Harley’s general checkup vet visit went well. His blood work and fecal came back great.

The vet had taken him into the back for his nail trim and blood draw. Harley was wrapped in a towel when he was brought back in, when the vet sat him down on the counter, Harley dashed across the counter, and hopped into my lap. I was sitting on a bench next to the table.

He was well behaved. He was loud, but that is standard. At least he didn’t bite anyone (which he bite two people on his first vet visit that I carried him to).

Its amazing how one thing leads to another, over the years.

Back when I was a teenager, was a member of the Science Fiction book club. I picked out a book with a nice looking dustjacket. It was a man with a sword, being menaced by two tiger sized siamese cats. This was the first few books of the Chronicles of Amber, by Roger Zelazny. If I have to identify the Chronicles of Amber for you, then you aren’t a geek.

I’ve liked Zelazny ever since.

A few months back, I learned that a massive compendium of Zelazny’s work was being published. Four of the six volumes were already out. I bought them, and spent several weeks reading them. I had never known he was a poet. So, while hanging out in my living room one evening, I read one of the poems out loud. The birds instantly took notice. Backs straightened and bird eyes swiveled around and focused on me.

Since then, I’ve made a habit of reading poetry to them. I often skip a day, but I try to read a poem a day to them. They still take note. Mind, I suspect that they would take note if I was reading the phone book. But since poetry sounds different, I could be wrong. The phone book is not interesting reading, so I don’t plan on testing this theory. Besides, I don’t actually have any phone books. The Internet and GPS have killed off any need I have for them.

Anyway, you can’t read poetry aloud for long without developing an interest in it. So I’ve been doing some casual poetry reading, and study, for the past few months.

The road to it is interesting though. A nice illustration on a book jacket catches a boys eye. That leads to a life long love of an author. The middle aged man that the boy grew into (physically anyway), looks into this favored author a bit more, and discovers he was a poet. Against the odds, this ties in with his love of parrots, because the parrots love poetry. (Or love the man reading aloud to them – close to the same, because poetry is meant to be read aloud, and prose is not). And that leads to the man appreciating poetry more. All because of a cheap dust jacket illustration on a cheap copy of a fantasy book. That illustration had an impact over twenty years later.

The world is a richer one than we often think.

To be clear, I’m a strong supporter of gun rights, and I do keep one (well, three, actually) in the house. But, I think we can all empathize with this poem.

Another Reason I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House by Billy Collins
(From Sailing alone around the room).

The neighbors’ dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.

The neighbors’ dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,

and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.

When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his baton

while the other musicians listen in respectful
silence to the famous barking dog solo,
that endless coda that first established
Beethoven as an innovative genius.

Lawyers for the towns of Chattanooga and Red Bank (where a similar system is deployed) write, “[Drivers] are not entitled to a trial by jury, a presumption of innocence or a heightened burden of proof.”

That’s typical for civil offenses, which bear a lower burden of proof. But its atypical for traffic violations, which often carry a presumption of innocence and allow citizens to request a trial by jury. The shift is likely due to the light penalty associated with the ticket, but it’s worrisome because that penalty could be bumped at some point to a full moving violation.

See, this is a prime example of why I favor strict limits on government, and police power. Scope creep.

Simple truth: I’ve never in my life met anyone (who is older than a toddler) who is a law abiding citizen. They don’t exist. Everyone has broken some law, at some time, even if its only going 36 in a 35 zone. So being a hardass in preservation of your rights in any encounter with the police is the intelligent thing to do. (Even if the practical effect is to make your own life miserable).

So, this morning, I go to feed the birds. I notice Harley macaw is acting “snappy”. Thats when I suspect that he will try biting my fingers through the bars when I go to put food in his bowl. To solve the problem, I normally open his cage door, and reach in to put his food directly into the bowl. Often times I have to push him a bit to the side to get the food into the bowl. He doesn’t bite when I do this, because its not a game.

Anyway, this morning, I reach in there, and he hops up on my arm! What a nice way to start a morning, giving a head scratch to my favorite bird, and snuffling the feathers on top of his head. I love the smell of macaw. It used to bother me back when I first got him. Now it raises fond thoughts.

Normally, Harley rates food over attention from me, so its always nice when that isn’t the case.

A friends 9 year old daughter watched Star Wars for the first time the other night. During the famous trash compactor scene, she came up with a profoundly insightful question.

Katie had the line of the night during the garbage-chute scene: “Who would throw away a one-eyed octopus?”

Kermit playing

Originally uploaded by The_Gut.

Just adding a spot of color. Kermit playing on the play stand.

So here I am, sitting here in my living room. Kiwi is the only bird out. She is playing on her cage, which is right next to my chair.

Kiwi is playing on the other side of the top of her cage. So, suddenly she walks over to my side, poops on me, then walks back to where she is playing, and goes back to it.

Parrots.

Taking widely varying routes, they are arriving at similar conclusions: little or no educational benefit is found. Worse, computers seem to have further separated children in low-income households, whose test scores often decline after the machine arrives, from their more privileged counterparts. Abroad, researchers found that children in Romanian households who won a $300 voucher to help them buy computers received significantly lower school grades in math, English and Romanian. Stateside, students in a North Carolina study posted significantly lower math test scores after the first broadband provider showed up in their neighborhood, and significantly lower reading scores as well when the number of broadband providers increased. And a Texas study found that ‘there was no evidence linking technology immersion with student self-directed learning or their general satisfaction with schoolwork.’”

From http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/business/11digi.html

Well DUH. I work with computers for a living. If I had kids, they wouldn’t be allowed on computers until 10 years old, at the earliest. ANYTHING a kid can be doing is time better spent than sitting at a computer. Computers are tools. They are easy to learn tools. Don’t learn them before you have a need to learn them.

Well the massive work project is winding down. We went live tuesday – with a partial group of folks at work. Weds everyone was there. So, this means I’ve actually got some time to let the birds out this weekend. For the past 4-5 weeks they have been seriously shorted on their out time.

And it means I’ve got three super sticky cockleburs. Not to mention that it looks like Harley has totally “forgotten” what he is not allowed to mess with. (In all fairness, he never does have a solid grasp of this – or at least, he sure doesn’t act like it.) So when he isn’t on me, I have to go get him every 3 minutes or so to get him away from whatever he is messing with.

At least I’ve managed to get Kermit to playing on the tree stand. And Kiwi is playing with Kermits toys in Kermits cage.

For the next five minutes, anyway.

I swear, Macaws are living embodiments of destructive chaos.

So, I gave max dog a chew today – not something I do very often. And, after chewing on it for quite a while, he decided that he needed to be hidden, for whatever reason.

After scoping out various spots around the room, he decided to hide it under the pillow on the bed. Which I was using, because I was reading. He spent literally five minutes shoving it up under the pillow, and then stuffing a sheet up against the pillow. I even told him I would guard the damn thing, if he would just quit smacking my head with his. So he finally gets it hidden.

Then, he goes and gets a long drink of water.

After which, he comes back, and gets the treat out and goes back to chewing it!

Dogs.