Big-cats were ziplining at Whistler today

The middle-cat was winning for about 1/2 this trip, but the big-cat's superior skill (aka weight) won the day for him.

But neither knew about the sudden stop at the end.

Special thanks to the Wild Play people for hooking the big-cats up.

PK

At least he wore his seatbelt

but next time he should use sunscreen too.
PK

Fire on Blackcomb mountain.

I just heard from the big-cats. There is a fire on Blackcomb Mountain that was caused by a lightning strike earlier today.

The big-cats are sitting on the golf course, drinking beer, watching the water bombers try to put the fire out (see attached photos and video).

Hopefully the thunderstorm will bring some rain and help reduce the fire risk in the Whistler/Pemberton area.

It would also be nice for the rain to come to Richmond...there is a little-cat, wearing a fur coat, that would like some cooler weather too.
PK

Best cat-sitter, ever

I'd like to send some meow-outs to Michelle for being the numero-uno cat-sitter, ever.

Not only did she come over and clean up the messes I left on the carpet; but every time she visited me, she stayed over for a little while and let me out on the catio so that I could cool down (concrete in the shade is a furry-cat's best friend these days).

But the best thing she did for me was that she brought me a People magazine to read. There was a great article about Jessica Simpson.

It's so sad that Jessica and Tony Romo didn't work out. They seemed like a nice couple....although maybe Tony will concentrate more on football this year.

How 'bout dem Cowboys???
PK

You think it's hot in town?

Check out this stunning photo of the space shuttle Endeavor docked with the International Space Station crossing the face of the sun.

I'm sure there is no shade up there; and they're much closer to the sun than we are.

I bet they have their blinds closed and the air conditioning on.
PK

Fans of Le Tour de France

This is El Diablo (aka 57 year old Didi Senft of Germany). He has been attending multiple stages of Le Tour de France each year since 1993.

He often travels ahead of the race in a custom-decorated camper vehicle, picking various locations for the race to pass by. While waiting for the race, he paints small white tridents on the road.

When the riders arrive, El Diablo will run beside them waving his trident to make the riders go faster (if only to get away from him).


He gets more TV time than some of the lower ranked riders in Le Tour.








And then there is this guy. Either he's a big Lance Armstrong fan, or George W Bush is drinking again.

I know I'm getting old when..

I agree with most of the stuff on this list of "Things that Kids Today Don't Know About" :

- Inserting a VHS tape into a VCR to watch a movie or to record something
- Super 8 movies and cine film of all kinds
- Playing music on an audio tape using a personal stereo
- Standard Definition, CRT TVs filling up half your living room
- Rotary dial televisions with no remote control
- 8 Track cartridges
- Vinyl records
- Betamax tapes
- MiniDisc
- Laserdisc - The LP of DVD
- Scanning the radio dial and hearing static between stations
- Shortwave radio
- 3D movies meaning red/green glasses
- Watching TV when the networks say you should
- That there was a time before ‘Reality TV’
- The scream of a modem connecting
- The buzz of a dot matrix printer
- 5 and 3 inch floppies, Zip Discs and countless other forms of data storage
- Using Jumpers to set IRQs
- DOS
- Terminals accessing the mainframe
- Screens being just green (or orange) on black
- Tweaking the volume setting on your tape deck to get a computer game to load
- Counting in Kilobytes
- Wondering if you can afford to buy a RAM upgrade
- Blowing the dust out of a NES cartridge in the hopes that it’ll load this time
- Turning a PlayStation on its end to try and get a game to load
- Joysticks
- Having to delete something to make room on your hard drive
- Booting your computer off of a floppy disk
- Finding out information from a book Encyclopedia
- Using a road atlas to get from A to B
- Doing Bank business only when the Bank is open
- Only shopping during the day, Monday to Saturday
- Phone books and Yellow Pages
- Newspapers and magazines made from dead trees
- Filling out an order form by hand, putting it in an envelope and posting it
- Not knowing exactly what all of your friends are doing and thinking at every moment
- The fact that words generally don’t have num8er5 in them
- Correct spelling of phrases, rather than TLAs
- Waiting several minutes (or even hours!) to download something
- When Spam was just a meat product (or even a Monty Python sketch) not an email
- Typewriters
- Putting film in your camera - 35mm may have some life still but what about APS or Disk?
- Sending that film away to be processed
- Having physical prints of photographs come back to you
- CB radios
- Rotary dial telephones
- Using a stick to point at information on a wallchart
- Pay phones
- Fax machines
- Vacuum cleaners with bags in them
- Taking turns picking a radio station, or selecting a tape, for EVERYONE to listen to during a long drive
- Not knowing who was calling you on the phone
- Actually going down to a Blockbuster store to rent a movie
- LEGO just being square blocks of various sizes, with the old wheel, window or door
- Waiting for the television network premiere to watch a movie after its run at the theatre
- Starbuck being a man
- Han shoots first
- “Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father” - but they’ve already seen episode III, so it’s no big surprise
- Kentucky Fried Chicken, as opposed to KFC
- Finding books in a card catalog at the library
- Having to manually unlock a car door
- Writing a cheque
- Looking out the window during a long drive
- Roller skates, as opposed to blades
- Cash
- Libraries as a place to get books rather than a place to use the Internet
- Spending your entire allowance at the arcade in the mall
- A physical dictionary (either or spelling or definitions) When a ‘Geek’ and a ‘Nerd’ were one and the same

Landing on the Moon

It was 40 years ago today that Neil Armstrong stepped out of his spaceship onto the moon. Had he been my big-cats, he would have been disappointed to find out that the moon was not actually made of cheese.

While on the moon, Mr Armstrong looked for a golf course (which would have to wait about 18 months for Alan Shepherd). Had it been 2009, he probably would have been very surprised to find no Starbucks.

After walking on the moon and collecting rocks for about 2-1/2 hours, Mr Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin returned to their lunar module (“LM”) where they discovered that they had accidentally broken the ignition switch for the LM’s ascent engine. Since they couldn’t call AAA to come give them a jump-start, Mr Aldrin used part of a pen to flip a circuit breaker and start the ascent engine.

The hotwiring of the LM worked and Armstrong, Aldrin, and Michael Collins returned to the Earth on July 24th.

I wasn’t born when Mr Armstrong walked on the moon, but I am told that the Big-Cat used to wave at the moon and say “Goodnight Mr Armstrong”.
PK

Whistler

Well, the big-cats have done it. They've gone and bought a little house in Whistler. See the pictures here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=121909&id=551866822&l=fe76bd66ac

I hope they don't expect me to get in the car for two hours and drive up to Whistler with them; because I won't. I'd rather stay home and get some sleep than be eaten by a bear.

My biggest concern about this whole venture is who is going to give me Fancy Feasts when the big-cats are up at Whistler.

I guess I'll need to be nicer to my niece Brenna. Next time she visits me, I won't even hiss at her....maybe.
PK

PS Photo credit goes to Tom Ryan. Great photographer, good dancer, friend of pugs, and never been hissed at by me.