Moving Day

Well, the movers are supposed to be here between now and 10am. We actually, for the first time, got all packed up by about 9pm last night. This is the very first time I have ever moved when I did not have to stay up very late packing the night before the movers were supposed to arrive.

If I hadn't had Annette helping me, there would have been no way I would have been able to do this. She was such a help! I just dropped off my cats at the vet to be boarded overnight and I ran into my friend Allyson Phillips and her partner. I've known Allyson since kindergarten. We went to school together from then until senior year in high school. She was dropping her cat off to be declawed.

So, pretty soon I'm going to have to disconnect my modem and give it back to Comcast. The bastards. I hate them. I could write a whole blog just about that but I won't. I'm pretty tired since I had to wake up at 6:30am and I'm not used to that.

In any event, I don't know when I will be able to post next. I hope our move goes smoothly.

I'll post again as soon as I can!

no go

Well, it's now 1:55 am. I opened my case and realized that I don't have an available IDE slot on my motherboard for the drive. I do have an HD IDE plug from the cable coming out of my DVD-ROM, but it won't reach to the bay I would have to put the drive into. So, the moral of the story is, everything is too crammed and crazy inside my machine for me to be able to install this drive myself. Maybe when I get to Nashville I can find some nice computer geek to help me. My video card is gigantaur and takes up a lot of space in there. I have cables running everywhere and it's just a total mess.

I already have two SATA drives, a CD-RW, a floppy drive and a DVD-ROM drive in there. Worst case scenario, I can have someone help me just plug the drive to my machine and not mount it just so I can get the files off it that I want and then put it somewhere for posterity. I can't boot to it so there's really no point in keeping it in there, especially since I have a huge new SATA drive begging to store something.

So, now what to do. I suppose I could go back upstairs and attempt again to pack up my bathroom or something. Or I could start a new book. Sucks that I have to get up early tomorrow. I shouldn't have drunk that red bull. Damn that devil drink.

1:28 am

So, been packing and packing. Seem to only be able to get anything done when Annette is here. I have such an aversion to packing. After I got home from dinner with Amber and family, I was all pumped up to do some packing tonite since I only have one more day before the movers come. I came home around 9pm and drank a red bull with high hopes. I had to go to the grocery store and when I came home, I didn't really feel like doing anything. I packed a few things in my suitcase and petered out. It's like trying to make myself pack is like trying to make myself inflict some type of injury on myself. Everything in me is saying, "no, let's not do this."

So I got in bed and finished Hammer of God by Arthur C. Clarke. It was good. Short little novel. I have to break them up. I just read Conquistador by S.M. Stirling and it was rather dense so I had to read a quickie in between. So I was trying to sleep, but since I drank a red bull only a few short hours ago, I suddenly was struck with the urge to install my old IDE drive into my computer, which I found today while packing my office.

This is the old drive from my original Alienware machine. I have installed a SATA drive now which is easy. Now I have to try to install an IDE drive, which is a bit more complicated. However, this drive is not blank, so it won't be as hard because it is already partitioned. I just have to make sure I set the jumpers right. Actually, I'm pretty sure that I need to take the jumper off because it will be a slave. I can't have my machine trying to boot to this drive, it would be bad. It does have a complete XP install on it, though. I will need to wipe that.

So, wish me luck once again. I'm tired but wired so my problem-solving skills are not at their best right now. It would seem that packing would be a good idea instead, but I've convinced myself that I really need to install this drive because I have already been through one move with the drive just hanging out in a box and I don't really want to risk damaging it with another move.

K here I go.

By the way, I will likely be incommunicado after tomorrow for a little while until I get internet up and running at my new house.

progress

Ok, so Annette has been helping me pack and it's been great. She's got the whole basement packed which is a HUGE relief. We started on the front room yesterday. She should be here any minute to help again today. Thank God for her!

So many things to do! I have to get my tail light fixed in my car today, my mom's car needs new tires, I have to meet with the new secretary of the 545 sometime...no idea when, haven't even talked to her. Had to go to the podiatrist yesterday and will have to go back on Monday for some reason, had to go to the dermatologist, had to get shots, TB test, get the TB test checked, etc. Ridiculous! Plus, all the administrative stuff relating to getting address changes on all my accounts, arranging to have service disconnected, etc. Such a pain!

