Sheep Guarding Llama

In case you didn’t already know, Dominica turns 27 today. We didn’t do anything special for her birthday. We are going out to Frankfort tomorrow to see her family and she has already gotten her birthday present from me (her semi-new HP Pavilion ze4600us Laptop.) She is still getting a memory expansion and a new outboard USB Creative Sound Blaster sound card since the built in sound on her laptop doesn’t work. The outboard unit will give her much better sound quality and handy volume knobs though, so it many ways it is nicer. But not nearly as handy.

Dominica got stuck working on her birthday which really sucks. It doesn’t make any difference to me whether or not I work on my birthday. I don’t even remember when it is my birthday. But Dominica’s birthday is like a National holiday and she really likes to have it off. But with Mary out sick, they really need to shuffle people around a lot and it helps if Min is able to cover things. It was handy that she worked yesterday and got some overtime in too.

Andy and I spent the afternoon working on Waste Watcher 2 and reinstalling my laptop. My laptop has been running on its original Windows XP install for over a year now, maybe a lot over a year, and it is pretty much to the point of not working at all. So I completely reinstalled it to get it back into tip top shape. Boy does reinstalling really make a difference. It is hard to believe how much of a difference it can make until you actually do it to a machine that has been used heavily for a long time.

Dad came over around 5:00 and the three of us went over to the Omega for some dinner. That is my sixth time this week, just as I had predicted one week ago when I realized that I was going to be in town all week. While we were there, we picked up a copy of the menu to take over to Min at the hotel so that they can have a current menu over there for the guests to look at since Min sends about twenty people a week to the Omega.

Dominica got home around 11:00 and we watched some Are You Being Served? until we were tired enough to go to bed. It is tough when you need to do something first thing in the morning when you have been conditioned to going to bed really late because you aren’t tired at all when you need to be.

(Note: July 12, 2006 – Dominica’s birthday is on August 21 not on August 20. This strange dating issue occurred because the dailies are generally posted one day late and if it said Happy Birthday on her actual birthday then it would look like I forgot her birthday.)

It was nice, for a change, to have been able to sleep with the windows open last night. It has been ages since we were able to do that. It was still a little bit on the warm side but not too bad. And the dog didn’t get sick tonight, that was really nice.

I had to get up early this morning and find a rental car for the week. I didn’t have any luck getting one here in Geneseo so I had to get one from East Rochester. But I can’t pick it up until this afternoon.

The weather finally broke today and it was nice and cool. It rained this morning which was very nice. Min and I had lunch at the Omega Grill, that is my fourth time there this week. I have eaten almost every meal at the Omega this week.

After lunch, Min took me up to Enterprise and I picked up a Ford Taurus SE that I will have until next Friday. I talked to the shop this morning and they said that my car wouldn’t be ready until late next week. There is a sensor that is needed and it isn’t expected to be available until at least next Wednesday. What a pain. Three weeks without my car.

I met with Craig this afternoon at The Spot downtown and had some coffee. We hung out until about 6:00 and then I headed down to Geneseo to pick up Min and meet dad over at the Omega. Yes, that is the second time today. And the fifth time this week.

After dinner, Min and I decided just to hang around the house watching the last of the sixth season of The Simpsons and also a Disney WDW Travel DVD. This travel DVD was one of the worst attempts at marketing that I have ever seen. The one kid, Luke, on the video looked like a high crack addict on his day off from selling Dell laptops to the cast and crew of Blue’s Clues. This video dramatically made me not want to go back to Disney World. I can’t imagine any marketing material doing a worse job at promoting something so easy to promote. All of the people in the video were completely inane and Disney didn’t even manage to find a cameraperson who was able to operate his handycam. The camera was jiggling and zooming in and out the entire time. And the highlights, according to the entertainment challenged hosts, of Disney’s 50th anniversary celebration are its… new movies. Um, movies? Who thinks that it is okay to go to Disney world and have the hottest new additions to the park – yes that is plural – to be just more stupid movies to watch. The last thing that I want to do is to fly to Florida so that I can watch a movie about California. If I wanted to see California, I would have just gone there. I live in this country, in case they didn’t figure this out. WDW is known for its rides. No one ever says “Man I can’t wait to get to Disney World so that I watch California state marketing materials. Maybe if I am really lucky, Whoopie Goldberg will show up and tell me why California is better than Florida and we are all stupid for having vacationed in a Republican state. Oh wait, they both are. Maybe she will just tell us why we suck for not watching Hollywood Squares.”

