The most disability unfriendly city I have seen

As I previously posted I broke my ankle and am in this funky boot thing. Well just to make life a bit more fun, I went to see Harry Potter the day it came out and while at the theater I slipped on some junk they left on their floor and fell. I didn't want to hurt my ankle again so I put my hand on the seat to steady myself. The seat was shaky and my hand slipped between the seat and back, pressing the thumb almost double over backwards. I didn't want to miss the movie so I told Ken after we left. We decided to see if maybe it was just sprained so I waited to the next day to see the doctor. Over night my thumb swelled up huge. Well the doctor who saw me wanted me to go to a hand specialist. They were worried that I had hurt the tendons. The hand specialist said he thinks it is broken but its hard to tell.So I have to go back there next Tuesday. The pain is amazing. I am actually taking pain pills for it. I hope they do something soon. I am not sure I can stand this for long.

OH yes I had a sleep study done and have sever sleep apnea. I guess I stop breathing 48 times an hour. Wow.. Anyways when the doctor and the insurance get off their butts I will get a CPAP machine that I wear while I am sleeping.

Ken will thing he is sleeping with Darth Vader. Face mask, boot and hand wrapped up.

OK so back to the disability unfriendly place. Louisville sucks for people that are mobily challenged. I am using the knee scooter to get around. Going to places like stores is a challenge. I have as of yet, and I have used it now for 3 weeks, not found a single door that opens with the press of a button for the disabled.

Most doors are heavy and slim making it difficult to get my scooter through, I would not want to try a wheel chair. Many stores have stairs with no ramps for wheel chairs. One strip mall we use on a regular basis has no disability parking so I find myself trying to get the scooter out of the van while squished between two vehicles. This same strip mall has so few up ramps to get from the parking lot to the sidewalks in front of the stores I find myself parking a long ways a way just to be near the ramp.

When going out to eat I have found restaurants with disability friendly washrooms who have piled unused chairs in the way making it difficult if not impossible to get past them unless you are walking.

Oddly, even the place I rented the scooter from (it also rents wheel chairs) had narrow heavy doors with no auto opening on them.

I do get around but I can say its a pain. I would think that in a place like Louisville the ADA would have long ago made things better.

Big boot

I went to the orthopedic doctor and he took more x-rays. He put me in this huge boot and told me not to put weight on my foot for 3 weeks. after that if its healing well I should be able to put some weight on it. I have concluded that I do not get along with crutches at all. With that in mind I went out and rented a Free Spirit Knee Walker. It is called the crutch substitute and I love it. We had to set up the dog's ramp on the front steps to make it so I can carry it in and out of the house when ken is not home. I used it a bit today and it is great. no more sore hands/armpits for me.

Ouch

Well I went to work out on Wednesday after picking ken up from work. My legs were still sore from the weekend but I could walk again (I think I had a reaction to my Physical therapy) anyways I decided not to do any legs at all so I did upper body. What happened next is what I believe happened but I have no real proof. I did this exersize that you put weight on the system and then twist the upper half of your body while standing up. I stopped that exersize before I was done because of pain in my leg and took ken to the rest of the machines he wanted to do. I told him I could not walk down the stairs so we took the elevator and went to the change room. When I took my shoes and socks off my ankle was super swollen. We skipped the hot tub and headed off to the imediate care clinic. They exrayed and I have one maybe 2 breaks in the ankle. So I got an air cast and a referal to a bone doctor next week. Its rather odd because it does ache and such but there is no real pain unless I accidently move it one certian way. So now I am hobbling around like a fool on crutches. What a pain. Today we went to get some groceries and I got to drive those funky carts at walmart.

My ghost has visited again.

Well this is the latests in a string of odd happenings around this house. When we first moved in here we went grocery shopping and bouoght a ton of food. As always Ken carried in all the bags while I unpacked. When I had everything unpacked I noticed there was a number of items I had purchased that were missing. I thought this was odd and asked Ken if he had brought everything in. He assured me he had. I moved the bags around and even shoved all the bags into one bag, I had not missed any in the sea of bags. I went outside to recheck the van and nothing was in it. I came back into the house and there were 4 bags of groceries sitting on the kitchen floor. I asked Ken where he had found them and he denied having put them there. Either he was pulling my leg ot the bags walked in on thier own. Rather odd.



