CATABLOG: Three Days Worth

My little sister and friend here. Yay!

Cats are fine. I laid bellydown on the carpet and StinkyPants licked my hairline for a couple minutes. It felt weird.

They got a wet-dry cat food treat, and this time Nala had first dibs.

Also I'm now a Wii Tennis Pro.

This weekend's going to go by so quickly.

Enough with the mail, food, and poop pics... unless there becomes a whole pile of it... the mail, that is. Here are the kitty pictures from the past three days:

Nala's suddenly interested in the camera

The cats are awaiting their treat.

He chooses, she eats.

Okay, enough for now, gotta play with my sib and friend. :)

JOURNAL: Blog LifeSpan

Today's been s'alright so far. It definitely feels like a Friday. I got quite a bit of progress made on my code work and have been resolved to the fact that it's all not going to be resolved this weekend (Yeah, trying to shrug off the naivety of thinking that code can be done quickly... it just can't).

Anyways, I've gone back and 'unpublished' a couple of WORK entries... nothing particularly racy about them, but those are just "in the moment"/"my foot in my mouth" opportunities... they serve their temporal purpose and to keep them any longer would just be dwelling and contributing to the feeling of hovering ill-will.

Oh, an old friend from college recently emailed me, and it was nice, not only because it's been a while, but for the fact that he's quite a witty and interesting guy. He writes much like the Nofo blog - with very colorful figurative language (i.e., similes, etc) - much like how I aspire to write... and by 'aspire', I mean 'snap my fingers and magically become capable without any extra effort' (yeah, I'm dreaming on). Anyways, I like the colorful characters; they bring a lot of living into life.

Okay, back to work.

RUN: 10x 1/4mile @1:23, Wickham BCC PL

I left work an hour early (to beat traffic), mowed my lawn, drove over to check on the kitties (and mowed that lawn), then went to practice late, but got done with my 10 reps with a handful of people left, and now I'm back at the office.

It was a tough practice... kind of cool, so breathing in some cold airs. My goal time was 1:20, but I was hitting it at about 1:25 with a 1:15, 1:18, and a couple 1:20s mixed in there. I was wearing a thicker pair of running shorts, and I was sporting the Reeboks. ~90 seconds rest inbetween. I ran some of them with Paul, and it was nice seeing John G, David and his dad, Suzie, Jim, Kyle, and the others there. Even though I knew that I'd be pushed for time tonight, I just needed the structure.

Okay, with work, it looks like I'm kinda starting all over again -- I hate that feeling. My officemate is a fine mentor, but I think I bugged him too much this morning, then early afternoon things sort of just fell apart. By the time I was ready to head home, it was too late to get things back started, so I'm hoping that I get at least a decent re-starting grasp on the code.

Then it's home and catablogging before possibly working on the website I'm supposedly managing (I'm just scared that the webpage software's going to give me another blue screen of death). :(

Anyways, REALLY needing the extra sleep tonight too... I just feel paranoid and off-kilter if I arrive at work late or feel like I appear like I'm not at my desk all the time... it's back to the anxiety of "quality versus quantity". Let's make this [hopefully only] 90 minutes quality!

GAY: Nofo's Letter to the Editor

Check this out from Nofo's blog (you go girl!):
I’m all for the discussion of ideas and the respectful clash of ideologies, but Ann Coulter has proven time and time again that she’s incapable of high-minded discourse.

She’s constantly exposed for not doing her homework before she writes, she treats gross oversimplification as thoughtful interpretation, and she thinks words like “faggot” are acceptable to everyone and—apparently—unharmful to anyone.

In short, she’s a professional adolescent. She’s not only an embarrassment to any paper who carries her invectives, but her vapid writing gives a misguided sense of validation to anyone who equates meaningless sound bytes and faggot-bashing with intelligence.

CATABLOG: Wii-Sync-ed

Howdy Chuck,
Oh, that Sympathy-Playing StinkyPants... I kind of figured that the soft food should be just about every other day, but Nala went to the table, so I obliged... she seems to look look forward to the wet Meow Mix (instead of the Friskers). Anyways, yeah, I'll refrain tomorrow. One of them wet-hairballed near the food dispenser. Does that happen often or could it be a result of substituting food for affection? I'll be sure to play with them more as you suggested.

