For the birds http://www.for-the-birds.net/ en Copyright 2007 Tue, 14 Aug 2007 21:40:47 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Pleasantries I was out shopping on Sunday and as I walked around a rack of clothes, I nearly ran into a tiny girl of about three years old. She started, "oh, I am sorry," and moved out of the way. It made me smile and I assured her that she was not in the way. I told her guardian- who looked to be her grandmother- that was standing right nearby how impressed I was at her courteousness. Her grandma said how they had tried very hard to instill that in her. Still, even though many parents strive to have their children be very poilte, it seems that at such a young age, many kids do not have enough self awareness to have any concept of their affect on other people. To illustrate this, when I had foot surgery a few years ago and experienced a lot of complications and excruciating pain, I became afraid of little kids being around me. I would pick my injured foot up off the ground and tuck it under me, because of the way little kids have of stepping on or running right over people's feet. It seems so many children are allowed to run wild out in public- not yours, Mel!- and do whatever they want, so it was nice to see such a tiny young lady that had enough self awareness to realize the effect she had on others and be so courteous about it. I tell you, it was pretty damn cute. After I walked away I heard her grandma tell her how good she had been and that she was going to get a reward. How sweet! http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/pleasantries.php http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/pleasantries.php Hmmmmmm Tue, 14 Aug 2007 21:40:47 -0500 Allergic to work Okay, not really- not to work itself. Over the past, I dunno, maybe six to eight weeks I have been noticing an interesting phenomenon. When I sit in my shop at my desk at work in the morning, I start coughing and feel a little drippyness at the back of my throat. I will hack and hack, but then if i leave the building to work on a job, it goes away. If I come back, the cough comes back. All up until the afternoon or so, when it it seems to subside. I never get these coughing fits when I am not at work, so I have to think there is something to this. I moved the cabinets away from the walls to look for mold, but I didn't find anything; it was clean. The other resident in my shop has noticed a similar effect, he gets a scratchy throat in that room as well. I am not sure what it could be, but all indcations point to the a/c ducting. We had a new a/c unit put in just a few months ago and maybe some moisture got into the ducting? I don't know what else it could possibly be. As for why it gets better during the course of the day, I have a couple of theories for that. One is that I take my allergy medicine first thing in the morning and it takes a few hours to kick in, another is that the room is shut up all night, so there is little circulation making it bad in the morning, but then during the day the door is open and shut repeatedly causing more exchange of air. We are finally having someone come out to monitor the air quality to figure out what the heck is going on, if anything. Perhaps I am just allergic to work? http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/allergic_to_work.php http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/allergic_to_work.php Health & beauty Mon, 13 Aug 2007 20:28:02 -0500 Frito Feet her blog about her kitty's feet smelling like Dipsy Doodles, and I thought it was funny, because I had always thought my dogs' feet smelled like corn chips, but I thought it was just me. I looked it up and it turns out that dogs foot sweat is well known for smelling like corn chips and the term used to describe them that I absolutely love is "Frito Feet." Cats have the same kind of thing going on, the sweat from the glands between their toes has a toasty, corny smell, or so I have read. I have never sniffed cat paws because I am allergic to cats. Some people say their animals' feet smell more like popcorn, some like Fritos or other corn chips, and I have even heard of some saying they smell like corn dogs, but there is always that "corn" component. There are differences between individual dogs, too. My little Ramona has completely delicious smelling Frito tootsies, but Michaela's don't smell much at all. Denny's are nice and corny, but Cody licks his all the time, probbaly keeping all of the Frito smell for himself, the little booger. And fat Lou and Annabel each have paws only faintly scented with Frito. Some people may think it is completely insane to sniff their dogs' feet, but they are missing out. It is one of many wonderful things about dogs. I also love the "baloney breath" of very young puppies. I think maybe this means I am a little bit crazy, but it also explains why I am so damn popular with dogs. Okay, so if you haven't done it already, you've got to sniff your dog or cat's feet and report in the comments what they smell like. If you don't have a dog or cat, just run out and grab the nearest one you can find, just to check, okay? Kidding. I have found that right after a bath their feet won't smell much like Frito, because they are too clean, so they need to be a little bit dirty to get the full Frito-y effect.]]> http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/frito_feet.php http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/frito_feet.php Furry children Sun, 12 Aug 2007 09:43:21 -0500 Shuttle Launch this post from January where I wrote about an OMS pod we had just finished working on. Last night's launch carried that pod into space for the first time in over five years. Normally it doesn't take so long after we finish working on one for it to go up. but this launch was much delayed due to hail damage to the external tank early this spring, so it sat around for some extra time. I am just happy that it was a safe launch. It is hard not to hold your breath and worry as space travel is still inherently very risky. We were at dog training class during the event, but everyone stepped outside to see Endeavour off. I hope thhat I can always appreciate watching such a thing. Even in this county where there are regular rocket launches, I feel lucky to get to see a little bit of history each time. I can really watch with a sense of pride now as I have put so much into the processing of this orbiter. Let us hope for a safe, successful mission all around.]]