So here is a piece of news: a seventeen year old high school senior was killed today by a tiger while having her senior pictures taken. Oh, and did I mention that this girl lives in Kansas. Now this is one of those stories that really gets you thinking about how many stupid people have to get involved before something truly dangerous can happen to us. Let’s start at the beginning. This seventeen year old high school senior didn’t learn enough in her twelve previous years of high school to know that spending time in a room with a wild tiger is just plain dumb. Oh yes, did I fail to mention that she was having her picture taken with the tiger. This isn’t a freak accident like she was on a mission trip to India and decided to have her picture taken there and a tiger just happen to wander into the photobooth or anything. No, not at all. This girl’s family paid for an illegal animal handler to bring the tiger to the photoshoot so that their daughter could have her picture taken with a dangerous carnivor. Apparently, the school that she attends has made this into a tradition. They would appear to have handy access to a man who owns a number of animals and is more than willing to violate some safety regulations in return for a few measly dollars. Now, the first line of defense here should have been this girl educated by the fine Kansas state public school system. She should have had the common sense to take part in her own self preservation. This isn’t some big thing that she was trying to accomplish here. She put her life on the line for her crappy senior picture. What is wrong with this picture – pun intended. Then there is the school. Surely the teachers and administrators having attended college know the dangers and legal implications of having students spend time with animals intent on eating them. But the school hangs the pictures of students with the wild animals in their hallways as memorials to the blatant disregard for student safety, common sense and the law. Then there is the photographer. She didn’t think to stop anyone from letting their child die in such a ridiculous way? But what does she care, she makes a few bucks. It isn’t like it was her kid. But okay, students are stupid at that age, teachers really do wish that most of their students would be eaten by tigers and photographers and animal handlers have a seedy business to attend to – so none of these parties had real motivation for protecting these kids. But how did this girl’s parents get convinced to allow this to happen? What would make a parent think that something like this was okay? Now here comes the worst part. After all of these people made awful, careless decisions – the innocent party that really gets hurt here is the tiger. Of course the tiger had to be killed after this happened. The tiger who acted completely as expected. Of course the tiger wasn’t sick. Of course it wasn’t deranged. It is a tiger. Seventeen year old idiots are one of its favourite foods. These jerks have been dangling tasty treats in front of it for years just begging it to cross the line and have a delicious snack. And the flashing camera lights weren’t bothering it at all either. It isn’t like the tiger isn’t stressed here. So now this endangered animal has to be killed just so some seventeen year old loser can get her kicks – because she thinks its cool to have her picture taken with a dangerous animal. Won’t her friends think she is totally cool. How brave she is. Just like when she put that whipped cream can in her nose. Just like that time she smoked that crack. This will set her apart from the other losers. Now she will be the queen of cool. Oh wait, everyone else was jumping off this bridge too. She is just the one that landed on the rock. But personally, I think risking the life of an endagered animal for your high school thrills is a pretty rotten thing to do. Downright pathetic and bordering on evil. And just in case you think I am being too harsh just keep in mind that what was going on here was almost definitely a felony and manslaughter or worse charges are a very real possibility. This girl, like so many other “cool” students at her school was a willing participant in a crime that resulted in her own demise but also the death of a great cat. What a horrible, rotten girl she was.

Now to really rub salt into the wounds – students have to return to school shortly and see the walls of the school lined with pictures of other students with dangerous, endangered animals. Most likely, almost for sure in fact, there will be many pictures of students with that very tiger. How many students will be traumatized by this. Some will be struck by the awful notion that they had had their picture taken with that very tiger just hours before and there is the proof on the wall. They were just as dumb, just as cruel but just didn’t have their bullet in the chamber on that particular day. But now they will never forget the peer pressure that they created helping to steer this girl to her own end. Others will just be reminded of her, day after day. Others will have to live with the knowledge that that innocent tiger whose tortured pictures hang on the walls is dead thanks to other students in the school. And others, for whom I have no pity, will be hurt because they were the first to be robbed of the right to participate in the school’s criminal tradition. They might have been next in line and all ready to have their picture taken with the hungry feline. Maybe they are only juniors who were looking forward to having their pictures taken next year. All of those pictures lining the walls and filling the yearbooks. Everyone else got to be part of this long tradition. But not them.

The bottom line is that this entire scenario happened because a massive chain of people failed to care, obey the law or just think for one second. Obviously this was a horrendously stupid decision. And, just in case common sense didn’t work this out for you, the law was pretty darn clear on the whole thing. I am not saying that the law is always right. But for some people who shall remain nameless, having simple safety laws is a much better proposition that just guessing when it might be safe to cross the road. I’m not saying that I am glad that this girl was mauled to death. What happened in Kansas today was horrible. But what I am saying is that a number of people did really inappropriate, uncaring, illegal and, in reality, evil things. These people were bad. This girl was just another girl who gave into peer pressure. But when you give into peer pressure, when you give up your own decision making and let other people do it for you, sometimes life just carries you along and sometimes, just sometimes, the jungle eats you. It’s your decision. This girl, and everyone else involved, had every right, reason and opportunity to stop this entire thing from ever happening. But they didn’t. They all gave into peer pressure or simply greed. Now a girl and a tiger are dead. No one made these decisions for them. The parents, students, animal owner and photographer each bare their own responsibility for what happened. This wasn’t an unforeseen happening. Given enough students with enough tigers, bears, leopards and other animals that they regulary took pictures with anyone could have surmised that this was going to happen. No one knew when. These people were just participating in Kansas Roulette.

Thursday is my day off, more or less. Actually I ended up working quite a bit today. I did sleep in late but wound up working late into the evening.

