Vancouver

I love introducing my cat. This is Pink. Not fluffy, snowball, mittens, boots or kitty.

Pink.

She is not pink. She does have a pink tongue, however she was not named after the colour of her tongue. She is black. Pink does have one white spot on her chest. Oh, and about 5 (maybe 6) white hairs sticking out of her chin.

Pink is not cuddly. Pink appreciates acknowledgment, but not attention. She will bite. Pink bites because she cannot scratch. She still "scratches" things though, she likes anything with a rough nylon texture: backpacks, suitcases, bags, etc. She will occasionally play with a bag, box or laundry basket. She loves to be trapped by the laundry basket. She will comfortably settle in to a laundry basket cage. Maybe she wants to be a cage fighter? That might explain the biting.

Pink has a very uninteresting home life. She sleeps. When she wakes up, she eats. After she is done eating she sleeps in the living room some more. Then she eats. When Dori and I come home, she acknowledges us, eats and watches us. Then she eats and comes to bed with us. Sometime in the middle of the night she wakes up and eats. Then comes back to bed. In the morning she eats again. I think I missed a couple of meals in there. Pink eats 8 times a day.

We first bought Pink an automatic feeder 4 years ago. This was in desperation because even though we consistently fed Pink twice a day, she always woke Dori in the morning. I guess she was never sure if we were going to feed her that day. Her first feeder was like a wind up toy. There was a winder that lasted 36 hours. Over the course of a day it would rotate a lid, revealing a fresh food dish four times.

We thought this would provide four satisfying meals, but we left out the Pink factor. We started by filling all four dishes and letting it go. We suddenly realised that as soon as the next food dish was even slightly open, Pink would jam her little black paw into the crack and fish out food. Thus began the three-times-a-day battle of Pink vs. Food Dispenser. Food Dispenser had no chance. Pink has hyperthyroidism, which causes her to have an unsatiable appetite. This appetite meant that, at all costs, Pink would wear down Food Dispenser until she was able to get even just one piece of cat food.

Pink's unsatiable appetite was why she weighed so much. In her early pre-diagnosis years she ate as much food as she could. At one point, we shaved her back, because she was too big to clean herself. Once we removed her back fur dreads, she started her first diet. This was just before Dori moved, with Pink, to attend university.

When Dori and I started dating I had no idea I would be living with Pink. When I first met her she would not come out from under the bed... unless there was food... but only briefly. It was a tentative relationship, we understood that we had to live together, but weren't sure we wanted to. After years of yelling at Pink to get out of the garbage (she was always looking for food), we moved to Vancouver. This was probably the official start of the Dori, Pink and Dustin family. We all agreed to move. Well, at least I never heard Pink say she didn't want to.

The transistion to Vancouver was easy for Pink, though the move was not. She never left her litter box in the three days we drove across the western US. We even rented a hotel room so she could have a quiet night of sleep. Vancouver seemed to be good for Pink, as 4th avenue kept her busy in the window during the day and she loved the smell of the Vancouver spring.

After we moved from 4th avenue, we bought her a computerized feeder. This had a special timer with 8 programmable feeding times. A little research on the net revealed that cats should eat more often then not, so we calibrated the timing such that she would get a half a cup of cat food in a 24 hour period. Thus began the second war between Pink and Food Dispenser Version 2.

Food Dispenser Version 2 was much more clever. It could not be pried open an hour before it was scheduled to feed. No, Food Dispenser Version 2 was state-of-the-art. It had an auger that would run for 8 seconds, long enough to dispense just the right amount. Every three hours it would come on for 8 seconds, turn and dispense. The sound of the motor coming on was like a race gun. Pink would leap from deep sleep and slide across the floor to be there in time for the meal.

Not content to wait for her next meal, Pink would begin "digging" at the mouth of Food Dispenser Version 2 for just a little bit more. She usually won. But Food Dispenser Version 2 was smart. This meant the next time the motor came on no food would come out. She had eaten the next meal already. Food Dispenser Version 2 didn't care, it kept Pink in check. She ate her half a cup of food a day, and that was that.

