Halloween Includes Dru

Happy Halloween

From Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s second season, is a wonderful Halloween episode. It contains truly funny dialogue between  Drusilla played by Juliet Landau and Xander Harris played by Nicholas Brendan. It’s one of my favorite episodes if for no other reason, it is humorous.

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered (#2.16)” (1998)

Drusilla: Your face is a poem. I can read it.
Xander: Really? It doesn’t say “spare me” by any chance?

Drusilla: How do you feel about eternal life?
Xander: We couldn’t just start with a coffee?

Spaghetti Hawk

In their native habitat, Lovebirds eat millet and sorghum. In captivity, we struggle to get Lovebirds, other members of the parrot family, as well as finches and canaries as close to nature’s diet as possible. Our Cockatiel and Lovebird eat mash made of brown rice and other grains, as well as Nekton vitamins, fresh corn and carrots.

Pookie The Cockatiel prefers junk food, if he can get it, which is almost never. His preferred junk food is potato chips, but he’s been kept away from that stuff, and is 21 years old as of October 12, 2012.

Zephy, our slate gray Lovebird, likes rice and spaghetti, as this picture shows. Pookie is very non-chalant about his comings and goings, and is literally a ninja bird, if he chooses to be still and invisible.

Zephy, on the other hand is right out there, declaring her desires about everything, including dinner.

A Lovebird in her [almost] native habitat raiding the fruits of a spaghetti dinner

True Grid

I admit that when I am not at work, I’m like a Toyota Prius at a traffic light. The engine goes off; and only the display seems lit up. Taking care of the birds, gardening, and doing various other errands starts the engine up once again.

In the good old days, when 1200 and 2400 bps modem dial-up lines were the rage, and Digital Equipment Corporation paid for a second telephone line into your home, I was not as connected to my job. I spent a lot of time at my job, but when vacation time arrived, that time really was a vacation; I was not tethered to work.

Then came email; followed by cell phones. Those were followed quickly by ISDN, a clean, dedicated 56K bps line into your home, and ISDN was followed closely by the first DSL lines. The work tether bridge building had begun. Today, we are in constant contact, tethered together almost like the Borg.

Recently, I tried to take my October vacation. It started off with my working both weekend days on a nasty problem involving a root kit virus and a mail list server. The problem is still not solved completely, though people can use the list server for its intended purpose. We still have another weekend ahead to complete the job.

Then, I made the mistake of answering an email on Monday. Why I logged in to view my email was neither my boss’ requirement nor anyone else’s. It was just habit. After that, I went off the grid, and have not listened to a work voice message nor read a work email since.

In most businesses, let alone municipal government, staffing just meets demand or is not enough. A lot of people might not want to believe that about municipalities, but it is true. I am virtually the only person who does what I do, and while I am working to change that — even involving some job risk in the process — nothing changes immediately. So, I am essentially on call, unless my vacation includes going to Antarctica or North of the White Mountains. However, being on call is not the same thing as checking constantly to see if an emergency exists.

I strongly suggest that people go off grid at least once in a while. Who knows that the person who cannot contact you might gain some independence.

The Prius’ Driving Modes

I learned to drive in a Chevrolet. I took a Ford Cortina to my driving test; I passed. Since then I have driven tractors, a 1926 Rolls Royce Phantom I, with rod brakes and manual steering, and large Chryslers. I have always preferred maneuverable, smaller cars, but can drive just about anything. That is until my wife bought a Prius.

My wife usually does not get sucked into trends. She avidly recycles, but is not crazed about it. She tries to combine multiple trips in the car to conserve on gasoline, but if an extra trip has to be made, it is not the end of the world. That is until the Prius came along, because it seems to be exercising mind control.

It is no longer about how to get from point A to point B; it is all about how you drive there. If you perform a ballet of releasing the accelerator and braking a certain way, you get points, as in miles per gallon at the end of the trip.

I strongly recommend if you buy a Prius, do not use any of the special modes — EV, ECO, or Power — at all, at least not until you are used to the car. From the description of EV, you are only supposed to use that at night around the neighborhood, so you do not disturb your neighbors. It is silent. I thought if it is silent, burglars might like the Prius, too. Well, at least they would be robbing your house environmentally.

I have never used Power mode, but imagine doing so would be recorded in some log stored in the universe where at the end of my life, I would be lectured for using power when I did not have to.

ECO mode seems to be the trickiest of all. I am actually feeling badly if my mileage is low, having traversed up and down hills in my town. Fortunately, I do not drive my wife’s Prius often. Maybe I won’t get too programmed.

No Problem/Yes Problem

Speech expressions are changing. I used to get them, and unfortunately still do. As a politeness, I find the “No problem.” response from the bag person to whom I said “Thank you” for bagging my groceries a little weird.

If the response is “No problem”, could there have been a problem?

If there could have been a problem, what would the problem have been? How would the bag person have responded.

Bag Person: “There was a problem. I wanted to go on break, or send a text to my friend.”

So, maybe the next time, I should say I have no problem if you had no problem.

End of Summer Flight

When the hot weather arrives in the Spring, our house sounds like this, well not quite like that, but more like sounds of a hot summer.

We keep our home cool with two window air conditioners and fans. The birds need just enough indirect cool air, so their room does not reach 90 degrees, and our main goal is to keep the house dehumidified, if not below eighty degrees.

I often think that at the onset of hot weather, our house begins its annual long distance flight to who knows where. And now, midway through August, I see the landing strip off in the distance. Pretty soon, our air conditioners will be put away; and the fans will be cleaned, packed up, and made ready for the next flight, next year.

Watch Birds

Some people think birds only build nests, have babies, fly around, and eat. But there is much more to us than that. Pookie The Cockatiel and I like to survey our holdings. We see enough of the house, so we like to see our yard especially who is skulking through it.

Dad snapped the following when we were surveying our kingdom, kicking out large birds — yes I can do that with my cry — and just enjoying things in general.

Small parrots surveying their holdings.