A few days ago I wrote about finding some newborn residents in the space under my backyard shed. I did say that it was going to bother me, and it has.

In an effort to score some cosmic karma points, I’ll tell you about some other encounters I’ve had with local fauna.

About three years ago we had a bat get into the house somehow. It finally flew into our bedroom, and I closed the door on it while sending the girls into the basement to fetch badminton racquets. No, I wasn’t planning to half-volley the terrified (and terrifying) little beastie into a wall, I wanted something I could catch it with. Armed with racquets, we entered the room and proceeded to poke around behind curtains and furniture trying to find his hiding place. Oldest daughter indicated that she’d spotted him by screaming at the top of her lungs in a most helpful way (Karen Kinmont eat your heart out), and eventually the bat landed on the carpet. At this point I placed the racquet gently over the top of the bat, and then with even more care I slipped the other racquet under him, sandwiching him between the two sets of strings. This gave us a chance to take a close look at our visitor, before taking him outside and releasing him. I hope he lived a long and happy life, eating his weight in insects each night.

Now the rest of these stories need some background. We live in a townhouse, and for several years the house next door has been owned by what can only be called a slumlord. The backyard was overgrown with weeds and trash, and the single mom who rented it was nice enough, but never went into the backyard, nor did she allow her kids back there (wisely I might add). With her permission, twice a year I would toss a few rat-baits over the fence into her yard to keep the rodent population down. She wouldn’t do it, and her landlord certainly wouldn’t do it. Even so, we’d spot an occasional mouse coming through the fence between our yards, usually to snack on birdseed at the base of our feeder. My response was more rat-bait.

Last fall, I was in the downstairs and heard some rustling sounds in the room. We had had a problem earlier in the year where squirrels discovered our birdseed stash and decided to help themselves. To prevent that, the birdseed is now kept in a plastic bin with a locking lid. I figured that the squirrels were back, looking for a meal. I never saw any evidence of unwanted guests, but kept hearing that rustling sound on occasion over the next day or two. One day one of our dogs was downstairs and started ‘hunting’. That was it, we were going to get rid of the visitor. I placed the girls – once again armed with racquets – at the foot of the stairs leading up to the main floor, and in the doorway to the rest of the basement. Next I opened wide the back door (walk-out basement). I started moving furniture, and looking through boxes until I found it. It was a rat who had decided to nest in a box of sewing fabric that my wife had. The side of the cardboard box was chewed through, and this rat was turning it into a comfy little home. Not a cute little field mouse from the meadow behind the house, but a rat. It immediately made a beeline for the door and ran out and under the fence next door. Obviously it had come through the doggie door, and had no fear of our dogs. The only thing I could think of to do was to close the doggie door off and toss more rat-bait over the fence.

For the next couple of evenings, I’d look out the back door glass and this little bastard would be sniffing at the door, looking for a way back inside. He’d run off when he saw me, and I just didn’t know what else to do. I was waiting for him to die from eating the rat-bait, because it can take several days. I don’t know if he ever did or not, but we’ve not had that problem this year, and the doggie door is open again.

One huge improvement was our new neighbors. They have kids, and wanted to reclaim the backyard. Early this spring they started hauling the crap and junk out of their yard. I pulled on my gloves and pitched in, because it could only help the situation. At one point, we were moving a pile of lumber, and I stopped everyone to point out a copperhead snake we’d uncovered. Mom was freaking out, and the boys thought it was cool (they didn’t know it was poisonous). I went to my place and got a bucket and a hockey stick. The snake was pretty groggy from the coolness of the season, so I pushed it into the bucket with no problems and we took it down to the creek to release it.

They’ve really kept their backyard nice since then, especially when I told mom that the snakes loved the tall grass in the yards. Another time I had to go over there because they’d found a common garden snake under a wheelbarrow, and her son was trying to kill it with an axe. I was afraid the kid was going to kill himself swinging that stupid thing, so once again I grabbed my trusty bucket and hockey stick. It was full summer, and this snake was active and pissed off. He was striking at my hockey stick, doing his damndest to bite and refusing to get into the bucket. I eventually managed to steer him towards the gate, and he slithered off into the meadow.

