09:24 pm - Baby ball python! I am so excited right now!
We had this little ball python at work who had not been eating, at all. It's been over a month since I first heard he wasn't eating. Ever since I've been trying all sorts of things to entice him into chomping on a pinky. I warm them up and dance them around, even poke him in the nose with 'em, and he never cared. I've been so worried that I've even been coming in on my off days. He kept getting thinner and thinner, more like a pencil each day. I asked my boss to let me take him to the vet, but it wasn't up to him. The district manager wouldn't let me do it, and the breeder wouldn't take any action. This especially pissed me off because he guarentee's his snakes are "feeding" when they get to us. Three of his reptile's died this week alone: a Chameleon (that we shouldn't have in the first place), Iguana and a tortoise. I personally think the guy's a joke.
This morning, the poor little snake had no energy left and his skin was looking like a baggy sock. One of my co-workers (who is an awesome animal guy) told our manager that the snake was dying. I think that was all he needed to hear. After dropping the price from "manager special $39.99" to "$29.99" there wasn't much left for him to do with it. He said I could either give the snake to whoever seemed interested or just take him myself. After a "happy dance" and seven hours of work, I brought the poor little snake home.
Jon cleaned out the cricket tank for me so it would be ready when I got home. I let the snake rest for a bit before putting him in a cotton sack and heading out to Scales and Fur, with Jon behind the wheel. That way I could hold the baby.
The folks at Scales and Fur were the NICEST people. They had already heard about the snake from the guy who gave me their business card. They were ready to give him all sorts of attention and were shocked to see how thin and weak he had gotten. He wouldn't eat a live pinkie that they placed in front of him. So, it came down to what I think we all knew would need to be done. Force feeding.
The first thing they tried was a freshly killed fuzzy. He spit it up. Too big. Next was a live pinkie. He spit that up, too. The last straw, was a (now dead) pinkie, held by tongs. I tell ya, it was a group effort with shoving and massaging, but they got him to swallow it. I swear I almost started crying, I was so happy to see him EATING! :D It was by force, but at this point I don't care how it gets in his stomach, only that it does. We celebrated by taking about reptiles and frolicking around the store. I know who I'll be going to with all my herp needs from now on!
We're all at home now. The little guy is digesting in his paper towel tube. :) Keep your fingers crossed that he doesn't regurgitate. Round two at Scales and Fur will be in a couple of days. He needs more nourishment... but for now, I can sleep easy. Current Mood: relieved
09:13 pm - Happy Belated 4th! Hey - it's a long weekend! It still counts!
"Like Thomas Paine once wrote: It's only common sense (only common sense) That if a government won't give you your basic rights You better get another government." Current Mood: busy
Adam and Chorca have been working on the CNC machine non stop since yesterday. Chorca runs in to grab my camera for photos. I really liked these 3 he took. Much craziness is going on in the garage right now while I stay inside sewing :P.
08:06 pm - Doctor Who 4x13: Journey's End My god, that was craptacular.
RTD is such an incredible hack, and writes worse SF than Star Trek. He should be banned from SF writing forever. Yeah, there's one or two good moments in this, but gag.
*only 4 more specials of his work to go*
Maybe if we're really lucky, some writer will come along and completely retcon most of RTD's run.
07:32 pm - Warranty issues. Somewhere less than a year ago, we purchased a Linksys wireless range extender for somewhere around $100. It worked fine until we left for Anthrocon last weekend, and I assumed it just needed to be reset or whatever. When we got back, I tried that, and ended up calling tech support. They lead me through all sorts of tests, only to determine that the unit wasn't responding and therefore would be a candidate for replacement under the warranty. There are stickers on the unit, proclaiming it was manufactured in August of 2007, so we KNOW it hasn't been a year yet.
However, we can't find the receipt. Or the box it came in (with the other accessories it had).
The people on the phone didn't seem terribly concerned, and gave me the case number I'd need to start the warranty return process.
