Wednesday, May 18 2005, 9:16 PM

Both are bloodsucking parasites that nature could probably do without. The latter have never bothered me that much, but the former are quickly getting on my shit list. This past weekend marked my first exposure to a tick. I was petting Greg's dog Ace and I noticed something dark in his ear. It looked like a blood blister, but after a second, I noticed that the blood blister had legs. And it was moving. Once I realized it was a tick I reverted back to a bug killing fury that hasn't been seen since my parents house was overrun with earwigs back during the drought years of the early 90s. Those fuckers would come out at night, so I would actually make special trips around the house with implements of earwig destruction - scissors, shoes, lighters. If it killed an earwig, I tried it out. There's just something about finding disgusting bugs in the house that sends me over the edge.

Back to the present. I yanked the POS out with a wadded up piece of toilet paper and proceeded to squeeze it. Well, it squished. Like a grape. Only then did I discover that there were two ticks. I thought it might be a good idea to identify the second one before I killed it, so I looked for a way to subdue while still keeping it visible. Greg's hair gel worked nicely. Eight-legged creepy crawlies don't really maneuver that well in a sticky viscous liquid. (I've killed earwigs in this fashion as well.) I was able to take a few pictures of the thing while it was in that state, and only then did I take the time to read up on my foe.

The first rule of war is "Know thine enemy," so I decided to learn all I could. Judging by what I read, the fat tick I sqiushed was a female who was gorging herself to acquire materials to lay a crapload of eggs. The other one was a male waiting around to do the deed and fertilize the eggs. After a call to a veterinary help line informed me that there was no real reason to keep the tick alive as a POW, I intruduced him to the butt-end of my hair brush. They had a smashing good time together. I found another tick on Ace's back a few hours later, but that one didn't seem to be very well established. I removed him, and it was also introduced to the butt-end of the hairbrush.

Greg and I gave Ace a flea/tick bath when he got home, and we gave him a pretty good examination and didn't see any other evidence of the vermin, so we figured we were in the clear. Greg had taken Ace on a camping trip the previous weekend, so we figured they hitched a ride from there.

Well, it would seem like that was a wrong assumption. I found another tick in Ace's ear today, and I know for a fact that it wasn't there earlier. He's apparently picking them up outside from the bushes that he likes peeing on. Great. I quickly dispatched of that one by smashing it under a dime. I had planned on fixing the cord on the vacuum that Ace had chewed through today, so I went to survey the damage. I found that he chewed all the way up to the vacuum, and I also found that there was a freaking tick hanging out on the cord when he crawled onto my hand. He met the same fate that the other one did earlier. Crushed by the dime.

So I've had it. I bought a new vacuum cleaner, and Greg and I are in the process of cleaning everything we can see. That means vacuuming everything, washing bedding and clothes, everything. These things will NOT establish a foothold in my house. Not if I have a say in it. This is fucking war.

ace frustrations vermin

Sunday, February 27 2005, 9:59 PM

Yup, I've become "that guy." Well, not really. I've made a pledge not to become "that guy." You know the kind - the guy who's always beeping on his Nextel wherever he's at, no matter what the environment... restaraunt, movie theater, grocery store - you name it, he's beeping. Not me. I'm going to be responsible with my Nextel.

Since there's such a stigma about it, you're probably wondering why I got a Nextel in the first place? Joe Doss. He talked me into it. That and the fact that my Cingular service up here wasn't that great. Cingular never treated me bad, and I would give them a good recommendation in the Metro Detroit area, but their Lansing coverage just wasn't that great. Nextel has lots of coverage around here, and most other places I'm likely to go, so I jumped on the bandwagon.

The phone I got also has some nifty features besides the little walkie talkie thing as well. It's got a built in GPS receiver that will provide a position if I wait long enough, plus it will send telemetry data to a computer through the data cable I bought. It's got a camera in it too, which isn't much more than a novelty since I have a full fledged digital camera. It takes pictures that approach decent when the resolution is turned up to it's highest setting, but they're nothing spectacular. It also does the nifty contact-based ringtone thing, so I can have a seperate ringer for everyone on my list if I so choose. I would imagine that a lot of phones have that nowadays, but the fossil I was using before didn't, so it's neat and cool.

So far, I like the phone, although I haven't used it much, since nobody calls me. I think I sent the new number to most everyone that would ever call me, but if I forgot you, let me know and I'll make sure you know the new number.

In closing, here's the only picture I've taken so far with the phone that's actually turned out well...

ace cellphone

Tuesday, January 25 2005, 3:26 PM

There's good news to be had. At this point, Dr. Saxe has given me a clean bill of health, and says I can return to work if I choose. Since money doesn't grow on trees and I'm getting kinda stir crazy, I figure I'll head back into work tomorrow. It's really too early to tell whether the surgery was effective, but we're going to keep an eye on that over the coming weeks. I was seeing about 20/40 out of my right eye before the surgery (compared to 20/15 in my left), 20/70 the morning after surgery, and I'm seeing about 20/50 today. I'm headed in the right direction. I finally have the OK to stop using the drops that dilate my eye, so hopefully I'll be able to see wether my vision is better/worse/same once the pupil stops being the size of a dinner plate.

I was pretty bored at my parents house while I was laid up, so I took a few pictures to pass the time. I couldn't really go outside because the light and total whiteness from the newly fallen snow was too much for my eye to handle in its dilated state. Because of this, I took most of the pictures inside of the house, or looking out a door or window. Most of them were rather average, but I did get some neat ones....

