A Crazy Cat's Life

Normally I express this comment near the end of the semester. This time, I'm doing it for the holidays. This has been a really crappy holiday season and I'll be happy when it's all over. There's a long time superstition that "deaths come in three's." I'm not very superstitious but that thought had been going through my head especially after George and Grandma's deaths. Well, the saying now holds true this time. I found out recently that my friend Lynn's father passed away. He was such a sweet man. He was 98 years old, been married for 51 years, and was a Holocaust survivor. Last week, he had been admitted to the hospital and while he was there, the nurse forgot to raise the sidebar of the bed and he fell out, breaking his hip in the process. Because he couldn't sit up, he developed pneumonia and passed away Christmas Eve. I liked the man very much and I will miss him. Considering all that has been going on, I'm holding up ok. ...

I know I'm a day late in wishing a happy holiday to everybody but this year has been a bit depressing. Here's a little Christmas meme I found and I'm sharing with all of you. I'll tag whoever wants to do it: 1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Both :) 2. Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree? Depends on how tired Santa is *wink* 3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? I prefer white but this year Darren wanted colored so we have colored. 4. Do you hang mistletoe? No. As if my husband doens't have enough excuses. LOL 5. When do you put your decorations up? Anywhere between the day after Thanksgiving to a few days before. 6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? My nanny's homemade manacotti. 7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? Hearing all the gossip around the table at Christmas dinner. You'd be amazed at what people reveal after having a few spiked egg nogs. LOL 8. When and how did you learn the truth about Sant...

We got some very sad news today. Bear's grandma passed away this afternoon. We knew it was going to happen since her health had been deteriorating since the stroke. I just wish that the stroke had taken her so she wouldn't have had to suffer. She was a really good woman. A stubborn, little Italian woman whose presence would fill up a room. I had lost the last of my grandparents many years ago and she became a surrogate grandmother to me. She gave me some gave me some of the greatest gifts over the years, most importantly her love. I always enjoyed it when she had come up from Florida to visit and she would tell me her stories about her past and her family. I just wish I had taken the time to write down all of them to remember what life was like for her. Grandma. I will always love you and I will miss you. Rest in peace.

One class down, one more to go until Christmas break. Not a moment too soon either. This past Wednesday, I handed in my portfolio for my Life Drawing class. We got to see everybody's portfolios during the class as we each put our work up on the wall to show our progress over the semester. Between missing five classes and three assignments, I was a little sad to see my work going up there. Everybody else had such a fantastic variety of work while my portfolio only consisted of about 15 pieces. I wish I could've done all the assignments and made every class, but I know there's no way I would've been able to with the way my depression has been over the past few months. This upcoming Wednesday, my final project for animation is due. It's one of those weird "it's Wednesday but it's a Thursday" school scheduling nightmares. I guess I shouldn't complain 'cause it gives me an extra week to get my work done. I've been devoting my time th...

OK. It's official. The Buspar is going down the drain. My doc put me on it as a "boost" to the Lexapro but I'm having a lot less fun than anticipated. I think I've got every single negative side effect going on for it: headaches, fatigue, nausea, you name it. I've only been on it for about a week and a half and if it's troubling me this much, it can't be good. This means one thing: a complete change in meds. At least the semester is almost over. This week has been a living hell for me. My depression has a nice firm grip in me right now and it's getting hard to shake. This, topped with those lovely side effects I've just mentioned, have been making my life a nightmare. I just wanted to spend the entire week in bed with the covers over my head, either sleeping or reading a good book. Escapism is a Good Thing. Even the Fuzzies have noticed somethings wrong. Tonight they all flocked around me like they were protecting me from something....

Oooh. Looks like the weathermen were right this time. We're getting a very nice snow storm today. Right now, I would say we've got five inches on the ground. The forecast is for a total of 5-8". I think we're going to be towards the higher end of that. Here are some pictures I took from our front balcony of the snowfall:

/O.UPG.KOKX.WS.A.0002.051209T0600Z-051209T2200Z/ /O.NEW.KOKX.HS.W.0002.051209T0600Z-051209T1800Z/ NORTHERN FAIRFIELD-NORTHERN NEW HAVEN-WESTERN PASSAIC-ORANGE- PUTNAM-ROCKLAND-NORTHERN WESTCHESTER- 429 AM EST THU DEC 8 2005 ...HEAVY SNOW WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 1 AM TO 1 PM EST FRIDAY... THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN UPTON HAS ISSUED A HEAVY SNOW WARNING...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 1 AM TO 1 PM EST FRIDAY. LIGHT SNOW WILL DEVELOP ACROSS THE REGION LATE TONIGHT...AND WILL BECOME STEADIER AND HEAVIER AROUND DAYBREAK ON FRIDAY. THE SNOW WILL BECOME HEAVY AT TIMES FRIDAY MORNING...BEFORE STARTING TO TAPER OFF FRIDAY AFTERNOON. BETWEEN 5 AND 10 INCHES OF TOTAL ACCUMULATION IS EXPECTED BEFORE THE SNOW TAPERS OFF FRIDAY AFTERNOON. A HEAVY SNOW WARNING MEANS SEVERE WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW ARE FORECAST THAT WILL MAKE TRAVEL DANGEROUS. ONLY TRAVEL IN AN EMERGENCY. IF YOU MUST...KEEP AN EXTRA FLASHLIGHT...FOOD...AND WATER IN YOUR VEHICLE IN ...