Next my inlaws were over visiting and had left the previous day, my ferrets were playing in a plastic bag from the pharmacy I think it was. when I went to lift Finn out of the bag I noticed a photo in there. No one I had ever seen before. Thinking my inlaws may have dropped it I send them a scan of the photo and they had never seen it before. I suppose the ferrets could have found the photo somewhere in the room. Who knows.

Then sitting in the middle of the living room with no dirt on it, and crumbling to the touch there was a collar. I blogged about the collar on December 10 and December 11th. If you want to read the whole story behind that.

Which brings us to today. I had been looking for the bottle of Pet Calm because I wanted to cut Corky's nails. I could not find it anywhere. I looked on my bed side table. I looked on the kitchen counter, on the fridge, in the kitchen window, on and around my desk. Nothing. After 2 days of looking I was ready to say to heck with it and just buy more. Its onl y $9 a bottle after all. Well I walked back up to my computer to do something and low and behold there is the bottle sitting in a spot on my desk it could not have been missed previously. I normally eat at the computer and it was sitting exactly where I put my dish. You would think I would have noticed it if it had been there all the time. A bit odd

Ken thinks I am nuts. I am begining to wonder myself.

Graduated

I got the news yesterday that I graduated as a certified dog trainer from the Animal Behaviour College. I wanted to get a certification behind my name to help with my Dog Training business. I am glad to have gotten it all done with. There is a course I want to take in Texas sometime, likley when I am in better shape.

My birthday

Well my birthday went pretty well. Matthew my middle son sent me the neatest looking dragon. The dragon is wrapped around a crystal ball. I just love it. With the dragon was a birthday card that had this voice on it. It really made my day that he remembered me. Normally Ken has to remind the kids, this year he did not.

Pasha sent me something too but thanks to the post office I will have to wait a little bit for it. I am excited to get it.

We went to Ruth Chris's Steakhouse and it was great. It had the best food ever.

Free Wow Pet

For you blizzard fans out there. If you sign up you will get a free ingame pet robot.

Worked out

I worked out again today. My feet are still feeling great. I have had no pain since I got the new shoes. I am still boggled at how much of a difference it has made in my life. I can just hope it keeps up. I am suppose to go to physical therapy next week for my feet but I am not sure I will need it. I will go the first time to see what happens.

I also got an appoint for a sleep study on the 27th. That should be interesting. They want to find out why I wake up so much at night and why I fall asleep at weird times. I hope it helps the problems.

Tobias helped me with my business cards to change the address on them. Stupid me, I lost the file that I could edit and so he took the JPG and editted that for me and got my new address and webpage put on there. The webpage is HTTP://PawsOnPerfection.com but I am still fighting with dreamweaver to figure out how to make the pages so bare with me on that. (I miss frontpage)

I took my business cards into Staples today and the woman said they would be ready tomorrow. I was amazed at how fast they would have them done.

Things that make you go Hmmm

Ken and I were talking about things that people report to the police as missing or stolen. Its kind of funny because it really is not wholey based on a monetary value.

If I have a $500 cell phone and it goes missing I call the cellphone company and report it lost and curse myself for not paying for the replacement plan.

If I have a $500 car that goes missing I call the police and report it as stolen.

Same value different responces.

Again if I drop a $75 dollar watch that goes missing I mutter and curse and go buy a new one.

If a $75 toaster goes missing from my kitchen I call the police because I was robbed.

Ok maybe we are nerds but it was interesting to think about.


Another interesting thing is how good my feet feel in these shoes. I have had so many doctors and not one went "well how are your shoes?" Do they want us better? or do they want us returning?

And when it comes down to that What about the shoe lady that helped me. She watche me walk she stood me on this little metal device that messured me foot in all directions and then she picked shoes she showed me how they should fit. Hell she tied my laces! then she walked me walk in them.

We used to get service like this but that has gone by the way side. Now we walk into payless or walmart and look at millions of shoes and pick one out and buy it. What did we lose when we lost this type of service? I know what I lost. I lost about 5 years of my life walking around in so much pain I sometimes wished I had a wheel chair. Its sad, what we lost in exchange for convience.

Mashed Van

I picked ken up from work today so we could drive down to Fort Knox to get me signed up for Tricare Prime. On the way there I went to make a left turn on a side road (I wanted to check the GPS and what not) While I was in the turn some guy plowed his truck and trailer into the back of my poor van. I now have a mashed van.

