Stuff Blogs

Just went to pay my tax bill and was greeted by this message on my personal details screen. Clearly not using the money for education, especially grammar.



Way to go Contra Costa!

Unfortunately this is right on the frame of the camera and you can't fully see what happens because I'm in the way, but Zaphod jumps off the bonnet of my truck onto the ledge underneath the window on the garage door. Only there isn't a ledge under the window on my garage door like there is on the windows in the house. You do get to hear the splat and the crash as he hits it then falls on the floor.

So, Zaphod has turned into an escape artist and now darts past me into the garage when I go in there. I'll figure out a two door system like I've done with the front door and the cage around that, but it doesn't really hurt for them to go in there as there's nothing much for them to get into trouble with. Right, so I got my new bike and went out on it and realized it needed some adjustments, so I came back and decided to work on it in the garage. I figured I'd let the cats come in and look round while I was in there. Zaphod lept in, whereas Trillion was a little more cautious, but she did come in eventually. It was actually quite cute. If I called Zaphod, he'd come running over and start rubbing round my legs. Kind of an I'm here, don't worry type thing.

And then I fell over. Hearing the noise, Zaphod came trotting over and decided to rub round my head. Very cute to start with, but he pushed right against my head and, as he came past, he wiped his arse across my face. It's quite disconcerting to have a cat reverse up and push its bumhole against your nose.

I don't have a video of that, but I did pop a camera in the garage the following day in case something similar happens. What you see here is my obedience training proving that it works really well and then me trying to rationalize with a cat (or two cats in the end). Sorry about the fact that you see my arse. Maybe if you push your face to the screen at the right time you'll get a similar effect as to what I got.



Just FYI - that's not the new bike, that's the old bike. The new one is hidden behind it.

My gardener had told me I'd got racoons digging up my lawn to eat the grub worms, so I setup an outdoor camera to see if I could capture them and sure enough, it wasn't long before they came along. They look so cute, but I think they can be pretty nasty. Not sure what they'll do to my cats when I let them out or, worse, if they'll chase them back into the house through the cat flap. Time will tell on that one. In the meantime, here's a montage of the little lawn diggers.

After saying I wasn't going to create more blogs about bike rides, here we are again. But the thing is, there's a clip that I thought warranted its own blog and I've not duplicated it in the video section, so I think this is valid. Anyway, so I was on my bike ride and a squirrel decide to run in front of me. I was pretty worried when it did that it was going to throw me off my bike or make me crash, particularly as I was at the fastest part of my journey. I was surprised that it literally had no effect whatsoever. Then again, being hit by a fat bastard on a handcycle at 30mph is probably going to instakill. I didn't go back to look at the carnage as that would have meant going back up the hill. The video plays at full speed and then back in slow motion. In slow motion you can see it come back to the left and go under the front wheel accompanied by a thud.



If you really want to see it, here's the full length video of the bike ride.

Pretty much the same loop as last time, but I decided to take a path behind the shops on the way back that I'd seen on the map. The path isn't very wide even though it's marked as a cycle path. There was one bit where the path drops into a gulley and I didn't realize how steep it was to get back out again. I've posted the clip of this bit below so you don't have to watch the full length video. I've watched the clip several times while editing and each time I watch it, I'm not sure if I'm going to make it or not. I think I do. If not, I'm not sure who's writing this blog. I really like the kind woman who offered to give me a push, but I'd pretty much made it up the hill by the time she came.

One thing that does occur to me after watching it back, there was a point where I was just going to back down the hill, turn around and go back, but looking at it, I'd have had the same problem going back as it looks like the hill is as steep on both sides of the stream. It took me a while to figure out that I was just going to have to crank a quarter turn at a time to make it up. I just couldn't get the crank over the top with enough force to make progress doing full rotations. Good job I have good brakes too in order to stop me sliding all the way back down the hill. I was also worried about the wheel spin I was getting too as it seemed that at some point I just wouldn't be able to make any progress. Still, where there's a will, there's his dad.



If you really want to see it, here's the full length video of the Clayton loop.

Decided to go out on a ride to celebrate William's birthday. Went for a relatively quick loop round downtown. The position of the camera isn't great and it's more like a shot of the back of my head. I wouldn't bother watching the video, but if you do, here are some useful timestamps:

• 3:44 Adjust leg and manage to throw foot into front wheel
• 5:39 Crutch flies out of it's holder and lands on road (sadly you don't see it happen)
• 13:44 First Big Skeleton (on left)
• 18:38 Two big skeletons (on the right)
• 18:52 - 19:30 Top Speed Run

If you really want to see it, here's the video of the Clayton loop.

My mouse mat:



I'm going to be honest, this means more if you've played Apex Legends.

... or so the joke goes. The punchline being why does he wear his pants on the outside, but that joke wouldn't work over here in America. Similarly, this is a message I got from Alexa.



Now, what you need to figure out is whether it's new underwear with little soldiers on them or underwear that drops right before I shit myself.

The ordeal of the week was to take the cats to the vet as noted in the vote question. The trip was actually pretty straight forward. I fed the cats in the morning and then gave them a cuddle. After that I rattled the treat box and walked into William's bedroom. The cats obediently followed me. I dropped a couple of treats on the floor, then as fast as I could, grabbed little girl and put her in her carrier and then grabbed him and put him in his. They were in their respective carriers before they knew what was going one.

Poor little girl was nervous as anything. He was making a racket, but I think most of that was because he didn't like the vehicle motion. In the vets itself, they tried to distract the cats with food. I told them that he was the definition of curiosity killed the cat and they'd have no problem, but she was the definition of scaredy cat and would not be distracted by food. I was right - they put the food on the end of a spatula. It looked like peanut butter and was intended for them to lick off. She sniffed it and ignore it. She then climbed out of the carrier and the vet said she wasn't that shy, but then all she tried to do was get into his carrier to be with him. When she couldn't get in, she just laid on top. They did their thing and then put her back. They opened his carrier and the head popped out to get all the fusses. He just purred away happily. They then gave him the treat to try and they now need a new spatula. I'm just glad the vet had moved her fingers away from food.

So, the next day (Thursday), I fed the cats in the morning and he disappeared. I looked for him and yeah ... he'd put himself in the carrier ready for another adventure.



I don't think there's going to be much trouble getting him to the vets, although they did warn me that he's going to be a very big cat. I figured that when he outgrows his carrier, rather than buy a new one, I'm just going to get a saddle. I can probably make a few bob selling rides to the local kids.