Well rats

Brian the rat passed on last night. He had suffered some sort of injury near the base of his tail. We’re not sure what it was, but there was a lot of blood in his cage when we found him. He stuck around for several hours but was clearly in shock from the blood loss, and it was only a matter of time. Unfortunately I woke up this morning to Logan walking down the hall towards my bedroom crying, and knew what had happened.

Brian was the last of our rats; Sniff the rat also died a few weeks ago. As much as they were smelly, dirty animals, the rats were also wonderful pets. They’re very affectionate and gentle, and genuinely intelligent. We all really enjoyed them, particularly Brian. From a very young age it was clear Brian was the more adventurous of the two. He was never afraid of us, and always wanted to come out of his cage to play. He would gently lick your hand when you held him, and would even give you a kiss if you let him. If you stood three or four people in a row and held out your arms, he would run from one person to the next across their shoulders and down their arms. We tested him on this many times to see if he could use this technique to make it back to his cage, and he always did. There was clearly thought inside that little head of his. He bit Logan once, but as Logan says “it wasn’t his fault and he wasn’t mad at him for it”. He even had the common decency not to go to the bathroom on us while he was out, something I can’t say about Sniff.

We’ll be burying him outside later today.

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Summer days

Seeing as it’s memoial day weekend, I found myself with some free time. Erika took the boys down to Arkansas to visit some friends so I’m here all by myself. I have a lot of things I need to get taken care of anyway, so it works out okay. If I can keep my motivation level up I will have opened the pool, power washed the driveway, stained the window trim out front, and cleaned the dishwasher innards before the weekend is over. Oh, and washed the Acura. And caught up on the last couple weeks of television that I missed. The list goes on .. suffice to say if I finish half of it I’ll be satisfied.

It’s been a busy month so far. Logan and Conner have started up baseball again, and will be starting summer school in another week. My college continues to creep forward at a snails pace. More importantly however, the good weather is finally here. I love the beginning of summer, it’s the best time of the year for doing stuff outside. I really want to take the boys down to Table Rock Lake and do some camping, but it is going to have to wait a bit longer due to other commitments. I’m also planning on a trip to World of Fun, the local theme park dealio out by Kansas City. They have a big water park there as well, so hopefully we can hit both.

On a personal note, I’m making good progress on my “bands to see before they die” list. I caught Neil Young out at the Sprint Center at the end of April, and will be going to see Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction in less than a week at the Starlight Theater. Neil was so so. I love the guy but damn he is getting old. He still puts on a better show than Bob Dylan though, so I’ll give him that. On the other hand, I’ve heard great things about NIN concerts so I’m really excited about that one. And after that comes Rockfest, the largest one day festival concert in America. It always delivers.

I snuck out to St. Louis a couple weeks ago to visit some friends who were in town. It was a nice break from the usual, and I had a great time. I just wish I could have visited longer. St. Louis is an interesting city, and one of these days I’d like to explore it some more. Immediately after returning from there I had to go down to San Antonio on business for the Air Force. I’ve been there a couple times before so it wasn’t anything new, and I was there by myself which made things a bit boring. I’ve never been very fond of that city, it’s big and sprawling and just down right ugly in most places. Still, I did finally manage to make the tour of the Alamo, and the River Walk area is full of bars and restaurants so it’s always good for some mindless fun. I think I contracted the pig flu or Ebola or something while I was there though, which resulted in me spending a good amount of time lying in bed hacking up stuff I didn’t know I had in my lungs. I’m all better now though!

Oh, the albums on the left are a few pictures from the St. Louis and San Antonio trips if you’re interested.

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