Rats! What a great idea!

For Christmas this year, we got two pet rats.  After much searching / exploring ideas for good pets for kids, rats kept coming up at the top of the list.  As G is quite allergic to cats, and I have a general disdain for them, cats were off the list.  Dogs require too much time, attention, and cost; though would be a good 2nd choice for us.  I was thinking "hamster" but they don't sell teddy-bear hamsters anymore, and the little hamsters they sell now are biters.  That would be a "no" for us - we want a pet to interact with, not just watch.  So reptiles and fish are out.  Mariia doesn't like birds in the house.  What's left?  Rats.  The hamster industry has convinced us that hamsters are cute, clean, trainable, non-biters that are fun to interact with.  They are not.  However, rats do have all of these qualities.  People get turned off by the tail (hence why hamsters are more popular - small tail).  Silly, huh?  The tail is used for balance and to regulate their body temperature.  It's what gives them such great agility.

After acquiring a large (3' x 2' x 5') multi-level cage, the requisite food bowls, chewy things, hammocks, and other cage toys, we were ready.  A quick trip to PetCo and we had two female rats (no babies here, please) - Bee-Doh (from Despicable Me movies) and Eva (from Wall-E).  M thought that she would not like them at first, but after 5 minutes she was hooked.  A true rat-whisperer.  They took to her immediately for petting.

Rats are meticulous about being clean, they love to interact with each other and their owners.  If you don't handle your rats daily, they get sad.  If they don't live with another rat, they die faster, as they get very lonely.  On day 1 we were handling the rats.  When you scratch them behind their ears, they purr.  They're soft, they don't smell, and will lick your fingers if you pet them.  You groom your friends, after all.  In essence, they are kind of like small kittens with a lot less maintenance.

We've had the rats for about a month now, and they have never even attempted to bite at us, even with my 5-year old's sometimes rougher-than-I-like handling.  They tolerate it because they want to be played with.  When we clean their cage, we let them out to roam the room freely.  This usually involves having rats climb on the closest person.  They want to be on you and play with you.  If they can get inside your shirt, they think it is great fun.  After a month we have them litter-box trained so they are not making as much of a mess in their cage.  They both come when called.  We are "clicker-training" them, so when they get a treat, you make a clicking sound.  They associate the sound with doing something good.  S has them started to teach them how to stand on their back legs.  They play tug-of-war with each other and you using a paper towel.  They're incredibly adept climbers and jumpers.  They are crazy-smart and very fast learners.

Hollywood gets a lot of things wrong (shock!).  Rats in movies / TV are typically represented as nasty critters.  They are anything but that.  They use them in movies / TV because they are so easy to train and won't even think of harming their people friends.  Urban legends hold more truth than reality here.

There are some great life-lessons kids get from owning pets.  Learning how to take care of another living thing is a wonderful lesson.  The kids understand that the rats are dependent on them for food, water, cleaning, and socialization.  They take to it every night when we have "rat time".  Some lessons are good for all of us, simply by observing our rat-friends.

Things owning a pet rat will teach you:

- The cage is your home and a safe place, but all the fun is outside the cage with your friends.

- Though you may squabble with your housemate, you still curl up with them at night.

- Trust needs to be earned, but once earned the rewards are endless.

- Be cautious of new things, but try them anyway.

- If you find a peanut, share it with your friend.

- You need to try jumping to what you want every now and again.  If you miss, you have claws to pull yourself up.
- The potty is a safe place to chew on toys and treats.

I'll Second That

The 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution is a point of great controversy in the US, as well as any discussion that comes up with regard to weapons.  I tend not to wax poetic about my political or social views in any public forum, rather intentionally.  I feel it better in most cases to shut up and listen. My views are my views, and they're likely to stay that way for a long time, and I'm not likely to be swayed by other's opinions on things.  Unfortunately, what is mostly said is hyperbole at best, and not helpful to finding solutions, or even to determine if a solution needs to be found.  I suppose if I had to summarize my point of view, it's best to do a Q&A:
Do I know people that own guns?  Yes.
Do I care to know about it?  No.
Am I going to advise anyone to own / not own guns?  No.
Do I think anyone should regulate owning guns?  No.
All of the above questions are absolutely none of my business, and I intend to keep it that way.

Do I think a reasonable background check should take place before buying a gun?  Yes.
Do I think the current process of background checks today is adequate?  No, it needs a lot of work.
Note that does not mean I think it needs to be more onerous, it is just that it is not easy to do one if I were the one doing the selling.  The background check process makes far more money than it should - we have the technology, I'm not sure why we don't use it.

