She has been a very overweight cat for quite some time. Recently, she seemed to virtually stop eating, and stayed up in my daughter’s room for long periods. We would bring her down to eat, but it wasn’t enough. When overweight cats stop eating rather suddenly, it can cause Hepatic Lipidosis, a buildup of fats in the liver. We didn’t know about the risk of this disease, and were surprised when Madison discovered that Sunny was very lethargic, and ‘floppy.’ She was alive and breathing, but had very little muscle action and a general mottled look.

We took her to the emergency room for pets. She had a very low temperature, so they warmed her up and began to give her I.V. fluids to try and bring about some balance. The doctor gave her about a 50% chance, based on how well she responded to treatment.

Unfortunately, she did not respond well, and died at about 5:30 this morning. She went quickly, and there is some solace in knowing her fate — many cats just disappear at the end. It’s a comfort to know absolutely.

As often happens during these times — with any loss of a living being you care for — I’m reminded to appreciate things while there is still time.

Spend some special time with your loved ones (human or animal) today, and remind them how much they mean to you. You might not have the chance tomorrow.

The AMD building where I worked

For those of you that don’t know, AMD manufactures microprocessers. I have been working on an internal project called “ARMOR” at AMD, which is a document management system that runs in the fabrication plant in Dresden, Germany.

Russ and Art

Russ and me

The system runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and processes tens of requests per second. It runs on a cluster of Linux machines, running a custom application developed in Java.

When a CPU is manufactured, there are hundreds of discrete steps as the chip is built up, layer by layer. These layers include everything from putting metal on, taking metal off, measuring thicknesses and quality, cleaning, polishing and more. Each one of these individual steps is performed by a very expensive machine generically called a ‘Tool.’

Sony and Troy

When a tool needs to do something to a chip, it uses a set of instructions called a ‘Recipe.’ The recipes are varied depending on which step is being performed or the current conditions in the fab. These recipes also change frequently and there are lots of them.

John and Sony

My project, ARMOR, is the recipe management system. It is responsible for making sure that the tool gets the proper recipe for what it is currently doing. It also acts as a backup, versioning system, and approval workflow system for the recipes.

I was lucky enough to work on every layer of the application from the client down to the database and everything in between. I was able to use a wide variety of technologies including Swing, XML, XSLT, MQ, EJB (version 2 and 3) and Lucene.

This is where our cubes were. We called it ‘Death row’

We moved over to the windows instead…

In February of 2006, I traveled to Dresden, Germany to work more closely with the users of the system. It was fantastic to be able to see a part of the world so far from home, and so culturally different. It changes your views to see that a good majority of the world are quite different from most of the people you know. However, there are a lot of things we have in common, too.

A favorite and semi-unknown lunch spot

We have a tradition of going out to lunch. Not just when someone has their last day, but pretty much all the time. It’s hard to keep the old lunch budget under control when there is a daily invitation to join the gang for Thai, Mexican or Sushi. My last day was more than enough excuse to head out to one of our favorite lunch haunts: El Meson. This is a relatively unknown, and fantastic little joint on Burleson Road in south Austin. They have, hands-down, the best Al Pastor tacos I’ve ever had — and I’ve tried a lot. This is a favorite Mexican dish of mine, which consists of pork, cilantro, pinneaple and whatever magical seasonings the chef can dream up.

This guy cooks all the food

Yummy!

Unfortunately, as is sometimes the case, they were OUT OF AL PASTOR TACOS today. Sigh. Well, the good news — nearly everything else is great. I had the Cochinita Pibil — another pork dish — and it was a fine replacement. Over the course of my AMD time, I probably ate at El Meson a good twenty times or so. There’s nothing spectacular about the interior, other than some of the posters for Mexican wrestling movies. It’s pretty much just really good, inexpensive food. Get it, eat it, and head back to wherever you came from.

Have you seen any good Mexican wrestler movies lately?

Things I won’t miss:

• AMD feels like a ‘big company’ to me. Lots of security. Rules against things like accessing personal email while at work or using an instant messenger. Lots of ‘process’ to get anything done. Many layers of management. I can certainly understand the circumstances that create these things, but at the individual worker level, they all slow down productivity to some extent.
• Users were too far removed from developers — both geographically and linguistically. I don’t think we understood the users needs well enough to provide them the ideal solution.
• It’s a long way from my house. In bad traffic, it could take an hour and a half one way. In good traffic, it was still twenty-five minutes (my best time).

