Cole Porter Got There First

A college education I should never propose,
A bachelor's degree won't even keep you in clo'es,
But millions you will win if you can spin on your nose.
Be a clown, be a clown, be a clown.

Obviously, this guy wasn't listening.

After James McGrath graduated from Christopher Newport University, he spent a year or two "working miscellaneous odd jobs here and there" while looking for the opportunity that would become his career.

He expected it to be some form of social work - that's what he had planned when he took his degree in psychology with a minor in religious studies - but instead, he would up turning a college hobby into a role in The Greatest Show on Earth. McGrath, 26, has returned to the Peninsula this week in character as Crickett, a spike-haired clown in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Well, I always wondered what people did with a Bachelor's in Psychology.

28 February 2005 - Day Twelve

It wasn't our imagination last night. The pups are wiggly. Today they are all, in effect, walking. Unsteady to be sure, but up on all fours, and bellies off the ground. Another day or two, and their eyes should open.

They are also getting very cuddly and cute. Yes, the cuteness factor is beginning to rise exponentially.

Cinny went to the vet today. They said her ear problem is a yeast infection. She has some ear drops to set her right. One of the techs was wondering if the pups are all spoken for yet. Her mom would like a collie.

We also started looking at other names for these guys. The plan was to give them spice, herb, or pepper related names. I also wanted to sneak in pastries there somewhere. So far it looks like Big Girl will become "Nutmeg" (Meg), Bitty Girl will be "Ginger Snap" (Ginger), and Spiral will become something like "Marjoram" (Margie) or Pennyroyal (Penny).

In jest I've suggested Arrowhead become "Arrowroot Biscuit". My other leading names for boys are Coriander (Cory) and Sweet Woodruff (Woody). Finally, maybe an Ancho or some such in there. I also suggested "Jalapeno Cornbread". Well, OK, maybe that is a little too silly.

27 February 2005 - Day Eleven

I had an e-mail from a lady in Arizona today. She has been looking at my page,
and wondered if I knew of collie rescues or breeders she could contact. I sent her
info for contacting rescues through the Collie Club of America, and breeders through
Collies Online.

• Pup #1 - 'Spiral' - 35 ounces (+4)
  
• Pup #2 - "Big girl' - 36 ounces (+3)
  
• Pup #5 - 'Bitty girl' - 28 ounces (+2)
  
• 'Arrowhead' - 41 ounces (+5)
  
• 'Island' - 34 ounces (+3)
  
• 'Big Boy' - 38 ounces (+4)
  
• 'Short Stocking' - 33 ounces (+1)
  
• 'Blaze' - 37 ounces (+2)
  

Well, I think this was the last night for the "weighing". They were all so
wiggly I could hardly get them in the sling long enough to check them.

Cinny is showing a new problem. I've noticed for a couple days she had a lot of
bloody crusts in her ears. It comes right out with a Q-tip, but we are concerned
she might have ear mites or some such thing.

Renewable energy, but not very reliable

Windmills sound great, but not so good in practice at times.

A drop in wind generation late on Tuesday, coupled with colder weather,
triggered an electric emergency that caused the Texas grid operator to cut
service to some large customers, the grid agency said on Wednesday.
Electric
Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said a decline in wind energy production in
west Texas occurred at the same time evening electric demand was building as
colder temperatures moved into the state.
The grid operator went directly to
the second stage of an emergency plan at 6:41 PM CST (0041 GMT), ERCOT said in a
statement.

Cosmic Convergence

I have to love it when these things all come together -

A York resident — who apparently wants his cremated ashes to be brewed into a special ale for his wake — was recently named "Beerdrinker of the Year" by a Colorado-based brewery.

Wynkoop Brewing Company named Matt Venzke the winner of its "12th annual search for America's ultimate beer fiend" last weekend in Denver. Along with the coveted title, Venzke wins "free beer for life" at Wynkoop Brewing Company, a $250 beer tab at his favorite bar, the Taphouse in Hampton, and the opportunity to create a special beer with Wynkoop's head brewer for next year's Beerdrinker of the Year" event, according to a Wynkoop statement.

