Pictures From the Official Angel & Jackie Webcam

One of the advantages of the Official Angel and Jackie Webcam, is that you can capture images from the camera. Every once in a while when I personally tune in to see what those two little rascals of mine are up to, I press the little camera icon above the video and save whatever is on the screen at that moment. What follows is a collection of some of those images.

First, let me show you the webcam itself. Well, it is actually the rear of the webcam, but still the webcam nonetheless...

Anyway, lets move on...

So there ya have it, another rousing bunch of pictures of Jackie, Angel, and their big sister Mariah. If you wold like to see this little pack of dogs in their natural environment, just click on the webcam icon over on the side bar to your right, or simply click here, and you will be taken straight to the camera itself.

Have a nice weekend, and we'll see ya when we see ya.

Oh, and don't forget to tear yourself away from the high drama you will be seeing on the webcam long enough to check out the other lively critters over at the Friday Ark at The Modulator. It's just animals, animals, animals.

How Not to Write a Narrative Paper

A week or so ago I posted this paper I had written for an English composition class I took in 1994. That entry drew such little attention I figured why not do it again? So, here's yet another paper from that same class.

The idea behind this paper will become painfully evident as you read through it, the actual assignment, however, was for the class to write a narrative paper. As is all to usual in my case, I couldn't think of one single idea to write on, so I instead wrote about my struggle to find a suitable topic.

Here's how it went....

We were required to read our paper's out loud in class, and when I finished reading mine I looked to the teacher fearing what comments she might have for me. She was notoriously brutal with her critiques, so much so I think she could even bring Simon Cowell to tears.

My teacher just stared at me for a moment, and then she finally let me have it.

She said that most every semester, when she assigns the narrative paper to her class, at least one student writes about how he or she labored over a topic for their paper. She said, "Those papers are without exception among the worst, and I hate them with a passion". My heart sank, and I felt myself go flush. "However", she continued, "Your paper was among the best this semester."

To say I was releieved would be an understatement.

Happy Birthday, Jacqueline

The 24th of February will be Jacqueline's forth birthday, but I wanted to celebrate it a little early here on Athenamama so that this entry would be eligible for inclusion in this week's Friday Ark at The Modulator.

The birthday tradition around here mandates an entry dedicated to the birthday girl, (or in Angel's case, birthday boy,) that is comprised mainly of pictures documenting their life thus far. After you finished with all the great pictures of my little baby, be sure to go wish her a happy birthday in person by using the Official Angel and Jackie Webcam.

So, without further ado, I give you Jacqueline...

So, there's my baby in all her glory. She's an affectionate little cuss, and I love her to death.

Stupid Death

A friend of mine died last night. His name was Jon Becker, and he was one of the most intelligent people I have ever know. He had been struggling with liver cancer for the past few months of his life, and though he could have taken steps to prolong his life a little longer he chose instead to live out what time he had left doing the things he enjoyed.

I feel pretty terrible about Jon's passing because every week I would tell myself that I was going to go visit him over the weekend. It's what Jon wanted most I think, to spend time with those he considered his friends, and there really weren't too many people he felt that way towards. I know he did think of me as a friend, and I am truly honored that he thought so, but in the end I let him down, and I cannot remedy that, and I can't forgive myself for it either.

The reason I didn't see Jon as often as I wanted is out of pure selfishness; I couldn't stand to see him as sick as he was. For as long as I knew him, Jon was a strong, smart man who would never ask anyone for anything. Towards the end he started to become a little confused, and he could barely walk on his own. It broke my heart to see him that way, but I should have just sucked it up and gone over to spend time with him regardless of the effect it had on me.

Jon was one of the very few people who visited me when I was in the hospital. Not even my oldest, "best" friend of over 25 years came to see me, but Jon did, and I was surprised and overjoyed that he thought enough of me to come see me. And how do I repay that kindness?

Anyway, now he's gone, and I can't get the time back that I missed out on with one of the best people I have known in my life. I honestly thought Jon had more time, and though I tried every week to screw up enough courage to go see him, I just simply ran out of time.

I am sorry, Jon.

