Monday, July 7, 2003 I’ve had better weeks. Last week didn’t go so well. I spent a lot of time trying to get stuff running properly. Finally, Thursday, I figured out how to get the new guestbook and forums running. Well, the forums, I broke down and purchased another license for the ones I run at Cat Fights. It took longer than I’d expected to get the first messageboard set up. Now, all I have to do is to make new ones for all the guestbooks and forums I can’t use from my old host. And then I have to archive the messages from my old host’s website. Not really difficult to do, just very time consuming.
We went for a ride through the local back country Friday. I took a bunch of pictures. Which I lost many of yesterday. *sigh* Not only did I lose those, I lost more from June and a few from May. And there are more that I’ve taken in the past that got corrupted. See, I found this really great panorama program. Really nice. There’s a warning, though, that it makes big files. I just didn’t realize how big. And instead of deleting them when they were made, I put it off. I ran out of room on a hard drive. I moved pictures to a different drive and not realizing that there hadn’t been room on the other drive for all of the images, I hit “delete” for the files I thought were moved. And because there were so many of them, I emptied my recycle bin. Bad. Really, really bad. I found some software that can recover data, so I downloaded it and used it. Unfortunately, I was unclear on the concept and ended up spending all day trying to delete duplicated files. And there were many. It wasn’t a good day. To top it off, I couldn’t connect to the internet with my Dell last night. I called Cox and was on the phone with them after ten last night. But I’m back this morning. When I first started up, I couldn’t connect, but I fooled around with settings and was back online before too long.
And I’m burning the files to CD. I’ve been pretty good about copying images to the months I’ve taken them for the past few years, so it should be fairly easy to copy them in a month by month basis. And I’ll eventually print out thumbnails of what is in each month and keep them in a folder. A winter project.
It was really hot last week, we had a few days where the temp reached 100? or higher. Wonderfully, the house stayed between fifteen and twenty degrees cooler. I would shut the house up early and turn on all of the fans, ceiling and attic. I didn’t once turn on the air conditioner. The cats were happy, too. I don’t think they like the noise of the A/C, but they sure liked the coolness of the house.
DeeJay barfed all over Brian’s side of the bed Friday night. Poor Brian. He wiped most of the kibble onto the floor, then got a huge towel and put it down over the wet spot. Then he got into bed and closer to the middle. Saturday, I did laundry. And I gave DeeJay some water with probiotics in it and he lapped it up. He hasn’t done that in a while. I guess he knows what his body needs.
Lucky is so skinny. She’s just skin and bones. She has an okay appetite, doesn’t turn her nose up when I feed her. And she has good sized poops. She’s just really skinny. There are some foods she could eat as much as I give her, I think. Like barbequed steak or baked fish. She really likes that stuff. I think it would be much easier if there weren’t so many other cats. But there are.
Oh, I understand the HB misses talking with Brian. But he “feels uncomfortable” coming over here (he’s only done it once since the big blowout with me over the ferals). Oh, well. This from a guy who says he knows he’s outspoken, but he’s going to say what he feels and people probably don’t like it, but he doesn’t care. According to him, that’s just the way he is. Well, I don’t have to put up with it and I think he knows he’s not welcome on our property. At least, not by me. Brian doesn’t seem to care one way or the other. I have noticed that not too many people in the neighborhood speak to him much any onger. Maybe they’re busy with their own lives or something. Or maybe he’s pushed them away with his outspoken ways like he’s pushed me away. Maybe he’ll finally realize that it’s okay for him to be outspoken, but he’s just now figuring out that there are some downsides to it. Like nobody wants to play with him anymore.
On the fourth, the people behind our neighbors who don’t like the trees were setting of firecrackers. The cats weren’t really bad about it and Junior has gotten much better at letting the noise not bother him from the big fireworks. But these little ones set him off. Where Buddy used to come in the house for protection, Junior’s out there barking. We’d get him settled down, then they’d set some more off. Finally, at about a quarter to eleven, I went outside and yelled “you’re not being very considerate!” The firecrackers stopped. Then when I went to bed, someone drove up the street (not the people I yelled at) and lobbed a cracker out of a car window. I fell asleep muttering that I hoped they’d lose a fingertip, just to teach them a lesson.
I’ve got such a headache.