When I got out of Animation class yesterday, I called Darren and found out that Grandma had been readmitted to the ER and it looked like she wasn't going to make it through the night. Supposedly, the hospital doctor who was too keen on freeing up a bed released Grandma before her pneumonia had cleared up. Luckily, the doctor at the rehab place recognized that and sent her back to the ER. By the time she had gotten there, she was severely dehydrated and had fluid in both her heart and her lungs. I will admit that I have huge fears about hospitals, but I wasn't going to let it stop me from seeing her one last time so I went straight there. Oh my god...walking through the Acute Care section of the Hackensack hospital ER really freaked me out. It brought back the whole slew of bad memories from when I was there being treated for a pulmonary embolism. But I fought through the panic attacks. Thankfully Grandma was in the Expansion area and not Acute. By the time I got there, h...

OK...the past two days have made up for the overly sucky week I had last week. Grandma was moved to a rehab center today. I had just gotten up the courage to visit her in the hospital--I really hate hospitals--when my father-in-law told me she was being moved. This is a Good Thing. Supposedly she is responding well to therapy and is making some progress. She is also talking now which is great! I'm going to try to visit her on Friday when I don't have school. Hopefully she's settled in my then. As for the crown situation, yes it was salvagable. My most magnificent dentist, Dr. Cheng, cleaned it up, sanitized it, and put it back in. If my insurance doesn't cover things, I'll only be out $100 for office visits versus $1,500. Another stressor off my back. And, I managed to get some work done on my Christmas cards. Yes, I'm actually not only sending out cards this year (a rare moment) but making them as well. I have all these darn stamps and stuff, I migh...

I know the holidays are supposed to be a stressful time but things are going a bit overboard for me. Grandma is doing better...relatively speaking. She's awake and somewhat communicative and the pneumonia has subsided. However, the doctor said that she'll probably never regain movement in her left side. This means that she'll have to be put in a home of some sort because there is no way my father-in-law could take care of her. It's been hard on my father-in-law and I hate to see him be put under any more stress. The poor guy has a hard enough time as it is. Last Tuesday I somehow managed to swallow one of the crowns from a tooth while eating Milk Duds. Ya I know. I shouldn't be eating them in the first place with all the dental work in my mouth, but I was depressed and having serious chocolate cravings. Of course this freaked me out 'cause there is some question as to whether or not we have the dental coverage for a replacement crown. Either way, it would've...

I guess I'll start with the good news: I got to see the new Harry Potter movie yesterday. Overall the movie was really good, but don't read the book right before you see it 'cause you'll be disappointed. A lot of stuff wasn't in the movie, like most of the Quidditch World Cup and Dobby and Winky. Still, considering that the screenwriter had to cram a 600+ page book into a 2 1/2 hour movie, it was really well done. The special effects were great and the tournament scenes were the best. It was a little dark but the humor--like Malfoy getting turned into a ferret--balanced it out nicely. The bad news: Darren's grandmother had a stroke yesterday. It was a major one too. She is such a nice lady and I love her like my own grandmother so it has been really hard. She is conscious but it looks like her left side is paralyzed and the doctors aren't sure she can breath on her own yet. Then again, we won't know much for a few days to see how she recovers from it. My...

It's finally starting to feel like fall. It's about time too, eh? We're supposed to only get into the mid-40's for a high today and it's going to be this way for the rest of the week. I was starting to get a bit worried that I would show up to Thanksgiving dinner in shorts. LOL. Speaking of which, we finally decided to spend Thanksgiving at the in-laws. I had been hoping to visit my brother up in Providence but it looks like he's going to his in-laws for the holiday. Oh well. We'll just have to visit them sometime before Christmas. I really want to see my niece again. Yesterday's Life Drawing class went well. I was incredibly tired but I got into a good rhythm after a bit. Paul loves to put on classical music when we draw but it was starting to put me to sleep. Finally one of the students convinced him to change to a classic rock station. It's so much easier to draw listening to the Doors and Floyd, though Paul couldn't understand why. LOL. I...