I’ve also rescued a bird or two in distress. We keep a feeder full of seed year round, and have a couple of birdbaths full of fresh water. Several years ago, I had to remove the tree limb where our birdhouse hung. The birdhouse was pretty cool, because the kids and I built it using two sides of clear plexiglass and you could watch what was happening inside (the birds are ok with this). After an unfortunate incident where I waited too long to clean out the previous years’ nest and accidentally destroyed two newly laid eggs inside, the birdhouse was ever after referred to as the “birdhouse of doom”. The girls really know how to rub it in.

So basically I have a clear conscience about those newborn rodents, because I have a pretty good record when it comes to the animals I share this neighborhood with. Yes, what I did bothered me, but it was the right thing to do, if not the quickest way. I couldn’t bring myself to end it quickly, preferring the cowards way of ‘letting nature take its course’.

Posted by: Ted at 07:27 AM | category: Boring Stories
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Jeff of Alphecca fame has written an amazing post about his pets. After reading that, IÂ’m inspired to write about some cats I used to know.

WeÂ’re not cat people, although we did own a cat once, for about a month. She was a declawed stray that we picked up at the shelter. The whole family sat around the table discussing names, but we couldnÂ’t reach a consensus so I finally just opened the newspaper and put my finger down at random. Our new pet was named Porsche.

I wound up taking Porsche back to the shelter, and happily she spent all of four hours there before another family adopted her. I know this because I talked to her new owners on the phone while they decided to adopt her. She was a good cat, it just wasnÂ’t a good match with our family.

I like other peopleÂ’s cats. My best friend Paul grew up on a farm, and always had cats and dogs (emphasis on the plural) of each. IÂ’m going to tell you about two of his cats who were among the most unique souls IÂ’ve ever met in this life.

His name was Slick. He was a big damn cat, and solid as a rock. His fur was that odd orange color that some cats wear. Slick barely had any ears, he'd been found as a kitten suffering severe frostbite, and the fleshy part turned black and mostly fell off. Slick also had an enormous head. Considering everything, this was one weird looking cat. But Slick was more than just a pretty face, he was that proverbial iron fist in a velvet glove. Slick would go out and wouldnÂ’t come back for days. When he did show up at the door, heÂ’d be covered with blood, sometimes his own. Scratches, gouges and chunks of flesh missing from his ornery hide were the usual. Once he came home with a broken front leg.

And thatÂ’s where the gentle side of Slick shone through. PaulÂ’s little girl wasnÂ’t walking yet, but could sure get around crawling. One day as Slick was nursing his battered body, just lazing around the house, that little girl crawled up to him, cooÂ’d and petted him, and then grabbed hold of that broken leg. Slick stood up and gingerly retrieved his limb, then calmly limped behind the couch so he was out of reach. No hissing, no screeching or scratching. I canÂ’t imagine what it felt like, but Slick knew that the baby didnÂ’t mean to hurt him.

Slick had one other endearing trait, something IÂ’ve never seen in another cat. Slick loved to be scratched, it made him purr like an outboard motor. And when Slick purred, he drooled. Remember, this was a big cat, so when I say he drooled, I mean he droooooled. Disgusting. Like I said, endearing.

The other cat I remember never grew up. I mean, it was a freakin’ midget cat! I don’t even recall it’s name, but this little sonuvabitch was the most gleefully evil little beast to ever stalk the earth. When you were at Paul’s house, you always checked the curtains before you sat on the couch, because this mini-satan would sit on top of the valence and wait for his next victim. Some poor fool who forgot to check – or didn’t know, which was even better – would sit on the couch, and within seconds a spitting, clawing fuzzball would drop down on top of said victim. The rest of us would laugh our asses off while watching the cat scramble back up the curtains to wait for his next chance. God, that cat could be mean.

Two memorable cats, and one I barely got to know. One of these days, IÂ’ll tell you about my dogs...

Posted by: Ted at 07:47 AM | category: Boring Stories
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1 My brother has a cat - and a two-year-old. The two-year old has only recently grown larger than the cat - it's a damn big cat.

Anyway, the two-year-old loves the cat, and shows this by pulling on its fur, tail, ears, whiskers... The most I've ever seen the cat do in response is put out one paw (no claws) and push him gently away.

