Sometimes, life likes to come up and kick you in the teeth - figuratively speaking. I recently relocated back to New England from Virginia. Moving from your own apartment to back into a parent’s house is never fun. At all. Add that to the fact that a month ago last Monday I lost Mugsy - my last ferret. This one was not much more fun then the rest. No cancer, but an accident cut her life short and I had to put her down. It’s the hardest decision you can make - especially when the pet is your sole responsibility. I hate doing it, but it’s worse to watch someone you loved for 7 years suffer just so you can have a little more time.

And just like that I have no more ferrets. It’s almost like that old saying (song?) - “this is how the world ends… not with a bang, but with a whimper.” The same day I had to make that decision I went back down to VA to help a friend. And in the process of puppy sitting, she lost her mother dog and 5 of the 6 puppies - and I thought I had it tough. I can’t imagine losing a young, perfectly healthy animal and then most of the reminders of that pet. Unfortunately, with the loss of Mugsy I don’t think I was much help, I just couldn’t process any more grief.

Fortunately, I have a new person in my life that has helped to ease me through these changes. It was sort of ironic, like before she went Mugsy wanted to make sure I was taken care of - like she’d done the past few years.

Not big on dumping out my feelings, especially in a public forum, but with the long absence I felt justification was deserved. I’ll be back to having more web design info, sites and thoughts soon.

Random Tidbit: I wanted to give something web design related. So for those of you who are new to blogging, I stumbled across 2 interesting articles. One talks about 5 ways to build a better blog - content is the key - and the second talks about 21 tips to starting a blog successfully - some good ideas in there I could have used a few months ago. Enjoy.

So I went home to visit my family this past weekend, which is why there has been a conspicuous lack of posting lately. It’s good and bad - you like seeing them again, but after awhile they start to get on your nerves. It looks like I’m going to be leaving VA for good too. As much as I enjoy my job, and most of the people I work with, the things I gave up don’t meet with what I’m getting. I’m kind of sad to go though. The last thing I thought I’d be doing at 26 is being out of work and living at home again. Kind of depressing actually.

Not actually the point of the post though. Going between VA and MA I realized just how stupid some people are. Some people just seem to think that the highways are their own personal speedway. And I’m not talking about the people who are over the speed limit - as most of us usually are - but those that just drive recklessly. It’s not even the fact that you could hurt yourself, but more importantly, that you could hurt me. I’m talking about the people that like to pass on the right, cutting in between you, in the left lane, and the car in front of them, in the right lane, through a space slightly larger then a car length. And of course, always at excessive speeds. Or the weavers - the ones moving in and out of traffic like they’re James Bond. You’re not so important that if you’re 5 minutes late the world will end.

Another set of people that annoy me are those people that will pass you, then cut in front of you - always by only a car length or two - and promptly proceed to slow down. Always to slower then you are going. So then you pass them to get back to your speed - and they repeat this. I’ve never wanted to hurt someone so bad in my life. It is becoming obvious to me, the older I get, that nature might have it right in “weeding the herd” a bit. I’m not much for the death penalty, or killing in general, but when someone does this to me I will admit that I’ve reconsidered my position. Unfortunately, “being stupendously ignorant” is not a capital crime.

Random Tidbit: Apparently Opera has taken the lead with regards to AJAX. I have been working more and more with Opera at work and, especially after this latest release, I have to say I’m very impressed. It’s faster then Mozilla, just as standards compliant and has many of the extensions I like from Mozilla built in. It’s an awesome product for a web designer to use for testing too. I keep saying it, I wish Microsoft would just cough up some of those billions and buy it to replace IE. They wouldn’t want to make our life easier though.

So I usually like to keep this to web stuff but I happened to log into my MySpace and saw a bulletin from my cousin I thought I’d share.  I’ve heard him play and he’s actually pretty good.  And it’s at a bar.  So I’m willing to bet he sounds even better if you’re buzzed.

Details:

My band, OPEN MIC NIGHT, plays at Rusty G’s in Lowell every Monday. Please come out and support us we love a crowd. And the bartender, Brad is an amazing bartender.

P.S. It is an actual open mic night so others will play in between us…and if you have musical talent you are more then welcome to display that!

Open Mic Night’s Myspace URL
My Cousin’s MySpace