I feel a little better about the packing now that Annette is helping me so much. I just really need someone to do it with me more just to motivate me. I get bored when I do it by myself. There is still a TON to do but I think we'll be ok.

No time for a garage sale. Will have to have one in Nashville.

My tummy has been bothering me a lot lately. No idea why.

Tonite I have Ginny's birthday party at Ru San's after the 545. There are a ton of people I would like to see before I go, but I don't know if I will have time. Oh well. What can you do?

K I gotta go. I'll try to write more later. In the meantime:

ouch!

Man, I'm really starting to freak about about this move.

I started getting a headache last night, so I took a Goody's and figured that maybe it would handle it. So I woke up this morning with a killer migraine. I got up and took my uber migraine pill which makes me feel like shit, so I promptly tried to go back to sleep. I don't know how successful I was at that but a couple of hours later, I still had a headache. I started freaking out cuz usually the pill works in about two hours.

I go through a series of different feelings when I take these pills. None of them are particularly pleasant, but I've gotten used to what happens and I can usually tell by what point the headache should be subsiding. But today, it wasn't. So, I asked my mom for some cereal and ate some Cheerios. I laid back down and about an hour later realized the headache was gone. But, then I just felt like complete ass so I canceled the dermatologist appointment I had and tried to rest for an hour before Annette came over to start packing the basement.

All day I felt like a space cadet and was very tired and drained. If you can imagine - the pill is a cerebral vasoconstrictor. Which means it constricts the blood vessels in my brain. So imagine what it's like going around all day with restricted blood flow to your brain but increased blood flow everywhere else (because that's how vasodilators and vasoconstrictors work, whatever it does to your cerebral vessels, it does the opposite to the vessels in the rest of your body). Anyway, it's really weird and not in any kind of good way at all.

So, I've been trying to get everything together for Vanderbilt that I am supposed to do for school. I remembered I was supposed to go to the doctor and get all these immunization records and some additional shots and I thought it was supposed to be done by Aug 1. Well, I was supposed to have turned it in by July 13. Oops.

I managed to get some of the other paperwork printed, signed and mailed off. So then I called and went down to the Piedmont Minor Emergency Clinic to get these stupid shots. Ended up having to get Hepatitis A & B, Meningitis and a TB test. I also have to go down to GSU and get my stupid immunization records from them and I have to go back in two days so they can see what happened with my TB test.

I will need two more shots in the Hep A&B series that I will need to get at Vanderbilt. So I guess I'm just gonna bring the form with me and go to the Student Health Center when I get up there and turn in the paperwork and find out if I'm in any trouble for turning it in late, or if I'm not going to be able to enroll in the student health insurance or what the deal is.

My right arm hurts like shit already. I know the left will follow tomorrow. And I'm supposed to pack sometime? I have dinner with Amber and her parents tomorrow night, then lunch with Kimberly Wednesday and then Rachel Thursday, then the 545 and Ginny's bday party Friday night......sheesh. And, I really wanted to meet with my sponsor before I leave, too. I have no idea how I'm going to do all this.

Plus, I need to get my tail light fixed and my mom needs new tires. Meh. I guess I should get up earlier in the morning or something. Booo!

Annette has been kicking ass packing the basement, though, so that is a HUGE help. I will probably break down and get her to help pack some of the other rooms that I can stand to have someone else pack for me. I hate moving so much. I can't begin to tell you.

Ok, I'm done for today. Gotta go get some sleep.

Raw diet, cont'd.

Well, my cats really warmed up to the raw food. I think the reason they didn't want to eat it right away when I first put it down was because I forgot to warm it up to "mouse body temperature" as instructed. But I came back a few hours later and it was gone. They say it's fine to leave it out.

So, I started out mixing a little in with their wet food but I noticed they were trying to pick the raw food out of the wet food, so I have gone to 50/50 and even given them all raw and they eat it up. They don't all eat it all at once, but it's always gone by the next mealtime. I think they are so used to free-feeding off dry that they want to do that with their raw food also. The company assures me that cats can tell if something has gone "bad" and I don't need to worry about salmonella because they test their product regularly.

I'm really digging it so far but it is a little messy. It doesn't smell at all and it's very well liquefied so it's not difficult to work with, it's just that I put it into little baggies so I could only take out and thaw what I needed for a few days, and getting it all out of the bag is kind of impossible. I think I'm just going to thaw out the whole 2.5 lb. container of chicken and just scoop it out as I use it. I am supposed to float a bag of it in hot water because you are definitely NOT supposed to microwave it at all to heat it up. My cats seem not to mind it so much cold anymore but anyway...I'll have to devise a new method.

