Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Sabot L'ours' LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Monday, May 28th, 2012
9:16 pm	Deja Fur The nice thing about LJ is having the ability to go back in time to see what you were doing on a particular day/date in the past. I looked at last year's post and saw that I was pretty much doing the same thing that I was doing this year. We once again hosted a holiday furmeet. Unlike last year, however, it was a little better planned out and we had a larger turnout. We had about 40 furs show up last night. I grilled up a bunch of hamburgers and hot dogs. I also used my Christmas present that I got from Kitty this year, a professional-grade deep fryer. A 5-lb bag of potatoes was transformed into 2 batches of french fries. Of course our wonderful furiends came through with lots of tasty treats as well. It was a very nice affair. Unlike last year, however, there was no fursuiting. I also looked at the next post from last year which mentioned heading off to Califur. That also holds true for this year. We will be heading off to the con via the train on Thursday. I'm looking forward to hanging out with the cool furs of SoCal. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, May 25th, 2012
10:51 am	A Little Color I really hate medical news. You know that it can be taken the wrong way by so many people. I hate a lot of medical stuff to begin with because so much is just statistics. There is probably a roomful of doctors who sit around and decide what is "significant" and what is not. You hear things like "increased cancer risk" which immediately puts you on guard, but it might mean that 10 more people out of 100,000 will get cancer. It might be statistically significant to them, but to the average Joe it probably doesn't make a darn bit of difference (unless you happen to be one of those 10). I also have a hard time believing all of the things you hear about something being bad for you. It's a double-edged sword, however, because you can say that we have been eating or doing something for centuries and people have been getting along fine. Then again, people back then were dying in their 30's. I bring this up because I saw a story the other day about how it's critical that we all wear sunscreen especially because we're at such a high altitude here and the Sun's impacts are magnified. There was a doctor who was adamant that sunscreen should be worn at all times and that no exposure was safe. He mentioned an old lady who just "wanted to get a little color." Oh noez! She was exposing herself to CANCER RISK!!! The funny thing was that I have been trying to get "a little color" myself over the past week or so. With temps in the 90's I have been taking off my shirt when I go out for walkies. I figure I'm all alone up there on the mesa so it would be safe to show my fat belly without fear of scaring people. I would rather be a little tan as opposed to fish-belly white. But I guess that means I'm engaging in unsafe behavior! How irresponsible of me! I'm depriving some nursing home out of days or weeks of future revenue! Bah! Once again, like most things in life, all things in moderation is the way to go. (15 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 24th, 2012
8:30 am	Brief Update Not much has been going on in the life of the bear except life itself. I have been working on the upper yard project almost every evening. I think I have a groove going. I actually feel guilty if I don't get out there every day. Since temps have finally broken the 90 degree mark, I wait until the Sun goes behind the mesa before I start working. Physical activity actually feels pretty darn good. I mentioned a few posts back that I have also started reading again. That also feels pretty good. After 20 years I finally finished the entire "Chronicles of Narnia." I don't know if any more books will be made into movies. Lewis gets pretty racist in the later books in terms of putting down Muslims. I also found my copy of "His Dark Materials" so I have started "The Golden Compass." It's pretty sad that the only thing I can remember from the movie was the murry polar bear. Speaking of movies, we have also watched a few more of the Oscar-nominated flicks from the past year. "The Descendents" was up for 5 Oscars, including Best Picture, and won for Adapted Screenplay. It was a good old fashioned tear-jerker with some great performances especially from George Clooney. Good stuff if you like drama. Then there was "The Iron Lady" which won for Best Makeup and Best Actress, Meryl Streep. She definitely deserved the win. Her performance was outstanding. Unfortunately I can't say the same for the movie as a whole. It was pretty choppy and seemed to care more about the old Margaret Thatcher with dementia and not about the former PM of the UK. Finally there was "My Week With Marilyn" which was up for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor. Once again there were great performances in just an ok movie. It certainly was enjoyable which is what counts. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, May 20th, 2012
10:20 pm	Ring of Fire *cue Johnny Cash* The annular eclipse passed right over ABQ tonight. We had a small furmeet to celebrate the event. The Sun had fallen below the mesa before "totality" so we all hiked up to the top to watch the event unfold. It may not have been 100% kosher, but we simply used strips of 35mm film to protect our eyes. I placed a strip in front of my camera lens and set the speed for 1/4000 sec. This was the result: Without the film the pic would have looked like this: I was amazed at how bright the Sun looked even with the Moon covering almost all of its face. It truly was a sight to remember! (19 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, May 19th, 2012