My favorite place to go for a beer!

26 February 2005 - Day Ten

Not much to tell today. They just keep on growing like crazy, and keep getting cuter.

• Pup #1 - 'Spiral' - 31 ounces (+1)
  
• Pup #2 - "Big girl' - 33 ounces (+2)
  
• Pup #5 - 'Bitty girl' - 26 ounces (+1)
  
• 'Arrowhead' - 36 ounces (+2)
  
• 'Island' - 31 ounces (+3)
  
• 'Big Boy' - 34 ounces (+2)
  
• 'Short Stocking' - 32 ounces (+3)
  
• 'Blaze' - 35 ounces (+3)
  

Global Warming Kills

I t was just a matter of time, wasn't it? They've been warning us all along, and now it's happened.

Six people have been killed in three days by icicles falling from buildings in a central Russian region, ITAR-TASS news agency reported Tuesday.

Darwin Award - Almost

Didn't it used to be that people went crazy trying to steal gold? Is it just here in Virginia that the people are so low-rent that they go for copper?

A man Richmond police say was trying to steal copper from a Dominion Virginia Power substation was seriously burned Saturday night.

Richard Croker, 36, was taken to VCU Medical Center with burns over 65 percent of his body, authorities said. He was listed in stable condition this morning.

Richmond police said officers were on patrol just before 9 p.m. Saturday when they saw a large ball of fire and explosion at a Dominion substation in the 4300 block of Hull Street Road.

When they pulled up to the fenced-in substation, they found Croker inside with his clothes on fire.

Police said Croker had climbed over the fence and was trying to steal copper wiring.

Police have obtained warrants charging Croker with trespassing, felony destruction of property and larceny. He has not yet been served with the warrants, police spokeswoman Wendy Jenkins said.

25 February 2005 - Day Nine

OK, Cinny was more than a little ill last night. It was a full blown poop-a-thon. I discovered she had her first accident at about 10pm. Got that cleaned up and went to bed. Left Winnie a huge note. See, to get Cinnamon to eat her dinner we've been jazzing it up with cooked beef liver. I don't think that is agreeing with her tummy. So, the note said "No more liver!"

Anyway, for all the good that that did. I was up with her again at 11pm (another oops), and at midnight (oops, again). Finally got the procedure down then, and got her out at 1, 2, and 3 without further incidents. Except, of course, for my not getting to sleep. When I put her out at 3, I lay down on the couch and was out for an hour. When I got her back in, she finally slept until wake-up time at 5:30.

So, needless to say, I was more useless than usual at work on Friday.

She did get 1 1/2 cups of regular kibble for breakfast, but pooped indoors twice more during the day. This evening I've gotten 2+ cups of kibble into her, with no gross results. Hopefully laying off of the liver has fixed this.

The puppies, of course, are wonderful. Definitely pushing up on their legs now and trying to walk. Even the smallest is now a 1/2 pound larger than the biggest was at birth. The largest is over 2 pounds. They seem to be keeping a gap of around 8 ounces, or so, between the largest and the smallest among them.

• Pup #1 - 'Spiral' - 30 ounces (+2)
  
• Pup #2 - "Big girl' - 31 ounces (+2)
  
• Pup #5 - 'Bitty girl' - 25 ounces (+2)
  
• 'Arrowhead' - 34 ounces (+1)
  
• 'Island' - 28 ounces (+1)
  
• 'Big Boy' - 32 ounces (+2)
  
• 'Short Stocking' - 29 ounces (+2)
  
• 'Blaze' - 32 ounces (+2)
  

24 February 2005 - Day Eight

Sorry, no pictures today.

Cinny was a bit ill last night, and pooped on the floor around midnight. Then she did it again during the day.

The puppies all seem fine, though. Growing like crazy.

