Guess who got chickens?

Me and Casey!

On Saturday, Casey and I drove to Half Moon Bay to the the Farm and Feed Store to pick up a few chicks.  All they had left were some older chicks (about a month old), who are, admittedly, not that cute. We got two of the black sex-link (cross between a Rhode Island Red rooster and a Barred Rock hen) and two of the spotty ones, which are also a Barred Rock cross, I think.  

Our landlord found this cage for them and is keeping them in his laundry room for the time being. Now we have to get serious about building a coop next weekend. They are already eating and pooping up a storm. In a few weeks, thy might even outgrow this cage!


Bob's dog, Haas (or Hoss?) is extremely interested in the birds.  I'm hoping he become protective of them and will eventually fight off the plethora of foxes, raccoons, coyotes, and mountain lions that will inevitably try to eat them.

Animal Pictures

It seems as though Casey and I end up taking mainly pictures of animals, instead of the people we know and care about. Anyway, we went to the city recently to catch up with a friend of mine from high school and came across this magnificent sight.  Aficionados of CuteOverload.com will recognize this pair and we saw them in real life! Luckily Casey was smart enough to snap this picture:

Then last weekend we went to Half Moon Bay to look at a farm and feed store. Casey wants to get chickens and we wanted to check out their chicks and coop supplies.  They had some adorable baby bunnies that Casey would not let me take home. They were really cute.
Couldn't you just imagine how cute it would be if I could train the bunny to sit on Elsie?  Maybe something like this (without the cage bars on the bunny):
That would definitely get Elsie's fat ass on cuteoverload.

Patrick McGoohan

David and Marta'a blog post about Ricardo Montalban reminded me of some recent sad news about someone very dear to us.  Patrick Magoohan, or "Number 6" has passed away at the age of 80. This may be for the best, depending on how this AMC remake of The Prisoner (starring the guy who played Jesus) turns out. It is set to premier in November. 
http://www.sixofone.org.uk/Prisoner-Remake.htm

precious holiday moments

We had a whirlwind of a Christmas this year.  We flew to St. Louis, drove to Illinois to see Casey's family, took the train to Minnesota to see Casey's brother, then drove to St. Paul to see my family.  Here's a map depiction of the trip with pink for plane, green for automobile and blue for train.  It was a lot of traveling, but we had a good time and were lucky to not have any major delays.
Although we did bring our new, green camera with us, we have no pictures from Illinois besides a picture of me with the fried chicken special from the local restaurant in Casey's hometown.  
The rest of the pictures we have from all our travels were taken by my 7 year old niece using my iPhone (she says that it is her favorite phone). Here is sampling of the best pictures (if you can believe it. I have about 20 pictures where I can't even tell what she was taking pictures of-the iphone camera is not that great).  Here's the family gathered in the kitchen.
My mom by the tree.

Casey holding the cat.
Marta (my sister) and Miranda (my niece).
and lastly, the highest quality picture is of Greta herself!
This is shameful. We need to get better at picture taking.

Hope everyone had a good holiday season!

Snow Emergency

I am still receiving the snow emergency alerts from George Dreckmann, the recycling coordinator of Madison.  This year they don't seem to be personally written by George Dreckmann, which is disappointing. However, what is not disappointing is that Madison is finally cracking down on Snow Emergency jerks! I have been wanting this for so long. I always get up after a snow emergency, dig out my car in the freezing cold (after it has been plowed in, usually), and sometimes even park it in a pay lot, just so that I can abide by the snow emergency rules.  Then other people, take the $20 ticket, take a week to dig their car out, and as a result, leave huge piles of snow that never get plowed and make the street unparkable for the rest of the winter. This year, things are changing.  They are giving $60 tickets and towing people! I wish I could be there to see it.

Robert C. Byrd

I was just updating my CV. It's getting a little long for some purposes so I set to thinking about what things to take off.  One option was this scholarship I had throughout college called the Robert C. Byrd Scholarship. I never applied for it, NY State just gave it to me.  Maybe it's super crappy and they give it to everyone? So I looked up some information.

 Many of you already know that Robert C. Byrd is a Senator from West Virginia. Here's his picture:

He's the longest serving senator in US history and the oldest current member of congress. He's been in the Senate longer than Obama has been alive. 

In 1942 he joined the Ku Klux Klan, and was elected Exalted Cyclops (which is ridiculous. Cyclops? Wizards? Is the KKK even trying to be taken seriously?) He swears that he quit a year later and was never interested in the Klan again (but there is some evidence that it took a couple years to wean himself off). He was elected to the House in 1952 and has not left Congress since.  As a dixiecrat, he filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (he says he regrets that), and voted against the Voting Rights Act of 1965. By 1968, he started changing his mind and voted for the Civil Rights Act and decided to finally stop being a segregationist and racist. Then he did a bunch of other stuff, was called "The King of Pork", and launched this scholarship program.  It is actually the only merit-based scholarship funded through the US Department of Education. They give out about 27,000 a year. Now I feel honored to have this award.  I also take to heart Senator Byrd's 1997 advice to young people interested in politics (as should you all): "Be sure you avoid the Ku Klux Klan. Don't get that albatross around your neck. Once you've made that mistake, you inhibit your operations in the political arena." 

New Camera

After many good years with my not top of the line digital camera, I decided to get a new not top of the line digital camera. The lens on the old one kept getting stuck, resulting in severely out of focus pictures.

So here is the new camera.  It is much smaller, and it is "wasabi green" (it was, like, $30 cheaper than black). 
Admittedly, it is ugly.  But at least it won't easily get confused with anyone else's camera (except maybe Shrek fans, or something). But all in all, I am happy to have it.  

Can you tell the difference between my new 10 megapixel camera and my old 2 megapixel camera? Both files are the same size.