Life

Love the life you Live!

They may be difficult pets, but the pictures are priceless.

Life, Randomness

Back in my petsmart days when I was crazy about pets I thought a lot about exotic animals. I went as far as buying a semi-exotic one… the dreaded Chinchilla. What I learned from that chinchilla is that there’s a reason that most people don’t own them. They’re cute and fluffy and make great pets for other people, but they’re pains in the ass. They chew up anything within 2 feet of the cage and can somehow escape when one bar of their cage is welded a sixteenth of an inch off. But they’re fluffy, so that’s supposed to make up for it all.

I still love guinea pigs and will recommend them to any family looking to get a pet for the kids. They’re like the fish of rodents. If you get a big enough cage and lots of food they’re really easy to take care of. When I had them I was looking for the next cool pet and I found out that in South America there are guinea pig like rodents that can be 3 feet tall and weigh over 100 lbs. It seems to me that you would pretty much have to turn your house into a giant cage to keep them as pets. On top of that I’d never seen them outside of a zoo. Until now!

I just found an article about a couple that keeps one in Texas. They even have a blog dedicated to it and plenty of great pictures. They seem like pretty awesome people and the pet “Caplin Rous” seems well behaved and freindly. If I ever get a house with a fenced in yard I’ll have to have this discussion with Laurel and keeping the worlds largest rodent as a pet.

article – Life with a 100lb rodent
Capybara Madness

6/22/09 a day that we will immediatly try to forget

Life, Randomness

I’m sure we’re going to see some flood of “Never Forget” type posts and stickers and patches and graphics because of the Metro rail crash yesterday. But I would just like to be honest, there are thousands of people who are going to try really hard to forget that it ever happened.

They’re called “People who ride the Metro every day”.

The victims family and friends will never forget them, but me, a total stranger… will just hope that it never happens to me. I feel for them, but I can’t be thinking about crashing into a parked train at 50mph when I take the Metro twice a day 5 days a week… and I’m sleeping most of the time.

Sorry about all the death.

Mark

Knit Together at Artomatic

Interests, Life


Knit Together at Artomatic, originally uploaded by goshdarnknit.

the James Renwick Alliance gives out these craft awards for art that is really well made. I’m sure there are other criteria, but all the pieces just seem to have that “How did they make that” or “This is put together really well” kind of vibe going for them. That is something that I’ve never thought of my own work. I always seem to leave errors in the things that I make. Not on purpose really, I just can’t seem to smooth out the details. I guess I need to experiment more and really get my technique down. There’s always next year!

Mark

New plans for GM

Interests, Life

I usually hat Michael Moore. Not that he dosen’t make some entertaining documentaries about important subjects, but he’s just an enormous ass. BUT… he does have some good things to say about what to do with this failing auto maker that we all just bought. I think his way of connecting what’s happening now with the wartime industry of the 40s is really smart. Also he made me realize that we’ve made a switch this big before, from horses to cars. Now we can do it again, from cars to…

Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the president must tell the nation that we are at war and we must immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass-transit vehicles and alternative-energy devices. Within months in Flint in 1942, GM halted all car production and immediately used the assembly lines to build planes, tanks, and machine guns. The conversion took no time at all. Everyone pitched in. The fascists were defeated

Goodbye, GM via thedailybeast.com

Is nose nair a sign of intellegence or something?

Life, Randomness

I just pulled out a nose hair that most people would be happy to have growing on their heads. This is happening a little more frequently than I’d like. Every once in a while I get “Lumberjack Hairs” on my eyebrows, they’re twice as thick and long as normal hairs. Now they’ve moved south into my nose. Is there something about growing older that you need these giant hairs to protect you? Does evolution know that there are giant germs out there looking for me and that these are the last line of defense? It’s only a matter of time before they start coming out of my ears.
We need to stop this great migration!
Is there some kind of fence or border patrol that can keep these hairs out?? They’re taking jobs from all the regular hairs on my face and making my look like a young Andy Rooney.

The legend of dirty pants.

Life, Randomness

Do you ever get dressed in a hurry in the morning, but still feel good about it. Then you get to work and look down and realize that you’re wearing the dirtiest pants possible? It looks like my crotch has been groped by a West Virginia miner. I think this is the best argument for always buying dark khakis.

Oh well, lets just hope people at work don’t look at my crotch very often.