Looking Back: Ultra Beasts

Back in November, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, there was another Pokemon GO local event. We had gone to Stufful Community Day, and it was a great event, with tons of players, and had gone out to another, Litwick Community Day, that was also supposed to have brand ambassadors in attendance. There were no brand ambassadors, and it wasn't nearly as well attended, but it was good.

This was the Ultra Beasts Arrival event, and it was held in Hollywood, in the evening. The amount of people admitted was supposedly limited, I think to 1,500, so we showed up early to try and get in. We find the place and get in line. As we are waiting, a guy comes along with the Ultra Beasts newspapers! Pictured along with the newspaper was my current buddy, a shiny shadow Pineco, which I have named Shineco.

At 7 PM the line starts moving, and soon enough, we've been given cards with the promo code, a wristband, and a WiFi log in. After entering the code (and restarting GO) all these densely packed gyms appear!!!

They had a couple of actual physical representation of a stop there, with a line if you wanted to take a picture with it, and not much else. Around 15 minutes before 8, they began projecting the countdown on the arch, synchronized with raid countdowns on all the gyms.

Once it reaches zero, they project an ultra beast up on the arch, and the gyms all have that ultra beast. Of course, the place is fairly packed with trainers, so the raids fill up quick, and go pretty quick once they start.

The raids are shorter than usual, and every 10 minutes there's a new ultra beast!!!

We caught 'em all!!!

The Road Less Traveled

Now the bonds are broken, but they can be re-tied

One more journey to the woods, the holes where spirits hide

~Bob Dylan

I've been trying to lead a less sedentary life. The transition to a desk job at my advanced age has caused me to pack on a few extra pounds. I've managed to get out and go on a walk several days the last couple of weeks. The constant rains ha been making it hard to do so.

At the beginning of the week, I went out to go on a walk. The first portion nearly always starts out the same, with a climb to the top of my street. It gets your heart rate up to start with. There's a little wall up there, and I'll usually take a little rest and catch my breath when I get there. That's how I started off. Just as I'm getting ready to head on, here comes another guy, heading the same way I'd been planning on going. I head on just a little behind, and when he gets to the end, he makes a left, the same way I'd been planning on going again!!! I don't like feeling like I'm trailing after someone, so I decided to go the other direction.

Going that way, you can do a loop on the streets behind our house, but at the end, there's a little short-cut trail to the next street down, and you can head down and across to the next major street over from there, after taking a little stairway down. I've gone that way before, but it feels like it's been a while. It climbs from there, sometimes gradually, sometimes steeply, until it dead ends into a park in a canyon, that I often get to going the other way, but on the downhill end. It has a dirt path through it, with a very steep climb at the end.

The foliage has really liked all the rain!!! The park is fairly overgrown, as are several areas around here. The path had been badly eroded, with a deep groove nearly a foot deep in several areas.

Just before the part where it starts climbing steeply, I came upon this wood nymph!!! Or whatever she was. She had a girl there taking the pictures, and a guy manning the light.

She was up on probably a six foot step ladder, and it was getting to be the part of the evening when it starts getting cool out. All that overgrowth no doubt makes for a great backdrop!!!

Birthday Delay

It's been more than a month since the younger's birthday. He was planning on inviting a bunch of friends over, and hanging out, mostly on the back patio. However, it has been one of the wettest winters in recent memory.

Coming up to the date he'd scheduled, it was going to be non stop buckets of rain that weekend. He let everyone know it was scrubbed, to be rescheduled on a future date. Furthermore, my wife had another surgery coming up, just a few days after the actual date.

Prior to the surgery, the hospital, in keeping up with the covid theater, required my wife to get tested, then isolate, along with the rest of the family until she went in. Not wanting the milestone to go unacknowledged, my wife got a cake mix and made up a cake. It's been a while, but I dusted off my decorating skills. He wanted his alter ego, Catnip, on the cake.