12:45 pm	Living in ABQ You know you're living in Albuquerque when a sight like this... is a fairly common occurrence. This was taken from the back patio this morning while I was enjoying a cup of coffee in my fox kigurami. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 17th, 2012
8:00 am	2 Anniversaries Since I don't have much to write about, I thought I would just make a quick post about 2 important anniversaries which are right around this time. First was an anniversary that I missed. Monday marked my 9th year on LJ. That's pretty amazing. I have documented almost 20% of my life on this thing. It's nowhere near to what it was in its heyday, but it still serves it's purpose. It is great to be able to go back to certain events and read what my thoughts were at the time. Such can be said for the second anniversary. On Saturday it will be 5 years since I found Mesa alone up on the mesa. He has been such a good dog although lately he has developed the nasty habit of going on walkies on his own. Even this morning I caught him trying to leap over the 5' high cinderblock wall. I really don't mind that he goes off on his own, but I don't want to seem like the irresponsible dog owner. I know he doesn't bother anyone, but people can get uptight. I don't want to have to bail him out of doggie prison. (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 16th, 2012
8:45 am	Creating a Blank Canvas For the past 13 years I have been struggling with my yard. It was probably back in the 80's when the house was originally constructed that the 1st owners decided to landscape the back yard. Since the house was built on a slope, they divided the yard into an upper part and a lower part. The lower part was developed to look like a typical yard with grass and a tree. The upper part they xeriscaped to be more appropriate for the desert environment. The only problem was that it was more "zeroscaped" than xeriscaped. The difference is that you embrace native drought-tolerant plants in xeriscaping while you just dump a bunch of rock in zeroscaping. They also planted cactus and cholla which is the stupidest thing in the world. Nothing makes an ares less inviting than putting in a bunch of plants that can draw blood. The whole "2 yards" approach also essentially made half of the area unusable. I set out to change that. It has been a slow and tedious project. My motivation wanes and waxes with the seasons. There have been many fits and starts. Lately I have been gung ho. Hopefully that will continue. I'm trying to approach the project in stages. First I got rid of a very large cholla. That took a few months a couple of years ago. Then I made a run at a large agave. A massive root has stalled that. The most recent effort has been devoted to removing all of the rock. I have been doing it a shovelful at a time. If I can clear out a few square feet a day, I will be making progress. I have been sifting out the rock from the sand by hand, using a small screen. The rock is resting on top of a plastic barrier which also must be pulled up. It's futile to put down a barrier in these parts. Every Spring you will get a large amount of dust blowing in. In a short time you will essentially have a soil layer which weeds will just love. Now you have a bunch of weeds growing between the rock just as if there was no barrier at all. Every night when I go to the upper yard I keep envisioning what it will look like when all of the rock and weeds will be gone. Once I get to that point, it will be time to tackle the ugly 4' wall made of railroad ties. I'm envisioning a tiered block wall that would also act as an inviting stairway. At the top of the stairway there will be a nice small patio area with a firepit. Of course the icing on the cake will be gorgeous views of the mountains to the east. Stay tuned! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, May 11th, 2012
7:16 am	A Limerick I haven't written a dirty limerick in awhile. This was conceived on walkies yesterday. Kinky old Senator Newt Had a fetish that was his pursuit He made his staff watch As he unzipped his crotch To show the hole in his fursuit Don't worry. I won't quit my day job (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 9th, 2012
8:35 am	Furries in Comics This may be old news to those that are into comic books, but there are/were some wonderful furry characters to be found in the whole superhero genre. I was never big into superheroes myself, save Batman. I never collected a lot of superhero books primarily due to the fact that there were always so many crossovers and split-offs. You would start reading a story in one book and then have to switch to another book to see how the story ended. Perhaps two separate stories merged so you would have to go back and buy the other series to get the whole backstory. Anyway...I digress. I found a bunch of old comics and thumbed through them. A few had anthro characters on the cover which immediately drew me in. Here are 2 examples of what I found. The first was Rahne from The New Mutants. I'm hoping to see her on the screen if they keep up the X-Men movie franchise. The other one I found was Werehawk from The Futurians. Never heard of the series before. I think it was amusing that one of the other superheroes in the series thinks "Dear Lord, is he creepy!" as he transforms. Yup. Definitely sounds like a furry. *lol* There was another character named Blackmane who seemed to be some sort of anthro. He kinda reminded me of Beast. It's rather amusing to read the character histories in either Wikipedia or on Marvel's own Wiki. My doG! They read like such soap operas! I guess if you were 8-10 years old, however, it would be filled with awesomeness. (18 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 8th, 2012
