Jon's Corner of the Whirled » Devon http://getchabug.com/Jon/blog Life in Portland Oregon as a Software Developer Tue, 30 Mar 2010 18:17:38 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 Break like the wind… http://getchabug.com/Jon/blog/2004/06/01/break-like-the-wind/ http://getchabug.com/Jon/blog/2004/06/01/break-like-the-wind/#comments Tue, 01 Jun 2004 18:36:23 +0000 Jon http://www.getchabug.com/Jon/blog/archives/2004/06/01/break-like-the-wind/ It was an exciting Memorial Day weekend. It started Friday night with a journey to Lisa’s parent’s house in Eugene. The drive wasn’t bad at all – traffic was light, and the weather was uneventful. We had a full car with Lisa, Morgan, Devon and myself. The car was packed with the clothes we would need, a cat carrier, some of my wiring paraphernalia. We arrived with little fanfare. Morgan had fallen asleep in the car. The only one that had a hard time containing himself was the dog. He was a bit hyper after being in the car for two hours.

We unloaded the car, and visited with Lisa’s father for a while. Her mother was off shopping up a storm for the BBQ they were having on Sunday.

On Saturday, Lisa and I went over to her friend Cris’ new house so I could help Ray wire in her new hot-tub she bought. The job went well, although her breaker box had obviously been abused by the previous owner. There was a braided ground wire that had been divided up and used to provide grounding wires in various places. The wire was completely underrated for the loads that are being applied. I hope they never have to use them! :) In any result, we got the 220 lines installed, the subpanel wired, and the hottub hooked up. It wasn’t a big deal, and went fairly seamlessly.

On the return trip to Lisa’s parent’s house, we stopped at the Mini Pet Mart near their house. It is an odd place with both cigarettes and pet supplies. I would guess that both things are pretty high-margin items, so they can run a profitable business. Lisa’s father had recommended the place as a source of kittens as they sell animals that people bring in to the store. They had two kittens from the same litter. Lisa and I decided to take them home. They were covered in fleas, so the store put Advantage flea control stuff on them. We took them to Lisa’s parents house and used flea combs on them. Lisa and I got a lot of the fleas, but there were some stubborn ones that we just couldn’t deal with. The Advantage eventually took care of them (thank goodness).

We chose to name them after their cigarette related history. The male (light colored) we called Benson. The smaller female we named Virginia.

The kittens

In any result, you can see lots of pictures of the kitties in the gallery.

On the way back, we had a nice visit with my parents. They were nice enough to make us lunch and to provide Lisa with some tree parts to make cat furniture. Somehow we managed to get it all in the car. :)

]]> http://getchabug.com/Jon/blog/2004/06/01/break-like-the-wind/feed/ 1 Billy the Cat http://getchabug.com/Jon/blog/2004/05/18/billy-the-cat/ http://getchabug.com/Jon/blog/2004/05/18/billy-the-cat/#comments Tue, 18 May 2004 18:21:00 +0000 Jon http://www.getchabug.com/Jon/blog/archives/2004/05/18/billy-the-cat/ On Saturday, Lisa and I went by the Cat Adoption Team location in Sherwood to see what they had there. We had seen them at a Petsmart store on 82nd, and we liked the fact that they are a no kill shelter. I had been partially inspired by Wil Wheaton’s discussion of one of his cats recently.

On Saturday, Lisa and I went by the Cat Adoption Team location in Sherwood to see what they had there. We had seen them at a Petsmart store on 82nd, and we liked the fact that they are a no kill shelter. I had been partially inspired by Wil Wheaton’s discussion of one of his cats recently. We didn’t intend to adopt a cat that Saturday. Billy the cat, though, was a real charmer. He does come with some baggage (more than we realized at the time). We were told by Laura that Billy is an FIV positive cat. Neither Lisa nor I knew much about it, but Laura told us that a lot of FIV positive cats don’t end up getting sick. We went to the store, and got all the supplies we would need to take Billy home. He didn’t seem too freaked out by the whole thing. We cleaned up the utility room, and set it aside as “his” room during his “cooling off” period. CAT had suggested that we keep him confined for a few days to get him used to being in a new environment. Lisa and I were both nervous about him meeting Devon as well, as Devon has this tendency to bark at the cats in the yard. That evening we let Billy watch a movie with us. He seemed pretty calm, and friendly.

On Sunday, Lisa noted a bit of diarrhea in the cat box. Billy still seemed friendly, but wasn’t eating much. We picked up Morgan from his time with his Father on Sunday evening, and it turned out Morgan had gotten Pink Eye. Lisa called into his doctor on the way back, and we had an antibiotic prescription for his eyes waiting when we got back into town. I worked from home on Monday because Morgan couldn’t go to school until he had antibiotics in his eyes for 24 hours. During the day, Billy became more lethargic, and had more bowel problems. I cleaned up the cat box about an hour before Lisa got home. When Lisa got home, it looked like Billy had missed the cat box, and there was blood in his stool. Lisa didn’t take this as a good sign (being a GI nurse).

We tried calling the hospital number given for CAT, but they weren’t terribly helpful. They told us they could see us on Thursday at the soonest. Since Billy wasn’t eating or drinking, this didn’t seem like a good option. Lisa called our vet and made an appointment for 8:10 Monday evening. Meanwhile Laura returned messages Lisa and I had left for her earlier. She heard the story of not seeing the cat until Thursday and told me that she would she what she could do.

She called back and said that they would see Billy at 12:00 on Tuesday. I told her I thought we should have him see the vet anyway, as he wasn’t looking all that great. We agreed to take him in tonight, to give him some maintenance, and then take him in on Tuesday. After a longish wait, we eventually got to see a vet — one that actually worked at CAT part time. He thought Billy had colitus, and gave him a steriod shot, and some anti-biotics as well. We took him home. He was purring the whole time I drove him back. He ate a little bit (!) when we got back to the house, and Lisa and I turned in for the night.

Around midnight, I heard a sound that sounded like the toilet was backing up. I went outside our room to find that the dog had vomitted all over the carpet. Joy. I had no energy to clean it up, and put some paper towels over it so people wouldn’t step on it. About 3 in the morning, Devon vomited again, this time Lisa got up, and cleaned up the whole mess. She has more energy than I do at 3 in the morning.

This morning, Billy was much more active than before. He was behaving like a completely different cat. He had been eating, and made it to the litterbox on his own. Hopefully his trip to the vet today will go well! I’ll get a report from Lisa soon.

At least life is exciting.

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