Kittens found

The kittens have been found.

She had them under the kiddo’s bed… which is only about 4 inches off the ground, and has random toys and such shoved all over.

They started mewing while she was in there earlier. Still no idea why their mother isn’t spending much time in there with them…. and why she wasn’t even protective when I was in there near them.

I had checked in the closet, in the dresser drawers (odd style, lets the cats get in if they really want to), and in the blanket pile. But didn’t think to look under bed. And really, probably couldn’t have seen them if I had. The only two I saw tonight was because they were trying to walk around already. (I’m guessing they must have been born pretty soon after we left).

Somehow… I’m not overjoyed to find them! LOL but I guess it answers my question.

Kiddo however is beside herself thrilled.

Text… doesn’t that require a screen?

Years ago, sprint offered satellite internet access in the area. This didn’t take off, mostly due the the fact it required a 50 ft pole to be installed on your roof with what looked like a pizza box on the top. Even when they stopped offering it, they left their equipment on so that the current customers could remain on it even without local staff for the service.

However, my mother subscribed. And it was fast, and reliable, so we kept it. And it had a strong enough signal that when we moved 2 doors down from her we could share the same connection.

Eventually they sold it to earthlink, who has now given up on it, and decided to close it down. So I went shopping for high speed access.

The big issue with this is that I have neither a landline phone nor cable tv. So either way, there would be expenses for either new services I didn’t really need or fees for not having those services.

Interestingly enough, that made it actually about the same price to get a wireless modem. This runs on the cell phone system… allowing me to be online in random places with no wifi, such as parks, amtrak trains in the middle of nowhere in illinois, and random intersections in the middle of mighigan for a quick mapquest reroute… among my recent uses.

And it works really well… though a touch slower than the old access, its fine for general use. On the trip, it actually kept a connection a lot better than trying to keep a voice call on a cell using the same network. My only qualm is that I wish it would connect automatically when I wake my macbook from sleep instead of my having to do it manually, but I can deal with the 3 clicks and 30 seconds of waiting.

Actually, even my mom decided to get one after I let her play with mine for an afternoon.

It amuses me though that this little thing, the size of a jump drive, has a cell number.

Technically, I suppose its data transfers on the cell system get counted like calls, and it probably helps keep everything sane in the cell phone system. But it still amused me that this thing with no screen and only one moving part (a flip up antenna) has a phone number.

I have actually called its number. I had to… just to see what it did. It rings for a while, clicks, rings for a while again, then tells you the wireless subscriber is unavailable and gives you an error number.

It asked me at sign up where I wanted my number, and I almost put some random area code just for my own amusement, but then I feared it would mess up and start having issues, so I decided to leave it be.

Anyway, I figured that was amusement enough. But it gets better.

I’ve started getting repeated emails from verizon…. one every few days… trying to sell me text messaging packages.

Because obviously, I have a number with no package, so I must need one.

Even though the top of the email lists my phone type clearly as usb modem 727.

I’ve been half tempted to sign up for one just to see what happens. But I’m sure what happens is that I get charged for something that isn’t even a possibility to be used. Which could be an interesting tech support phone call…

I wonder what happens when I send my modem a text message….
*grabs for her actual phone cell phone*

Missing kittens, leaving cat.

When we left on our last short trip, we had 4 cats. Mommacat, our original cat who was pregnant when she adopted us… and her 3 kittens who are about a year old.
Mommacat has never gotten along very well with her kittens, to the point of being nicknamed hissinator.

One of the kittens was very pregnant from getting out of the house with the kiddo once. So I kinda expected more than 4 when we returned.

When we came in, the pregnant cat looked like she no longer was, and had the hanging belly going on of a new mother.

But I found no kittens. Anywhere. Not even a sign of kittens or a cat “nest”.

Nothing.

She was lounging around the house as usual, no particular area more than another… and she didn’t seem sensitive to my walking around any particular areas.

But the two other young cats, who have always gotten along with her, would sniff at her and hiss for about the first full day we were back.

Were the kittens born dead? Did hissinator harm them? Did hissinator spook their momma and make her harm them? I really have no idea.

I just know there should have been kittens, and there doesn’t appear to be any.

Not that I’m too heartbroken…. I wasn’t looking forward to getting rid of kittens when I still have 3 cats from the last litter because nobody wanted kittens.

But its just very odd.

But things got more odd. Mommacat, being a former stray, goes outside sometimes. I try not to let her much because she has a thing about disappearing for a day or two at a time, but she goes out.

