Teleidoscope

Thu, Feb 18, 2010

Kitty Dentist

Posted at 9:47 pm MST to Miscellaneous

Dinah has been leaving food in her dish and losing weight. Last week I took her to the regular vet for her annual checkup and rabies shot and she checked out OK for liver function, and a little borderline for renal function (not bad for a 14 year old cat). The vet said her gums looked inflamed and I've noticed that she seemed to be trying to chew on one side, so today she went to the kitty Dentist. here isn't a full-time dentist at the vet clinic I go to: he's only there on Thursday. (I assume he works at other clinics other days of the week.) So today was the first available day after her lab results came back last week.

It's been a long time since Dinah had any dental work done: cat dentistry is done under full anesthesia, so it is a big deal, and expensive. She spent all day at the clinic, and is still acting a little odd. But she is eating some kibble I soaked in warm water, which is impressive. Besides a clean and checkup, she had two abscessed teeth pulled and some periodontic work.

There was also some re-sculpting of a tooth: they had to pull her right upper canine, so the dentist blunted the lower tooth so she won't be constantly stabbing herself in the upper lip.

In a little while I will try to give her the antibiotics and painkillers. The painkillers just need to go into the mouth, but the antibiotics need to go down the throat. At least the meds are all liquid: I'm not sure I would want to try pilling a cat who has a sore mouth.

Modern technology is amazing. Because everything is done digitally, not with film, they gave me a whole sheaf of paperwork about the work that was done, including before and after close-up photos of kitty teeth, and the x-rays they took. And the kitty version of the standard diagram of upper and lower teeth, with annotations -- I guess some things are a constant in dentistry, regardless of the species of the patient. There is even a whole series of x-rays taken during the removal and restructuring of the fang: they put some artificial bone into the socket (which is proportionately very large) so the jaw won't collapse from the absence of the tooth root.

There was a note on the paperwork that Dinah was a very good kitty today. Actually, I've had good luck with all my cats and never had one like some you hear about where the vets and technicians deserve hazard pay.

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Broken 911

Posted at 6:06 am MST to Miscellaneous

This morning I was awakened at 3:05am by the response to a 911 call I did not make.

I am actually glad for whatever glitch generated the call.

They said that the call actually came in at 2:45 and it took them 20 minutes to find my house because their display showed the address as 6969 Marshall -- an address that has not existed in this millennium, since the county invalidated it in 1999.

I sent the phone company a copy of the Boulder Land Use notice that changed the address in 1999, a few days after I received the notice, so they have had 11 years to update their records.

I was unable to get back to sleep, I was so annoyed that after 11 years Qwest still hasn't got their records updated consistently.

Having Qwest repair guys be unable to find the place because half the time their records show a non-existent address has been annoying and inconvenient. Having the 911 records wrong could be life-threatening.

So far this morning I have emailed

Qwest (the telephone company)
Boulder County Sheriff's Office
Boulder County Land Use
Boulder Daily Camera (our local paper)
Colorado Public Utilities Commission

In the email to Boulder County Land Use, I also complained about the fact that GPS units and on-line maps can't find my house. Their Geographical Information Service may not be able to do anything about that, but they probably come closest to being responsible for such things.

In the emails to the PUC and Daily Camera, I mentioned that X-Cel also had the address records screwed up at least as recently as 2008.

I don't really expect much to come of this, though it would be nice to get the 911 response fixed in case I ever have a real emergency.

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Thu, Nov 12, 2009

Plumbing

Posted at 1:45 pm MST to Miscellaneous

My great plumber -- James Johnson of Nautilus Plumbing -- was here today to fix some small things.

The kitchen faucet was binding in the hot water lever and leaking slightly around the base of the spout.

I got a snazzy new shower-head gadget at Costco a while back that needed to be installed.

And the bathtub has been draining slowly and sort of burping air up through the water that is draining, which didn't seem right.

In 2002 I partially remodeled my bathroom. As part of the changes a company called Master Plumbers installed vinyl inserts to cover up my ugly old tub and deteriorating tile with the icky grout, changing the tub stopper mechanism in the process. It turns out they didn't remove enough of the old stopper mechaism and over time it had fallen down until it partially blocked the drain. James was able to clear the blockage and remove the offending components so the problem should not recur.

