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Isis hauled beautifully and did very well. She has settled in and seems to be adjusting. She has her own stall and her own turn out paddock. She is up during the day and out at night.

I discovered tonight that she doesn’t like the new water. She has been at a barn with city water for the past 10 years (prior to that she drank well water). She will drink water but ends up taking a few sips and stopping. She doesn’t seem to like the taste. (Discovered after thoroughly scrubbing out the rubber buckets, replacing all water, and then using a plastic bucket in case the rubber buckets had a funky after taste.)

I had some water from the old barn and gave her that tonight. She drank one full bucket and then downed most of another mixed half and half with the well water. We had a lot of rain so the water troughs are mostly full of rain water. She drank a good long while when she was turned out. She did get enough water tonight. (Unfortunately, I can’t keep her on pasture full time because of the insulin resistance.)

I’ve done an experiment: water with some electrolytes to hide the taste of the well water. Tomorrow we’re going to put water from the trough in one water bucket and electrolytes in well water in the other bucket.

I have a Brita pitcher I’m going to take to the barn to try filtering some water to help her adjust. Luckily the new barn owner is willing to filter some water if it will help Isis.

I thought about putting electrolytes in her food — but last time I did that she didn’t eat her food (she hates powdered supplements).

I’m at a loss to try and figure out what else to try. Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Tags: horse, Isis

House is SOLD! Party dance!

I hope the new owner enjoys the house and has many happy memories there with her kids.

Yay!!

Tags: House

In 30 minutes, the closing for the house will begin. I’ll be in a meeting, but it sounds like a great time to party!

I’ll post as soon as I hear that the deal was successfully closed.

Tags: House

The Miami-based firm said during a press conference this afternoon it plans to challenge Apple’s long-standing licensing ban on running the Mac operating system on non-Apple branded devices.

read more | digg story

Isis is coming home this weekend! Yay!! I’ll be offline until Sunday.

Tags: Horses

So the lady who had asked about possibly leasing the house for six months talked with her father. They bought a copy of the home inspection from my agent and looked at the house this morning. Didn’t find anything wrong.

I have another offer on the house! Whee! No financing to worry about since it is a cash offer. We close next Friday.

As previously intended, I’m actually moving my stuff out of the house this weekend.

Yay!

Tags: House, real estate

Miroslav Tichy has been making cameras from trash since the 1950s. The cameras–made from wooden spools, paper towel rolls, and other common items– actually work. His work is an exhibit of his work at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

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If you are considering telecommuting, here are some excellent points to ask before jumping from the cube to the homefront.

Forty percent more employers are offering telework programs this year than last. Before you say yes to telework, make sure you’ve asked yourself and your employees these tough questions.

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The kitty in this image looks eacatly like Ambush. I could see him doing something like this too. He eats almost anything.

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Ever wonder if feeding sweetfeed to your horse could make him/her more rambunctious? A Montana State University study shows that two year olds fed sweet feed were higher strung than their counterparts fed only hay.

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T-Mobile will launch an Android phone this year (most likely the HTC Dream, which recently passed FCC approval) and with Google allowing developers access to version 0.9, we’ll soon see if it has managed the finesse of an iPhone with Nokia-grade functionality.

read more | digg story

Tags: Gadgets, Google, Phones

The house has had four showings in the past week. That’s great traffic — more than it had last month.

My agent called me a few minutes ago. She said a lady contacted about doing a lease with option to buy at the end of six months. My agent thought the deal sounded fishy because

• The woman initially said that she is going through a divorce and would like to buy the house in October, no make that November, no wait… December, well maybe do a six-month lease with option.
• The woman supposedly was going to have cash from the divorce and would buy the house once she had the money.

And the grand-daddy of all reasons: The woman has never seen the house. Why do you make an offer on a house without seeing the interior?

Maybe I should give this woman the benefit of the doubt. Based upon my agent’s description of the conversation, the entire situation sounded fishy because the details kept changing to have a longer time frame. When I was going through a divorce, I knew the dates involved and had made arrangements. (I was also very lucky to have an amicable situation.)

My agent and I declined the offer. We did talk about the possibility of putting the house up for lease, but I’d rather not do that. Once someone gets into a house in a lease or rent situation, it is difficult to dislodge them if something goes wrong. It can take like six months or more.