Well, she ripped the bottom out of one of the window screens the other day and escaped.

But this time she didn’t go far. She went down to my mom’s house and went in the doggie door like her 2 cats do.

And has been living there basically. Eating their food, using their litter box…. sleeping on the furniture.

She just sort of moved in down the street.

She’s confusing the dog greatly, but seems to be getting along with the other two cats… so mom said she isn’t hurting anything.

And I can’t say I miss the bickering around here of her getting mad at the other 3 cats for so much as existing.

But again, its just sort of odd. The cat seems to have abandoned us for another home.

What is it with my cats right now???

Accuracy

So I went shopping recently for a thermometer. 

Have you looked in the thermometer section of a random walmart recently? It’s kind of amazing how many of them are there… almost all below about $10 for your basic oral one.

But what struck me as a bit more odd is how many of them round to the nearest 1/5 of a degree. 

Almost all of them. 98.0, 98.2, 98.4, 98.6, 98.8…. you will never have a 98.5. 

But, the basal thermometers…. in the exact same price range…. were more detailed. So, clearly it’s possible to be more accurate and still produce the cheap product.

So why wouldn’t you? Why wouldn’t you want to be a precise as possible?

Even the expensive thermal scan forehead thermometer my mother gave me when she stopped working as a school nurse still rounds to the 1/5 of a degree.

For the purpose I had, I wanted the accuracy. But I was even more shocked when I got the basal thermometer home… for less than 8 bucks…. and not only did it give me the .1, .3, .5 etc that I had expected of it… it has a hundreths place!  Your temp isn’t just 96.9 instead of being rounded to 97, it’s 96.97! 

As trivial as this really seems, it amazed me. It seriously did. 

I’ve never stopped to think about it before I guess. 

I suppose it probably makes things easier for doctors to have them rounded. Temps aren’t exactly a precise thing anyways as they shift so easily… and they probably are mostly just lumped into large categories like “high but not serious”, or “serious, but just watch” enough that it probably wouldn’t matter even if they rounded more than they do. 

Not to mention the calls from random first time parents because their kid’s fever went up from something.13 to something.54

But… really…. I want to know the precise number. Even if it doesn’t make that huge of a difference. And I guess I’m really surprised to suddenly realize something I’d taken for the only option really wasn’t.

Christmas in July, 1980 smitty style

I wrote a post a while back about an ebay item I was going around in circles with the seller about. 

I did eventually win the item. Yay! And it was what it claimed to be… a song labeled as being from 1980 called “Through the eyes of a child” by Michael W Smith.  Double yay!

Random youtube video of the song…. which turned out to be a Christmas song. (video going with the audio is just a screencap program showing the lyrics so that it wasn’t an mp3)

I brought it along to the meet and greet to have him sign it… his reaction was great! He called his road manager over to see it… asked me where I got it and for how much. (I considered telling him the story of the higher price, but he laughed at the 50 telling joey aka cheech he could (or could have) made a profit with them…)

He said that it was his first single, before the first record. I knew it was before the record by the date, but didn’t really know what exactly it was other than what was written on it.

My friend asked if he remembered the song… he said he remembered the single but not the song, and asked if I had listened to it. I admitted to having to borrow my step-dad’s record player to do so, and he showed the little girls with us and told them “see…. this is a record….”

And he signed the sleeve it was in… saying he didn’t want to ruin it by signing the 45. I had to wonder how signing your own 45 ruins it… lol! But ah well, either way…

And to me, I would have paid the 50 just to see that reaction I think!

Concert discussion

Pics were up late last night, so see last post for those, but decided to wait for the explanations.

This has been a rough trip from the get-go, from scheduling, to work being a pain, to late trains for no apparent reason, to rental car dorks.

Almost everything has been a plan b, at least. Unfortunately, the concert itself also fell victim to that trend.

So we make it there. And we do the meet and greet with Michael W Smith with no real problems with that except normal staff lack of coordination things like venues frequently have.

Matthew West was actually playing as well, but we missed the first couple of songs from being back stage, and the next few from ushers being dorks… (there was a clear and simple path to our seats, but because each section was assigned a certain aisle, we weren’t allowed to use it initially instead having to squeeze between people and through small spaces between the rows…).

His set went off without any apparent hitches.

