New Address

Hi. My father complained a couple of times about the "ranting like a moron" URL. So I've changed it, which you likely have discovered if you are reading this. From now on this site can be viewed at:

http://mydaddidntliketheurl.blogspot.com/

That is all.

Foundation blocks of my life

RRR... I lost this post once, so it's not going to be as verbose as it could have been. I had it all written and then has highlighted the whole thing to copy it into word to spellcheck, the blogger spellcheck leaves something to be desired, when I accidentally deleted the whole thing - and since its web-based there is no crtl-z undo available. ...RRR

I am really liking the random image generator app on this page. A couple of times now there's been a picture of the Millenium Falcon in there. Yesterday I lit it up to see what it was, and that leads me to this...

Two "links of the day"

http://www.fbtb.net/customs/

http://shop.lego.com/department.asp?d=5&t=3

The "fbtb" in the first url stands for "from bricks to Bothans." It is a reference to Lego and to Start Wars. Two substantive tides during my own formative years.

I often think my generation ought to be the "Star Wars" generation. It seems like a much more creative and descriptive designation than "generation x" which is neither and often seems to me to carry a hint of "being that you are so much less consequential than us 'baby-boomers' we're not really going to think of a name for you guys." (note to self, baby boomer rant another day) Not only does this speak to a movie we all saw over and over, and to a new way to make movies - and a new way to market them, but it also evokes a reference to growing up through the thick of the nuclear cold war and the Reagan administration. I have many memories tied up with Star Wars, seeing the movies, playing with the toys, reading the comics. Its is a big chunk of personal history. I do think at the time it reinforced my interest in space and science in a way that school could not have. It's still with me too, to this day I still buy and read Star Wars novels as they come out.

For me, Lego also holds a place of honor during my formative years. Hours and hours were spent on a converted air-hockey worktable making spaceships and buildings and the like. Miserable with the chicken pox, here's a brand new super-set. Can't get your homework done, here's a Lego for homework incentive program. Certainly the use of this toy helped set the stage for the technical problem solving I do at work every day today.

I remember one shopping trip to Toys-r-us where I met a guy who must have been close to my age now. He was there doing the same thing I was, trying to figure out which set to buy. The second link above is clearly for that demographic: people my age still into Lego. This is Lego's Star Wars line of models. Its good for my folks that it took people like me to know that people like me would be interested in these sets, because if they had figured it out back then I am quite certain a second mortgage would have been required. I have to say, even now I think I can find a place for that X-Wing model in my office.

It's not just the Start Wars line that keeps Lego interesting to older people. They have really stepped up their implementation of mechanical components of late. We've been using these components to help teach stage machinery, they make an excellent prototyping tool. Lego has really beefed up the form and variety of actuators. They now have compressors and pneumatic cylinders. There's even a full blown PLC that with only slight modifications could likely run actual automated scenery. Now if we could only stop feeling stupid about using what we see as a toy as a teaching tool. Too bad for me these bits weren't around back in the day (but a saving grace for Mom's checkbook, again).

I still own quite a bit of Lego. Its boxed up in my parent's garage. When we used to go visit my Dad's parent's I used to go up to the attic and play with my father's Lincoln Logs. I've a similar hope for my Lego.

Check out the galleries on the first site. Some of the models are simply fantastic. The "AC Pin" gallery is particularly good. If I had never met a girl and never left home I think I might be doing models just like these. Even still, $300 isn't too much to pay for a full blown Star Destroyer model, is it?

Maybe I should think about something else for a while.

Ultimate self esteem - or "that's not a sport"

As one might be able to tell from the links on the left, I play ultimate. There are other things one might surmise from the list as well, such as that I am a lesbian stage technician with an affinity for tiny swimwear. The conclusion about ultimate would be correct.

Ultimate used to be ultimate frisbee, but sometime between when I went to college and my teaching at college Wham-O fell out of favor, ultimate players started playing with Discraft Ultrastars, and ultimate frisbee became "Ultimate." The most humble of sports names. The people that play ultimate tend to be dedicated in a way that often wouldn't apply to other sports. There is an element of service and sport development present amongst Ultimate players. This is due largely to the youthfulness of the sport and in some small part a defensive reaction to when people say "you play what? Oh, frisbee. I love the dogs." Talking about dogs and frisbees is enough to bring most Ultimate players to a froth.

