The Boys

First a thanks to Eric Gee (see EGCSkates on the right) for clearing up a little skate history. I was pretty sure that I had heard somewhere that 5x84 was not as old as 5x80, I guess the big question, when 5 wheel skates first came out where they 80s, 76s, or something else entirely? That must have been quite a long time ago, I remember just after I got my first pair of inlines, Rollerblade Lightnings (4x76) in 1991 I saw a pair of Rollerblade "Racerblades" that had 5 wheels that were the same as the wheels on my Lightnings. I remember thinking, cleaning and maintaining skates like that must be a big pain. I know there are 5 wheel skates that older than the Racerblade, I've just never seen such an animal.

There is actually a pair of Racerblades on Ebay right now, my god do those things look awful, the hard exterior, crummy wheels, I'd like to think that a good skater on a modern pair of rec skates could do better than the same person on the Racerblades.

Anyway today I did not go to Scooters, at 7am I got to the car, and drove an entire city block, well actually I changed my mind about half a block from the driveway. The road conditions were awful, it would have been more sensible for me to cross-country-ski to Scooters. When I heard on the radio that there were multiple car accidents on the highway I turned around and hightailed for home, nearly getting firmly embedded in a snowdrift on the way.

Today was a day for sleeping in and catching up on my back issues of Scientific American. Speaking of which, there is an article online that discusses a Biodiesel Jet airplane, very cool, although it emits green house gases, a mix of 20% Biodiesel and 80% diesel produces 50% less green house gas than 100% petroleum diesel, except almost all modern aircraft (even helicopters) use Kerosene not diesel, so that was not as promising as it looked on first read. Common guys, use hydrogen! (Useless trivia for you, the fuel used by the first German jet engine? Hydrogen, using Kerosene is a step in the wrong direction.)

At the behest of senior management I wanted to discuss my cats today. One of them already has a picture embed here in the blog. Here is a really old image of the other guy:

Now his name is Kalubee and when we adopted him he was skin and bone, his tail has a bend in it, probably broken bones that did not set properly and he had some insects living in his ears that kicked up black stuff into his outer ear, it was really gross. Since then he's put on at least 10 pounds (about 5kg) the insects were taken care of with medicine from the vet and the tail well, that will always have the bend at the end. But it makes me feel a lot better to know that between my wife and I this fellow is in much better shape than if we had not taken him.

Its not say its been a bed or roses, about a year ago Kalubee got really nasty Gingivitis and ultimately the vet had to remove almost every single tooth in Kalubee's mouth. Fortunately the vet explained cats often swallow their food without actually chewing on it, which is why the uber expensive dental food we were giving Kalubee at the time didn't do a damn thing. Actually now that the problem teeth are removed Kalubee's been a much happier guy, except when we go to cut his nails, he does not like that. (We believe declawing a cat is cruel, its sort of like surgically riping a person's finger nails off. Yum Yum.)

Then there is Kilu, he's a very social guy. Whereas Kalubee likes his routines and does not much like to hang out with other people Kilu demands a great deal of attention, usually by rolling around in front of me. If that does not work he will walk up beside me and rub himself on my legs, yes I have nearly tripped on him many times while walking around the house. If Kilu does not get his required attention he will cry. I sometimes think my cats are more human than some of the people I have crossed paths with, certainly more dignified.

Every morning as I get ready for work Kilu comes downstairs to wish me well and every evening Kilu waits at the front door for my return. (Kalubee prefers to wait at the top of the stairs and supervise the entire exercise.) I can tell the mood of both guys by the type of sound, the meow or the pur have several unique variations, that they make. If the defining trait of humanity is our emotions, I am quite confident that cats are as human as we are.