Sometimes I Chase My Tail

a blog post by Georgie (our orange kitten)

HI! My name is Georgie! I'm really happy to meet you!

I'm still a kitten, so I'm very excitable and energetic. That's why I use lots of exclamation points!

I joined Dave's family over a month ago. They are so awesome! I've trained them to put some yummy food on the floor every time I whine. It's yummy! Hehe, I meant the food, not the floor. Anyway, I used to be really tiny. But I've been getting bigger! YAY!!! But I'm still not as big as my buddy Chubbie. He's a grey cat, and the only other boy cat here. Wait... Dave just told me Chubbie's kind of not a boy anymore, and that soon I won't be one either. Mmmm... I don't really know what that means. But I really like kitten food! It's awesome!!! ROWR!

You know what I sometimes like to do? Chase my tail! Have you ever chased your tail? Oh, wait... Dave just told me that you big not-cat creatures don't have tails. Anyway... Sometimes I chase my tail!

Just the other night, I ran into the computer room to see what Dave was up to. Then I saw a recliner. So I climbed up it! Once I was on it and sat down to look around the room, I saw this orangey pointy thing laying near me. So I jumped at it! And it moved! So I had to chase it!!! But every time I ran closer to it, it moved away! A couple of times I got it and bit it a little, which hurt a little for some reason. Then, I realized I was biting my own tail! But that's okay, because it's so much fun chasing it!

Well, I gotta go be in a different room now. Bye! It was fun talking to all of you!

White Easter

We did not have a White Thanksgiving in November, 2006.
We did not have a White Christmas in December, 2006. (I was bummed!)
We did not even have a White New Years Day in January, 2007.
But, yes, we did indeed have a White Easter in April, 2007.

All our accumulated snow had disappeared during March. But winter briefly returned last week. On the morning of Good Friday (April 06), 2007, there were 3 - 4 inches of beautiful white snow greeting us. And the weather remained could enough that the snow was still there on Easter Sunday.

Ah. Snow. How I'd missed you. And now you've returned for one last glimpse of your beauty before the full onslaught of spring begins.

Quote of the Day - Water Glasses

"To an optimist the glass is half full.
To a pessimist the glass is half empty.
To a programmer the glass is twice as big as it needs to be."

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Creator of FORTRAN Died 03/17/07

This posting will be a break from the usual silliness and semi-seriousness.

John Backus, the creator of the FORTRAN computer programming language, died Saturday, 3/17/07, at the age of 82.

FORTRAN was the first widely-used high-level programming language (i.e. normal people could read & understand the source code), invented in the 1950's by John Backus and his team at IBM, and has been in continuous use ever since. The language is well-suited for scientific and engineering computer applications like computational chemistry or climate modeling, or applications involving complex numbers.

When I was in college I took two or three semesters for FORTRAN. Out in the real world I've mainly used COBOL, but then I've mainly worked in the business world where COBOL is used extensively.

Here's the obituary article at the New York Times. A different (permanent) link to the same article.

I Can See Our Yard

An amazing thing happened this week. I could see our yard!

You see, since early this year when the snows first came, our yard had effectively disappeared under a layer of ice and snow. And pine needles. Due to the warm weather we've had this week, it's pretty much all gone. Including the massive snow & ice pile that had been at one corner of our driveway (built for us by our friendly neighbor snow plow trucks). And with the vernal equinox coming soon, I don't think we'll get much more snow. But I hope we do. I like snow. And winter, the best season of them all.