This one was taken from my parents backyard the morning before the surgery. I thought the sun looked really cool coming up through the big pine tree in their front yard.

This one has dooce written all over it. I took this one about an hour ago after my doctors appointment. I happened to catch Ace in a good pose for once.

ace photography righteye

Thursday, October 21 2004, 10:54 PM

Well, for a dog, probably not that much. We finally came up with a name for the little guy though... We've settled on Ace. A couple of Greg's friends suggested it, and it works. So that's that. We had (and could still have) a bit of a scare towards the end of last week though... Thursday night we found some fleas crawling around on the little guy, which certainly got our attention. We gave him a flea bath, and so far, we haven't seen any more. Who knows where they laid eggs though, so we'll just have to keep our eyes open.

Ace has also learned the power of whining and barking to get our attention, which is good and bad. He seems to gave got the idea that it's bad to do his buisiness inside and that we need to take him outside, because he'll run back and forth between Greg and I and whine, so we know he's gotta go outside. But, he's also figured out that barking will get our attention for other things, like throwing balls and giving him food. He even woke me up out of a sound sleep the other morning because he had to go out... but it was 3AM. I was definitely not too happy at that point.

The only other thing noteworthy going on is that the monitoring system I've been working on for a while is finally being deployed everywhere. It's currently monitoring about 375 servers, and doing it well. The server it's running on is getting strained, so I might have to upgrade things a bit, or a lot! :)

ace projects ramblings vermin work

Saturday, October 16 2004, 12:09 AM

I just got done reading the latest posts over at dooce.com, as is my almost-daily ritual. Today's post, along with a good portion of her other posts, talks a lot about poop in various forms in the way that only Heather B. Armstrong can muster. While I don't really share her would-be obsession with poop discussions, poop is on the platter for this post, figuratively speaking. Our still-unnamed dog is making huge strides... huge strides in soiling our carpet. Yesterday was his "pee on the floor" coming out party, where he made puddles no less than 5 times. Well, in the spirit of progress, today became crap on the carpet day. The first deposit was made after I went to work but while Greg was still home, under my desk apparently. I can't say I was too happy about that, but Greg cleaned things up well enough that I didn't notice. The second was after I got home and took the dog for a walk. I learned my lesson from the morning before and waited until I was ready to take him out before I let him out of the cage. It was raining outside, so I wasn't about to wait outside all day for him to do his business. He was a good dog though and added to the rather wet conditions outside with his own unique contribution. We both went back inside, and not 3 minutes after I let him off his leash he had laid cable underneath the kitchen table, as if to say "Ha! You thought I was done! I'll show you!" I suppose I'll have to get used to it.

And in something totally unrelated to poop, I finally got the third Evergrey album that I ordered almost two months ago: Recreation Day. It was back-ordered at Amazon, which I should learn to expect. This is the sound that I remember from the concert. The other albums are most certainly sweet, but this is the Evergrey I heard on April 24th. There is a ton of double-bass throughout, sweet riffs, killer harmonies, and a ton of energy. I would recommend this album to anyone who likes metal. You can't really miss here. "Blinded" and "Visions" kick total ass, but I'm sure I'll love the whole album once I give it a few more listens.

ace evergrey music ramblings

Thursday, October 14 2004, 9:25 PM

Well, we were hoping that the new puppy was ultra brilliant or something, because until today he hadn't had any accidents, and had been pretty mild-mannered. Well, that didn't last. I made the mistake of letting him out this morning a few minutes before I was ready to take him out for his morning relief walk. I was brushing my teeth while I was putting on my shoes, and he seemed to be rather entertained with the toothbrush hanging out of my mouth. I went back upstairs and deposited the toothbrush, then came back downstairs. As I was reaching for the leash, he hunched down in the kitchen and let rip. So instead of just letting him out when I was ready, I got the added pleasure of cleaning up a puddle of dog piss. That made me a few minutes late for work, but nothing too horrible.

Greg got the same treatment a few minutes ago, but for much less reason. I had already taken him out 3 or 4 times since I got home from work, and he had done his duties each time, so there wasn't really any reason for him to have another accident. Well, there apparently isn't any rhyme or reason in the mind of a 9 week old puppy, and he demonstrated that fact by leaving another puddle on the carpet. Oh well... He's got to have the accidents before he learns that accidents are bad, so for a while we'll have to bear with it.

We're still deciding on a name, but we're getting closer. "Spock" has been suggested by a couple different people, but Greg isn't a huge fan of that. Greg found a dog naming site somewhere, found "Mr. T" on there, and was inspired. "Cisco" is also on his mind, so we'll see what comes about. He might be caving on Spock, so if a couple more people suggest it, we might have a vulcan dog!

ace ramblings

Tuesday, October 12 2004, 11:35 PM

No, unfortunately it's not a girl. But he is very cute! Yesterday, Greg got himself a little golden lab puppy and he made his presence felt here a few hours ago. I'm sure having a little puppy in the house will yield to lots of fun tales of crap on the carpets and chewed objects strewn about, but who cares! It's a cute little puppy! There will likely be tons of pictures as well. And who knows... maybe having the puppy around will help land some cute lady-friends...

We don't have a name for him yet... any suggestions? Cool names only please! In a daring nod towards Gentoo, Greg is considering "Portage", but I don't know if the dog needs to be burdened with living up to something as cool as that namesake.

ace ramblings

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