What was annoying is I got out and asked the guy if he was ok. He got out and yelled at me that I didnt have my turn signal on(I did).-blink- Nice to see you are more worried about yourself then anyone else dude.

Aiden (the dog) was asleep and wokeup long enough to grump that we jarred the van while he was snoozing and Ken was fine.

Well the police showed up and took our stories and will be filing a report. I guess it happens. The amazing thing was ken called 911 since we didnt know where we were to call the local police and they pin pointed us from his cell phone. That is awesome.

We spent a fair bit of time walking around and my feet feel great. I am not useing the inserts and I have no pain at all. Awesome.

New Shoes

I went to a kick off for a program I signed up for called "Exersize is Medicine" Basically I agree to get in 2.5 hours of exersize a week. What was interesting was after the speach there was a podiatrist there. Ken had been bugging me to get new shoes so I went up to ask her if the kind of shoes i had was good or if I should look at a new kind.

As some of you may know my feet often hurt so bad I can barely walk. I have been to 3 podiatrists and 2 doctors about my feet as well as a store that sold these special inserts and promised to fit you properly. Anyways The podiatrist said she did not like the shoes and told me about a place called footworks. I went there directly after the kickoff and got some new shoes. I had been wearing a size 8.5 or 9 for many many years now. The women messured me and told me I was in the wrong shoe size and that I should have a 10EE. Bow was I shocked. I bought the new shoes and wore them out.

MY feet have not felt better. I love them.

High Speed Cable???

We have been fighting with the cable company here for a while (Insight Cable). In the evenings often at about 7:30pm-9:30pm I get dropped constantly. It can start as early as 6 and go as late as 10 but its normally within those 2 hours. We have bought a new router, we have tried without the router, we have made them change the modem and still it does it.

Ken called them and the phone kept cutting off his outgoing voice which is what happens to me on the computer. They are going to send people out to check out the line on Tuesday but the stupid thing is they send them out during the day.

There is no problem during the day and the techs will go 'your line looks great'. The only thing I can think of is that someone is running something in the evening that interferes with the cable signal. But that is just a guess on my part.

Valintines Eve/Day

Ken took me on a dinner cruise yesterday (February 13th) on the Spirit of Jefferson. He had thought it was going to be the Belle of Louisville which is a steam boat but even with that aside it was a nice evening. They had a buffet style dinner and music/dancing after and everyone got their photos taken as part of the evening. It would have been nicer as a day time cruise so you could see the scenery but I did enjoy myself.

On Valentines day we went to Sweet Surrender which is a bakery/vegetarian cafe. They have some of the best deserts I have seen. We had chocolate dipped strawberries for our desert after a nice lunch. I will defiantly be going back there.

Wysong Battle

I found a couple more things on the battle this morning. Here is a link to the pantant mentioned. http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5968569.html. Wysong also has a forum for people wishing to discuss this.

I posted the press release on the Everything Ferret forum as well as sent it to MSNBC. We will see if the big news agency contacts Wysong about this. It would be kewl to get it into the more public eye.

I just got this in my mail

I am rather annoyed to read this. I use this food for my ferrets. I have been trying to find out more information on this but have as yet found none.


==========================
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wysong Corporation
989.631.0009
989.631.9280
Wysong@Wysong.net
www.Wysong.net

NESTLE/PURINA VS THE NATURAL PET FOOD INDUSTRY
Midland, Michigan – Nestec S.A. (better known as Nestle), parent company of Purina, a pet food manufacturer based in St. Louis, Missouri, and Wysong Corporation, a health education and nutritional development company in Midland, Michigan, have filed suits against one another in the Eastern District Federal Court in Missouri.

