Monthly Archives: June 2005

Irresponsible Pet Ownership

In the past couple of months, I’ve run across a person who was planning to dump a cat outdoors at a known cat colony, thinking it would “survive and fit in there” and a family that no longer wants their perfectly behaved, affectionate cat, because they have a child and “don’t have enough time to pet it.”
Meanwhile people who rescue and try to help abandoned pets are at their wits end because of folks like these.
How is it that so many people have so little common sense? And how is it that this city has so many irresponsible pet owners? Indianapolis is at the top of the list of cities with a huge abandoned or unwanted pet problem, and that isn’t factoring in cats and dogs born in the wild, just ones that are kicked out of homes by their owners.
People keep blaming the Humane Society for their high euthanasia rates, but it’s irresponsible pet owners that are to blame. Please people. Spay or neuter your animals. Train them to behave, and have a bit of patience and affection towards them.

Continue ReadingIrresponsible Pet Ownership

Things to do before I die

Having 2 near-death experiences in the past 3 years has been eye-opening. I need to make some changes in my life, and feel like I’m enjoying life and not just living through it.

Self-improvement:

  • Lose 50 pounds
  • run in the mini-marathon
  • Take up a sport that I do every day
  • Learn another language
  • Learn PHP and MySQL

Fun:

  • Go on the Amazing Race
  • Read every book in my library
  • Have a conversation with Jon Stewart, and make *him* laugh
  • Marry my sweetheart and move in with her
  • Take my sweetheart to Niagara Falls
  • Finish scanning in Curious Myths of the Middle Ages
  • Buy a motorcycle jacket while I’m still young enough to look good in it

Creative:

  • Write a novel
  • Write a video game storyline
  • Build a piece of furniture — preferably the dining room table Stephanie and I were brainstorming
  • Help build an art car!! Woo hoo!!
  • Work more on my house
  • Redesign my Dad’s website

Travel:

  • Go to Disney World
  • Drive across America taking pictures of Big Things
  • Take a train trip
  • Italy: leaning tower of Pisa, Florence, Rome
  • Paris, London, Berlin
  • Visit an Asian country. Japan?
  • Visit a South American country
  • Visit an African country
  • See the Northern lights

Political:

  • Carry out my local freeway blogger project
  • get non-discrimination laws for gay people passed
  • Help get a political candidate elected
  • Eliminate special marriage rights for heterosexuals
Continue ReadingThings to do before I die

Things I want to accomplish in the next year

My birthday is next Monday, so I made a list of things that I want to accomplish in the next year.

  1. Carry out my local freeway blogger project
  2. Run in the Mini-marathon
  3. Lose 50 lbs
  4. Get the trim and baseboards in my foyer replaced
  5. Cut the old water pipes out of my kitchen
  6. repaint my kitchen
  7. Visit Disney World
Continue ReadingThings I want to accomplish in the next year

More language mangling from the Moron in Chief

It would be funny if it weren’t completely painful and just sad. So sad.

“It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of — and the allegations — by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble — that means not tell the truth.”

“Dissemble” is what Rove actually said in Bush’s earpiece. Not “disassemble”, which is what Bush heard and repeated. And even more frightening that he tried to give a definition, like the American public doesn’t know what the meaning of “dissemble” is. Except that they probably don’t, given that they voted for this doorknob.
What’s even more hideous about this is that the Chicago Tribune corrected the transcript with the right word, not the word he actually said. So how much do you think the Tribune is getting paid by the White House?

Continue ReadingMore language mangling from the Moron in Chief

Tagged: About books

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Scott tagged me with this book meme that’s going around, and now I have to tag others.

1. Estimate the total number of books you’ve owned in your life.
I *think* I have about 3,000 books in my current library. Probably double that for what I’ve owned over my lifetime. I took a picture of my wall-to-wall bookcase in my living room so you could see my current library.

My Library

2. What’s the last book you bought?

Most of my recent acquisitions have been for the two book clubs I’m in or for work-related stuff. I haven’t bought many books solely for myself because I’m trying to read through what I have on my shelf first.

3. What’s the last book you read?

I’ve been keeping track of everything I read since 1997, so if you want the complete list, go here.

5. List 5 books that mean a lot to you.

This is incredibly hard; I love so many books It’s hard to choose.

  • Curious Myths of the Middle Ages by Sabine Baring-Gould
    When I was in high school, I was a librarian’s assistant in the Noblesville Public Library, and I checked this book out so many times that when I graduated and went to college, they remaindered the book and gave it to me. It’s now out of copyright, so I’m slowly scanning the book into electronic format.
  • The Complete William Shakespeare
    I know that sounds pretentious; sorry. But I love the comedies and the sonnets, which I’ve read all of, and I enjoy on a different level the tragedies. I think the histories are dead boring, though. Maybe I need to see them performed and I’d feel differently.
  • Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James Loewen
    A book everyone should be required to read, just because it explodes myths about our US history and society, and gives us an eye-opening view of who Americans really are — something that can only make us better as people and as a nation. I also loved Loewen’s Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong. What’s really cool: in searching for this on Amazon, I discovered he’s got a new book coming out.
  • Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaardner
    “A young girl, Sophie, becomes embroiled in a discussion of philosophy with a faceless correspondent. At the same time, she must unravel a mystery involving another young girl, Hilde, by using everything she’s learning. The truth is far more complicated than she could ever have imagined.”
  • The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
    I LOVED this series as a kid and had a whole set of fantasies about going to Narnia myself.

5. Tag 5 people!
Jen, Mike, Brent and Jim from IndyScribe, Rachel, and MJ. I’d tag more, but I don’t want to use them all up before these guys can tag someone.

Continue ReadingTagged: About books