Silicon Valley Redneck

How is it Friday already?

That week went by in a hurry.

Huckleberry is still ailing, and we still don't know for sure why.  Probably needs another trip to the vet to get his sinuses flushed or something, and maybe some further attempt at diagnosis.  There was a suggestion of sending him to a specialist for a biopsy, but we're holding off on that for now.

Looks like we'll be building a small outdoor aviary for the house pigeon, as Joy seems to be allergic to him, maybe.  We can put him out next to the ducks.

Aaaand... that colony of cute li'l bunny rabbits under the back deck?  Seems to have turned into a colony of skunks.  Or maybe one skunk went down there and got into an argument with a rabbit, or a woodchuck, or some other critter-that-lurks-under-decks.  Phew!

(Now, where do I find several thousand gallons of tomato juice for washing under the deck?)

Another Monday comes and goes.

Huckleberry seems to be doing moderately better today - maybe the "just in case" antibiotic the vet gave him on Friday, or the appetite stimulant we've been giving, or Joy giving the pet-pigeon area a thorough cleaning, or some combination?  In any case, the vet is having a further test run on th blood sample from Friday.

The team of plumbers showed up bright and early this morning, put in a hard morning's work (both the old water heaters very well and truly sludged up, and refused to drain out the bottom drain ports), and now we're many bucks poorer but once again have a working water heater at each end of the basement, and shiny new water heaters they are!

The plumber recommends flushing them annually, so I've added that to my "sometime every August" list.

Joy's dental problem is partially addressed, and is out of semi-panic mode.

Chipzilla stock is not doing well at all, though for the moment it seems to have settled at a miserable new normal.  Just heard from my investment banker (or whatever his title is), wanting to make sure I was OK with that - well, I don't want to sell while it's down like this, now do I?  Fortunately, I don't see a need to sell off my remaining shares any time soon; maybe it'll recover, as it has a couple of times over the decades.

Work... well, it's mostly been pondering plus a string of e-mails negotiating what needs implementing and how to go about it.  I think the project is stabilizing.  I have the new source file started, and the framework kinda-sorta in place.

And, has WWIII officially started yet, or is it still in stealth mode?

Cat update

Huckleberry is not doing well this weekend - seems whatever his trouble is, formerly slowly developing, it's getting a bunch worse.

We just heard back from the vet.  Nothing exciting in the lab work; he should basically be fine, according to the tests - but the vet suspects maybe Cryptococcus.  After hearing that the cats have been exposed to various birds, he really suspects Cryptococcus.  Now we need to keep Huckleberry going until we can get an actual diagnosis, and, if positive, start treatment (which apparently is a whole bunch of Not Fun).  And... we'll need to get the other surviving cats tested.

Gah.  Tomorrow gets really busy: Joy has an urgent dental appointment; we have a plumbing crew coming to replace both water heaters (the less obviously corroded one having sprung a leak last week); and now there's the Huckleberry problem.  And there's some work I ought to be doing.

Additional:  Now we're wondering whether Cryptococcus might be triggering Joy's migraines and my sinus crud.

Huh. Missed my 20th bloggiversary!

First post on this blog was 20 Jul 2004.

I vaguely recalled the end of my last official job, and the beginning of the blog, having been in August, but I guess I was misremembering.  August of that year was filled with the first consulting gig, hiking, rearranging my home work space, and Linux World Expo - anyone remember that?

 

Meanwhile, here in East Tennessee, we've had a rainy week in addition to the hot and humid weather.  The plants like it.  The grass likes it so much that some areas I'd omitted to mow for a couple of weeks had gotten tall enough to stall the mower if I went at them at anything like full speed.

Chickens and ducks are doing well.  We took Huckleberry to the vet on Friday - he's been having a case of the wet sneezles, and seems to have low energy lately.  X-rays didn't turn up anything unusual, so now we're waiting on blood work.

Ah, well.  Time to go fetch the mail, check the eggs, and maybe mow a few more walkways and/or lawns.