> http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/shuttle_launch.php http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/shuttle_launch.php Space Stuff Thu, 09 Aug 2007 18:51:20 -0500 Details of the decision Okay, now for the details of this morning's County Commission meeting. I am so happy that we are getting to build our house, but Lord, this morning was excruciating. The meeting started at 9:00. There is always the usual crap at the begininng, the handing out of awards and recognition and whatnot. It is unreal how much time was wasted with piddly little crap, people thanking other people with long drawn out speeches talking about the same thing over and over. This part is rough, but to be expected, as this kind of thing occurs at every meeting, pretty much. Today, time was of the essence for us as we had our whole team there at our expense and some of our team had to leave at a certain time. So the more things dragged out, the worse it was for us. The part of the meeting that was right before us on the agenda was the public comments section. The speakers were to get three minutes each, and there were a handful of them or so. The second speaker that was there under the public comments was not there with a public comment- she had missed the deadline for the agenda and brought a personal issue before the board under the public comments section which they then went on to belabor for over half an hour, even though they stated that she should have followed due process. I found it rather irritating that she took up so much time as she stated she was a developer and was there on a zoning issue- there had been a mistake by the zoning office and she was trying to get the fee waived for her to get a variance. She stated that she couldn't pay it, and they went round and round. We were starting to get antsy as time was ticking by and it got later and later. There was an executive session scheduled for 11:30 and we needed to get in and be heard before that or we would not be heard until the afternoon at which point we would lose our subject matter experts due to other commitments. Anyway, I felt very little sympathy for this girl. Here she was a developer and she couldn't pay a measly $600 fee? Shoot, it probably cost us more than $600 just in fees to pay the team we had there at the meeting on standby for the half hour of our time she wasted. We had to pay $1700 to the county just to have our piece heard today and paid $500 the last time we were heard, not to mention the six grand in legal fees, but since she was about to cry and they felt sorry for her we had to sit and wait while she whined about a $600 fee. I would have liked to stand up and tell her "Here's $600, now get out of here!" Ridiculous. I really think they need to rearrange these meetings to where the public comments come last. Especially since the next three commenters were little old ladies that had nothing better to do than come to the meeting and bitch about the way things are handled in the county. Two of them are ladies that come to every commission meeting and speak basically the same piece at each one. I guess they don't have anything else in their lives, so they come and be heard. Anyway, through some miracle we eventually got to our turn and our whole team went down to the podium to set up. Our attorney was ready for an argument and it never came. The commissioner from our district quickly made a motion to approve our administrative waiver and it was seconded and passed by all. It was over before it even began, but since we won, we didn't care. Andy thought it was a bit of a let down that we didn't even get to hear our attorney's pitch, but I didn't care. I know the commissioners were briefed by the county attorney and he must have done a good job because they were ready to go along with us from the beginning. It was just surprising that none of them had anything to say about it because they all seem to like to hear themselves speak so much. My personal feeling is that they didn't want our attorney's pitch to be part of the public record, so it was better for them if they just approved it and the public would never reaslly know what the issue was. That way they wouldn't come off looking bad for denying us previously. Who cares? It's over!!!!!! We are building a house! http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/details_of_the_decision.php http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/details_of_the_decision.php Dream House Tue, 07 Aug 2007 19:22:29 -0500 At long last At last the drama is over. At this morning's County Commission meeting we were granted a waiver to allow us to build our dream house after many months of waiting. Thank God! It was all over so quickly! I will write more about exactly what went down later on; for now I am just letting it sink in. http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/at_long_last.php http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/at_long_last.php Dream House Tue, 07 Aug 2007 13:09:55 -0500 One hour to go! Only about one more hour until the start of the County Commission meeting that could change my life for the better or possibly the worse. We are going to be leaving in about twenty minutes for the meeting- I'll be back with the conclusion this afternoon! Please send your prayers if you are the praying kind. http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/one_hour_to_go.php http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/one_hour_to_go.php Dream House Tue, 07 Aug 2007 07:54:31 -0500 Almost there, maybe Tomorrow is a huge day for us. We will be attending the regular meeting of our County Commission and have an item on the agenda to be heard. This is our final attempt at getting a waiver in order to build our dream house.

