Yesterday, my best buddy in the whole wide world passed away; my buddy Max:



Ten years ago, if someone told me I would be burying my best friend and that it would be a cat, I would have said they were crazy. But Max was a special spirit who taught me more about life than probably any human ever did. I am convinced that he was my wife's guardian angel. He was a very wise cat, and you couldn't help but love him.

He had a cyst that was discovered two years ago when he broke his leg. It had returned, and apparently grown since then, and was beginning to affect him. He wouldn't eat much, was losing weight, and had a hard time breathing. The only real options available to us were to let him suffer to death, put him down, or try to remove the cyst, surgically.

His blood work showed that he was quite healthy. Two years ago, they said his blood work looked like that of a seven-year-old cat. Not bad for a cat who was now 16. His blood work hadn't changed much since then, and the cyst was not cancerous, so it looked like surgery was the way to go. We were given a lot of hope (perhaps too much) - the doctor was very encouraging - but I'll never forget the look on Max's face as they carried him through the door as he looked back at me from within his carrier on his way to surgery. That was the last time I saw him alive.

The cyst was inoperable, as it turned out, and his recovery would have been miserable, so we made the decision to allow him to die on the table. That was the hardest phone call I ever took.

Today, we put his body into the ground in his final resting place, somewhere we think he would like. I can't believe how much it hurts to say goodbye.

We love you Max!

Today's entry has little or nothing to do with computers. It is really more of a rant than anything else.

But before I get into the rant, allow me to draw a preliminary picture. My wife got Thursday, Friday and Monday off work, so we took a trip to the Yuba river and had a blast swimming in the river. Perhaps I'll provide more details on that later.

After taking the 4-hour drive home on Labor Day (missing most of the UGLY traffic), we discovered it was a hot day for San Carlos -- very hot.

Here comes the rant. I can feel it already.

I hate to be general about making assessments, but it has been my experience that physics and women simply do not mix. Is it that they just don't understand, or don't WANT to understand, or don't CARE to understand, or are they just stubborn in their own ideas of how things work?

When we came home, the apartment was warm inside, but it was still much cooler than the outside air. There is no air conditioning in the apartment (99% of the time, we don't need it). So, what is the first thing my wife does? She opens the doors and windows. I try to explain to her that by doing that, the HOT air that is outside is going to come inside (especially since there is a breeze), and soon it will be as hot inside as it is outside. "But the apartment just needs some air." What, like this drafty old place somehow has stale air in it, even though our [female] roommate has been home all weekend with her windows open?

Needless to say, it got hot in the apartment. So, after unpacking, I retreated to my shop...where it was COOL, because the door and windows were closed. I came back into the apartment later, and it almost seemed hotter in the apartment than it was outside, because then the sun was starting to go down. After the sun did go down, the breeze STOPPED, and then the temperature inversion occurred: it truly was hotter inside than it was outside. Hmm. Gee. How did that happen?

Our roommate emerged from her room of open windows, complaining about how hot it was, and stated that she was going out to cool off by going out to get some food. Meanwhile, I set up a fan to help draw some of the cooler air from outdoors into the apartment where we were sitting and sweating, watching TV. Now, keep in mind this apartment is huge - over 2300 square feet. Therefore, it would take a LONG time for this little fan to make much difference in the inside temperature due to the massive volume of air...so the only place to feel any effect is right in front of the fan.

Now, if, instead of opening the doors and windows when we got home, we simply turned on the ceiling fans, the place wouldn't have been so hot, and it would have taken just as long for a ceiling fan to heat up the apartment (due to the heat that it generates by consuming power!) than it would have for the other little fan to cool the place down...but we would have been much more comfortable from the start.

So we went to bed later in the evening and opened a window downstairs. It is usually cooler downstairs, because, well, you know, heat rises. I comment that it would have been a lot cooler down there if all the windows had been closed during the day. "It wouldn't have made any difference down here," she says.

I knew it was futile at that point.

Today is a new day, my wife and my roommate are both at work, the air is still cool outside (and there is NO breeze today), but the doors and windows will be closed, soon, and I'll be comfortable until the women get home.