Sadness.

We have two cats, a two-year old calico named Skeezix and a tiny white kitten my wife found hiding under the AC a couple months ago.

Motormouth and Skeezix shred the kitty castle.

The pitiful, scrawny little critter wouldn't stop crying when we brought him inside, so his name is Motormouth. Skeezix was not too keen on the idea of Motormouth invading 'her' space, but after a couple weeks of dirty looks and the occasional hiss, they've become buddies. I have to think that Skeezix is going through a bit of a second kitten-hood, because all the roughhousing and chasing (and being chased by!) Motormouth has made her act like a kitten again. I've even seen her chase her tail!

Motormouth the day he adopted us

Motormouth is now a 4-pound ball of energy who has firmly adopted my wife as 'his human'. He's a cute one indeed, and we've grown very attached to the little bugger. That made this morning's visit to the vet all that much harder to take.

We found out today that little Motormouth is positive for the Feline Leukemia Virus. The vet's best guess is that mama cat passed the virus on to little Motor. There's no telling if his immune system will clear the virus (there's a chance) or how soon the virus will take hold. If he can't clear it, we're looking at losing him within the next 2-3 years. More than likely the virus will weaken his immune system (poor white cell production) and an opportunistic pathogen will do him in. Our primary concern is keeping Skeezix healthy, so separate feeding dishes have been instituted. Skeezix has already had the primary vaccination and a booster, so there's not that much concern, but we brought her in today for a booster just in case. She's is mostly an outside cat, and we'll keep Motor inside from now on to prevent him from spreading the virus to any stray cats in the neighborhood.

I hate to think that by adopting Motormouth we might have put Skeezix at risk. Of course, rationally I know that with Skeezix being outside more than half the time, she's exposed to all kinds of threats, and I don't feel guilty about that, so why should I worry about her exposure to FeLV? There's no reason for it, but I feel I should try to do something to keep Skeezix healthy. There's no telling how much time we have with Motormouth, but we'll treasure it all the more. It's really painful to look at the little guy, with all his energy and exuberance, and think that his doom is already sealed. I love my kitties, and this is pretty hard to take.

So you can probably expect a lot of pictures of Motormouth here in the future.

World Record!

We did it!

Blue River Band - Jason, Beth and Richard

1,859 guitar players showed up in Luckenbach on Sunday to break the world record for the Largest Guitar Ensemble. The goal was 2,000 people, and about 1,600 were pre-registered through the Voices of a Grateful Nation website. A couple hundred of them failed to show, but enough people signed in at the gate to put us over the top. The vibe was overwhelmingly positive - ain't nobody feeling no pain in Luckenbach! We were treated to some amazing singing and playing - and not all of it was on stage. There were impromptu jam sessions popping up left and right, and some of the folks were playing absolutely gorgeous guitars. I particularly like this "Martin on a Martin" paint job. My wife took most of the pictures as I had my hands full of guitar. You can see all of the shots here. The record attempt was scheduled for 2:00 P.M. but they pushed it back to let as many folks sign in as possible. Good thing, or we might not have made it. Anyway, I was standing next to Richard on the hill opposite the stage, and we started griping:

"Boy it's getting hot."

"Yep, and my feet are starting to hurt from standing on the side of this gully facing downhill."

"Can't those ding-dongs on the stage quit fooling around and just play the song already?"

Suddenly, I had a blinding flash of perspective:

"Hey, Richard, you know what? Let's complain about it for a little while. I mean let's really bitch about standing in the shade, playing guitar, drinking beer and setting a world record! Damn, nobody's shot a rocket at me all day long!! THIS SUCKS!!!!!"

Richard chuckled, and even the woman standing in front of us turned around to laugh and agree.

I was interviewed as soon as I walked in the gate, so I'm keeping my eye out for the documentary. In the meantime, you can watch this video. Again, thanks to my wife for being there. It's my fault for not erasing every last image off the memory card on the Canon SD750, as the video cuts off at the end.

I lost count of how many choruses we played, but you get the idea. Can't you just feel the joy and excitement?

Deckman's World...Record?

I'll be in Luckenbach, Texas this weekend, trying to set a world record and get my name in the Guiness Book. Well, me and about 2000 other folks - I don't think they'll list everyone by name. So, maybe I won't really have my name in the book, but still...

What the heck am I talking about? Pickin' for the Record is the name of the event arranged by Voices of a Grateful Nation. We're going to try and break the world record for the biggest guitar ensemble. Since we'll be in Luckenbach, it's only fitting that we'll be playing "The Luckenbach Song (The Basics of Love)" by Waylon Jennings. Come join us!

Geeking out

There are many aspects to the craft of photography. One that I try to concentrate on is sharpness. I bracket focus, I watch my depth of field, I take dozens of pictures to get that one that's juuuust right.
Why don't I just review them on the LCD? Sorry, my Rebel XT has a tiny, grainy little screen that is okay for showing the general composition, colors, or histogram, but it just can't show me if I've got a truly sharp photo. So what I do is take lots of pictures, copy them to my computer and review them on a large screen. This works after a fashion, but it has its drawbacks. If I have to wait until I get home from a hiking trip to review my photos, and I find I juuuuust missed the shot I wanted, I'm kind of out of luck.

Okay, so it gives me a good excuse to go hiking again, but still...

I recently found a pretty useful piece of software. It's called DSLR RemotePro and it allows your computer to control your Canon SLR. It allows you to review your shots, even saving them to the computer without having to later transfer them from the card. It supports more features for newer cameras; I can't set AF points in my Rebel XT.
I noticed one other bug: If your aperture is stopped down when you boot the program, it 'reads' that as the minimum aperture setting. Changing the aperture in the camera and rebooting seems to fix it. It's only a minor inconvenience - not a deal-breaker.
My plan is to try to take my laptop the next time I go hiking and use that to review my focus live in the field. I'm also thinking this is where a netbook might come in handy, at least for the weight savings.
Stay tuned to see how this idea works out.