Technical Difficulties

Technology is rebelling. Both of our computers decided to crash at the same time, as well as my camera. The fossilized laptop is back up and running, in a precarious state of overheating unless it is dangerously perched over a basket on the coffee table. But the big fancy computer is still down for the count. What started as a hard drive failure, catastrophic as that is already, advanced to motherboard, graphics card, and operating systems failure also. FAIL! Still not sure if all our documents, pictures, and graphics work is still recoverable. And the camera won't upload anything to laptop for some reason. Sooo I can't post about Halloween, or my birthday, or the reptile session I went to because it's just not the same without pictures! So pardon the hiatus, as soon as we have conquered our rebellioous technology we'll be back online!! :)

Little Visitors

This is kinda old, but I just got around to uploading the pictures. A while back, we had a small thunderstorm move into the area. Dayna just happened to be looking out into the backyard when she spied a skunk scurrying about carrying a wee baby skunk by the scruff (or whatever the equivalent of a scruff is in skunks). We watched as she couriered over each skunklet one by one right under our neighbors porch. A few days later they had relocated to ours...



We haven't seen them in a long time, but it was fun peaking out and seeing those puffballs aimlessly bumble about.

Interior Decorating

It finally looks like we live here!! Would you like a tour? Here's the living room FINALLY (almost) complete with wall decor. The windows still need curtains, but the huge walls look so much better with stuff on them! Yes I am watching Ratatouille if you can see it on the tv. Gotta love Disney movies! Like the green paint? Yeah me too.

And here's the kitchen, fully stocked with utensils, tools, and best of all, food! Nice and open, and behind where I took this picture is the back door to the yard (see post 'Aftermath!' below)

And here is the game/study room (because that's a logical combination right?) with it's newest wall decor also. The very large promo poster for a fighting video game, the mini banner with bathroom humor and a giant scribbly cartoon character, and the elegant works of a master glass artist Chihuly who we both love. The only time I got in trouble for skipping band practice was when Simon was about to leave for college and we snuck off to a Chihuly art exhibit at the San Antonio Art Museum. It was the most beautiful display of the most vibrant colors and shapes I've ever seen so if you ever get the chance to go I highly recommend it!!

More to come as donations are made! For only 10 cents a day you can support ... oh sorry.

Aftermath!

The dreaded Hurricane Ike has blown everyone away that wasn't swallowed by the floods! Well at least I hear that's what happened on the coast. But here in Aggieland all it managed to do was knock down a few branches, the occasional small tree, and barely water the grass before the sun came out later the same day. This is the one branch in our yard that was sizeable enough to notice, and that's Moki playing in it. So much for clearing out the store shelves and cancelling school in anticipation! Aw well, who can complain about a long weekend? :)

Hurricane day!

The impending doom of Hurricane Ike has shut down everything in the College Station - Bryan area for today! All the schools, even the entire University are closed mostly to offer more space for Houston/Galveston evacuees in town. But no class for me so can't complain! Ironically school has been cancelled for weather and it's sunny and breezy outside right now. The storm is expected to hit us here this far inland as a category 1 hurricane bascially so LOTS of rain, wind, and all the inconveniences of power outages and flooding. I tried to go to the store to stock up on snacks and batteries just in case and there wasn't even a hint of bread, milk, water, or fresh fruit anywhere. All the evacuees cleaned the groceries out and all the college kids who are out of school cleaned up all traces of alcohol too!

Last night we went to Hurricane Harry's, a local bar and drank hurricanes! I'm sure that place just loves hurricanes because everyone was there just for the irony. A lot of my classmates were there so they finally got to meet Simon and I got some fabulously tacky dancing from Courtney so it was all good! And now I have an extra day to study...yay...

Dr. Moki says stay safe from the hurricane if you're in its path and if not then don't dress up your pets just because you're bored :)

My Job in a Nutshell

I'm almost officially done with my training period (should be done tomorrow in fact), so I thought I would explain my job better. I've been getting a lot of questions about just exactly what it is I do. Well, I come bearing examples!

