An Odd Weekend
Had a somewhat . . . odd weekend here. Been trying to keep up with my notion of spending more time in the real world, and less time online. That in mind, I went out Saturday to toodle around town a bit, then stopped to see "The Bourne Ultimatum". (Good movie, by the way, if you've seen the first two; otherwise, the blurry blipvert flashbacks early on that try to explain things would probably be annoying.) After that, well . . . that's where things got different.
I've been pondering getting a new pet around here, just needing something else alive around here with which I can interact. I'm definitely not ready for another cat, though, and an apartment really isn't the place for the kind of dog I'd want (husky, german shepherd, something along those lines). So, I've been looking at smaller things: mice, rabbits and rats. After a while, I focused more on rats, because they tend to take care of themselves a little better, don't smell so bad, and just seemed the most personable and least skittish.
Key word there, though, was "least". About once a week or so, at a store near where I live, I'd sort of test things by putting my hand in the bin and see how they responded. It would get rather disheartening when I'd do that, a few would take a sniff of me, then all of them would huddle up together to hide in their little igloo. Still, at least they'd sniff, instead of running on sight, and occasionally one would be friendly, but for rats, you generally need a pair, unless you plan on spending almost all of your day with them. Last time I went in to do this, one actually screamed as it ran away. Needless to say, I was getting a complex, so I stopped going for a month.
On the way home from the movie, though, I thought I'd try one more time. Been very lonely around the house of late. So, I stopped by the shop. Only three rats, sisters from the same litter, were in there. So, I pulled out the cage and put my hand in. The pure white one ran like heck. The other two -- one with almost all grey fur and a little white on the tummy, and the other sort of half-and-half with a grey head and cape -- practically jumped into my hand.
As you can probably guess, I now have two new "roomies" here. Yes, I am such a dork. Reactions to this have ranged from excitedly wanting to know more about these new little critters and trading rat stories, to, "Uhm . . . rats? Why rats? Isn't that a pet for antisocial teenage girls or something?" Ah, well. I'm happy with them. :)
I've tentatively named them Luni (pronounced "looney") and Tia. They are still a bit skittish of sudden movements, but they don't run and hide, don't bite (at least, not intentionally; tried to give Tia a treat this evening, but it slipped from my fingers at the last second, so I got a little bite and tug before she realized that my finger wasn't the treat, not even enough to leave a mark), and they are very sweet and tidy. :) Luni is definitely the troublemaker and instigator of the two, while Tia seems very sedate and mostly either just takes it easy, or joins in on what ever Luni is doing, even if that means Luni stealing her treats when I give them both one. Little goofs! Luni's also the escape artist, finding every little gap that she can squeeze through. I came to the realization after the second night, though, that they only try to get out when I am laying in bed. Their cage is in the bedroom, you see. They like to be up at night, see me laying there, and they want to get out and play with me. Came to this realization when I woke up at one point and found Luni had gotten out, climbed up onto the bed, and curled up on me! Almost felt bad putting her back in the cage, watching how she went right to where she'd squirmed out, and quickly sealing that gap. (Having new rats in a new cage should be mandatory practice for anyone studying network security, I think. ;) ) It's funny watching them search for gaps, though, because you can see Luni methodically searching for just enough space to squeeze through, and Tia following along behind her, sort of mimicking her, not really seeming to know what Luni's doing, but wanting to join in. Tia did manage to stumble across one the first night, though, and I woke up to see her sitting there triumphantly on her thankfully-still-sealed food bag.
Overall, I'm enjoying my new little furry friends, and, so far, aside from when I put them back in the cage after letting them run and play for a while, they seem to be enjoying themselves here.
Meamwhile, I've also been trying to get my main PC updated, though what started as just a video card replacement has turned into a forced march to replace about half of the system! First, I mis-remembered the wattage of my power supply -- thought it was 550W, and it was 430W -- and, after a quick try that I was pretty sure would fail, had to run out to get a new 650W supply. Thank goodness there is a CompUSA only a mile away (well within walking distance for me). So, I got that in, and everything worked fine for about 15 minutes . . . until the tube of my monitor blew. I plugged in the slightly smaller monitor I keep on my server, and have been working fine with that, but, eventually, I'll need to get an LCD panel. Been meaning to do that sometime, anyway. Then, when I was going to replace the processor -- I've had a faster one in the wings for months now, but didn't want to put it in there until I had an excuse to rip things apart -- one of the memory chips decided to start flaking out. So, was down to a gig of RAM for a while, and had to run to CompUSA to get a matched pair for to replace the bad one and the one it was matched up with, so as to keep it running in proper dual-channel mode. (To the tech-impaired, basically, in certain systems, things run faster if you install memory in identically matched pairs. Sort of like tires on a car.) So, that's working. Haven't done the processor swap yet, but I'm a little nervous of what might blow up when I do that! If it works, though, after the video and processor swap, my system should be significantly faster. Already, though, the video card has made a huge difference.
Otherwise, it was opening weekend for the football, so I watched some of that. The Seahawks are sort of the local team, even though Seattle is at least a couple of hours away. So, everyone is crazy about them, though nowhere near as nuts as folks were about the Packers in Green Bay (or any place else in Wisconsin, for that matter). All I know is, my Dolphins ain't lookin' too good this year, and we're only a week into the season now. Ah, well. Maybe next year.
Work has continued to be challenging, but not that bad. About my only main concern right now is that this contract will be wrapping up at the end of October, and there's no real need to keep me that I can see. So, hoping that, if and when that happens, new work is found for me quickly. Otherwise, well, I've been getting along great with folks, though, I gotta tell ya, seeing how government works from the inside is . . . well, it's an interesting experience.