I added the medallion around his neck, because it was yellow cake, get it??? I put his new age in his favorite color, and had a lot of orange left, so I added radiation waves. I know, they are traditionally green, but who's to say they're not orange???

We gave him his gifts. I think it was last year we got him the game, 'Binding of Isaac: Four Souls”, and he's already gotten a couple of expansion packs, and we got him another one. Got him the funny cat shirt, also in his favorite color.

He also wanted this nine tailed fox necktie, and my wife found this other cool shirt.

Since there's been a fairly lengthy recovery going on, the reschedule hasn't occurred yet. More birthday to come!!!

Dean Domino Update

I made mention of meeting this fine looking fellow a while ago. He kind of stuck in my head.

About a month back, I headed back to see if the King of Swing was still hanging around the muffler shop. We pulled around back where I'd seen him, and got out and looked around some. Saw another cat, but Dean Domino was nowhere to be seen.

I was getting ready to head off, when my son said since we were already there, I might as well inquire with the guy from the muffler shop, so I headed in. The guy says, “Oh yeah, the lady at the shop on the end has been taking care of him!!!” and he escorted me over there. He tells the lady why we're there, and she, indeed has been taking care of him!!! She had him behind the counter, and he was curled up on a blanket, snoozing away his best life!!!

She already has several cats at home, and this little dog (I'm not sure if he was a 'shop dog' or if he goes back and forth with her) so Dean stays at the shop. She wasn't keen on taking him home, too, and said she may find someone who will give him an actual home.

Who knows... that someone may be me!!!

Looking Back: The Christmas Party

I've got a big ole' backlog of things I could post about!!! I was planning on sitting down and posting about our actual Christmas, but scrolling back through the pictures, I came across some of these, and did a course correction!!! Maybe I'll get to that one eventually, but until then, here's what I've got!!!

Last year, the company had their 'Holiday Party' at one of my favorite buildings, the Westin Bonaventure!!! They had Christmas lights strung up around the tops of the cylinders, very festive!!!

It had been raining, the start of what has shaped up to be a very wet winter, and it was chilly outside.

Got to see a lot of my friends who are still in the warehouse, and a lot of the office crew. It's always nice to see the people I haven't seen in a while!!!

Of course, you can't go to the Bonaventure and not take the epic elevators for a spin!!! The ballroom floor, where the party was being held, doesn't have any elevator stops, so we had to go down a level to catch them.

In the name of security, these days you have to have a room key to get higher than the first few floors. As luck would have it, we caught a ride with someone who did!!! Took it all the way to the top, and got to see the lights up close!!!

On the way out, we went by a wall that had several of the movies that had been filmed there featured.

Good times!!!

Frontier Weekend

Last weekend I did a coolant system flush on my wife's car. Interestingly, when we first went to look at the Matrix, I'd taken my scanner along, and the only code that showed up was for low coolant! Didn't give a check engine light or anything, and I'd never seen a code for that before, but there it was!!! Once, during summer, the coolant was low again, and when the temperature would climb, the A/C would stop working. That was the impetuses for doing a flush, it had gotten very warm out on Saturday, and my son and I were out in it, and the A/C wasn't working, and the temperature was up.

Anyway, apparently it has a very small coolant leak somewhere in the system, to the tune of around every 9 months or so, it needs more coolant. I had the thought to do the pepper trick, and might as well do a flush first. After we got home, I popped the hood to let it cool down, and went out in Scruffy to get a bottle of cooling system flush. Got home, and it was cool enough to drain and add the flush. I grabbed a 5 gallon bucket to add the clear water to the system, and try and rinse the system out some.

The bucket had been stored upside down by the barbecue, and for whatever reason, it was just behind where I've got this cactus, the 'Old Man of the Moutains'. After I wrapped everything up and was putting things away, I put the bucket back where it had come from. I just lobbed it back where I'd gotten it, but it landed kind of caddywompus. I grabbed the handle to the lid of the barbecue, and leaned over to right the bucket, but while I was leaned over, the wood handle broke, and I fell on a cactus!!!