It's almost that time: the dreaded last month of the semester. I know I've been complaining about school a lot but this semester has been really tough because of my depression acting up. I'm just dreading the next few weeks though. With the semester dwindling down, I tend to suffer what I call "Last Month of the Semester Syndrome" or LMSS for short. My brain feels fried, all I want to do is sleep all the time, and I seriously stress out over the smallest of things. Luckily being an art student makes things a bit easier since I don't have any tests to study for, but I still have big projects to work on. I think one thing that is helping somewhat is the weather. This has been a really weird fall so far. Once again, temperatures are a good deal higher than normal. It's 67F right now at 10am. I think we're supposed to be upper-40s/low-50s this time of year. Having the warm weather is kind of nice. It just feels weird keeping the t-shirts and shorts out of ...

It's not even the last month of the semester yet and I'm already starting to feel the burnout coming on. I know the depression is making things a lot worse for me but come on...I really like school. I should not be feeling this way when it's not even the middle of November yet. After Thanksgiving is a different story. My Life Drawing class driving me a bit nuts. The professor wants us to do four hours of drawing a week for homework. That isn't so bad, but I tired out after only two hours. Since the projects lately have been one drawing that takes four hours, it's not like I can stop and take a nap or rest or anything. Instead I have to push myself. What was worse is that in his e-mail to me for this week's homework (as I missed last week's class), was really unclear and I ended up not doing the project correctly. Ya, I could've asked him to clarify it, but unfortunately, he's usually never very specific so he would've just confused me anyways. LO...

I've been reading a lot of blogs written by cat owners, and since Ayla even has her own blog I would start one too that's dedicated to the Fuzzies. So I created Flock O' Fuzzies . Enjoy!

Somedays, I just like to take a ton of photos of the Fuzzies and see what I get. Here's one photo that came out really nicely, with Bailey right in the foreground:

As I was finishing up my last post, I heard this racket in the kitchen. Normally I just ignore most of the noises in the apartment 'cause with two large kittens things get a little crazy. However, this noise sounding like kitty food being spilled all over the floor. So, I went into the kitchen. There is Loki with the lid for the container of their Feline TD food around his neck. Not only did he manage to get the lid off by he somehow got his head into the spout (the spout is about 4" in diameter). The TD was spilled all over the floor, and there were three cats eating the food, including Loki with the lid over his head. I should've gotten a picture but I was too worried about him choking with that thing around his neck. Luckily I got it off. After I cleaned up the mess, I made sure that the food was too high for him to get at. What a silly kitty.

Is it really November? You couldn't tell by the weather outside. It's been in the mid- to upper-60s for the past week and I've even been wearing shorts. Heck...I'm wearing shorts now. This isn't right for northern NJ for this time of year. You would think I would be out enjoying the nice weather, right? Hehe. Both Darren and I had such a hectic week last week that both of us just crashed over the weekend. For Darren it was two days of sleeping. For me, two days of reading. I managed to start and finish two books over the weekend to bring my yearly total to 89. Yep, I'm a nerd. Darren and I did manage to catch our first live hockey game in a very long time this past Thursday. His boss was kind enough to give us tickets that evening for the Rangers v. Devils game. They were primo seats (center ice lower tier), and they were FREE. That's the important part, especially since they were $95 seats, and we even got free parking. The game itself sucked. ...

Like we don't need any more rain. Now, we're dealing with a low forming off the coast, the remnants of Hurricane Wilma coming up the coast, and a system coming in from the west, all colliding in the northeast. A flood watch has been issued...again...because we're supposed to get another 1-3" of rain by tonight. I did speak to my parents yesterday via cell phone. They were without power but there seems to be minor damage. From what I gathered, the screen for their pool area was damaged but that was about it, though they hadn't gone outside to check out the full extent of everything. I'll try to get them today but with 94% of the county out of power, I doubt I'll get through. Here's an article I found about the storm hitting the Naples area from the local paper.

I'll admit it. I love doing these quizes, especially when it comes to fantasy things like Dungeons & Dragons. Here's my results from the latest one: You Are A: Neutral Good Elf Mage Ranger Follower Of Mystra Primary Class: Mages harness the magical energies for their own use. Spells, spell books, and long hours in the library are their loves. While often not physically strong, their mental talents can make up for this. Secondary Class: Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy. Deity: Mystra is the Neutral Good goddess of magic. She is also known as the Lady of Mysteries. Followers of Mystra wear armor and carry shields with her symbol on them. Mystra's symbol is a ring of stars. Find out What D&D Character Are You? Hehe I love the results.

Can you believe this hurricane season? My parents live down in Naples, FL and I'm worried sick about them. Wilma came ashore close to there and I've been watching the newscasts from there. There's a lot of flooding and wind damage. I haven't been able to reach them all morning so I pray that they are ok. And yes, there was--albeit briefly--a Tropical Storm Alpha. For the first time in recorded history, there were enough storms this year to move into the Greek alphabet. Makes you wonder what the heck is going on with the weather.