* Pup #1 - 'Spiral' - 28 ounces (+3)
* Pup #2 - "Big girl' - 29 ounces (+3)
* Pup #5 - 'Bitty girl' - 23 ounces (+2)
* 'Arrowhead' - 33 ounces (+4)
* 'Island' - 27 ounces (+3)
* 'Big Boy' - 30 ounces (+2)
* 'Short Stocking' - 27 ounces (+3)
* 'Blaze' - 30 ounces (+2)

23 February 2005 - Day Seven

Well, everybody is a week old tonight, and doing well. It seems to me that some of them can almost be called walking. Not stably, but they are up on their feet. It's getting so that Cinny can hardly get sat down before someone is trying to crawl into her lap. I'm going to have to start watching them very closely, as they might soon manage to get out of the wading pool. Then it's only a few feet to a staircase.

Our two problem children from yesterday, Island and Blaze, made up for no weight gain yesterday by putting on 3 and 4 ounces respectively.

I'm feeling a lot better about Bitty Girl, too, as she is now 5 ounces bigger than the biggest of the pups was when they were born. She's still down a half pound from the largest, but that's OK.

• Pup #1 - 'Spiral' - 25 ounces (+2)
• Pup #2 - "Big girl' - 26 ounces (+2)
• Pup #5 - 'Bitty girl' - 21 ounces (+2)
• 'Arrowhead' - 29 ounces (+2)
• 'Island' - 24 ounces (+3)
• 'Big Boy' - 28 ounces (+2)
• 'Short Stocking' - 24 ounces (+1)
• 'Blaze' - 28 ounces (+4)

Thank god for interested bystanders

That's what they said about this story over at Instapundit.

Colt Haugen, a 22-year-old student at the University of Colorado and waiter at Ruby Tuesday, was working at the restaurant last month when he saw a man pull a pill from his pocket and put it in his date's glass when the woman got up from the table. "I almost dropped the food I was holding. I couldn't believe what I was seeing," Haugen says. "I talked with the manager. I told her, I said, 'I saw this plain as day. And if we don't do something about this, something's going to happen to this woman.'" The police were called and when the drink was tested, it was found to contain Valium. Nancy McGrath, the woman at the table, was on a blind date and considers Haughen to be an "angel." "He saved my life," she says.

22 February 2005 - Day Six

More visitors today! Dave Gauthier and Erica Westcott came by. They aren't really looking for another dog, but are buying a house on a half acre up county, so if we need a temporary home for anybody...

These little guys are starting to push up and try to walk. It makes them look more clumsy than before, because they try to stand up, and then fall over. Before, they just scooted around on their bellies like seals.

* Pup #1 - 'Spiral' - 23 ounces (+1)
* Pup #2 - "Big girl' - 24 ounces (+3, on top again)
* Pup #5 - 'Bitty girl' - 19 ounces (+2)
* 'Arrowhead' - 27 ounces (+1)
* 'Island' - 21 ounces (no change - watch this)
* 'Big Boy' - 26 ounces (+2)
* 'Short Stocking' - 23 ounces (+2)
* 'Blaze' - 24 ounces (no change - watch this)

Big Whoop

OK, so they managed to blow up the spy satellite. The hit a known target, the size of a bus, in a stable, essentially circular orbit with highly precisely known ephemeris. How about hitting a missile, launched only seconds to minutes ago, dubious ephemeris available at most, under thrust, and potentially taking evasive action? This proved nothing about missile defense.

21 February 2005 - Day Five

Pups had a visitor tonight; Julie Herman came by to see them. Like us, she had never seen newborn pups. Only after they were a few weeks old.

Winnie has been concerned enough about how small Bitty Girl is, that she tried to give her a bottle of instant puppy formula today. "Ewww, what's that?" was the only response she got.

• Pup #1 - 'Spiral' - 22 ounces (+2)
• Pup #2 - "Big girl' - 21 ounces (+1, no longer biggest)
• Pup #5 - 'Bitty girl' - 17 ounces (+2)
• 'Arrowhead' - 26 ounces (+2)
• 'Island' - 21 ounces (+2)
• 'Big Boy' - 24 ounces (+2)
• 'Short Stocking' - 21 ounces (+2)
• 'Blaze' - 24 ounces (+2)

20 February 2005 - Day Four

They continue to grow by the hour. It's amazing how fast. Also, they are starting to show some personality. There are a couple, like spiral, that when whine and complain, even while they are eating. They've also begun to make sounds that are clearly dog whines and barks. It's little, but it's cute.