All this took place on Saturday. On Sunday night, I was laying on the couch in the front room, and I heard a coyote yipping, very close. I looked out the window, and it was right on the very corner of the yard. It's on!!! I slip on my shoes, and grab a walking stick. I can open the front door quietly, but the security screen always makes some noise. I throw open the screen, and come out raging and yelling again!!! The coyote is quite spooked, and jumps down around 7 feet to the street and off into the canyon!!! It was a rerun of another time!!!

In retrospect, I realized I had a very western frontier weekend, I fell on a cactus, and chased off a coyote!!!

Snow More

Here's what is apparently a once every 15 years event!!!

This was a couple of days ago. There was a storm system coming in, a cold one with a lot of moisture.

They were saying up to an inch of rain in an hour, and snow levels down to 1,500 feet.

I was telling the family that there was probably a chance of getting a bit of snow in our area. On Thursday, I was making my lunch, and looked out the window, and almost couldn't wrap my head around what I was seeing, even though I'd predicted it myself!!!

My son and I went out and took some pictures. It was pretty wet, and it may have even been sleet, but it sure looked like snow to me!!!

I was out getting some groceries and my son's birthday feast (Oinkster!!!) today, and got a shot of the low snow levels on the mountains!!!

The Fuzz Cometh

It was getting late, and I was thinking of heading off to bed.

I hear a siren approaching, it sounds like a police siren. Moments later, I hear a louder engine climbing the hill, and not long after I see the red and blue light splashes on the windows.

That's unusual around here, but not unheard of. Silence ensues for a while, then here comes the police helicopter, flying low and doing circles.

Not long after, another police car shows up, and pulls into the neighborhood across the canyon.

Of course, by this time it's got my attention. A little after, four more police cars show up. There's now two on the far side of the hillside behind the neighborhood across the street, and two that had headed to the top of the hill come back down. The first one goes past the street across the way, and then is backing up, and the other one comes down and turns into that street. As I figured, the one backing up turns down that street, too.

There's a wild area behind the houses across the canyon, and I imagine that whoever they were after is hiding out over there.

It's been more than an hour. That helicopter is going to have to refuel soon!!! I know how these things go, I'll probably never hear what happened. (I'll post an update in the comments if I actually do)

Anyway, here's some blurry pics for you!!!

Sorry Substitute

The vet's office sent a sympathy card last week. I cried like a baby.

A lot of things will remind me of that boy. Pictures. His things. Sometimes I'll hear a song that will make me think of him.

I had a dream around a week after we'd said good bye. We were vacationing with the extended family up in the mountains, but I wasn't feeling it, and was off by myself. My dad (still around in the dream world, apparently) came out to find me, and was telling me that mom would really appreciate it if I'd spend some time with the family. I was telling him that I wasn't feeling like it, then I told him, “My f'ing cat died!!!”

I've seen a couple of the neighborhood cats since, but they're not sociable. I have been wanting to be around a friendly cat that I could pet and feel the purrs.

A couple years back, my son had seen a stuffed Halloween cat in a claw machine. He like it enough that he took a picture of it, but didn't try and get it. He said, “I should have tried to get it, it was right on the edge, it would have been easy!!!”

A couple of weeks after we said good bye, he located the same stuffed animal that someone was selling on Ebay.

He bought it, and he's pleased with his purchase!!!

Onto an interesting confluence of events: Last week, my wife's car (Kutcher!) was stalling. I've suspected the fuel pump isn't up to the task, it acts like it's fuel starving sometimes under hard acceleration. I ordered a new one from Rock Auto, and in the meantime, we've been rolling in Scruffy.

