So I figured I should do a follow-up post on how everyone is getting by. First up, Lance’s death wasn’t unexpected. He was getting worse since he was diagnosed with an enlarged heart back in February or so. I blogged about that incident back then, how we rushed him to the emergency room one night when he was having breathing issues.

He had been put on medicine and given an ecocardiogram. The news then wasn’t good, the doctor was shocked he had basically lasted as long as he had without treatment. They put him on more pills and we were to bring him in around now for a follow-up to see if they helped at all. However over the past week or so his symptoms were clearly getting worse and he was having breathing issues again, in spite of the meds. I knew it wouldn’t be long really. John woke up Sunday to find him basically unable to breath and spitting up blood 🙁

The other animals seem to have adjusted as far as I can tell (we have so many!). There are big age differences and personalities between them too. Lancelot and Galahad are/were the old men of the house. They were here before I was here! They had a third, Uther, who past several years ago. Lance and Galahad were basically brothers, so I think if this hits anyone it will hit Galahad the worst. He was howling last night as if he was calling out wondering where the hell Lance was. Of the five cats, Lance was the one Galahad probably hung out with the most.

Lance (grey) and Galahad (grey striped)

The middle cat is big ole Moo Kitty. Moo Kitty hangs by himself, because he only likes human attention. He doesn’t like the other cats that much and he definitely doesn’t like the dogs. He’s kinda of a shit actually and just enjoys attacking (or trying to attack) the others. He thinks he’s king of the castle, but he’s more of a tyrant.

Moo Kitty, taking over Princess’ crate

Percy and Grim are the youngest and are about a year 1/2 apart. They usually hang out with each other, playing with and chasing each other all around. Percy will sleep/cuddle with Grim, but that’s about it. Grim however will/would sleep/cuddle with Galahad and Lance on occasion.

Percy (orange) and Grim, Grim and Lance

Of course then there are the dogs, who have each other. The cats tolerate the dogs, but that’s about it. Grim usually just runs from them, while Percy likes to lay on his back to get them to play pounce him. I rarely see the cats sleeping with the dogs, except for Lance. Lance would always sleep with them 🙁

Princess licking Lance’s ears, her favorite thing to do to him

Last night I ended up sick as a dog, a combination of a lot of things, just got run down at the conference I guess.

I returned home today from the trip to hell to get a fitting end to what will go down as the worst trip ever probably. Our cat Lance had to be put down this morning.

I didn’t even get to say goodbye. Just fuckity fuck fucking great!

Quick update!

Presented yesterday, went okay. I hate reading from scripts, I always mess-up. I always hated reading out loud way back in elemetary school as well.

Last night hung out with friends. I did find people I knew afterall. Very odd mix of conferences going on here, had fun people watching.

Went to the Etowah mounds this morning. Very cool, the highlight so far. I never saw Cahokia or Moundeville, so I really enjoyed it. One day I’ll see the other two. It obviously doesn’t compare to all the Mayan sites I’ve seen, but neat to finally see one on US soil. Also we got a private tour from the archaeologist there, so learned awesome stuff.

Decided I probably should use the afternoon to see Atlanta. It’s been 14 some years since I came for the E3 when I still ran a videogame webpage. I quickly remembered why I never wanted to come back lol! Atlanta is an oddly laid out city compared to Philly or New York, where everything is on a neat grid 🙂

Went to the Olympic park, which I had seen before. Something is going on this weekend, have to find out what. Looks like a March of Dimes thing. Maybe a big party tonight? They were setting up today.

Stumbled on the Aquarium and the Coke museum, so I did the coke tour. Someone was on some serious drugs when they made that museum! At the end got to taste all these funky coke products from around the world. Wasn’t a fan of a lot of them, and holy hell who would drink that “Beverly” drink. It tastes like vomit aftertaste!

