Little Mexico!

So I’ve neglected to update this with some happy news.   I got a phone call the other day from a local vet who said they had our cat.  I talked to the lady who brought him in and was surprised to hear the lady lived about 5 miles away from us.  I have no idea how Little Mexico wandered that far, through the downtown area and everything, but he doesn’t look any worse for wear.

We got him back and he must be a little exhausted from his adventure.  He’s spent the last two days sleeping on chairs and eating.  He hasn’t complained that I haven’t let him outside (I learned my lesson on that one, sorry cat) and seems pretty happy to be back.  We got some good flea killer (Frontline Plus, I think) stuff for him and it seems to have done the trick, not a flea to be seen on him today.  

Anyway, everyone is happy to have our little buddy back home.  It’s a relief knowing he’s okay and safe with us here again.

Saturday evening randomness

THE LIST!

• Reformatting Windows is always more of a pain than I anticipate.  And I always ALWAYS forget to back up my email.  
• Fallout 3 is still not funtional.  Up yours, Bethesda!
• Re-reading The Dark Tower, even though I know how it ends and the ending sucks.  
• Thanksgiving approachs, I plan on eating myself to death this year.
• New office chair from Ikea is full of awesome.
• I let Emily go to her friend’s house for the weekend wearing her nice new school clothes.  Ooops, epic dad fail.
• We made our own Philly Cheese Steaks today, good stuff.
• I think our cat ran away

I should expand on that last one.  I haven’t seen Little Mexico for about a week now.  He’s an outside cat at this point, but every evening I’d open the door and call him and he’d come right in for the night.  I’ve been calling him like crazy all week and haven’t seen or heard him.  It’s been especially wet and rainy, so I’m hoping he found a nice dry place to hide and trying not to think about what else could have happened.  On Monday morning I’m going to call a few animal shelters, he’s wearing his tags with our phone number on them, so after not hearing from him I’m a little worried.  

I’m a lot worried.  

Things I want to remember about Violet…

The way she blows on her food to “cool it off” regardless of what it is, be it an apple, banana, soup, outmeal, yogurt, it doesn’t matter.

Computer woes

So my video card bit the dust late last week. First time I’ve had a PC component completely fail on me, I’ve been pretty lucky. Happily, the video card manufacturer offers a full lifetime warranty on their parts, so what could have been a disaster is just annoying.

I’ve never had to RMA anything before, so I was a little worried that it’d be a huge pain, complete with lots of hoops to jump through. The card was made by a company called BFGTech and I’m definitely sticking with them in the future. I called their 800 number (at 8pm on a Thurdsay) and got through to a live person in about 5 minutes. The tech asked me to describe the problems (lots of pixel artifacting, blue screen, refusal to boot up with that card) and then asked me for my information, saying that they’d replace the card. I was floored, honestly. They emailed me instructions and on Friday morning I shipped the card to them.

It got there today (Tuesday) and they’ve already got the replacement in the mail. Total cost to me was whatever the shipping cost was via FedEx, which was around $20.

Anyway, long story short, I’ll never buy a video card from anyone else. <3 BFG Tech.

Also, next time I build a PC I’m getting a motherboard with built-in video so I don’t have to use this damn laptop while I wait for a replacement to arrive.

Mike Patton, you’re my hero

What ever happened to musician rivalries?  Did they go out of style?  They shouldn’t have.

Epic concert fail.

Apparently I’ve missed yet another concert this fall!  Opeth was in town over the weekend and I was completely oblivious.  Here is the conversation between Kate and I about this:

Kate:  How did you miss this?

Me:  I knew it was later in the year and I guess I just lost track, I mean its September already.

Kate:  Actually its October.

Me:  …

So apparently I’m oblivious to more than just who is playing in town this weekend.  I’m pretty bummed out I missed this live:

Next time, I guess.  Time to invest in some kind of calendar, perhaps?

Three cheers for autumn

Fall weather is starting to set in here in Olympia.  This pleases me.

I love the sound of rain falling, the way the world feels warmer somehow with the low clouds and fog blanketing everything.  Things feel cleaner with all the rain, everything is vibrant and alive.

If I could find an area that was perpetual northwest fall, I’d never leave.  Western Washington summers are beautiful, but fall is definitely the season for me.  Fall means warm meals, Thanksgiving (best holiday ever), lazy weekends, falling asleep to rainfall.

This is me happy to live on the west side of the state again.  

Operation Solo Dad: Day Three (I skipped a day)

So we’re on Thursday.  I skipped yesterday, was just too damn tired.  And honestly, nothing exciting happened.  The kids were fine, didn’t give me any grief at all.  I think I’m finally starting to get the hang of this parenting business.

Tonight I’m feeling adventurous, so I decided to take all 3 out to dinner.  They’re missing Kate, and I think doing something fun out of the house would be a pleasant distraction.  To all the employees of the Olympia Red Robin, I apologize in advance.  And if people stop hearing from me, it means the kids were too much and I overdosed on the bottomless fries.

The bad news is that I missed seeing Children of Bodom.  They played in Seattle on Tuesday, and I wasn’t able to go due to Kate being out of town.  Next time, I suppose!  So to tide me over, here’s a clip because I know everyone who likely reads this just LOVE this band (HAH!!).  ENJOY!  (A little bit of swearing in the beginning, but really, who doesn’t want their metal bands to not swear?!)

So while Violet is napping and I can ramble, I recently got in touch with an old friend I hadn’t talked to in probably 5 or 6 years.  It occured to me that I might be somewhat of a bad friend.  I lose contact with people too easily.  Having a family, a relationship, the kids.. these are my excuses, but I wonder if it’s how I tell myself that its natural, its part of getting older, when really I’m just a jerk.  It’s not like I can say that my interests have changed, either.  I still enjoy the same stuff I did when I was younger and had no responsibility.. video games, music, sci-fi/fantasy, etc.  Now I just have to actually balance those things out with being a “grown up” and a parent.  Tangentially, it still scares me that I’m considered a “grown up” now.  It should scare you, too.  YIKES.

I may be onto some serious self reflection here.  Or not.  Maybe this will come up here again once I’ve had some time to mull it over in my head a bit.  We’ll see.

Too good to not share

They need money, too!

Operation Solo Dad: Back in Action!

Kate leaves for Pasco today, leaving us to our usual shenanigans without any supervision until Friday.

Day 1 has had extended pajama time in the morning, with a light cat nap on the couch.  Next I think we’ll go get the car washed and go grocery shopping.  Living dangerously!