So why are we talking about this? I guess because over the last couple of days I have felt fairly disenfranchised as an Ultimate player while watching the summer olympics. For as long as I have played disc, players and organizers (Ultimate has a federation, the Ultimate Player's Association or UPA) have been talking about having Ultimate made an Olympic sport. There are rules that govern this. The sport must be played in a given number of countries, and then a host nation must present it as a demonstration sport. Since I have been playing Ultimate has amassed the critical number of countries, but has never been at the top of the list when it came to demonstration sports. There was an inkling for LA in '84 and then again in Atlanta. But in both cases other programs got the call.

In the interim the Ultimate community has had to watch several other sports play on the Olympic stage. Some of them you might expect: baseball, softball, taekwondo; and some, well, less obvious: beach volleyball, windsurfing, and rhythmic gymnastics. Its the last of those that started me on this little jag this time. Last night I watched the hoop prelims, and then today a watched the group finals and inside I could hear an irate Ultimate player screaming.

Its not that I don't think these people are talented, and that they don't have to train hard and be in great shape to do what they do, but I have trouble seeing the lines. Its much easier for me to see "artistic" gymnasts along side of track athletes and wrestlers. Rhythmic gymnastics I kind of group with Ballroom dance, cheerleading, or competitive aerobics (a sport I have never really understood). I have to say that I would likely lump synchronized swimming in with this class as well. I worked with a bunch of former olympic synchro swimmers when I did the O show. I'll will grant you they were athletes, but I never would have thought what we were doing was a sport. For that matter, that forges another connection. Are synchro swimmers or rhythmic gymnasts all that far from trapeze artists? Why is Ballroom dancing not a sport when Ice dancing is? And don't say its because of the skates, I think a lot of what the dancers do is likely harder without the skates.

Strange, I don't have too much trouble with diving. I guess the difference between diving and synchro is much the same as between artistic and rhythmic gymnastics. Maybe this is it: anything where you wear a costume designed more for looks than for utility, any sport where judges are looking at "artistic impression," that's just not a sport. That's a show. Not to say it isn't physical, not to say it isn't difficult, but I think I am saying its not for the olympics.

Maybe we need another event, something like the world entertainment games. This would be the rightful home of all the artistically judged events. Plus we could add the aerobics, cheerleading, ballroom, and then the trapeze and acrobats, plus drill teams, marching bands, and drum corps. Maybe there's a place here for ballet and modern dancers, or for vocal or instrumental musicians. Is who can sustain the longest or sing the highest note really any less significant than who can lift the heaviest weight? They already have established the x-games as a commercial venture for new sports that are too fringy, someone should do the art-games for events that are as much art as effort. Maybe move these events out of the olympic summer games, and make room for my Ultimate.

More Education

Orientation, day 2. Today we talked to the incoming first year grad students. I really had to motivate because this year PTM admissions totals for grads were:

Production Managers: 0
Stage Managers: 0
Technical Directors: 0
Other: 0

So mostly I thought that I should just stay home and sleep. Perhaps trying to dream up better strategies for recruiting. I'm hoping that this can help solve itself. Now that I have an actually SM faculty member, and have two classes each in stage management and production management the interview conversations should go a little better. Actually, the group seemed real small to me anyway. I guess maybe admissions are down across the board.

I reversed my speech for this group, instead of telling them to be concerned about getting to narrow I admonished them to not get too wide. Once again I failed to get to the end of my speech. I guess if that stuff is as cool as I think it is that I should move it up front so something else gets clipped. At least today I remembered to talk about our initiative to more closely tie production to classwork.

Our motley crew was augmented by quite a few more instructors today. Of special note was the vice-provost for education. Having her there really made me feel foolish about my little talk. She's got just a little bit more experience than I do - something like 8 to 10 times as much. Interestingly though she picked right up on what I was saying and continued, both like we had prepared the talk - which we hadn't, and like I knew what I was talking about - which is debatable.

We've been having a lot of trouble with expectations of grad students lately. The provost took up the theme of grad responsibility. She pinned the difference in grad and undergrad programs in a way I hadn't heard before. She says that undergrad is about "identity" and that grad is about "authenticity." That as an undergrad you are learning and establishing you identity as whatever it is you are studying and that as a grad, the identity part is assumed and that you can start to bring your own self into play - making it an expression of authenticity. Its a neat take and encapsulated many of the issues we've been struggling with.

She also seemed to express that she felt that grad school was much better in the old days, when everything was a PhD and grads didn't take classes like we have now. Its an interesting idea, although I have no idea how something like a Drama school would work in that manner.