Some of you are familiar with the story, which has now been dragged out over a year and seven months. We have gone before the Commission once before and failed, but this time we have an attorney on our side and are trying something different- something that has only been brought before the Commission one or two times before by anyone, ever. We will have their full attention this time, after they so quickly dismissed our case the last time.

There are more details over at my Tortoise Hollow blog if you want to catch up with what has been going on. It is exhausting to think about and I can't believe it has been this long since it all started. I hope to be able to post happy news tomorrow. It should be all over by noon or so at the latest, but I don't know when I'll get a chance to post. I'll let you know as soon as possible.

]]> http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/almost_there_maybe.php http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/almost_there_maybe.php Dream House house property regulatory takings Mon, 06 Aug 2007 21:00:11 -0500 Experimentation You will probably not notice the changes, but there are some things going on behind the scenes of this blog. I am trying out Movable Type 4 which is still in beta mode, so there may be some issues. Still, it looks much better and there are lots more features; hopefully some of them can help me with my little spam problem. The interface on my side of things is very nice and blogging will be much easier for me now, so bear with me if you find any problems. And please let me know if you do find any bugs in my blog.

]]> http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/experimentation_1.php http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/experimentation_1.php Blog things Movable Type 4 Mon, 06 Aug 2007 16:58:22 -0500 End of the week I wish I had something interesting to report, but sadly I do not. it has been a normal regular weekend of no consequence, but that is fine with me. I went to dog training class with Annabel on Saturday and she won both of the two contests that were held. There was a fastest sit contest, and since Anna is used to sitting to get a treat with all of the competition of our other poodles, she is pretty good at it. I just raise my hand and she sits with no words. So there were eleven dogs in the group and each time the slowest dog to sit was eliminated. Annabel won that one easily. Then, towards the end of class we did another fastest sit contest, but this time we were walking with the dogs on leash when the sit command came. Some dogs have a much harder time interpreting the command when they are already moving. Not Anna; she was awesome. She won again. I swear having poodles to train is like cheating, though. They are so smart that we hardly have to work with them at all. They pick up everything so quickly. There is a huge Great Dane in the class named Elvis that still does not sit reliably. I guess he knows no one can make him sit. The rest of the weekend was also spent doting on our animals. Andy had to work overtime this morning, so I spent many hours doing a very thorough cleaning of the bird cages. I soaked all of the perches and toys, sprayed off and scrubbed the grates, and wiped down all of the cage bars. It doesn't sound like much, but to really clean the two bird cages well takes about four hours. It is no small task. After the cages were clean, I cleaned the birds. Charley took a nice bath on his bathtub perch, but Holly still wants nothing to do with it. I struggled with her for nearly half an hour before I could get her into the tub and let the water from the shower head spray fall down on her like rain. She is very suspicious of everything and refused to get in the tub. She was so very dusty though, as cockatoos are known to be, that I just had to get her clean. I had her watch Cjarley bathe first, hoping that it would entice her, but she didn't seem to care. Finally I managed to trick her and get her into the bottom of the tub, and then she climbed up on the bath perch where I was able to rinse her down well. Hopefully next time she won't be so apprehensive and will just go on the bath perch and save me some time. She is doing better every day, so I expect that she will improve with bathing as well. Andy got home around 12:30 and after we had lunch he set about cleaning Virgil the tortoise's habitat for me. He scooped out all of the old dirt, hosed the whole enclosure out and mixed up new "turtle dirt" for him. Turtle dirt is a mix of topsoil and playsand, about 60% topsoil to 40% playsand. We even have a bucket of it labeled "turtle dirt." I think that has to be one of the most fun things to say ever. Try saying "turtle dirt" three times in a row and you'll see what I mean. Either that or I am just crazy, which is entirely possible. So anyway, we didn't do that much this weekend. We did grocery shop for the week, and we went to the Mega Bird Store for some interesting bulk food mixes to supplement the birds' diets. I got my hair trimmed and colored and we swam a little late this afternoon. Oh, and I plucked the hair out of the dogs' ears- fascinating, huh? I think that this means that we are officially boring. But I would rather be boring than most of the alternatives, I think. What about you? Did you have an exciting weekend? http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/end_of_the_week.php http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/end_of_the_week.php General crap Sun, 05 Aug 2007 06:25:02 -0500 Team work Lately I have been involved in lots of meetings and things with different groups trying to hash things out. It has forced me to think about the concept of teamwork and how people work together. Team dynamics are interesting when you really examine them. While I can work on a team, I am not a very good team player, but it isn't because I disagree with everyone. I have the habit of being the one to take the reins on everything and I end up doing all of the work. While I don't mind doing everything, it really is not a team accomplishment when everyone just gives