This is some lip monster in the Coke Museum. I think it looks dirty 🙂

Okay that’s it for now. Pardon spelling, no spell check and well . . . I can’t spell to save my life 🙂

Just letting everyone know I did get here. Oh but there was STILL more drama! We were delayed again on the runway because of terrible storms in Atlanta, including the control tower at the airport being struck by lightening.

I intend to sleep in late, and write a nasty letter to Delta to get something free out of this.

On the upside, I got a free room upgrade at the hotel . . . to a SUITE!

I plan to sleep in, and hopefully meet some fun party people by tomorrow night!

I am not in Atlanta. No I am at Laguardia airport. In case you haven’t followed my profanity laced tweets all day, let me summerize.

I boarded my Delta flight which should have taken off at 10:25. Unfortunately something was wrong with the hydrolics. So after an hour, we were told they needed a part to fix it and we had to get off.

I was at the back on the plane, which meant I was at the back of the customer service line. It didn’t matter, all flight were sold out till tomorrow.

I was put on stanfldbye for a flight while they waited for re part to fix ours. 2 some hours later, they cancel the flight.

I should have listened to the voice that said “get as much money back as you can and don’t go. Call your advisor and let him know the deal.”

But I didn’t. The guy at the desk said I could do standby and would get out at some point, or I could take a flight to laguardia and then to Atlanta and get in around 7:30pm. I chose that option.

Stupid me! First I had to ride a small ass prop plane to laguardia. Then upon landing . . . My new flight to Atlanta was canceled!

Again I should have asked about a refund, but I didn’t. Now I am on a 9pm flight and will get to my hotel probably around midnight.

As of yet I have not heard one delta employee or top dog, and there was one present, offer to do anything for me to make up for this.

That was a mistake! I will be writing Delta. I will be pointing out how I missed a whole day at a professional conference. How I could have made job connections in this shot economy but didn’t.

I will get a free flight out of this shit and it better be first class!

Okay so everything is packed, printed and set! I head to Atlanta tomorrow for this conference.

Let’s see, what to tell you at this point? The paper is done, and I’m presenting it. Not to happy about that, but it’s only 7 pages. I will live . . . unless we are in a giant ballroom and there are 200+ people . . . then I’ll need a drink!

Of course the papers that I’d be interested in seeing are during my flight to Atlanta or when our session is. Grrrr! Oh well.

Tomorrow I’ll probably take in Atlanta, wander around and get my bearings. I don’t think any fellow students present or past are planning to show at this one, so I might be on my own for the most of this thing. I’ve brought reading and DVD’s thankfully . . . and my Nintendo DS 🙂

I will probably be a bundle of nerves Friday. I present at 3:45, so I plan to sleep in as late as I want and be well rested! Friday night I can breath easy. I have yet to find out if there is some obligatory dinner with the panel or not.

Saturday I have my field trip to the Mississippian mound site. Excited! I’ll relax a little more, probably nap, cause Saturday night I’m kicking it around town with Jamie, some of her friends and whoever we drag along with us 🙂

I’ll be twitting a lot, I’ll be taking photos and iPhone/Twitter photos, I’ll blog when possible!

So let’s see, what’s been going on in my world? STRESS! That should ease up soon. My job ends at the end of this month. Well next month around the 2nd week really, but my teaching ends at the end of this month. That should be a lot of stress gone, freeing up my time to work on getting my dissertation in by the end of May.

I have had a post in the works for a week or more now discussing what I’m going to do this summer and when all is said and done. The short answer, NUTHIN! I’m taking advantage of this shit economy and taking some well deserved time off to do what I wanna do 🙂 Seriously, I’ve worked 7 days a week (in some shape or form) for a long time now, it’s break time. That post, and more details, are forthcoming.

This coming week is the Atlanta conference. I’m presenting a paper with my adviser, a paper that still isn’t written! After this post goes up, I’ll go check my email and hope there is a draft in it to work with. He’s been really busy, so have I, but we gotta get this done this weekend!