Stars flying out of Russ

Things I will miss:

• The people. I got to be good friends with most everyone I worked with. I’ll miss seeing them on a daily basis.
• Java. I’ve worked in this programming language for the last eight years — and it’s certainly a comfortable area, and my new gig is in something else.
• Occasional trips to Germany! What an incredible opportunity!

It was a good three years, and I’m happy to have spent my time there. But now… on to other things!

The AMD gang

Before:

After:

Personally, I think it’s very cute, and infinitely easier to fix and wash. Madison likes it — as does everyone else who sees it. It’s certainly a change!

To get started in the adoption, we visited the web site of Forgotten Friends (www.mixbreedrescue.com). This is an Austin-area rescue, and they are top-notch. The care and love they give their animals is so obvious and genuine. Every animal we met was a winner, and we’re hopeful that they’ll all find good loving homes. If you’re considering an animal adoption, we highly recommend them!

While looking for a good dog to adopt, we met several we really liked. Annie was a beautiful little orange and white girl. Godiva was a brown sad-eyed dog who looked a little like a muppet (but cuter).

And then we met Fred and Archie, who are brothers from the same litter. We had introduced our dog, Sapica to all of these dogs, and the girls (Annie and Godiva), seemed to annoy her a little more than the boys. They seemed a little more ‘nippy’ whereas the boys (Archie and Fred) just wanted to hang out and play. She seemed to fit right in with both of them.

But which one? Fred is slightly thicker, and does the nuzzling thing. But Archie is a little quieter, and very affectionate. He comes right up and just climbs right in your lap for a big doggy hug. To be honest, I connected with Archie immediately. But Pica seemed to favor Fred. It wasn’t a big difference, but they just seemed to be a little more together than she and Archie. We really had a hard time deciding and even debated trying to take them both. In the end, one was a good choice, as any new animal takes some adjusting and work to make sure they’re happy and loved.

In the end, we chose Fred, mostly because of a slightly better initial interaction with Pica. I’ll probably always wonder about Archie.

Fred came to our house and Pica immediately brought him into the fold, leading him all around, and showing him how the dog door worked. The cats all showed some initial, um… ‘hesitation’ — but they seem to be slowly coming around. He is interested in them, but is constantly wagging his tail when around them, so we think it will work out fine.

Fred was naturally a big hit with the neighborhood kids, and he got lots of love from everybody who met him.

The first night was hard, as we tried to keep Fred in his crate with the door shut. Our intent was to give the cats a little Fred-free time, while he slept, but Fred was not happy in his crate, particularly with Pica right there — not in a crate. Eventually we let him out, and he and Pica went right to sleep on the floor in our room.

I looked over at my wife, sitting in the passenger seat. The slight visible tension in her forehead, and her upturned eybrows turned the question into a slightly anxious plee.

“Do you think my cats will be okay?” she repeated. I could hear the trace of real worry in her voice.

“They’ll be fine,” I said. “Ben’s coming to see them and feed them every day. They’ll probably be a little freaked out, but they’ll be in their own place, with food and water and Ben’s attention. They’ll be fine,” I repeated.

Ben lives two houses down from us, and watches our pets when we’re gone. When his family is gone, our kids watch their animals. It’s a good system, and Ben’s a good kid, so I didn’t worry. But my wife was. I knew she didn’t like leaving any of her creatures behind.

I also knew there wasn’t anything I could say to ease her mind, so we pulled away from the house and our four cats to begin our eighteen day vacation.

* * * * * * * *

Eighteen days later, on Saturday night, we pulled back into the driveway. We agreed that the one good thing about returning from such a great vacation would be to see the cats we had left in Ben’s able care. The first thing we did was to dump our bags and seek them out.

First to show himself was Nicky, the gray tabby whose natural curiosity keeps him right on the ragged edge of disaster. Nicky is one of those rare creatures that is surrounded by a golden aura. Its as if he’s invincible, no matter what kind of crazy risks he takes. He ran right up to us with a characteristic Meaaoowlll. We loved him up. And good.