Ah...the glory of a new bed. We had bought an IKEA bed and mattress when we first started dating and the thing was just plain shot. The bed itself was falling apart and the mattress was sagging horribly. It was time to get a new bed. I hate making major purchases. I know we needed a bed but the thought of giving out a substantial amount of money is just nerve wracking. Also, dealing with commission based salespeople is never a fun experience. However, this time we lucked out. We went to Sleepy's in the middle of a weekday. It was nice and empty and the salesperson was actually a decent guy. Plus, they were having a big sale. We got a Beautyrest bed with $500 off the regular price. It's a nice, comfy bed too. :) The biggest problem is that we had to go down to a Queen size from a King. Our bedroom really isn't big enough for a King sized bed, plus the cost of one was just plain outrageous. It's taking a little while for the two of us to get used to it. I kno...

That's the only way to explain the weather that has been going on. It was bad enough with all the hurricanes wreaking havoc in the south, but now the northeast finally finished a eight-day deluge. It got so bad that I was waiting for an ark to park itself outside my house! Luckily, I wasn't affected by the rain--with the exception of some bad depression--since most of my town is up on a hill. The other towns nearby, on the other hand, weren't so lucky. According to the NY NBC affliate : Rainfall totals for the eight-day period were impressive: 16.41 inches in Ramsey, 15.06 inches in Pompton Plains, 12.75 inches in Paramus. Pompton Plains is the next town over to give you some idea of how bad it was. If you go to the link for the original article, there are a couple of links to pictures to show you parts of the towns that were flooded. Makes me glad I live on a hill.

Oh yes, how could I forget. It seems that one of my Fuzzies, good old Ayla, has taken over my computer and written her own blog. What has the world come to? You can check it out at Ayla the Grump .

Ya, got a month behind in my blog. Never a good thing. Between school, school, school, and hockey, I've been busy. I'd never thought a Life Drawing class would keep me so busy. The instructor, Paul, is a good guy but there are times I want to shake him to remind him that some of us have lives outside of school. Every week he gives us 4+ hours of drawing to do as homework. I'm just not used to that. Honestly, though, it isn't so bad. At least the assignments he's giving us are somewhat interesting. My animation class is turning into a nightmare. I just can never seem to get enough time in the week to do my work for it. I'm so behind in my work, my computer at home is having a nightmare running the programs, and the lab at school seems to be open only when I can't go. It gets a little frustrating at times. One big decision I made lately is to postpone my applications to grad school for a year. Well, actually, I still am throwing around the idea of a...

I love Snopes.com . It's a website that is devoted to finding out whether urban legends are true or not. Well, I was just flipping through their "What's New?" section of the site when I came across this picture: Yes, it was true. It was a real title on a real TV broadcast . Got to love it.

Just a couple of more pictures of Loki and Monkee. I found out that Darren's niece enjoys seeing them so here's to you :) Loki Monkee

Whoohoo! In today's New York Times, there's a nice little article about the opening of NHL training camps yesterday . All I can say is "it's about freakin' time!" Having a year away from hockey was depressing. This year, however, we're not going to buy tickets to the Devils. We just can't afford them. You figure, it's $20 for the nosebleed seats, $10 for parking, $10 a person for food, not to mention the cost of gas...well, it's too much for us. We're so much farther away from the Meadowlands now (about 45 minutes) that it really isn't worth the trek, especially with gas prices the way they've been. Darren's company does own a pair of season tickets so he'll try to wrangle a couple games out of them (plus they're the good $90 seats). What we are going to do instead is get the NHL Center Ice package through our cable company. It's a bit pricy, but it's about the same price as me and Darren going to one gam...

Man...remind me to never use particle effects in a 3D animation again. In my Computer 3D Animation II class, we got our first project: make a flying logo for the Bergen Outlook (an on-campus media group thingie). So I made a nice logo that included the standard BCC logo but instead of drawing out the flame, I decided to use the fire particle effects to give it a nice "real looking" flame. Well, last night I finished all the modeling and got the animation ready to go. All I had to do was render. By the time I left class, it was rendering at a rate of 1.5 frames a minute. This is a 10-second long animation which means 300 frames! I left the computer running around 6pm and figured that by the time I came to school this morning it would be done. Ha! The damn computer froze at 50 frames. So now, I'm rerendering the whole thing but this time using five computers to render. I've been here over two hours and it's only up to frame 75. It's going really slowly...

Everyday I get this little e-mail from The Quotations Page . It's a little nerdy thing I do. Today I got my set of quotes and one stood out big time for me: The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good. -- Bertrand Russell It is really true. I know of people who lead "good lives" in the sense that they are living by certain rules (whether it is the Bible, Koran, common sense, etc.) and they claim their happy. However, I wonder if these people really truly are happy. As as unfortunate hostage of depression, I know what it means to be truly happy because I lost the full ability to feel that way many years ago. Yes, you can live by the Good Book, lay laws, or whatever, but unless you are happy, you are not living a "good life." Ironically, this quote came in my e-mail today after I've been dealing with an unusually severe episode of depress...