On a more personal level:
Do I have a gun?  No.
Do I want a gun?  No.
Do I want anyone in our house to own a gun?  No.

If a gun were in my house, I would ensure it is kept in a secure gun safe with keyed lock.  The gun would also have a trigger lock on it at all times.  I would want to possess one of those keys and would secure it.  I would also ensure any ammunition would be secured.  Seem strict?  Sure.  But since there would never be a need to shoot the gun anywhere near the house, it seems prudent to me.  I really don't want one in the house.  Accidents can and will happen, and that's just a risk I'm not willing to live with.

So, there's my take.  It probably doesn't agree with yours, and that's OK.  I don't intend to change my point of view on this, and I'll let you have your point of view on it.  I'm perfectly happy keeping it that way.

If you are going to do something, do it well.

I'll admit it, I like to play practical jokes. Not small things either. If you're going to do something, I think you should do it well or not at all. I once put 480 tubs of play-do in a co-workers cube for his 40th birthday. When I put up Christmas lights, I try to do 20,000 of them. I've won 'best lights in town' contests twice. I've filled cubicles with balloons, post its, and drink umbrellas. I try to think outside the box on these things.

I've been doing something for a while, I call it small surprises. Typically at work, and always anonymously. It could be a plate of cookies, or a slinky on the desk. Something odd, and it leaves the person smiling a bit. I don't do it for thanks, that's why I do it anonymously. The mystery of 'who did this' is enough thanks for me. It's called spreading kindness, and it works.

I pulled a really good one today. A coworker had her 18-year wedding anniversary today, and we are on the road in Minneapolis. With her husband's idea and consent, I booked her for a 3 hour spa session. Another coworker with us wrote a card "from her husband". Was it cheap? No, but I paid for it with poker winnings, so no cash out of "my pocket" was involved. Was the shock and surprise worth every penny? You bet. My boss wants to figure out a way to reimburse me, but I said no - that's not why I did it. I paid cash, and got no receipt.

So, the moral here is that sometimes you'll notice someone needs a pick-me-up, where something small can go a long way. If you're going to do something, do it well, and reap the reward a thousand times over.

Donate Here

I'll admit it, I'm picky.  Especially when it comes to donating money to various causes.  I have some preset rules that have served me insanely well for many years.
1)  If I know you, and you're collecting money for something you are doing, say, a MS-150 ride, or a charity marathon run, I'm donating to you.  All you need to do is make me aware of it.  You're working your butt off, trust me, I know, as I've done a couple of MS-150 rides.  Donating levels apply here 100% (see donating levels rule below).
2)  If I don't know you, or you're just collecting money for whatever, and I don't know how it is really going to be used, you're probably not going to get a lot from me, if anything.
3)  I donate to my church, I know where it is going, and it does some good.  How much I donate is my business, not yours.  My church does not tell me how much I should donate, and if it did, I would stop donating immediately.
4)  I used to donate to the United Way above a "leadership" level, when it was matched by my company.  I may do this again in the future, but they give way too much to the Boy/Girl Scouts, which I have personal issues with nowadays.
5)  I do not donate to people that come to my house.  Or at least, rarely.  I will support high-school band members that come to sell something to support band trip or instrument buying.  I get the fact that their budgets are near zero and they are paying their own way.  I will not support 'for the school' fundraisers - especially with elementary school kids.  This is more to make money for the company selling the junk than for the school.  It scares the hell out of me that parents send their first graders door-to-door unsupervised to do this.
6)  I have not, and will not send my kid door-to-door to sell stuff.  Ever.  I think it is a poor use of their time and talents.  I instruct the teachers on Day 1 of school that they are not to include my children in such sales, or even worse, school assemblies done for the purpose of telling the kids to sell things.  If they want $20, I'll give them $20, no questions asked.  It'll be more money than they will get from the fund raising company.  I will also not hawk school's crap to you that my kid is (not) selling, and I'd appreciate if you did the same.  I think it is in bad taste to do so.  Schools should be focusing on education, not 'general' money raising.

My donation levels:
If I know you, and I'm donating to something you are actively involved in, expect at least a $100 donation from me.  If I'm going to donate, I'm not going to donate 'small' to you.  Yes, this does surprise some people when they want $5 or $10 from me, and I donate $100 or more, but I figure you're doing the work, the least I can do is support you.

