Old Journal Entries

• 3/10/2004
  Yeah, leap year and even the extra day didn't help me make a journal entry for February .. but no matter, long summary now, and then tremendous news ..

  The travel part of February was basically busy, first thing after we got back we had to head to LA to pick up Cricket (nee Crichton) that went well, except for when Gilbert pecked Mason and made him cry, even still he was a good sport and wanted to play with G later in the day. Don't think that G'll be welcome down there anytime soon though. Cricket was pretty quiet the whole trip back. I should note that we were calling her Crichton for the first few weeks until the DNA tests said he was a she .. hence the name change.

  In any case Cricket is settling in well, a bit chatty in the morning, and, in fact, she doesn't like to be away from us when we're in the house. Unfortunately she's very hand shy so we haven't been able to get her into the bigger change since its traumatic to chase her into her sleeping cage for the evening, or when we want to take her outside. She's taken to liking the deck and the other birds as well as learning to handle a shower. More later, and pictures too.

  Over valentines day weekend was the San Jose NAGVA tourny, Tj asked me to set for his KDB team, it was pretty fun, but exhausting. The thumb held up pretty well and I could really tell that the weight loss helped .. but we didn't do all that good, managed to knock off the #3 team in tourny and then lose 2 straight to finish the day early .. at least one of our losses was to the eventual BB winner. The good thing was that I made some new friends to play ball with in Seattle when I visit.

  Speaking of weight, not much change, staying steady at around 195lbs but seem to be able to run/play longer and faster .. and the clothes are looser too. I hope its the fat to muscle conversion and not just the end of the weight loss. Unfortunately the ankle's still getting sore, so I'm fairly sure that surgery in May is going to be a reality.

  Its almost tax time, and that means my "pre refund" spending spree .. I ordered a 42" Plasma TV (JVC) when I was in Seattle and an articulating wall mount arm (Peerless PL1) .. hopefully it'll get here soon ... it was priced nice, and now there's a shortage .. at least George (at VideoOnly) is keeping track of it for me until the local (San Mateo) store gets it in for me to pick it up.

  Next up will probably be a cage or two .. we'd been looking for a Gilbert companion bird for so long .. then Cricket showed up and it looked like a good plan .. however right after we decided to adopt Cricket we were offered another caique, it sounded really socialized so we thought we'd take a look. His name is Cracker and he's a White Bellied Caique (orange head, tan beak and feet) whereas Gilbert is a black headed caique (black head, beak and feet). Elena checked him out while I was gone, she said he was really sweet and I was kinda surprised that she didn't just bring him home. The next weekend we wandered over to visit with Gilbert .. surprisingly G just ignored him (usually G's pretty agressive) whereas Cracker seemed to want to cuddle all the time. This is the closest thing to a feathered cat that I've seen, really soft, very sweet and really didn't bite (especially compared to Gilbert). There was a bit of "beak fencing" whe we put them both on Cracker's perch but G was still not the agressor .. in fact it looked like Cracker just wanted to cuddle and Gilbert just wanted more personal space.

  Then last weekend we brought Cracker home to visit, kind of a trial period, we were hoping that Gilbert wouldn't get territorial in the house, and surprisingly he didn't. Compared to G, Cracker is very low maintenance, he'll just sit around and eat and not be so needy for attention, and yet is very affectionate and cuddly .. it was a blast to see them all outside on the patio .. Cracker and Gilbert playing in the tree, and Cricket in his cage, and all of the wild birds visiting the feeders. Elena's mostly worried that 3 birds is too many, especially when she's home alone, but I figure we can always leave 2 at home to keep each other company and take the third one (usually Gilbert) out for a field trip. That and she made me promise to help more around the house with the birds means that after my next set of trips we'll be bringing Cracker home to stay. The only odd thing about him is that he has a crooked beak, which may explain why he's so gentle when he tries to bite (it's almost like he's gumming my finger instead of biting) anyway that'll just take regular vet visits to grind back and he seemed to like the food we were feeding the rest of them.

  So much for the travellog .. on to the grand news, well its grand to me, most of you might not even care ;) Most who know me well, know that my best friends have always been female. That started back in high school, and continues to this day. But lets go the long way first ..

  Back in the internet boom days there were all kinds of free services, one of them was highschoolalumni.com which became reunion.com and classmates.com, eventually many of these services became pay services .. but oddly they'd still send you updates if you were signed up when free .. Every so often I'd check these updates just to see if there was anyone in one of my (near) high school classes that I wanted to catch up with (Cleveland/Franklin 77-80) This time there was quite a surprise, one of my best friends through high school, Mair was registered under her full, married name.

  I'd lost touch with her in the mid 80's when she got married and moved to NY, when I was there in the 90's for work I tried to look her up to no avail. Every year or so, I'd spend some time on a web search trying to see if I could find her, and there she was, or was it? The registration seemed correct, but it was her formal first name (that she hated) and married last name (which wouldn't surprise me). Of course paying for the service and getting the info would've taken all the fun out of it, so the more intensive web searching began. First I tried around Seattle, thinking she might have moved home after her mom had passed away .. I found some likely candidates, but they didn't seem to match the info from the NY search I did .. there was a artist with her name, and middle initial, it seemed much more likely, but the last NY reference was 2002.. so I sent off a feeler email (that bounced) and then another (that didn't bounce) and started looking closer .. when I got to the actual art, well I could just tell it was her, so another short note and after 3 hrs of searching I went to bed.

  Today, it was "happy, happy, joy, joy" she answered, it was her, she was surprised and happy too.. there is soo much to catch up on, that we've been busy emailing, and I might not be sharing that info ;), I'd been wavering on going to my cousin's wedding in Cincy, but it might be worth it to make an extended weekend trip to NY to catch up with Mair .. and maybe bug Squip in person ;). In any case if you want to see Mair's work it's at: http://newcenturyartists.org/ncad/NCADDetail.asp?UserNum=32 its good, but if you knew her back when, its even better..this just makes my whole year... now if I could just find Mardina too ..

Who are these people?

Old Journal Entries