So this kitten was hiding in the engine compartment of a minivan from four pit-bulls. (The kitten is OK.) Check out all the damage to the minivan after the pit-bulls chewed through the bumper and fender. They even punctured a tire.

[link]

edit for clarity

more:

The vehicle's owner changed the tire on Monday and drove 25 miles from Banning to Palm Springs before he discovered the 7-week-old kitten, which had moved into a hollow part of the front bumper.

The Desert Sun of Palm Springs reports an animal control officer freed the kitten following a 40-minute process that involved removing the bumper.

The kitten is OK and available for adoption at the Palm Springs Animal Shelter.

Named "Fender Lynx" after where she was located and for her ear tips, the animal was described as an American short-haired tabby, CBS affiliate KPSP Palm Springs reported.

We have the classic desert thing going on now; we open everything up at night and close it first thing in the morning and it stays lovely in the house all day. It was 77 inside and 97 outside one day earlier in the summer. But it's getting so nice and cool at night that it's been topping out at about 74 inside all day. Which is great. I still need to do some shading for the office side of the house, but for now we're past the worst of it. And monsoon is lovely because it rains every day.

Man, for about an hour from 6:00 today I thought it was Saturday. Like I almost sent a pissy text to my farmers' market friend wondering if she was going to the market without me. Okay, not pissy, exactly, but I did wonder why we hadn't made plans yet. Uh, because we usually make plans on Friday, that's why.

Anyway, the upside means I can run some errands today I thought were going to have to wait until Saturday to do. Because there's a bunch of work I can't do, because it is still sitting on the tour van, which is in some unspecified place in Albuquerque, the people tending to it having left before the SO got his stuff out. So I guess we're headed back there on Tuesday to retrieve his gear, and also all our mailing list signups.

But that's fine, gives me some time off to do the rest of the office stuff before then.

Am I unusually cynical in that I assume that all elite athletes in some sports are probably doping? And cycling is perhaps the biggest. I have assumed that Armstrong (and everybody else) was doping all along.

Didn't Armstrong generally use VERY specific language when talking about it, like "I passed x number of tests," rather than saying, "I didn't dope"?

Saying "I didn't get caught" is way different than "I didn't do it."

Yeah, "I have never had a positive test" is pretty much as close as you can get to saying "you never caught me" outright.

It's Friday, maybe I'll start drinking now.

Sounds like a plan.

Anymore I find I don't care about doping. I'm with the cynics, I figure they're all doing it now and excellence is once again the deciding factor. I doubt many of them are unwilling, though I'm sure there are some who don't realize what's really in the "vitamin shots" their coaches are giving them.

we open everything up at night and close it first thing in the morning and it stays lovely in the house all day

What is your house made of, Liese? I've got a standard wood frame-brick facade house, and it does not stay nice and cool during the day.

Y'all know that our bodies are largely made of exploded stars, right?

This is also kinda' cool:

Only by chance did we arise here and now; a hundred billion years from now, many of our bodies atoms will be a part of different stars and solar systems, joined together with atoms that aren’t even a part of our galaxy today.

That's 'cuz in a few billion years, our galaxy will merge with the Andromeda galaxy. 100 billion years from now some of the remnants of our solar system (along with stuff from Andromeda) will have formed new solar systems.

Where will we all be in 100 billion years?

Andromeda F2F! Get your reservations now!

It's wood frame, plywood siding. But we did extra thickness in the walls for more blown-in fill insulation. There's extra insulation everywhere, and we're hoping to put a solar attic fan in soon. That and the window placement and the ceiling fans really does seem to do the trick.

I find this song to be a good one when I am rageful: [link] Love me some kd.