When I made the changes in 2002 I had James rig up the shower so I had both a flow control regular shower head and a hand shower head available. That has worked OK over the years, but the (slightly kludgey) mechanism for switching between the two heads never fully sealed -- whichever head was active, there was still a little flow through the other one. The new shower gadget is a single unit that is designed with both types of shower heads, with levers and seals to direct the flow as desired, or temporaorily turn off the flow completely at the shower head with changing the temperature and flow settings of the faucets. This should be nice.

But I think I'm going to stay away from Master Plumbers in the future -- not difficult since I have had no contact with them since 2002.

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Mon, Nov 09, 2009

Doors

Posted at 6:36 pm MST to Miscellaneous

My new doors were finally delivered and installed today.

Dinah Kitty was not happy, but she seemed less upset than she would have been in the past. I think she may be getting a bit deaf in her old age, so she doesn't notice people moving around the house as much as she once did.

The new sliders to the bedroom deck have a full inch between the double panes. The old doors were technically double paned, but had only a fraction of an inch between the panes. The screen door built into the unit actually is usable. And the new frame is vinyl with heat flow breaks. So my bedroom should be warmer in winter and cooler in summer.

The old doors were not original: the ones that were installed whe I bought this house were single paned and had flimsy aluminum frames that rattled in the high winds we get here.

The French doors to the basement aren't as insulated as the sliders, but they close and lock, which the old ones didn't since the landslide last summer, and they are very well caulked, which the old doors were not.

I suspect that some of the mice were getting in through the gaps around the old doors. I hope that in addition to being far more weathertight (which should improve heat bills) the basement is also a bit more rodent-proof.

I should probably invest in some carbon monoxide alarms now that the basement is not constantly ventilated, just in case. There have been radio ads saying it is now legally required to have them. I hope the new ones last better than the last time I put a CO alarm in the house. It was more trouble than it was worth.

If they are still offering tax credits for weatherization next year, I may see see about replacing the basement windows with insulated double-paned units.

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Tue, Nov 03, 2009

Belief

Posted at 6:15 pm MST to Miscellaneous

There is an online questionaire Belief-o-matic that rates your compatibility with different belief systems. My results seem pretty accurate. Maybe I ought to check out the Unitarians some time.

How did the Belief-O-Matic do? Discuss your results on our message boards.

1.	Secular Humanism (100%)
2.	Unitarian Universalism (96%)
3.	Liberal Quakers (84%)
4.	Neo-Pagan (73%)
5.	Nontheist (73%)
6.	Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (72%)
7.	New Age (68%)
8.	Theravada Buddhism (67%)
9.	Reform Judaism (56%)
10.	Taoism (56%)
11.	Orthodox Quaker (50%)
12.	Mahayana Buddhism (49%)
13.	Scientology (49%)
14.	New Thought (45%)
15.	Baha'i Faith (43%)
16.	Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (40%)
17.	Sikhism (35%)
18.	Jainism (34%)
19.	Islam (27%)
20.	Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (27%)
21.	Orthodox Judaism (27%)
22.	Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (26%)
23.	Seventh Day Adventist (18%)
24.	Eastern Orthodox (17%)
25.	Roman Catholic (17%)
26.	Hinduism (13%)
27.	Jehovah's Witness (6%)

I found this at a Science Blog: Living the Scientific Life.

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Sat, Oct 24, 2009

Variables

Posted at 4:07 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

Yesterday I had a delayed allergic reaction to the oats with raisins, allspice and brown sugar. Today I tried cream of wheat with the same additions, and I seem to be having a partial reaction. I'll try oats without the additives next week and see if I still get a reaction.

I'm pretty sure I tested ok for allergy to oats when they did the scratch tests last year... I'm tending to suspect the allspice.

At the same time, I'm ending an experiment with Dinah's food. She has been eating dry Iams Weight Control for years, and I tried her with dry Iams Natural Weight Control. Dinah did not approve.

She has been leaving most of her meals in the dish and spending a lot of time in the basement catching mice instead (so I don't think she is actually going hungry). But the disapproving looks at meal times finally got to me: I tossed the last of the 'natural' food and opened a sack of the regular stuff.