...'cause we got an eighth cat. Yep, eight. We are crazy. About a week after getting Loki, we noticed that he was really sad because the other cats wanted to have absolutely nothing to do with him still. The poor guy just wanted a playmate and the look of disappointment on his face when none of the cats wanted to play with him just broke my heart. The breeders gave us a decent price on a second kitten so we snatched one up from the same litter. I chose one of the black smoke males and we have since named him "Monkee." Darren has been dying to name one of the cats "monkey" and it fit this time since his black face kind of gives him the look of one. Plus he's a little troublemaker. :) I decided to give him the name with two e's as a tribute to one of my old time favorite bands, The Monkees. Here are a few pics of him and Loki...

Yesterday, the NHL and NHLPA said that they had an "agreement in principle" that needs to be ratified by the players and Board of Governors before the details are made public. Is this a Good Thing? Ya, I guess. It means that the year-long lockout may finally be over. Whether or not it was worth losing a season over remains to be seen. The only detail that is known is that a salary cap will be in place, something the players said they would never agree to. Geeze. "At the end of the day everybody lost." - Wayne Gretzky on the tentative agreement to end a lockout in the National Hockey League.

Ah the little fellow is home now. We brought him home this past Saturday and he has added so much positive energy to us. I forget how much fun a little kitten can be. He already has the run of the house and the other cats are getting used to him. The first few days there was a lot of hissing and growling, but that's expected. I told Darren to give it a week and things should be back to normal. I brought him to the vet today for an exam and to get a stool sample tested. There were two litters together in the same room at the breeders and the other mother tested positive for round worm and giardia. The breeders were upset by this since their house had been worm free and they offered to pay for the test. I'll get the results back tomorrow and we'll see if he needs any additional meds. Joy. Other than that, he's very healthy. Though he wasn't happy about getting his rabies vaccination. It took three of us to hold him still for it. Poor little guy.

Here are some more pics of Loki. These were taken last week when he was 10 weeks old... Getting little fuzzy kisses Oooooh...what's that? After mommy gave him a bath

I'm finally getting around to posting these pictures of little Loki from our last visit this past Monday. He's eight weeks now and boy is he getting big! He's paws are huge too so we know he's going to be a big boy. Here is Darren holding little Loki: Here he is living up to his name: Here is a nice picture showing his coloring as a silver and red tabby: We'll be able to take him home at the end of the month and I can't wait!

So how do most people spend their summer vacation? Well, I doubt most of them spend it in a multimedia lab at school working on 3D animation projects just for fun. I do have the program, SoftImage's XSI, at home but the systems at school are so much better and they have 21" monitors. It's bad enough XSI is divided up into four screens. On a 19" monitor those two inches make a huge difference in trying to see stuff. Anywho...so I'm modeling one of those silly wooden dolls that artists pose to help them to get "natural" human positions. I got the modeling and texturing all done so now I'm trying to create the rigging skeleton for it so I can animate it. Argh! Rigging is not an easy thing. I read the instructions on how to do it but when I try to make it work...well...let's just say it's not working. I was about to give up afer three hours when I finally saw Francis showed up. Good. I can rack his brain on how to fix it. However, I ne...

...and I'm bored out of my freakin' mind! Argh! I can't seem to win. LOL. So yes, I survived the semester and I managed to get all A's. Like there was any doubt in that respect. The last month of the semester almost did me in though. The pathetic bursting-out-into-tears-in-my-professor's-office along with a near nervous breakdown was...um...well...pathetic. I tend to get myself worked up into a frenzy, trying to get everything done perfectly. That's the problem with being a straight-A student: I want the A every single time and nothing I ever do is good enough for me. If it wasn't for Francis convincing me that I would get an A no matter what in that last bit, I don't know what would've happened. My depression was waiting in the wings to completely roll over me. Luckily that didn't happen and I got everything done. If you're interested, here are the links to my 2D animation final. It's a music video to the Duran Duran song ...

Guess what I'm doing? I'm at school at 6pm on a Friday night reworking my damn 2D final project. I was all fine and happy with what I had until I showed it to Francis. He said "you need a background in there." In the video, I removed the green screen background and just left it blank during the chorus parts to focus on me singing, but the SoB was right. It did need a background. Since I had to do that, I figured I would fix a few other things I didn't like in it as well. I worked for four hours fixing the stupid video. Then, I go to render it (which takes over 1/2 hour), and when I view the "final" version, I find new mistakes that needed to be fixed. They were easy to fix but now I've got to wait another 1/2 hour for the damn thing to render. Then after it's good, it takes 1/2 hour just to burn it to DVD. The school only has 1x DVD burners. Bah. I'll be here all night at the rate I'm going. Then again, it's either that or...