It wasn’t long before Nicky’s best friend and cohort, Murphy, sauntered up to see what the excitement was about. “Mr. Murph,” as we call him, is the cool cat. He’s the male model (among cats) in the family. He is perfectly proportioned, with good muscle tone and a perfectly groomed orange tabby coat. One neighbor’s comment after meeting him: “That’s a good lookin’ cat!”

Of course, this all goes to hell the second he opens his mouth. Due to some combination of his natural genetic makeup and his “alterations,” he has the same high voice of the tiny kitten that he once used to be. He took his share of everyone’s affection and immediately jumped on Nicky for one of their characteristic wrestling matches.
It was a while later when we first came across Baby Biscuit. My wife wanted “Baby” and my daughter wanted “Biscuit” — so “Baby Biscuit” was the rather unnatural decision. From my perspective, neither of these names suits this cat’s personality. She’s our only long-haired cat, and the oldest of the four. The long white hair is patched with black, and gives her a dramatic and slightly exotic look. But she sleeps flat on her back with her front paws up near her chin and her back legs all sprawled out. Very unladylike. She’s also a wicked fast hunter who is usually the one to bring a variety of living gifts in through the cat door. She also took her share of attention, and then slipped off to the soft comfort of her favorite sleeping spot.

I heard the familiar click of the cat door and looked over to see an orange tabby flash. Assuming it was the final member of our cat family, I lost my cool and rushed the door, with a loud “HI SUNNY!” The situation was not improved by our dog, Pica running full tilt at the cat door to see what had gotten my attention.

Whatever the orange flash had been, it vanished in an obvious panic.

“That was Sunny,” I said to the room in general.

My family had come to see the one remaining cat. We all waited, watching the cat door to see if the orange flash would re-enter.

After a minute or so, we went out on the back deck. There was nothing there.

I heard my wife give her signature call, “Sunnneeeee…”

And again.

Once more.

No Sunny.

* * * * * * * *

About three days went by with no sign of our missing cat. I had done my best to keep everyone’s spirits up.”Cats do this,” I said with the confidence of a trained vet.

“She’s probably mad at us for leaving her alone for so long. Today or tomorrow, she’ll show up.”

Of course, like all of our cats, Sunny had been trained (probably by Nicky) in the fine art of collar removal. None of our cats keep their collars on longer than a few seconds. There’s a constant struggle between wanting to stick with the breakaway collars so that they can’t hang themselves, and knowing that they’ll just take them off versus the possibility of something stronger, which could hurt the cats if they get hung up the wrong way. We’ve mostly given up, and none of our cats wear their tags these days.

Including Sunny.

As the days went by, my tirade about her being angry began to sound more empty, and my family gave me increasingly doubtful looks as I repeated the mantra.

Finally, I used my lunch hour at work to print up ten copies of a sign that said:

LOST CAT
“Sunny”
Orange/White Striped
Overweight/Skinny Legs

I put a big photo of our cat’s face on the front along with our phone number in huge type. On my way home, I posted the signs on posts near mailboxes all around our house, hoping that someone might have taken Sunny in.

I was beginning to wonder whether Sunny was gone.

* * * * * * * *

By Friday, it was time for action. Still no sign of Sunny in the five days since we had arrived home. First, I posted an ad on the internet web site, Craig’s List, which hosts a large lost pets section. I looked back through two weeks worth of ads for found animals. Along the way, I began to see the large number of other people who were looking for missing pets. In two weeks worth of ads, there were well over a hundred such entries.

None of the found animals listed were the elusive Sunny.

The next step was to try the shelters. I stopped in at a little cat hospital right around the corner from our house, but they told me that they don’t take in stray animals.

“Check at Town Lake. They all go to Town Lake,” said the girl behind the desk, with the necessary sympathy in her voice.

Next stop, Town Lake Animal Shelter.

A good 15 miles from my house, this central Austin animal shelter is where all stray animals seem to end up. I walked in, and was directed to simply look through the two buildings with stray cats, and to tell them if I saw my cat.

About one second after entering the first building, I decided that my wife would never, ever be allowed to visit the Town Lake Animal Shelter. In every cage was another lost cat. All shapes, sizes and ages. All sweet in their own ways. All lonely. All a little scared. If only I could take them all home.

