Thank you, Melody.

I guess I'm lucky she lasted as long as she did after getting sick suddenly at the end of July. Throwing up stomach-fulls of food for 3 days in a row, followed by a sharp drop in appetite. At first I struggled to figure out what was wrong and just did everything I could to find something Melody would eat consistently. Some things were on and off, most things were one taste and she walked away like she was afraid of it. August was like that while I didn't want to think the worst. She went from a decent weight to some loss, but after September there was still some loss of weight but it wasn't very fast. October was when I worked hard to give her the food she needed and medications required. I often stayed up late, sometimes 3 or 4 in the morning just so I could give her the 1/2 tablet that helped her stop throwing up. I thought things were going in the right direction the first day I watched Melody have a bowel movement outside - at least it wasn't coming back up. Quite unlike the peas I gave her over 3 days in September when I was trying anything to get her to eat - they came back up in 2 puke piles, one large and one small.

The last time I had to deal with a vomiting episode I gave her some rice with chicken broth - Melody didn't exactly care for rice by itself, having eaten it once to calm her stomach. That passed quickly and she was back to eating normally for her eating habits.


November was when she started turning down her favorite crunchy dog bone treat after coming in from being outside to do her business. Much of the time I had to make sure she had something of food in her since she refused to eat willingly - the things she did eat on her own were foods that weren't exactly good for her - potato chips, for example. She'd wait for a pizza crust and I'd offer it. Usually she'd accept it - it was her favorite thing on pizza nights.

December was when there was a dramatic loss of weight, and the past 2 weeks she was unable to keep anything except water down. I even tried giving her some gelatin dessert. It seemed to stay down, but nothing else would. It ended up with her still eating the mint-flavored dog dental bones but throwing them up less than an hour later. There were a few days she figured out how to get outside of the fence and enjoyed some extra activities but came home when I finally yelled for her and she heard me.

I took some photos and you can see the yellow jaundice in the whites of her eyes - it faded at one point but there would always be some amount of yellow there.

Considering the dog Melody was before she suddenly started throwing up, I would not put it past her to have eaten some pieces of death cap or other similarly poisonous mushrooms that I had seen growing in the yard. I should have gone out there with gloves on and removed them but they got mowed down before I could remember to do it. Melody has been known to just eat little bits of whatever that she smells and finds, but her habit of just eating anything remotely edible probably was her downfall. There was no way she'd get anything bad for her in the house. I refuse to believe that some dogs are just genetically prone to just getting suddenly sick like that. Just flip a switch and presto, the liver shuts down? Bullshit.

At least this time there's some explanation to why, so I'm more able to accept Melody's passing. It never gets easier, and there's pain. An emptiness in my heart that I hope doesn't stay that way for long. Marmalade will miss his friend - he liked to lick her ears clean, and he did that up until last year or so when Melody suddenly snapped at him in a way she never had before. Oh well.

Nearly Year end Rememberies

I finally did end up with my complete set of Sugar Sugar Rune manga, after locating 1-5 from an eBay seller in Alaska. After 4 attempts at locating Vol.8, I finally got one off Amazon, though it was a beaten-up copy from a library and over-priced for its condition. At least this one did not get lost in the mail.

My Fred Exploder had rusted out transmission fluid lines so that got worked on. The mechanic recommended getting the brake lines worked on pretty soon. I see they also looked over the rest of the vehicle with some recommendation on the front pinion gasket or seal thing. I hope that can wait.

A VHS to DVD project over the summer yielded a surprise gift certificate that I did not expect at all, as well as one other DVD project that a friend thanked me with a Pre-order Figuarts Sailor Moon poseable figure.

Snagged the MizuIro Jidai CDroms I'd been after for the past couple of years, along with a Wedding Peach Win95 screensaver package (hopefully soon) and a book I didn't have but getting it the way I did, I was able to save over 50% eBay list prices on it. I still need Shin MizuIro Jidai 1-3 manga, and now people on that one site are listing 10 book sets of it after I've already gotten the regular series' 7 books.

I'm still trying to start my business, but with my vehicle needing expensive work and Melody throwing up and getting a liver problem, it's just complete distraction as I try to deal with getting her well.

I still have 4 figure kits awaiting my attention. There's something I want to do with them before I make any progress.

And so far, other people keep winning my money in the lotteries.

Well, it's probably what I think it is - hopefully

Well, my Fix Or Repair Daily is turning into a Fix Or Repair Monthly. Went out to start the Exploder to take it to get an oil change - first attempt to start didn't do anything, 2nd try got it started, but when I went to put it in Reverse, nothing happened (or moved).
Best Worst Case Scenario - it just has a transmission fluid leak and will need work. That means maybe pulling off the transmission and finding all the seals that need replaced.

Worst Worst Case Scenario - the transmission is toast - which is unlikely, since it did have some transmission fluid in it after I parked the Exploder. I didn't try driving it since I parked it on Thursday, so that's all in my favor. Unlike with the Kia when it died on my way to parking it.

It'll get picked up and hauled by the dealership and maybe I can get them to waive some amount since they should have caught this during the service for the power steering when they caught the belt tensioner.