So two long meetings later and orientation this year is complete. Classes start Monday. I wonder if I'll be ready.

Random Image

So that little app in the margin found this the other day when searching for images under "blog."


What with all the cat entries it seemed appropriate.

Education

Today, with next to no notice, I had to speak for a few minutes on the nature of the Education pillar of the school's strategic plan. My boss felt it would be better to speak to something of the school's philosophy at our first meeting with incoming freshmen rather than simply discuss housekeeping issues.

The strategic plan has five pillars: Education, Leadership, Experimentation, Community, and Diversity. These are supposed to be the principles that guide all decisions about how the school is put together. As a TD I can get behind most of these. Sometimes I have a little trouble with Experimentation. That particular item gets spun to "don't be afraid to fail." As an engineer and as a manager I tend to have a different definition and reaction to failure in my domain than an actor or a director might have to an artistic failure. But on the whole I think they are good ideas to work from. Our followthrough, that's another story.

Mladen has the best line. He had to cover Diversity. He explained that he believes that we spend too much time labeling with color, that the Indians and the Communists have both been called Reds. He explained that Nazis were called Browns, and that Cleveland has Browns, but that they are not Nazis. I wanted him to explain that at school our color is plaid, which would be inherently diverse, but he didn't. Instead he explained that we are all the same color inside, and that the differences between us are a strength in the realm of learning.

I got to extemporize about Education. My big points were to be sure to recognize the resources around you, to be aware of opportunities for inter-disciplinary experiences, and to take ownership of one's own education in order to maximize and create more opportunities for one's self. I was just getting to the part about how our program is not a service environment, but rather a collaboration between students and faculty and maybe to use a quote that Kevin had given me: "it is the responsibility of universities to but together talented people and then duck." when I paused just a hair to long and Liz said thank you. Which is too bad because I never got to talk about learning more than just skills, but to appreciate the artform, establish a level of professionalism, learn to learn, and to learn from and to teach all the people around you.

I think she cut me off because one of our students was nodding off and it provided a once in four year's opportunity to tell that person to leave and come back when they were ready to participate. Really, I'm not sure I could have stayed awake through my talk if I hadn't been the one talking. Maybe I'll get to do that last bit tomorrow for the grad students.

The continuing FrankenKitty saga

So the uberVet called yesterday.

Trinity does have a "Type 1 Fibrous Sarcoma," or did anyway before the surgery. Type 1 tumors are characterized as "aggressive," which translates into a 90% or better chance that the problem will recur after an unspecified period of time.

Interestingly, having spent some time in a BN going though all the cat books in their pet section, I can tell you that pretty much the sum total of information available is: "Tumors are bad."

So, we're back to square one in many ways. The uberVet is once again proposing either radiation therapy or amputation. The radiation still has the problem that the treatment simply isn't available regionally - and is very expensive in any case. Amputation is still, well, amputation. It'll be another four digit number, and even after that the odds only drop to 50% for relapse. They're sending me a quote, and he's given me another owner to talk to with a pet that's been through it.

I have to say that this entire experience is a strange combination of doctor's visits and auto repair. I've had this feeling about the vet before, for other reasons; principally because they are both people that put their head under the hood and then tell you you need a widget and all you can do is look like you understand and ask "how much?" Cynical, but then I never claim not to be.

It seems like for the time being we're going to do nothing. There are quality of life reasons, both for us and for Trinity. There are of course dollar reasons, and there are odds issues. The long story short version is that it seems likely that whatever we do we can't make her well beyond a coin flip, and under those circumstances it seems that her quality of life has to be the most important factor.

So we'll go get the staples out next week, and I'll keep trying to gather information. See this space for further updates.

Happy Birthday Jessica!!!

Today is my sister's birthday. On today, the anniversary of her birth I want to wish her all the best and send her all of my love.

Inquiring, but anonymous, minds want to know

Buy house - check
buy car - nope
buy computer - in process
buy engagement ring - check
propose - check
close up apartment - check
move - check
unpack - mostly
buy furniture - some
organize personal files - um, no
clean up bank accounts - less so
write book - not so much
go on vacation - sadly no

I did have a lot of help.

Olympic Omnithon?

Can they really call the winner of the decathlon the world's greatest athlete? What about the winner of the heptathalon? The triathalon, biathalon? The Nordic combined? I mean the decathlon winner is pretty special, but whatever happened to Bruce Jenner after the Wheaties box?

