Black and White and … all over everything

Warning, attack of a black and white fur ball is about to commence.   It starts innocently enough, with a cuddly, peaceful, couch creature, fresh from a nap:

And then he wakes up:

And there is no stopping him:

We learned a lot this month.   How to get shots:

How to go for a harness walk:

How to go for bag rides:

How to stop and smell (and eat) the flowers):

How to sword swallow a Dyson hand vacuum:

How to sit yoga style:

How to get his daily grooming, a requirement for these long haired guys:

This is Helen trying to convince a skeptical BanTik into trying on snow booties:

It was a short lived effort … he limped around like a peg legged pirate for about 10 seconds before de-shodding:

He loves gallivanting around in the snow (without boots):

Carrying out a proud Winter tradition, he built his first snowman:

We helped a little:

Black and White and Red all over, the lips, twice.  

The young puppy energy was too much for the older Brown cat, whom we haven’t seen for 2 weeks, but the younger White cat has put up with the pestering.   He likes the cat food too much:

They are settling into a sometimes peaceful co-existence. 

After all of the above activity, which is usually repeated 3-4 times a day between naps, he crashes pretty hard … even an energetic gourd can not get him back on his feet:

And finally, if anyone is still reading this post and has not given up due to all the puppy photos, I’ll reward you with a non-puppy photo … it was the only one I could find!

Oh, and Goggle did a fun thing, auto-generating a year-in-review movie based on various pics and videos that had been auto-uploaded to google plus.   It does a pretty good job, with not human input on selection or editing.   It is the first first video here:

https://google.com/+BruceWinter/photos

Or more directly, via this link:

https://plus.google.com/photos/+BruceWinter/albums/5960994841064334001/5960994840550406978?pid=5960994840550406978&oid=106916156663153973757

Bruce

Bow Tie

Mystery photo … this one is significant:

No peaking for the answer below until you have have a guess.

Irena (Helen’s Mom) had ovarian cancer surgery last week.   Not much fun.  Boris slept on the pullout couch in her recovery room:

And Helen helped when and where she could:

Irena went home over the weekend where we hope she will make a speedy recovery.

 

I’m about to write a poem, titled “Pullup Timeline”

10 minutes to pick out a pullup bar

10 days to build up the courage to mount it

10 minutes to mount it

10 days to get to 10 pullups

There is a reason I don’t write much poetry.  I’m stalled at 10 for now, waiting for my stomach muscles to catch up.

But my leg muscles finally caught up to my standing desk!  Took about a month, but I am now a full time stander:

(if you zoom in on that photo, you can find a robot named Baxter eyeing a cute redhead named Chloe … Halloween outfit).

I moved the desk to be away from the hot/sunny windows (for sunny days) and closer to the fireplace (for cloudy days):

Nick got a motorized stand/sit desk also, just in time for an epoch record setting 1 week programing marathon, 120 hours of constant programing, leaving 6.5 hour a day for sleeping/eating.   1.1 million keystrokes and 1.7 million mouse movements.  That’s 2.6 keystrokes a second non-stop for 7 days.   His observations and a video here:

http://blog.nickwinter.net/the-120-hour-workweek-epic-coding-time-lapse

He did it for fun, working on their next project, Code Combat, which got picked for some prestigious mentoring last month:

http://blog.codecombat.com/post/64658141307/codecombat-in-y-combinator

 

My projects are a little less ambitious.   I played MacGyver and hacked some copper out of an LED light strip to convert Helen’s phone to wireless charging … it worked ok for about a week:

A clue to the mystery photo.   It peripherally involves this guy:

We interrupted his daily birding activity:

To ask him a question related to that mystery photo:

She thought about it for about 2 seconds:

And then reacted badly:

If you guessed that mystery photo involved a drink made from fermenting an alien life form in sweet  tea for 2 weeks, your guess, while creative, would have been wrong:

If you are brave enough to recreate, info here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kombucha.

 

 

If you guessed that they mystery photo was the nose of a doggy, then you would have been right!

If you guessed it was the nose of a 9 week old Coton de Tulear puppy, then I’m really impressed ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coton_de_Tulear )

After much deliberation, Helen decided she wanted a dog, so she interviewed some candidates via the internets and the lucky winner flew in from Oklahoma yesterday:

She verified he was a he:

And setup a kennel/box system for eventual potty training:

I’m in charge of training him in proper cell phone usage:

And Helen is in charge of cuddling:

Irena came up with his name … I’m still learning it.  Something like BonCheck, a Russian word for Bow Tie, which his black eye markings resemble.

And the cats??  They are staying pretty close to the exit:

 

Bruce

Cats and immersion diuresis

This months mystery photo is from our kitchen:

We are enjoying the last of this seasons flowers:

Helen found the last of some tasty grapes in Irena & Boris garden:

And the last of our cherry tomatoes:

That process (or maybe it was the brain surgery that she finished the day with) wore her out.   Meowskie (a.k.a. the brown cat) helped her relax:

Speaking of cats, the word apparently got out that free food was available and another cat has adopted us:

Helen named her/him Belyie (a.k.a. the white cat, Bely is the Russian word for White).   Meowskie isn’t sure she wants to share:

But we have have been liberally sharing the attention:

We had a visit from a family from CA.   Father is an avid photographer who had a lot of fun with Salt Lake City scenery:

Mother has MS, but copes amazingly well for being paraplegic:

Daughter is an avid swimmer: 

She invented and perfected the alligator slide:

For the last swim of the season, I swam 180 laps in 1.5 hours, about 2.2. miles.  I discovered my limiting factor is immersion diuresis filling my bladder (cold water makes you pee):

That mystery photo was a Sturgeon head that Boris found in a Chinese grocery store.  Some of use were a bit apprehensive, but it was pretty good:

I bought a fancy motorized computer desk:

This allows me to stand while working:

Even being in pretty good shape, so far I can only stand for about 2/3 of the work day.   Then I push a button and revert to ball chair height:

Last weekend I did a new route (14 miles!) to Black Mountain up behind our house:

I found this remote tree with a geo-cache called Morbid Curiosity, named so as the valley below is where 14 year old Elizabeth Smart was held captive for a summer back in 2002.  She was never found there (was rescued the next year at a bus stop), despite massive search efforts and being less than 5 miles from her home:

I found a bunch of baby rattlers all knotted up, trying to warm up in the sun:

My picture taking (with telephoto lens!) got them a bit excited.  These 2 went on guard duty while the others slithered back into their underground lair:

If you think that was scary, imagine a herd of these guys heading towards you: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE3fmFTtP9g&feature=player_detailpage#t=40

Bruce