I'm a web developer (who tries to focus on rich/interactive media). What that essentially means is I write controls in a number of languages or markups that interact with your browser to render some kind of effect. Mostly, I write in CSS, Javascript, and Flash Actionscript 3.0. Due to the proprietary nature of our site building software, I don't actually have access to HTML which can make my job...difficult. I also make all my own graphics using a bunch of other nifty programs, some of which I'm sure you've heard of like Photoshop for instance. It's easiest to think of Web developers as a kind of hybrid between programmers and graphic artists. You can wiki all those terms if you like or I can just show you some stuff.


Click here to visit this Flash hub!
Above is an example of a Flash hub I made that uses Javascript and Flash to render animations and interactive elements (like the nav menu). If the site doesn't appear as it does above in the screenshot, you have a browser configuration we don't support (which means it's probably old).

Here's an example of a game I created using Flash and Actionscript 3.0:
Click here to play a piratey game!

A static hub:
A regular old graphic hub!

A home page with a lot going on including a Rovion character and a sound enabled flash control (Warning: This will kill your browser if you're connection is slow...plus it's pretty loud):
Click here to visit a dealer home page!

If you're wondering about all the pirate stuff, that's the "theme" of my training project to keep things fun and less monotonous.
Well, I hope that helps. As always, I'm happy to address questions in the comments section!

Dr. Me

Here's me getting ready for my first day of school, just like kindergarten all over again! Honestly I think this was the first time I was actually excited to start school since elementary school, and that was mostly just because of recess! So far I've learned to do a physical exam on a cow and a dog, which are so different you'd think it was between a plant and a rock, and have already taken the first exam in immunology. They don't waste any time throwing you into everything! I have a histology exam tomorrow, anatomy on Friday and physiology on Monday. And for you kids that only took one hour tests that you usually finished in half the time, just imagine an anatomy test for 4 straight hours. And that's just a regular test! Finals can last twice as long as the regular exams!

Our class is 132 students, of which only 36 of them are male and I have yet to really meet more than half of the class. But I've been assured I'll know every one of their voices by the end of the year. We spend every day from 8am - 5pm together in the same classes, which at the most are split into two groups just for the sake of space. We get a few breaks from class during some days of each week to try to give us some extra time, all of which is usually devoted to studying...or sleeping, whichever is more critical at the moment.

Oh and free stuff! They LOVE giving us free stuff! Obviously it's a HUGE financial burden just being in vet school so they actually do a lot for us to try to offset the costs if they can. Most of it is corporations wanting veterinarians to work for them (major drug and dog food companies) but the student organizations are good about it too. They gave everyone a free, really nice backpack that has enough room to hold even more than all our books plus basically all of our school supplies: pens, highlighters, notebooks, spirals, lunch boxes, just about everything! And the best part is the free food, for both me and the dogs! There are several low cost dog food programs, but there's even one where we get one free bag of purina dog food delivered to our door every month! All the organizational meetings are during our lunch break so I get free lunch at least 2-3 times a week, and they don't skimp on those. So it's actually really nice that they try to help with some things to relieve some of the stress.

So far I have loved every second of it (even though I occasionally drift off in physiology) and it is definitely everything I was hoping for! There isn't very much built into the curriculum with exotics (zoo animals, pocket pets, wildlife) because it's such a small percentage that choose that path but as far as the basics for dogs and horses go I think I'll be amply prepared! I'll be back after next week when the first round of exams has subsided...

Bored housewife here....

So while Simon is working all day trying to bring home the bacon I have nothing to do. The summer was too short and too busy for me to actually seek a job since I'd just have to quit next week for vet school. Class from 8-5 every day, and they expect us to pay for it how in the meantime?? Anyway, so it's just me and the dogs, sleeping, playing video games, and reading, which all and all is not a bad way to spend my summer...except I'm already bored of it! I've worked full time every summer and when I'm in school I work then too, ever since high school so this doing the housework and waiting for the 'hubby' to get home is not exactly my preferred role. So I can't wait to start school next week...

Simon is loving his job so far which is fantastic! Here I figured he'd resent me for having to move to this wee little college town. Good thing Reynolds & Reynolds decided it was a good place to be too!

Oh and it rained today (finally) which brings a whole new joy of cleaning up muddy paw prints everywhere. Yay!