The catcam went down about two in the afternoon, on Sunday, June 29th. My original camera, a Connectix Color QuickCam. I had another 3Com Homeconnect (if we ever get money ahead, I’ll get some more just to have on hand) and I set that up, but the quality just wasn’t what I wanted. I ordered a Creative Digital camera, a dual purpose camera that had webcam capability. At least, that’s what the description. Huh uh. Did not. I got it because I figured it would have a sharp picture. But it wouldn’t work with my Webcam32 software. I called to get an RMA number, got a message back saying that they couldn’t accept this camera back without manufacturer’s okay, if the camera wasn’t defective. What? *whine* Why me!!! It could take up to ten days to get the okay. Ten days was ten days too long. I did some research and came up with a Logitech QuickCam Pro 4000. These are the guys who took over the Connectix cameras. Now, I had ordered one of their cameras in the past and wasn’t really thrilled with it, so I did some research of reviews and this camera had some pretty good ones. I ordered it. From Page Computer. It was a little before three when I ordered it, figured I should have it Thursday (I ordered the Creative Sunday afternoon, it shipped Monday, got here Tuesday around 11:30; by 2:30 I knew it wasn’t what I wanted). It got here Wednesday! It took me hours to set up. I kept having problems seeing it. Turns out, it runs with the same driver the patiocam runs on. Cant’ have one driver for two cars (well, you can with the 3Com Homeconnect, which is now the Digi WATCHPORT/V). I moved the patiocam to the Dell that night to see if that would work and it did. After thinking about it, I figured the catcam would be better on the Dell, because I run the Dell later than the Gateway. So, Thursday morning, I moved the catcam to the Dell and the patiocam back to the Gateway. And since the catcam uploads so much more quickly on my new website host, it’s now updated every ninety seconds, down from three minutes. And the picture is great. There’s also a function where the camera can follow the face. That would be okay for streaming, but silly for still shots. It is fun to watch live, though. I have to admit, it’s better than the original catcam was.
And Angel progresses. She sleeps on the sofa now, when the mood strikes her. She’s much more lovable, winding in and around one’s legs as they try to walk. I’m waiting until she’s more comfortable inside and then I’ll start taking pictures of her again. She’s still as sweet looking as she was as a kitten. It’s been two years now since they came to live with us. Amazing.
I lost another pound last week. I’m down 28 total now. I’m hoping to hit thirty down this Friday. At thirty and a half, I’ve lost half of what I want to lose. I’ve been wearing the size 14 shorts I bought and they feel good, they aren’t tight at all.
(Ah, the Excedrin is kicking in, buh bye headache.)
All five of my little feral colony are sticking close by. Little Bit pretty much lives over here now, along with KittyMeeze. I know they’re trying to get OC to stay, but they’re not having much luck. Repete stays in the yard next to us, where Munchkin used to live. SpotTee sometimes hangs here in the day, but he’s a wanderer. I never have seen the tortie we got spayed since we released her. I hope she’s okay. I know she was okay when she was released, because she spent ten days at the vet’s office recuperating. I worry about these guys. This weekend, I wondered about Angus. I miss seeing him and his so wise eyes at night, eating. For an old battle scarred tomcat, he was beautiful. Almost no ears to speak of, scars all over, but such beautiful, knowing eyes. I hope he belonged to someone who moved away and they took him with them.
I took this of Little Bit this morning:
It does nothing to show how tiny she is.
And here is the difference where Brian made the rock wall by the pool.
before
after
And here are the panoramas, the pictures that started all of my problems this weekend. These are thumbnails of the actual image. To see them full size, click on the picture. WebTV viewers won’t be able to see them in their entirety, since they’re pretty wide and WebTV can’t scroll left and right.
45KB, 1087 x 250, photos I took last November from the top of Icky hill.
63KB, 1792 x 275, photos I took last Friday; ones that are lost forever now. :cry
Well, that’s it. I’ve almost caught up with the laundry and I have some cleaning I’d like to get done by the end of the week. Brian’s nephew is coming back from the Iraq and there’s a welcome home party for him on Saturday. Not that I need to do much in the house, but I would like to get the sofa covers in the living room washed. And while that’s happening, I’d like to shampoo the furniture. The cats started peeing in the corners of the sofas. So, I’ll shampoo that really good and use some of the pee pads I ordered (I ordered two cases, a hundred each, at a closeout price) to put over the spots where they’ve been going before I put the cleaned slipcovers back on. Much work.
And I’d really like to take a shower, then a nap. I’m really tired from this weekend. Computer stress is not a good thing.