So then Steven Curtis Chapman takes the stage. And he plays a song…. only to have the power cut out right towards the end of the song.
They fix things, he starts another song, and 3/4 of the way through it does it again.
They fix it again, and it does it again…. and again right towards the end of the song.

Steven decides he’s going to say what he’s going to say anyway…. grabs a bible and his glasses, and starts literally yelling to the crowd who can hear him a message about God being in control of all.

The power stays off for about half an hour this time…. but mysteriously, only the power to he stage area is out. The concession stands and such are somehow working fine.

The girls manage to get Michael Olson’s attention from where he was standing in the wings, and blow him kisses, and get him to come to the front of the stage to talk to them for a few minutes, which was really awesome. (Granted, he probably didn’t have much else to do while waiting, but it was still really great and absolutely thrilled the girls)

So then they sent Michael and Steven out together to tell us that they are canceling the show because they are concerned the power will have more issues and they don’t want everyone there in the total dark.

They did however do three songs before officially ending it…. all three just Steven with acoustic guitar, Michael on keyboard, 2 mics and a single spotlight. Very awesome!

They then prayed over the crowd, and Michael over Steven… the only time during the mess that Steven seemed off balance.

So… while it kinda sucked that it wasn’t the full show, it was still awesome anyway from what we did get. And Boo and I will definitely be going to Tulsa to catch the show there in October. Officially, the show wasn’t cancelled in Detroit (ok, clarkston), the web site says it has been postponed. So they may be back… but that probably isn’t going to help me and Boo much, as it’s not too likely we’d make it all the way back up here again that soon.

But not a very good start to their touring together. Suppose it can only go uphill from here on tech issues.

Pics from the concert that wasn’t

ITTY BITTY SMITTY FANS

STEVEN CURTIS CHAPMAN (playing)

Caleb Chapman

Steven (speaking)

Both speaking

Both playing

Concert canceled early

Contrast

gotta love interesting contrast…

sitting on a moving train, in the middle of nowhere in illinois… using my choppy but functional wireless internet…

as random amish families go down the row and have staff open the electronic doors. 

 

just interesting.

Diet soda?

I happened to notice my new box of baking soda has a large area in one corner proclaiming “0 calories! 0 trans fats!”

 

I have to say…. if you are so deeply into your diet that you are concerned about the calories and transfat in your baking soda, ya might need to consider if you are going a bit overboard.

 

But not quite as overboard as the company making a big selling point of their lack of calories and transfat in their baking soda.

Smitty and SCC, Houston update and MI wonderings

“Worship 3″ that was recorded when we went to Houston now seems to have an official title and “due date”….. It’s now to be called “A New Hallelujah” and is supposed to be out on October 28th. Yay! Hopefully there aren’t any delays.. I’m anxious…. though it’s hard to believe that was only 3 weeks ago.

 

So part 2 comes next week… our Michigan trip to visit a friend and go to another show…. this time with both Michael and Steven Curtis Chapman in Clarksburg. 

Now this is going to be interesting anyway…. this is a really short and choppy (on the dates) tour that is happening with the two, called the united tour I think…. and this is the first show of it. 

However, you have to add in that this will only be Steven’s 4th concert after the death of his 5 year old daughter Maria… and even more added interesting.  But we can top that… you see, this is an outdoor concert starting fairly early… meaning more visibility to see the audience. 

Have I mentioned I have a 6 year old who regularly likes to go right up the the front and hang out at Smitty shows if we aren’t already up there? He usually smiles and waves at her directly at some point… which only encourages her for the next round. And my friend has a 7 year old daughter who got the same sort of notice at the concert she has been to. And she has an almost 5 year old girl too. Oh, and if all goes right with the before-hand stuff, they should all be totally hyped from getting to go to the show together (the first time), and some other stuff that will hopefully all stay in place.

And we have second row seats on the aisle.

A normal smitty show this would be the most awesome arrangement. And it still may be. 

But I have to admit I’m a touch worried. A pack of happy and hyped up girls within a year or so of being 5 might not be the best thing to have parked in the aisle in front of the stage when you just lost your 5 year old daughter 2 months ago… haven’t been back on stage for long…. and are in a venue where you are likily to be able to see them. 

 

I actually looked on his manager’s blog to see if I could find an email address to write and ask if he thought this was going to be something to watch out on, and whether or not to try forcing the girls to stay back this round. But no email to be found. 

So I don’t really know. I’m a worrywart… hopefully it’s nothing. 

It will be an interesting show to say the least, but I seriously hope all of the interesting stuff is positive.