Of course there comes a point where the monthly out-go is too high and I would have to do something. If I do lease the house, I would use a leasing company. The house would probably have to be rented/leased for a few years until the market comes back up. My agent said that there is a 17 month supply of houses in Knoxville right now. With so much inventory available, people will have to drastically cut house prices to sell.

Arg.

Tags: House, real estate

If you use Gmail, beware: a new account-stealing tool is being released in to the wild. Just in time, Google is updating the web mail service with an option for usering secure-socket layers (SSL). If you have Gmail, you should turn this option on.

Article summary:

A tool that automatically steals IDs of non-encrypted sessions and breaks into Google Mail accounts has been presented at the Defcon hackers’ conference in Las Vegas.

read more | digg story

Tags: Tech

This list was posted on Slashdot today. Great list. I’ve played a few of the games, especially Depths of Peril which, unlike most games, has versions available for Mac as well as Windows.

Lead-in for the article:

If you are sick of the boring and overpriced commercial games, then have a look at this list. These are some of the best indie games out there, innovative, immersive, great gameplay and very reasonably priced (some are even free).

read more | digg story

Tags: Games, Reviews

The house is supposed to be shown today. Maybe, just maybe this will be result in another offer… Four showings in one week is pretty good, considering the market right now.

Maybe I should be more optimistic. I’m trying. I really am. I’m just getting frustrated and feeling like things will never work out.

Be patient. Have faith. Everyone keeps telling me that. I am trying, really.

Tags: House, real estate

My real estate agent just called me. The lady who was going to buy the house could not get her financing in order. She had been pre-approved. Apparently something new turned up on her credit report from the time the offer was made until now. She is going to try and get things situated but who knows what will happen…

My agent was very upset. She said the buyer came in yesterday (my agent’s birthday) with the bad news. The buyer was devastated. She loves the house. She has been talking to different mortgage brokers but none of them have been able to help her.

My agent said that she felt like someone had punched her in the gut. She mentioned that there is a 15-month supply of houses on the market in Knoxville currently. She has plenty of homes available, but no buyers.

I had really been looking forward to having this past me, of being able to afford things again. Isis will be here, at least. I won’t be able to afford half of the stuff I wanted to for her.

Hopes for graduate school? Gone. I have no idea at this point when I might be able to go.

I guess the one upside is that there has been a flurry of activity on the house this week. My agent said that she is going to talk to all of the people who have looked at the house and tell them it is available again. Maybe something will come up…

My agent and I talked about putting the house up for rent. We’re going to wait a week to see if anything pans out from all of the showings.

Until something happens, I’m stuck. I had wanted to get on with my life instead of feeling tied to the house. I care about all of my friends and I do miss them. I am just over feeling pulled in two different states.

Maybe something will come up. Hopefully. There is nothing else left to do but to hope something will happen.

Tags: House

Ambush, the White Wondercat, helping keep the laundry warm:

The kitty on lolcats who looks like Ambush, if viewed from the bottom:

Tags: Ambush, Cats

Yesterday after I posted here, i received another email detailing a second showing for the house. All good news, especially if something happens to the current contract. I don’t remember having this many showings mid-week for quite a while.

Maybe it means the market is picking up over all? Or maybe it’s just a fluke?

Tags: House, real estate

To me this is even better than selling the house: Isis will be in North Carolina on the weekend of August 24th! Whee!

Finally! Finally! Finally! (Happy dance!)

This is like Christmas and birthday and Big Happy Surprise rolled into one.

It has been nerve wracking having her in a different state. I trust the people who own the farm where she is boarded. She has been there eleven years so they know her very well.

I spent some time today calling UT vet school to arrange for Isis to have an interstate health certificate done. I have her paperwork ready. Shipper is lined up (expensive, but shipping horses is never cheap) so we’re good.

And the best part? I’ll finally be able to ride in all of these clinics I’ve been attending. No more ring slave, no sir!

The Miracle Mare™ returns!

Tags: Horses, Isis

The house has two more showings this week. I’m glad that it is still having showings even though there is a contract pending. It gives me hope that if something happened and this sale fell through maybe someone else would pick up the house.

In the good news category, the home inspection turned up nothing major. Yay! I was pretty sure I had corrected the issues raised by the inspection from before I bought the house.

Tags: House