8:00 am	Say Yes To The Fursuit I'm always one to ask if I will get my money's worth if I purchase something. That's especially true now since I have adopted a "no stuff" attitude. Nine years ago when I was contemplating buying a fursuit I asked myself if it would be worth the money to buy one. Sure, it had been a lifelong dream to do so, but would it be $1000 flushed down the toilet for a few moments of pleasure. Of course the impractical side of me said that it shouldn't matter how much the cost is (within some reason) if it could satisfy a dream. Of course I bought the suit and another and another etc. While I poo-poo the idea of a person spending $2-3K on a suit that might be worn to a convention or 2, I had a revelation the other day while Kitty was watching a trashy reality show on TLC. There are whole shows devoted to women buying the perfect wedding dress. In the show they struggle to find that perfect dress to make the most important day in their lives a perfect one. Wait a minute! It is perfectly normal for a woman to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars to buy a dress that will be worn only once (perhaps twice if it is remade for a daughter later). So it shouldn't be that out of the ordinary or even bizarre to buy a fursuit that only gets worn once or twice. Perhaps a furry's most special day will be when he or she can attain a form as close to their fursona as possible. Perhaps walking down the aisle of a convention center could be considered just as important as walking down the aisle of a church. You can tell that I am not a big fan of the pomp and circumstance of huge weddings costing a small fortune. (16 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, May 7th, 2012
2:48 pm	Boring Weekend Post This was a tale of two weekend days. Saturday was work my tail off day. Sunday was chill and do pretty much nothing. The kitties probably benefited the most since I spent a lot of time outside. They had many hours frolicking in the yard chasing moths, butterflies, birds, and bugs. I'm not exactly sure who made the initial capture, the cats or the dog, but a chipmunk met its fate in the jaws of Mesa. I'm finally trying to kickstart my upper yard project. I'm separating out all of the landscape rock that had been placed up there. Talk about a tedious project. I want a nice blank canvas when I finally decide what I want to put up there. I'm still leaning towards a patio with fire pit. The views of the Sandias are so nice up there. I also spent over an hour brushing out fursuits. Sabot, Abbey, and Otto all got baths since REI finally had their down sleeping bag detergent in stock. That stuff works wonders on fursuits. Sabot is going on 9 years and he still looks good. Sunday was a lazy day. The weather was so nice. I just sat on the patio and read a book. That's right! Not a sports page! Not a magazine! A book! I had been looking for my copy of "The Golden Compass" but couldn't find it. I grabbed my "Chronicles of Narnia" and made another attempt at finishing it up. It felt perfectly decadent just sitting and doing nothing. I also watched a few films, mostly foreign. "Flame and Citron" was pretty good. It was about the Danish resistance during WWII. "North Face" was about the first ascent of the north face of the Eiger. "The Skin in Which I Live" was a creepy movie from Spain about a doctor who turns his daughter's rapist into his wife. Yeahhhhhh. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, May 6th, 2012
10:57 am	Quick Garden Update One zucchini and one bean have sprouted, so germination time was about 10-11 days. Some mo-fo critter decided to pull out 4 corn plants yesterday. I managed to replant them, but we'll see if they survive. Still no cukes. Tomato and pepper plants seemed to have survived the transplant. Dill that I put in a flower pot is loving it. Basil is holding its own. (Comment on this)
Friday, May 4th, 2012
9:40 am	The Black Card Every morning I read my online comics. Every morning the same stupid pop-up video plays for Visa's Black Card. In the video a perfect model hops on a beautiful motorcycle. She races down a beautiful twisting seaside road. She hops into a waiting helicopter. She flies out over the ocean and dives into the ocean. She's then met by waiting attendants who wrap her in a towel. Boy! That sounds like the life! I guess you can do all of that shit if you own the Black Card. You could probably afford all of that. Did I mention the Black Card comes with an annual fee of almost $500. What's the message that's being sent. If you're part of the idle rich you can jump out of helicopters? The list of perks is really not all that impressive. They're certainly not worth $500/yr. I'll stick with my lowly little credit card with no fee and Amtrak miles. Heck, it's allowing me a free trip to Califur in a few weeks. (21 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 3rd, 2012
