Jake’s blog

    A few weeks ago, I posted a renewed surge of energy.  Well, it's officially in limbo, but I refuse to give up on it :)  I didn't accomplish much this weekend, other than possibly keep my beloved cat alive.  Poofie had another pretty nasty asthma attack on Saturday around noon, and I couldn't help her get a handle on it - I'm not sure I got a good dose of albuterol inhaler into her, since the sound of filling the AeroKat cylinder freaked her out.  And to add to the insanity, while I was trying to hold the inhaler and her on the kitchen counter, I apparently leaned against the dishwasher controls and it started running.  So the shock of all those sounds at once, and the panic I'm sure she was feeling, combined to send her into the worst attack she's had since last October.  It's disheartening since that means the allergy shots aren't doing as much good as I hoped.  For good measure, she scratched her ear open last week, too..  So I'm quickly running out of options for her.  If these things are happening while I'm at home, I can't imagine what happens when I'm not here..  And with the anxiety issues I already have, this is not adding up to anything good.  I don't know how much longer her and I are going to be able to do this..  We spent two hours at the vet on Saturday afternoon, and they gave her a shot of a fast-acting steriod (Dex?) to add to her daily dose of Prednisone.  Today she seemed okay, but her stomach isn't quite up to par, no wonder why.

   I did leave the house for a bit today (Sunday) to look at a BMW in northeast Philly.  There's good potential, but we'll see - I'm not a fan of automatic transmissions..  But there aren't many of these '88-'91 all-wheel drive BMW's on the road anymore, so I can't be as picky as I would normally be.

   I finished the fifth Harry Potter book for the second time.  I think I'm going to continue into the sixth book again.  As always, this frequent excursion into a single theme (Harry Potter, That '70s Show, etc) has wandered into my dreams.  So this morning, I dreamt that I was at some sort of school, like a college attached to a high school.  And I was now in college, but apparently wasn't away from high school all that long.  I was exploring some unused rooms (chambers) under the main part of the school.  And different members of the Harry Potter movies made "guest appearances" - the main three characters (by my measure, anyways - Harry, Ron and Hermione), plus Professors Flitwick and McGonagal.  And somehow the scene moved from there to the house I grew up in, which I very rarely dream about.  So it was just a long, bizarre morning (appearently).

   Unfortunately, that's "one week..", not "week one..", but hey, I'll take 5 days off, no complaints.  I didn't finish half of what I set out to do, but on the positive side, I did finish or at least work on a handful of things.  I sanded the spackle in my second floor front bedroom, finally, so that's ready for primer.  I have the attic stairway and the little room leading up to the attic to sand out yet, but the attic stairway still needs another coat of spackle in few places, so no big push to finish that.  I just want the mess done with so I can paint and get carpet upstairs!  I haven't picked colors yet.  My bathroom upstairs is dark blue with cream yellow wainscoat and white trim (well, I haven't finished painting all the trim yet..)  And the attic I did in two shades of orange - one light orange, and one sort of violent :D  It's bright alright..  So I need a green of some sort for one of the two bedrooms, and I need a soft lead-in color for the small (5' x 7') room that leads to the attic stairway.  Plus a color for the other bedroom - that room has two windows, but no direct sunlight, so I don't want anything too dark in there.  The other bedroom has three windows and plenty of sun, so I can tone it down in there.  Which leaves the second floor stairway and the hallway upstairs..  The ceiling and trim will be white, and the leading candidate for paint is eggshell/antique white - not white, but not yellow.  Not sure is more like it!

   I also played car for a bit, still trying to piece together the wiring harness.  Definitely making progress, but the devil's in the details..  Now that everything is set in place, trying to button it up leads to "oh, that's where that plug is supposed to go - but the wires don't reach.."  Or, "I don't think this is what I ordered, but couldn't really tell without trying to put it into the car first.."  This is why I, like so many tinkerers, both love and hate cars.

   And I finished re-reading the fourth Harry Potter book, "..and the Goblet of Fire".  Now about a third of the way through the fifth book.  At this point, I think I will continue on after finishing this book and dig back into #6 & 7 - continuity.

   And I did a lot of walking, plus got to visit with my mom for a bit, and took my dad grocery shopping.  Even had dinner with my brother and his family.  Overall, not a bad vacation! :)

   Considering the money I spend on bird food, nobody can say I don't like most of the visitors at my house.  But there are a few "undesirables", regardless of how cute or furry they are..  But I tolerate them all, with very, very few exceptions.

