Not a good month for pets ..

We woke up this morning to more bad news. Logan found his guinea pig Fluffy dead in his cage. He seems to have passed some time over the night. We’re not sure what happened, I have to assume he was sick but it’s very hard to tell. He wasn’t displaying any symptoms and had no visible injuries. From what I’ve read guinea pigs are a prey animal, and instinctively hide signs of illness or pain to discourage potential predators.

Logan got Fluffy last year while I was in Korea still. He was his eight birthday present. He was about one year old, and was his first real pet. He was heart broken but took it pretty well all things considered. We buried him out back under the deck this morning. Logan left him a goodbye note which we buried with him, along with some of the grass he liked to play in and some of his favorite food.

Logan desperately wants a new pig but I think I might wait a bit on that to give him a chance to think about it. We loved the little guy very much but he did require a lot of care and I’m worried if we get another one it will just meet the same end. We’ll see how he feels in a week or two.

In other news I uploaded a bunch of pictures from 2007, and a few videos. Check them out of you’re interested, they’re mostly kid related but there’s a few others tossed in.

 Print This Comments (0) Posted in Family, Life, Pets by Bryan

The tragic rise and fall of Chewy

Three weeks ago, Conner’s gerbils (BJ and John .. don’t ask, we had an unfortunate gender mix up at the time of purchase) had their first baby. It was tiny, hairless, and resembled nothing so much as a jelly bean with legs. He named it Chewy. Conner was absolutely delighted, and who wouldn’t be at that age? His pets were producing more pets! A potentially endless supply of pets! Interestingly enough, I was a bit dismayed for the exact same reason; an endless supply of pets.

We read all about raising baby gerbils on the internet. How to feed the parents while they are child rearing (high protein and plenty of water). When to wean them (around four weeks). How to make sure they are safe (take all the extra stuff out of the cage). Sadly, the last one didn’t quite get followed as diligently as it should have, and it appears Chewy paid the price for our mistake. Conner found him dead in the corner of his cage yesterday afternoon. We suspect foul play on the part of the hollow coconut the gerbils use as a little shelter. If I had to guess I would say he got stuck between it and the aquarium glass. It’s a shame too, as he was very healthy and his parents were taking excellent care of him. He had a full coat of brown fur and had recently opened his eyes for the first time.

Conner was devastated. He told us he could not go on in life without his Chewy. He begged him to come back, please come back! He’s never really dealt with death before so it was all very hard on him. Fortunately he mostly forgot about it about a half hour later and was back to his usual mischief. The gerbils were also very upset, I don’t think they really realized what happened and were searching desperately for their little son. As it turns out gerbils have a memory just slightly longer than Conner’s, and they seem to be back to normal now as well.

It was a very sad day. Give it a few weeks though, and mother nature will fix everything when the next batch of little jelly beans comes along.

 Print This Comments (0) Posted in Family, Life, Pets by Bryan

Where’s the freakin lemonade?

Life .. lemons .. lemonade. Yada yada yada.

I’ve been trying to keep a positive outlook on this move to Missouri ever since I got orders to Korea two years ago. We requested it. We wanted to get out of Arkansas and it’s horrible school systems. We wanted to be closer to family as they get older. We wanted to buy a home. Personally, I wanted to get back to a base that I remembered as a good if not challenging work environment. All these things, we now have.

Unfortunately, as has become a reoccurring theme in my life, I failed to properly take into account the things I was giving up. A family friendly work schedule that didn’t rob my weekends and free time day after day, month after month. A state with so much natural beauty and potential for the stuff we enjoy doing that it seemed nearly limitless. And most importantly, a good group of friends that cannot really be replaced.

I have to say, I’m not enjoying things much right now. I feel trapped up here. I miss having a social life. Neither one of us has really met anybody we’ve clicked with. I’m starting to wonder if I’m just too old to make new friends at this point.

I’m rapidly getting sick of working as much as I have been, with no payoff. Not making tech this year was a real blow to my motivation factor, and I have nobody to blame but myself for not studying harder.

Riki and me really need to get away from here for awhile and just have some “fun” time, but every attempt some how gets thwarted. It’s so dang frustrating, and in the end there’s nothing you can really do about it but say “oh well, we’ll try again another time”. In the mean time life continues to tick on by. Grr.

There’s an awesome concert down in New Orleans that I would just about kill to go to but it’s not going to happen because of child care issues. I’ve been wanting to see one of the bands that’s going to be there for the last fifteen years. Why can’t children just be placed in stasis or something for a weekend? A big freezer perhaps? I’m sure we could some how incorporate laser beams and make it super high tech and safe. Wouldn’t that be a money making bonanza.

Oh well. Time to go to work.

 Print This Comments (0) Posted in Life by Bryan