That barn cat story is nice, although the "Hey, it turns out cats are useful!" thing was odd.

My grandparents had a bunch of cats on their ranch, and would put out scraps for them. They were probably just this side of feral. The cats, I mean; not my grandparents. I remember spending a while sitting on the back steps when the food was there, so the cats would get used to me. After a day or two there were a couple that would let me pet them, which impressed my grandma.

Now that I think of it... all these barn cat stories are coming back to me....

When you milk a cow, the first bit of milk you get has to be discarded. My dad would squirt this milk from the cow's teats into a little tin cup, and when he was done milking he'd feed this milk to the cats. But sometimes a cat would sit next to my dad, and he'd squirt milk from the cow's teats right onto the cat's face. They loved that.

Unfortunately, I was gone for 3 days and everybody fell apart without me.

sounds similar to my situation. I just went through the status report email I sent out before my vacation, and less than half of the things on it progressed any. No one can tell me what happened, but it wasn't work on any of this KEY stuff. I am not pleased.

My uncle always had barn cats, but they were strictly outdoor and other than vaccinations, were pretty much left to fend for themselves, albeit in a fairly cushy setup (they could go into the pig nursery barn, which is heated.)

I found out that this spring he found an orphaned litter of 3 who were barely a week old. He brought them inside, hand raised them, including the whole feed-every-hour bit which meant he got no sleep and once they were weaned KEPT them inside. Two ultimately went to live with his daughter the vet (her kid adored them) but I'm still shocked he's now got an indoor cat who won't even deign to go outside.

I'm a bad employee. I woke up this morning and thought, "I don't want to work today," so I didn't.

Intead I'm listening to the bread machine do its thing while husky young Russian men disassemble the falling-down old shed in my back yard.

Someone tell me to do some work...

This is freaky: [link]

Photographs of atomic bomb tests.

Automatic Camera situated 7 miles from blast with 10 foot lens. Shutter speed equaled 1/1000,000,000 of-a-second exposure.

So it's this freakish 50ft (or so - can't tell the scale) blob that looks like nothing I've ever seen... kinda' like a single-cell organism.

A total of three photos. They don't look real. Weird.

My dad would squirt this milk from the cow's teats into a little tin cup, and when he was done milking he'd feed this milk to the cats. But sometimes a cat would sit next to my dad, and he'd squirt milk from the cow's teats right onto the cat's face. They loved that.

My mom grew up on a dairy farm and has told me stories about her dad feeding the barn cats the same way. Grandpa sold off the cows about the time Mom went to nursing school (getting older, and only one son stayed on the farm after doing his Army service) and then passed away when I was only three, so I don't remember him at all. But, the barn still had some of the old dairy equipment there when I was a kid, and was pretty fun to play around.

Too bad the farm is now being turned into a development--I miss the apple orchard, walking through the sweet corn field between Grandma's house and Uncle Ray's, and playing in the hayloft.

This is the first day in a week where I don't have a deadline hanging over my head. My place went to shit, I need to do laundry and take out the trash and buy groceries.

I don't want to do any of it, I just want to rent a couple of movies and sip champagne and let my brain ooze out of my ear.

But what is it, tommyrot? What are we seeing? Fire? Plasma? Starfire?

But what is it, tommyrot? What are we seeing? Fire? Plasma? Starfire?

Plasma.

At least I'm pretty sure that's what it is.