Office Reborn

This Thanksgiving thanks to a visit from SAM I was finally able to move my desk into the room that is supposed to be my office. The massive and heavy barrister's desk couldn't make it through the door, which is one of the reasons I cut a big hole in the office's wall.
I had to build a device to keep the desk from destroying the drywall at the bottom of the hole since there was no way two people could dead-lift the desk.
I also needed to pick up a second furniture dolly so we could move the desk from the far bedroom to its staging area in the family room. The desk would only fit in one orientation, and it cuoldn't rest on its curved decorative front, so the fronts of the drawer sections were the only viable transport points.
Once in the family room we flipped it on its 2" thick slab of a top and lifted it up onto my carpet-covered temporary shim.
After that it was pretty easy to slide it into the office and lower the other end onto the floor.
It actually turned out to be pretty easy once the plan was in place.

(My father is to thank for suggesting how two old and feeble men could maneuver the desk into place on their own. In gratitude I have made sure he wasn't one of the movers.)

The Seventh Day of Giftmas (7 of 12)

We all gathered around our massive red counter for the Dawn of the Stockings. This picture was actually taken by yours truly, so doubtless has many issues of composition, lighting, and et cetera.
Líle needed help with her stocking. She's such a gentle little girl when she isn't knocking people over at the door and licking them to death.
'Dolon, on the other hand, yanked out the best part of his stocking and ran away with it in about three seconds.

Painting

Recognize this? It is a section of our "turtle room" which is in the process of being transformed into an actual formal (and presumably generally dog-free) living room. To keep busy during his visit, my dad and I knocked off a bunch of things I've been pushing away. We kitted out our library, painted an accent wall in the living room and stuck up some molding, did some micro soldering on the canopy unit in my Subaru to fix a separated resistor, painted the downstairs bathroom some shades of blue and finally permanently affixed its seahorse handle which I got for NDM last Christmas, got the Altima running again, blah blah blah. I was too lazy to take pictures of the most exciting stuff (i.e. the micro soldering of a tight, partially obscured half-millimeter joint with a shaved copper wire).

Thanks, dad!

Visit Vittles (Chow)

The parents came for a visit last week and gave us an excuse to cook a few things we haven't for a while. The first night we made a deep-dish pizza with spinach and zucchini. It might look a little Abby-normal because of how the real buffalo mozzarella melts. Unfortunately, I went a bit overboard saucing it during construction so it was a little messy to eat.
After LEM left for California, leaving only seafood lovers in the house, NDM made fantastic fish 'n' chips out of some tilapia fillets. These are as good as any fried fish I've ever had.
We finished up with some seafood gumbo made with scallops, shrimp, krill, mussels, clams, and tilapia.
For desert one night NDM whipped up some cashew brittle. This is the second time she's made it and she has it down pat -- delicious.
To welcome LEM back at the end of the visit we made some household-first caramel corn. First NDM threw about a half cup of popcorn kernels in a covered bowl and microwaved it for about 4 minutes on high until they were almost all popped. Then she made a caramel sauce on the stove out of brown sugar, butter, and corn syrup and brought it to the soft crack stage. The sauce and popcorn went on a baking tray in the oven for an hour, allowing the sauce to bubble and cover all of the popcorn. I'm not one for caramel corn myself, but it was certainly the best I've ever had.

Dogorama (Pets)

Here's a mess of random puppy snaps, mostly from the last month. This lead photo, however, is from the distant past when we still had a microLíle. She's bigger than 'Dolon now.
'Dolon won't get on the hammock, although he's happy to jam his head through the ropes to get his licks in. Líle isn't worried about unstable footing at all, though -- especially if there's a person around to jam a paw into.
Here the dogs give thanks for the bounty they are about to receive.
Another puppy-Líle, sitting on her divan. She's three or four times that volume now.
Here's a current Líle -- although her hugeness is of course dwarfed in this photograph my Cylcopean might. This is her Cute Death Ray posture.
'Dolon was ecstatic to get another visit from my parents. He totally crushes on my father.
These are the kind of puppy kisses I try to avoid.
Nothing is more fun than a kong in a pool of cool, clean water...
Relaxing in their twin beds after a long day.
Farewell, puppies! Until next month!