It's always something

I REALLY hope the latest anomaly with the Fred Exploder isn't expensive to remedy. I know it needs to go in for an oil change - that's a given. What I hope the thing this time isn't expensive. A couple of times on my way home from doing things in Alliance as I got closer to home I noticed my speed dropped and the RPMs spiked near and above 3000. Under all other normal use, it never gets above 2500. Now, I know I was not paying attention to my driving (thinking about random things) and didn't keep my speed up, but having the RPMs spike like that is unusual. None of my other gauges were off - they were all in the proper ranges, and no lights came on. I then made sure to get my speed back up to the posted limit and things were fine until I had to slow down to around 40 mph, and the Exploder would be shifting down (it's automatic) and once again I saw that spike. As I turned off onto a side road to get home, it did not happen again all the way to parking and shutting it off.

Any time anything is odd with the operation of the vehicle I'm driving, I don't like it. My anxiety goes up because it means paying someone to do something about it. After getting the power steering, belt tensioner, and exhaust worked on, I do not want another expensive repair bill. A minor bonus is the oil change at the dealer is $5 less than the place I had been going to.

Now, seeing as it's the RPMs and that usually means transmission stuff, I did check the fluid level. Or at least try to. It seems to still have the right amount, but I'll see if they include general fluids check when doing an oil change. They'll know how to read it properly and how to add fluids properly.

It's all a matter of perspective

Had to "Fix" the KLH Subwoofer... again

Last night for about 2 hours, the subwoofer started making odd noises like it was receiving some odd RF interference. It's done it before. I remember pointing a cordless phone at it once, pressing a button on it, and it went off. It was annoying and even when I shut off the subwoofer, the sounds would persist. It was just as oddly coincidental that it would stop making noises when Bones finished airing.

This morning when I fired it up to check how it was doing now (and no longer making spurious noises) it had a decidedly less than desirable response. Choppy. Gritty. It wasn't a warm bass response. Great.

So I decided to open it up like last time and see if I spot those slightly out of spec solder points again. And I do, as well as testing with the chopstick to see how it responded. And it was the same kind of thing. So I fired up a soldering iron and touched the one spot I found and sure enough, the solder disappeared. So I find my solder and re-do that spot and check a couple of others. Plug it in and fire it up, tap the circuit board - no more of that sign of a component not connecting to the circuit. Nothing loose!

As a result of all that, I had to figure out how to re-calibrate the settings on the back of the subwoofer so that it was at an optimal level for crossover and volume. The technique I discovered was to set the Dolby receiver at a common volume level (50) and then play something with the DVD player to make sure the bass response is warm, clearly heard, and resonates in the room without sounding localized, something I remember reading in the instruction booklet.

I wonder if these KLH subwoofer circuits run hot because of seeing this one actually melting the solder in the smallest of margins to make it go out of spec. Either that or the solder melts too easily, or the components weren't soldered in that great to begin with. As I seem to recall, this subwoofer did this same thing years ago. It worked well, then went sputtering for bass response, before just not working at all.

Those square metal plates on roads

I decided I was going to figure out what those square metal plates you find on roads around here are. 

As it turns out, and how they're used at least in Stark County Ohio, they are considered to be surveyor benchmarks used to mark things like the center line of roads. I was able to find a webpage that has some GIS data released that indicates where these are. The compressed file is about 5.26MB, and considering there's a lot of these surveyor benchmarks, that file size sounds about right. Only thing is, you have to use Google Earth Pro if you want something to easily and directly import that data. There appear to be tools to do it without Google Earth Pro, but with 50 MEGS of data, I'm not going to even begin.

I just wanted to know what they are. And I found out.

Fun little digital picture frames

A friend kindly handed to me this little video playing digital picture frame to play with. It has an onboard 111MB flash drive and plays Xvid/MP3 AVI video files. Until I get something to fill it up and run for an hour, right now it's playing an Ika Musume music clip. Oh and if I forget to rename the video to '00.avi' I found out you have to hold down the button while turning it on, then it will stay on long enough to have WinXP recognize it. I had to look it up to fix that goof. Thank goodness I did.

You know, if someone wanted to be extra evil, they could sneak in to some stores with these displays with a little netbook laptop, plug these little annoyances in and put nasty clips on these things. Oh the fun they could have.

The video file that used to be on it was 480x272 and 15mb big. I wish it would play every file you could fit onto it, but apparently it's not made that way - or could it be made to do that? I don't have a manual for it, so I don't know.

Aldi's FAIL

Some book prices are just INSANE

What is it with Sugar Sugar Rune manga? Volumes 4 and 8 are rip-off priced more often than not, and then those volumes are either Sold Out or some seller lists the Spanish editions. And the one copy of SSR V.8 that I do find for $13, the seller shipped it Media Mail and promptly did not arrive when it should have. I got a refund, the seller apologized for not having a 2nd copy in stock. Well, crap, if you saw the prices, you'd think someone stole my copy and sold it for drug money.

I managed to get SSR books 1 to 5 off eBay from a seller in Alaska of all places and ended up being $6 a book. Vol.6 and 7 aren't so expensive, but V.8?? What did Del Rey do? Print it with gold?

I found another not-as ripoff priced copy of V.8 of Sugar Sugar Rune but still more than reasonable, and this time it better arrive. AND IT BETTER NOT BE IN SPANISH.