I just wanted to touch upon the fact that ever since I bought this 1920×1080 widescreen 23″ LCD monitor, my RAW photos look very nice on the monitor. That’s what high-resolution does for you. (Although I’m still not a big fan of LCD monitors in general…just saying…)

The downside is I now have a harder time telling if a crunched down photo, for website sharing, is going to look ok on a monitor with much lesser resolution. I can, of course, still set the monitor to lower resolution settings. But with LCD’s, any resolution that isn’t the “native resolution” means everything starts to look like fuzzy crud, so it’s useless for determining whether a photo looks ok in a lower resolution or not. Does this matter? No, not usually. But it preys on my mind at times, simply because that’s the way my obsessive mind works. Another, unrelated problem is that my website, when fully expanded, now looks a bit silly. Since I have the pages set up to “expand/contract” elastically depending on what size your browser window currently is, at full 1920 screen -and assuming your browser/pc recognizes my ‘elastic’ way of doing things - the center text/post area is now humongous. Either you have lots of empty white space, or you have to move your head a lot to read the long horizontal lines of text. It is a bit overwhelming.

And yet, I am too lazy to go into things and create a fixed page format size. Even if I assume everyone has at least 1280 horizontal resolution these days, fixed page-styles have their own set of issues that I dislike. Still…the main problem is I’m simply too lazy and can’t be bothered to geek on my hardly-used blog software these days. Sorry. If you have large, widescreen monitor as well, you can always do what I do…scrunch your browser window to about half desktop size. After all, what’s the point of having such a large desktop size if you aren’t going to multitask with some windows on one side of the screen and other windows on the other side? Hmm?

I love cats and always have. So don’t take this the wrong way:

If you live in a city/suburb and have multiple outdoor cats (more than 2 per household) and don’t care that they turn your neighbors yards into stinky, messy litterboxes, I don’t like you.

To be fair, here’s another gripe:

To whomever used 200pounds of small tanbark as decorative yard mulching for this house that we bought, I don’t like you, either.

The front yard has too many dirt areas near the front door and the windows, and the last month I’ve noticed the smell whenever I have the doors/windows open. It stinks and it permeates the house worse than my own cat’s indoor litterbox. I am not happy.

The entire area under front bedroom window was a litterbox, with the tanbark scrunched up in visible little piles of kitty-burying-activity. So I’ve spent some considerable time the past couple weeks trying to turn the front yard into an area that cats will not, generally speaking, want to pee and poop in.

Rocks as a groundcover in one spot. Shoveling most of the befouled tanbark into garbage bags and then more rocks and cheap cement pavers. That will do for a start. But after that, there’s the backyard, with more dirt strips under the back bedroom windows and all around the backyard fencing that need to be dealt with. Perhaps some chicken wire on the ground for those areas, because the backyard would equal at least a few tons of river rocks, and that’s a bit much to deal with. A long and tiring project. I know about the motion-sensor water deterrent thingies, but they might also keep the squirrels away - as well as humans - and while I’m currently really PO’d at neighbor cats, I still love squirrels. Same thing with the ‘get a dog’ ideas. :P

The occasional cat turd/spray is no problem…that’s life in the suburbs. But apparently our yard has become the claimed super-bathroom territory of the (one) neighbor’s 4 or 5 cats, and I’ve had enough. I shouldn’t have to clean up after YOUR pets simply because YOU don’t want to clean litter boxes in your own home and dump your cats outside. And you better believe if I see a cat in the yard, I’m chasing it away with a hose. And maybe a tossed shoe.

…to what lengths I will go to in order to avoid reformatting my hard drive. I used to do it once every year at the least, but once I realized how much more stable WinXP was over it’s predecessors, I started slacking. The last time I think I did a reformat was…um…three or four years ago. Point is, I need to reformat/reinstall XP, but I keep putting it off. Tweak the registry here and there, defrag constantly, and so on. It works…but no matter what you do, the system becomes more and more unstable. And the longer you go without, the more stuff you have to remember in order to reorganize the computing system back to the way you prefer it. I’m not talking about just backing up your “important files,” either. That’s easy. It’s more…

“Which settings did I tweak in Firefox, again?”
“Which things did I tweak in XP and how to do it, again?”
“What mods/patches did I use with that program/save game files/whatever again?”

