Tuesday, September 10, 2013

DOS Attacks, Kitties, Painting, Dinner




Well now...I'm getting numerous (up to 100/day) alerts from my shiny new Netgear DSL modem saying DOS hits, that's Denial of Service attempts.  They are rejected by the software, nonetheless they do impact throughput rates when they all come at once as they do.  My ISP has been sent the alerts and they are so very casual about them, like the weather I guess...you can see it but you can't do anything about them.  Seems they can't even ID the sources, nor can I.  They are FAR better equipped to sort that piece of info out so I could at least contact the Abuse facility at the suspect ISP...but...no...they remain uninterested.

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The Kats, the ones you see above the page...they are nearly 3 weeks old, will be so tomorrow.  None of them weighs a pound yet (.5K).  All hovering between 8-11 oz except for the spotted one MOOCA who is but 7oz if that.  We have been supplementing his "natural" food with a prepared milk as a way to assist him but we are both unsure at this time if he will make it.  He seems energetic enough and suckles like crazy but there is no weight gain day to day. 2 others expired after about a week, they had no strength whatsoever and even though we hand fed them it was simply not enough.  Sad.

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Porch painting is going strong, not the color I wanted (dark grey desired) but we have 3 gallons of the stuff and a porch that needs it before winter hits so it's what we'll use for now.  If it looks poorly I suppose we could go buy something darker.

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Chicken Tacos for dinner, one of Kelly's favorite things and mine too!  Easy to make and delicious.
Our own small tomatoes, the yellow pear shaped ones, cilantro, roasted red bell pepper, onion and adobo sautéed chicken thigh meat.   Market tortillas, new brand to test tonight.

Take care!

Monday, September 09, 2013

Bowels? You there...answer please...Bowels? Bowels?

A little aside from the normal diatribe.  How often do you have conversations with your Large Intestine?  As you get older and stupider you will find that such conversations are more frequent and often quite intellectual.  I felt an uncomfortable gnaw in my gut yesterday afternoon, the first thing that happens to me is my brain goes on Alert status...something is Up...down there. 
Brain says "Hey you...Bowels?
Bowels weakly..."yes?"
Brain "What's happening?"
Bowels "Aw just PG&E".
Brain "Is it under control, you GOT it?"
Bowels "Ah...sure...I got it?"
Brain "Ok, you know your business, keep me advised."
Bowels "Sure Boss...I'll let you know if I need some help"
Brain" Alright, you do that..have a good afternoon."

After that...silence, then more gurgling and a burp, not a fart, a burp and a slight green tinge to it.
I went to the kitchen to set out the meal (mis a plus) for this afternoons dinner making event.  I had decided that I'd use the dandy Creamed Sugo I used last night for the pasta dish with the batch of White Shrimp I had in the freezer and do that over Basmati Rice.  The sauce was a dream, lightly creamed (I used Heavy Whipping Cream) regular Sugo (look it up online, use Fresh Tomatoes though for a milder flavor.  That with Hot Italian Sausage with Ziti made a lovely, wife and daughter friendly dish.  She objects to the tangy version of Italian Tomato Sauce recipes sometimes and this is a good flavorful answer.  Anyway, I laid out the Onion, Tomato, Carrot, Celery to be chopped for the Sugo addition to last nights creamed version.  To this addition I would again add about a cup of whipping cream.  Then Mr. Bowels spoke up.

Bowels "Brain, Brain...better sit down"
Brain "What is it?  I'm busy prepping dinner Bowels"
Bowels "I know, I know...but the PG&E has gotten worse, things are backing up down here."
Brain "Well Bowels, take control...tell the Legs to take you to the Crapper".
Bowels "I may no make it, too much PG&E, the pressure! The pressures going up!"
Brain "Well Fart and Go Bowels, Fart and Go!"

Off to the crapper I went licked split.  Got there just in time too!  One dump down and more to go!

Back to work,  Kelly prepped the shrimp and I used the head and shell to "Flavor-Up" the reinvigorated Creamy Sugo by a slow reduction over the next hour and a half, carefully minded.
The shrimp once shelled and cleaned (gotta, gotta, gotta! No sand and shrimp shit allowed!)
were placed in a Sous-Vide bag and an attempt at vacuuming out the bag went sour.  The lil' pump was working it's little pump ass off but there was no reduction in size to the tightly closed bag.
Now, this kind of thang has happened before when doing this vacuum packing craziness.  I can usually unseal the zip-like closure and reseal it, apply the pump and all goes well...but not this time it doesn't.  Amid my roiling gut and my new greenness I'm experiencing another failed sous-vide vacuum bag!  Damnit! Damnit! Damnit!  So I open the damned bag, clean the seal area and reseal the offending bag.  I apply the pump to the little area there by the corner and push the button down as I press it to the bag against the little ridges of Hawaii (Our Kitchen Island)...I make food on her northern beach.  There's no sand...most of the time...but lots of little ridges from the tile surface. 
You get the idea.  No go...I can feel the suction and hear it when I life the pump...but...no go with reducing the volume of the bag.  Shit! Shit! Shit!  So I just seal the bag, place it in the crock pot sous-vide bath AS-IS, weight it down with the Pestle from the Mortor and Pestel on Oahu (that's the smaller island just west of the refrigerator where the beans are kept in jars on the small beach) and set the temp to 131 degrees.  This should take about 35 minutes to cook. 