Of course, it sits a little lower with the whole crew in it. One thing I should have mentioned in the Car Stuff post, I had fabricated a hanger loop – skid plate rig around the end of the tailpipe. It wasn't fully fleshed out, but I had a couple angles screwed to the floor pan, and a flat with the ends bent up. It would scrape occasionally, but if it wasn't that, it would have been the tailpipe!!! Anyway, on Saturday we were out, and came out of a driveway with a scrape... that just kept on going!!! I pulled over, and the front end had come undone, and the plate was vertical to the ground, wedged into the ground, and the tailpipe just hanging (the inside hanger had come off it's hook, too. That always seems to happen when the outside comes loose). Called a tow truck, and located a muffler shop that could take care of us.

They put a mount almost exactly like the one that the very first side exit exhaust I'd had made up had on the outside, and tacked on a couple washers on the inside hooks to keep the hanger in place. It's solid!!! Bonus, they did it for a reasonable price, I think I've finally found a new exhaust shop!!!

While it was up on the lift, I finally got a good shot of a little repair I'd done to the bottom of the front bumper. It was coming to a point in the middle, where it would drag backing out of the driveway, so I drilled a series of holes and tapped a piece of angle aluminum to flatten the whole area. I'd taken a picture of it when I'd done it, but accidentally deleted it.

But this was the highlight of our trip to the muffler shop!!! The dad told my wife that this cat had recently been dropped off by the shop. There's several feral cats around the area, but this one is domesticated. My wife was sitting out back petting him (or maybe her, I didn't even try and find out), and after the car was done, I pulled around and gave him some pets, too. Got my pets and purrs that I've been craving. I'd walked over towards the back of the parked cars there, and he came right over to me!!!

He had the softest, silky fur, and those orange eyes!!! My wife was wondering what you'd name a cat like that, and every time I see a black & white cat like this, I always think “Domino”. My son makes mention of a character from Fallout: New Vegas, Dean Domino, the King of Swing!!! Of course, if you have a pet, you need a one syllable name, so Dean works, or you could call him “D. D.” for brevity's sake. He seemed to have some kind of bump – protrusion on one of his flanks, and when I touched it, he meowed, so he might have some kind of injury.

Later on in the day, when we got home my wife was tidying up and found her cat ears!!!

Farewell, My Friend

“Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.” Job 5:7

In this life there will be trouble, but you will overcome. I'm glad for the times when there isn't much trouble, or what I have is minor, and count myself fortunate.

Over the weekend, it seemed like our grandkitten was having problems. I had taken Monday off, and after calling around and finding one that was open and could see him, packed the boy up to go to a veterinarian to get him checked out.

It turns out he was having kidney issues, not a lot different than what Leo had, but instead of his urethra being blocked, the ureters from the kidneys to the bladder seemed to be having trouble. These are very fine, and if that is the case, the surgical fix is to replace them with shunts with a port to clean them out as necessary. Not surprisingly, this is an expensive procedure.

The other option is to hydrate and treat the infection, and perhaps it will clear once the inflammation is reduced, and he could recover.

We decided to give that a chance. He was eating OK, and with the pain medicine he seemed to be doing OK. We visited him at the veterinarian's office a couple times. On Wednesday, his numbers hadn't gone up, but hadn't gone down either. Thursday his numbers were even higher. We had to let him go. We visited him again, taking a little bag of the Temptations dairy treats, the only kind he'll eat, and treated him to a last meal and said our good byes.

We have a lot of good memories of the boy. I remember when he was a kitten, he would eat anything!!! He was always trying to get into your food, and one time after we'd had Tommy Burgers, he got the paper tray that the chili fries came in, and ate about ¼ of it!!!

My wife's favorite was at Christmas a couple years ago. My sister and nephew were over, and they don't have an indoor voice, and kept trying to get him to play. My younger warned them, he said he could see his eyes getting huge, but they kept on, and he attacked them both on their heads!!! I tell people the story and say it was the best Christmas ever!!!

He's gotten a lot mellower as he's aged, and he was very friendly to me, giving me head butt snuggles and curling up on me. Recently, he had started doing the same thing with my younger, and even a few times with my wife.

We will miss you, sweet boy.