The cat is the one on my blog reading the maths textbook.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at August 29, 2003 02:30 PM (jtW2s)

2 That was heartwarming. Reminds me of my two kitties -- the older one lets small children pull her tail, and the little one will claw you for looking at her the wrong way.

Posted by: dawn at September 02, 2003 02:00 PM (L6pam)

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Today I’m taking my traditional half-day off. I’ve taken leave on the afternoon of every 3-day weekend Friday for almost 15 years now. I don’t even have to mention it anymore, the people here just automatically put it into their schedules. I do this for one simple reason. Traffic. I hate holiday traffic with a passion, and like any major metropolitan area, this one is a choke point for all the traffic headed north and south along the eastern seaboard. I call ‘em foreigners, all these travelers with the funny license plates who don’t know how to drive in rush-hour traffic. It makes me crazy because they all want to ride in the middle lane and leave car-lengths worth of space in front of them in bumper-to-bumper traffic and they don’t know how to use a merge lane properly and they refuse to believe that the next exit is on the left side of the interstate until the last minute even though every sign for the last 5 miles has said so.

There. All better now.

Posted by: Ted at 07:27 AM | category: Boring Stories
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Ok, I'm doing this from memory, so if I get something wrong...

Bobby Bonds in left, Willie Mays in center, Jim Ray Hart in right field.

Willie McCovey at first (Orlando Cepeda had been traded to the Cardinals a couple of years before), Tito Fuentes playing his rookie season at second, Hal Lanier at shortstop, and Ron Hunt - king of hit-by-pitch - at third.

Dick Dietz behind the plate. He had one spectacular year, but this one isn't it. He's only an average catcher. On the mound is Juan Marachal, Gaylord Perry, and in relief is ancient Don McMahon. The 'closer' doesn't exist yet.

In those days, I live and breathe Giants baseball. I loathe the Dodgers. American league? Ha, might as well be double-A, for all I care about them. Except for a mild interest in the A's in Oakland. I'm an avid collector of baseball cards, and my uncle taught me a game he made up using dice and baseball cards, like an early low-tech rotisserie league. I'm a stat-junkie, back before every waking moment of a players life became statisticized. Imagine my surprise years later when I come back from overseas and discover that these little rectangles of cardboard are worth big money! "Hello mom? What did you ever do with my old baseball cards? Really? Would you send them to me? Thanks!" I went to just one card show, and the family had a very nice dinner one evening thanks to a Reggie Jackson rookie card in 'good' condition.

On my birthday, my uncle takes me to see the Giants or the A's, depending on who's in town. We usually go two or three times a year, and the ultimate was a double-header at Candlestick under the lights. Cold as hell, and eating ballpark hotdogs (before Candlestick concessionaires got weird with the menu's).

Closer to home, we usually saw one or two minor league games a year with the Cub Scouts. The local team is the San Jose Bees. Kansas City Royals single-A farm team I think. They used to hold promotions like the fastest guy on the team racing a horse or something.

Closest to home, we played baseball constantly in season. My hero - always and forever - is Willie Mays. I wasn't fast enough to play center. Hell, to be honest I sucked as an outfielder. Not enough arm for pitcher (good control, lousy velocity), but good enough at third or first base. So I usually played second base. I always thought playing catcher would be cool, except that catcher was where you put the kid who was picked last. Like right field, except if you didn't have enough players for two teams you played 'no right field' and you were out if you hit the ball into right.

As a hitter, I had no real power, but I could hit to the opposite field when the situation called for it. Which was usually good for extra bases because of the normal quality of our pickup-game right fielders. I was also the best bunter in the neighborhood, which did me no good at all because I was too slow to take advantage of it.

To my horror, it turned out that I was one helluva fast-pitch softball pitcher. Now in those days, softball was what you played in PE because they wouldn't let you play 'real' baseball. Girls played softball for chrissake!

