Jedadiah is gone...

Jedadiah, the cat formerly known as Snips (Jedadiah name comes from the movie Night at the Museum where a small feisty figurine played by Owen Wilson has the line "I don't like to be MAN HANDLED!")...

Anyway, Jedadiah is gone. We found a home that can handle feral cats and "scratchers" in particular. He's gone to a good home and will no longer attack our children to the point of blood.

We went down to the kennel today to look for an alternate solution. Our ground rules before going in there is that we would not do the whole "instant emotional attachment" thing. We were going to be pragmatic about it. Our rules were vague, but HAD to be met before another cat could come in our home. The cat had to:

1. Desire human contact (i.e. not try to instantly run and hide when held by a member of our family)
2. Purr while we're there
3. Be social
4. Not draw blood.

We found one, the breed is called "blue chinchilla":

---NOT OUR NEW CAT---

who is still hiding underneath our bed at the moment. She is named Cleo(patra) and met all the criteria. Now, let's see if she can keep up the rep.

After Jason (the-eat-everything-to-include-kids cat) and Snips (aka "The Shredder"), we're really looking forward to a cat in our family who will, at a minimum, not kill our children.

The Wubba

Got a Kong Wubba for Nigel tonight... about 15 minutes ago, actually.


The product description says:

"Kong Wubba is a fun, interactive toss and tug toy. Durable re-enforced nylon fabric covers two balls - a tennis ball on top and a squeaker ball beneath. The long tails make it easy to pick up and throw. Dogs love to squeak the Wubba and shake the flapping tails back and forth."

"Love to squeak it and shake it", huh? How about destroy it the second they get it in their mouths?



Didn't take him long...

How bad can your life possibly be?

How bad can your life possibly be if you are willing to stab yourself to avoid going to work?!? AT BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO?!?

"MAN, I can't handle these late fees!!!... wait, we don't charge those anymore..."

But wait... what is this Mr. Siebers has tucked there, tattooed under the collar of his orange jumpsuit?

A geocaching travel bug?!?

Aah.. he was looking to get the day off of work to go geocaching... okay, now I understand.

One more thing...

Drudge and the Politico are posting about Gore making profits off of Global Warming...

So what?

Isn't that what we're aiming for? Financial freedom to profit from your beliefs and convictions? The guy, though I disagree with his platform, has invested in what he feels should be the future. He has turned a profit from it. If you disagree, disagree by investing counter to his initiatives... promote your own... do what he's doing, but in your vision.

And while I'm at it, a tip of the hat to Ford. Ford, instead of taking the government bail out, negotiated with its unions and made tough decisions through the tough financial times and is now showing profits from it while they're saying it is unlikely the US taxpayer will recoup their "investment" into GM and the others.

Good for you Ford.

Al, I don't agree with you. I don't agree with using taxpayer dollars to do it, but I like that you've invested yourself into your beliefs and are coming out on top from it.

Of course, it could just be the jet-lag talking.

Wondering...

If the government can make you buy health insurance, why did we bail out the auto industries? Why not just mandate everyone buy a new American car? Where does the power end if they can make you buy one thing or the other? "But Tim, the states make you buy auto insurance." States make you buy to protect others and you don't HAVE to buy it... you can choose to not drive. Driving is a privilege... it can be revoked... it can be suspended...

Living... living freely... this is not a privilege. The plans on the table now require you to buy insurance or be jailed, fined, or both.

Reform can be made (i.e. tort reform) which does not infringe on civil liberties, but restores civility and order to the current health care troubles. Make change, sure, but make change where change is good and needed.

I tried to post last night

I have no idea where it went.

Oh well...

It was about a cache that I placed close to my house which was maliciously muggled and strewn all over the park. What a shame.

I remembered a story my buddy told me about standing in line in the BX and a lady yelling and fussing over something she considered very important to the cashier. A Korean veteran standing behind him turned to my friend and said, "You know, I bet there are worse places in the world to be right now."

There's a lot said in that.

In other news, I had a pretty good lunch with the kids today. We started off with PB&J and moved on to a Linguini in Clam sauce.

Today is already shaping up to be better than the last.

And to top it all off...

Our "fearless leader" has won the Nobel Peace Prize (I have no idea why I continue to capitalize this award.)

President Obama, nominated only 12 days into his administration, has won the peace prize for his "work" toward multilateralism, nuclear disarmament, ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, closing Guantanimo, and pushing for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.

1. The US was not unilateral. There are many nations involved in both Iraq and Afghanistan... England, Australia, Japan, France, Germany... to say that we are only now multilateral is to belittle the efforts and deaths of those international brothers in arms who are out there at war with us. Shame.


2. The world still has nuclear arms. How many have been destroyed under his Presidency? What Barak Obama has done is to renege on the promise of a missile shield in Eastern Europe which would protect those nations from rogue missiles.


3. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are both ongoing and the commander on the ground in Afghanistan is asking for 40,000 more troops.


