he would get into the Laughter House the next time they let the turkeys in.

*********

THE LITTLEST TURKEY
Part 2
by
D.B. Echo

The weather started getting cooler, and the leaves on the trees started to change colors. All the turkeys knew that soon it would be time for the biggest holiday of the year, Turkey Day.
"Just before Turkey Day is when they take the big and plump turkeys into the Laughter House," thought the Littlest Turkey. "But this time I'm going to get in there, too!"

It wasn't long before the big day came. All of the big and plump turkeys lined up to go into the Laughter House. The Littlest Turkey waited near the entrance of the Laughter House, then squeezed in between two very big and plump turkeys. No one noticed him because he was so little.

The Laughter House was dark inside, and there was a sort of moving sidewalk there that was taking turkeys into another room, where he could hear gobbles and squawks of laughter. One by one the turkeys hopped up to ride the sidewalk. The Littlest Turkey hopped up, too.
The turkey in front of him, whose name was Tom, turned around. "Go away, Littlest Turkey," he said. "Come back when you are bigger."

"Yes, go away," said the turkey behind him, whose name was also Tom. "They do not want little turkeys at the Market. Only big and plump ones."

"No," said the Littlest Turkey. "I want to go to the Market with you." He had never heard of the Market, but he realized that it must be even better than the Laughter House.

A Man spotted the Littlest Turkey. "Go away, Littlest Turkey," he said. "Come back when you are bigger."

"Oh, please, Mr. Man," said the Littlest Turkey. "I do so want to go to the Market with the other turkeys."

"Very well," said the Man. "We've got a quota to meet, anyway."

The Littlest Turkey rode the sidewalk into the other room. He wondered what things would be like at the Market.

*********

THE LITTLEST TURKEY
Conclusion
by
D.B. Echo

The Littlest Turkey was cold. He was colder than he ever remembered being before. But then again, it was hard to remember much since they had chopped his head off.

He was in a case with the other turkeys, the big and plump turkeys. Turkey Day was coming soon, and people were coming to the Market to pick turkeys to take home.

They always seemed to want the big and plump turkeys. One time a little girl had seen him in the case. "Mommy, mommy, look at the little turkey," she said. "I want to take home the littlest turkey."

"No, dear," her mother said. "We are having many people over for Thanksgiving. We need a big, plump turkey."

One by one the other turkeys left the Market to go home with people. Turkey Day was coming soon, and people were taking away more and more of the big and plump turkeys. But no one wanted the Littlest Turkey.
Finally, the day before Turkey Day came, and the Littlest Turkey found himself all alone in the case.

"How sad," he thought. "No one wants to take me home."

It was late in the day, and the Manager was about to close down the Market for the night. Suddenly a Man came into the store.

"I have a coupon," he said, "for a free turkey. Do you have any left?"

"You're in luck," said the Manager. "I have one left." He showed the Man the Littlest Turkey, all alone in the case.

"It's a little small," the Man said. "But I guess beggars can't be choosers. Besides, it's just me and my wife this year. A little turkey might be just what we need."

The Manager took the Littlest Turkey out of the case and traded him to the Man for the coupon he was holding. "Happy Thanksgiving!", he said to the Man.

"I'm not going to be left behind for Turkey Day," thought the Littlest Turkey happily as the Man put him in the trunk of his car. "I'm so happy. But I'm so cold." He rolled around a little as the car pulled out of the parking lot. "I sure hope I'm going someplace warm."

THE END

Layoff interrupted

2009-11-24T10:33:00.003-05:00

Well, I'm not technically on layoff today. I was laid off Saturday and Sunday, and expect to be on Friday...and maybe Saturday as well. My days off this week are Monday through Thursday. But today I'm going in on overtime. So my guaranteed pay this week will be one day of overtime (paid at straight time, since I'm currently at zero hours for the week) and one day of holiday pay. I need to reopen my claim with the unemployment office.

Had to get up early to go and pick up Bowie. She's doing fine after being spayed yesterday. She's happy to see the other cats, and they're all happy to see her.

Now I need to go back to sleep for a few hours. Tomorrow I have a blood donation scheduled. I wonder if my iron levels will be high enough? I've been making a conscious effort to eat more red meat lately. We'll see how it goes.

Spent

2009-11-23T19:39:00.006-05:00

I spent enormous amounts of money today. But what do you expect when you get three cats neutered* in one day? On top of that I ordered two wire compost bins from Ace Hardware, and took my mom to an eye appointment and then to Walmart, where we spent some money on cat items and gifts for my nephews - and then went back and spent way more money on a very cool Lego set for my nephew's birthday.