Not the way I intended to spend Father's Day

It's Father's Day. 
Instead of being at home in Corvallis with G and S, my two incredble kids, I'm sitting in a Hilton Garden Inn at Maple Grove, Minnesota.  I'm here on business, and I'm not knocking the purpose of the trip, it's a good thing that I'm here.  I've been here for the last two weeks, and I have one more week to go before I go home.  I'm just not sure if there is a lonelier place to be than in a hotel room by yourself in the middle of the Minneapolis suburbs, when you could be at home having fun with your kids. 
I probably could have flown home on Friday night, had a Saturday with the family, then flown back on Sunday afternoon.  But, as my previous post indicated, airplanes have taken on a new form of punishment for me.  It's a tradeoff.  I'm sure my family would have been happy to see me and all, but my leaving 30 hours later would probably have made things worse than they needed to be.
It may have been easier to get through this weekend if I had something to do, but because we're doing a code and data drop today, I can't get on our system to do any testing.  I'd much rather be doing that, it makes the days blur a bit.

Yesterday was the first day 'off' I've had in a while.  A co-worker, Nate, and I went to the Mall of America.  It was as expected, a huge mall.  It was more like an amusement park with a mall wrapped around it.  The Lego store was cool.  They had some huge Lego scuptures - a helicopter, a 20 foot Transformer, that kind of thing.  Very crowded place, and I dislike crowds.  We had lunch at Dicks, which is an experience of sorts.  Nate got sick from the food.  My hamburger was quite 'pre-processed' and not very good.  I guess I have an iron stomach.
Later, I got a haircut as I was getting a lot 'shaggy', then went to the Russian Orthodox Church of the Resurrection of Christ, which was essentially the front of a house in a neighborhood.  It was a very small church, they had bench seats (which is unusual for a Russian Orthodox Church, but that was probably due to space constraints.  I had a good talk with their Deacon, John.  I got to have a couple of minutes of peace, which was a quite welcome respite from the week.  I'm going to have to return before I leave.
I then went to J Cousineaus for dinner.  Buzztime had it highly rated, so time to give it a try.  It was a pain to find, but once I got there, it was definitely a 'quirky' place.  They had a sign on the door about how they had a #1 bar in the country score a couple of weeks ago.  That's a good sign for a trivia-bar.  The clientelle were an older-than-me type of crowd, and most were playing trivia while watching the US Open.  Nick, the barkeep, was very friendly.  I'm used to walking into strange bars and beating people at trivia.  This crew gave me a good challenge.  One game, I got 12th in the country, and for getting my name / bar name on the 'board', I got a token for a free drink.  Ahhhh... that's why this place is so popular for trivia.  :-)  I had an interesting bacon/cheese/peanut butter hamburger.  It was sweet-salty in a good way.  I really didn't want to leave J Cousineaus as the hotel room has become a very lonely place to be.  But, it was best to check in with e-mail and make an effort to get some sleep.

A lot of co-workers are coming back this week, I suppose that's a good thing.  This last week was rather empty, except for our COO who was there all week.  I'm not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.  He's a nice enough guy and all that, but he also adds a stress level to all of us that isn't really needed.  I'm hoping that my co-workers who were here last week got some much needed time away from this project - they both needed it quite badly.  I'm hoping I can find a quick resolution to the lingering problems.  I'm sure it will be found, but the solution may not be the prettiest in the world.

Confinement

I don't know if it's claustrophobia or some other classification, but I really hate being confined. This is why I want the aisle seat at a movie, concert, or airplane. I want an escape. Operas or classical concerts where you really can't leave your seat for an hour may as well be torture for me. Airplanes are hell - especially from the time I get on the plane until it takes off. Once the plane is in the air and I know I can get up, I'm fine again. Then from the time the plane starts to descend until it parks at the gate is painful. It's not that I dislike flying or planes, quite the opposite actually. I just hate not being able to move freely. It's not a sitting thing, because standing on a subway train or in a line is bad as well. Meetings at work are bad. I can last about 20 minutes and then I need to *get out now*. I have the same reaction in large crowds of people. Close-in spaces don't bug me like a traditionally classified claustrophobic, which is why I think it is more of an issue with confinement.
I wish there was an easy cure for whatever this is, but I doubt it. I know it's all in my head. It's gotten worse as I've gotten older, too. Odd, eh?

Trying something new

I think it's always hard to start a new habit, like blogging. I'm working on it. I've enabled my phone to allow me to write posts - hopefully that means I'll write more often.