This is why we don't gain weight on vacation...

Hiking. Over 43 miles of it spread over six days. Elevation changes in the thousands of feet. Eating trail mix all day and drinking water. Only one big meal each evening, with calories worked off in advance. And boy, were we hungry by supper time! We consumed an impressive amount of food in that one meal.

Winding Down...

You didn't think a little thing like vacation would stop me from catblogging, did you? Friday is our last day of vacation. We'll be winding down with a less ambitious schedule, taking the scenic route from Moab to Grand Junction. The return trip on Saturday will consume our entire day.

A big public THANKS to Mom for spending most of her week at my house with the cats, taking care of them and providing love. She's good at that.

Vacation Eve

Our vacation starts tomorrow. For Zima, it's always vacation. The cats have it pretty good around here.

Mom's coming over to cat sit. You can use this thread to say hello to her during the week.

More Adventures...

We're going on another trip. Planning is almost as fun as doing. I'm sorting out the fine details for our vacation-- which area to explore on a given day, and which trails to hike. I think I've got it figured out. The course planning (flights and hotels) was done back in January. This is the fun part.

We leave on Saturday. Can't wait!

Not Magic Eye

No, it's the world's worst cat action photo. This should cure anyone of the notion that I'm a good photographer. This is a shot of Silvio leaping on some prey. I tried to fix it in Photoshop, but obviously did not succeed.

The Badge Nazi

I should have known that my day would be a total suck fest. The workday started with me being late for work and then getting hassled by the Badge Nazi, literally the minute I walked into my office. This woman, as far as I can tell, has a job with the sole purpose of trolling around the facility catching people not wearing their name badges, and then being snotty and condescending to them while she tallies the offense in her reports. No, I wasn't wearing my badge. It was in my hand, since I had just walked in. I hadn't even had a chance to hang my coat up and log into my workstation. Sigh. And then things took a turn for the worse. I won't bore you with the details. I'm mighty happy to be home, even though the commute was a drag and Silvio had done some extracurricular peeing during the day. At least I don't have to worry about the Badge Nazi. Until tomorrow.

Damn You, Safety Guy!

The Safety Guy just took away my space heater. Bastard.

I don't care if it's a fire hazard. It was the only thing keeping my fingers flexible. It's hard to use a computer with gloves on.

NOT happy.

Rawr

Isn't it ironic?

There was a recent meeting at work to discuss the dangers of sleep deprivation, aimed at the resident physicians in our department. I found it amusing that they scheduled this particular meeting at 7:00am.

Pod People

I've gotten really into podcasts lately. It all started last summer when they changed my work assignment and sent me to the gritty urban location two days a week. I usually take the train, and needed some audio entertainment to pass the time. I wanted something other than music to listen to. I started with This American Life. But TAL is only one hour per week. I needed to branch out. Downloaded a few samples of this and that, and settled into a group of podcasts that grows larger every now and again when I discover something new. Now that I'm hooked, the podcasts get me through all kinds of otherwise boring tasks -- yardwork, road trip driving, routine tests that I have to do after hours at work.

My newest favorite is Radiolab. I also listen to lots of Fresh Air interviews, some silly thing by John Hodgman, the Freakonomics podcast, and for reasons I can't quite explain, CBC Radio's WireTap.

Any of you have any favorites you'd recommend? No politics, please. Just geeky stuff, humor, and stories, or some combination of the three.