Dreams

What follows is a paper I wrote for an English Composition class I had a number of years ago. I came across it while installing a new hard-drive in my computer the other day, and I liked it enough I thought I would share it here with all of you.

Essentially it concerns my feelings about my dreams, but I must warn you it gets a little risqué at one point, and a little personal as well. I thought about editing those parts out, but after thinking it over I felt that those parts are integral to my dreams, so I decided to keep them in after all.

You might also notice the lack of passive verbs in this piece. Our teacher actually deducted points for using passive verbs, so I tried to eliminate their use altogether from my papers. I can't remember how successful I was, but never received a grade lower than an "A" on any paper I turned in.

Enjoy at your own risk...

Waking up with Jackie and Angel

Yesterday morning I took a few pictures of Jackie and Angel when we woke up. I don't know why, maybe I was bored. But it worked out well for you because now I can post the pictures here...

That's Jackie cleaning her toes. She usually stays deep under the covers until I come out of the shower. I betcha never knew she was an under-cover dog.

Papa is usually pretty anxious to get down off the bed, and start his busy day of napping and barking. The trouble is, he's chicken. I don't like for him to jump off anyway. Ever since I found out he has some problems with his spine, I try to make sure he doesn't do anything to aggravate it. I am pretty well versed in the conditions of the spine, and I'll do whatever I can to either fully protect him from it, or at least slow it down. I am happy to say he hasn't seemed to have any more trouble with his back since that first episode over a year ago, but I know he has some mild osteophytes so I figure an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Or something like that.

Once they have been outside to do what they need to do, Angel and Jackie get their breakfast, and then lounge on their big ol' bed in my living room for a while until it's time for me to go to work. Sometimes it's a little difficult to get them to go out back, but usually they just run right out the door and see who will get the choice spot first. (In case you were wondering, it's usually Jackie who gets the best spot. She will even make Mariah move out of her way if Jackie wants that particular spot.

Angel gets in one last snuggle before I head off to work. I guess he loves his daddy.

Before I go I thought I would mention my little sweetie-pie, Jackie the long hair chihuahua will be celebrating her fourth birthday this month, so look for her annual birthday post sometime around the 24th.

And go say hi to Jackie, Angel, and Mariah at the Official Angel and Jackie Webcam. It's freeeeeeeee!

So there ya go, another happy day with Jackie and Angel.
Remember more dogs can be found at the Friday Ark at The Modulator, so go check them out.

Drafting 101

I was a pretty lazy sort all through high school. You could go to my mother's file cabinet right now and pull any one of my report cards from any year, and in the teacher's notes section you will see something like,

Jeff has a lot of potential, he just needs to apply himself.

Which of course is just another way of saying, "Your kid's lazy."

If you thumbed through my report cards from about junior high on you would notice that I took a lot of "easy" classes, like art, woodshop, crafts, and drafting. I was a slacker, no doubt, but I did learn stuff in school, and believe it or not I learned useful stuff. At the time I didn't know I was learning anything because all I did, when I did it, was read a few chapters out of some books, took some tests, wrote a paper here and there, and the next thing you know I am graduating right into the adult world of 9 to 5 drudgery.

I compare myself as a kid to kids I know today of about the same age, and I do notice one thing about myself that sets me apart from most modern kids.

I remember stuff.

I am not saying I am in anyway superior to kids of today, in fact I fully expect 20 or so years down the road to be the guy greeting some of them when they visit the future Wal-Mart slated to take the place of the now empty hull of the K-mart that stood for well over thirty years. What I am saying is that I happened to retain some of the more innocuous stuff that our system of public education has to offer, and once in a while it helps me out in my day to day life.

For instance, I took drafting when I was a junior in high school. In today's world of computer aided drafting you would think mechanical drafting is a lost art, and I guess it is, but what I learned over thirty years ago still serves me well. I work now as a quality manager at a small aerospace manufacturing firm, and I often need to convince our customers that our products meet their drawings and specifications. Sometimes I need to illustrate my point by using a series of drawings, and I do that the old fashioned way. I use templates, 30-60-90 triangles, a compass, and a protractor to help me get my point across.