Here at 1pm Cinny is getting a nap. Thank goodness. She was nursing pups continuously last night for about 6 hours, as best as I was able to figure. It started around 11, and she didn't get them all off to sleep at once until about 5 am.

Here are pictures of five of the pups. Mouse over the photo for the name of each.


At the end of the day their weights were:

* Pup #1 - 'Spiral' - 20 ounces (+3)
* Pup #2 - "Big girl' - 20 ounces (+3)
* Pup #5 - 'Bitty girl' - 15 ounces (+1)
* 'Arrowhead' - 24 ounces (+4)
* 'Island' - 19 ounces (+2)
* 'Big Boy' - 22 ounces (+3)
* 'Short Stocking' - 19 ounces (+2)
* 'Blaze' - 22 ounces (+3)


The "ALT" tags don't seem to come across in Blogger. From the top, the pups pictured are Spiral, Short Stocking, Bitty Girl, Big Girl (vertical shot) and Arrowhead.

Another Puppy Story

I heard this story on the news this afternoon.

In late December, life looked grim for Amber, a very pregnant silver Labrador retriever that was either lost or dumped in a remote area near McGregor Lake.
Alone in the cold, she found shelter inside a burned-out log, where she gave birth to nine puppies. Somehow, Amber kept herself and her litter alive, for a week to 10 days.

Then her luck changed. The roar of snowmobiles caught her attention and she raced out for the companionship she craved and the help she needed from two compassionate young men.

It was just a coincidence that Joey Norris, 20, and Austin Lowe, 22, were in that area. Norris said it was his first ride on a snow machine and his first time in this particular area.

“There’s not much around there,” Norris said.

He said he and his buddy were enjoying their outing when the dog ran out to engage them in play. It was obvious that she was nursing puppies.

“We stopped and asked her where her puppies were,” Norris said.

Amazingly, she led them to the hollow log where she had kept all nine pups warm and fed.

“We couldn’t even see them, but we could hear them,” he said.

Amber had secreted the puppies deep down inside the log where neither predators nor good Samaritans could reach them. Even with the strength of youth, the men couldn’t break the log open enough to retrieve the tiny dogs.

They were forced to leave them overnight to return home for tools and a plastic tub.

THE NEXT day, they hiked back to the spot to initiate their rescue mission.

Norris said they first lured the mother lab away in case she became too protective. Then, the work began.

“We had a crow bar so we peeled the log back, piece by piece,” he said. “Then we put them in the Rubber Maid and drove them to the Humane Society.”

Norris said he was familiar with the shelter and its no-kill policy. They trusted the staff would take care of the mother dog and her litter.

Although the Humane Society of Northwest Montana has no quarantine facilities for puppies, shelter manager Marje Guest made room for the heroic mom who had gone to such lengths to save her babies.

“She’s a wonderful dog — somewhere between brown and silver,” Guest said.

The shelter settled on the name Amber for the dog, noting her color and honoring Norris’ girlfriend of the same name. An exhaustive search of lost-and-found ads and calls failed to turn up anyone looking for a dog of her description.

Although she had a collar, Amber had no tags or microchip to identify her owner. But her friendly manner and knowledge of commands indicates she once had a home.

“She was somebody’s dog,” Guest said. “But it was obvious she had been out there for some time.”

GUEST said Amber and the puppies were in decent condition for as long as they were on their own. It appeared that she had been living on carcasses while feeding her young.

“She wasn’t in terrible condition, a little on the thin side,” Guest said. “The puppies were in good shape, nice and chubby. She’s a very good mom.”

19 February 2005 - Day Three

Didn't take any pictures today. Cinny is definitely getting the hang of this. She nurses when she needs to, and then comes down and joins the rest of the family when she can. She was much happier as a result.