Everyone had their own glove and bat, and the bats were wood. Your favorite bat was always owned by someone else. All was right in the world when dad would take you out to buy a new glove. You'd been griping for month that your old glove was shot. You'd been saving every cent you had to help pay for it, not because your limited income allowed you to contribute any real money, but to show your sincerity. And when you get to the store, the baseball glove aisle stretches for miles and you spent an hour in heaven trying on glove after glove. Finally you decided on two, the one you couldn't afford (hope springs eternal) and the glove you could settle for. You also bought a brand new baseball. Your old one would be ruined because you'd heavily oil your glove and then tuck the ball into the pocket and slip it between the mattresses on your bed. This is how you broke it in. Your hands ached all day from constantly massaging the stiff leather, and you'd sleep on and around this uncomfortable lump in your bed. You wore that glove everywhere, playing catch with yourself if no one else was around. Your friends all ooohd and aaahd over your new glove. Your hand smelled like sweat and leather and glove oil for weeks. Painstakingly, carefully writing your name on your new glove, so that no one would rip it off. Your name would become part of the glove forever, so getting it right was critical. Laughing your ass off when someone screwed up their name, like running out of room and having to squeeze the last 's' in all weird.

Baseballs. For some reason, our neighborhood tended towards rubber-coated baseballs. Which were ok, except when they got waterlogged (like from playing on a rain-wet field) became permanently rock-hard. I'm sorry, 'rock-hard' doesn't begin to convey the degree of hardness. If you needed diamond dust, and all you had was your wifes wedding ring, soak a rubber-coated baseball in the sink overnight, then use it to pulverize the diamond. I mean, these things were lethal hard. Regular baseballs were more expensive, but much more highly prized. And of course, your name was prominently written on it. Not some fancy players-autograph style either, you wrote your name in big block letters on the ball. On each leather panel too, so you could see the name no matter how you held it.

I hate what baseball has become. But I loved it then, and when I think of baseball today, I tend to remember it that way, back in the sixties. Watching Bobby Bonds and the Say Hey Kid. That impossibly high leg kick that Marachal did each and every windup - that none of us could ever duplicate, though lord knows we all tried. Taking your heavy windbreaker to Candlestick, because you knew that when the sun went down it would get cold.

Thank you Bobby Bonds for everything you gave to me as a kid. You had a rich but troubled life and I hope you've found peace. I hope you find also that you were fully and completely appreciated - if by nobody else than at least by a little white kid who so desperately wanted to be a big leaguer, but knew there was never ever a chance. You helped me love the game I could never be great at.

Posted by: Ted at 04:26 PM | category: Boring Stories
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Someone posted this story to the rocket newsgroup a few years ago. I have no further information about where it came from or who originally wrote it, but I still laugh every time I read it.

Bonding With The Boys

About 2 weeks ago, I was looking around the Web for the BIGGEST sky rocket that I could get shipped to me via common freight carrier.

I located a fireworks importer in Wisconsin who had this mondo sky rocket -- biggest thing I had ever seen -- called a SkyDragon. These things are 48 inches tall and are mounted on a 1/2-inch wooden dowel.

Pure aerospace engineering. I plopped down a bunch of money and had him send me two cases of these things. They arrived at the freight dock a few days ago and I had to drive the van over to pick them up. Two boxes each 2 feet by 2 feet by 4 feet in size containing 80 rockets each. The 'Class 4 Explosives' sticker on the side of each box was a real bonus. I am gonna have to save them for the scrapbook.

That night, me and the kiddos had a gen-u-ine rocket launch ceremony. I placed one of these beauties in a liter-size glass bottle and the bottle fell over. Hmmmm-- this thing was waaay too big. I looked around the shop for a pipe to set it in, but realized that the only dirt I could drive the pipe into was in plain sight of my neighbor's house. I knew he was a cool guy, but I didn't want him to call the cops. You see -- 'projectile-type' fireworks are totally illegal in this county. I was surprised that the Buncombe County Sheriff Department wasn't waiting for me at the loading dock when I picked these things up.