StinkyPants was more curious tonight, checking on my sandwich from Crispers, and Nala was more... upright tonight - seems to me like a good sign.

The mail/food/poop pics for tonight are about the same as yesterday - a couple store coupons you won't be able to use in time (Bombay Company and Best Buy), the cats like the water (refilled), and poop is poop (cleaned it up... again, it's pretty fun... *note to self: stop typing*).

I played a game of tennis (getting much better) and bowling (only a 155 *meh*) on the Wii then headed to the office. It's easier to concentrate when I can put the music on loud and with no one else around. A lot to do before the weekend... I've just got to adjust my expectations and just try my best with it. Oh, I hope that y'all figured out y'all's Ethernet issue at site. I hope you're also enjoying the area.

My little sis and one of her friends are visiting this weekend, and I'm both excited and anxious. It's been so busy around here. At least I'll have some quality time with them on Sunday for sure. Disney!

Anyways, gotta head home and jump into bed. Sorry no pics tonight. Will probably have catch-up pics posted tomorrow night depending on whether or not I'm heading back to the office for another late night session. Getting pics of the cats in action is going to be challenging...

~Cedric

WORK: Sold off

Tested a PTR with Ron, and sold it off! Yay. Lesson: keep expectations low.

It's lunch time and our team got organized: we're ordering from Bizarro's pizza. I'm so glad that they've since removed their posted Bush/Cheney bumper sticker; I can eat there now... I just tell myself that they've been "humbled".

I may actually make it out to zoo-running tonight, though I'd still be an hour behind in hours if so. If I skip, then I'd drive Wickham back home and check up on the cats again, otherwise I'd check up tomorrow after practice practice.

Okay, back to the office. Hopefully the food's been delivered.

BULLOG: Baltimore Trip: The Food

Okay, it's too difficult and random to blog the Baltimore trip day by day, and it's been too busy at work (in preparation of code cut-off) and at home (in preparation of my little sister's visit), so it may just have to be pictures and possible-to-not-likely-due-to-time-constraint-ooooo-constraints... adhd short captions... (yeah, who "reads" my blog anyways (i.e. less stress for me... woo!)). Here we go...

Cindy and I ate a lot this weekend to offset our obsessive going-to-the-gyms.

Iggie's

Grocery Store #1: Trader Joe's

Grocery Store #2: Whole Foods

Cross St. Market: Matsuri’s Teppanaki and Bruce Lee's Wings

Republican Cookies

Qdoba Mexican Grill

Noodles and Company

Gelato Factory

Grocery Store #3: Wegman's

RUN: 5x 1/2mile @2:55

Tonight, I ran 1/2 mile warm-up, then 5x 1/2mile with 2min rest inbetween, then 1/2 mile cool-down.

I warmed up alone, then started the intervals with Paul, then young David joined us for the cool down.

My right ankle/shin didn't feel all too great at first, but I don't know... maybe it was being away from practice for an entire week or the four days of aerobics, but I ran the halfies faster than my prescripted time. I ran 2:53, 2:54, 2:59, 3:12, 2:46.

Anyways, it was nice to see Paul, David, John G., and the Usual Suspects all out there tonight... a bit chilly, but not too cold to go sans-shirt for the last lap (sorry, no shirtless photos tonight).

I need to get some rest to prepare for tomorrow's continued code-push... my db backup script doesn't seem to be working particularly as expected. I hope that the magical programming elves go into the office tonight and make it all perfect for selling-off testing with Ron. (or maybe I could bribe Ron with some Dunkin Donuts... harrr... donuts...).

Okay, one more blog before bed. Publish.

CATABLOG: More Meowing

Howdy Chuck,
The cats are still doing well. Tonight when I went in, the cats were more vocal than before... just a lot of meowing. Nala was near the door again while StinkyPants was ready for a treat (really, should I be spacing those out more?). I opened a Meow Mix treat this time (instead of a Friskers), and it was nice to see Nala more interested in the luxury.