But after checking every cage, there was no Sunny.

* * * * * * * *

Over the next few days, I watched Craig’s List ceaselessly, as well as the Town Lake shelter’s internet photos of lost cats. I also made the thirty-mile round trip loop up to the Williamson County Animal Shelter. As we live near the county line, it could have potentially gone either way. No luck, no Sunny, but lots of sad animals.

Each day, both my wife and daughter were in a fairly constant state of meandering in a sad listless way, until my daughter eventually got more tired, and broke down into full-on sobs and tears. This was becoming a nightly occurrence.

For my wife, it was more subtle. I’d catch her staring for long minutes out the back window, or inspecting the holes in our back fence. Not calling — just looking.

* * * * * * * *

Over the next ten days things slowly got more and more hopeless. I continued to watch Craig’s List, even reposting in a different area of the site. I took several long walks and drives around the neighborhood, hoping that I might see some posters proclaiming that a fat orange tabby had been found. I rechecked the animal shelters. Each time, I’d get a burst of hope, and I could almost envision being able to call Katie to tell her that I had found her cat! But I was disappointed each time. And I had to endure the multitudes of other homeless lost animals.

On the following Monday night, my wife slipped into a quiet bout of serious crying.

“I just think she’s gone,” she whimpered. We had been back for nine days without a sign.

“She’s just not the kind of cat to be gone like this.”

And she wasn’t. Sunny was the most shy — the most scared — the biggest lap cat of them all. But she was also the cat who would go into our downstairs bathroom, presumably because of the better acoustics, and sing her little heart out for thirty or forty minutes straight.

“She was my talky cat,” my wife said through a new batch of tears.

Her choice to switch to the past tense at that moment meant that something had changed.

* * * * * * * *

Katie and I secretly decided that if we didn’t see Sunny by the weekend, it would be appropriate to hold a small ceremony. This would help us all to acknowledge the fact that she was gone, and give us some closure — even without really knowing what had happened. We had planned to look at some photos, and say some nice things, then release some orange balloons into the sky.

A few more days ticked by with no sign of her. On Wednesday, I took my daughter to her first Volleyball practice of the fall season. She had a great time, and seemed to really be enjoying herself. I didn’t notice any of the sadness I’d seen for the previous week.

Until we drove home.

“Do you think we’ll find Sunny?” she asked in such a quiet voice, that I could tell she almost didn’t want me to answer her.

I paused for a long time. I knew I had to begin preparing her for the adjustment to a world without Sunny.

“It’s been such a long time,” I said. “I really don’t think we’ll find her. I believe that she’s probably found her way to another house, and that another family is giving her lots of food and love. I’m sure she’s safe — just not with us.”

I looked over to see those violent, but completely silent tears which only come in real grief. After a while she managed to utter a few words.

“I don’t want her to be with another family. I want her home with us.”

I didn’t have much to say to that.

* * * * * * * *

That night, my wife and I sat around our dining room table, having a glass of wine, and talking through the beginnings of the first week of school. We had managed to get back to some of the mundane things which always go with starting a new school year. All the kids needed a bunch of forms filled out and signed. Alex needed some extra school supplies. Tyler needed an assignment planner. I had a doctor’s checkup.

Then the clip-clop of the cat door got our attention, and an orange tabby streak flew by.

There was a moment of stunned silence, then my wife gasped, “I think that was Sunny!”

We began to rush to our feet, then slowed our movements so as to not frighten her — if it was truly her.

We followed through the house to the stairs, where the orange streak had gone upstairs. By this time, Madison had also seen the orange streak, and had already picked up from Katie that there was a possibility that it was Sunny. For the next five minutes, her hands were superglued to her mouth as she hoped for the best.

We all went up to Madison’s room, which was Sunny’s favorite haunt before the vacation.

She was hiding way under the very head of Madison’s bed.

But it was her.

Absolutely and completely unchanged. Still fat as ever. Very happy to see us. Shedding like crazy in all the excitement.

But her.

Sunny had returned.

* * * * * * * *

Eleven full days had passed without her. We still have no idea where she was. Perhaps she was holed up in another nearby house, getting love and attention — she certainly seems to have kept her weight up. I don’t think we’ll ever know what happened.