Oreo had eaten an entire Boodha bone yesterday and ended up being sick during the night. He was very scared that we were going to be mad. He is such a sweet dog. He really has become a member of the family. But it did mean that I had to get up at 6:00 am to clean up the mess.

After work today, Eric and Amanda came over for dinner. By “came over for dinner” I, of course, ment that we all went to the Omega Grill for dinner. That is my third time this week. This is what happens when I am in town all week.

After dinner, Eric and Amanda came over for a little while to hang out. We had a good time playing with Oreo (who had another “accident” – he is having a rough day) and watching Julia as she starts to walk. She is getting so big. Boy does it make you feel old watching your friends kids grow up. It might make me feel older to watch my own kids grow up, but I have no idea.

Here is a tip for all of you English measurement fanatics: One Hogshead equals 54 gallons. Now THAT will come in handy someday.

Min and I stayed up late watching Andy’s The Simpsons the sixth season. We are really excited that the weather isn’t so warm today and we are able to have the windows open for the first time in over a month.

My last full day in Pennsylvania. I get to go home midday tomorrow. One of the best things about staying down here is that Channel 69 from Allentown playes Mork and Mindy everyday at 3:00. I don’t think that I have seen that show since it was originally on well over twenty years ago! To make it extra hilarious, Paul Reubens guest starred doing a Pee Wee Herman act but as a guy named Stevie.

I was pretty soar today from having walked so much yesterday. I slept in nice and late today. I am staying on the same road as the Wegmans here in Easton so it will only take me a second to get there and I don’t have to worry about finding it since I have already seen it.

Just before leaving to go to work this evening, Mary called and left a message that she was at Warsaw Hospital and had just had a spinal tap.

I am in the hotel all day today in Easton, PA. Nothing exciting going on here. This is quite an unbelievably nothing town. I was hoping to be able to post updates from the hotel like I usually do but something is wrong and I am unable to connect to the company network although I am online. So everyone will have to wait for updates until I get back to New York, I guess.

I slept in until around 1:00 today. I remembered to bring my CPAP on this trip so I was able to get a good night’s sleep this time. Unfortunately, my ability to work is severly hampered without access to the network. My laptop is in terrible shape and has to be reinstalled as soon as I return. That might be all the more problem that I am having and I should be able to get that fixed quickly when I return. I discovered the issue with not being able to log into the network when Min needed me to work on her laptop for her to get her sound card working. Apparently she had wanted to watch movies or something at work and was not able to do so.

I ordered myself a pizza and some cheese sticks from Papa John’s. They are local and the place that the hotel recommended. I don’t normally order from them but they pizza isn’t bad, just nothing special. But more importantly, it doesn’t agrivate my heartburn the way that Dominoe’s does.

I am having a lot of problems with my wireless connection dropping while I am working today. The connection in my hotel room is very week but it might be more than that. They might be having network issues of their own. The hotel that I was supposed to be staying in had their Internet access down altogether so it is better than nothing.

While we were out today, our house got sprayed for bees, hornets and wasps. Boy will Min be happy. They have been driving us absolutely crazy. They live all over the outside of our house and they swarm all over you whenever you go into or out of the house. You can’t be outside ever without them being all over the place. They are not very aggressive, thank goodness. No one has been stung or attacked but there sure is a lot of opportunity for it to happen if we aren’t careful.

I watched the Bill Murray and Gena Davis classic Quick Change today just before going in to work.

After work this evening, I noticed that my check engine light is back on again. It has only been two days since I got it from the shop for that purpose. So much for the car’s computer telling us what is wrong with the car. Now I have to deal with that this week as well. Once again, it means two more trips to the shop. One to deal with the computer. Then I will have to drive it for days before the inspection can be done.

I got back from Wegmans and hadn’t gotten a chance to take a walk like I usually do so I checked out Mappoint and set out from the hotel to get some excercise. I decided to walk to the east to see if I could make it to the New Jersey state line which appears to be three and a half miles away from where my hotel was on the west side of Wilson. That meant walking through Wilson, Easton and Northhampton before reaching the Delaware River and the bridge to New Jersey. I set out on my walk and spent three hours walking and listening to Simon Winchester’s “The Professor and the Madman”, a biography of the two men most responsible for the creation of the great Oxford English Dictionary. I am, I believe, over halfway through the book now which is extremely interesting. I know, I know, I read really weird stuff and I have a very skewed view of interesting. Dominica can’t believe that I read this stuff for fun. When I got to the New Jersey side of the bridge, I called Min at work to let her know where I was. While I was there a slow moving Norfolk Southern coal train sautered by at a lazy 1-2 miles per hour. There was no gate at the crossing so I guess they had to slow down enough to be able to stop in an emergency. I tried walking alongside of the train to see if I could really keep up with it, which is a weird feeling, and my regular pace was almost twice the speed of the train (I was only a few feet away from the train and had waved to the engineer.) This was definitely how hobo’s seeking to travel America managed to get onto trains. However, a coal train heading towards New York City would hardly be the exciting rail journey of my dreams.