My Garage Had Kittens

webmastuhb — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 18:25:43 -0000

I suppose something weird like this was bound to happen sooner or later.

My garage had kittens.

Last night, my little dog named "Buttons" was going nuts. Usually when she starts barking her head off in the middle of the night it means raccoons are trying to get into the garbage. Well I checked with a flashlight and it wasn't raccoons but a momma cat and three little kittens.

They all seemed to be coming out of a hole that went underground. It was at the foundation of the garage and seems to lead to some sort of underground network that is below the floor of the garage.

Anyway, they all seemed to be a bit undernourished. Crystal decided to feed them some tuna. They happily ate the tuna.

All day today, the three little kittens (who lost their mittens) seemed to be hanging around the garage without their momma. Crystal fed them some cat food that she bought for a few bucks.
One of the kittens is mostly black with a little white just like her mother. One of the kittens is mostly gray, with a little white. And the third is a calico, brown, white, etc.

I am not sure what to do about this. As of this writing, the mother cat seems to have returned to check on her babies. But really I have no idea what to do, if anything, about this. Anyone want a free kitten?

The simple fly swatter

webmastuhb — Mon, 08 Aug 2005 23:00:50 -0000

I have a newfound respect for the amazing engineering genius that is the fly swatter. I have come to realize that it is the most effective tool I own. Its cheap to manufacture and sell. Its simple, yet elegant and effective design impresses me to no end.

The other day, for no reason I could find, there were an abundance of common house flies in my place of residence. I have no idea where they were coming from or why they suddenly appeared. There was no unusual decaying matter or garbage of any kind in the area and there was no odor indicating some kind of dead thing or animal manure that is usually associated with flies.

Flies are disgusting creatures. I am not certain of this, but I believe they also spread germs and disease.

At any rate, they were invading my home, and I decided they needed to die. I tried killing them with a rolled up newspaper - it was difficult if not impossible. I experimented with other items and ran into the same, ineffective results. Kitchen towels, old t-shirts, pillows, underwear - none were effective. Oh sure, I may have killed one or two with a lucky shot, but really, those items were never intended to kill flies and it showed.

I decided to buy a fly swatter. It was $.89. It was made of a simple white wire fashioned into a handle. The end was looped around so I could hang it on a hook when I was not killing flies. The other end had a simple plastic mesh screen about 4 or 5 inches square.

With no practice at all I was quickly killing flies. The fly swatter was simple to use, required no instructions or training, and was damn near 100% effective. The goddamn flies never knew what hit them, and they were obliterated before they could escape. I could then easily wipe down the fly germ infected area with Clorox Disinfecting Wipes and dispose said wipes along with the fly carcass in the incinerator.

This is a complete contrast to just about every other fraking tool I have to use. I have a screwdriver that it is a complete pain in the ass. I have to select different bits out of a poorly designed container, and then put them into a holder. It has a ratchet that seems to not want to work sometimes.

And don't even get me started on other, more complicated tools. Like computers. I have been using computers since Carter was in office, and they still work half assed sometimes. They need to continually be coddled to keep them running and even after that I am amazed that they work at all. Same thing with cars. Same thing with cellphones. Same thing with tv/sattelite/DVR/DVD/PVR/whatever the hell else you wanna put in there. All of these things either have one or two serious design flaws or work totally half assed.

And lets not mention the cost factor. That $.89 fly swatter was probably sold at a profit, so one could assume that the fraking thing was made for pennies, and shipped for pennies. And yet amazingly, it works as advertised.

I did some research on this subject and it turns out there is a specific reason the fly swatter is designed the way it is. The long handle allows a lot of force to be distributed to the mesh end. The venting on the mesh end allows the flyswatter to move more quickly through the air, making it easier to hit a fast-moving target such as a fly.

The venting also allows the flyswatter to get closer to the fly before it is detected, as flies can sense the change in air pressure caused by an approaching solid object - which is why newspapers and t-shirts and all that other crap I tried didn't work worth a damn. With the holes in the mesh, the flyswatter usually gets close enough to the fly that when it is finally detected by the fly's pressure-sense or its eyes, it is too late for the fly to escape.

So hooray for the fly swatter!

Parts Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyswatter"

My hammer is an ok tool I guess, I just don't have to use it much.