This is about my favorite pic of him!

  This post will only make sense if you have watched the show farscape.
  Rygel likes to go under our outdoor deck and chew on things. Problem is, I can't get him out, and there could be snakes/rats under there, who knows. So I PAINSTAKINGLY covered the area outside the bottom of the deck with chicken wire to prevent him from getting in, he was very mad that day. Anyway, half a week later, we're playing outside and POOF! he disappears, only to show up at the INSIDE of the chicken wire under the deck! I have no idea how he got under there, he went behind this one bush first, and I looked there but the wire goes all the way to the edge and is tacked down well. I re-staked it down, and added more staples, and yet again 2 days later I was doing some landscaping and he went behind the same bush and appeared under the deck, and also popped right back out when he was bored. I have no idea how he gets under there, I've checked that you can't peel the wire back anywhere and he hasn't dug. He fully has a secret passage that I cannot uncover to the best of my ability.
  That's a good dominar. I know how those Peacekeepers felt when someone else small kept circumventing their security precautions.

This day, August 19 2007, will henceforth be know as the day of "the incident." We have been planning a garden outside the back of the house for some time, and while she is in California I decided to finish the digging. About half of the ground is clay and the other half is rocks, so it's miserable work. The hole is about 30 feet long, 4 feet wide and a foot and a half deep. I had excavated out a ton of rocks, and was using clay to make an even flooring to absorb water. While doing this Rygel was helping me dig and making himself a right mess. This is ok, he was going to get a bath today anyway, and I put an empty trash can in the way of his walkway so he couldn't go inside all messy. Well, I finished digging and had leveled out the clay, and I used the hose to wet the whole place to help settle the clay and make a flat bottom. Rygel loves the hose, so he jumped in and proceeded to roll around in wet, muddy clay and hose water. He was the sloppiest I've ever seen him. Well, I begin hosing myself off outside, when all of a sudden he goes rocketing up his ramp and to my chagrin, he makes a flying leap at the trash can, knocking it over and exposing the door which he quickly went through. I ran around the deck, up the stairs, opened the gate and went in, but the damage was done. I took him back outside, then took off all my muddiness and we went into the bathroom to have a bath. Nevertheless, the damage was done.

This is the hole, which will be filled with dirt and planted soon.

A muddy, mucky mess, he is.

His white face patches are brown with dirt.

The bathroom. He definately slipped out of the tub and shook mud everywhere.

A closeup of the bathroom floor.

The tub, oh the tub, and this is AFTER the shower, when much of it rinsed off.

He rolled in his towel a bit.

Whose paw prints are those on the deck???

My muddy socks and boots, which obviously didn't help.

Wipe your paws??? notice the paw prints up the door, that's from the flying leap into the trash can.

Notice the muddy carpet prints, the muddy tile, and the busted honkey locked up while I scrubbed the carpet.

See if you can guess where Rygel went!

  Life is pretty good. North Carolina is just dandy, the house is perfectly liveable, I have not one but two jobs (kinda) and a new baby puppo named Rygel! Let me start from the beginning.
  The house is all set up, all the electronics are all together and painting has definately been progressing. I have a video tour of the house which shows off what it's looking like right now. There's more to be done, but it's at the point that if we don't do it immediately, it's totally fine. Upkeep is nuts, I've never had to mow a lawn before (I miss cheap crews of 6!) and we have a big one.
  I spent 3 weeks working with a staffing company. Right at the time I started working there (I did administrative/secretary type stuff) they were in the process of being bought out and a lot of the old office staff quit, resulting in the office being very understaffed and having a lot of confusing new policies. Long story short, they knew I was still looking for another job and I was able to help them out in a time they just needed bodies. For a lot of my 3 weeks I was the only person in the office at all, and I ended up working 60 hour weeks which I got paid for. None of that "Work 60 and get paid for 20" crap. I will continue to stay on their payroll to help them out on an as needed basis, for example, checking new employees in at 6:30 in the morning or helping with weekend paperwork. Long story short, I was there for the three hell weeks that were the perfect storm of old people leaving, all working employees (100 or so) having to come in to refill out paperwork, and the people who will be staying there going to a new manager's conference and having to be gone.
  I then took an AWESOME job at UNCGreensboro in the office of Adult Students. I'm the "Office Manager and Web Designer" which is a fancy word for Program Assistant. The cool thing about this job though is that the director and I are the only full time staff in the office (there's some work study students) and she would like to grow the office, but can't get funding for another person. My Higher Ed background is great for the director because if I do some higher-ed type work, which she made sure to tell me is not part of the job description, it will benefit the office and possibly pave the way for making a new position in the office if a need is demonstrated. Either way, this job is really really ideal for me seeing as it has a large tech and web component, has a lot of organization to it, has room but not demands for programming and professional development, and works with a population that truly appreciates the value of education, something I sorely miss (and have already seen is in abundance here). Oh, and it doesn't hurt that I applied to this job being staggeringly overqualified (required a HS diploma) so I am at the top of the pay scale :). No one else would even interview me since I had no experience, so when I leave here in a few years or so, I'll have years of office experience, more Higher Ed Experience, and IT and web experience (which held me back from getting a job in IT, since I've never worked in an IT specific position, and web developer is in the job title here). I'll be perfectly rounded out and set to get whatever job I want, and until then I'm making plenty to start saving and live comfortably.
  Speakin of liivin comfortably, we got a puppy! His name is Rygel, which in my brain is short for Dominar Rygel the 17th, Dominar of the Hynerian Empire and over 600 billion loyal subjects. Read about his namesake here. He's 100% puppy! His date of birth is June 4 so he's 7 weeks old today. He loves to chew and explore, is still learning his name and to not pee everywhere, and loves a warm person to sleep against. If you're in the area, come see him!
  For the last 6 years, things have been good and bad on and off, but the one thing that stayed the same is that everything changed all th etime. To explain, I moved every 9 months or so in undergrad, changed majors 3 times, went to grad school, moved 3 times, shifted this and that, had my car blow up, changed jobs several times, pretty much had very little sense of normalcy. Now, I have a stable job, a reliable car, a home I will be in for at least 2 years, very comfortable responsibilities, a puppy and everything. I finally feel like this is a place to just put some roots in and enjoy for a while. I know it's not good to be stagnant, but the thought of living in a place and not having "I could paint but I have to unpaint in 8 months" hanging over my head, or "I should set the stereo up so it's easy to tear down in a year" is so nice, I just am so happy to just sit still for a while, to rest. I hope that makes sense, for the first time in many years I feel like I'm taking a true breath.

