These are not the critters you're looking for.

Set the trap up again last night and found an opossum in it this morning. In a move that I'm likely to regret I let him go, since he's not my main annoyance right now.

Surprisingly, he was a lot less placid than the raccoon, despite being about a third of the size. He wasn't violent but he was rather "growly". He also didn't want to leave the cage. I had to open it up, upend it, and shake it before he decided to let go and run for the trees.

Warning: Geek content ahead!

As most of you know, I have two real hobbies: cooking and gaming. These hobbies rarely overlap (even less so since I moved down here where most people haven't even heard of an RPG unless I'm talking about rocket-propelled grenades), so when I find something in which they do I must share it with everybody.

Killjoy Cooking With the Dungeons & Dragons Crowd.

And people say that Saskatchewan's flat?

I've been in Midland, Texas, all week at a conference. I swear that the place looks like it's right out of a Sergio Leone movie. Flat, dry, and nearly featureless.

The conference was good. I learned a lot, and then realized how little I still know when I listened in on a discussion my bosses were having. C'est la vie. I also was nearly impaled by an umbrella, which was really neat. We were sitting on the patio watching the lightning pass by (spectacular lightning storms down in that part of the country. Not much rain, though) when a gust of wind blew over the only open umbrella on the patio. When the bartender came out the fix it, another gust blew it out of his hands and impaled it in the wall about a foot from where I was sitting. As I said, nifty.

The flight back was not so nifty. There was a thunderstorm in Dallas, so my flight there was delayed by three hours. By the time that I got in I had missed my connection and another one had been canceled, so I checked myself in to stand by while I waited for my coworkers to come in on their later flight. I was number 43 on the list initially. It didn't get a lot better. My coworkers made their connection, I didn't. I waited for another 4 hours to try to make another repeatedly delayed connecting flight to Little Rock, at which point they delayed the flight for another hour and a half. At that time I decided to get a hotel and try again tomorrow.

You know, I think that after Maguires in Saskatoon, and my own home, I don't think that I have have spent so much time drinking in one place as I have in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport.

Oh well, it could always be worse.

Raccoon: 5 - Steve: 1

Every man has his limits. I finally reached mine and declared war on my local raccoons.

I've tried to be nice about it. I've tried to buy bird feeders that they can't get in to. The raccoons just tore them apart. I tried sprays that are supposed to keep them away. The raccoons just ignored it. I'm left with no choice. Fortunately raccoons are unable to resist tasty, tasty bacon.

I'm have no idea how many of these buggers that there actually are. Hopefully it's just a couple. I'm also hoping that once they get released they don't find their way back to my place. I've heard of these critters pulling their own miniature versions of "The Incredible Journey". If that happens I'll have to start looking at lethal alternatives.

You know, if somebody had told me two years ago that I'd be living in Arkansas and trapping raccoons on my property I'd probably have had some serious concerns about their mental health.

Things have calmed down around here substantially since my last post. Everything seems to be going pretty well down here lately. I'm busy, but not overworked, the weather is starting to hit the low 90's (possibly a little too warm), the tornadoes have stopped (although we still have the occasional wind storm. The picture at left is the result of one that blew through town on Sunday. These people - like most in town - were without power for 20 minutes. My little subdivision had a 7 hour blackout) and my backyard is in full bloom - I need to drink mojitos on a daily basis to keep up with my mint. Yeah. Life's tough right now.

I was up in Calgary last week for a "manager's meeting" (read: 3 hours of the brass talking about how well the company's doing & where we're headed this year followed by golf and serious amounts of drinking) and managed to cram in some visiting with family and friends. It seems that I can't go to Calgary now for just business or personal reasons. It has to be both. Granted, fitting the personal into business isn't nearly as stressful as the other way around.

And it now occurs to me that now that she's in BC, if I phone Siochain on the weekend I'll have to wait until about 2 in the afternoon if I don't want to wake her up.