   Like this guy (gal?), for example - a red squirrel.  I have one or more red squirrels in the loft above the main floor space in my garage (an old pig barn).  And they make an incredible mess of everything - shredded towels, black walnut shells everywhere, etc.  But it's a detached garage, and they haven't dug into either of my cars yet, so I deal with the mess they make.  And once a year or so, they deal with a shop vac removing the mess they make, except for their nest, which I leave intact.

   But these aggressive buggers do stretch my patience sometimes.  Uprooting potted plants is my biggest complaint - and they don't care if you're looking.  In fact, I think they like an audience.  And my large bird-resistant and squirrel-proof suet feeder, well, isn't:

For now, I'm still tolerant :)

Uh..
   Well, I'm not posting during the small hours, so that's a good sign.  But I'm supposed to be driving south to a party, and I don't see myself making the trip, so that isn't so good.. 

   I missed my rocket launch last weekend due to the uncertainty over the weather - it's miserable trying to keep water-soluble dry while standing in the middle of a field during a thunderstorm.  So I skipped the launch, and lost a bit of drive.

   I took an extra day of vacation over the 4th, and used it to work on my car.  Which I basically caught on fire..  Melted a pile of wires because I was given the wrong part at a hardware store, and I didn't know how to determine whether or not it was truly the right part - but I did attempt to find out.  After the fact, I learned A LOT, including how to visually identify the differences between alternators..  But a couple hundred dollars later, I'm now faced with the task of rewiring half of my car.  I figured I would need to do that at some point, but not during the middle of the car show/cruise night season.  So I've been working on that, and again reading all sorts of wiring diagrams and technical information to make sure I don't need to do it again.

   I decided to start the Harry Potter series from the beginning again.  That's what I should have done instead of picking up book #6, but I couldn't decide.  So in order to just do *something*, I chose the book I was most interested in, which was the book I remembered the least.  When I read the series the first time, I was so charged up after book #5 that I zipped through "..the Half-Blood Prince" in less than four days.  Needless to say, I wasn't getting much else done at the time :P  But I could barely remember the book because I immediately went into the last book of the series.  So now, I'm starting from the beginning.  When I get there, I'm not sure if I'm going to now re-re-read the last two books, but I'll see how I feel about it then. 

Of course my dreams are full of rockets, cars, and magic these days - not good or bad, just bizarre as usual :)

   Also, I've been walking more often, and I bit faster so I can go a bit further before dark.  But last night I went for a "stroll" with my dad down by the stream.  It's amazing that he used to be on the track team and run the 100 yard dash, and I can even remember trying to outrun him when I was a kid.  But now, I'm not sure he could walk 100 yards - 40 years of smoking has taken its toll, even though he quit years ago.  So half of his problem is lack of lung capacity, the other half is fear of getting somewhere and running out of breath.  Having anxiety issues myself, I understand that.  But he hasn't embraced the things I've told him about getting past his angst.  So last night, we meandered about 100 feet..  But that's start.

Meanwhile, my mom has new *choppers*, and may be reading this post right now (hi mom! :)

Which small businesses are hurt most by rising gas prices? What can they do to save money?
Sponsored by HP.

    Everyone is hurt by rising energy costs.  It's not just gas - electricity, gas, the whole lot are escalating.  Try filling your oil tank for your furnace.  The costs are getting passed around like nuclear potatoes..  Trucking companies can't be expected to foot the bill alone, raw materials are expensive on increased energy and labor costs, and everything rolls down to the consumer.  If our salaries don't increase with the increased expenses, isn't that pretty much the definition of inflation?  And those salaries feed the increased costs of products, which keeps the cycle going. 

   None of this is much of a surprise, but I really hate not having any valid ideas of what to do about it.  Certainly the disparity between the highest and lowest earners in the US is a huge, huge problem.  It's hard to sell a $1 light bulb when you're paying 32 executives and a board of directors over a million dollars per person..  Lean management principles might be the best way to go, but then putting half of America (middle management) out of work doesn't sound good for the economy either.. 

   We need a leader at the helm - the polar opposite of our current administration.  And I'm not sure a true replacement will be available for the ballots in November.  Such a person surely exists, but who wants to enter the political scene with this mess on their hands.  Save the country from itself, without doubling the national debt again over the next eight years..

