Pig Tales #1

From The Green Bay Press-Gazette, a slice of life article about a pig who escaped on his (her, actually) way to the butcher.

This article is funny, almost surreal. It turns out that the pig’s owner is a lawyer named Nila Robinson, from Appleton WI. She was transporting three pigs to the butcher, and upon arrival:

She delivered two pigs to a butcher near Appleton but the female pig that remained on the trailer threw a fit.

And then, unaccountably,

“She stood on her hind legs and made an ear-piercing sound,” said Robinson, who said the animal was distressed.

So, instead of than dragging the critter off the truck and leaving it at the butcher’s, the obvious thing to do is stop by Starbuck’s for a venti, double mocha, triple caramel with soy and raspberry coulis latte; Ms. Robinson did exactly that:

But the pig calmed down so Robinson decided to stop at a Starbucks in Appleton to wash her hands and get a latte.

“I would have gone through the drive-thru but the pig was lying down so I figured it was OK,” she said. “When I got back to the truck, the pig was still there.”

Not being a Starbuck’s fanboy, I didn’t realize they had drive-thru service. The pig had obviously calmed remarkably since the ear-piercing sound emissions.

The tale continues:

So Robinson drove to Maplewood Meats on Milltown Road, just off Highway 29 near Green Bay. She made it there but the pig didn’t.

So she calls local law enforcement, whereupon the big guns were brought out:

The pig finally turned up near the intersection of U.S. 41 and West Mason Street at 6 p.m. and was eventually subdued when police officers unsuccessfully employed Tasers and finally tranquilized the animal with darts. Asked what time she thinks the pig escaped, Robinson would only say, “the pig was at large for some time.”

So, the Tasers didn’t faze her.

All’s well that ends well, and the pig spent the night in the local animal shelter; Ms. Robinson picked her up the next day, and offered these words of comfort:

Robinson didn’t plan to discipline the pig when she planned to pick it up and put it back into a trailer.

“There will be modifcations,” she said. “I might have to sit in the back and play gin rummy with her. The pig humiliated me but I don’t hold it against it,” she said, knowing the pig won’t care anyway. “Pigs lack remorse.”

Wow. Read the whole article, while it’s in front of the pay/registration wall.

-k-

The Press-Gazette is soliciting pictures of the pig from their readership. They’ll post them if they get them. I’ll point to them if they show up.

I’m in touch, so you’ll be in touch.

Help me Survive

I don’t like reality shows. I hate the ads for reality shows. I hate preview scenes for reality shows. And not caring who got voted off the island/fired/hung by his thumbs/boiled in oil, I especially resent these pieces of drivel being elevated to news items on radio and teevee.

On the other hand, I guess I should be thankful that there’s not some breaking crisis that would force reality show coverage from the news lineup.
-k-

Three Years, One Day

Sunday, September 14, 2003. SWMBO and I had attended church on Saturday night, and were rattling around the house on a calm Sunday. I was drinking coffee, watching NASCAR This Morning, and trolling NASCAR-related internet sites in an effort to squeeze a few more points from my Fantasy team. All of a sudden, an e-mail, the kind you don’t want to receive, from a friend in Texas:

Good Morning, Ken. I couldn’t find your home number. Please call me on my cell: aaa-eee-nnnn.

Messages like that are never good news, and this one kept the streak alive. I called the number to find that a mutual friend of ours in Kansas had passed away suddenly the previous evening. The friend who had died was Rob, my best friend, best man at our wedding, one year my junior. (Rob and I were good friends for a long time, even though we lived 1500 miles or so apart, and really didn’t correspond or call every week or anything like that. I think we both knew that if either of us needed anything, the other’s door was always open.)

I made all the arrangements to go back for the funeral. Airline tickets. Rental car. Hotel in KC. Friends to stay with in Northwest Kansas. All set.

The night before I was supposed to fly back, SWMBO awoke at midnight, clutching her chest, short of breath, and in severe pain. I helped her get dressed, drove her to the ER, and waited as the clock ticked down on my flight which was to depart several hours hence. And with the remnants of hurricane Isabel heading straight for us. It soon became clear that there was no way I was going to be there for the funeral.

SWMBO spent about 36 hours or so in the hospital, all tests were OK. Diagnosis: pericarditis. Frightening, painful, but not life threatening. I brought her home just an hour or two before the storm hit.

So, I wasn’t there to pay my last respects to a lifelong friend. There are priorities, and then there are priorities. I told SWMBO that Rob would come back and haunt me if I’d left her in the hospital unattended.

If Rob knocked at our door right now, the following would happen:

  • Handshakes and hugs, followed by the opening of the first beer.
  • Within a minute after that, he’d get a twinkle in his eye, we’d look at each other and smile, and we’d almost simultaneously blurt out “You old sonofabitch.”
  • After a few more beers, discussion would turn to all the dumbass things we did in our misspent youth.
  • We’d both point out how we wouldn’t take a million bucks for all those dumbass things, but wouldn’t give a nickel to do ‘em again.
  • So long, Rob. You’re still missed.

    -k-
    In Memory of Rob Smiley, 1951- 2003

    Thanks for Caring, Sen. Frist

    You really have to love Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN). He really cares about our welfare, including our spiritual and moral welfare. Everyone knows the primary purpose of the Federal Government is to keep us safe from ourselves, no matter how trivial the problem may be. That’s why Sen. Frist, who still apparently entertains ’08 Presidential ambitions, is attempting to attach an amendment to a defense funding bill; the purpose of the amendment is to prohibit use of credit cards in payment of internet gambling debts.

    From the article:

    The measure’s supporters include the National Football League as well as conservative and antigambling groups. Some banking groups are lobbying against it.

    From this, we can infer that the banking groups need to do better when the old political contribution hat is passed.

    I should quit typing now; it’s hard to write when the vein on the side of one’s head starts sticking out, after reading such nonsense as this.

    -k-

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    New, Free Senseo

    As I detailed here, I signed up, and was accepted, to get a free Senseo single-cup coffee maker. Mine arrived last night; it looks like the one in the post I referenced, only in black, instead of the trendy blue that adorns my office.

    Details on the apparatus at the Senseo website , with all kinds of incentives to get one of your very own. Right now, they have a $20.00 AmEx gift card when you buy one. For home or work, I heartily recommend you get one if you enjoy a good cup of coffee.

    I also discovered something else; examining the bag of 18 pods that came with the free machine, I see that the coffee pods are distributed by Sara Lee. Heckuva deal, because Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee. Exactly.

    -k-

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    Still Polishing the Ruby

    Interventions of vacation, life, and “other priorities as assigned”, temporarily de-railed my Ruby efforts. I’ve been getting back on track for the last couple of days, and the hiatus was actually beneficial. I figured out some new ways to structure my program to greatly enhance its maintainability and more importantly its extensibility. Add to that that I now must support three Linux releases on three different kernel architectures, plus several Solaris releases, and the time away turned out to be a good thing.

    I’m excited to get this thing done, but I’m also painfully aware that this will be the worst Ruby I’ll ever write, since it’s my first effort.

    -k-

    Even though this isn’t a Rails project, I thought the geekily inclined would appreciate the “derailed” and “back on track” references in the above.

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