their blessing to what I have done. I think I work that way mostly because I don't trust anyone else to do things right - or even do them at all in some cases. In school whenever I had to work on a group project, I would always ask for my part of the project and would execute it, but I never really collaborated with the rest of the team. That was back when I was very shy and reserved. Those days are over and now in a meeting I will not only speak my mind but will end up taking over the meeting in most cases. The surprising thing is that I don't meet much resistance. I have found that if a person feels strongly about something, has done the research to the point where people believe they are well educated on the subject, and are willing to do the work, others will generally welcome it and drop back into the shadows. In most cases it seems that people don't want to do the work, so if I do it, they are so thrilled that they don't have to that they just go along with whatever I say. So it as it turns out, here is little old me writing major policy for the entire center. A little initiative is all it takes, and I love it because I get to be creative and feel like I am making a difference. So my concept of teamwork is changing, somewhat. I used to think of it more as a group of people contributing roughly evenly, but lately it seems that there is a vast difference in the amount of effort put forth by members of teams. Some are content to sit back while others are the doers and accomplish the work. Of course every team is not that way, but many of the ones I have experienced are. How do you feel about teams collaborating? Are you able to participate in group activities on certain projects and do you feel that the team members each contribute equally to the group or is it mostly the work of one person or a couple of people with only small contributions from the rest? http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/team_work.php http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/team_work.php All In a day's work Fri, 03 Aug 2007 20:49:51 -0500 Spammers are ruining my blog It sucks, because I really don't have too much time to blog lately, that I have to spend the vast majority of the time I do have dealing with spam comments that have overrun my blog to the point of nearly shutting it down- exceeding its disk space. I had to stop tonight and purge over thirteen thousand spam comments from my junk comment folder as it will not get rid of them by itself even though Movable Type is supposed to per the settings I have selected. It is not working right, unfortunately. To me it is really sad that I cannot get through a day without being spammed to high hell. Such an abuse of a fantastic resource as the internet, that will serve to ruin it in short order, but oh well. Sucks. http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/spammers_are_ruining_my_blog.php http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/08/spammers_are_ruining_my_blog.php Blog things Wed, 01 Aug 2007 21:59:26 -0500 Progression Photo 301.jpg Photo 310.jpg I was sitting here in my PJs in front of the puter and I was going to write about how Holly, our adopted Eleanora Cockatoo, has been doing much better and how she is finally spending time with us outside of her cage. She has gone from not liking me at all and being terrified of me to liking me the best. Go figure. I finally am able to let her sit on her little playstand next to me while I am sitting at the computer and that has been a long time coming. She just decided a minute ago that she was going to fly over here, land on my head and start preening my hair, hence the pictures that I snapped with the camera on my iMac. What a silly girl. She has been going back and forth between my head and the perch ever since then.]]> http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/07/progression.php http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/07/progression.php Feathered kids Mon, 30 Jul 2007 19:04:58 -0500 Silver dollars I can't believe the weekend is almost over; it absolutely flew by. Saturday morning I took Annabel to her first training class and she did very well, though she was very nervous. She is going to be great once she calms down a bit. Yesterday I finally decided I was tired of our bed looking like one that belonged in a crack house- no offense to those who live in crack houses. Our quilt was substandard and was torn in few spots and that enticed Ramona to chew at those spots, making things even worse. I was sick of looking at the torn up quilt, and every time we had to wash it it got worse. I bought us a new ensemble of a lightweight quilt, pillow shams, and throw pillows. I made the mistake of not washing everything first. I should have known because I am a freak of nature that it would cause problems. I thought that because the sheets were already washed that it would be okay since the sheets are what touches my skin. I was wrong. I woke up covered in quarter to silver dollar sized red hives, dangit. I hate my skin. If there was a such thing as a whole body skin transplant I would get it done. In any case. all of the new bedding is washied now and I hope for a much better result this time. For fuck's sake, why can't I just be normal for once? http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/07/silver_dollars.php http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/07/silver_dollars.php Health & beauty Sun, 29 Jul 2007 19:47:40 -0500 What I have been working for Pod.jpg Pod rolling.jpg These are a couple of photos of the Orbital Manuevering System Pod my co-workers and I have been working on for the last few months and that we delivered today for installation on Discovery, or OV-103, for STS-120. Yay! Thank God it is finally done! More blogging to come on an evening when I haven't been up since 2:30 am as I have today.]]> http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/07/what_i_have_been_working_for.php http://www.for-the-birds.net/2007/07/what_i_have_been_working_for.php All In a day's work Space Stuff Thu, 26 Jul 2007 20:13:59 -0500