Recently I dug up a few of my old high school drafting class projects, and brought them to work with me so I could scan them into pdf files. I just like looking at them from time to time, and I thought it would be fun to have some electronic copies that I could look at without having to drag out my old Dietzgen folder. While I was at it, I scanned my drafting final from May of 1977, and kept a copy of it as a jpeg file so I could upload it to my flickr account, and share it here.

There are two people who periodically read this blog who would know whether or not what I am about to write is true, but since it has been over thirty years they might not remember. The way I remember it is, I was the first to finish the final in our class. If I wasn't the first, I was at least one of the few who actually finished the project in the time allowed. It was a time consuming project that was designed to take up every last minute of class time.

I think you can see by this drawing alone that there were a number of tedious tasks we had to perform for this final, but I think most of the kids would agree with me that two of the hardest necessities of mechanical drawing were getting your lettering right, and keeping your lines consistently thick. You wouldn't know it based on these drawings, but my lettering was among the best in the class, and influenced the way I would write for the rest of my life.

My freehand sucks, as evidenced by the simulated wood cabinetry in the kitchen here, but I think I drew a pretty mean mirror.

I am not sure anymore what that small notation just above the roof on the right was supposed to signify, but I do like the squiggly lines that accompany the other notations. Those were freehand, by the way. They don't make French curves that small.

The final sheet of the project, and maybe the most sloppy. I was running out of time and I wanted to get it done. I don't think I had the grade I wanted in the class, so I wanted to do as well as I could on the final so I could get a little boost on my final grade.

I imagine they don't teach mechanical drafting in schools anymore since computer aided design has pretty much replaced it, but in a way that's a shame. It's sort of like they no longer teach kids how to derive the square root of any given number because hand held calculators are so readily available.

But, I was lucky enough to live in a time where they still taught such things, and perhaps even luckier to remember some of the things I was taught. If nothing else, at least it makes for half way decent blog fodder.

The Money

One evening in the fall of 1974, while out after school hanging around with a friend of mine, my mother called me in for dinner. I was almost at the front door when she asked if I had seen my brother. I told her he was down at the river bottom messing around in one of the old city dumps looking for postage stamps.

In the days before video games and cable television, the kids in my neighborhood had to go outside if they wished to find real adventure. One of the many places around the town I grew up where I found such adventures in where my brother, and friends, was down in the old city dumps.

The three old dumps that were still present along the banks of the Santa Clara river here in Ventura had been there for years before I even born, dating as far back as possibly the 1920's or more. If the dumps had ever been covered over, the river opened them back up again almost as a gift for kids my age in the early 1970s. Since that time they have been covered with condominiums.

I am able to estimate the age of the dumps because one of the many treasures they offered up were hundreds of old used envelopes scattered throughout all that old debris. In fact, my brother built a very respectable stamp collection by retrieving the envelopes, and soaking the stamps off of them in hot water. My brother and I were both able to build a couple of nice ten-speed bicycles out of parts we scavenged there as well. We collected the frames, wheels, gears, and meticulously cleaned and painted them until we had most everything we needed for almost new bicycles. All we needed to buy was a chain, seat, and peddles, and away we went.

To get to the river bottom we had to trespass through one of the lemon orchards that run along the banks. The orchards are still there, but the owners have put chain link fences all around them. Back when I was a kid the owners didn't mind if a few kids took short cuts through their property. I imagine it may have been because we never vandalized their property, or stole any of their fruit, (well, save for a few here and there on a hot summer afternoon,) but I am sure we would have met with a blast of rock-salt should they thought we might.

That evening when my mother asked me to fetch my brother for supper, my friend's mother coincidentally enough also asked him to find his brother for the same reason, so he and I took off down through the orchards looking for our siblings.

My friend took his bike and I walked with him as we entered the first few rows of the orchard. As we talked about whatever it is thirteen year old boys talked about, something caught my eye under one of the trees. I looked, and what I saw reminded me at first of play money, like what you find in a game of Monopoly. I said to my friend, "Hey look, I found a thousand dollars!", and I reached under the tree to retrieve my find.

