Nightingale

Silver fillings?

Phone calls have been made, letters have been written. Hopefully, if he signs it, it'll get tossed out by the court, because it effectively bans all new firearms, since the technology doesn't exist and would be ridiculously expensive. Hell, if it looks like it's going to be implemented, I'll file a challenge myself if nobody's done it already, although I'm sure the NRA is already all over it.

Hehe... I got to fire one of those at the range when they were still legal in CA. Stupid anti-gun idiots banned them, even though in recorded history, nobody's ever killed anybody with one.

You could always Rule the Seas!

I saw skydiving as a "do it once, cross it off the list and move on" activity, until I did my tandem. I did AFF the very next weekend.

I don't think I would have continued jumping if I'd done AFF first. Doing a tandem first really let me enjoy the experience of freefall. There was so much to think about during AFF that there wasn't really time to just enjoy the skydive. When I landed, my head was full of everything I'd done, everything I did right, and everything I could've done better at, whereas when I landed from my tandem, my first thought was "OMG that was awesome!" and it made me want to come back.

Death certificates are public record. You can go to the county clerk's office and ask... if the first name was unusual, they can probably help you. If it was "John" or "Jennifer" you're probably out of luck. Edit: you can also try this: http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/

Many insurance companies require you to sign stuff with find print that allows them to sue whoever was responsible for the loss to recover their cost... Having an insurance company suing your employer with you in the middle would really suck.

Hmm... if I put different food colors in the food, I'd have splatter-paint art. Aren't hotcakes the same as pancakes?

It depends on your individual policy. Mine covers loss, theft, and fire/water damage anywhere.

I hope not... But then again, Clownburner did a fair trade in the merkin business at the last renaissance faire.

My homeowner's insurance would cover it, but I had my rig specifically written into the policy. They may cover it just as a misc. loss... I guess you could try submitting a claim and see what happens.

They did three abdominal x-rays and ruled out a foreign body/blockage. Also, he's pooping and peeing, so I guess things are moving through the cat from one end to the other. He's been on the laxatone for about 24 hours now. When I get home, I'll see if he's redecorated my carpet with cat barf again. Apparently, he can't barf in the same spot twice, ever, and by my calculations, he's managed to cover at least 1/3 of the carpet with cat vomit at some point in the last 4 weeks. ugh.

The majority of employees are unionized where I work. So far, all I've seen is that the civil service protections negotiated by the unions encourage employees to slack off as soon as they pass probation, knowing it's damn near impossible to fire them after that. I haven't seen a union do a single thing for an employee here that they weren't capable of doing for themselves.

Ditto.

Thanks! I'd take some pics of the lumps, but since the lumps aren't causing any hair loss, I'd have to shave the cat to get a good pic, and it just looks like normal skin anyway, except lumpy. I'm guessing the lumps are part of the skin, since when you move the skin, the lumps move right with it, and you can't move the lump at all without moving the skin. I've seen lipomas (Clownburner's dog has a big one), and these don't react like that at all. They really seem to be part of the skin, not under the skin.

He's already on a special diet (science diet CD to prevent urinary tract crystals), and we're trying Laxatone for hairballs. I've started brushing him every day (up from once a week), and we'll see if that helps. (edited to add: He's been on the CD diet for over four years, and hasn't eaten anything else AFAIK). I can't get him to eat the laxatone, though, so I've just been smearing it on his nose and getting him to lick it off. It's sticky, so I can't just put it in a syringe and get it into the cat's mouth that way.

I don't use pesticide. Period. Not good for the kitties, not good for me. There's really nothing he'd have gotten into that the other cat wouldn't have also been exposed to, since they're always together, eat and drink from the same bowls, and generally get into the same mischief. The other cat is fine. The vet on justanswers suggested Inflamatory Bowel Disease, which my vet did bring up. My vet wanted me to try a hairball remedy first, so we're giving that a try this week, and if that doesn't work, we'll try the food and meds for IBD and see if that works.

Ron Paul is probably the closest we can get at the moment.