I actually was not looking forward to Atlanta at all. I had been there once 10+ years ago for a different conference (E3 videogame conference when I still ran videogame pages). I remember it not being much fun. However I was boring then, didn’t drink and wasn’t out. So of course it wasn’t fun, I wasn’t fun 🙂

However this time I do have something to look forward to, partying and friends! I have facebook friends there to hang out with! We are going out Saturday night and going to have a blast. Saturday during the day I’m going on a field trip as part of the conference. We’re going to a Mississippian mound site. HOT! I’ve never been, so I’m really excited about that.

The conference . . . ehh! The session I’m in looks great, and I think there may have been one more I was interested in seeing. I’ll know more when I arrive and get the abstracts book. Most of these conferences unfortunately do not have topics I am generally interested in. I am becoming more and more aware I am drifting to the cultural side of anthropology and away from archaeology. I still enjoy archaeology, but mostly the topics limited to death and religion studies.

Anyway, expect lots of Atlanta Tweets from me, and hopefully some awesome photos.

So if you haven’t noticed by the “bunny cam” that’s been running the past few days on the blog, yeah we adopted one of the baby bunnies from the farm. We think it’s a girl, we aren’t sure. It’s hard to tell until they are old enough to see balls or not basically 🙂

The first day or two the cats and dogs were very interested in it. Now nobody really cares except for Grim, who likes watching it and often sleeps by the cage. Princess and Nikko only take interest when someone else takes an interest in the bunny instead of them. Princess treats it like one of the other cats, she just licks it all over and sniffs its bunny-butt.

I bought two small room hepafilters for the house. One I put by John’s PC area, as it’s a haven for cat hair. They all sleep there and sit in the window. I’m hoping it helps with the dust over there. The other, for now, I stuck by the rabbit cage. I thought if there is a smell, which there isn’t so far, it will help. It will also help with any dust from the hay. There hasn’t been much of that either.

So far the only down side is the cheap-o cage I bought. Not knowing how this would work out, I was not about to invest in a large fancy cage with perks. I got a simple starter cage. I got the kind where the poopies fall through to a tray below, because it’s supposed to be more sanitary than the ones where they sit in the litter/bedding. Unfortunately there is one perk to those kinds, they have a well/sides to the cage to hold the litter in. This one has no side guards whatsoever, so the rabbit has a habit of knocking food or hay out the sides. I’ve minimized that for the most part. However the bigger problem is that it pees out the side of the cage! I’ve limited it to one area where I have some paper towels down to at least catch it. I bought the thing a litter pan, you are supposed to be able train them to use them. So far it doesn’t get it. It’s probably to young to understand.

I’ve already found a better and bigger cage I’ll probably get for it. It not only has the grate for cleanliness, but side guards as well. The cage I have now I can turn into an outdoor pen for it. You’re supposed to give them fresh air often. If I remove the bottom tray it can sit over grass, which will come through into the cage via the bottom grate. That way it can have fresh munchies. Plus with the floor grate, it can’t dig it’s way out of the cage and run off.

The bunny really is sweet. The first two days it was a timid little thing, constantly hiding in the house I got for it. Now however it’s not afraid anymore and will come over to check you out when you approach the cage. It lets you pet it too. The mother is exceptionally sweet and nice, so maybe it has friendly genes. Actually I’d love for it to turn out like the mommy. To be honest I would like to kidnap her 🙂 She’s nicer than most of the cats!

As for a name, it doesn’t really have one yet. I considered Pieces, which was a play on P.C. for Peter Cottontail. For now I am just calling it Little Bunny Foo Foo. Yes, I realize half of America probably names their rabbit that. Did half of America also play Little Bunny Foo Foo in their school play? Probably not, but I did 🙂 Therefore I own the name!

Here is a quick video of the baby bunnies at the farm and their big mama.

PS I just uploaded it, so if it says not available, try again a bit later. Sorry!