They're destroying our city!!!

What an ... interesting... day.

Caught a glimpse of the news saying the Patrick Cudahy meat plant being on fire last nite, between stuff on the DVR. Nothin' special. Fall asleep late/early.

Around 10:30 or so (I think), barely waking up, there's a pound at the door. Never heard door buzz, didn't know what was going on. Blearily open the door, and it's a police; city's under mandatory evacuation. Cop makes sure we're gonna leave and lets the rest of the complex know. Flipped on the TV as they were discussing it and why it happened; there was a good chance the fire could overcome ammonia tanks behind a firewall and the wind was likely to switch from blowing out onto the lake to southwest, right over us.

Tell Kacy when she hoss outta the shower; drearily put on my shoes and we ran to the bus stop. (Kacy had decided to take the later bus, otherwise I'd have been the only one home and have to go with the evac shelter.)

Yay for twitter- kept up with updates there. Went up to UWM and hopped on a PC in one of the labs and checked out the coverage. No sound, so couldn't get much for details, but sounded like everything was already contained.

Spend a few hours getting good and checking up for new info; next thought next conference was at 5pm but instead was 3:30, saying things were better but to conserve water in Cudahy (which was evacuated?) and nearby cities.

Finally heade home around 6pm, still not knowing what was going on. As of noon, they were sounding like possible overnight stays at the shelters. We headed to Kacy's parents. On the way down, the bus made its detour near Cudahy, but they wer eplaying with barricades. At the end of the detour, the barricades were gone. Hopped on the PC quick, and found that as of 7pm, the evacuation order was lifted.

Got home, checked on rats, opened windows, and relaxed after a long, confusing day. Overall an interesting experience. Still several hours of cleanup left, but glad to at least be home.


More info from the news here.

Ratplacements.

Two new additions from the Humane Society as of Saturday. Originally named Maurice and Buster, we kept Maurice and (after passing up Space Cowboy and Steve (Miller Band)) decided on Zippy. They're Siamese-point and dumbo-eared, which is part of what attracted Kacy (mostly) to them in the first place.

They're already friendly, coming up to the cage to say hi, etc. They don't like being picked up to be taken out but have no problems once they are. We've had them out on the bed a few times, which usually involves quick explorations before running back to hide in my shirt or Kacy's armpit. Zippy likes to sleep there, and Maurice tends to cause trouble.

The two are from the same litter (7 weeks old) and look almost identical; I can't tell them apart and Kacy can only if both are out and about. This also makes it seem like they interchange personalities- Maurice will run out, look around, get in trouble, run into my shirt to hide, and Zippy will pop out (or so we think). That's why there's only one picture, but there's very little difference between them. Hopefully we'll get a shot of both of them at some point.

They like their cage, which is good; they're busy wrestling off/on, running in the wheel together, and so forth. Doesn't look like we'll have any problems. Not going to cage them with Brother/Sister because we don't wnat to neuter both of them nor (at least for now) have a litter from Sister. We'll see what happens in the future....

Byebye Fifi....

When we first moved to Milwaukee, we got two pet rats from the Humane Society, Ruby and Perl. Kacy already had rats before, and I liked them and other rodentia, so it was a good fit for an apartment.

Perl passed away from a respiratory infection a few months later. We were out at the pet store a few months later, and were greeted by one rat with a big yawn and "what's up?" kinda look from inside the cage. We ended up bringing Opehelia home that night (on the bus, no less).

Since then, we've lost Ruby, and another rat (Momma), and replaced them with Momma's offspring, Brother and Sister. (They have other names, but have been lost over the past year-plus.)

Today we had Ophelia (Fifi) put to sleep. She's been sick for a while, and basically riddled with arthritis since shortly after we brought her home. Steroids would sometimes work, and sometimes not. She hardly had use of her back left leg, and developed a tumor as well (common in rats). She was always eating and constantly losing weight, and so we finally had her put down this morning.

This was definitely my rat- she would sleep on my neck or in my hoodie, ran to me to hide from the vet, and even layed against me last night as we let her out on the bed for the last time. This was destiny, though; she had an hourglass pattern of white fur on her stomach.

I'm gonna miss her... but it's better than limping around as she was, and being trounced over by Brother & Sister. After we lose those two, I think we're upgrading to cats.

Senior Year (just like everyone else)

This is going around Facebook so I thought I'd chime in, too.

Fill this out about your SENIOR year of high school! The longer ago it was, the more fun the answers will be!! At the end, choose 10 people (or more) to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.


IN YOUR SENIOR YEAR DID YOU...
1. Did you date someone from your school?
I got up the courage to ask one girl out about 2 months before graduation, but it was "too close to the end of school" so no dice. (Didn't stop someone else a few weeks later, though.)