Credit card debt, I have said, is an expression of faith in the future.

I'm tired. I think I'm stuck in night-shift mode, so when I'm up during the day I have a few slumps in the afternoon. I had to get up early this morning. My alarms went off at 6:00** and 6:01, but I stayed in bed until 6:30. I had to get the kitties up to the vet's by 8:30

Thor and BlueBear are fine. Bowie, as had been planned all along, is being kept overnight because of the more traumatic nature of her surgical procedure. But I may be scheduled to work tomorrow - I'm on the list for overtime. I won't know for sure until 8:00 tomorrow morning. Whether I'm working or not, I must pick up Bowie tomorrow. If I am working, it will make for an interesting sleep schedule.

*As my friend Melinda pointed out, "spaying" is also neutering. The male form of neutering is more correctly referred to as "castration."

**To the song "45" by Lauren Malone, who (currently) blogs here. Here is the video, because I just spent a hell of a lot of time searching through the archives of Lauren's many, many blogs to find it. (It's #85 on this list.) NOTE: YouTube videos posted to my blog won't show up on Facebook, so go here to view it. But, seriously, you know you want to be reading my blog, Another Monkey, and not just the reposted posts on Facebook! Besides, Facebook appears to be broken once again today...

Neutered in the morning

2009-11-22T21:43:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow morning I am taking Bowie, Thor, and BlueBear to the vet's to be spayed (Bowie) and neutered (Thor and BlueBear.)

While I'm there I will make an appointment for "Rachel", who is about a month younger than these three. We've taken to calling "her" Rachel/Ray, after this pretty little girl developed some clearly male characteristics (such as testicles that I would swear were not there before.) And while my skill at determining a cat's sex is admittedly limited, I'm still pretty sure "she" has some of the characteristics of a girl cat. Either we were very wrong about her sex for the first few months of her life, or she has changed sex completely since she was a kitten, or she is a genuine hermaphroditic cat. So, there may be a double charge for her, as she may need to get spayed and neutered.

Animals make us human

2009-11-21T23:56:00.006-05:00

No dead cats today, but I just came back from taking my aunt to the emergency vet with her dog. The dog was quite old, and had developed a condition which was causing her pain and would eventually kill her - after considerable pain. The only option was surgery, which she might not survive and would probably never fully recover from. She was put to sleep.

I am watching Thor, one of the new kittens - well, basically a young adult now -, interact with Nicky, the Senior Cat of the house. Nicky is lounging atop a pile of boxes, and Thor was standing on his hind lags. Nicky had wrapped his arms around Thor's head and was grooming him, licking his ears. I thought Thor was about to make a power play and jump up on the boxes to try to push Nicky aside like he did a few days ago, but I was wrong. After Nicky groomed Thor, Thor took his leave and went on his way.

I just received some books from my book club. One of them is the latest by Temple Grandin called Animals Make Us Human. I remember hearing her talk about certain stress-related behaviors in animals - maybe it was when she was on Fresh Air when the book first came out - and I was surprised at how many of these I observed without even trying during a visit to a local zoo this summer. I can't wait to read it.

A glorious dawn: Dark Sun Setting

2009-11-20T08:20:00.004-05:00

This requires some explanation.

What you are seeing are rays of sunlight - sunbeams, crepuscular rays (well, in this case, anticrepuscular rays) - whatever you choose to call them - as they appeared at sunrise.

The picture was taken facing north-by-northwest. Away from the rising sun.

As I drove home from work this morning I noticed the first light of dawn breaking to my left. It was pretty. There was some vague pink glow above the position of the sun, too diffuse to be a sun pillar, though it may have consolidated into one later. But I had a long commute ahead of me, and I had to focus on the road, the traffic, and not falling asleep along the way.

Many grapes, two apples, and two cans of soda later I took the exit for Nanticoke. This puts me on Route 29, a road that runs north-by-northwest. As I merged onto the road at about 6:40 I noticed pink streamers in the sky above me. Then I noticed purplish-blue rays between these pink streamers, converging on a point somewhere near the horizon.

I have seen this sort of thing before, but only rarely, as it is in fact a rare event. Atmospheric conditions have to be just right: just enough moisture in the air to light it up, just enough clouds in the right places at the right times.

I tried to pull out my phone to get a picture on the fly, but each time I tried to raise it the emergency brake light came on. I realized that one of the cords must have been wrapped around the brake. The only way I could get the picture safely was to pull over. Which I did.

And now I'm sharing it with you.