Critter’s Krib

As you can see in the post below. Our snake started to have her babies today. At least that is what we thought. After waiting a while to see if any others popped out, I had a quick look under all the newspapers and saw a small clump of baby snakes.

I called Talon over so he could see them huddled up under the papers. He was just as excited as I was!

I pulled ‘mom’ out of the cage and then grabbed all the babies, sifting through all the aspen to make sure we didn’t miss any. She had a total of 9 babies and 1 slug (a slug is an undeveloped ovum?)

The video above is just a small one I captured from my phone (and yes, I realize it cuts off at the end).

I told Talon that he can pick out one of the babies and keep it as his pet. He was very excited when I first told him, but then he became pretty upset because he couldn’t keep /all/ of the babies! Silly boy.

I didn’t have anything in the tubs for reference, but trust me when I say.. they are tiny.

We’ll keep you posted.

This weekend was a district (?) scout outing for Talon’s pack. We camped out from Friday evening until this morning. It was a busy, but fun weekend. Our tent is pretty large (it has a porch, ha!), so Talon’s buddy, Tyler, and his father crashed with us. I have a bunch of pictures to pull off my camera and post to Flickr, but these from my phone will do for now

The porch area keeps the kids busy.
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Trying to keep warm at night.

Morning assembly.

Talon at the javelin toss.

Talon carving a shark’s tooth.

Trying to stay warm after the rain.

Getting ready to start the bonfire.

A pretty sunset

more to come…

Last night, I attended the 1st Triangle Tweetup. I would have to classify it as a success. Wayne Sutton did an excellent job of pulling it all together.

Prior to the tweetmeetup a bunch of us met up at McGregor’s Draft House for a quick pint or two. I arrived a few minutes early, and not really knowing what anyone looked like, I parked myself at the bar. I kept scanning the area for people that look like the might ‘get twitter’, but you really can’t stereotype that can you? While enjoying my lovely pint of Stella, I tweeted “… I’m the one with the hat… and a couple tattoos”. Not even a minute or two later, someone tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I was Critter? I was. The group was right behind me. Introductions were made — and I have to say this now, folks.. I suck at names. faces.. yeah… I can do faces.. names.. I are bad — and light conversation was made. The group quickly grew, so everyone moved outside for food and a bit of clear air.

fast forward a bit…

At the event location, name tags were applied and more mingling commenced. Introductions were made and we began. I have to admit, I have a hard time in general remembering what all was talked about, but I do remember all the conversations I had with people at the event.  I did a demo of Seesmic and showed off my Seesmic Racoon (you had to know it would make an appearance). Oh, I just remembered some of the things we talked about. *whew* I am not loosing it!

Anyway.. it was a great event, and it’s always nice to put faces with.. @names. Speaking of which… I ran into a guy I worked with back at MCI back in the early 2000’s — small world.

So thanks to all that worked to pull the event together. Well done.

Pictures on flickr tagged for the event.

The other day on seesmic, we were actually discussing geography and the fact that so many people know so little.

This morning while making my outstanding, chocolate, oatmeal pancakes, I had a brilliant idea. Why not have the seesmic users post a video to Talon explaining where they are, and giving a few details about the area. I will go out and get a HUGE world map to put on our wall, then we will place cards on the map where the users live.

I think it has the potential to be a very fun and educational project for everyone involved. I posted about the idea this morning and replies are already coming in. Sweet! I have also asked for permission to use the videos here on my blog so you can travel along with us

I’ll have some video up soon. Phoenix definitely had a good time! Click the picture to view more images….

I’ll be the first to admit it. I am not the most organized person in the world, but I do my best. But hey, it’s the age of technology, right? So, if I need to find something out, I should be able to navigate my way to my son’s school’s website and find what I need, right?

If you take a peek at the image to your right, you will notice there is no mention of anything after October 25th. *shrug* I guess there is nothing going on.

This morning started off just like any other morning. Breakfast consisted of pancakes with chocolate chips, chocolate syrup, and oatmeal mixed into the batter (they taste better than it sounds — of course it sounds great to me).  Talon dressed and brushed his teeth, and had a little bit of time to play on Nicktropolis.

It was chilly out this morning. We heated up the truck as quickly as possible, then headed down the street to the bus stop. When we arrived at the stop, it was deserted. We are normally the first ones there, but the parking lot is usually filled with teacher’s cars. Just as soon as we pulled in, Talon remembered his teacher had said something about them having a ‘teacher workday’.

Hmmmm.

I phoned Katie and asked her. She had no idea (she is much better on keeping track of things like this). I phoned Conn and they told me, that yes, today is a teacher workday. No school for Talon.

Ok, no biggie.

When I arrived back at the apartment, I pulled up Conn’s website. I scoured the site for anything that would mention a Teacher Workday. I found nothing. There was a link to a Conn Calendar, but as you can see below, it was ‘under construction’. Seriously?? We are months into the calendar year, and it’s still under construction.

Fine then, I’ll click on the WCPSS Calendar link. Oops, I guess not, look where that one goes.

Seriously? Who allows this shit to go into production? Mind you, I am sure it is probably Betty Sue or Jim Bob that works on the website. To be honest, I don’t care who does the site, but FFS keep the damn thing updated!

Conn’s magnet theme is ‘Active Learning and Technology’. Scary, huh?

Yesterday was just one of those days. Although, I am not sure exactly how I could describe ‘one of those days’. It just sucked. It sucked ass, to be more precise.

What happened yesterday, you ask? Layoffs happened, and they happened big. I heard it was a 20% RIF (reduction in force) across the board. Working remotely did not help at all when the hammer fell. People were dropping like flies, and I felt like I was way out in left field, not really knowing what was going on. I won’t get into all the details just in case there are any type of repercussions for posting such data on my blog. You know how people end up getting fired for this or that.. I’d like to play it safe,

Long story short, I was one of the lucky ones to avoid the hammer. A lot of people that I work closely with were let go, and it sucks. I wish them all well, and definitely plan on keeping in touch.