The suits are related to a technology invented by Dr. Wysong in the early 1980’s to enrobe pet and human foods with probiotics – health giving organisms such as found in yogurt. Although Wysong did not seek a patent, it has used the technology in both animal and human foods since the early 1980s. Due in large part to Wysong’s educational efforts and product development, probiotics have become a part of the collective health consciousness of the public and food industry. Of late, many natural pet food companies have begun using Dr. Wysong’s technology as well.
Nestle/Purina obtained a patent granted in 1999 for the same technology. To this date, however, Purina has not incorporated probiotics in its own products. Instead, it is attempting to prevent Wysong and other companies from enrobing dry extruded pet foods with probiotics unless a licensing fee is paid to Purina.
A patent is not valid if the invention (prior art) exists in the public domain prior to the patent. The evidence of Wysong’s prior art for over fifteen years before the 1999 Nestle patent was granted is, according to Wysong, incontrovertible and ample. In fact, within the last few years just a portion of Wysong’s prior art evidence swayed a European patent review board to deny Nestle/Purina a like European patent. The decision was upheld upon appeal.

These facts have been repeatedly made known to, but ignored by Nestle/Purina in their suit filed against Wysong. Purina’s ultimatum is that Wysong either pay sales-based licensing fees (essentially, royalties) going back six years and forward into the future, or pay for expensive patent litigation.

Wysong, a small family owned company, is unwilling to pay licensing fees to the multibillion dollar Nestle/Purina for what amounts to Wysong’s own invention, and consequently now finds itself being sued by a company literally hundreds of times its size. Purina takes the position that since they were granted a patent they have a right to enforce it.

Wysong argues that the patent should have never been granted, is invalid and unenforceable, and that any attempt by Purina to use the threat of litigation costs to force licensing fees is unethical and illegal. Since Wysong publicized and used the technology in products distributed nationally for more than 15 years prior to the patent, Wysong claims that the patent holders copied Wysong art and did not reveal this to the patent office when filing. Thus, Wysong has either filed or is exploring the filing of claims against Purina for Sherman Act violations/patent misuse, misleading the United States Patent Office, failing to comply with the U.S. Patent Laws, including 35 USC §101-103, 111-113 and 133, improper attempts to monopolize the market, unfair competition, antitrust violations, false advertising under the Lanham Act, state claims for deceptive trade practices, RICO violations, and punitive damages under the Clayton Act.
Wysong Corporation

Purple George (Tobias named the blog today)

While playing World of Warcraft Tobias tried to kill me. I was laughing so hard I had an asthma attack. I have heard of epilepsy with lights from games but not ashma from laughing at games. I think I should sue Blizzard! With my luck they will just tell me to delete my WTF folder and that the problem is on my end.

For dinner we went to the word famous Genny's Diner. Why its world famous I don't know. I guess a movie was shot there. It was pretty good but I would not classify it as spectacular.

Its your typical diner, minimalist decor with a bit of dust and grime where the cleaners don't normally look. The bathroom floor was filthy, it felt like someone spilt a coke on it and didn't clean it up. A large fish tank is prominent as you enter the diner which was kind of nice at first but watching mondo sized gold fish trailing fish poop behind them kind of kills the appetite

The hamburgers were much too big. In fact all the food was too big and there was no options of smaller sizes. Oddly when we went in there, they had no sugar or honey. I don't use it but I did find that an odd thing to run out of. There is a Kroger's down the way if you cant get your supplier to deliver some go to the grocery store dude you are a restaurant.

Interestingly the coffee cups look like they were taken off the shelf at someones home. Cups with pictures of someones kids on them saying 'I love mommy'. Mine had a huge crack in it which was not to nice but I did chuckle at the down home feel of the cups gave.

They had one interesting food there, fried pickles. I know it sounds gross and I was expecting it to be so. But in reality it was very good. I really enjoyed them. the food was lacking in spices, maybe they ran out of those as well as the sugar. So my take on it is clean the bathroom floor, add some spice to the meals and make a smaller size. The staff were really nice. I did enjoy that. And the unrushed relaxed atmosphere was pleasant. So I think out of 5 stars I would likely give it a 3.

After dinner we went to restock the groceries that we had to throw out due to the power outage. We tossed out much of the food with the exception of the meats which we are feeding to the dogs. With the exception of Sirus, they will eat anything. Sirus will eat it if it meets his expectations which if 'prepared by a 5 star chef who is trained in the art of cooking for the Canis lupus familiaris.

We were down to eatting pop tarts, canned soup and dog food so I (read Ken) decided it was time to get more food in the house. I got a new cookbook during the power outage I am sure I could have made the dog food taste good given half a chance.

Shopping was an experience in itself as I had to walk around while in pain. I must of turned funny at the diner and hurt my back. It was not a pleasant time shopping. Mind you I rank grocery shopping just above getting a root canal and below scooping dog poop off the lawn.

