Category: Personal

I returned home today to find that our humane pest removers had indeed shown up last night and removed the skunk that we caught. And we have another one today. So the count is at four (out of seven).
Prior to finding out that they had collected one lasts night, therefore thinking that the poor thing was in the trap for 36 hours, I went out and shoved a couple of veggie-kabobs into his trap. One of the cutest things I’ve ever seen was the skunk chowing down on a piece of zucchini. Adorable. Of course, the wife and kid had to one up me by bringing him a leftover bowl of soup and feeding that to him, and apparently him lapping up the soup is cuter than the kabob action.

Today I’ve decided I’m going on an official diet. My first step will be to not add sugar to anything I eat. This will be interesting. My first cup of coffee today is bitter, and I’m so tempted to put some sugar or maple syrup into it.
/sigh

Just a few hours after re-baiting the trap, we have another skunk in it. This time the poor little thing is out in the rain, but at least there’s a heavy wool blanket (and now, a piece of cardboard) on top of the trap to keep it dry. If I had my own truck, I’d let the thing go somewhere else, but I’m not about to transport it in my Subaru.
Okay, pest removal experts, you can call us back now…

Today I got my second look at the skunk who has been inhabiting the space below our house since last year. It turns out that “Murray,” as we’ve named him, is actually “Marie,” and she has at least six little babies keeping her company.
We saw six baby skunks today, after we managed to capture one in a trap. After repeated failed attempts by a professional pest control service to capture the skunk, I took a friend’s advice and baited the trap with a leftover zucchini and orange, instead of the cat food the pest controllers had recommended (and used to successfully catch our neighbor’s cat – twice).
This morning, my wife looked out the window and saw that we had indeed caught a skunk. I observed that it looked rather small. Later, she saw that it was small because it’s just a baby, and that two of its siblings had come to attempt to rescue it. This was the cutest thing I’ve seen in a long time, as all three worked together to try to find a weakness in the trap.
They were soon joined by momma Skunk (“Marie”), who worked furiously to get her baby out of the trap. Her efforts were hampered by her babies, who crowded around her, and whom she would drag, one at a time, back under the house by their necks.
I went out when the mother was gone and stuck a piece of cardboard over the trap so the baby wouldn’t bake in direct sunlight, and we called the pest controllers.
We went shopping, and returned a few hours later to find the mother still there, working furiously to free her baby. She’d dug holes around the trap, trying to get underneath, and as of a few minutes ago, managed to flip the trap on its side. Of course, since it’s latched shut, she’d not going to get it out, so my wife is convinced me, against my better judgement, to assist her in setting the baby free.
So if you don’t see any new posts in the near future, you’ll know it’s because I am busy bathing myself in baking soda and vinegar. Wish me luck.
As luck would have it, my wife’s ex just showed up to drop her son off. She asked if he knew anything about skunks and, ‘lo and behold, he does! He walked right up to the trap, grabbed it, put it in the back of his pickup, and the skunk sprayed! Luckily it was under a blanket that we don’t care about. Awesome skunk removal timing on his part! I guess I need to buy him a beer or two now.
Update: We gave him four.

Ever wonder how much caffeine really is in that Starbucks coffee or your Mountain Dew? Want to know which late-night pick-me-up will turn it into an all-nighter? Check out Energy Fiend to find out.

I had a rather lame day, which included a DNS outage (took down paradigmcc.com for a while), an insurance agency’s WAN connection dropping, a medical practice’s scheduling calendar for the next quarter getting deleted, two missed appointments, waiting for hours for technical support to return my calls, and being generally crazy-busy from 8 AM to 6 PM.
So, at home, working late, I prepared to wrap up my day by putting the finishing touches on a few IT policy documents for one of my clients. (You may find this hard to believe, but it’s somewhat relaxing compared my other daily work activities).
My Boxer, Kali, however, had other plans. Plans which apparently involved Murray. Who is Murray? Why, Murray is the skunk who lives under our house! Apparently Kali arranged to have a little meet-up and the result was that the family and I spent the rest of the evening dousing the stupid dog in tomato juice, vinegar, baking soda, and dish soap. And now the house stinks. It’s not like regular skunk smell either. It’s like some sort of gamma-irradiated skunk or something from the black lagoon. This is one nasty Mephitis.
Keep this in mind the next time you feel tempted to say your day “can’t possibly get any worse.”

People should be licensed before allowing to breed.
Read this MSNBC article and tell me you don’t agree. On the “We Suck At Parenting” meter, these idiots are light-years ahead of the pair who brought four children under the age of 10 to see the new Transformers movie last week.

After hearing only snippets of a couple of reviews on Transformers, and seeing its average rating on Yahoo! as 2.5 stars, I was guarded in my approach to the theater yesterday.
Boy, was that uncalled for. Let me sum up: Transformers is the best movie I’ve seen all year. Now, I admit, I haven’t seen a lot of movies this year, but I’m putting it ahead of Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Spider-Man 3, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and Oceans 13 (all of which I liked a lot, except Spider-Man 3, which was… meh).
Note to parents: This movie is rated PG-13 for a reason. This is not your father’s Transformers movie. Do not bring small children! I am writing this specifically to the couple who brought no fewer than three kids under the age of 6 to the theater yesterday. Your parenting license should be revoked, idiots.
The acting was good, the direction was good, the special effects were amazing, if a bit heavy-handed. The one complaint I have about the fight scenes was that, like in the Transporter and Daredevil, there were too many shots where the camera was about 4″ away from the action, and all you could see was a blur of motion. That’s not fun to watch, but the transformations were awesome.
Also, hearing Peter Cullen reprise his role as Optimus Prime was simply delightful, as delightful as seeing Optimus NOT be a fire truck, as he was rumored to be last year.
I’m not sure why Bumblebee had to be a Camaro (okay, I am sure, given that the apparent top sponsors of the movie were eBay, General Motors, Apple Computer, and Nokia), and think he would have been just fine if they’d kept him as a VW bug, but I got over that.
Another minor gripe was that Devastator seemed under-powered, and did not appear to be a composite of multiple Constructacons. Again, I got over it, but I was disappointed that he only lasted a single fight scene.
Overall, I’m giving Transformers two thumbs way up, and can’t wait to see it again this weekend!