   I finished re-reading the last Harry Potter book tonight.  Yup, yup, yup, that's all I can say.  Even the second time through, it was so intense that I had to put it down once or twice.  I've read the last three chapters or so several times now, when I need some inspiration.  I'm still hoping they do this properly in the movie..  But I see it very clearly in my own mind, so I'm happy about that anyway.  I'm not sure if I'm now going to re-read the fifth book, or find something new for a bit.  I have a handful of books to read, such as one of the books from Neil Peart (drummer for Rush), as well as two books from Madeline L'Engle that I haven't read yet.  And I'd still like to re-read the Hobbit/Lord of the Rings series, since it's been many years since I've jumped into that scene.

    But I suppose right now I'm finding everything interesting - working my car, thinking about grad school (again), even considering an adult acting class for something completely different :)  And I'm hoping not to run out of steam, other than needing to go to sleep right about now..

I'm so sorry to hear about Agnes' cat.  There's never enough time..

   It happens sometimes - feeling a bit overwhelmed, not for any one particular reason.  So my general reaction to that condition is to shut down for a bit..  Nice, eh? :)  Nothing extreme, just an inability or refusal to chose any particular "thing to do".  But I have pulled out of that lull, and I am again being a busybody.  Friday night I went to see a Pink Floyd tribute band called The Machine.  As the DD, I capped the evening by pulling over so one of my best friends could also pay tribute to the liver and brain cells he left behind in high school.  Saturday was car day, specifically the Chevy II.  And I suppose I mowed the lawn.  Sunday was for a large scale cleaning project, plus laundry, and I finally got around to buying flowers to plant in containers on my back deck.  So all in all, a very nice weekend :)

    Last weekend my brother stopped by with his expanding family.  My nephews were pretty well behaved - all three of them now :)  And we capped the day with riding the mower (deck up, blades not engaged) and launching a few rockets in my backyard.  I accidentally underpowered one flight, which remained stable, but too low.  So the rocket tumbled to the ground before the parachute was deployed.  Once on the ground, the ejection charge fired - while we were standing safely away from the rocket - but the nosecone couldn't get far enough away from the rocket to let all the fire and brimstone escape.  So the shock cord caught on fire just a bit.  And it was close to dusk, so it was pretty bright.  To the boys, it was "an explosion!".  To me, the event was "would you two stop running around and put out the fire?" :)

I finished re-reading the sixth Harry Potter book tonight, appropriately serenaded by a light thunderstorm..

   Here's a short video clip from one of NASA's STEREO spacecraft, observing plasma swirl around above the sun.  It's very similar to Wooly Willie (the toy where you give Willie different iron hair styles or a beard with a magnetic wand).  It's not real time, but not sped up all that much.  It's millions of tons of matter being swirled around like a dust devil:

<http://spaceweather.com/swpod2008/28may08/stereo_roller.mov?PHPSESSID=m0figeup8r5eudomag4bl0sb32>

    So slightly closer to home, here's an image of NASA's Phoenix lander parachuting to the ground on Mars.  The photo is from a different satellite that has been in orbit around Mars for a few years now, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter:

<http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/images/2008/details/cut/PSP_008579_9020_cut.jpg>

    Of course, there is always the movie of the Crab Nebula..  The loop is from seven images, in x-ray and visible light,  taken over the span of a year.  Just freakin' nuts:

<http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2002/0052/movies.html>

    It was a nice weekend - a well deserved break, if I have to say so myself.  And I guess I don't need to say it myself - I was given Saturday "off", while some of my team was stuck at work for four hours doing a software release.  I argued our cause to move the release date to the following weekend instead of going over the holiday, but I lost..  So this was the first quarterly (bi-monthly?) software rollout I missed in two years.  No complaints here! :)

    I was geekin' out on Sunday - model rocket launch.  Sent three rockets up, got two back - not too bad.  One of them even landed, on its legs, on top of the club's trailer.  I couldn't do that if I tried:

FIG_May2008_0687_sm

    I also have some pictures of Michael now - with my mom, my brother and Brandy, and one of those great "Bill the Cat" poses:

    With the Phoenix lander on Mars, and the Space Shuttle launching this coming weekend, I sense some spacely news browsing going on this week..  Although tonight it was a Family Guy kinda evening, plus I've been indoctrinated into the Flight of the Conchords CD, which is just insanely funny.  I borrowed it from a friend at work, and started to listen to it at work but had to stop because I started laughing out loud.  Oops..

   I'm an uncle for the third time now!  My brother's girlfriend ("wife") gave birth to my third nephew this morning.  So my brother is apparently loaded with XY's.  His girlfriend seems to be in much better condition than I can imagine..  My nephews are excited, and already nicknamed their new brother "Cecil"..  I'll get some pictures in a day or two and post'em.  Meanwhile - past my new bedtime :)