As I mentioned earlier, Maya survived her trip to the vet today, and was not as bad off as we originally thought she might be.  Nonetheless Pat and I were both emotionally drained from the morning, but in getting home and seeing Maya tonight it looks to me like she had the roughest day of all...   more »

PHONE:	*RING* *RING*
CHUCK:	[glancing at clock] 9:40 PM? Who would call so late? [picks up phone] Hello?
JAMES:	Chuck?

...   more »

"Magic Happens" is something software developers say a lot. Usually when we are working through the steps of a problem and need to get past a point we haven't figured out yet we'll say it...   more »

I love this cat.  We've had her since 1990 or 1991 when we lived in a basement flat at the Lord Baron's Apartment complex in Burlington, MA.  When she was a kitten she would sleep on my lap, and took great delight in stalking and killing my sweatsocks, which she would then pick up in her mouth and drag awkwardly about, the sock running under her belly and out between her hind legs.  Maya has been a good cat for a long time, but lately she's been having trouble getting by.  Today we had to take her to the vet.  There's a chance she may not come home...   more »

Here's some pictures I took of a White-breasted Nuthatch the other day using the zoom feature on my new camera...   more »

If you haven't yet met Patches the Horse (4 MB video) you really should... he's quite a character...

I've commented before how stupid dogs are with proof.  And I have done so on more than one occasion.  Have a look at this picture of what my doofus dog did in plain sight of me.  How she thought I would not notice is beyond me...   more »

Thanks James for your last name-that-movie post. Good luck with mine...   more »

Okay, the new box is set up and is very cool.  It does appear to have one technical problem (Windows doesn't see the second hard drive), but otherwise I am very happy with the Purple Monster, as I have taken to calling it...   more »

Look for pictures later.  This thing is a monster!  Trying to figure out how I will fit it all into Vanessa for the trip home.

Okay, I was playing around with photoshop tonight trying to do something which I had dismissed as way beyond my skillset. Looking at the results, it's clear I was right, but still, I'll share it here because it is still funny. In a nutshell, I was always bothered by Austin Powers' taste in automobiles...   more »

The day is passed, the sun is setting,
And at last, it's time I'm getting
Home, to family's embracing ...   more »

So my new computer is scheduled to arrive tomorrow, and I am facing that with a mix of anxiety and excitement. What if it doesn't work when I receive it? What if some essential component I asked for is missing? Ah well... no sense worrying about that until the machine actually arrives. I figured the snow might delay shipment some, so I checked FedEx Tracking...   more »

Some time ago I was reading this article by Jody on the great Leominster-based blog The Big DumpTruck. She had just gotten her hair cut upon hearing that Brad Pitt was an available commodity and was lamenting his apparent thing for Angelina Jolie...   more »

Bloglines is being unresponsive and that was making Unbecoming Levity load very slowly.  I apologize for the inconvenience.  I have temporarily removed the bloglines subscription button, and the blogroll.  I'll put them back whenever Bloglines solves its problem.

The sun is out, the snow has stopped, the driveway is clear, the Chuck is beat.  Took about 2.5 hours to clear it all, not too bad really.  I'm sure that the plows have probably since filled in the end of my drivway again, but I'm not going to worry about that right now...   more »

Well, you can tell by the limp that's in my walk,
I been shovelin'--my driveway's blocked.
Blower's loud and snow ain't warm,
I've been chucking snow since I was born...   more »

So it's been a few hours since I was last out there. Figured I'd grab a ruler (or maybe a yardstick) and go back out and measure how deep the snow is... maybe take a few more pics. Unfortunately I couldn't do that, because my back porch is occupied...   more »

It's scary you know, only 4 hours since I was last out and the snow is almost 12 inches deep.  Further there is no trace whatsoever of the tracks I made earlier.  The wind is whipping the snow into strange patterns and sculpting it into odd shapes.  I added more pictures to the "They're Calling it a Blizzard" photo album.

Doesn't look like it is stopping anytime soon... and yikes is it freekin cold!!!