Here are today's weights. You can see how they are growing, some of them being up 2-3 ounces in just the past 24 hours.

• Pup #1 - 'Spiral' - 17 ounces (+1)
• Pup #2 - "Big girl' - 17 ounces (+1)
• Pup #5 - 'Bitty girl' - 14 ounces (+2)
• 'Arrowhead' - 20 ounces (+3)
• 'Island' - 17 ounces (+2)
• 'Big Boy' - 19 ounces (+1, no longer biggest)
• 'Short Stocking' - 17 ounces (+1)
• 'Blaze' - 19 ounces (+2)

18 February 2005 - Day Two

I got back to work this day, so didn't see them much. In the evening, we did take Curry in to see them for the first time. He was interested and quite gentle. Cinny was cautious but not aggressive. Very good, for them both!

We took advantage of the quiet evening to sort out and weight all the pups again. They now range from 12 to 17 ounces. So everybody has gained one to two ounces since birth. That's good news. All their little umbilici have now fallen off, too.

So that we can sort them out, we've started putting names on them. Mostly, they are based on patterns we notice in their ruff markings. These should stay constant as they grow up. They are:

• Pup #1 - 'Spiral' - 16 ounces
• Pup #2 - "Big girl' - 16 ounces
• Pup #5 - 'Bitty girl' - 12-13 ounces
• 'Arrowhead' - 17 ounces
• 'Island' - 15 ounces
• 'Big Boy' - 17-18 ounces
• 'Short Stocking' - 16 ounces
• 'Blaze' - 17 ounces

Confusing Cause and Effect

From the Rocky Mountain News -

Poor children in Denver have to travel farther to get to the city's highest-performing schools, a study to be released today shows.

Sigh! You don't suppose it's because children from poor families tend to have lower performance in school do you?

17 February 2005 - Day One

This was a day of getting adjusted for us all. The early morning hours had been real restless for us all. I can't believe how much they squeak and whine. Cinny was trying to figure out what she should be doing, and we were trying to make sure she didn't lay down and squash a baby. I only got 2 hours sleep, and so skipped going to work. We took mom and pups to the vet later that morning, and she pronounced them as all being fine.

We are spending lots of time in the room with Cinny. She seems to want the company.

Their little blue home you see here is a kids wading pool, lined with fake sheepskin material. Under one half of it I have a folded up electric mattress pad heater we've not needed here in VA. This is keeping the little guys plenty warm.

By evening, things had settled down a bit. Then, just at 10pm, we had company. Winnie and I had both sent out e-mails announcing the pups, and Chris Evans and Donna Grusha came by to see them.

Trying to figure which pup is which is a challenge. So, from the first night, the only three pups were are sure which is which of; the girls. The smallest pup is a girl (pup #5), her sister (pup #2) has a really dark coat, leaving pup #1, the other girl. The boys are all a mystery.

16 February 2005 - Happy Birthday!

Three years ago, today, we had quite a lot of excitement here.

Here are some photos from the evening the puppies were born. What a night that was. Cinny knew that things weren't quite right in her tummy. I found her hiding behind the bed in the small bedroom after dinner. I could smell something wasn't right. Literally. I got a hand behind her, and found a pup half delivered already. I backed her out of that spot, and we got her laid down on some towels.

Then for the next 5 hours we delivered puppies. The first couple worried us, as they weren't breathing properly as they came out. Winnie got their airways drained, though, and blew on their faces, and they started to squeak.

The fifth pup was a surprise. We had just delivered the fourth, and had the first three down to suck, when there was a squeak from behind Cinny. Now how did one of those pups get back there. But this one was all wet, having just come out unannounced and unnoticed. we'll be keeping a watch on her though, as she is the smallest in the litter.

The eighth was a surprise, too. The x-rays at the vet had only showed 7 pups, but we were unconvinced, so we waited. Sure enough, just after midnight on the morning of the 17th, we got an eight pup.