Last night I handed in my final pieces for my Graphic Design II class. I spent all day Sunday and all day yesterday getting them printed out (I spent two hours at Kinko's getting them printed), mounted, and ready to go. Steve was happy with my work and gave me an A for the semester so I was very, very happy...albeit very, very tired. So one down and two to go. My animation classes are another story. One Monday, I literally burst into tears in Francis' office from panic. I was positive there was no way in hell I was going to get my projects done in time. For my 3D class, I literally spent all day Friday just modeling the hand and arm of Depression. Seven hours of modeling just for this one thing. When I went to put the skeletal rig in to animate it, the entire thing got all distorted and FUBAR'd. On Monday, Francis and I spent 45 minutes working it all out. It seems that since the fingers were so close together, one point on one finger was attaching itself to a bon...

Bah. It's bad enough that I'm plagued by the paralyzing Last Month of the Semester Syndrome, but things just keep getting worse and worse. To start off with, I swear that Bill Gates is the anti-Christ. At the very least, a spawn of Satan. Why do I think that? Well, I really think it's his underlying mission to make people suffer as much as possible. In order to run the XSI 3D animation program on my computer, I need Windows XP Pro. For some reason it won't run on the Home version. Don't ask 'cause I have no clue why. Anywho, I got a copy of XP Pro and installed it. However, because I had a "newer version of Windows already on my computer" I had to do a new install from scratch. Thank god I saw the warning that My Documents folder would be wiped before it was too late. I have 60GB of files in that folder, most of it my artwork and important files. That would've been the ultimate disaster. Even still, the whole thing was a nightmare. Jus...

A few weeks ago, I managed to not only knock out one of my crowns but crack the porcelain in the process. How? No freaking clue. However, because of the way my dental insurance works, my dentist needed to get pre-approval before he could send the crown out to get fixed so he just slapped the tooth back in and I had to wait. Well, the pain got unbearable and the crown kept on falling out, so I went back to the dentist on Monday. Luckily, the pre-approval from the insurance came in and he went ahead and made a temporary crown for me to wear while my crown is being fixed. That is painful enough. It’s amazing how much a slight breeze of air can hurt an exposed root. Ouch! So anyways, I would have to wear this temporary one until next Wednesday when my permanent crown will be put in. Yesterday, I was eating a snack of soft bread when all of a sudden I bite down on something hard. Now from what I’ve gone through, I knew better than to bite down hard. Lo and behold, my temporary cr...

Things have been so crazy that I forgot to post some of the good news I’ve been getting this past week. First off, my little niece stood on her own for the first time this past Sunday. Whoohoo! She has been crawling around like a little terror but now she’s able to stand up which means she’ll be walking like a little terror soon enough. :) My poor brother. LOL The second bit of good news is that Lullaby, the Maine Coon owned by my friends Jean and Jennifer, gave birth to a litter of six kittens on Sunday as well. It was a good day all around. Out of the litter, there were two girls (one silver and one smoked tortie) and four boys (one silver, one black smoke, and two red silvers). Now I’m very excited because I wanted either a red or a silver and definitely a boy, so when I saw that she had not one but two red silvers I was ecstatic! I won’t be able to visit them for a few more weeks but that’s ok. I wouldn’t want to do anything that might inadvertently cause any of them any h...

OK...now I'm in a pissy mood. Blogger is "burping" on me and I've already lost most of the original post. Bah. Did you ever just feel incredibly “blah?” I’ve been feeling this way for over a week now and I’m getting so sick of it. All I want to do is crawl into bed and sleep, which is basically what I did for my entire Spring Break. Not good. I know. A lot of stuff has been going on. This weekend I dropped off the rest of Moose’s medical supplies to RBARI , a local private non-kill shelter. It was heartbreaking to part with what to me were the last remnants of him, but I had to. I needed to know that these supplies were going to good use. It sounds weird but I think Moose would’ve wanted that too. I also got a present from my vet’s office: a small clay plaque with Moose’s paw print in it. Oh, how I cried when I got that! It was the good kind of tears though. It was such a small gesture on the part of my vet but it meant so much and now I have a treasure ...

