Requirement #1: It should be well-hidden with a secret entrance that only you can fit into.
Requirement #2: It should provide good viewing of your nemesis, Mr. Squirrel.
Requirement #3: It should have enough room for entertaining friends, but not so much that they will stay too long and impinge on your personal freedoms.
We have a patch of daisies in the backyard that don’t quite get as much sun as they should, but I leave them where they are as they make a good location for taking insect pictures. I tie the daisies up after they bloom as otherwise they fall over searching for more sunlight, but an unusually heavy downpour this summer knocked them over despite my efforts.
Since we didn’t get many insects on the daisies this year, after they fell I was going to cut them down until I realized another creature had taken up residence underneath their canopy.
Nike’s world headquarters is close to where I work and every once in a while we are allowed to shop at their employee store. I hadn’t taken advantage of the opportunity before, the last time I needed shoes coincided with an opportunity to visit the Adidas employee store (their U.S. headquarters is here in Portland) and I picked up some running shoes and lightweight hiking shoes there instead.
This time though the opportunity to shop at the Nike employee store aligned with my need to replace my running shoes, and I bought two pairs of shoes, a traditional running shoe (Air Max’s on the left) and a barefoot-style trainer (Free TR2′s on the right). I’m not a runner, I just like the look and feel of running shoes, so being able to pick them up at a steep discount is welcome.
I set the shoes on the floor for a quick picture and was just testing the lighting when a certain someone sneaked into the frame. I didn’t like the lighting and moved them to a different room but when I tried to get Sam to pose in those pictures as well, he steadfastly refused. Even in the poor lighting this remains my favorite picture of the set, and I decided if I was running a marketing campaign I’d have cats randomly appearing in some of the product shots.
It’s probably best that I’m not running a marketing campaign.
Ten years ago I learned of the attacks from my wife before she left for work. I turned on the television as I got ready for work and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I turned on the radio as I drove to work and couldn’t believe what I was hearing. After work I sat in my window seat and watched the news in disbelief. I barely slept for the next two days.
Then one day as I sat in my window seat, Templeton jumped up into my lap and as I stroked his head he began to purr. He had a regular purr when he was happy but when he was ecstatic, his purr not only got louder but also had an extra texture layered into the mix. As he threw his purr into that extra gear I was overcome by how happy he was. My little gray cat knew nothing of the hatred one man feels for another because he prays to the wrong God or pledges allegiance to the wrong flag.
My strongest memory of that time is not of burning buildings but of a cat and contentment.
Templeton died almost four years ago but others carry on his tradition. Scout wasn’t a lap cat in her younger days (she is now) but she has always curled up on me as I fall asleep each night. Emma also wasn’t much of a lap cat in her youth but is starting to show signs of the calling. Little Sam, mercy me, he has been a snuggler of the highest order from the moment we met.
The picture above is how I wake up many mornings. That’s Scout on the left tucked up tight against my side, with Sam on the right curled up on my legs. Ellie is over on my right just out of frame.
The picture below is how I wake up every morning. Scout is sometimes elsewhere, Ellie too, but my first waking sensation is always the feel of Sam on my legs.
God bless the little ones.
I always knew I was one in a million! Or at least one of a million!
Yes, I was one of the over one million people that downloaded OS X Lion on the first day it was available. I’ve been on the trailing edge of Mac OS updates lately, I never upgraded to 10.5 and I only went to 10.6 when I had to because a software upgrade required it. But I’m as excited by recent advances in technology as I have been in a long time — including the iPad even though I don’t own one — and I love the direction Apple is taking its traditional lineup with Lion and recent computer updates.
I’ve only had my 15″ MacBook Pro for four months, but even at a month in it had become my favorite computer of all time (unless you count the iPhone, which would win by a landslide). The new laptop has all the charm of my previous favorite, the 15″ Powerbook, a computer greater than the sum of its parts. The new laptop is all that with greater parts, especially its quad-core processor and high-res screen.
I haven’t had much time to play around with Lion, or to read John Siracusa’s typically fantastic review of the new OS (it was his review of OS X 10.0 that first got my eyes wandering lustily to the Mac platform after decades in the PC camp, and his review of 10.2 that pushed me over the edge into buying my first Mac).
But so far so good with the new OS … well, there is one major disappointment: the name. Despite how closely the Ear of Cupertino bends to the Mouth of Irvington, Apple went in a different direction. Look I know Sam conjures up all thoughts adorable and snuggly, which might not be appropriate for a powerful new OS, but he’s more dangerous than any lion if you get between him and his food.
Just ask Scout and Emma.