It would be great if cats could speak English! I’d love to hear what she was doing for those eleven days.

It’s hard for me to verbalize, but there’s something about floating down a river’s current in an unmotorized boat which just connects with who I am at deep levels. It has nothing to do with whitewater rapids or excitement — it’s pure appreciation of natural beauty and the power of the river. I fondly remember many river trips with my dad from childhood and I love the way a certain combination of paddle strokes will push the boat this way and that, using the river’s power, rather than overpowering it.

Today, my dad, my brother-in-law, Scott, and I took one of the most beautiful and serene canoe trips I’ve ever experienced. Nothing particularly challenging, especially for the river-wise skills my dad now commands, just calm peaceful floating down a beautiful river.

For once, I didn’t do much paddling. I spent nearly all of my time during our 9-mile trip down the Missouri river taking photographs and just enjoying the ride. We started very near the beginning of the Missouri in Headwaters State Park, and floated down to a little campground called Fairweather.

We started at a crisp 5:30 am, with a quick swing through McDonald’s for breakfast, and then about thirty miles of driving to reach the river. The standard procedure on a float like this is to drop the boat off at the start, or ‘put-in’ point, drive the boat-carrying vehicle (my dad’s pickup) down to the end of the float along with another vehicle, and leave it parked. Then drive back in the second vehicle to the starting point. Park the second vehicle, then everyone piles into the boat, floats down to the ‘take-out’ point, where we load the boat onto the truck and all ride back up, picking up the other vehicle on the way home.

We floated the river in a few hours, but to be honest, I completely lost track of time. What I knew — it was too short. Due to the regional fires, there was a low haze in the air, which added a painterly quality to everything. Everywhere I looked, it was soft, subtle and beautiful. We saw red-tailed hawks, deer, herons, kingfishers, and many other river birds. Not to mention some gloriously quiet scenery. Follow the link below to see the slideshow of photos taken from the trip.

Floating the Missouri River (32 photographs).

My memory sucks. Or I used to be in better shape… or some of both.

However, I did correctly remembered that this is a relatively short hike to nearly 10,000 feet with some beautiful views from the top.

I did forget nearly everything I knew about what to bring on any Montana hike.

We had spent the previous night at the Silver Forest Inn, a bed and breakfast in the Bridger canyon, and we made arrangements with our host as to when we would be back to eat our breakfast.

“Oh, I think it will take us a couple hours. It’s about 7:45 now, I’d say we should be back to eat around 10:30,” I said.

Our hostess replied, “Well, if I don’t see you at that time, I’ll just put your breakfast in the oven to keep it warm.”

I wondered if she knew something we didn’t.

To get to the trailhead, we drove up the beautiful Bridger canyon road, which runs behind the range on the east side. Our bed and breakfast was already halfway up the canyon, so it was a short drive up to the turnoff where we turned off the highway onto the logging road which goes up to Fairy Lake.

This is a terrible road, and our Honda Odyssey got a little nervous as we asked it to go up and down over huge ruts and boulders (well, rocks anyways) on the way up. It took us about forty-five minutes to make the seven mile drive from the turnoff to the parking lot. With a better car, it would have been a little easier. Maybe this is why every other car in Bozeman is a Subaru Outback.

But it was worth it! Just a half-mile from the parking lot are the incredibly clear waters of Fairy Lake. Katie and I spent a few minutes soaking up the mountain scenery here before heading up the trail to the peak.

The beginning of the trail cuts through the forested hills, along a dirt and rock trail which is, at times enclosed by the surrounding greenery, and at other times, nice and open. Its steep enough to require a couple rest stops at nice viewpoints. Many of the switchbacks have clear views of hills and meadows running along the eastern side of the mountains.

We saw some squirrels and birds, along the way, but nothing else. We were both huffing and puffing a bit, but we wrote this off to our unfortunately low-altitude blood, given that we’re such flatlanders now.

About a mile in, the trail empties into a rocky bowl shaped valley which makes its way up to a big rockfield which lines the side of the saddle between Sacagawea and Hardscrabble peaks. Here is where we met the wind.

We began to notice a chilling and steadily increasing breeze sweeping down the valley from the saddle. Katie put on her little sweatshirt, and I tossed on my second thin t-shirt. I might have remembered to bring something — anything — with long sleeves.