…BLAH.

Of course, the other bottom line in my case is that I also really need to build a new computer altogether. I keep almost doing it, but each time something (or my husband) convinces me it’s better to wait (more bang for your buck later). But frankly, there’s always a reason to wait…it really only, and always, boils down to “do I feel like spending money on that right now?” And unless you’re rich or a tech trend geek, the answer is usually “not really.”

….BLAH.

This weekend we finally bought an outdoor gas grill. We’ve talked about it before, but have been deterred either by price or by the fact we haven’t done much BBQing in ages. Oh sure, we used to BBQ a lot on the ol’ round charcoal Weber’s when we were in our early 20’s. First we had the Smokey Joe…a common staple among young adults who have little space and even less money…and later we bought the much larger ‘normal size’ Weber. Don’t ask me what normal size actually was, I have no idea. Probably a 22-inch grill diameter or something. But charcoal BBQ’s are dirty, and you have to deal with waiting for charcoal to reach the proper cooking state. Thus once our household income soared, our Weber became a black metal yard ornament which the squirrels and birds like to perch on.

Anyway…I hate cooking in the kitchen in summer. It’s often too hot and icky to be slaving over a hot stove. In the past, we’d get around this by ordering take-out food. A lot. We had a little more money to blow back then. Now our bills are bigger, the economy tighter, and our age is such that we’re more concerned about what we eat…so we’re trying to stop doing that. Problem: I still don’t like to cook in the summer. So…outdoor grill. Perfect solution, right? Perhaps. We shall see.

As you can tell in the photo above, we chose a cheap unit that didn’t have a side-shelf on both sides…which makes the thing smaller, something I liked. It does have the side gas burner tho, just in case you wanted to heat a small pot of chili while grilling hamburgers. Frankly, I’d heat the chili in the microwave and doubt I’d ever use that burner, but whatever. Overall what we bought seems fairly sturdy, although for the macho-inclined, the $700-$1200 Weber’s were quite the showpieces. We weren’t ready to spend that much on what amounts to a flimsy-ish file-cabinet-like metal box with a propane tank attached to it, so we opted for a $270ish unit we found at Lowes. That still seems outrageously expensive for what it is, but that’s just the times we live in, eh?

So far we’ve cooked hotdogs and steaks. They were both all right, but the flavor just isn’t the same as charcoal BBQ’ing. I mean, essentially you’re cooking on a gas range/oven. Not much different than what’s in the house. Broiling a steak in the gas oven would taste about the same. However, I did notice that once there was enough heat in the gas grill to cause meat drippings to smoke, it improved the flavor. Smoke - and keeping the lid closed - is the key I guess. There is no leaping, high, open flame to char things over, so closed-lid/high heat charring is the method of gas grilling. At least if you want smoky flavor. Either that or buy those wood chips I guess. At any rate…it’s fun to try out I suppose. Whether it will actually save us money or keep us from ordering take-out remains to be seen.

And tomorrow, it’s chicken.

I was going to post a few more squirrel pictures and other odds and ends, but became distracted by:

1 - An extremely bad case of “Unmotivateditis” and mental “CrashandBurnism”
2 - A general lack of interest in “doing” anything besides staring at the wall.
3 - A simple but fun single-player PC game called Mount and Blade. It’s a strategy/rpg type game about medieval Kingdom relations/war/combat that is completely open-ended/non-linear. Great horse-riding combat, too.

I haven’t done much gaming in a while, but it appears that whenever I’m struck by a bad case of the first two things, I tend to retreat back into spurts of gaming. Mount and Blade is an easy game to pick up and then drop, repeatedly, with no plot or escalating “missions” to make you feel you have to finish right now. The game doesn’t even really have an ending, you could play forever. Anyway, I enjoy it.

