Archives for November 2008

Kittyweiler (6 of 30)

November 6, 2008 by kathi

If you found me via NaBloPoMo or Facebook, you’ve seen my icon featuring lovely Freya and feisty Oliver.

Oliver says, Im winning now! — Oliver says, "I'm winning now!"

Oliver is about a year old in this photo (he’ll be 3 years old in March 2009). Unlike our older cat Annie who prefers to stay away from the dogs and wouldn’t dream of actually touching them, Oliver embraces his inner Rottweiler. He is often spotted chasing or being chased by the resident Rottweilers. Slow speed, of course; they (mostly) abide by the proper rules of indoor games. They also often wrestle as in the photo. Oliver really does think he’s winning once he gets a good grip on a snout or leg.

Freya was in a false pregnancy following a heat when Oliver came to live with us. During a false pregnancy, the pseudo-expectant mom will often adopt an object as her “newborn puppy.” Although Freya’s usual puppy was a stuffed animal, this time she adopted Oliver as her funny-looking orange puppy. He was raised as a Rottweiler by a Rottweiler, and this is just what he does.

Take a moment if you would to click on the small photo and enjoy a short sequence of a Freya and Oliver wrestling match!

Less than three days to go! (5 of 30)

November 5, 2008 by kathi

Less than three days to go until we leave on our annual fall trip to Honolulu, that is! Due to some unfortunate schedule conflicts, we had to drop the dogs off at the boarding kennel today instead of Friday. It is very quiet without the pitter-patter, or should that be rumble-thunder-whomp, of giant Rottweiler paws through the house.

For those that didn’t “know” me before NaBloPoMo, I was born in Honolulu and lived there until I went away to college (Northwestern University, Evanston, IL). I didn’t graduate, but I did stay in Chicago since it was a great place to make a decent living at the time. The reason the trip to Honolulu is an annual one is because the rest of my family is way smarter than I am, and stayed there or returned there after their time away.

And in regards to an earlier post where I stated I was unwilling to fully support either presidential candidiate, I’m sure some of you are now wondering how it is that I couldn’t support someone whose life took the same geographic path that mine did. For the record: I’m 3 years older than Barack Obama. I also went to Punahou, but only until the third grade (I graduated from a public high school, McKinley). If you saw the photos from Obama’s trip to Honolulu to visit his grandmother, her apartment is a block from the Buddhist temple my grandmother belonged to, and the dormitory where my mother worked for a few years. One of my own jobs during high school was in that neighborhood as well. My life in Chicago has been almost completely apolitical though, except for belonging to ABATE (motorcyclists rights group) and making my phone calls or writing my letters against any type of breed-specific legislation.

I might come back to that later, or not. Not tonight though. I also think I’ll save any Honolulu-related thoughts for when I’m actually there, and when I can post photos to go along with my thoughts.

Back to the Rottweilers for a moment though. I miss them already. Soooooo quiet here!

Election Night 2008 (4 of 30)

November 4, 2008 by kathi

The evening sort of got away from me, so this will be very brief. Just watched McCain’s concession, and waiting for Obama at Grant Park. Hopefully the celebration will remain as peaceful as it has been thus far. As you all know, I did not fully support either candidate. But now it’s time to move forward and support our new President.

Obligatory Election 2008 post (3 of 30)

November 3, 2008 by kathi

First, though… thanks to Cyn and Hotch Potchery for stopping by! While I don’t mind talking to myself now and again, it is more enjoyable to know that I’m also talking to you out there!

Since the first presidential election I was able to vote in was only the second one where 18- to 20-year-olds were able to participate, I have always taken the responsibility and privilege quite seriously. I have also never been as ambivalent and indecisive as I am this year.

I don’t enjoy political debate and I am not any good at it either. So I will just say that I don’t feel I can wholeheartedly support either candidate. John McCain will undoubtedly cause women to lose our reproductive freedom. Barack Obama has way too many associations with some of the most corrupt sleazebags in Chicago and Illinois politics.

It’s after 11:00 pm as I write this. I am still in the process of making my decision. I don’t remember ever cutting it this close. I’ll sleep on it, and hope that I make the right choice tomorrow.

I will be headed to the polls before work. I hope all of you in the U.S. who haven’t already exercised your right to vote via early voting or absentee ballot will be doing the same.

Technology is so much fun! (2 of 30)

November 2, 2008 by kathi

My intent was to produce today’s post early in the day and then get out to enjoy what is supposed to be a nice sunny day with temperatures in the 60’s. So far, that hasn’t happened, unless you consider noon-thirty to be early in the day.

The problem is that, as usual, I couldn’t leave well enough alone and just write something about life, love, laughter or whatever. I had to go and screw around with technology. At first, things went well with the installation of Google Analytics and Akismet plugins proceeding successfully. Not that I will need either one for a while, as very few people even know this blog is out here yet. I can still count visits on one hand without the help of Google or anyone else, and even the porn link spammers haven’t found their way here to invade the comments.

Then, I began the attempt to make my blog posts here also appear on my NaBloPoMo page and generate a one-liner on my Facebook feed. This is where technology decided to bite me in the butt.

Not right away though. Setting up the RSS feed to the NaBloPoMo page was very easy. Quite a few things at NaBloPoMo’s Ning site are not working at the moment (blog list randomizer, and worse yet, the friends feature) but the RSS feed is not on the longish list of problems.

After trying and rejecting Blog It (good app made by the Movable Type folks, but has some known issues with some WordPress blogs that are not part of WordPress.com) and FriendFeed, it looked as though Wordbook would solve the problem. And it would have, except that the server my blog resides on is still using PHP 4. Since it is a VPS server to which I have root access, I’m supposed to be smart enough to take care of all the geekly stuff, including noticing when I need to upgrade anything on it. This has not always been the case. In my defense though, all of the other PHP scripts that I’m currently using on the sites on that server are supposed to run under both PHP 4 and PHP 5, so I just took the path of least resistance.

I’ve got a ticket in for support as I do have a couple of questions before making the move to PHP 5. While I wait for the answers, I’m checking to make sure that all those other scripts don’t in fact have any issues with PHP 5. How fun would that be, to break everything else on the server just so my Facebook feed gets updated whenver I post my deep thoughts here?

I wasn’t planning to do much in the way of customizing or tweaking this blog. I spent quite a bit of time on making graphics, modifying layouts and adding little whiz-bang things to my old Movable Type blog. It was often enjoyable, but it was also very time-consuming and in the end, it didn’t really make things any more interesting or informative for the readers.

Technology was not my intended topic for the day. Before I got caught in the technology trap, I was debating between current events (specifically, my personal concerns about Barack Obama’s Election Night rally in Chicago) or Rottweilers (specifically, my own beautiful and intelligent Rottweilers) as today’s topic. We still have a couple of days to go until the election, so both of those topics can keep for another day.

Back to the wonders of technology. Enjoy the beautiful day if you are in my sector. I hope to be done here and join you outside before it gets chilly again!