Anyhew, that's what's up with me in a nutshell. Figured an update was overdue. Now to work on the letter and emails that are also overdue. I WILL get myself together, one of these days . . .
I've been pondering getting a new pet around here, just needing something else alive around here with which I can interact. I'm definitely not ready for another cat, though, and an apartment really isn't the place for the kind of dog I'd want (husky, german shepherd, something along those lines). So, I've been looking at smaller things: mice, rabbits and rats. After a while, I focused more on rats, because they tend to take care of themselves a little better, don't smell so bad, and just seemed the most personable and least skittish.
Key word there, though, was "least". About once a week or so, at a store near where I live, I'd sort of test things by putting my hand in the bin and see how they responded. It would get rather disheartening when I'd do that, a few would take a sniff of me, then all of them would huddle up together to hide in their little igloo. Still, at least they'd sniff, instead of running on sight, and occasionally one would be friendly, but for rats, you generally need a pair, unless you plan on spending almost all of your day with them. Last time I went in to do this, one actually screamed as it ran away. Needless to say, I was getting a complex, so I stopped going for a month.
On the way home from the movie, though, I thought I'd try one more time. Been very lonely around the house of late. So, I stopped by the shop. Only three rats, sisters from the same litter, were in there. So, I pulled out the cage and put my hand in. The pure white one ran like heck. The other two -- one with almost all grey fur and a little white on the tummy, and the other sort of half-and-half with a grey head and cape -- practically jumped into my hand.
As you can probably guess, I now have two new "roomies" here. Yes, I am such a dork. Reactions to this have ranged from excitedly wanting to know more about these new little critters and trading rat stories, to, "Uhm . . . rats? Why rats? Isn't that a pet for antisocial teenage girls or something?" Ah, well. I'm happy with them. :)
I've tentatively named them Luni (pronounced "looney") and Tia. They are still a bit skittish of sudden movements, but they don't run and hide, don't bite (at least, not intentionally; tried to give Tia a treat this evening, but it slipped from my fingers at the last second, so I got a little bite and tug before she realized that my finger wasn't the treat, not even enough to leave a mark), and they are very sweet and tidy. :) Luni is definitely the troublemaker and instigator of the two, while Tia seems very sedate and mostly either just takes it easy, or joins in on what ever Luni is doing, even if that means Luni stealing her treats when I give them both one. Little goofs! Luni's also the escape artist, finding every little gap that she can squeeze through. I came to the realization after the second night, though, that they only try to get out when I am laying in bed. Their cage is in the bedroom, you see. They like to be up at night, see me laying there, and they want to get out and play with me. Came to this realization when I woke up at one point and found Luni had gotten out, climbed up onto the bed, and curled up on me! Almost felt bad putting her back in the cage, watching how she went right to where she'd squirmed out, and quickly sealing that gap. (Having new rats in a new cage should be mandatory practice for anyone studying network security, I think. ;) ) It's funny watching them search for gaps, though, because you can see Luni methodically searching for just enough space to squeeze through, and Tia following along behind her, sort of mimicking her, not really seeming to know what Luni's doing, but wanting to join in. Tia did manage to stumble across one the first night, though, and I woke up to see her sitting there triumphantly on her thankfully-still-sealed food bag.
Overall, I'm enjoying my new little furry friends, and, so far, aside from when I put them back in the cage after letting them run and play for a while, they seem to be enjoying themselves here.
Meamwhile, I've also been trying to get my main PC updated, though what started as just a video card replacement has turned into a forced march to replace about half of the system! First, I mis-remembered the wattage of my power supply -- thought it was 550W, and it was 430W -- and, after a quick try that I was pretty sure would fail, had to run out to get a new 650W supply. Thank goodness there is a CompUSA only a mile away (well within walking distance for me). So, I got that in, and everything worked fine for about 15 minutes . . . until the tube of my monitor blew. I plugged in the slightly smaller monitor I keep on my server, and have been working fine with that, but, eventually, I'll need to get an LCD panel. Been meaning to do that sometime, anyway. Then, when I was going to replace the processor -- I've had a faster one in the wings for months now, but didn't want to put it in there until I had an excuse to rip things apart -- one of the memory chips decided to start flaking out. So, was down to a gig of RAM for a while, and had to run to CompUSA to get a matched pair for to replace the bad one and the one it was matched up with, so as to keep it running in proper dual-channel mode. (To the tech-impaired, basically, in certain systems, things run faster if you install memory in identically matched pairs. Sort of like tires on a car.) So, that's working. Haven't done the processor swap yet, but I'm a little nervous of what might blow up when I do that! If it works, though, after the video and processor swap, my system should be significantly faster. Already, though, the video card has made a huge difference.
Otherwise, it was opening weekend for the football, so I watched some of that. The Seahawks are sort of the local team, even though Seattle is at least a couple of hours away. So, everyone is crazy about them, though nowhere near as nuts as folks were about the Packers in Green Bay (or any place else in Wisconsin, for that matter). All I know is, my Dolphins ain't lookin' too good this year, and we're only a week into the season now. Ah, well. Maybe next year.
Work has continued to be challenging, but not that bad. About my only main concern right now is that this contract will be wrapping up at the end of October, and there's no real need to keep me that I can see. So, hoping that, if and when that happens, new work is found for me quickly. Otherwise, well, I've been getting along great with folks, though, I gotta tell ya, seeing how government works from the inside is . . . well, it's an interesting experience.
Anyhew, that's what's up with me in a nutshell. Figured an update was overdue. Now to work on the letter and emails that are also overdue. I WILL get myself together, one of these days . . .