Anyhow, I finally rigged a launch pad by prying up one of the driveway drain grates with a crowbar and sitting the stick into the deep pit. Looked sorta like an ICBM silo with its hardened lid slid aside. I asked which of my three kids wanted to light the fuse, but all took a few steps back and politely declined. Chicken-shits. Kids just aren't made the same nowadays. They fulfill their danger quotient by shooting bad guys in video games. About as far from real danger as you can get, if you ask me. I told the little weenies to stand back as I bent to light the device with a Bic lighter. The lady at the fireworks importer promised me that these things would NOT make any noise. I told her that they HAD to be relatively quiet so I could shoot them off in my neighborhood without causing "undue alarm". She said I wouldn't have any problem. I emphasized the particular legal problems I would have if there were any type of loud report at apogee. I emphasized the fact that I lived right next to a National Park and that any type of firework that was discharged or assumed to be discharged on that property would get me sent before a FEDERAL judge right before I got sent to the COUNTY judge She again assured me I would have no problem.

That lying bitch. That rocket engine had a burn time about as long as any I had EVER seen, and the ascent echoed off the surrounding trees. Diamond shock pattern extended from the back end. It kept going and going and going. When it hit apogee at about 1000 feet, the rocket disintegrated into a huge shower of silent red sparks. Pretty cool, I thought... until the shower of sparks burned out and suddenly transformed into a cloud of EXTREMELY bright and loud explosions. The kids scrambled into the back door "Three Stooges" style (ie: where all three try to get through the same closed door at once) and left me standing in the smoking haze waiting for the cops to arrive. The dogs that live along our street were all barking their heads off at the apparition they had just witnessed in the night sky. That ended the fireworks test for the night.

The next day, my oldest son Doug and I decided we were gonna "neuter" one of the rockets so it wouldn't make any noise. I took him into the closet where I store the gardening tools and he saw these two huge cases of fireworks standing there. The kid went nuts. He wanted to open BOTH boxes so he could see what all 159 rockets looked like lined up next to each other. This kid has promise. I told him: "Since mom only thinks I have a few of these things lying around, maybe that wasn't such a good idea." He mulled that over for a few seconds, then gave me a real big smile in agreement. We pulled one of the rockets out of the box and re-locked the closet door. He and I both sat down on the driveway and proceeded to take it apart.

It was a standard issue big-ass Chinese sky rocket. I bet they used these to kill people 500 years ago. As I sat there taking layer after layer of paper off, his brain was filling with the details of construction. Tissue, cardboard, plastic, fuses...etc. Realizing that he was mentally storing the design for some future project sorta made me shudder. All I was thinking was the fact that this thing was probably put together by a political prisoner in a hellhole somewhere who is probably gonna get "executed" so they can sell his internal organs on the transplant market. Probably not too far from the facts, but I managed to do a bit of explaining to him from the standpoint of aerospace engineering regarding how the thing worked.

Doug is probably the only 4th grader in the U.S. who can now describe the principle of thrust using a control volume model. The rocket was pretty simple. It had a very large booster engine topped with a warhead that contained the red sparkly things that exploded. Removing the warhead was as simple as giving a quick twist, and I assumed the neutered rocket would fly higher without the payload. I was correct. Doug and I did a daylight "stealth" test and were able to add about 50% to the altitude attained the previous night. We decided to modify four more rockets and put them aside in the closet for easy access. When this was done, Doug had a jar full of stuff that came out of the warheads including: 12 fuses about 3-inches long each, some paper, 4 plastic nosecones and a big handful of these little black balls about the size of 12-gauge buckshot that turned out to be the 'red sparkly popper things'.

It appeared that the outer layer was a simple gun powder coating designed to quickly burn off as red shower of sparks. I surmised that the inner core had some kind of magnesium thermite that gave off an intense white light and a loud bang. Pretty cool if you ask me. Lots of energy packed into one teeny little ball. I didn't want to see the popper thingies go to waste, so I told Doug we were gonna put them in a hole in the ground and set them off. He gave me another big smile. It's amazing how kids think alike... even when separated by 30 years. As I was digging a shallow hole with my hand, Doug asked if it would be alright to put an army man next to these things so that "When they go off, it would look like he was getting shot with a machine gun". Dang.... exactly what I was thinking. I agreed and he ran off to his room to dig something out of the mess.