4. Guantanimo is still open.


5. And last time I checked, Israel and the palestinian people are still feuding. As a matter of fact, Israel is now having to fight that affront along with the threat of President Ahmedinijad's iranian nuclear aspirations and his intent to wipe Israel off the map.

But then again, they also awarded the "Peace Prize" to Al Gore for his man made global warming hoax during a time of global cooling. The Oslo gang is a joke.

Oh, by the way, NBC has removed all reference to this skit from having ever taken place. They are trying to hide their own criticism of this President out of what can only be presumed as fear of repercussion. Oh, you can still find all the skits critical of Sarah Palin and John McCain... just don't speak poorly, even in jest, of the current administration.

Long day

I had a rough day at work today. A guy with whom I work has changed dramatically for the worse. A guy whom I considered a friend has ostracized the section and the stress in the office is palpable. For a good while, I'd been the sounding board for the other guys in the office. I was the guy to whom they could go in confidence to vent their frustrations and I would try to help change the office atmosphere to keep us all moving forward. I also tried to work with this guy and be the guy whom he did not need to worry about. I'd be the guy who would be there for him. I play with his kids, we know their family, we've invited them over numerous times for social engagements, I worked for him when the rest of the gang was ready to turn their backs.

Gosh I wish it would have worked.

The last straw was laid on the camel's back today.

I will continue to work with this guy as I've done with others in the past with whom I've disagreed. I will continue to work with him as I've worked with others who have treated me wrong. I won't like it, but I'll do it. He's now on a rank, last name basis. If he wants to be alone in this, he can be alone. I'll work with the rest of the gang, but other than that, Tim will take care of Tim's business and make sure Tim's work is done.

Dude, ya done me wrong. Ya done the team wrong. Where's the old you?

Yeah, that's what I thought, punk

What's wrong typhoon?

Did we do something to offend you?

Aw, we didn't mean it.

Come on back and play.

Yeah, sunny by Thursday and then rain for the weekend. Oh well. I guess I'll go on into work then. Thanks a LOT typhoon. Go give mainland the day off instead.

Oh by the way...

So there's this little typhoon thing off the coast.

It's not really doing anything but throwing rain at the island for the moment.

It's expected to curve north tonight and "shouldn't" hit us.  Earlier today it was a Category 5 Super-Typhoon, but now it's just a little Cat-4... what a waste of potential.  You should be ashamed of yourself, typhoon.  Ashamed.

Sad day..

We usually get the news out here after it's been filtered for 24 hours.  If I want to stay on top of things, I surf from my home internet account (because the account at work is filtered)...

That being said, I heard some sad news on the radio this morning.

Gourmet Magazine is stopping publication.

You'll notice that gourmet.com does not exist on my sidebar of links.  I've got Cooksillustrated, Saveur, and a couple of other cooking sites, but I never put Gourmet there.

Why?

I'm not really sure.  Because Gourmet was a magazine to me?  I go to the site...  actually I go regularly.  Whenever I get bored with my standard recipes, I normally check them out to see what they have to offer to spice up my menu.  They'd been around since Jan of 1941... why would they need my endorsement?  Turns out, they did.  Sorry old gal.

Oh well...  When it's time to go, it's time to go.

Thank you Gourmet for your magazine.  I enjoyed it while it lasted.

For those of you who have favorite tv shows, radio shows, magazines, newspapers...  It IS okay to contact those companies who advertise in there and to let them know that you appreciate their support for your media.  That stuff's not free, ya know.

Letterbox Caching

There are a couple of cache types we've not found yet. There's the "Earth Cache" which does not hold a physical box nor log to sign, but introduces the cacher to an earthly concept such as erosion, coral reefs, beach restoration, and other, mostly ecological or geographical sites. The main reason we haven't hit one of these is because, surprisingly, there are none yet here on Okinawa.

The other type of cache we've not "found" is the "Letterbox Cache" where there is a stamp located in the cache box along with a notebook. You take along your own notebook and stamp, then you stamp the cache's log and use their stamp to stamp yours. Well, we've not done one of these mostly because we never had a "Muggle Family" stamp. Until now. Here it is, my first ever attempt at stamp carving:

From this..........

..........To this

Maybe now we can get out there and do a letterbox or two.

It's over

Thanks guys for coming. We really enjoyed you guys being able to make it.

Enter: slideshow

Happy Birthday Charlie!

Well, Charlie's birthday was actually a little while back, but we're celebrating it today since last week was someone else's party. Chas did a lot of the work on his cake this year. He made 2 of the cakes and three batches of buttercream icing and helped with the design. Well, let's go to the action photos:

The first ones here are of me making the fondant. A bag and a half of mini marshmallows and a bag of confectioner's sugar. That quickly became a sticky mess. Let it sit out for a night or two then tossed in the coloring gel.

We assembled the cakes:

And voila!

And yeah, that's a little geocaching lego-dude in that last picture. So what if there's an intergalactic lego battle going on? He's got to find the cache!

Funny T-Shirt design of the day

Found this one last night.

They called the design "It's a clue"

It's a classic murder mystery "Blu-dunnit"

Hilarious.

Simply hilarious.