I've given her a new automated feeder, too, in case I need to travel again. The old one only held 5 meals -- two and a half days of her usual meals. The new one is supposed to have more capacity.

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Sat, Oct 17, 2009

Anniversary (and Ads)

Posted at 10:08 am MDT to Miscellaneous

This week is the third anniversary of this blog. The first content went live October 13, 2006.

I apologize for the sprodic posting over the past several months. I'm going to try to improve that. I doon't expect to return to daily postings immediately, but I will try to ramp up to several postings per week on the average.

I am also going to redesign my sites a bit, both this blog and the Astral and Data-raptors main sites. I'll add some links to things like my LinkedIn account during the revamp.

I will probably also be adding small google ads to the frame for this blog and some of the other less archival pages.

Feel welcome not to click anything. This is partly a case of wanting to play with the technology.

It is also partly a hope for a tiny trickle of income to keep my business bank accounts active. For some reason the bank gets cranky if you put a small amount of money in a business accont and just leave it there earning ridiculously low levels of interest without making additional deposits and withdrawals.

I finally moved my business accounts from a bank where I haven't done any other business in years to one of my credit unions that had a fair deal on business accounts and very good online access. We'll see how it goes.

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Wed, Oct 14, 2009

Porch Rail and Roof

Posted at 12:36 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

The front porch deck now has a railing that matches the one on the bedroom deck. This gives the front of the house a much more balanced appearance than it has ever had before. I'll post some pictures at some point.

They also restabilized the side of the porch that had been undermined by the second round of putting the powerlines underground.

The next round of upgrades was going to be more hardscaping, but it looks like I need to do some roof repairs instead. The shed roof needs to be replaced. And the west edge of the flat roof needs some rework where the high winds have disrupted things, especially where it transitions to the sloped porch roof. I noticed during one heavy rain this summer that water was leaking down the joint.

I've got a bid in from my roofer. I ust need to decide whether the cash flow works.

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Tue, Sep 22, 2009

Refund

Posted at 10:30 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

Cool.

I checked my car loan account over the weekend and found there was a large payment made on September 2 that I didn't make. More than two payments worth.

I sent a message to their secure 'contact us' site asking what was up, and learned that the deposit was made by the car dealership. I'll follow up with the dealership to make sure there is no mistake, but it looks like for I owe a bunch less on my car loan than I thought I did.

Pulling down the principal balance this early in the loan can make a big difference in how fast it gets paid off thanks to the wonders of compounding.

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Fri, Aug 21, 2009

Sluggish

Posted at 6:54 am MDT to Miscellaneous

After a couple of weeks where I was full of energy and getting very little sleep, this week has been the opposite. I've been sleeping a lot (8 hours a night is a lot for me) and dozing off at odd moments, and generally feeling a bit off. I suspect allergies are part of it: I've been sneezing more than usual.

I really did not need my employees trying to poison me on top of everything else.

Last night was the Colorado Rational Users' Group meeting that our company sponsors. I arrived a little late because of traffic, and very hungry, and found that the food we were providing was pre-made sandwiches with cheese in them. And I'm pretty sure I don't trust the bread they were made with to not have malt in it. I picked out the cheese as well as I could (it was sort of smooshed into the bread and meat) but by the end of the evening my skin and eyes were feeling tight and itchy and I was having mild dizzy spells.

This morning, I was still itchy and my fingers were a little swollen. I don't like to think about what the lining of my esophagus was doing at that point. I have taken some Advil to try to knock down the inflammation before I try to swallow my breakfast.

Fridays at the office tend to be very quiet. This may not be a good thing: when you're not feeling well to begin with, a slow day stretches out forever.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about food at the next CRUG. I may be on another gig, with different travel conditions, by then, so maybe I'll just have to make a point of bringing my own food. Or return to what I did a few times last year when I was working from home and bring my own food to the meeting.

