Thorn Season

Goat's head thorns are all over the place along the bike trails now and sure enough, as soon as D fixed my rear bike inner tube from one ride, it went flat again on the very next ride from another new thorn(s). The plant is a low growing vine that spreads along the edges of sidewalks and roads and eventually spreads over the pavement spewing its little evil seed pods that roll around on the sidewalk waiting to attack bike tires. After buying and installing a better reinforced tire and a new reinforced tube the bike runs way smoother now, and so I took it out for a ride. There's a new Bikram yoga place opening nearby (near the laundromat)so I went to check out exactly where it is and took some pictures on the way.

Luna is doing well and seems to be feeling better and eating and drinking less, all good signs. The shots are going well. I still hate waking up at 6 though.

Giving the Shots

It's going well, no problems so far. Luna doesn't seem to mind them. I am getting those annoying high school exam type dreams every night for the last two nights where I constantly dream that I am missing the alarm to get up, have forgotten the shots, lost the medicine, can't find Luna, etc. Very annoying. Hopefully they should go away when I get more used to this routine.

November Sunset

As I was working at my desk I looked out to see this sunset. It was too good to pass up so I climbed out on the roof, braced the camera on the chimney top and took some pictures. It was record-breaking-ly warm today. I swear it got up to the 70's.

Luna went to see the vet again today and we learned how to give ( and take) insulin shots. She had part of her neck shaved to make it easier for me to find skin. She'll have to have one injection twice a day, right after eating. I have been pondering what time to start doing it. It's going to have to be a strict 12 hours apart and so I think it will be at 6 and 6 so we can do things in the evening if we want without having to rush back home. That means setting the alarm at 6 each day.... She starts out with a very small amount and we see how she adjusts and then do tests in 3 weeks again. So now I have a box of animal syringes here on the table and a bottle of insulin in the refrigerator. Tomorrow morning she starts the routine. This should help with her excessive drinking and unending hunger problems. I hope it starts to work soon, but they said it might take a while.

Luna Again

It turns out she's diabetic. So I have to learn to give her daily injections. Today I go over to the vet and learn how to do it. Sigh.

Hawks

Recently I went on an early morning photography trip, and caught sight of these three hawks basking in the morning sun. Not being a bird expert I was not sure what kind they were without seeing more of the wings and tail from the underside.

Cold Morning

We woke up to our first snow fall today, a thin dusting that soon melted off. The cats lounged by the fire unaware of their impending visit to the vet. I got the small yellow blanket warm by the fire and when the time came I bundled them up in it and whisked them out to the car where the cage was waiting. They weren't happy, but since they are so thin I didn't want them to get cold. They stayed nestled in the blanket, and I never heard a peep out of Luna on the way. Luna has gone from 14 pounds a year ago to 6.5 pounds, a fairly life threatening loss of weight. The doc took blood samples but thinks she might have thyroid problems, or her kidneys are getting worse. At least she doesn't seem to have a tumor or anything super major, at least as far as we can tell at this point. Tests come back tomorrow. Spook was fine, hadn't lost any weight, and the doctor thought he was doing great, in spite of his problems.

Tonight the gallery Christmas sale has a grand opening and we will go and see how it all looks and how they've displayed my stuff.

CHICKEN TALK

Last night the city held a public hearing on whether backyard chickens should be allowed in the city. The proposed ordinance would allow up to 6 hens and would also specify coop size, distance from neighbors, no chicken slaughtering, etc. What an outcry of hysterical exaggerated testimony ensued. Property values will go down! The smell! The noise! The next thing you know we will have wandering cows running through the street like they do in India! ( someone actually said this). You know, it's the slippery slope - get one chicken in there and soon it will snowball out of control and we'll have rampant farm animals polluting the streets and meat slaughtering in every back yard.

And never mind that Boulder has extremely high property values but still manages to allow chickens. In fact, chickens are allowed in most major cities including San Francisco and New York, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles and many, many more cities.

But in fairness, there was also a lot of testimony that was pro-chicken, and much discussion about healthy, non-antibiotic treated eggs, self sustaining food growing, access to local food, educational benefits for children and so forth. I got the impression that the city wants to move forward on the issue. More hearings will occur in December.

Luna

Here's Luna, who hasn't been doing that well lately. She's getting old and I thought I ought to take a few pictures of her. She's due at the vet on Friday.

CELEBRATION

Dreams come true

OBAMA WINS!!! America is entering a new age.

!!!

FIRST POLLS CLOSE IN 15 MINUTES!

The Numbers

To get the latest constantly updated polls on how the election is going go to http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/. There's also a very interesting article on this website about many of the polls that do not use cell phone data in their calculations, and their resultant inaccuracies.

Almost Over

It was a busy weekend. On Saturday I worked for almost 4 hours over at the Obama headquarters inputting the data from the hundreds of walking and phone canvassers that worked that day. Over 4000 canvas visits were accomplished by the volunteers in that one afternoon - a record for our town. We fill in the data collected, and people who have already voted are dropped from the list, and new lists are reformulated for the next day. On Sunday there was a big campaign stop by former governor Romer, Pena the former mayor of Denver, Sen. Salazar and former Sen. Daschle at the headquarters. They drove up in a big Obama RV and were touring the whole state. A big crowd showed up. After that D. went out to put up an additional 50 or so campaign signs and then did phone canvassing. I worked at more data entry from about 3:30 till 8:00 in the evening. It was a busy day. Everyone is soooo pumped up. There is an almost hysterical excitement building up among the volunteers, but no one is slacking off. Volunteers just kept poring in. At one point they had more volunteers than they could use. We are witnessing an historic event in the history of our country and everyone feels it. The poor young guys who run the campaign office are exhausted and haven't gotten to bed the last two nights. I said to one of them - go home, take a nap. He said - not till Wednesday!