It had been sitting under the tree literally on its edge as if someone had placed it there on purpose. It was bent in the middle slightly such as it had been taken straight out of a billfold, and apparently sat on the ground. When I took it in my hand and looked at it I found myself staring Ben Franklin right in the face. I was rich! I had found a one hundred dollar bill!

Forgetting all about my brother, I took the bill and ran straight home. When I got there I found my father was busy "takin' care of business" in the downstairs bathroom. My mother was in the kitchen finishing with the preparation of our dinner. She asked me where my brother was, but I was so excited I completely glossed over the subject, and thrust my find in her face. My enthusiasm was apparently loud because my father could hear me tell the story from his location. When I finished relating my story to my mother, she said I had to show the money to my father, and just as the words left her mouth, my father called to me through the bathroom door.

"What did you find?" He said, "Money?"

"Yeah," I hesitantly responded, "A hundred dollar bill." "Shove it under the door." He demanded.

My dad is the type guy who when he tells his kids to do something, he expects them to do it, and his children never thought twice about what our role was in such cases, (and still don't,) so I took one last look at my precious money, and slid it under the door.

It seemed like hours before I heard noise come out of that bathroom. My dad never said a word until after he emerged from the it with my money in his hand.

"Where exactly did you find this?" He asked.

"Under a lemon tree in the orchard."

"And what were you doing in the orchard?"

"Looking for Bill. Mom said it was time for dinner, and told me to go find him."

"Where's your brother now?"

"Um... I dunno... I..."

"OK, look, we need to turn this over to the police..."

WHAT?!?! My money! To the POLICE! I guess I should have known that would be the consequences of my finding that much money. My old man never missed an opportunity to teach his kids some sort of life lesson, and here was as clear a shot as any at doing just that. "Teach the boy about honesty" was the lesson for the day, and he was just the guy to teach it.

So, a call was made, the police came, I told my story again for the police officer. He wrote down everything I had to say, and explained that the law in such cases demanded that the money be held in the property room at the police station for six months. During that time the police would conduct a reasonable search for the person who lost the money. After six months, should no one come forward to claim it, the money would become my property. With that the police officer left with my $100.00 bill. I had held it for a total of only 45 minutes, and then it was gone.

Just a few days before the six months was over, my father received a call from the police department. What appeared to be an automobile license plate number had evidently been scrawled across the front of the bill sometime before it was dropped in the orchard. Some smart-ass police officer, working off of one of those "hunches" you always see on the cop shows on TV, thought it would be a good idea to run the number with the DMV to see what might would turn up. It turns out it really was a license plate number and the police were able to get the phone number of the registered owner of the car.

Rats.

The police said the man they spoke to acknowledge possession of the hundred dollar bill. He admitted to writing his license number on the bill, and that he did in fact leave it in a lemon orchard sitting up on its edge. The police asked him why he would do such a thing, but the man refused to tell them. So, the police informed him that if he came to the police department and proved the bill was his by bringing with him the car that matches the license plate number on the bill, he could reclaim the his money. No questions asked.

Surprisingly, the man declined. The police assured him there were no consequences for his actions, and that as far as they were concerned he had simply just lost the money. Even still, the man reiterated that he had no interest in the money. He said he left it there for a friend, and in the end he told the police to "go ahead and give the kid the money, I want nothing more to do with it." He also asked that they not call his house again concerning the money because he didn't want his wife to find out about it.

My father asked if it was then OK to pick up the money since the man relinquished ownership, but the police said that legally they had to hold it for six months, and besides, if the man changed his mind they would only have to ask us for it back.

Three days later, I was one-hundred dollars richer. I was also a small celebrity.

Some three months earlier a kid about my age found three thousand dollars in a bag under the Santa Clara river bridge. By the time he found the money the amount of time the law required for someone to claim lost property had been reduced from six months to ninety days, and as it turned out the kid who found the three grand and myself were both due to claim our found good fortune at just about the same time. I guess this made for a good human interest story because on the eve of my becoming a hundred-heir the local paper printed our stories in a small article on the front page of the local paper.