I didn't think Spring Break would come fast enough. No, I'm not basking in the Florida sun. I wish! Instead, I'm spending the week home trying to relax and get around to doing things that I've been putting off since the start of the semester (ie. unpacking and cleaning the apartment). The thing that amazes me the most is that none of my professors gave me homework. I just couldn't believe it! Not that I'm complaining or anything. At first, I was happy to learn that the Animation lab would be open over the break but then my professor didn't really give us anything specific to work on. For 3D we have our next project but it was more of a "think about what you want to do type of situation." For 2D, he hasn't even told us what we're doing yet. Then for GD2, Steve said "see you in two weeks!" with no assignments! Wow.....I can't handle this. LOL

I meant to write about this over the weekend, but as you know things took a turn for the worst and I got sidetracked. On Saturday I got to see a rather unusual art exhibit in New York City called The Gates . It was a two week long, $26 million work of art. The artists, Christo and Jean-Claude, created these saffron arches to span the walkways of Central Park. It got a lot of hype in the news and since we had to go to the American Museum of Natural History for a school project of mine, I decided to check it out. It was just phenomenal! I'm not a lover of modern art, but this piece really made an impression on me. It was such a bleak, grey, snow-covered day in NYC and to see thousands of these bright orange arches all over the place brought a sense of light and brilliance to the Park. I just wish this exhibit could've stayed up for the whole winter because it really added some beautiful color to the otherwise drab winter landscape. Here are some pictures of The Gates: This ...

The past few days have been rough for both me and Darren. Everything we do seems to remind us of Moose. Even doing dishes got me crying the other night because he would only eat when I would do dishes for some strange reason. A friend sent me this the other day. It's a beautiful story and helps ease the pain in my heart somewhat: The Rainbow Bridge Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge. When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together. There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable. All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor; those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by. The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very specia...

Yesterday was a very sad day for me. Thibault (aka Moose), my beautiful white Maine Coon kitty, passed away yesterday after a five year long battle with Chronic Renal Failure. To say that I'm devastated would be an understatement. He was my big baby and helped me get through the toughest times of my life. I knew this day was coming. Heck I've known for five years, after he was first diagnosed. I remember my vet saying that she didn't know how long he would live but there have been cats with CRF that lived an extra four years. Having him live past that into five years was a blessing. The past few weeks his health has been disintegrating. I guess I refused to see the signs. After him living so much longer than expected, I guess I imagined him living forever. When we got home from NYC last night I found him. He had died on his own terms, in his home, in his favorite spot. I know it sounds selfish but I'm glad I didn't have to make the decision for him. I d...

There are very few publications that I’m willing to get annual subscriptions to, especially if they’re over $20 a year. My most expensive is The Hockey News , a normally weekly publication that follows the realm of ice hockey (of which you know I’m fairly addicted to), and IMHO is one of the best sports publications out there. Anyways, I got the March 1 edition of THN a couple of days ago and the front cover is just four little words: Goodbye $2.1 Billion* *idiots Of course it’s talking about the cancellation of the season and the league’s revenue loss because of it. It was the *idiots part that got me laughing because it’s so true. The whole lot of them from owners to players are a bunch of idiots. Oh ya…going to play in Europe is really going to help out the players where they’ll be earning the equivalent of maybe $100,000 instead of $1 million. Oh ya…and stopping the season may help a few owners lose less money, but a majority of them would’ve actually MADE money if the seaso...

This morning as I was reading through the sports section of Yahoo! News, I read that the Boston Red Sox will be receiving their World Series championship rings in front of the Yankees at Fenway Park. Now I’m not one to gloat…oh who’s kidding who? I’m seriously ROFLMAO at this one. It is just classic! They could’ve played anybody at their home opener but as Fate would have it, it had to be the team that has been tormenting them since Babe Ruth was sold. I think that the Curse of the Babe has been revoked and we’re getting some kind of karmatic resolution here for all the years of torment us Red Sox fans have endured for more than four generations. Now the only thing that would make this sweeter is if the Red Sox beat the Yankees in that game, but I’m just happy knowing that Jeter and gang will have to sit there and wallow in the basking light of their lifelong enemies getting championship rings.

I will admit that last night I was seriously depressed over the canceling of the hockey season and the final admission of defeat after a failure of both sides to work something out. Pathetic isn't it? I remember my first hockey game like it was yesterday. I was living up in Binghamton going to grad school up there. In the first four months I lived there, I had no friends and was incredibly alone. Then, I found out that the secretary for the Graduate History department, Nancy, was organizing an outing to see a Binghamton Rangers hockey game. I had never been to a hockey game in my life before so I didn't know what to expect. Honestly, I was more excited about meeting people than I was about the game. Little did I know what this fateful night would do to me. I was instantly hooked on the game. It was fast-paced, hard hitting, and exciting. Mind you, I didn't really make any friends that night but I was exposed to something even better. It took a year for the damage ...

I was just catching up on my news via My Yahoo! when I saw this article by Ann Killion about the NHL cancelling its season. Basically she tore the NHL and NHLPA apart calling them a bunch of stupid idiots. The article itself while clearly written with a touch of humor does talk about some serious problems with both sides of this battle (of which I've been ranting about for...oh...six months now). One of my favorite sections was this: They're all to blame. They all showed their true cards this week. The players came off as stupid and misinformed. Bettman and his gang of 30 millionaires came off as greedy, mean, stupid, short-sighted, mathematically challenged and unable to grasp the difference between strategy and suicide. For them, this wasn't about trying to find a settlement; it was about trying to crush the opponent. To the outrage and chagrin of its constituency, the players' union broke. And still it wasn't enough. So we, the fans, are left with three thoug...