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Sat, Aug 08, 2009

Tasks

Posted at 6:59 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

Accomplished today:

Retrieved weed trimmer (lawnmower) from repair shop

Started paperwork for cashing in my clunker, ordered a red or green Forrester after test drive

Visited Harlequin's Gardens to look at native and xeriscape plants

Tasks for this evening and tomorrow:

Clean all the miscellaneous stuff like tool and first-aid kits, flashlights, etc. out of the truck

Buy gas for lawnmower (and maybe a new gas can)

Mow weeds in at least part of front yard, measure areas for beds, patio and labyrinth

Buy an intact garden hose: my old ones give me a choice of a hose that is torn but has working end connectors, and one that has a squashed connector on the end opposite the faucet, and a couple of hoses that have been buried in the fill dirt pile that came out of the retaining wall hole and are useless (gee, thanks guys)

Water square foot garden and grapevine

Plant carrot, parsley, and thyme seeds, and mums and marigolds

Plan landscaping (the Territorial Seed catalog arrived, and I found my books on Xeriscaping and Rocky Mountain Gardening)

Start sorting clothes from dressers and closets: the Viet Nam Vets truck is coming Thursday, and anything I no longer wear or that no longer fits is going to them or the trash, as appropriate. I'll give them my old manual pasta machine, and tire chains for vehicles I no longer own, too. And a lamp and fireplace tools and some other stuff that have been cluttering up the basement for a long time.

Fix the XP image on my laptop so it will stop locking up the rest of the system.

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Tue, Aug 04, 2009

Progress

Posted at 7:55 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

I have planted most of the nursery plants in the squarefoot bed. Tomorrow I'll plant the last two plants (the mums and marigolds) and the carrots, parsley and thyme seeds. Garlic, onions and peas can wait a bit, but I'll put up the trellis tomorrow.

The deck is making progess, too. The old railing has been cleared off, and I can see preparations to for the new support posts and railings.

Sunday evening I made homemade pasta with my new Kitchenaid pasta gadget for the first time. It came out pretty well, and having the mixer do the cranking made things much easier. I think in the future, rather than make a full size batch and deal with leftovers, I'll just make one egg-worth per person. Though the leftover pasta is also yummy. And making the large batch gave me enough practice that I think I'm getting the rhythm down.

I should try ravioli one of these days...

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Sun, Aug 02, 2009

Deck Jack

Posted at 8:42 am MDT to Miscellaneous

The deck outside my bedroom looks crooked to me, but that is because it has been sloped in the other direction for so many years. It is actually level now (I checked with an actual level).

The deck was built oddly, like so much about this house. It doesn't have ordinary posts holding it up, but is cantilevered off the main house structure. And the cantilever support is off center, so the deck has torqued over the years.

Yesterday while I was at farmers' market I got a call from a guy at the company that is supposed to repair the deck. He wanted to try jacking the deck so they could start to judge how extensive the repairs were going to need to be. By the time I got home from market, he had been and gone, and the deck was propped and leveled.

It looks to me like we are in pretty good shape to put in the permanent supports (actual support posts to keep it from torquing again) and the new railing, without having to dismantle and rebuild the whole deck. I suppose I'll learn the official verdict next week.

I am psyched to get this done. I can't really work on the parts of the landscaping farther from the house until the counctruction work near the house is done.

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Tue, Jul 28, 2009

Cash for Clunkers

Posted at 7:22 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

My plan to take advantage of the Cash for Clunkers program has hit a snag.

On Friday I received a call from the Subaru dealership: "We're in the program. Come in and talk."

Yesterday I sent them an email, to make an appointment for this evening.

Today I received an email: "Sorry, but we have left the program."

I tried calling the other local Subaru dealer. Their website said they were in the program but on the phone, they said the program is already running out of money, but if I want to buy one of the cars on thier lot, not necessarily with the features I want, they might be able to make me a deal. I am convinced the salesman was trying to pull some kind of scam: it seems very unlikely that a 1 billion dollar program is running out of funds 2 business days after it officially took effect.

I guess I need to spend some time looking at the specs of other brands of small SUVs and crossovers. The Honda CRV and Toyota RAV-4 are apparently the closest competitors to the Forester, but slightly more expensive and with slightly different features.

Grr.

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Still Not Menopausal

Posted at 7:37 am MDT to Miscellaneous

Yesterday I found out why I had a really vicious headache Sunday evening and a frenzied burst of reorganizing the house and yard for a few days before that.