Does anyone remember "The Superstars?" This was a made for TV event, a creation of ABC sports where all-stars from a range of sports competed against each other to determine who was the best all around athlete - or maybe it was for a free trip to Hawaii, you'd have to ask an athlete. We got to see football players play golf, baseball players lift weights, hockey players play tennis, and even track athletes row boats. There was a 100 yard dash, a bike race, swimming, and for the final: the obstacle course. Although I'm uncertain this ever really did anoint a world's greatest athlete it sure was fun to watch, and it got me thinking.

I wonder how fast Paul Hamm can swim?

Does it seem strange that we haven't heard about a US Olympic athlete who compete's in say rowing and weightlifting? Athletes do often compete in a range of events, but typically all in one family and rarely in team competition. Would it be such a stretch to assume that the gold medalist in the men's 5000 meter freestyle would likely also be a decent water-polo player? Or that a weightlifter might also be able to achieve in discus? Or for that matter in say cycling and speed skating? I remember that when Eric Heiden was all the rage in speed skating that he was also a competitive cyclist.

We've seen Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders compete in multiple sports at an elite level. Could it be time to create a competition where multi-talented individuals could get the recognition as the true world's best athlete?

I suggest the new Olympic Omnithon:

• 100 Meter Dash
• 5000 Meter Run
• High Jump
• Long Jump
• Discus
• 1000 Meter Canoe
• Time Trial Cycling
• Springboard Dive
• Platform Dive
• Vault
• Parallel Bars
• 10 Meter Air Rifle
• 1/32 Archery
• 400 Meter Individual Medley
• 1500 Meter Freestyle
• Weightlifting

That's 16 events. They currently do the decathlon over two days, so I figure that over two weeks they could reasonably spread out these events. That would really show the world's greatest athlete.

I went back and forth about including an equestrian event, but really that seems like the horse is the athlete. I'm sure that the riders are athletes in their own right, but it just didn't seem to fit in. I also didn't include any match sports like tennis or boxing, but I can see a system that might include these as well.

Thinking about it, I believe that this could be a single open division as well, no men's omnithon and women's omnithon, just the Olympic Omnithon. The spread of skills required might eliminate any specific advantage one sex would have over the other. This might be a stretch, but if we really are talking about the greatest athlete in the world it seems we ought not to make these other distinctions.

Truth be told, the modern pentathalon has the right idea:

http://www.athens2004.com/en/ModernPentathlonAboutSport/redirect

Now, let me tell you about the Ultra-Omnithon. That would take two years to complete, start with the omnithon and add: luge, downhill skiing, cross-country skiing, ski jump, speed skating, figure skating...

Hours of digging and I've struck - desk

Back to the office today. I've made a terrible discovery: the kids are back. Following along with the "oh my god" post of several days ago, I am not ready.

No no no. Really, can't we start late this year?

Actually, through the wonders of SME scheduling I will have to be starting a little late this year. My first meeting as a Subject Matter Expert for the rigging certification is also the first meeting of my Tech Direction class. Whoever said "when it rains it pours" had it right.

Anyway, back to the office. I spent today clearing the vestiges of pre-college and a bunch of meetings, and after a while I discovered that it wasn't just a huge stack of papers, but that there was in fact a desk underneath. Good to know, I was worried about that.

So, things are now organized enough for me to know that once again I am way behind. I haven't actually written out a list yet, but I can see it in my head and it's well onto page two. This of course makes me wonder just what I have been doing with the summer, and to consider how much of what I'd planned to do at the beginning of the summer I actually got to. The TO DO list for this past summer was just ridiculous. It looked something like this:

Buy house, buy car, buy computer, buy engagement ring, propose, close up apartment, move, unpack, buy furniture, organize personal files, clean up bank accounts, write book, go on vacation...

What could I possibly have been thinking?

Looking back at the end of the summer and at close to two thirds of that list crossed off I guess I did ok. Adding pre-college, cat surgery, out of town wedding, and two sets of parent visits I think perhaps I had the most productive summer I possibly could have had. But still here at the end of August it seems like there is still quite a bit of unfinished business left over, and that the list is beginning to grow again. If I had one of those red and green hourglass things from the Churrascaria on my desk I would definitely set it to red until I had a chance to catch up.

My understanding is that there is already a pool among the students as to how the wedding planning will effect their lives. I personally think that the new commute will be a bigger deal, but the life to do list will probably be a factor as well. Still, having a list is what keeps us from getting bored, yes?

Ok, enough blogging for today, this is definitely not on any list.

