A view into the mind of Kelly Adams

The loss of a friend in a grey and white coat

I lost a dear friend on Wednesday, November 5.  We lived under the same roof for over two decades, and the fact that he wore fur and occasionally killed and ate rodents in his youth did nothing to detract from our bond.  I’m talking about my cat, Tuxedo.

The Spring

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I first met Tuxedo when he was six months old, and I was thirty.  Irene and I had been living on our acreage East of Sherwood Park for a couple of years, and decided it was time to add to our furry family.  We went to the SPCA in Edmonton, and Irene had already picked out a funny-looking, emaciated female cat who had recently given birth (Sasha).  I was still wandering about, and walked past several cat kennels when I felt a tug on my arm.  A small grey and white paw was reaching out between the bars and had caught my shirt: I looked in this child-cat’s eyes and couldn’t walk away.  I unlocked the bars of the cage and took him in my arms, and that was that.  Tuxedo, née Sylvester, was mine, and I was his.  

There is some debate in our household regarding whether we adopted Tuxedo in the October of 1994, or April of 1995.  Either way, he was born in 1994, and to say we met 20 years ago is sufficiently accurate at this point.  

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Getting quantified: Fitbit Flex

Two weeks ago I purchased and started using a Fitbit Flex.  It is basically a set of accelerometers, some computing, and a Bluetooth wireless connection bundled into something you can wear on your wrist.  This little gadget won’t turn me into an athlete, but I’m hoping it might make me a little more aware of my astounding lack of activity.  And in the process, possibly shame me into moving a bit.

Fitbit flex

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Cat allergies: Elcee gets track marks…

Today we started on the first dose of immunotherapy injections for our cat, Elcee.  She’s had problems with strange acne-like skin eruptions on her face and chin for years, but the last three years (Elcee is ten years old) they’ve gotten progressively worse.  

Elcee

During her last episode, the rash got into her ears and around her neck and shoulders: she licked her hair completely off in those areas, and ended up with secondary (bacterial) skin and ear infections.  It took weeks of treatment to get that cleared up, and the vet advised that we consider allergy tests.  As it turns out, Elcee is allergic to a lot of things…

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My theory as to why some guys are threatened by “Geek Girls”

I’ve been a geek since before I knew the term existed.  I would say it probably started when I was about four or five years old, when my sister started reading me The Hobbit.  I didn’t truly “identify” as a geek until I was about 14 or 15, and it was part of a process of realizing I wasn’t alone.  I discovered that other people liked Star Trek, perhaps a bit too passionately.  There were folks out there like me that read Asimov, Tolkien, Pohl, McCaffrey,  Niven, Lackey, Heinlein, and the rest of the pantheon like a form of alternate truth.  People who saw the world through a slightly different lens, intensely, with a quiet (or sometimes not so quiet) passion. 

Given my long-standing sense of myself as a “geek”, my ears perk up when I see discussions of what the term means.  Of who is “in” or “out”.  Apparently there is some sort of brouhaha in progress of late regarding whether female geeks exist.  Some guys claim they don’t, or that many of those of the feminine persuasion who claim to be geeks are lying.  One recent article I read on the topic gave me much food for thought.  For that I thank the author, Sarah Kuhn: thinking is something I like to do 😉

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First month of 2012

Christmas is a distant speck in my rear-view mirror, and we are already most of a month into 2012.  I wouldn’t really say I have any “resolutions” for the New Year, but I do have some goals.  It is odd how the completely arbitrary change over of a calendar causes me to re-examine my life, but I will take advantage of it.  It is time to give some thought to what I want to focus on in the next year.

 

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Server OS Upgrade

I shut down the site over the weekend and upgraded / migrated to a new server operating system.  Kelly’s World was running on Mandriva 2008.1 prior to today.  As of now, the site is live on a Fedora 16 server.   My main reason for performing the migration was to get an OS in place that could be updated more consistently.

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And Jasmine too…

We knew it was a possibility, perhaps even probable.  But that didn’t make losing Jasmine at the end of May any easier.

Irene and I both noticed something wrong as soon as we came back from our week-long cruise.  Jasmine looked “puffy” around her chest, and seemed somewhat disinterested and dull.  After a few days, she seemed to be having problems breathing.  An X-Ray showed fluid and a possible mass in her chest cavity.  Fluid was drawn, and ultrasound performed.  The mass was quite large, 4 cm by 2 cm, and looked like a tumor.  The fluid drawn from the chest, which eased Jasmine’s breathing for only a day or so, was also tested: it confirmed the worse.

Jasmine kitten- October, 2010

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A million visitors in 8 years

I looked at the banner of my site today and see that Kelly’s World has broken the 1 million hits mark.  Whoopee, and so forth.

I would like to imagine that this number represents some count of real people visiting, but the reality is less pleasant.  I’d guesstimate that about 99% of the visits to my site are some combination of spambots and web crawling robots.  For those of you reading this who can comprehend what I’m saying: thanks for being a real human being taking an interest in something I have to say.

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