I don't know if it was Pink repenting, or just old age making her soft, but she got nicer. She began to greet company, allow the occasional touch and she didn't bite me nearly as often. She never resolved her diffferences with Food Dispeser Version 2, but she did come to appreciate her human companions.

When her hyperthyroidism finally advanced three weeks ago she began to get lethargic. Well, nervous lethargy. When she had the energy she would pace about the house, but after lodging herself into narrow spaces she would get exhausted and sleep. For some reason her reverse gear stopped working. She would walk behind something, often a space she wouldn't fit in and just keep pushing. She would not stop and back out. It made for a stressful few weeks. We knew she didn't have much time, but she would cycle from what appeared to be near death to a happy smiling cat. We considered the options, but she seemed grateful for the care and attention.

On Sunday at 8:30 AM I awoke to a wheezing Pink. She was having trouble breathing and I didn't know what to do. I tried to comfort her. I tried to help her breath easier, but something had changed. I don't know when it happened. I thought she had worked through the breathing trouble, but the last cough could have been the moment. I didn't actually think she had died. I moved her to the living room and tried to comfort her. Not getting much of a response I grabbed our stethoscope. I couldn't hear a heartbeat, but I thought maybe I had it in a bad spot, or it was very slow and quiet.

I finally realized she had died at 8:50 AM. She hadn't moved. She wasn't breathing. Her eyes were still open and full of life, but her life was gone. Dori was away, and throughout the day I kept checking on Pink, wondering. I closed her eyes and continued to check on her.

I made a coffin. Pink deserved it. I bought a shovel and dug a grave in our backyard. When Dori got home we hugged and sat with Pink. The next day we buried Pink with her favourite blanket and a picture of us.

I miss you Pink.

Well, I'm finally home. I had a bit of wet bus ride home. Walked back from the climbing gym in a fairly serious Vancouver rain. Not by 50 metres out of the gym I splashed into a big puddle, twice. But finally being home now I kinda enjoyed it. Not sure why, but it felt childish, free of guilt. A little wet, it'll all dry and it was kinda fun. Kinda. The rainy season has started. Four more months of this before the weather turns to the light rainy season.

If I am going to start blogging again, I thought I'd start on a positive note. I'm working on an old project I did a long time ago to read GPS files into a format I could use to print out on top of maps. I used to host a site where all my hiking trips were overlaid on a map of the area. Unfortunately, whenI got to Canada I discovered that all the maps here must be bought. Because I'm cheap my code went into bit-rot. Lately, I've been working in Python and I love the language, but I figured I'd "spruce" up my old program and sharpen my C/C++ skills.

It has been fun, but frustrating. I forget just how verbose C is. How many pitfalls. How unreadable. It isn't all bad, but somewhat intimidating when I pick it up again after 5 years.

However, that wasn't really the point of this entry. It was Sunday, I had a great relaxing morning and then headed over to Duane's for a code review and a movie. After a casual review Duane pulls out the big guns.... Dorito based nachos. Probably a developer's worst enemy, but *oh* *my* *god*. So we dropped the code and watched the ORIGINAL Superman II. This is the version that Richard Donner orginally filmed, but was never released. Apparently the movie studios didn't want to pay him for his huge success with Superman. He got dumped and the new guy wanted director's credit so he redid the whole film. Now I'm not a big fan of Superman, but I was really impressed at how Donner's Superman II aged. It was still a solid story with good acting. The comedy was great and the violence was tame. Check it out, it was only released to DVD not to theatre, but should be rentable.

To top off a great day I found out my good friend Chris is defending! Duane, Chris and I all started school at the same time and we all had the same difficulty getting from start to finish. There is always "more work" to be done and at some point the student has to just stand their ground and say I'm finished. Well congrats to Chris, Duane and me for finishing! It has been a cool year seeing my buds getting their master's degrees.

Happy Sunday!

Wow this is like blogging all over again:

Start a blog.
Make an initial post about the weather.
Blather about some else.
Don't post for another two months.

For what it is worth. It has snowed 101 cms on my favourite ski hill. My company stopped paying me. I can't afford a ski pass. It's the ski pass that really hurts.

