April 2007 Archives

The Clippers were giving away free caps to the first 2000 attendees on Friday.

Pretty awesome isn't it?

Friday night Monica and I watched the Clippers play the Durham Bulls (COL 8 12 2, DUR 9 11 0). After giving the correct answer to a question, a contestant selected from the crowd was presented with an "Awesome baseball cap" prominently featuring the logo of a local boat merchant. I was left worrying about the state of the American strategic adjective supply. If we have become so wasteful that we will use one of our most powerful positive adjectives to describe swag I fear our children will inherit a world where the only option left open for disambiguation is the use of foreign adjectives, likely imported from countries that don't share our values.

Its been a week since we took Gordon to the farm. While Lemmy is having a bit of trouble adjusting to the change, I have adapted quickly to sleeping seven hours strait. I got a call from Chris today telling me that the cat has taken to his new home with aplomb. He spends much of his time in the barn with the other animals and greets people when they drop by.

Just got a call from my aunt. She went to check on Gordon in his kennel in the barn this evening and found him in good health. She let him out of the cage to wander around a bit. The other cats gathered round (these are apparently the friendliest of barn cats) and sniffed at him a bit with nary a hiss; predictable reports of some angry exchanges though the bars of the kennel the first night not withstanding. He boldly explored his new surroundings till he rounded a corner and came face to shin with the largest animal he had ever seen. While he seemed to find the horse off-putting he didn't show any of the classic signs of fear, he just stood and stared a bit. He was returned to his kennel without incident and will be let out to roam freely beginning tomorrow.

My cousin Michael came over yesterday afternoon to help me break in my new Turkey Fryer beer brewing rig. On the agenda was an IPA I have named "Old Red Cat". Having done this in the past in a two gallon stock pot on a burner in the kitchen I have to say that there is nothing like working outside over a 7 gallon kettle with a propane burner. Anyone who has ever experienced a boil-over while brewing in their home knows what a stress reliever working outdoors on concrete is, and Monica can't complain about the smell.

Last December my cat started marking in the house again, a behavior that was not entirely new for him, but until now it has been so infrequently that each time it happened we were able to accept it as aberrant behavior. This time was different and I found myself unable to live with it. I became so hyper-vigilant around him that I found it nearly impossible to sleep through his comings and goings in the night. I knew I had to do something; my lack of sleep was effecting my work and his behavior left me dreading to come back home.