–In other news, after looking at, then deciding not to buy, another used van similar to the one he already has, hubby decided to just have his van painted. His van has had a bad case of flaking-off paint for some years, and it had reached the point of a lot of rust on the roof. Not attractive. The van itself still seems to run ok, which is kind of amazing, really … and now it looks all shiny and new. Well, kind of. At least it’s not a rusting hulk anymore.

–The economic woes of the country are starting to be felt slightly by us, now. A pinch here, a pinch there. Nothing major like for many people, but it’s noticeable. At least gas prices have come down again. Not that we use much these days, with hubby’s work so close by now. I like to joke that if worst comes to worst, hey, at least I actually like Top Ramen a lot, and it’s still only 30-35 cents a package! Sadly, it’s a joke that’s more reality for many these days. Here’s hoping the economy won’t take another 2-3 years to recover enough to stop most job losses/stock crashes and begin to reverse, because by then even many of us with generally little woe so far could be hit pretty hard. Except, apparently, for some certain AIG honchos. Evil.

–During a couple of days where the sun was out and it felt like Spring - meaning I was in a fair mood - I did some weeding in the yard. The dirt patch near the front door had become a hive of weeds seemingly overnight. As I picked and shoveled them out, I came upon the realization that I don’t like empty dirt patches, and I don’t like tanbark ground cover. Oh sure, it’s pretty when new, but a few years later…plus, with all the leaves that fall here, when you try to rake them over the tanbark, half the tanbark comes with the leaves. It’s annoying. Not to mention, cats think it’s kitty-litter. So I decided rocks would be better. I cleaned up the area best I could, and dumped some extra tanbark leavings in another spot. We were going to get the river stones last week, but then hubby did the van-paint thing, so we put off the rocks for a moment. Which is probably good, since I’m a little undecided about whether I want just rocks or some big heavy potted plants in the middle, or that tree I’ve been talking about before. If a tree/pots, you’d need less rocks, see. Hmm. Well, we’ll see what I have the energy for, once another spurt of fair-mood activity hits me.

–Baby-kitty still seems determined to outlive his human owners. Ok, not really, since if he did, he’d be the oldest house cat EVER, but he is one determined senior kitty. Every time I think “uh oh, might be put-down time” he bounces back again and seems fine. A little wobbly and weak hipped, which means he’s beginning to have a hard time balancing while squatting in cat-litter (sigh) but … yup, he’s enjoying his time being the only cat in the house, and he means to enjoy it for as long as possible.

–I’m apparently allergic to hazelnuts. I was eating Nutella on a wheat bagel in the mornings, which is a chocolate/hazelnut spread. More chocolate than hazelnut, but they boast that there’s at least 30 or so hazelnuts per jar. Heh. I loved the stuff, and spent the last 4-5 months using it as morning snack. But then I noticed some rashy places on my face and chest that looked like tiny red pimples, but would periodically itch like mad and would not go away for anything. I finally figured I’d try cutting out the Nutella, and a month later, it’s much reduced. I don’t think it’s going away entirely, but it’s not like it was. At least it’s not the chocolate…I can still eat that with no problem. And walnuts and many other seeds/nuts don’t bother me. But peanuts began to make me itch a while back, and now hazelnuts. I think I could, like with peanuts, eat a few now and then with no issues, but eating something with those in it on a daily basis for a period of time is no good.

–The constant stream of new allergies as I get older becomes more irritating all the time, especially when I don’t know what it is causing the problem for a long while. Sometimes I can itch so bad from something I’m scratching my back on the corner of a wall like a cat. And despite all the “free” detergents they have now, I seem to still have reactions from those now and then, too. I think I’m also at least mildly allergic to all the dust the maple tree leaves on our street put out - more contact than nose, but some of both. For instance, after weeding the front yard and stirring up a lot of that dust, I didn’t shower or change clothes, and later that day I had some bad contact rashes on the torso. I’d guess from the dust getting into my shirt and through to rub on my skin. A few hours after showering, it calmed down and by morning it was gone. Sigh. I should live in a bubble.