I also have been hearing from my kids a little more which is nice. Sometimes I feel like they have fallen off the face of the earth. They all seem to be doing well which is nice to hear.

Rob, a fellow from Kens work taped the sounds of the ice storm. I put them to some photos from the storm. Many I took, others I found on the net. Enjoy.

A full day of power

I know this is the third post today but I just have to say its nice to have power again. I moved the animals back to their normal sleeping spots. It will be nice to be warm all night long. And there wont be any getting up in the morning to stand outside freezing while I pour gas in the generator.  That really was the worse part I think. Having to stand in the cold filling that thing up. The new gas cans all have safety protection on them and it is almost impossible to use them to fill the tank. You have to press this or pull/push that its stupid.

I had to throw out almost all of our food. It had all gone bad. We wont go shopping again until we know for sure we are not losing power again. But I will sure be happy when I can make dinner at home instead of having to live on fast food. I figure we lost about $150 - $200 worth of food.

Cable tells me they had us ‘booked’ to rerun the wires for our phone and internet tomorrow. This is not what they told me when I called earlier in the day but the fellow this evening assured me that it had been ‘booked’ so we will see if I get any internet tomorrow.  I have to go fax some stuff for the insurance so I hope that they get done early.

Downloaded Windows Live Writer

Well I downloaded Windows live blog. We will see if maybe I can write the blogs while offline then upload them when I get a link.

One thing I hate about windows Live is when you want to download something from them, like this blog writer, it forces you to update the other stuff on your system. There is no “would you like to” it just does it.

I hate the new windows Live messenger with a passion. The sounds don’t work or if/when they work they are so soft you can not hear them anyways, I end up miss most of the messages I get. Even with Vista’s ability to turn up sounds on individual programs it does not work. I really don't know how the rest of the program works as I never got past that bad bit of coding.  I went on a search to find an older version of MSN to install. Again They don't make this easy to do. They force you to use the Newest and Worst version. Thankfully there are some helpful people out there with the older versions

If you DO manage to find an older version of messenger to install good luck trying to uninstall the newest one. You wont find it in the add/remove programs and you wont find a nice polite link in your  start menu. After searching my computer i found:

C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Installer\wlarp.exe

Which will let you uninstall parts of windows live like the messenger. Way to make it easy to do Windows Live Team!

Ok I am done cranking for the now. I am sure  I will continue later :)

Wired now for the power

Well the electrition came by and re-wired the stuff that was broken. He told us we had a burned out breaker box so that is new and the box outside on the wall of the house where the power comes in is new. Now we just wait till the power company comes by and hooks us up. We are hoping it will be today. I found an unsecured network when I turned on the computer today (via a surger protector and the power bar) so I got online to do what I can while I have the line.

The house has been so nice and warm the last 2 nights that I have actually been too warm in the evenings. its awesome. Of course the generator gets turned off over night so its chilly when you get up but not anything like when we were just running heaters. I can not thank Dave and Betty enough for coming over to get us hooked up like that. I never thought I would be warm again.

The animals are doing ok. Sirus is going stir crazy but he is holding up pretty well. I moved the ferrets back upstairs. its warm enough for them up there and they have both halves of the cage now that strabo is gone so they can get some playing in, even if its in a small area till we get power. Corky is happy where ever there is heat and just loves the fireplace. When we had the space heaters I kept having to get him off them. He does not underestand that a space heater is not a heating pad and you dont lay on them. The fireplace is up a little step so at least he does not crawl into there. He does get as close to it as he possibly can. And Aiden is Aiden he takes it all in his stride.

The Frigid South

Well it’s been an interesting week here in the “Frigid Zone” When we moved to the south we were all happy we were leaving the severe storms behind. No more wind storms and weeks without power etc. It might be a tad warm in the summer but it would be better weather. Yeah Right!

Well I blogged how we drive into Ike when we first arrived here. Now we have the joy of being in the middle of an ice storm. It started out as the worst storm in 13 years and has now been upgraded to the worst storm ever. Are we luck, we get to make history. So here is a rundown on how the week has gone. Forgive me if I get some things out of order I have not been writing them down as I should have been.