We all knew it was coming. Commissioner Bettman had warned that if a CBA deal wasn't struck by the end of the weekend, the NHL season would be cancelled. However, in a very bold move, the NHLPA actually made the first move and stepped down from its no-salary cap position. They came up with a decent offer of $49 million for the cap. The owners countered with a $42.5 million cap. A whole $6.5 million dollar difference. Considering the players were willing to make a compromise, I'm more than upset at the owners for not attempted to close that small gap. Then again, the owners have annoyed me throughout this whole thing. I understand their desire to have some kind of financial safeguard in place, but they are the reason why salaries have literally tripled since the last CBA was signed 10 years ago. It's the teams like the Detroit Red Wings, the Colorado Avalanche, and the NY Rangers who are willing to play players gross amounts of money that they honestly don't des...

When I got home today from school, there was a letter in the mail from the NY Workers' Compensation Board. Those of you who know me know that I've been fighting a battle to get Workers' Comp for my depression. I truly believe that it was caused by stress due to emotional abuse I received at work. Well, my attorney--who I lovely refer to as The Idiot Attorney (TIA)--screwed up my case. He took too long to put together a settlement and the Board made a decision against me. Of course it didn't help that TIA didn't submit an extension or summary before the Board made its decision. So anyways, last October we appealed the decision and today I got the letter stating that the Board is letting the original decision stand. Let's just say I'm not a happy kitty. I've been enduring this BS for over seven years just to have that happen. What is worse is that I can't even get in touch with TIA to find out what my options are. Can I still appeal since they...

Every once in a while, I read a cartoon that just has me ROFLMAO. Today's Closer to Home had me doing just that. Mostly, though, it was because it reminded me of the last time I travelled and had to go through airport security. First I have to explain something: whenever I travel for any length of time, I have to take my cat Moose with me. He has Chronic Renal Failure and requires daily sub-q fluid injections. It would cost too much to hire a cat sitter to do this so I found it's just easier to take him with me. Also, I refuse to put him in the cargo hold so I bought a nice Sherpa cat carrier that will fit under the seat in front of me. Not the most comfortable way for a Maine Coon to travel but it has to be better than the cargo hold of a plane. Because I travel this way, it makes things rather interesting to go through security. Besides taking off my shoes and all of my jewelry, I need to take Moose out of the cat carrier before it goes through the x-ray machine. Thu...

I've been bitching and complaining over the past two weeks about how tired I've been (exhausted might be a better word) and how much work I have to do. I finally made the decision to drop one of my classes. I hated to do it since I've lost 75% of the tuition I paid for the class, but I think the lost money isn't nearly as important as the sanity I would probably lose instead if I kept up with the four classes. So, which class did I drop? Life Drawing. There was no way in hell I was going to drop either of my animation classes. I just like Francis too much and I'm finally doing something I love. I wasn't going to drop Steve's class either. I learn so much from the guy and the stuff I create with his guidance is just amazing. So, there went Life Drawing. I'm kind of glad it was Life Drawing that got the can anyways. I really liked the professor but the amount of homework she gave us just was unbelievable. For this week's class I would've ...

Ah...'tis a good year to be a Boston fan. Last year, I saw my second favorite football team, the New England Patriots, win the Super Bowl. Then, I saw my favorite baseball team, the Boston Red Sox, win the World Series for the first time since 1918. And now, the Pats do it again clinching their second straight championship. And they beat a team from Philly in the process (we all know how I feel about teams from Philadelphia: kill 'em all!). I might as well enjoy it now since I know this ain't gonna be happening next year. With the salary cap getting in the way, I foresee much of the team being traded or lost to free agency. On top of that, most of the coaching staff is going on to higher positions with other teams. Oh well. But hey...we got two rings out of it so I'm not complaining. :)

Crazy me decided to take four classes this semester. Why? you ask. 'Cause I'm nuts. That's the only logical reason I can deduct at the moment. You'd think I'd know better too since I got fried last semester with only two classes. But nooooo...I have to be a complete fool and take four. Computer 3D Animation I - This starts off my week. Luckily, the prof I have is really cool and so laid back. His name is Francis Schmidt and has a good reputation as an excellent teacher at BCC . So far I love the guy. He never complains about the thousands upon thousands of questions I ask and seems willing to help me get ready to apply to schools for my next step. Heck, he's even encouraging me to forget the BFA since I already have a BA and go straight into an MFA program. The class itself isn't easy. We're using a very complex program from SoftImage called XSI. The first time I looked at this program I cringed. It was bad enough the thing had four screen...