A friend of mine made me the offer of a new kitty the other day, and I’ve been thinking about it very hard. My neighborhood currently does not have a tabby cat wandering it’s streets, which just seems very odd to me. The tabby that used to live with me (Sebastian, AKA Be’elzekitty) went home with his original owner some time ago, and the girl who had a twin to him moved away shortly thereafter. Heck, even that poor tomcat with the ‘lion’ haircut moved away.

Anywho, the kitty I have been offered is a grey tabby. He’s currently running under the moniker ‘Trouble’, and is the largest cat in his litter – roughly twice the size of his sibs at 10 weeks old. Big, curious, outgoing and atitude to spare – the kind of cats I’ve had all my life.

The only drawback I can see is the financial aspect. I’m not real big on taking myself to the doc, so you can imagine how often I take a pet to the vet. (Like me, my pets have always been healthy.) While the cat would be free to me, I would still need to take him in at least for his first round of shots (not a big deal) and the Breaking. (If something works, and you make it not work, it is breaking, not getting fixed.) This procedure currently costs about $125 – a fairly largish sum to be spending on a pet at this stage of my finances. This amount is offset somewhat by speculation though: I would have another couple of months before a vet would even perform the procedure due to his age.

Other considerations include the current non-human residents of Chez Wolfie. Zoe The Monster Cat has seemed a bit lonely since Sebastian moved out, and might like a new kitty. Or, she may not. On the flipside, Zoe doesn’t consider Tweaker the Hamster to be food, and a new cat might. The Ratboy would be very unhappy if he came home and found Tweaker’s cage open and hamster-breath on the cat.

So, I’m looking for feedback. What do you think?

Remember how my backpack got stolen back in June? Well, my old roomate found a message on his voicemail from a Troutdale cop trying to get ahold of me. Apparently someone has been masquerading as me somehow or something.

Now I’m waiting for the cops to call me back. I hate waiting.

So the job search continues on, with little sign of any interest on any of the thirteen-some-odd fronts I have been searching. There’s a job fair up at the zoo in a coupe weeks, maybe I can get a couple bites from that. The ideas keep churning though – the most recent being a shop in a recently vacated corner store down the street from me. A rather nice location for my computer business, if I could scrape together some 60 large in startup scratch.

The Ratboy is all registered for the upcoming school year, and I even managed to convince him to wear a nice shirt and the hint of a smile for pictures! This of course didn’t help any, since he neglected to bring a comb and the rain on the way to the school obliterated anything that might have resembled a hairstyle. Still, it beats the cold “I’m too cool for this shit” blah expression of last year. Of course, it might have helped that I gave all of last year’s pictures to his friends so they could give him shit about them.

The back to school season is always a bit of a trial for me, since I have this thing for office supplies. I have a helluva time getting out of the stores without an extra bag of goodies like pens, pencils and notebooks. Notebooks are the worst – at one point, I had 4 in my backpack. It got too hard to find which one I jotted stuff down in, so I had to limit myself to one. With sections, of course.

I am currently swimming in CD-R media. My best girl decided she wanted me to burn some compilation discs for her, so she thought to provide the media. As it happens, Office Max was having a 2-for-1 sale on 100 disk spindles. I guess she has some serious listening needs. Speaking of which, time for a little jazz. The “Ultra Lounge” series from Capitol Records, Volume 4: Bachellor Pad Royale. “Midnight Music for Cool Cats!” as they proclaim on the cover. Have I mentioned that my best girl works at the Library?

Ok, that’s enough documentation for one day. Time to screw off.

As you know, my backpack was stolen from my car a few weeks ago, and I’ve been travelling a bit light without it. Since the back-to-school sales are in full swing this week, I went down to get a replacement.

I wasn’t aware of this, but apparently there are two companies making “Official Swiss Army Knives” – Victorinox and Wenger. Both companies have also diversified, breaking into the general outdoor gear department. Why does this matter? Because the knife in my pocket is Victorinox, the pack I just bought is Wenger, and they both bear the Swiss Army logo. (Although Wenger is just a white cross on a red square, not the Victorinox ‘shield’ logo.)

The pack is the Soho model, and I chose it because of it’s internal laptop pocket. I don’t currently own a laptop, but I will in the future, so I figured I’d plan for the upgrade. It has quite a bit of room, with two main compartments and two smaller compartments, and all the little organizational doodads in between. Included is one of those cd pockets with a headphones pass-thru that seem to be all the rage in backpacks now, which really seems like it’s three years too late. Most of the folks I know who buy packs like this use mp3 players. (Hell, Duke University gave iPods to all the students this year.)