I took quite a ribbing at my junior high school that week for being such a "goodie two shoes". Still, it was a life lesson learned well that year because as disappointed as I was that my dad made me hand the money over to the cops, I knew in my heart it was the right thing to do. I understood that a hundred bucks was a lot of money for some folks, and not knowing the circumstance under which it was lost when I first found it, I often found myself wondering about who might have lost the money, and how upset they probably were. In fact the very night that I found the money, as I lay in bed waiting for sleep to overtake me, I wondered if perhaps the money belonged to one of the many homeless people, (we called them "bums", back then,) who lived in and around the river bottom. I of course knew it wasn't very likely that a homeless person would have that kind of cash on them, much less in that form, but maybe it was their life savings, or perhaps it was a gift from a relative or a kind Samaritan. But if it truly was any one of those possibilities I knew I would have trouble living with the guilt if I were to simply just keep the money without at least trying to find the rightful owner.

Apparently, at least at my school, I was a minority when it came to that sort of reasoning. I was relentlessly taunted by my schoolmates for being so "stupid" as to hand over such great wealth to the police. Only a very small percentage of the people who knew about it at school felt that I did the right thing. It was another life lesson learned that year; the sad nature of some people where conscious is so easily defeated by greed.

Once I had the money in my hot little hands, it was just begging me to be spent, and I had decided long ago just what I was going to buy with my guiltless cash.

A stereo.

(This is the first in a series of related true stories I hope to write. The next concerns the stereo, and how it affected my life.)

Rainy Sunday

It's Raining again this Super Bowl Sunday, and as my small menagerie and I sit around the house alone waiting for the big game, we decided to watch Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Sort of a fitting movie for the sort of day we are having.

So here's the rain...

And here is my happy little brood...

So there ya have it, another lazy day at our little house, and frankly, I am enjoying every minute of it.

Changes, Changes, Changes

I've made more changes to my Pet-Cams.

As you remember, it all started with the world famous, Official Angel and Jackie Webcam. Once I received the new Panasonic BL-C131A Wireless Pet-Cam I then decided to use the older webcam it replaced and thereby added the Thalia, Salem, and Ebby Webcam.

The new webcam I use for Angel and Jackie has worked out so well in fact that I have updated all links to connect directly to the webcam as opposed to the previous software I used to broadcast with. I have also removed the Username and Password requirements for your convenience. I found that by giving users direct access to the webcam much improves their viewing pleasure by loading faster, and giving them more control, but they also will now be able to hear little Jackie and Angel bark all day long. Just like I do. (Hey, if I gotta suffer, then why shouldn't you?) I will still be using the old software in order to bring you the Thalia, Ebby, and Salem webcam.

Another new feature regarding The Official Angel and Jackie Webcam is that since I will no longer have to use my personal computer as a web-server, the webcam will now be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week! Unfortunately the Thalia, Ebby, and Salem webcam will not be so readily available. Because that camera actually points to an area inside my house, and because of the issues of hosting a server, I will usually only have that camera on while I am at work. You will probably find watching Angel and Jackie sleeping more exciting than watching the cats sleep anyway, so I don't anticipate many complaints.

So, go and take a look at the dogs!

Rainy Weekend Last

Last week Southern California enjoyed a healthy gaggle of storm systems. Well, at least I enjoyed it.

On Friday night we even had a thunder storm! It isn't very often anymore that we see lightning around these here parts ever since Mr. Al Gore went and messed up the weather and all. But I suppose the rarity of it all makes it just that much more enjoyable when we do get a show from good old mother nature.

For the most part my small group of animals and e held up inside the house and watched television. Well, I worked on my computer making it faster and cooler, but the dogs loved watching "The Dog Whisperer" all weekend. (By the way, if you ever do tune in to the Official Angel and Jackie Webcam, Username Guests, Password athena, and hear a constant humming noise, that's my computer trying to keep cool. Prescott is hott.)

Well, OK, perhaps they weren't all that excited about Cesar after all. But we still had a grand time.

In between computers and televisions, I would sneak out to check on the weather from time to time. Once during a slight lull in the rain I found this little guy trying to stay dry, or keep from drowning.

Cute little bugger, ain't he?

More dogs, and maybe a snail or two, can be found at the Friday Ark at The Modulator. Go have a look see.