  I like that Ron Paul vehemently wants to end the war. I don't like that he's anti gun control. I like that Obama is pro stem cells. I don't like that he's anti gay marriage. I like that Kunich is pro net neutrality. I don't like that he's anti death penalty. So who do I want to vote for? John Kerry. Wow, that's dumb, you must be saying. Not only isn't he running, he couldn't win the last time. I saw something back then that made me want to vote for him that apparantly no one else saw and I stand by him to this day. Rather than choose a candidate because their personal opinions align closely with yours, and then expect that candidate to act along their own personal interests resulting in an agenda roughly aligned with your own, John Kerry believed in democracy. It's been a while, if I find the article I'll post a link, but I think on the issue of church and state, John Kerry said something that gave me hope and still does to this day. Essentially, he said "I have this opinion, but my opinion is not what is important, it is the will of the people so even if I disagree with that I will support it if it's what the people want." Think about it people, are we really electing people so that they can pursue their personal agendas? If that's the deal, then more power to Bush and Cheney for this war, they hit the nail on the head. I am looking for a candidate who says "this is my opinion on these issues. Any policies made will reflect national interest and the will of the people to my best ability to gague it, not my personal opinions." I hate the election process, I hate political parties who feed us their own short list of people to select from, and I hate that we're sitting around! At the risk of bringing FBI agents to my door (see you tonight guys) in the olden days of this country the actions of the current government would have resulted in a militia with muskets to storm the white house and revolutionize! Maybe that's what it takes, an army of 1000 citizens to storm the white house and take the government back! Phooey to those people who say voting can change things, we thought we did that by voting a Democratic majority into congress and all they've been able to do is prompt the executive branch to become more absurd with their power wielding (The vice president isn't in the executive branch, the security committe members can't access security information, and checks and balances is a pretty word for executive branch is in charge.) If a militia formed to take back this country and reinstate the constitution with democracy at the forefront of the intent, hand me a musket and make me a soldier with something worthwhile to die for rather than an ill-advised reach into a hornets nest.

I was pleasantly sleeping this morning when Ryan bursts into my room, saying "Joe, there's something outside you want to see!" I go outside and what to find, there's a large turtle walking around! I went outside and brought it in, figuring I'd let it sit in some water (there isn't any standing water around outside) and give it a meal.

As best as I could tell at first glance, the front claws were short which is the quickest way to tell it's a female. Later on in some online reading I discovered that in some species of turtles a cocave belly means male while a flat belly (Ok, since someone who knows something about turtles may read this, the plastron is the proper name for the bottom of the shell) so it may have been a male. Either way, seeing as how the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie came out today, I figured I should name it April O'Neil and designate it a girl. I've been having some trouble identifying the species, but I think it's an "Eastern Box Turtle." Here's another picture here.

Here's a view of the side of my friend here, from the side before she was confortable enough to come out of her shell.

April, looking around. This is a good shot to see some major charachistics: smooth shell (as opposed to rough or bumpy), orange spots on dark background, orange belly, orange spots on the leg scales, and orange pattern around the beak and on the top of the leg. Also, the plastron has a lot of orange on it.

A paper towel roll, for a size comparison.

Here's the short front claws, I wanted a closeup to see why I thought she was female. Maybe the claw trick only works in map turtles?

More claw.

The top of the shell, she was much more comfortable in the dark for a while so I let her be that way.

The bottom of the shell, notice the distinctive pattern and the large concave area in the center. Also important to note, the front and back of the plastron bend up so that when the turtle wants, the shell is completely closed and the turtle is completely protected. It's important to note Baron's shell can't close, at his most in his whole front and back have nice squishy Baron parts exposed.

Some food. Initially she was crabby about it.

Notice the growth patter, theoretically we could calculate the age but I doubt it.

Here's Baron around April, they really weren't too interested in each other.

More food.

She walked around for a while, look at that funny little tail!

Some more explorin, she was seein what was under the table.

I took one goodbye photo before letting her go, she had pretty brown eyes!