The kittens are getting big enough to stake out on their own now. They have moved to the big kitty litter box all on their own. They are pretty much weened – Sister has no milk to give anymore. She no longer flops about when she runs. I think she likes her trim figure back.
So, if you want a kitten (or two) speak up. They appear to me to be boys, but I am no kitten expert. So if one of these boys gives birth, well, cut me in on the $$$ selling the story to the Enquirer.
Here is a quick video interview of the kittens, telling you why you should take them home.
Maybe just a picture would do a better job.
Here is all of us in bed. This is a 10 minute movie of cuteness. No really, check it out. Especially that really cute part at minut————econds
Loveless Lake Sunset
My parents bought a house on Loveless lake. They don’t have lakeshore property, they are just across the road from the lake, but they get to hear the loons at night. We took a little boat tour of the lake.
Here are some photos.
PHP Meetup
Last night I was at a PHP meetup – a monthly meeting of people interested in PHP, the programming language I use for the websites at work.
Just talking, I came up with a great idea.
I subscribe to dozens of blogs relating to work, my friends, my interests, ect. This means I average 125 new posts in my news reader a day. A lot of these are duplicates between different blogs that cover the same sector. It’s not uncommon for me to see 2-3 or even up to half a dozen nearly exact blog posts on a given topic.
It would be great if Google Reader could aggregate or consolidate these similar articles into a single or a set of articles.
My thoughts would be to a single article up to twice, once, the original article, and the second would be the best discussion of that original article. How to determine ‘best’ would be hard. Maybe a volume normalized look at digg, reddit, del.icio.us, technorati and the other social sites to see which discussion article gets the most interest. Maybe based on the number of comments a discussion generates?
Maybe only give me the ones that are significantly different?
I don’t really know what would be useful.
I do think that all blogs in a single label should be aggregated somehow so you only see unique posts.
Oh, also the National Geographic and Scientific American RSS feeds must be broken or something as I keep getting the exact same post repeatedly. Very annoying. This type of system would cure that problem too.
I was thinking of seeing if I can put something together in Yahoo Pipes.
I don’t know if this type of idea would be useful to any of you?
Bicycle Rack for my Truck
The bike rack I had bought for moving to Florida was bought with the old Ford Escort in mind. It was one of those straps to the trunk type deals. It also said that it could strap to the back of a van or whatnot.
You know, they are right, it will strap to the back of my Ford Escape. The trouble lies in when you try to open the back door. The metal hooks needlessly dig into the paint and royal !@#$#$% up a brand new vehicle.
I have had to go in with a Dremel Moto tool and grind out the rust on the roof of a 6 month old vehicle. GRRR
Anyway. I had picked up one of those hitch-haul utility racks that goes into the receiver of your vehicle. I got it on sale, like half off the normal price. It is for a 2 inch receiver, and I have an 1 1/4 or whatever it is. Not a problem, they say on the box that they make adapters. Heh, little did I know, they DO make them. They are hard to find, and they end up costing more then I paid for the rack. Funny that, eh?
So, when I got this thing, I had always planned on making a bike hauler for it.
This last Saturday, on my way home from the Ren Faire, I stopped by Cabelas. We had just been talking about me making a bike rack for the truck at the faire. Guess what I found at Cabelas? That’s right, a bike rack designed to be attached to one of these racks.
SCORE
This is how it is supposed to work according to the directions. Uhm, yeah, it’s for a different brand of rack and won’t fit mine right. The holes don’t line up, and it’s to wide. No worries. Like everything else I own that isn’t right, I can make it work.
Here it is loosly bolted up. I had walked to the hardware store to get lockwashers and a nut for the hitch-haul (which has been slowly trying to fall apart), and also fender washers for the rack. Wouldn’t you know it, I had forgotten the fender washers. I didn’t like how it was sitting, so I decided to change things up a little bit. I rode my bike to the store this time, as I was tired of walking. I picked up 2 more bolts and the fender washers.
Yeah, yeah, I know, I need to clean out the back of my truck.
Here is the rack all bolted up with the bike on it. Yeah, it was that late by the time I got done.
Another picture with the flash.
Here is how I ended up bolting the thing down. Instead of in one long strip, I offset the 3 pieces. I figure this may work helping offset the bikes if I have 3 of them on the rack at the same time.
Here you can see the fender washers underneath. You can also see my 2 new, extra long bolts.
Ah, the finished product. Doesn’t look bad, eh?
Oh, I cleaned out the back of the truck. 2 small bags of trash. 2 loads of tools back to the apartment. The rear seats are now locked in the full upright position. I also found my missing digital camera.
Mushrooms
These aren’t bad, just not as good as I had hopped. I really need to get myself a digital SLR. I just don’t have the control I want with these cheap cameras.