He returned in about 3 seconds, out of breath and holding a cheap plastic imitation of Robert E. Lee on horseback and a Civil War cannon. I pointed out that they didn't have true machine guns in the Civil War, but we would overlook this for the purpose of the demonstration. He handed me the action figure and I placed it and the cannon next to a rather large pile of black beads from which a few of the fuses extended. I figured that three inches of fuse would take 2 seconds to burn, so I had at least that amount of time to stand up and take a few steps back. I neglected to recount the night before... when the warhead ignited IMMEDIATELY upon reaching apogee. Tricky Chinese. They had installed extremely fast-burning fuse in these things and that fact totally escaped me.

I squatted next to Robert Lee and gave a short eulogy. Doug laughed. I took the trusty Bic lighter and placed it next to the fuse. One flick got the lighter going and THIS IMAGE IS ONE I WILL REMEMBER FOR A LONG TIME. My hand holding a lighter next to a pile of explosives. There is usually a short but noticeable mental pause that occurs immediately before something bad or really stupid happens. It is where that little voice in your head says: "You dumbass."

The fuse burn time was in the 1/1000ths of a second range. The pile of little popper thingy's immediately ignited into a tremendously brilliant ball of fire. All I could think was "...th...th....thermite..." Unfortunately, when they are viewed at ground level, these little popper thingies become REALLY BIG POPPER THINGIES and have a tendency to jump up to
15-feet in every direction from their point of ignition. I instantaneously became engulfed in a ball of fire that sounded a lot like being in a half-done bag of Orville Reddenbacher's popcorn. It was all over about as fast as I could snap my fingers.

After the smoke cleared, Doug started laughing his butt off. That meant I was still in one piece. Doug does not laugh at dismembered limbs. He said I jumped about 10-feet, an action that I do not remember. I checked my clothes for burn marks, and found none. He checked my back to make sure it was not on fire. No combustion there. The driveway was peppered with black holes where the concrete had been scarred from these things. A close one. Another REAL close one. My mind ran the tapes again to re-hash what it had seen. All I remembered was being inside something akin to a 30-foot diameter ...... flaming dandelion. Whew.

We examined Ol' Robert E. at ground-zero. Instead of a machine-gun peppering, he got nuked. He and the horse he rode in on... and his cannon too. One side was untouched, but the other side was arc-welded. Real warfare. Doug examined it real quiet-like and then started laughing again. I assume he will remember the finer points of the lesson as he grows older. When I now speak of "almost being burned beyond recognition" he will have a slightly better understanding of what I mean. I hope that this vivid image tempers the knowledge he now has regarding rocket construction. Oh well.

After all, if your dad isn't gonna teach you how to get your ass blown off, who will?

Posted by: Ted at 12:46 PM | category: Boring Stories
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The ladies are gone for the weekend, trekking to the Great White North to deliver oldest daughter to the liberal mind-control masters of higher education. Fortunately, we've trained her since birth to be skeptical and cynical, so I think she'll survive the experience. A prof or two might have a rough time of it though. One can only hope.

So it's me and the boys. Two male dogs and yours truly, for a change the house reeks of testosterone instead of estrogen. Ahhhhhhh. So what's on the agenda you might ask. Non-stop porn? High-carb beers and corn flakes for dinner? A reenactment of my bachelor party?

Nay, dammit. Those all sound wonderful except this morning something happened to me that makes Freddy vs. Jason look like a Lifetime movie.

Kidney stone.

If you're on the ground, curled up in a fetal position, then you've had the experience. If not, then I sincerely hope you never do. Mine are the minor 'grain-of-sand' variety, and it's nature's way of telling me to drink more water. A lot more. So I've spent the day chugging cranberry juice (acid is good for it's disolving effects) and water and tea and anything else liquid, and running to the bathroom every ten minutes. The worst is over, I'm past the screaming and dread phase, and I'll be fine by monday.

Figures the girls are gone. No one here to 'aw poor baby' and listen to me whine. The damn dogs just sleep and do other dog things like lick themselves. Right now, I'm not even jealous of them. It's a karma thing I'm sure, because I couldn't score any new porn last week at work, and the only thing in the house are 3 ancient tapes that would probably disintigrate in the VCR. Not that I need them, I could probably recite the dialog on them from memory.

You know what? Even in the present circumstances, I have the house to myself for 2 more days. It's still a good weekend.

Posted by: Ted at 02:55 PM | category: Boring Stories
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