Duncan

Sadly, our family lost Duncan today. He had been behaving strangely and, in a rapid succession of events, we took him in to the vet, discovered that he was suffering from Feline Leukemia Virus, and -- ultimately -- made the tough decision to help ease him off of his very difficult path. I don't really have any poetry in me at the moment; suffice it to say that we're sad and tired and it is so surreal to lose a part of the family who was with us for over eight years. I believe that he had a good life.

Graduated yesterday -- Woo-hoo!

An Engineer's Guide to Cats

For those keeping score...

...still no house sale, so still no house purchase in ABQ. It'd be fun to blame the economy, the Executive Branch, OPEC, or possibly Professor Moriarty, but I guess it just amounts to bad luck/good luck and/or a lesson in patience.

The family just returned from a scouting trip to the desert, which was very useful in terms of learning a bit about the lay of the land. In this case, the dry, barren, land. The high brown desert will, indeed, take some serious adjustment for this monkey, but I can't deny that the sunset against the mountains as we drove into town from the Sandia reservation was acutely gorgeous.

Passed my Comprehensive Exam

Another thing to check off the list!

Master's Paper is done.

Ug. Finally.

This is critical reading...

I read a bunch of security-related blogs for some reason, of which the Danger Room on Wired is... Well, one. In any event, these two threads are awesome:

How To: Terminate a Terminator

How to: Stop a 500-Foot Monster

Sans the Fat Cat

Variations on this exist, but I do love me the existential genius of "garfield minus garfield."

Lavish Dog Spas (from Mental Floss)

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/12542

Old news, but still a thoughtful, powerful, piece:

We Must All Do Our Part To Preserve This Climate Of Fear

World-o-meters

This site is a nice collection o' realtime statistics... It's pretty mesmerizing, actually, to watch the numbers tick by and visualize what they actually mean. Absolutely worth a visit.




http://www.worldometers.info/

I am the victim of stereotyping!

...about the Nintendo DS, that is.







http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2007/20070803.jpg

NEW ARRIVAL : SPECIAL DELIVERY!!!

My new phone came on Thursday! Woo-hoo!

...What? Did you think I meant something else? Weird.

Anyway, it's not the latest or greatest, but the Blackberry Pearl is a definite step up from my old phone. And the $99 price point hit the mark just right. And, more importantly, we finally bit the bullet on an unlimited data plan, so I can email and whatnot without guilt. Unfortunately, the Pearl doesn't have a wifi card, so it's a bit limited, but it's still better than smoke signals.

Book Repair Workshop

I spent today in Greenville, NC (about 2 hours NE of home) at a Book Repair Workshop. Pretty fun stuff. Not exactly "real" conservator work, but still very useful knowledge for weirdos of my ilk.

To give you an idea of what I was doing, this was one of my play books. I removed the spine, tore several pages, removed a chunk of the text block, simulated a stain, ripped the end papers, and hurled a few curses at it that I learned from the gap-toothed carnie who runs the Zipper ride at the Midco Traveling Fun Show.

Then, I put it all back together and did my best to make the book suitable for lending and reading. Like I said: Fun stuff.