Drat. That makes twice in less than 3 months, after a 19 month gap.

If age at menopause really predicts life expectancy, I'm going to need to plan my finances for a looong retirement.

At least I seem to be mostly missing out on my usual hellacious cramps this time around.

And the housecleaning thing is at least a usful PMS symptom. I have always thought that one reason bachelor pads are stereotypically messy is that guys don't get hit by periodic bursts of "Gah! this place needs to be reorganized! Now!!!" Sometimes the manifestations are pretty odd, though. Hard drive defragging as a PMS symptom (which I have engaged in in the past) is really peculiar when you think about it: not something one would expect to have a evolutionary basis.

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Tue, Jul 07, 2009

Thistles

Posted at 9:07 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

My yard is looking a bit more civilized.

On Sunday afternoon one of my neighbors stopped by and asked whether I intended to do anything about the multitude of thistles in my yard. He had been working on cleanng them out of his own property.

I asked whether he knew anyone one I could hire to attack them, and he recommended a college student who had been helping him.

Yesterday, when I arrived home from work the thistles that had been barricading my front porch like the roses at Sleeping Beauty's castle were gone, and so were all the ones along the driveway. Some of those thistle plants were taller than I am, with very hard stems.

There are still some thistles in the rest of the yard. Quite a lot of them, actually. He is coming back tomrrow to tackle the rest of them.

I think this is a good time to cut the thistles: they are blooming, but just before going to seed. All of the energy of the plants should be in the parts that are being cut off and thrown away.

When googling, I found a rhyme from Britain: 'Cut thistles in May, they'll grow in a day/Cut them in June, that is too soon/Cut them in July, then they will die.' So I guess I got the timimg right.

I suspect that the plants that are being massacred will try to grow back from the roots. I should probably get my weedmower (a sort of weewacker on wheeels) serviced so I can attack them again in the next round. The mower should be able to handle them if I don't let the regrowth get too tall and woody. A normally dry season next year would be helpful, too. I've owned this house since 1985 and nver seen thistles like this year, thought he stirring of the soil when the power lines were put underground undoubtedly encouraged them.

I may just invest in some black plastic for the area near the house where the barricade grew in the

I wonder if the enthusiasm of these plants means that artichokes or cardoons would do well here. Probably not. That would be too useful. And I suspect the soil here is too cold for the edible kinds of thistle.

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Fri, Jul 03, 2009

Ai Sushi

Posted at 1:16 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

Nanette took me out to dinner for my birthday yesterday, to a restaurant called Ai Sushi and Steak.

The food was excellent, and reasonably priced for the portions, which were huge.

I had a tempura, udon and California roll combo. The miso soup at the beginning of the meal was smooth and flavorful. The flavors of the green onions, seaweed and tofu were not buried under the miso itself.

The tempura (shrimp and vegetables) was light and not greasy, and the dipping sauce had a nice tang in addition to the soy sauce in it.

The eight small pieces of California roll were well made and had a nice balance of ingredients and a complex flavor -- the crab part seemed to be a crab salad, and I'm not sure what all of the ingredients were.

The bowl of udon soup was huge (this meal failed the 'don't eat anything bigger than your head' rule) with very good noodles, an excellent broth, and plenty of cabbage, carrots and broccoli.

I brought most of the meal home in boxes. I had half the cali rolls and tempura pieces for breakfast, and I'm working on the soup for lunch.

And I think I need to plan on a very small supper tonight.

Our favorite Japanese restaurant in Denver, Mori, closed a while back, but I really think Ai is nearly as good, though their menu is less extensive. (I miss kitsune udon, which I used to get at Mori. And the Japanese pickles that used to accompany every meal.)

And I need to find a source of the thick udon noodles you get in restaurants. The ones I can find locally for home cooking are all skinny. The good Japanese grocery that probably carries them, Pacific Mercantile is still in existence a couple of blocks from the site of Mori, but Denver is a long way to go for noodles and pickles and a few other items. Maybe I'll go down to the art museum one weekend this summer (which is at the other end of the downtown shuttle route) and stop by the market while I am there.