The thing is, as I'm trying to fill out the forms for the return online, I run into snags.
Mainly, that if I want to do a cross-shipment return (they send me a new unit first, then I have a couple days to send the damaged one back to them), I have to provide a credit card for a hold on the value of the new unit. It wouldn't be a problem, except they don't let you use a debit/check card, and they don't take Discover, so that means I can't do it. And if I do a regular warranty return, where I send them the damaged unit first, I don't have the original accessories to send with it, because I can't find the box.
I'm driving myself crazy about this. Mostly because I'm usually really organized, and don't understand why I can't find this stuff... and also because the net connection isn't reliable without the extender.
Ronnie says we should just buy a new extender and forget about trying to do the warranty on the old one... and I guess that may be the least stressful and fastest option... I'm just so annoyed though, because I feel like we shouldn't have to x_x
What this is really making me think about now is how I want a larger filing cabinet so I can have the room I need to keep all these papers filed properly. The file drawer I have now is packed so tightly :/
03:41 pm - Hey aspiring comic artists! I started a community for people who want to work along with the 15-week curriculum in Drawing Words & Writing Pictures, a how-to comics textbook recently published by Jessica Abel and Matt Madden.
Anyone is invited to join! It's called nomads_ink - here's the Intro post. We'll be doing weekly homework assignments from the book, but it should be pretty fun. Please feel free to spread the word. No, I'm not affiliated with the publishers or authors. ;)
03:32 pm - Ya know...airfare is becoming a real problem. Gettign to cons is getting pretty fricken hard these days... Anyplace southwest flies is good, but thats not that many places...Memphiss is goign to be ok, I have frequent flyer miles to cash in, and the 2 airlines I can use aren't too bad for backage, airtran and Northwest, both allow 1 free bag and $10-$25 for a 2nd, no prob.
Chicago is busting my balls however, first off, flights with stop overs start at about $320, direct flights start at like $360, and the airlines invovled (us air, american, and united) are liek 3 I'd rather avoid as they have the worst baggage policies at the moment. I want to teach them a lesson and not fly them, plus spending $80+ extra minimum for baggage on a $360+ ticket isn't my idea of cool, and really makes me reconsider going to MFF.... I coudl take southwest to Midway but now i'm lookign at liek $100 in a taxi and extra time, not exactly ideal either.
FC is just as bad, ort worse, thsoe tickets are clsoe to $380 at the moment withthe same airlines, but atleast there I can choose continental, which is more in line with air tran atm, one free bag and a 2nd for $15-$25
Apart from stay home, am I missing any options? At those prices I think I can only do MFF OR FC not both esp considerign their proximity to each other, Haven't done FC since 2005, MFF has the brand new hotel and I promsied Pandaguy I'd room with him, but Peopel are expextign me at FC too, liek Timduru and the west coast friends of mine...(sighs)
09:37 am - Color Matching with Photoshop: A possible solution to the CS2+ problem A few weeks ago I asked here what could be the reason that my colors aren't saving as vibrantly as they show up in Photoshop. I've been tearing my hair out over this issue, even went as far as to write Adobe, mentioning I'm not thrilled with the concept of paying good money for an upgrade on a product that doesn't do what it did in previous versions. A month later (nyuk nyuk nyuk) I received an answer but not one that really put it into terms that I could understand, as someone who knows how to use computers for art, but is still sketchy on certain technical aspects. I asked specifically for a dumbed down solution and got technical jargon as a response.
Apparently this is a widespread problem that has been causing artists quite a bit of grief. I wish Adobe would make the solution a little more prominent on their website, whether it be a giant "HEY look at this we screwed up, fix it here" tutorial or a downloadable patch to fix the issue, but for now, here's a blog entry on the subject.
If you're having problems with your colors washing out in transition between your PSD files to your JPEG files, click this link, hopefully it will help solve your problem
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