7:26 am	Corn! This will be a boring post for most, but I mainly want it for my own records. I planted the "mexi-corn" last Tuesday. Yesterday I had the first shoots emerge. So it appears the germination time is 7-8 days. I have no idea what the soil temperature has been, but the air temperature has been lows in the mid 50's and highs in the low 80's. Now I'm waiting on the beans, cukes, and zukes. I have been watering the bejeebus out of the soil to insure proper moisture reaches the seeds. I have noted that the soil here looks like it's very wet after a quick watering, but if you dig down an inch, it's dry. Hopefully I have saturated it enough that it's retaining enough moisture to keep the plants happy. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012
8:09 am	Fur Bowl 2012 You don't see too many posts any more about fursuit bowling. I guess it has become passe. The NM Animal Friends asked us again to take part in their annual fundraiser. Like always, it was a great time. It's nice that the bowling alley also likes having us there and once again provided a headless lounge for us. There were 5 of us who suited; myself, Kitty, tweekowolf, frost_t_husky, and sophie_manx. And now...a few pics. ( 2 more pics behind cut ) (13 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 1st, 2012
8:01 am	Right Place, Right Time Looking at the financial websites today, it appears that the rumors of Coke buying Monster were false. I had heard that Coke would have been out of its mind to buy Monster at a pricetag of almost $11B. So had I not checked the MSN Money site yesterday, I would have missed the golden opportunity which I was able to cash in on. I would have been kicking myself as well if I had not taken the bold action I did. I had serious doubts that it was a good move. (Comment on this)
Monday, April 30th, 2012
10:42 am	A Monster of a Deal Thanks to all of the young furs out there (and young folks in general) you have made energy drinks a very lucrative market. For the past few weeks I have been watching Monster stock. It had been doing VERY well this year. I thought I would jump on the bandwagon and ride it in hopes it would continue its upward movement. There were even rumors that Coke was looking to buy them out. So I bought 100 shares on Friday. This morning I checked the price and it was heading down a bit. Oh well. I'm in it for the long haul anyway. A few cents lower or higher is to be expected. And then the news broke that Coke, in fact, was going to make a bid for them. Boom! The stock exploded +10%. I bailed. Sure, the stock could still go even higher, but it's rare that you can make that much in just a couple of days, at least for us lowly little investors just trying to get enough to be able to retire. It really is like Vegas. I hit the number in roulette, so now I'm heading for the doors. (13 Comments |Comment on this)
10:14 am	To Kill A Mockingbird A few nights ago I woke up at around 3am to hear a bird outside chirping its head off. It was actually a very nice song, but it was 3AM! STFU! The next morning I was sitting outside enjoying a cup of coffee when I heard the song again. I got out the binos and identified the sucker. At first I thought it was a curve-billed thrasher which also can sing up a storm, but the beak was not curved. It had a long tail which made me think it was a kingbird. Nope. Those have a pronounced yellow belly. Finally I read the description of a northern mockingbird. Ah-ha! It frequently sings loud and long in the middle of the night. I watched it do a little dance at the top of the neighbor's tree. I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't some sort of mating dance as it he tried to attract a mate. It was quite interesting and amusing to watch him do this loop around the neighborhood singing the entire time. I'm hoping he finds a mate soon so he can stop all of the singing and just crash in front of the t.v. with a beer like all of the others guys out there. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 29th, 2012
8:57 pm	Space Geek! I was just out in the yard admiring Venus when I noticed a very bright "star" hauling ass from north to south. I got out the binos and there were no red or green lights. A quick check of the ISS tracking site showed that the space station was, in fact, just passing over the desert southwest. Neat! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 28th, 2012
8:42 am	Beeeeeeeeees! I had an interesting and frightening experience last night while on walkies with Mesa. We were just about home and ready to come down off of the mesa when I heard a loud humming. The whole area is covered in blooming scorpionweed so I figured the bees must be having a feast. It was worse than that. I was amazed how quickly all of my brain's synapses fired. I looked up to see a large black cloud heading for me. I was about to be overrun by a whole swarm of bees. Poor Mesa was about 6' in front of me. I yelled, "Come!" and made a beeline (pun intended) for the edge of the mesa. Unfortunately there is about a 10' cliff right there. I quickly found a place where I would be able to head down. I then made the horror movie mistake of stopping and turning around. This time, however, it was a good move. The swarm had shifted direction and was heading off. It kinda reminded me of the smoke monster from "Lost." So all was well. Neither of us got stung. The only bad part was that I pulled a calf muscle in my frantic dash to the edge of the mesa. The whole experience was kinda like this: (3 Comments |Comment on this)