Link of the Day

And so already I am stealing. Or perhaps it is simply an homage. Link of the day is a feature of my friend Peg's "Palmyra Sliver." I hope I do it justice.

The same guy that did the Random Image routine that runs in the left margin has a whole page of fun things to do with Google. While I worry that perhaps too much of this person's life is spent playing with computers, I am sure that within a few years he'll be able to buy and sell me and so I should probably just keep that thought to myself.

So here is the link:

http://douweosinga.com/projects/googletalk

What it does is pretty neat, or at least pretty interesting. You enter a phrase and then it has google check the web for occurrences of that phrase and picks the most popular next word. If you enter "Four score and seven" it will in all likelyihood find "years." After it completes, it drops the first word, adds the new word to the phrase: "score and seven years" and looks again. And then madness ensues...

I've found a couple of ways this can be fun. First is sort of like a magic eight ball. You enter a short phrase like "Dick Cheney is" and see what google returns - in this case "a robot." Similar fun can be had with George Bush, Colin Powell, Ralph Nader; someone did "Osama Bin Laden is hiding" and got a very likely location. Now why hasn't the CIA thought just to google him?

The other way to use it is to pick a distinctive phrase and see how long it takes to stray. This way I found that the Gettysburg address is likely more often correctly published than The Lord's Prayer, that another brick in the wall strays to "we don't need no stinkin -badges-." That the language of the pledge of allegiance turns out to be fairly run of the mill and that the inscription of the Statue of Liberty has a lot of words not used in ordinary speech. The longer the phrase you enter, the longer it stays on track, but not always. When you stump the net for some reason it returns "did did did," I'm not sure why.

But I have to say, my favorite so far has been "The seven words you can't say on television are" which comes back nearly letter perfect and would, I guess, indicate that there are a whole lot of George Carlin fans in the world.

The site sometimes slows down. I guess developers have a limited number of searches, and this requires a bunch of searches for every trial - and who knows how many people are playing with the thing at any one time. Have fun.

By the way, for those that are interested, The Palmyra Sliver, and a more reliable selections of Link of the Day postings can be found at:

http://palmyrasliver.blogspot.com/

Don't be that guy

I have received explicit instructions with regard to this page. Yesterday I inadvertently posted twice. It just seemed to me that the two ideas I was discussing really did not relate to one another and that two posts was more appropriate. However, doing so resulted in my being instructed to "not be that guy" which I guess is someone that spends all day every day coming up with pithy things to put into a web blog. I believe that this is probably a good idea. Truth be told this is a fairly light time as far as schedule and I am sure as things ramp up toward the end of the month that I will not post at all for quite some time, so "being that guy" is probably not going to be a problem.

I do have to wonder too about what I will write about here. People certainly don't want to know that we bought a new kitchen table or that Trinity successfully went to the bathroom today. I don't think I am 100% at liberty to talk about the goings on at work because this is a semi public forum and who knows who it would get back to, there are several sites belonging to my students that I am sure they would be horrified to know I have the addresses. This is absolutely not a venue for personal venting. Just today I heard from one friend with a site who was busted by her boyfriend for complaining about him online. That the answer to this particular case is that he should stop giving her cause to vent is sort of beside the point. Nobody's partner should have to first see personal details about their relationship online, that's just wrong.

So while I am trying to figure out what is appropriate from work or life or whatever I would appreciate it if you do see it starting to happen that you let me know if I am becoming that guy.

Dream Team - Not

I wish they would stop calling the current US Olympic basketball team "the dream team." What kind of dream is this? Losing to Puerto Rico, squeaking by Greece, if this is our dream team we really are living in a time of diminished expectations.

This really isn't a new complaint for me. I never liked the idea of "Dream Team 2" or any of the teams since. Even though none of those teams ever lost a game in international competition they weren't the same. Dream Team 1 - THE Dream Team - went through the entire Olympics without calling a time out. They averaged 7 turnovers per game. They weren't just the best we had to offer, they were special; not just stars, but mostly students of the game, as interested in stifling defense as in sizzling offence, as proud of making the perfect assist as of making a thundering dunk. Since then we haven't really approached what we rolled out the first time.

The whole reason for letting the pros play was to re-establish the dominance of American basketball players. Pro players from other countries were habitually outplaying the cream of our college crop. Sending the top echelon of NBA players helped to right things. Interestingly, in the interim, the players for other teams have become NBA all stars, and our Olympic players are once again becoming more like college players. Although we didn't sent NCAA players to Athens, several of the players have just one or two years of NBA play under their belts. Many international teams have players on their rosters with more NBA experience. How did we let this happen.