Bowels "Bowels to Brain! Bowels to Brain, come in brain!"
Brain "Yes Bowels, what can I do for you?"
Bowels "I gotta go shit again Brain...time out needs to be called."
Brain "I don't have time for this..." 

Nutty, nutty, nutty cat person...

Ok here's the short version...we trap cats to get them spayed and neutered (de-balled) by a group here in the county that sponsors such activities.  The scheme works as follows...we borrow 5 traps (we have one of our own), trap the cats with cat food as bait (canned works best), transport them to the local animal shelter for their various surgeries which are completed by vets, we transport them back "home" (which is where they were caught) and after a short (max 3-4 days) healing period are reinstated to the local herd.  We have done this to some 16 cats this year, it is a one clinic a month program with a maximum of 6 cats per ??? family ??? Sure.  That was our total for the first 3-4 months this year.  More to come.  How many are left un-neutralized?  Who knows?  Many, maybe as many as 20.  I know that 4 that frequent our cat feeding/watering/periodic trapping station on the front porch that are about to sprout kittens any day now.  We like cats, but too many cats are a burden to the birds in the neighborhood especially if they are not fed regularly.  Our neighbors supply some monies for food and the $20 USD per cat fee charged by the group.  We would do it without their financial support but we welcome it for sure!  Anyway...the month of July was to find us trapping once again, we had returned the traps to the cat person we obtain them from when we left to take the USA trip back in late April.  So we had to make arrangements to pick up the traps once again which we did.  Traps obtained, we baited them with small cans of wet cat food (ugh!) and awaited the gala SPRONG! SNAP! CRUNCH! of the traps.  Soon, over a period of 2 days,  the traps were full of lady and gent cats of the un-neutered variety and we were set for the great deed the next day, a Sunday in July.  Come Saturday afternoon a grey SUV drives up sharply and the lady that we obtained the traps from a few days before steps from the cab yelling "You can't do this!" "No, no, no" "This is wrong!"  as she steps up to me as I stand beside my truckload of caged cats. "They're too hot, this is awful!"  I turn back one of the towels covering the top of the cage and look at a cat staring up at me. "It's not hot, they're covered from the sun." I say somewhat loudly.  "Look" I say and turn back each of the 6 towels covering the cats much to the cat's surprise. They blink in response.  "They're fine, no heat stroke, they're covered."  She insisted "It's not good, it's not O.K., it's against the law!"
Around and around we went for about 5 minutes, finally in frustration and with her continuous vocalizations regarding getting them "out of the sun".  There was no sun, only the late afternoon shade of the house.  I began picking up the traps, spilling both food and water, and taking them into the front yard to put them in the shade of our front porch.  Until this time I was alone in this losing battle, her barrage about the nonexistent "problem" had me going her way.  Soon I was joined by Kelly who I know would not have been so bent by her pronouncements and...she wasn't.  She joined me with assailing the logic of this entire scene, now she turned to the reality of the cats themselves now with spilled water and overturned food containers and NOOOOOO...cat shit too!  Yes...cat shit too!  The stuff Kelly REALLY doesn't want on the porch!  The next exchanges, sharp as they were on both sides,  led me to now move the offending cages and their messy cat contents to the catalpa tree shade.  Kelly got fresh water and I worked to right the food bowls and renew the food situation for each affected cat. "Well take them with YOU" I said.  "There's no room" she replied looking at her SUV. Then she continued, "You can't treat them like this! This is TERRIBLE!" said the wild Cat Lady waving her arms furiously.  That DID it for Kelly..."Turn them loose" she said looking directly at me and I dutifully did as I was told though with some reluctance!  Shit, shit, shit.  "They'll die in the streets, some will have kittens," Kelly said to the over-zealous cat lady.  "If you hadn't been so strident", I said, "This wouldn't have happened!"  "There were lots of ways to tell me about this, where is it written?" I continued getting madder with every passing breath...not to Kelly but to the now retreating cat lady.  To the SUV the cat-person went commenting on how she had just called the lead person of the group, "Tell her to come over and inspect then!" I said.  Shortly Cat-Lady returned to the yard retrieving the very cages she previously said she couldn't take.   I watched her take one at a time and place them behind the back seat empty.  She mumbled something about Kelly under her breath.  I shook my fist at her, "Fuck You, Bitch!" as she stuck the last now empty cage into the back of the SUV.  I was mad...very. Then she said weakly  "I wouldn't fuck you"..." fading off as she started the car..."Fuck You" I repeated loudly..."Bitch" and she pulled away.  Ah, a nice ending to some tedious work...I came inside, sat down and had a beer and let my heart rate get back to near normal.

Why did I all of the sudden bring up this subject?  After all this was over 3 weeks ago, a week before Furry died.  Because the Cat Lady just slowly drove by eyeing our porch....shit, shit, shit!