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Wed, Jul 01, 2009

Double Nickel

Posted at 11:38 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

Tomorrow, July 2, is my birthday.

I have baked a cake in my fancy bundt pan for the first time since my allergies were diagnosed.

I started with Alton Brown's pound cake recipe (from I'm Just Here for More Food , with goat milk with lemon juice instead of buttermilk, and goat butter, and added orange peel and orange extract to the pound cake to stand up to the goat taste.

The cake came out of the pan beautifully and is cooling now. (I won't taste it until it is completely cool. Cutting it before it is stable would be a bad idea.) I have sprinkled it with some powdered sugar now, while it is still steaming, and I'll add more when it is cool.

One of the nice features of my fancy stove is the timer. It rings several chiming tones, pauses, then rings some more. The groups get farther apart, but they don't stop until you do something about them. The timer on my microwave just beeps once, and I often miss it if I am in the other room and the radio or TV is playing.

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Mon, Jun 29, 2009

Grinder

Posted at 8:59 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

In Connecticut, where I grew up, the kind of sandwich they sell at Subway and Quizno's was not a sub or a hoagie, it was a grinder. Don't ask me why they were called that: I don't think anyone really knows.

Today we bought lunch at Quizno's. I ordered a small Classic Italian on wheat, no cheese (God, I miss mozzarella) and more or less kept my fingers crossed for the next few hours. I wouldn't have dared try this 10 days ago when I was having major coughing and swallowing problems because of allergies, but I've been doing pretty well for the past few days.

The verdict, after about 8 hours, is that Quizno's does not seem to use stuff I'm allergic to in their wheat bread.

My throat was a little scratchy for a while, but I think that was the lettuce (which I am not officially allergic to, but sometimes react badly to. I wonder if that's partly agricultural chemicals rather than just the actual lettuce).

It's nice to know that I can probably count Quizno's as an allergy-safe, inexpensive place to eat.

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Sun, Jun 28, 2009

Cell-Less Gig

Posted at 3:59 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

This has been a hectic week.

Monday morning I verified the landscaping contract.

Late Monday afternoon I learned that I was starting a new gig on Wednesday, at a work site where cell phones are forbidden.

Tuesday I had a plumber check my water softener, which had been misbehaving, and learned that 24 years of my horrible well water had actually corroded the brass valves. The plumber went away to investigate options.

Also on Tuesday, I had lunch with my business partners and a real estate agent: our office lease is up in October and we need to decide what to do about it.

Wednesday I started the new gig. In the secure building with no cell phones allowed. I contacted the plumber and landscape guy, since the numbers I had given them would no longer work during working hours.

Thursday evening we had a meeting of CRUG, the Colorado Rational Users' Group, which our company sponsors.

Friday, the plumber came back and installed a new water softener. I also got in touch with the landscaper: his projects are running behind -- probably due to the violent weather we have had amost every day lately -- and the work on my retaining walls is now tentatively scheduled to start on Monday July 6.

Saturday I worked the farmers' market, and the weather, for a change, was beautiful.

Today I'm cleaning everything in the utensil drawers that the mice invaded while I was in Mobile: I need to use enough hot water to clear the untreated water out of the hot water heater before I try to do any laundry. There is so much iron in the untreated water that my clothes will be ruined if I use it to wash them.

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Sat, Jun 20, 2009

Retaining Wall

Posted at 8:21 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

Starting to track the latest phase of home improvement/repairs. I have hired New Creation Hardscapes to fix the stairwell to the basement door, where the dirt-slide happened last week.

Their bid was reasonable, and their design proposal showed that their rep had been listening to me. Unlike the other bid I got from a landscape architect who did not pay attention to the preferences I expressed during our conversation.

It remains to be seen how long this project will take to get started and to be finished, of course. I just faxed over a copy of the proposal with my signature Friday afternoon.

I don't know whether to hope they will be able to do the work immediately (which might suggest they are desperate for work) or that they are busy (which would probably be a good sign for the economy).

When they are finished, I should have usable steps down to the basement entrance and a paved walk from the front porch out to my driveway, which will be nice when the weather is wet and makes the clay in the soil all sticky.