Add the character and experience issues to team chemistry issue and you see what happens. Chemistrywise the other nations have always had an advantage, playing together all year, year after year while the US team got only a few months of practice. Maybe we need to change our selection process.

The Olympics are contested every four years. Perhaps the NBA champions of each of the intervening years should play a qualifying tournament to represent the US. Would have been nice to have had a little playoff between the Lakers and the Pistons to see who would go to the Olympics. There are some problems here. The winning team would likely have some international players who would play for their countries teams, and some of the American players could have either retired, been traded, or incarcerated between the championship and the Olympics. This could be overcome by having the winning coach allowed to draft replacement players for his team from that season's all star game. The NBA and USA Basketball should structure things that if you aren't injured you should have to play.

Like anyone should have to be COMPELLED to go to the Olympics.

Which brings me back to character. Here's what has really been eating me. I firmly believe that if you fielded Dream Team 1 today against the current Olympic team - as they are, no time travel - that Barkley, Bird, Drexler, Ewing, Johnson, Jordan, Laettner, Mullin, Pippen, Robinson, & Stockton would still win. Fundamentals, defense, unselfishness, and love of the game will beat flash every time.

Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God

I went back to work today. Between my parents and Marisa's parents and trips to the vet I really hadn't been back in quite some time. Everything looked like there was so much time back at the end of pre-college. Now all of a sudden I'm looking at calendars that have me teaching a week from Monday. I am not ready. Again. I swear at least one year before I am through once and for all with this teaching thing I will get to the first day of class prepared. It has to be possible, it can't have to be such a maelstrom every year. At least I am used to it.

Today I discovered that we may have to come up with a new class for this fall, as in it meets for the first time 10 days from today. The way it looks like it works out I won't be the one teaching it, but still its a lot of prelim work AND I'll have to pick up a new class to relieve Kevin. Its a class we want though: the production analog to Basic Design. Lots of real conceptual stuff about engineering and management. If it weren't for the big rush I think I would be really excited.

Its really no big deal. 10 days from now I will teach my first class of academic 04-05 and it will just go from there, but it does look like a fairly daunting amount of work to do between now and then. Guess we'll see.

FrankenKitty

So, trinity returned from the uberVet today:



She's not all that happy, but seemed to get back to normal fairly fast once she was home. There's a nasty scar with about two dozen staples, and she gets to wear this sexy t-shirt which covers what was explained to me as a morphine patch (but not morphine). She was eating right away and seems to be glad to be home.

Next week we get the biopsy results, and the week after the staples come out. And then she'll hopefully be back to normal.

Congrats to Marisa

A link to the Pittsburgh City Paper's review of Big Love:

http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/performance/story.cfm?type=Theater#2709

I have been hearing for weeks from various production team members about how rough a delivery this project has been. Perhaps this complete blowjob of a review will make up for all the trouble in some small way.

Well done. Enjoy.

Cat Surgery

Last week I found a lump, on my cat. I guess there are worse ways that sentence could end. I do have to tell you though that even though I didn't find the thing on my person, or on any person, that finding it on Trinity has been no picnic. The regular vet referred me to an uberVet who informed me that the lump was in fact a tumor, and because of its location on her hip a particularly nasty tumor.

I got three options for treatment:

1. Amputate the leg. This is apparently the only way to be sure the entire mass is removed and will not return.
2. Remove the mass as best we can. This could result in her losing use of the leg anyway, and will likely result in another surgery down the line.
3. Go for radiation therapy. Which is apparently VERY expensive - oh, and I would have to move to Ohio.

I've elected to remove the mass and hope for the best. The surgery was today, they successfully removed everything they could and have sent it out to be tested. The vet has been very gloomy and informed me that because of the placement he was not able to get much of a margin, which I guess means its all that much more likely to return. I think I will just cross my fingers and hope for the best.

We're going to pick up Trinity in the morning. Can't be soon enough for me.

One small step for - nobody really

Following in the footsteps of many of my friends, I now begin my own exercise in web publishing. I hope those who read it, if anyone reads it, are in some small way entertained.

I have for quite a while been thinking that I would like to have a column of sorts. I guess now we will see if it is truly a good idea. What will follow will undoubtedly be an overtelling of the minutiae of my life and a shouting of my completely biased and largely uninformed opinion. It should be fun. Hopefully I will at least remember to spellcheck.