Bye-Bye, Birdie

This morning my littly guy was somewhat weak, and I wondered still whether he would recover from his protracted malady. After thinking about it during the day, I recognized that he was in the trough of a cycle, and each high had hit about the same level of recovery while each decline had gone progressively lower, so I made an appointment for what I new would be his last trip to the vet.

Tonight I bade a very fond farewell to a pathetically suffering little cockatiel. I will remember him for his cardinal and monkey mimicry, his energy, and his lack of self pity. His name was Beefy.

"I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will fall frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself."--D. H. Lawrence

"The State of California is Preparing for Unexpected Heat"

Another gaffe from a professional news writer, this time on a drive time radio program. The story is that the National Weather Service is predicting very high temperatures for this weekend in California. "Unseasonal," perhaps. But how can it be both predicted and unexpected at the same time?

I suppose it could be, if you think weather forecasters are about as accurate as a Zoroastrian in 1999. But then, why would you prepare for it? Also sprach Zarathustra.

More Network Woes

The new router worked just fine, when it worked. After a random length of time, it seemed to simply get tired and give up its WAN connection. No remote means would reconnect it (is the Reconnect soft button just a pacifier?), so it was always a trot downstairs to re-cycle and have another few hours (usually) of trouble free Internet access. Until yesterday. I could connect to the router, but it just would not gain access to the Internet. Twelve days of less than trouble free service, and now it’s a brick.

That made it time to pony up half a Roly for the Old Company whiz-bang model, thanks to the Suburban Hausfrau. I have been connected to the Internet for a full two hours now. Fingers crossed!

Routers and APs and Switches, Oh, My!

As I sat down to update this blog, I realized that I had no Internet connection. It wasn't surprising, since we had taken a power hit sometime during the day. I casually bounced downstairs to the network room to cycle the hardware only to find that the AP had no power. No power. Fried. Could it be as simple as a fritzed power supply? Do we have another 5V one lying around? No, of course not. Time, then, to install the "new" wireless router from what the Suburban Hausfrau refers to as Old Company. (To Veedub: Santa II).

My cooking partner is a former IT support person and had to get involved in the process, which is actually a good thing since I can't tell where any of the cables start and end in the network room. I won't say there were any egos involved, but it did take us about thirty minutes to complete the fifteen minute installation!

We are back in service with network security installed and, if I am not mistaken, with much faster download speed. We shoulda done this a long time ago!

Another Birthday

My fabulous cooking partner has added a one to the one's digit in the age column. As predicted, I did not reciprocate in kind by cooking up a fabulous meal; I did however, reciprocate by taking half the day off because (as the Suburban Hausfrau can attest) the ridiculous increase in my drive time this week left me no time for gift shopping or cake buying. So nice to have time off on someone else's big day!

I visited the new Cabela's in Hoffman Estates in search of the perfect fish finder, which I did find along with a few bits of tackle. I've not much to say about the store as I was not in browsing mode (which I tend to refer to as the grazing mode for shopping--as opposed to hunt and kill mode). Then I went to the local overpriced grocer and found the perfect cake. The celebrant prefers yellow cake with chocolate frosting, and, because I was actually in a supermarket during normal hours--you know, when there are people working the baked goods counter--I was able to have the cake inscribed. A very successful shopping trip for someone who usually avoids shopping.

For dinner, we went to the Outback, or, in contemporary parlance, we went Outback last night. Is it just me, or is it the smoking ban: the place was dead! Walk right in, sit ri-ight down. I must confess that since the statewide smoking ban took effect, we haven't gone out much. Maybe Outback has just had a precipitous drop in popularity. Or maybe it's the gas prices keeping people at home. I do hope it's the smoking ban.