Jack and I took a walk to the west of our place yesterday. Jack found this stone bowl filled with ice and water in a boulder near the road. It looks too regular to be natural, but what else could it be?
WordPress 1.5
I just upgraded this weblog to WordPress 1.5 in an amazingly painless procedure.
Pikes Peak from Cottonwood Creek
Last Sunday, while my mother was at Mass, I took another walk along Cottonwood Creek. The creek bed is to the right of the path in this photo.
Dudley
January 2000-February 14, 2005
Last Tuesday morning, Dudley came in from his dog run holding his right hind leg three inches off the ground. He had been his usual self when he went out an hour before.
My vet came out on Thursday and gave him a shot of cortisone, and we agreed to have him x-rayed if he hadn’t improved by Monday. She couldn’t palpate the stifle well enough to see how badly damaged it was, and the sedation required for the x-rays would allow a better exam as well.
Unfortunately, the exam revealed that not only had he ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament, but that he had advanced dysplasia in both hips as well. Jack and I decided that we were not willing to put Dudley through the multiple surgeries he would have required for even a faint chance at being “normal.” I asked the vet to put him down, and held him while it was done.
The house is very quiet this morning.
Workrave-Self Help for RSI
The past few days, I have been trying out a program called WorkRave. This program monitors activity on your desktop in an attempt to prevent RSI problems. It has a set of three timers. One timer reminders you to take a short break every ten minutes or so. The second time reminds you to take a longer break every forty-five minutes or so and move away from you computer. The third keeps track of the amount of total time spent on the computer. Each of the times is configurable. The program includes a set of exercises to do at the start of the longer breaks. There is a Windows version (which I haven’t tried) as well as a Linux version.
Black Forest Regional Park
Yesterday was hectic, with quite a lot of tasks and errands. Nevertheless, I found some time to walk in Black Forest Regional Park with a friend. There were a few icy spots, but most of the trail was in good shape. The patches of snow made the Ponderosa forest seem quite bright and cheerful.
Ubuntu
Sunday, while watching the Super Bowl, I was playing around with Jack’s computer, and noticed how much faster it seemed than my computer. Since Fedora Core 3 was installed on both machines, and they came from the same store front with the same specs, this seemed very odd. Could it possibly be because I had installed everything, including the kitchen sink, on my machine?
Trying to delete stuff seemed impossibly tedious, and since I was thinking about doing a complete re-install, why not try a new distribution? I had read lots of good things about Ubuntu and had downloaded the install CD some time ago, so I decided to give it a try.
Ice Fog
Google Does Maps
I use on line maps a lot, so I will have to check out Google Maps next time I need directions.
Hap Massage
Occasionally, I get a pain in the neck. I’ve had the tendency for close to twenty years, but the spasms are infrequent enough that I don’t think of myself as having a “bad neck.” I have to be careful about several motions, including stretching and reaching overhead. (I have a Rubbermaid step stool in the kitchen, craft room, and downstairs so I never have to do so.)
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