They did do bloodwork: The bloodwork results are: WBC: 6.26 NE 5.08 (bold)LY 1.08 (1.5-7) MO .05 EO .05 BA 0.0 %NE 81.16 (35-78) %LY 17.22 (20-55) %MO .81 %EO .81 %BA 0.0 %HCT 41.1 RBC 9.26 HB 13.0 MCV 44.4 MCH-Forcyte 14.0 MCHC 31.6 RDW 16.5 RSD 7.3 PLT-Forcyte 338.0 PCT .426 MPV 12.6 PDW 25.5 Na 159.0 (147-156) K 4.5 Cl 125.0 NA_K 35.3 ALT 34.0 ALK 29.0 TPROT 6.9 GLU 142.0 BUN 18.0 CREAT 1.0 BUN_CR 18.0

Thanks for the link! I just put in my question, so we'll see if they answer.

No, they haven't done blood work as far as I know. Should I take him back and ask them to do that?

My cat has been puking daily for a month. The vet thought he had a blockage,but the x-rays ruled that out. He's pooping normally, and eating only slightly less than usual, I think. He's acting normal. He's just throwing up once every day. He's also got these strange lumps... I noticed them when I took him in about three weeks ago. They're mostly about half the diameter of a pencil eraser, round lumps in his skin. They do not move independently of the skin. The lumps don't appear to be bothering him at all, and they're not red or irritated. They're on his collar area on his back, on the outside of his legs above the knee, and under his armpits. It seems like he's getting more. There's probably at least 50. He's seen two vets for this. The first said lipomas (benign fatty tumors), and the second said lipomas aren't very common in cats and is convinced it's an allergic reaction. I'm not sure what he could be allergic to; he's an indoor cat and, other than the carpet cleaner I've been using on the cat barf, hasn't been exposed to anything new (and I stopped using the carpet cleaner a week ago). The vet gave him a shot of benadryl, and it turns out the cat is allergic to benadryl. I didn't even know that was possible, but a few moments after the shot, he was foaming from his mouth and projectile vomiting. it doesn't look like the lumps itch him or anything, but he's rubbed a few spots on his face raw (no lumps on the face at all), but those raw spots have healed up just fine. Neither vet seemed very concerned about the lumps, but I'm quite worried. So, other than the lumps and puking, he's acting like a perfectly normal, healthy cat. The vet seems unconcerned about the lumps, and thinks the vomiting may be due to hairballs, and wants me to try giving him a hairball remedy. We're starting that tonight. I'm worried. It seems like more than an allergy if the cat's got so many lumps, and the vomiting for four weeks straight sounds like more than hairballs... I'd take him to another vet for a second/third opinion, but I just can't afford it. He's already run up $1400 on my carecredit account in three weeks, and the other vets I trust in the area don't accept carecredit. I know there are a few vets and quite a few cat lovers out there, so I was wondering if anybody has heard of anything at all like this before? Both the vets seem a bit stumped, and since my cat is very vet-phobic, I don't really want to take him to the vet unless I've really got something to worry about. It's bizarre... other than the strange puking and lumps, he's acting perfectly healthy.

CQC/CQB tactics will get you a long way...but it also depends on the fact if you are well trained or trained at all. Just because you know that if someone grabs your muzzle you pivot your body to realign the sights with your target...that doesn't mean you will react that way in an actual confrontation. There's a difference between knowing tactics and training tactics. There's a difference between knowing your cutaway drill, and training your cutaway drill. When it comes down to a stressful situation, you react how you train. I am living proof of this. When someone attacked me, I reacted exactly how I'd been trained, and fought back. Just knowing how to defend against a handshake-grab attack wouldn't have helped me. Training it over and over until I could do it without thinking did help. When skydivers have to exit a plane at a low altitude, even though we know we should pull silver, most pull their main, because that's the way they train for everyday jumping. We don't practice bailing out on silver, so when we have to exit in an emergency, we still pull our mains.

Have you thought about a chinchilla? All the cuteness and playfulness of a ferret, with none of the smell (ferrets can smell very musky). They're very social.