katakat.com bytes from a participant observer

Another quarter down for the Ph.D. degree. I have at least two more to do, depending on if I take one class or two next quarter (starts in April). Right now I'm in Chicago at a week-long residency, where I get to see fellow classmates and faculty for real. They keep you going from morning until evening, so I'm pretty fried and it's only the second day. I have a few days after the residency to do some fun stuff, so I'm looking forward to that before I go home. Otherwise it's cold here and I'm glad I saved my thermals from those years in the Midwest.

The cats just had to go. Back home, that is. It seems my place was just too small for 30 pounds of cats. Nocturnal activities included loud meowing for food at 3:00 a.m.; regular emptying of the water bowl onto the bathroom floor; pounding on the bedroom door to be let in; and finally, jumping on my head while I was trying to sleep. Lack of rest was affecting my work performance, as I can only fake alertness through so many meetings. So Nick came and retrieved them last night.

I've taken on foster-parenting duties to two felines belonging to brother Nick and his wife Cindi. They are expecting twins sometime soon, and the needs of the new additions will undoubtedly take precedence over the cats', so I volunteered to take a load off, at least temporarily. (The two dogs get to stay at their house.) Lincoln and Truman arrived here on Sunday, and I had several days clear before the "scarf and barf" began. It seems that Truman loves to eat really fast, but has a bit of a hairball problem.

Sometime it's the mundane, everyday stuff that will kill you. Or at least make you hurt really bad. I called my karate senior to explain my absence for this week due to my back problems, and he completely topped it with his own tale of woe, which was so awful it pretty much made mine look like a stubbed toe. It seems he was out mountain biking on December 31st and part of the ride included crossing a Home Depot parking lot to get to a trail.

So I didn't feel well on Thursday night, and I woke up Friday morning with low back pain. I was popping ibuprofen like candy. The discomfort got so bad I slept on the couch Saturday night, just so I could roll off onto the floor to get up. It wasn't so much the pain as the spasms; I couldn't even sit up, let alone stand. Moving around my kitchen involved holding on to the kitchen counters and any available handle. It was like the top part of my body was balanced on Jell-O.

I just got back from a quick trip to the Bay area. I had so much fun, and it was soooo nice to get away from home for a few days. Any longer and my credit card would have melted. My college roommate (Class of 1988) provided the transportation around town, lodging, and the activity planning. We went to several really nice restaurants, walked all around downtown San Francisco, spent time with her parents in Sunnyvale, and went out on New Years' Eve (her parents got home long after we did).

I made it through the holidays, indeed. Mom's doing better in rehab. In fact, I think we all are doing better since she's been there, because we know she's getting good care and a lot of the socialization that staying at home in front of a TV tends to degrade. In other news, Dom's got a job interview this week. He's also finished four of his songs, now posted on MySpace. Check those out!

Once again I find myself at the end of the year without a single Christmas card sent out. I appreciate all who have already been on the ball enough to send their cards on time. I love to hear from everyone; it reminds me of all the good times. Lately it has not been so. Besides my crawling to the end of another quarter of classes (taking two is killer for me), my family has been plagued with anxiety: We had to put Mom in a rehab facility because she fell at home twice in the span of just a few days. Althought she didn't break anything, she also couldn't walk very well.

Check out Monster the singing cat: http://gagfilms.com/MonsterSingingCat.html

Here's my first attempt at using GarageBand 8 to make a multi-track audio recording for one of my multimedia classes. Photo is from my cruise to Alaska back in 1994, in case you're wondering.