We need to order some more but with the move, I guess I will wait until the last minute so I can be sure we're up there when it is delivered. It ain't cheap, so I need it to not be all spoiled by the time I get it.

Changes so far:

• I have noticed that my cats are less hungry and don't bother us to feed them as much, which leads me to believe they are more satisfied.

• They seem to poop less

• The poop doesn't stink nearly as much

• I think BK has lost weight, but I can't tell for sure, and it might not be from the food anyway.

So, we're gonna take Black Kitty in for a glucose curve when we get settled and see how his blood sugar is doing and stuff. We'll be monitoring it more closely with the new food. I'm going to try to monitor their weights as well.

So, that's all I have to say about that atm.

Photo albums

By the way, I keep albums of photos on Picasa on the web. You can view my photos online anytime at http://picasaweb.google.com/joanofarc666.

Another reunion....

So, I'm doing a lot of the legwork for the planning of our 16-yr reunion. You may be thinking, why a 16-yr? Well, we join with the class of 1993 so that we have enough people to hire a professional planner to do everything.

I met with the planners today. They are very nice and I have a great feeling about them. I think this one is going to be MUCH better and more organized than the last one. It would almost have to be. But, even though the last one was a nightmare, when it finally happened, we all had a total blast.

It's gonna be tough juggling all the stuff I have to do for the reunion with school and meetings once I start school. There is still a lot of things the committee has to do. But, I'm trying to learn how to delegate and find some volunteers who would like to help out with that stuff.

I'm really looking forward to this reunion, though. I have emailed everyone on myspace who is listed in the class of 1992 or 1993 and have already heard back from a couple of people. It's amazing how cool it is to talk to people that you might not even have been that good of friends with back in high school. This one girl responded to my message on myspace who I didn't really get along with that well in school but she was super nice. It's cool cuz you put all that shit behind you at these things and it's all about just being glad to be with people who knew you when...there is something really cool and comforting about being at a reunion. At least it was for me. I think most of the people felt that way, too.

BARF (diet)

Ok, so....

I'm putting my cats on a raw food diet. Actually, I'm transitioning them to a raw food diet. I've been reading a lot on the web recently about how horrendous dry food is for cats and how all the grain and carbs in even most wet food is not digestible and has been causing a myriad of health problems for cats.

I believe what they say, honestly, having lost three cats just this year. Black Kitty, who is still alive, has diabetes, bad dandruff and likes to pull his hair out. Shady is obese. Rabu is neurotic but I'm not expecting the food to help with that lol. I am expecting, however, to hopefully see some improvement with the other two.

Here are some links if you are wondering about a raw food diet for your dog or cat. Well, first, here is the link to the company we buy our raw cat food from:
www.felinespride.com

Now, read these:
cats.about.com
www.catnutrition.com

For dogs, read this:
barfworld.com

We just got five pounds of the raw chicken diet in today. We are in the process of transitioning them. I put a little out and neither Shady nor BK wanted to eat it, but it was still a little bit cold. They say I can mix a little bit in with wet food for a while until I get up to a 50/50 mixture to get them used to it and then they can go 100% raw.

Used to be for cat food, you had to make your own. This seemed like a monumental pain in the ass, which was a deterrent for me. Then I found the company that makes it to sell, which is great for me. I like to order things and have them show up on my door. Especially cat food. So, we're giving this a try.

It seems much more logical to me that we should feed our animals something approximating what they eat in the wild. I don't see many lions eating kibble really. At first I was worried about the raw aspect of the food. Then I read (and remembered) that carnivores eat dead uncooked meat all the time. They have special enzymes in their systems to handle it. And, they have good noses so they can smell when something is bad.

I will keep posting on their progress.

I did it!

I successfully installed a nice badass 500GB SATA hard drive into my machine. I did have to get a tiny bit of technical support via IM from jb0n, and he was enough of an asshole that he just gave me the little info I needed to figure out the problem I had myself and get it done. I consulted via phone with another friend to verify my plans for the partition, and that was that. Yay!

Now I've been getting this crazy idea to install a Linux partition on my laptop. Maybe Ubuntu...definitely not right this second, though. I have enough to do with the move right now. But in the future.....