The walk continued to go up at an increasingly steep pitch, and now there was the occasional loose shale boulder patch to cross. The trees in this valley are short and scarce, so we could easily see the whole trail cutting across the valley up to the base of the saddle.

We pressed on.

At the base of the saddle, the boulder field begins in earnest. From here, there’s no more packed dirt trail. Nothing but a trail across the top of big loose rocks which switchbacks from one side of the saddle to the other. It was pretty treacherous walking and the wind was continuing to pick up. We kept going, until we reached the top of the saddle, which would give us our first views over the mountains to the west side. We felt the first few drops of rain.

WHOOSH! Immediately upon hitting the top of the saddle, the previously strong wind turned into a gale right in our faces! My uncovered arms were chilled to near-ice levels and I was beginning to be pretty uncomfortable. Katie had wrapped her hooded sweatshirt around her head, and was doing her best to stay warm. It was only the steep uphill hiking effort which was keeping us both a little warm, but the slight touch of rain seemed to have passed.

We passed another family coming down at this point. I couldn’t help but notice that they all had hats, long pants and sleeves. What I would have given for sleeves! We walked along the saddle to the south making our way for the switchbacks which would take us up to the top of the peak. We managed to find a small, but sheltering rock to hide behind for a few minutes. We warmed up a bit and had… some water.

Did I mention that we failed to bring any snacks? We were both starving by this point, since we had skipped breakfast, opting for only the nutritious starter of two cups of coffee each! By this time, we really could have used something more along the lines of a HUGE SANDWICH.

Nevertheless, we pressed on.

The trail winds its way to the south across a grassy hilltop towards the base of the peak, where it begins switchbacking up through larger and larger rocks towards the top. It also begins to get much steeper.

Despite the cold, the wind, the hunger and the steepness of this ‘easy walk’ I begin to notice the beautiful scenery. The views from the saddle and higher are simply breathtaking. The Gallatin Valley stretches out below to the west, the beginnings of the line of the Bridgers run off to the south. To the east from the saddle, the meadows and fields below the mountains sprawl out towards the Crazy mountains far off in the distance, and to the north, its the imposing Hardscrabble peak — the next peak over from Sacagawea.

We continued pressing back and forth, and up and up. As the trail continued switching back and forth, and we neared the very top, Katie kept complaining about the switchbacks.

“The top is right there! Why does the trail have to keep going back and forth like this?! Let’s just go up!”

Then she realized that even on the much less-steep switchbacks, we were both having to stop to rest every 20 to 30 feet. It was going seriously uphill now!

Then… finally… we made it!

The top of Sacagawea is small — perhaps the size of a small room, and is entirely made of sharp broken rock. Looking off the north side of the peak is a 1,000 foot cliff which falls nearly all the way back down to Fairy Lake.

Neither of us got too close to the edge. There’s something about a huge cliff that just seems to pull you towards it and tip you over. Plus, the strong gusts of wind made us both a little nervous.

I signed the log book, we took a bunch of pictures, and just enjoyed being on top.

Around this time, the wind died down and the sun began to peek out, warming us both nicely. We were still hungry, and maybe a bit windblown, but the views were incredible and the weather was improving.

Looking south, the entire Bridger Range stretches out like a bony arm, to fade into the smoke and haze. There’s something about being up that high that’s just not like anywhere else in the world. The air itself (even when its not smoky) is somehow ‘different’ from normal air.

After some time, we eventually decided to head back down. The trip back was nicer than the trip up with less wind, although going down the steep rock field proved to be a good workout for our knees and ankles. Again, something we didn’t have — boots with good ankle support. Our tennis shoes weren’t quite right for this hike.

My original estimate for our return time: 10:30 a.m.

Actual return time: 1:45 p.m. Ugh.

Thankfully, the breakfast (and lots of it) was still warm in the oven. Katie and I plowed into that food like there was never going to be food served again. It was delicious — all the more so, for how hungry we were. Eggs, sausage, fruit, coffee, juice — we ate it all!

Sacagawea Peak (9,665 feet. Highest peak in Bridger Range)
Distance: Roughly 4 miles, round trip
Elevation Gain: 2,000 feet
Tips: Bring snacks and sleeves (and boots)