Well, that’s enough babbling for one day.

As anyone who likes to cater to backyard wildlife knows, it’s not difficult to simply attract the common ones to your yard, if you really want to. But I said I’d relate my specific tale, so here it is. It’ll be long, because I tend to ramble in a disjointed fashion more and more, so fair warning there.

Our yard doesn’t actually have any trees within the fence borders, but all our neighbors do. The people behind us have a big, tall tree (maybe 35 feet?) that’s very close to our back fence, as well as a very large palm bush/tree that stands directly against the tree trunk. The squirrels seem to treat this is a main hangout and treetop-chase-playground. One neighbor side has the large avocado tree and a lot of smaller, skinny trees along the fence. The other side of our yard has a power pole in the corner and a widespread low tree in that neighbors yard that is also adjacent to the fence. Thus our entire yard is like a big open space surrounded by trees. So when we first moved here, the squirrels were many and obvious as they treated the fences and power wires as hiways and jumped from tree to tree.

Mid-summer last year I started putting out birdseed in a dish in the middle of the yard for the small birds. I noticed some squirrels coming to pick the sunflower seeds out of the birdfeed, which amused me. One day late last summer I decided to buy a big bag of roasted/unsalted peanuts in the shell and I’d occasionally leave a small pile of first-come, first-serve peanuts next to the birdseed, or sprinkled them around the lawn for the squirrels to sniff out. And I was happy with this arrangement, because my main goal - to have the squirrels come close enough for me to take photos of them now and then - was served well enough.

But then in late winter the bluebirds started coming. Apparently they like peanuts too, and would snatch them up faster than the squirrels ever did. I didn’t mind giving the birds a few peanuts, but the birds meant that the squirrels would often look in the yard and see nothing, so….I started carrying peanuts around in a pocket whenever I went outside. If I saw a squirrel in the yard/on the fence, I’d tap a finger along a peanut for a few seconds to make an associative sound, and then toss it in their direction. At first they’d run away as I made the throwing motion and wouldn’t come back to investigate the peanut for long minutes. But eventually some seemed to recognize I was tossing yummy food … they’d watch and wait for me to back away then go immediately for the peanut. I did more stuff like that which I won’t bother to describe … suffice to say they became used to my presence in the yard and slowly the distance I could gain before they’d run away became more.

Eventually, one squirrel was smart enough to completely associate the finger-tapping sound and me with “peanut” and began to run up to me. He’d get within a few feet and stop, I’d toss a peanut, and he’d sit and eat it. Often he’d turn his back to me, which by human standards seems insulting, haha, but by squirrel standards supposedly means they trust you/don’t see you as a threat. During this time I also began to put a dish of peanuts close to the sliding door, in an open-sided box to protect it from rain. The bluebirds were more hesitant to “steal” them so close to the door. But I began to worry whether peanuts were actually good for the squirrels - I’ve read that peanuts can lack in some nutrition and squirrels who eat nothing but peanuts (whether raw or roasted) can end up malnourished. While “my” squirrels aren’t eating only peanuts by any means, I started worrying and began buying a bigger variety of things to make sure no squirrel would OD on any one thing. I mostly use nuts, but occasionally I’ll put out slices of apple, grapes, dried corn, and other fruits. They obviously prefer nuts but if fruit is the only thing there they’ll eat it happily enough.

