Yesterday was a good day: To celebrate my mother's 75th birthday, we took her out for a day around Sarasota doing things that appealed to her love of animals. After starting with a big breakfast, we went to a local attraction that we've all been meaning to see for years, the Big Cat Habitat that takes care of exotic animals that were born in captivity but abandoned by their owners. The lions and tigers and liger were the prime attraction, but they also had bears, monkeys, a chimpanzee, parrots, emu, turkeys, goats, koi, and even stranger animals like a kangaroo, kinkajou, and coati. Sarasota is a circus town, so I'm not surprised that something like this was built here. The centerpiece of the visit was an arena demonstration in which the trained animals did tricks for the audience while the habitat owner hammed it up for the kids. It's a good cause and I wish them lots of continued success. After that, we went to the local art-house theater to see a documentary about pelicans being nursed back to health by rescue organizations. It seems to be in exceedingly limited release; the trailer has less than 2000 views. We all enjoyed it, but it was so dreamy that I think we all needed a nap afterwards. After a day out looking at animals, our cat enjoyed the extra hands-on attention when we got home.


Logical Operator

The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »

Halloween Party 2006

Last night I had the privilege to attend a Halloween party thrown by Miah (Jeremiah) Poisson and his fiancée Ines Sarante, which doubled as Miah's birthday party. My thanks to the hosts! I had a great time. Go »

R.I.P. Pam

Pam was a co-worker from the 2000s who recently passed away. Kelly worked with her much more closely than I did, sharing a cubicle space with her for years and getting to know her very well, though I had plenty of conversations with her too. She was always ready with a compliment or a joke or a homemade treat, and she was a source of light in a job that could be quite a grind some days. Go »

Eschew Obfuscation

For any FIN players wondering where in the hell the game is: I used my little free time over last weekend writing a mini-post – three whopping paragraphs – and at the end of the weekend I just couldn't bear to publish it so short. (The title of this post was the planned title of that post.) I have now rearranged my social so that weekends are more free, and one thing I plan to do with the time is resume writing FIN, starting this weekend by expanding my three paragraphs into more like three pages. Go »

Goodbye, Kai

I've been trying to save up for a new computer for the last few years, but bigger purchases like a wedding and medical emergencies kept consuming the funds. This past weekend, I finally broke down and bought a cheap but still quite powerful Windows 7 machine on Newegg, because I could no longer stand my old Windows XP machine. How old was it? Go »

Comeback

Kelly shared this news with me: Boomerang returns, even in space. I'm still waiting for scientists to announce, 'Boomerang' Starring Eddie Murphy Still Sucks, Even in Space. Go »

A Pet Peeve That's Actually About My Pet

How come I can't get through the grocery checkout lane without the clerk or the bagger commenting about how many cans of cat food I buy, which inevitably leads to questions about how many cats I own, how much I feed them, and why I need so many cans? Has nobody in this state heard of stocking up? For their information, I have one cat who eats two 3-oz cans of food a day, which is more than a typical cat but not unheard-of. Go »