Well it is almost week 2 in Australia for Dori and I and we are still amazed by the sights and wonders. We started our trip two Mondays ago by landing in Melbourne where we picked up our cool toyota yaris that we hired. Next it was off to Torquay for the first leg of our trip. This was the first surf stop, where we bought new wetsuits and launched our Novice Australian Surf Tour. The water was around 13 degrees and the air was about 13 degrees. Not too bad, but not exactly exciting either. We had a great time and checked out the Bells Beach Surf Competition.

The next step was to surf/camp our way up the coast. We stopped in all the little surf towns like Anglesea, Lorne, Warrnambool and Port Fairy. We didn't spend a lot of time surfing as it takes a lot of energy to cook breaky, tear down camp and face the cold wet wind. We did enjoy the turquoise waters and wonderful sandy beach breaks. I enjoyed Anglesea the most for a surf town, it had both a nice feel and a central location to some great surf spots.

I'm fairly certain we picked an ideal time to tour. The was no one around, schools were still in session and the weather was fair to nice. Any later in the season and I imagine it gets to be a little like feeding time at the zoo (aussie saying, check it out). The driving was interesting. Two main skills we needed. Remembering where traffic would be coming from and how to navigate two lane roundabouts. I had a couple of minor oopsies as I pulled out, but they were on empty roads where I had no point of reference and forgot where I was. The other sticky bit was the two lane roundabouts. It is a bit nervy to come blasting around a circle at 40kph when you're realy not sure where you're going. I finally figured out that the inside circle gets to go straight through, right or a u-turn, while the left hand lane gets to go left or straight thru. All in all it has been a good time with the driving on the left being quite natural.

After we left the coast we headed north into the arid regions of Australia. Not quite the outback, but definitely a bit remote. There were towns every 25k, so it didn't feel completely alone. After we passed through the Coonawarra wine country we camped in the bush. This was the most beautiful campsite I've been at. We were the only ones there. Well aside from the emus, at least I think that's what left that massive dropping... The amazing part was night. There were no sounds. Nothing. No crickets. No birds. Just silence. It was like being in a cave. We had a great sleep and discovered that we could see the wolf spiders at night. The wolf spider eyes were so big that they reflected like diamonds in our headlamps. You could see them everywhere in the sand.

The next day we pulled into Mildura, which is in another section of wine country. This area is heavily irrigated, and it grows a large portion of Australia's fresh fruit. The orange trees were everywhere! We even saw a *bag* of avocados for $2.00! We booked into the Grand Hotel, which is, well, grand! It was the most amazing package deal. Dinner for two by a famous Ozzie chef named Stefano, luxurious room with a balcony over the heated pool, followed by a gourmet picnic basket the next day. After we enjoyed the picnic basket on the river, we started the next day with a huge breakfast buffet. Back bacon, fried spinach, mushrooms, fried tomatoes, poached eggs and sultana toast. It was amazing! Today we enjoyed the complimentary coffees and we're head to the brewery tours next before we eat the the gourmet pizza shop (once again, all this was included in the package).

Tomorrows plan is to try and catch some yabbies and cook 'em up before we go to Wolf Mail and then the Grampians to begin climbing. If you're yearning for some great Aussie sports, catch the finals game of the AFL footy tourney. What an amazing game! These guys are animals. We've been loosely following them and I have to say I'm impressed by the sport.

So I like Seattle. As a town it is great. As a home? Well, I don't know. But I had a great weekend there.

I went into the wayback music time machine to 1988. This is when grunge was cool and I was a kid. Nirvana was still on Sub Pop and Mudhoney was trying to destroy that guitar sound. So I picked up these great finds:

Sub Pop 200

A find Mudhoney album

and a sweet promo album with this great artist

It was such a cool thing to revive the grunge scene.

Rock on Seattle.

What is it about genres, themes and patterns? We are the strangest paradox -- we like the same thing different. If you like heavy metal music you don't want anyone to change the genre, but you want new music every time. So which is it? Different? Or Same? I went to a talk on Software development and managment. One point was that the most common solution to a problem is the reuse of the same solution from the past.