Initially the first brave squirrel was the only one who would come close to me and stand in the doorway. Then I guess the others started watching, and a few others also became bold enough to come close. I continue to put the variety of stuff in the dish in the morning, and most of the squirrels eat from that - most also still run away if I approach the doorway or open the door. But those few that are braver will, if I leave the door open, hop inside a few steps to see if I’ve left certain treats on the floor nearby. I didn’t intentionally entice them to do that - they were smart enough to associate “open door” with “human who hands out treats” and started hopping into the doorway on their own. It was an easy way to keep the bluebirds from stealing everything so I let them. Again, only the few with bold personalities will come inside like that, and I haven’t encouraged more to do so. Like any animal, squirrels have varying temperaments etc. The brave ones are the squirrels that go crazy about burying extra food. If I let them, a couple would run back and forth between yard and door all day, wanting nuts just to bury. But letting them take and grab nuts from my hand or shelf all day would be no good for them (or my wallet), so I limit it. Still, it’s often hard to resist since it’s a hilarious and cute delight during the periods where I stand in the door or sit on the couch letting them come in and out. One in particular will trot all the way inside to the table if I’m sitting there.

I suppose it sounds like I might be over-doing it, but I’m not. They’re all still wild - even the ones who come indoors a ways and take nuts from my fingers. I don’t put out enough food for them to not have to forage on their own. They aren’t getting fat and slow. Many a time I can go outside and there’s not a squirrel to be seen for hours. I think most treat the dish box as a ’spot to check’ during their foraging routine. If it’s empty/the door is closed they run on, but if the dish is full/the door is open they pause to eat/check it out. In the late spring/early summer I’ll fill the food dish less often, too, since “wild” food will be more abundant then.

And if you’re wondering, Baby-kitty leaves them alone. :D

It’s been raining. And raining. Which is good, since we’re in the middle of a bad drought. The backyard squirrels still come to the sliding glass door between heavy downpours. I could talk all day about the squirrels in our yard … one day I’ll blog about it in depth. Maybe.

But in brief, after a couple months of patience, many will now quickly come when I call or when they hear the door slide open. There’s maybe 7 or 9 of them that visit either every day or every other day. I spoil them I suppose, and a few will take food from my hand now, but I’m also careful about making sure they stay wild. In other words, they do just fine if I skip giving them anything etc. :P

The squirrels eat a little of what I hand out - I’m very particular about what I give them, with a large variety of nuts and some fruit - but mostly they love to bury everything. Their favorite nuts to bury appears to be almonds (shelled or unshelled), unshelled walnuts, and unshelled peanuts, in that order. Some will watch and dig up what one squirrel buried, only to rebury it. Their “I must bury” obsession never seems to end. They’re very busy creatures that give me hours of amusement from just watching them through the windows.

I still put out birdseed, too. There’s at least 8 mourning doves and quite a few bluebirds that caw-caw-caw for their daily peanuts. Gazillions of pictures have been snapped…I think I’ll start posting some of them, now. May as well…what’s the point of taking a photo if you never share it?

The above photo is actually from the fall, when all the maple trees were turning. Right now they’re almost bare. But it’s prettier to see fall foliage than naked trees. Since I live in the “evergreen” California coast, this is probably the first time I’ve lived anywhere that had a lot of tree color in fall. It’s kinda cool.

I’m always a “hibernator” in winter, but this year it appears that includes being away from blogging. I’m sure I’ll return to it on a frequent basis at some point - this kind of activity always goes in sporadic spurts for me - but at the moment I haven’t had anything on my mind that inspires me to come here and blabber about it in public.

I could blog about the current season of House, or about the current video game I’m playing, or about my opinions on the economic crisis that is currently plaguing America, or how sad I am that Gil Grissom on CSI:Vegas will be leaving (the actor who plays him is leaving the show) and how that means I’ll probably stop watching the series. American Idol will be coming up soon…will I blog about that again? I’m not sure. Such opinion writing exercises don’t interest me too much at the moment.

Oh and btw, Merry Christmas. I wonder how many people this year are re-discovering, due to economic woes, that Christmas is not about how expensive or desired a material gift is … it is really, in my opinion at least, an extension of Thanksgiving. A time to ponder and be grateful for what you have, instead of being cranky/greedy about what you don’t have.

So be grateful, not cranky…and try not to give in to that sale-mob mentality and avoid trampling any more Wal-Mart employees to death, k?