Tuesday we had a ton of snow fall Ken had been out by the bus stop and it was freaky out there. When I opened the door I could hear nothing but cracking ice. He came back in the house and said to heck with it, he called in and decided to work from home. APH sent everyone home at noon anyways so it was just as well he didn’t go in. The roads were a mess. I ventured out after noon to get some stuff from the grocery store and that was about it for us. We stayed snuggled up in the house thankful we had power. When I went to bed I shut my computer down in case we had an outage. It turns out it was a good thing to do.

Wednesday we woke up to a power outage. Ken called work and they said there was no work that day. We spent the day covering doors with blankets and moving the animals to the dining room area. We left the ferrets upstairs and just covered the cage as it was not that cold. We snuggled under the blankets and stayed warm.
Thursday ken got up for work and went to the bus stop. The bus company assured him the buses were on time and he waited and waited out there. Finally frozen he came back into the house and woke me. I got up and drove him to work. After dropping Ken off I went to Lowes to see if they had any generators. There was none there but the fellow I asked told me that he heard Home depot had some. I jumped in the car and headed off. I was lucky enough to get a Generator but of course there were no heaters around. If I had not had to drop ken off at work we would have missed out. Someone was watching over us. I also could not find anything bigger than a 2 gallon gas can. So I got 6 of them. When I got home with the generator, Susan the lady from the next door asked if I wanted help to unload it. She had the idea we would slip it out of the car and then slide it on some cardboard. While she was getting cardboard Bob the other neighbor came over and between the three of us we got to the house. While we were doing that a couple more came over and we got it up the stairs. I set it up inside cause it was cold outside and then took it out later in the day after I had gotten some gas and could lock it up. I had a small heater from Canada I used to use under my desk to keep my feet warm. It was old and didn’t put off near enough heat to heat the room but it took the chill off and for that we were thankful. Ken Called Jan the previous owner of the house and asked about the fireplace. It had not been cleaned in about 15 years so we did not dare to use it. Ken spent the day calling around for space heaters but no one had any.
Kens parents decided to drive down here to bring us a care package. They would leave their house on Friday, stop about 100 miles away for the night at a hotel then come in on Saturday, stay the day then leave Saturday evening and stop at the same hotel and finish driving home on Sunday. Insane people but boy do we appreciate them. I could not find heaters, winter boots for ken, blankets or even presto logs in case we did get the fireplace going.

Friday I put in a call to the vet as I was worried about Strabo. The vet upped his medication a while back because his stomach had started to swell again from the backed up fluid from his heart. It was not only ‘not working’ but it was looking worse. I made some phone calls and I got a hold of a chimney mane to check to see if we can burn logs in the fireplace. He agreed to come out on Saturday. I went out before picking ken up from work and wandered around the stores to help stave off insanity of sitting around the house. While I was out I found some space heaters at Walgreens of all places. We got the last 2 there. It would be warm in the house that night. When I picked up ken we got more gas for the generator and headed home. Pulling into the drive way we found the neighbor’s tree had dropped another branch and this time it tore out our power and cable lines. This is annoying more because they know the tree is dying and they refuse to take it down. We could not close the gate because the power line was on the tree that was against the gate so we walked the dogs to potty that night. The vet called back before supper and started talking about putting needles in Strabo’s stomach ton draw off the liquid and it ‘might help’ for a while. I said no at that point it would be keeping him alive for me, not for him. There would be no quality of life for him. So we decided to put him to sleep. I could not wait to do it or I would find some reason to talk myself out of it. I am not strong like some people who can take a weekend to say goodbye. So we made the long drive to the vets. And we held him as he drifted off. There were a lot of tears and it was very hard to say good bye to my little baby.

Saturday Ken’s parents showed up and they helped up to get the furnace hooked to the generator so we get a little heat in the house. The blowers don’t work as good as if it was on electricity but they work and we are warm again. The chimney guy found a critter living in the chimney. Much as I regretted evicting the poor raccoon we did need our fireplace so off he went to find a new home. I hope he could find a new rental. Ken’s parents bought us 4 cases of presto logs to burn in the fireplace which helps even with the furnace going. Ken’s parents got us both winter boots. I had been using my hiking boots, Ken got a winter jacket and we got more blankets then we can shake a stick at. We also got a small electric burner for cooking. We had been using a Colman stove in the house (yeah I know bad bad) we got another heater from them and just tons of stuff that I can’t remember. The vet’s office sent us a bouquet of flowers for Strabo. That was sweet of them and I will have to call and thank them. Of course today we go out with the parents and we see everything we could not find previously LOL make us look like we didn’t even try to look around. The rest of the block got power today. Thanks to the neighbors tree we did not get any. I am still trying to get a hold of the insurance company. It might be Monday before I can do that.