2. Did you marry someone from your high school?
Other than a few classmates on FB, I don't think I even talk to any females from high school, which kinda eliminates that possibility.

3. Did you car pool to school?
Few friends with a car had graduated, rest didn't drive, and my schedule wasn't conductive to it.

4. What kind of car did you have?
Didn't have one. Could've if I'd had time to learn how to drive, but didn't do that, either.

5. What kind of car do you have now?
I wouldn't want to be behind the wheel at this point.

6. Its Saturday night...where are you now?
Probably at home on the computer.

7. It is Saturday night...where were you then?
Same as I would be 15 years later.

8. What kind of job did you have in high school?
Marketing at Snap-on Tools, designing spreadsheets and stuff for marketing data. Great coworkers, enjoyable work... fun times.

9. What kind of job do you do now?
Tech support once in a great while; otherwise just soak up SSDI.

10. Were you a party animal?
ROFL. I went to one friend-of-a-friend's party and left probably a half hour after showing up.

11. Were you considered a flirt?
That would require people to talk to me... so no.

12. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir?
I was in FBLA and maybe Debate (I think that was junior year); that was the extent of any sort of extracurricular academia.

13. Were you a nerd?
"Were"? I didn't get stuffed in a locker but just about everything else... so if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck....

14. Did you get suspended or expelled?
Only a threat of such for playing with the business dept's new computers (see #13).

15. Can you sing the fight song?
No; I skipped most the rallies and wanted the ones I didn't skip to be over as quickly as possible.

16. Who was/were your favorite teacher(s)
Coop! Reminded me of my grandpa.

17. Where did you sit during lunch?
At home, getting ready for work (half day of school, work 1-5pm)

18. What was your school's full name?
George Nelson Tremper Senior High School

19. When did you graduate?
1995

20. What was your school mascot?
Trojan.

21. If you could go back and do it again, would you?
I wasn't at school enough my senior year to know. I'd love to go back to doing what I did at Snap-on, though.

22. Did you have fun at Prom?
I only went to one Prom, Bradford's, and I think Junior Prom, not Senior Prom. Nothing special.

23. Do you still talk to the person (people?) you went to Prom with?
Jan disappeared about a year later and I've no clue what happened to her.

24. Will you go to the next reunion?
I might go to one if I h've actually made something of myself, but I don't think anyone I had any sort of connection with or interest in would attend, so don't see much point.

25. Do you still talk to your friends from high school??
If it's in the pool of senior year friends, then no. My closest & best friends graduated the year prior or after and are still in close, regular contact.

The Sears... it hauntses usss.....

Apparently my mind was in the mood to kick me in the shins overnight, given the nature of my latest dream. I've had more dreams I can remember lately, but figured I'd write about this one (at least) just because I can and haven't written anything lately- want to make sure I remember how, heh. (No inspiration- too many things on my mind, too many worries... just not a conductive mood for writing I guess.)

Anyway... I was back working at Sears. I was working maybe once a month; people were surprised to seee me and surprised I was still working there. It was just like the goold ol' days.. old coworkers, old boss, etc. A few things were misplaced (always the case with dreams, can't be 100% realistic), but for the most part, I was back working there again.

The beginning was a blur, but a lot of the dream focused on me ringing up one person and dealing with a few rude people. (Not that we EVER got those in Kenowhere... nope.) Since I've been thinking about my eyesight lately, that came into play when it took me a majority of the dream to ring up a certain item because I couldn't read the stock number. Some other guy got pissed while waiting for me (even though there were all sorts of other free people, he had to point out how horrible I was), and the lady I was ringing up got impatient and eventually moved me outta the way and did the rest of the order herself.

Then there was something with colored register tape, but that was kinda a blur. More impatience, more general complaints.... and I remembered a majority of why I stopped working there.

Of all the things I could dream about (especially lately), though... why there?! Ugh. Could be worse though, could've been school days instead....

I Hereby Decree....

People, especially on the Internet, are quick to bitch about anything and everything. It's no big surprise, really.

What does get annoying, really quick-like, is people bitching about things where they haven't the slightest clue what they're talking about.

Thus, I hereby decree that everyone that has na issue and wants to bitch about it, should first spend a week in the situation in question.

Maybe then people will learn things like there's more than one person involved when making your food (e.g., more places your special order could've been screwed up); that there's no elf in the back stock room creating the product you want to buy right then & there; that it takes time and resources to develop, code, and maintain your favorite game or the application you're running; and so forth.

Sure, some of these aren't rocket science (though the coding one gets kinda close)... but it seems most people forget there's many links in the chain, and more oftehn than not, you're not always dealing with the weak link.