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Thu, Jun 18, 2009

Allergies

Posted at 9:13 am MDT to Miscellaneous

I have been having a miserable time all week. My old coughing and swallowing problems seem to be back, full force. It is really annoying (and a little scary) to have problems swallowing chicken noodle soup.

Taking my morning meds, with water, set off serious coughing that seems to be a reaction to the physical act of swallowing. My fingers seem to be swollen, too, so my whole system is reacting, badly, to whatever is going on.

I don't think I have been eating anything I shouldn't -- though just to be on the safe side I am going to try taking eggs and goat's milk back out of my diet for a few days. I think the problem is actually the wet, rainy weather we've been having, which has caused an outpouring of pollen and mold in the environment.

I would prefer normal hayfever symptoms, though I have some of those too: puffy, watery eyes and occasional sneezing.

I'm going to take some Advil to try to knock down the inflamation so I can actually eat some breakfast. I should probably try taking an antihistamine, too, though I'll need to buy some.

At least I'm better off than I was last spring in that I know these are allergy symptoms.

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Wed, Jun 10, 2009

Forever Stamps

Posted at 11:21 am MDT to Miscellaneous

I need to run some errands later, including mailing the few monthly bills I still pay with paper checks.
I don't need to buy stamps to mail them.

I won't need to buy stamps for a long time. Even allowing for special events like sending Christmas cards, at my current rate of stamp use, I won't need to buy stamps again for at least a couple of years.

A few months ago (before the postage increase) I picked up 100 forever stamps at Costco, where they were even discounted from the official price. Since they are now worth 44 dollars instead of their 42 dollar original value or the 41.50 I paid for them, I have made over 5 per cent on the transaction already.

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Mon, Jun 08, 2009

Basement Door

Posted at 6:56 am MDT to Miscellaneous

Dinah Kitty is freaked out. Her pupils are very dilated and she sort of prowls around lashing her tail.

First we had a guest in the house -- my brother Larry arrived midday Friday and I drove him into Denver Saturday evening for a professional conference he's attending. Then some time yesterday the French doors to my basement were forced open by a combination of wind and a minor avalanche of the dirt that was loosened by the powerline excavations last year.

I didn't notice the door being open until this morning. Dinah had not slept on my bed last night at all, which is very unusual, so when it got light I went looking for her.

When I found the open door I was very worried that she had gone outside and gotten lost or been eaten by a coyote or something: she is an indoor
cat who does not know how to handle herself outdoors. Fortunately, she was hiding in the basement. I'm not sure why she was hiding in the basement when it was something in the basement that was upsetting her, but that's OK. At least she is safe.

I used a spade to clear enough dirt to mostly close the door. It doesn't latch properly (I need to do some more digging to get the second door to close all the way) but the biggest gap is at the top. I have the spade braced under the doorknob to keep the door from swinging open before I have time to work on it some more.

Dinah ate a little of her breakfast and then went downstairs again. Maybe she thinks she is guarding her territory, but I'm not sure how she thinks she can do that from her hiding place in the far end of the basement.

I think the urgency of getting those retaining walls replaced has just increased considerably. I wish I believed there was such a thing as a reliable contractor. Neither my experience nor Nanette's is very encouraging.

They say that there were severe storms in the area yesterday afternoon, including some tornadoes. I don't remember hearing anything here, but I suppose a gust of wind might have helped push the door open. There are more storms forecast for today. I'll have to pay attention to things.

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Fri, May 29, 2009

Charity of the Month(s) April/May 2009

Posted at 1:45 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

The Habitat for Humanity folks called because they were having a matching-fund drive, so I made a donation. (I've apparently been donating to them for 10 years.) This is prime building season so the money does more good now than waiting until later inthe year.

I also made a donation to Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres, since there was a recent earthquake and we are coming up on hurricane season. Their donation page doesn't work with the Konqueror browser -- they use one of those CAPTCHA things, which Konqueror blocks (It's picky about Flash apps) -- but I was able to make the donation by switching to Firefox.

This puts me just about exactly on track for my goal of making charitable donations equal to 10% of my net pay for the year. I'm really trying to get out of the bad habit of doing most of my giving in the 4th quarter when Christmas shopping is also happening.

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