I don't think that Nala likes her picture taken... or at least the flash portion of it. StinkyPants just does a really good job of closing his eyes or getting out of view:

Nala just lounged on the chair in the front room, on the couch by the back door, and on a different part of the carpet:

StinkyPants was hiding in the front curtains then ran to your bedroom and got under your nightstand. I went to go get my camera because it would've been a cute picture, but... he was already on his way back out to the kitchen/feeding area (expecting what? I don't know).

Anyways, here's the obligatory mail/food/poop pictures:

Okay that's it for tonight. I'm at my house because I need to clean up for my little sister's visit this weekend. It's been very busy. Actually got something accomplished today at work... but not without its headache that shouldn't've been a headache -- one of the system user accounts didn't have a .purify file suppressing UMRs and FMMs... (<-- did I sound like a nerd just right now? cool!).

Anyways, not much else happened today... oh, gotta blog tonight's practice.

Later,
~Cedric

P.S. - Let me know if I should cut down on their treats (they may need some exercisement).

CATABLOG: Back from Baltimore

Howdy Chuck,
I checked on the cats on my way back from the airport, and both cats are still alive.

When I walked in, Nala was quick to the front of the house -- she didn't try to hide. And StinkyPants was just wandering the kitchen and SO expecting a treat; I obliged since I've been gone for a while.
Nala didn't bother him this time. She just rested on her pushed-in chair.
I think that she misses her daddy. But no worries because I'm going to try to spend more time with this week... probably staying over Tuesday night.

Anyways, brought in the mail, refilled the food/water, and cleaned up the kitty litter:Not a whole lot of extra mail... did Marsha stop by?

They were fine on food and water, although the cats may have gotten too excited over three thingies of food - there was a hairball/clumpage in one of the bowls, but I cleaned it out and reduced their offering to the food-feeder and one extra bowl of food and the water-feeder and one extra bowl of water.

Cleaning up the kitty litter was actually kind of fun. I never had the playing-in-the-sandbox memories as a kid. Is that sick of me? (Oh, no... I didn't "get in" the kitty litter... that would really be sick). Okay, I should stop talking now.

Anyways, even though it was late (late late), I did play with the Wii for maybe 30 minutes (boosted by tennis and bowling profiles) before heading back home.

As I was leaving, StinkyPants was sitting beside the back door staring out, and Nala was......

The cats are doing well: StinkyPants got treated and petted; Nala may be pettable in a couple days time).

I closed the front door firmly (was sure that it was secure). I might be back to check up on the kitties tonight, else at least by tomorrow (Tuesday). :)
~Cedric

[There's a lot to do at home since I've found out that the Running Club meeting is next Monday (laundry and taxes!). And perhaps I'll be able to catch up with Days 2 through 4 of the Baltimore Bullog entries tonight.]

Okay, later.

BULLOG: Baltimore Day 1 of 4

Yesterday morning, Mommy and the bullies picked me up from the BWI airport. Poker was sitting in the front seat so I almost had to sit in the back with Euchre, but my sister made Poker move.
He wasn't thrilled about giving up his spot, but the doggies were happy that their uncle was here... or that they were out for a car ride...

After dropping me and the dogs at the house, my sister rushed back to work. I warmed up a apple streudel bagel and went to the basement to catch up on The Office. The doggies...

PokerEuchre
We then all took another long nap, then I...

Then I ask the bullies if they want to go for a walk, and the doggies go crazy!

After the walk, they're tired again and take another nap. Once Cindy got back, we headed back out for the gym: 1 hour of BodyPump class followed by 1 hour of BodyStep. followed by PIZZA and Sorbetto!... I don't have pictures of the gym (ooo... I'm sore today) but I do have pictures of the food (what was left before we realized that we didn't get a food pic... wait... we forgot to get a picture with Cindy's friend... douh!). I'll post the pics sometime in future.

Anyways, now we're off to see a movie then another busy day of here and there! :)