Hypoallergenic Kitties

I am allergic to everything. Everything includes cats -- from my reaction, several times over. I also own cats.

Although I am generally opposed to the patronizing of animal breeders for obvious reasons, my wife and I own two purebred Devon Rex cats. They were pricey, hundreds of dollars each, and although they have a different appearance and temperament than most DSHs, what made them worth the cash to me was their status as one of three generally accepted hypoallergenic cat breeds.

• The Devon Rex is a modern cat breed identified in England in the '60s. They are named after their rexed (curled) fur. They are missing a standard layer of DSH fur and are light shedders.
• The Cornish Rex is another rexed kitty which was identified in England slightly before the Devon. They share the Devon's allergy-related traits.
• The Sphynx is another recent DSH breed -- but unlike the rexes is basically hairless. This makes them very light shedders :-) Sphynxes are harder to get in the US than the rexed breeds and tend to be more expensive. They can also leave oily patches on your furniture and clothing.
• The Siberian is a long-haired cat breed that is also anecdotally hypoallergenic. I don't know much about them; they weren't really available when we got our kitties.

Unfortunately, none of these cats are truly hypoallergenic. People who are allergic to cats are allergic to the DSH protein Fel d 1. Research suggests that the rexes and Sphynx do produce less of this protein, but they still produce it, and so they are still likely to provoke some degree of allergic reaction.

There are two companies who claim to be offering allergy-free cats. I do not know of any peer-reviewed science backing up their claims as yet. Lifestyle Pets and Felix Pets both have more information at their web sites. Their engineered cats cost thousands and thousands of dollars.
I've ultimately been quite happy with my Devon Rexes. They have great, dog-like personalities and desire lots of human interaction. These aren't fat cats that loll around in the sun all day long; even as they have aged they are still very active. They are also great (and very warm -- low fur, low body fat) lap warmers. I am allergic to them, but much less than to a normal DSH. If I pet a DSH and then wash my hands I'm generally fine, but anything more is pushing it. I can rub one of my rexes on my face for a several seconds (don't ask) and generally suffer no ill effects.
Today, if I were going to get another supposedly hypoallergenic cat, I would go to a rescue rather than a breeder.

My Mom's Kitchen (Chow)

My mother's been busy improving on our recipes. Presumably it is my dad's fault that the pictures of her food are better than my pictures of our food. Above she's done some mild seafood enchiladas, while below she taunts us with some scalloped potatoes and an apple-gingerbread casserole that I've never had before but sure looks good.
This kind of casserole is, I think, based on traditional Scottish recipes. The Joy of Cooking has one accessible recipe -- we may have to try it for ourselves.

Criminal Indulgences

Well, egged on by my father during his last visit, we (by which I mean I) finally pulled the trigger and replaced our CRT with something flat and sexy. What came out of the box is the largest 1080p LCD which will fit in the 43" throw of our old wall unit thingy.
In its cage, it looks like this. Not very impressive in a snapshot, but the picture is a big difference over our last TV, especially from its DVD input (not shown). We need to find some sort of furniture or something to fill the new void beneath the television, and route some of the cords to make them less visible.

One day, we may have something better than a 480p signal to feed this thing!

Unidentified Spider

I noticed this really pretty yellow, white, and black spider in the bushes by our front door when my parents visited this weekend. It was neat enough that I broke out the real camera and the real macro lens, which I normally don't mess with. After I butchered some shots I made my dad lie on his back and take some good ones. Above is the spider's hood; the shot below is its undercarriage.
It appears to be the female of some species of Argiope orb web spider.

Amazon Upgrade (Reblog)

While following up on some new Amazon-Tivo cross-pollination today, I somehow failed to stumble across this nifty Amazon feature -- but my dad was nice enough to point it out to me. This is an interesting service that, for an additional fee, gives you permanent electronic access to books you purchase through Amazon. Depending on the cost, I can see this being well worth it for many types of reference books. Alas, the selection is currently rather limited (none of my past book purchases are eligible for Amazon Upgrade).

Amazon has a sample to look at if you are interested. Searching, bookmarking, note-taking, it all looks pretty slick.