Sunday The electrician called today. He has our parts so I can hope that we can get power by Wednesday or so. Internet by Friday. I am posting this from a local restraunt so I could check my mail. I will make updates as I can.

Sirus and his stomach problems.

Sirus has not been going to the bathroom well for a while now. About a week ago he was badly constipated. He got to the point were he didn't want to even eat but showed no other signs of being sick. We took him to the vets this week and they did X-rays. There was what looked like a bone in his colon. The vet thought that it should come out on its own and gave him a couple of enemas then sent him home with some stool softeners. Well we spent the next couple days searching his....deposits... for the bone fragment.

Now this is not a job I want to do. Thank goodness I had ken there. See I figured ken was better equipped to run his fingers through this since he is used to reading braille. Now envision this. I send a blind guy out to the yard (I was nice enough to lead him to the pile of crap) which rubber gloves and let him run his fingers through the deposit to see if there is any bone fragments in the pile.

We did not find it and ended up taking him back to the vet on Saturday to see what the X-Rays showed. It seems the bone or what ever it was is now gone but no idea why he is still not eatting. The vet did some blood work and his white blood cell count was slightly high. The vet gave him an antibotic shot and sent him home with some antihbotics to take over the next few day. So now we just hope the high blood cell count was because of an upset stomach and not something left in the stomach causing a blockage.

We got Our New Car

Well we spent yesterday getting the RV ready to trade in. I woke up today (Monday) and of course it had snowed. Just what I needed to do, drive the rv over there in the snow. It went pretty good. Getting out of the yard was fun, I had to turn the wrong way then go turn around on a small side road. But once I got going it was not bad. We got the RV there with no problems. the main roads where not bad with snow. It was rather funny watching them check the RV since none of them knew anything about RV's. They filled up the gas on the Rio and gave us a voucher a free tank of gas and a free oil change. This was to compinsate the full tank of gas the RV had. How nice of them they give us an 18 dollar tank of gas for the $175 worth gas that was in the rv. OH well we knew we would be getting the short end of the stick on this deal. I am just so glad to be rid of the rv.

New Car

Well we went out today and found a place that will let us trade the RV in for a new car. We are getting a 2009 KIA Rio. Its a small car that will work well as a run around. The problem with the RV aside from gas prices is that no one wants to buy it. We SHOULD be able to get 18k min for it selling it privately but with the present economy its impossible to sell. The other thing is it could cost us up to 5k to get the RV imported into the USA from Canada. So anyways we are getting our self a little blue Rio. It has satellite radio which we will get free for 3 or 4 months. It has like 8 air bags with something called a curtian that covers the side windows in a crash. It sounds kind of neat.

Bill Cosby

We went to see Bill Cosby last night at the Horseshoe Southern Indiana Casino. He was great. at 71 he still has it. I thought ken was going to die laughing. The only real draw back to the show itself was that we were packed in like sardines. But once you got laughing you didn't even notice it. I loved his ability to roll with the crowd. He does great on improv. Seeing him is something I have wanted to do my whole life. I am just thrilled to have been able to do it.

Before we went to the show we went and had dinner at legends, the bar/restaurant at the casino. The food was good but the 45 min wait kind of sucked. I was really hungry when I got in there. I had a martini, chocolate of course. Yum.

After dinner I went to the bathroom and was amazed/shocked to see a sharps disposal box on the wall. Way to say "go ahead and shoot up in public". Kinda weird in my books. Hell in vancouver people where complaining about a needle exchange program in some out of the way biulding. In indiana you just need to go to a local casino to dispose of your needles.

After dinner and before the show we went and gambled a bit. The smoke in the place was enough to make me nauseous. It is amazing that they still allow people to smoke in public places in Indiana. Get with the times guys! I don't want to have to breath that crap! I likely would have stayed longer but the smoke was awful. When I got home I jumped in the shower and scrubbed the smell from my body. And I guess on the bright side I left before I could lose all my money.

