I’m in a strange mood today, very restless and wanting to get outta here and on the road. But I can’t, because of work and gas prices. It makes me nuts how much gas prices have cut into my fun. I can’t recall the last time I road-tripped for fun anymore. Well, there were mini roadtrips while Emily was here on vacation – but I mean a nice long drive, just you and the open road for hours on end kind of road trip. I’ve still got a lot of the US to visit, and it’s kinda difficult when I can’t afford the gas to get anywhere.
Author: Keiran
Free as a bird
Last August, we bought a lovebird. We weren’t sure if it was male of female, and it’s pretty difficult to sex a peach-faced lovebird, short of having a DNA test done. Since the bird was only going to be a pet, and not for breeding, it didn’t matter to us, so we didn’t want to pay for a DNA test. Based on the behaviors various sites said that males typically display versus females, we’ve always called the bird a “he”. His name is Dublin, which is pretty non-specific, genderwise.
Dublin has not wanted to bond with us properly, prefering instead to bite. A few months ago, we bought him a “Birdy Buddy” to keep him company, hoping that would ease the bonding issues. Dublin seemed to get a little more aggressive, but then one day we caught him trying to mate with the Birdy Buddy and figured that was the cause for the increase in aggression – and it also sealed the fact in our minds that, indeed, little Dublin was one very “happy” little boy.
Today I was in the den, trying to hand-feed him and not get bitten. I dropped a pumpkin seed, so I was trying to get him to move to the opposite side of the cage so I could get the seed without being attacked. That was when I made the most shocking discovery. Our little Dublin was most decidedly female, because in the corner of the cage was a nice little egg that she laid today. Here we thought she was trying to knock up her “Buddy”, instead she was trying her damnedest to get it to fertilize her eggs! I was incredibly surprised, and am still trying to get used to calling Dublin her/she/etc now. By the looks of things, she is trying to lay another egg. Now it’s time to be vigilant and make sure she doesn’t get egg-bound. We’ll also have to take away her Birdy Buddy, since that is the trigger making her think she needs to reproduce. Silly little bird.
Vacation, all I ever wanted
We got lucky, while Emily was visiting, in that we had a minor cool spell. Temperatures were only in the mid-high 80’s instead of the 90’s and up they were in before and are again now. Her visit was fun, albeit too damned short. We went tubing on the Brazos, drove through Fossil Rim, played at the Ft. Worth Zoo and Japanese Gardens, saw Lifehouse perform at the Granada Theater, toured the rainforst, aquarium, etc. at the Dallas World Aquarium, AND managed to squeeze in a bunch of shopping as well as movie-viewage. There was more that we wanted to do, but weren’t able to due to a lack of time and us being up incredibly worn out. With all the walking we did, I was pleased that my knees mostly held up. They did start to protest and ache, but they didn’t nearly as bad as they were prior to the last round of shots.
For our tour of the Ft. Worth Zoo, I opted to take my film camera instead of my digital. I’ve been missing the feel of my big SLR camera in my hands as well as the superior zoom I have on it. I love the instanteousness of digital, but love the control that the film SLR gives me. Once I can afford it, I certainly plan on buying a digital SLR. I’ve got my eye on a few already; but unless I end up with a windfall of money in the near future, I’m going to have to wait till I get next year’s income tax refund. As soon as I get those developed (the main thing I hate about film – ha!), I will upload them into a gallery on the site. I shot digital at the Dallas World Aquarium and only just remembered to get the pics off the camera this morning. Once I’m home and can get them uploaded, I’ll share some of those as well.
It seems like almost everyone in town has suddenly caught a case of Mavericks Mania. I’m probably one of the few people who’s not Mavericks’ nuts. Sure, I think it’s great we made it to the Finals, and I hope they win – but I’m not following the games, wearing blue or Mavs gear, decorating my car & yard, or anything else. I’m just not a basketball fan, and a trip by the hometeam to the big game isn’t going to suddenly sway me into watching; so I’ll leave all that to the real fans. When it comes to sports? Give me the Dallas Cowboys. Anything else? I don’t care about it. Hell, even when the Cowboys were winning Super Bowls, I didn’t decorate my yard or car. I did wear Cowboys gear on a daily basis, but that’s a little different since I was actually working for the team at the time, and was required to wear it at work. Like I said, though, I do hope the Mavs win. It’ll be nice to have 3 out of our 41 major league sports teams to have won National Championships2. Just don’t expect me to watch the games or buy/wear anything in support of them. Having a 4 year old pup named Maverick is the closest I’ll get.
After being in my lovely 10th floor office for 6.5 months – I finally got a drawer to put my personal belongings in today. The 2 file cabinets in here were both crammed full of papers, most of it junk that needed to be sent to storage. As it was all before my time, I have no idea what any of it is, and have asked several times about going through it to file it so I can have space in here. I always get a “later” type response. Today, I ended up with some free time after we completed all work for the day. So, I grabbed a box and transfered all the contents of 1 drawer into the box. Everything is still in exactly the same order as before – but now it’s one step closer to storage and I was able to unpack the box that contained my belongings into the drawer. It will be nice to actually have a place to put my purse during the day, as well. Even though I’ve decorated the walls some already, it’s funny how something as simple as having my own drawer actually makes this place feel more like “mine” instead of like I’m just subbing for someone else. And it should feel like mine, since it is!
And on a random closing note, I finally started to do some work on the layout. I’m working at personalizing the Tiga theme, making it more “me” color-wise. I’ve only been doing a little at a time, mostly because I can’t play with graphics when I’m at work and half the time I forget once I’m home. Oops?
Footnotes
- 4 out of 5 teams, if you include the now-defunct Dallas Sidekicks who won the MISL & WISL Championships.
- The Dallas Cowboys are 5 time Super Bowl Champs and the Dallas Stars are the 1999 Stanley Cup Champs. Dallas Mavericks are currently up 2-0 in the NBA Finals. Texas Rangers are the only local team now to never have made it to the big game.