In any case, the pack has a nice formed and padded layer on the back, so it fits comfrtably – it even has a mesh cloth for ventilation. The straps are nicely padded, and look like they will keep it from giving me the bruises or aches I have received from lesser products. A nice touch on the straps is that the lower end of the strap connects to a sturdy panel, which then connects to the bag – this will reduce stress on the bag’s seams and prevent a tear. The zippers all have decent fobs on them for grabbing, and the zippers themselves appear to be pretty robust.

And of course, it’s all black :)

The Oregonian has this story about what is being called by some a “back-door draft”. Here’s a snippet:

The soldier’s lawsuit contests an increasingly controversial tool used by the Army to bolster combat forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. What the military terms “stop loss” orders prevent soldiers from leaving the Army either at the end of their tour or in retirement if their unit is mobilized for Iraq or Afghanistan.

In Oregon and across the country, soldiers who thought they were about to finish their military careers find their tours overseas extended or they are dispatched with units mobilized from the United States.

I don’t know about you, but it sounds like fascism to me. As usual, write your elected officials and let them know how you feel.

Well, I talked to the EMC’s husband today, and they are seriously considering moving out of the area soon, due to the rising cost of housing here in the Rose City. I can understand their point of view, but they’re thinking about Spokane, which is a six-hour drive. This means I would AT BEST be seeing my daughter every other weekend, and chances are that wouldn’t work out.

Now, many of you know my history and know how important it is to be a larger part of my daughter’s life than that. So, we’re looking for other options to keep them closer to me, since I’m not leaving Portland. I’ve lived in enough other places to know that PDX has the best combination of climate, opportunity and people. It is just an unfortunate coincidence that right now it has a lousy job market.

Blurgh.

Today happens to be Friday the 13th, what many people refer to as an unlucky day. This has rarely been the case in my family. Today, my son proved that a calmly presented and well-reasoned argument can be used to get your way, even in high school.

So, let’s hear from the rest of you – any odd occurances on a 13th? Good luck, bad luck or just outright weird, let’s hear it.

Here’s The Oregonian’s article on the shooting last night:

Five people were wounded — one seriously — during an early-morning incident involving multiple gunshots today at a private hip-hop party in Northeast Portland.

Portland police reported shots being fired at 12:36 a.m. at 332 N.E. San Rafael Ave., a building that is rented for private parties and music events. The most serious injury was suffered by a 21-year-old pregnant woman who was shot in the lower back. She was listed in serious condition at Legacy Emanuel Hospital & Health Center.

Brian Schmautz, a Portland Police Bureau spokesman, said that an officer in the vicinity heard shots fired at 12:36 a.m. and that a 9-1-1 emergency call was received a minute later.

“Early indications are that there could have been more than a dozen rounds fired in a short time,” Schmautz said. He said because of the number of people at the scene and the number of injuries, police did not determine immediately whether shots had been fired in more than one direction.

Among the less-serious injuries, Schmautz said one victim was hit in the left shoulder, two in the buttocks and one in an ankle. Names of all victims, age 18 to 26, were being withheld until police had a chance to interview them.

Schmautz said the scene of the shooting is known as the International Club and is rented for private parties and shows. He said tickets had been required for admission to the Sunday night event that ended with the shooting.

At roughly 00:35 this morning, I was sitting downstairs watching Bil Engval on Comedy Central when I heard a VERY distinctive sound: that of someone firing off a number of 9mm (or smaller) rounds, a short pause, and then three more.

I’m not sure how many there were, and after talking with some of my neighbors down the street I may have heard an odd echo of the actual firing sequence, but the fact remains that the russian club behind the dojo across the street from me was the scene of a shooting today.

There are currently many cops in the area plus at least one chopper over head. You’ll probably need to read the paper to get a more detailed account.

The interesting thing is that I went down to the 76 station for a fresh pack of smokes afterward and talked to the attendant about it. He had been called in to work about an hour previous because the scheduled person “had a bad feeling about tonight” and called in sick. Just before the shooting happened, three girls pulled into the station for gas, all saying they left the club due to a “sick feeling in their stomach”.

Psychic phenomena or coincidence? I couldn’t say. I can say that this isn’t the first time I’ve encountered similar reactions minutes before extreme violence broke out. Listen to your gut, folks, nad keep your head down when driving on MLK.

All rumors to the cintrary, my last contract position will be paying me after all. That is a huge relief.

I took another contract position today setting up a new office with a few workstations they need networked. Yay!

The Old Man was local today, so I packed up the kids and met him and the Stepmonster for lunch at a truck stop. Managed to talk to her for an hour without her ticking me off, so things went well. Of course, I had brought the Pookster along to distract her :)

It’s damn hot out there.