The Casino was only about a 30 minute drive from home. A pleseant suprize since I had thought it was closer to an hour drive.

German Shepherd Cross with a Horse

Well Sirus (My German shepherd) will have his 1 year birthday in 2 days. He went to the vet for his vacinations and such and weighed in at a whopping 90 pounds. The dog is still slim so he is not over weight. All I can say is Wow! He is doing pretty good on his obedience. I know he would do better if i was not lazy LOL but over all eh does well. There have been a few times he has gotten away from me (gate left open, got loose at a rest stop while traveling etc) and he has come back and I think that is the most important thing of them all.

I was taking him to a fellow that was working with us on the advanced obedience commands but when I got whooping coup he would not reschedual the appointments to make up for when I was too sick to go outslde. In his defense he did tell me ahead of time that it was '4 weeks' not '4 lessons' but I think for the price he charged he could have done a bit more. It was a place called Kentuckiana k9. The lessons where rather lacking also. I paid him $250 for 4 lessons and the lessons often lasted less then 20 minutes. He had a good reviewm on a page so I thought he would be ok but such is life. He kept pushing me to leave the dog with him so he could train it for me. Not what I want in dog training. I myself wanted to learn how to train the more advanced commands.

I would like to get him into agility but the vets are worried about hip displasia and I feel if that it a problem I will need to wait for a bit to see how that goes. He will be going for another xray at 18 months old to see how his hips look.

A lot going on this and last month

Strabo has been very sick. Back in November he came down with what I thought was a cold. This cold progressed to pneumonia really quickly. He was having trouble breathing and coughing a lot. Xrays showed a lot of fluid in/around the lungs. He was put on Antibiotics for a few weeks. After I think it was 3 or so weeks on the meds he had another Xray done. This showed the pneumonia was clearing up but oddly he did not get better. He was still coughing a lot.

I mentioned to the Vet it sounded like heart problems. They tried him on some heart pills and kept the antibiotics going. The heart pills really didnt seem to help much so we stopped them. Strabo started to get very weak and lethargic. He very rarely moved around and slept a lot. I was getting more and more worried about him.

I ended up planning a trip to NY state to see Tobias and was kind of worried about Strabo. Do I take him, do I leave him with ken... I took him into the vets one last time before I left to find out what I should do and the vet commented that strabo had been gaining a lot of weight and that this was not normal for a sick ferret. He should be losing it. So he did an ultrasound on him. It turns out his heart was in really bad shape. There was a lot of scar tissue on all the chambers. One chamber was kind of fluttering and that was what was keeping him alive. The lack of beating heart caused the fluids to back up into his tummy rather then be pumped through the body.

So the verdict turned out to be that he had Cardiomyopathy. They put him on vetmedin. The doctor said if it did not help him I may have to make a hard decision soon. Well I packed him up into his stroller in the car with Sirus and went off to see Tobias in NY.

It was not to bad of a drive. I left at about 10 am and got there at something like 7pm. It took a little longer then normal because of the snow and stopping to let sirus pee and such. It was quite the welcome. I got there lights were flashing and the whole area was abuzz with people. Sherie, Tobias's mother was on the way to the hospital. She had surgery a while back and the wonderful medical system let her out without making sure she had her medication. Blood retards.

Once we got inside Ed (Tobias's Dad) took Strabo over and instantly fell in love with him. I was kind of worried about getting strabo back. There was a bit of a pary on new years eve and we had a couple of drinks. I got to meet a lot of Tobias's family. An interesting but wonderful group of people. We spent the weekend watching movies and playing games. I brought my guitar hero with me and got Tobias to try it. The monster did a thousand times better then I did on my first time. It was depressing LOL.

During this time Strabo was getting stronger and stronger. It was great, he started complaining about being in the cage and wanting to play a lot more. I was so happy that he was getting better.

Ed made us some of the best stroganoff in the world. I got the reciepy but I pouted a lot when I lost it. I will have to get it again.

When I took Strabo back to the vets after returning from NY the vet said strabo was doing great. He does not have to return for a checkup for 8 weeks. He lost 5 oz of fluid that had backed up into his tummy from his heart not beating right. Thats a lot of weight for a little guy. He was back down to 2 pounds 14 oz.