We were pretty happy she let us help. Some dogs don't want any interference, but she seemed happy to have us there to help get the amniotic sacks off, and to get them cleaned up. She also seemed happy to have someone there to tell her she was a good girl, and she was doing a good job.

In all, we got 3 girls and 5 boys. They ranged in weight that night from 11 to 16 ounces. we tried to keep track of them by marking them with strings around them. We were afraid to tie these too tight, though, and by morning they were all off.

Funny (or gross) moment of the night. - Dogs like to eat the afterbirth. Both as a hormonal thing, and to clean away the scent of blood from any predators. After the first two, we didn't want her eating any more of them, as they can also cause an upset tummy. So, I got a trash sack, and started dropping them in there. Of course, I didn't watch where I put it, and at a crucial moment sat down to help with a delivery, right on top of the sack. There was the ultimate POP-SQUISH sound as the garbage sack broke and the afterbirth exploded all over the seat of my pants. Eww!

Let's Shoot Down a Satellite!

No doubt you've heard of the satellite that's going to be shot down?

The military will try to shoot down a crippled spy satellite in the next two weeks, senior officials said Thursday. The officials laid out a high-tech plan to intercept the satellite over the Pacific just before it tumbles uncontrollably to Earth carrying toxic fuel.

The real reason is undoubtedly the one they are denying.

President Bush ordered the action to prevent any possible contamination from the hazardous rocket fuel on board, and not out of any concern that parts of the spacecraft might survive and reveal its secrets, the officials said.

Uh-huh. You think that the fuel tank will survive the fall intact, but not the electronics and/or imaging gear? Good lord, how dumb do you think we are?

Specialists in spy satellites have speculated that the problem satellite, managed by the National Reconnaissance Office, is an experimental imagery device built by Lockheed Martin and launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California aboard a Delta II rocket.

Well, doofus, is the satellite in an equatorial orbit, or a near-polar orbit? I could say more on the subject, but I think my former employers (see above) would still get a bit testy about that.

Gloat

Today, after exactly six years in the same cubicle, I moved to a new location.

Actually, I didn't move into another cubicle. Instead, I moved into a real office, with a door, eight feet of east-facing window, and twice the square footage of my old place.

The boss is calling it a "testing lab". I'm calling it a coup. No other consultant in the department has ever been given an office with a door, and this place is 50% consultants.

To keep it low key, when someone asks how I rated this, I tell them I was too important to fire, but too obnoxious to be allowed to mingle. The boss says that's about half right. Yes, but which half?

A Quiet Sunday Evening

I thought I'd write this sooner, from home, but here I am at work.

Sunday we had an amazing windstorm as a cold front came through. It blew for hours. First the TV and Internet went out. Then there was a big crack and out went the lights. It turned out that the next door neighbor's maple tree, in the front yard broke, and a section up to about 3 ft across came down across the power lines. The tree caught on fire, and it took three and a half hours to get the tree off the lines and the power back on.

Unfortunately, we must have missed an automated response step in reporting our other outage. I called the cable company last night, and my problem was news to them. They say it will probably be Friday before they can get anyone out to look at it.

So, no TV, no Internet, until then.

This hasn't been a good two weeks

First, two weeks ago tomorrow, I had to drive up to New York to help out as my Grandmother entered a nursing home. She lived alone for over 50 years, so I think this is coming as a major shock to her. Then, I also organized a lot of the packing up and cleaning out of her apartment.

Most of her furniture went to Salvation Army, and quite a bit of smaller stuff went to the SPCA thrift shop. Some of her smaller, nicer possessions went into storage. I brought all of her personal, non-financial papers home with me, and I'm slowly figuring out what is what. Boxes and boxes of photos and photo albums, diaries, correspondence, etc.

Then, en route home, a week ago Thursday, I began feeling 'weird'. By the next morning I felt distinctly bad. By the time I got to the doctor's office, at 2:30, I had a 103.4 fever. They did the test, pronounced it the flu, and gave me Tamiflu. That helped really fast, but I still worked from home on Monday, and dragged through the rest of the week. Today I napped for two hours. Now, I'm ready to eat and sleep again.