On change being good

I have been talking for *years* about switching teams in my vball league.

Today I did it. A few of us are planning for the Fall season -- and it looks like I'm going to be a founding member of Acme Roofing.

None of you should care, but this is a *big* change in my life. I feel like I just got traded to the San Diego Chargers from the Cincinnati Bengals.

On Keeping my promise to myself

Part one of divesting myself from the worst company in the USA happens on Monday. I signed up for a different ISP and they show up on Monday for my install appointment. Monday afternoon I show up at Comcast and tell them where they can stick their cable modem service. :)

Part b will be switching to DirecTV. That one is less satisfying, since many years ago I swore I would never do business with them again. Just goes to show you where Comcast ranks among the pantheon of terrible companies.

On the least surprising scandal of 2007

I know that my banner says that I'll try to write about astronomy, volleyball, and cats, but I have found a number of excuses to write about being a sports fan. So I suppose it is time to amend that text.

I spend my Fall weekends either attending or watching football games, but other than that, I'm not much of a fan of the other three big pro sports -- baseball, basketball, or hockey. I used to watch the NBA -- it started in 1993 with the Suns / Bulls finals. After that, I was hooked for a while. I still can remember vividly some of my favorite Suns playoff moments -- KJ dunking over Hakeem, Rex Chapman hitting the most ridiculous 3 point shot ever, and Charles running coast to coast and swatting away a dunk attempt (I think by Malone, but not 100% sure about this one). My interest in the NBA waned because my favorite team (the Suns) had a knack for trading or letting go my favorite players -- Chuck, Majerle, Kidd, Nash, Finley...

Still, when the NBA playoffs return, I usually get sucked in for a little while. This year was pretty much the nadir, though -- I watched a couple of games of the Suns / Spurs series, and once again I realized what a travesty the officiating in the NBA is -- it is horrendous. Once it became obvious the best team in the NBA wasn't even going to make the finals because of the horrid calls, I gave up, I didn't even turn on 1 minute of the finals.

So... anyone hear anything interesting in the news lately? Maybe you heard that an NBA referee is being investigated for fixing games? Have you also heard that he officiated one of the Suns / Spurs playoff games?

Raise your hand if you are surprised.

I'm not going to bother saying too much about the other recent sports scandal, about all I can muster is this -- Michael Vick is a loathsome human being. I can't say I will give up watching the NFL, but I can assure you I will *never* watch another game in which he is on the field.

On a sad month, and now a happy month

Work has again interfered with blogging, but I also took a self imposed hiatus. June was a rough month to be a Palma, and I didn't feel much like putting down any thoughts here, since they would have mostly been sad news.

My father just got out of the hospital. He's doing pretty well, but he had a mild stroke so it was pretty serious. Although we were all pretty worried about him when it happened, he's doing so well that it is hard to feel anything but optimistic -- all of his therapists have been pretty impressed at how quickly he's regained his strength. He keeps promising that he'll be ready to go in September for the Penn State / Notre Dame game.

Our other sad news, though, is that a few weeks ago Chloe decided she would be happier with Roux and Arizona. She had some exploratory surgery, but our vet told us it was best if they just put her to sleep while she was under the anasthesia. It happened pretty quickly, she wasn't in any pain, and we got to spend one last weekend with her treating her like the empress that she was before we took her in to surgery.



It's been a rough year to be a cat in our household. Since Roux and Chloe are both gone, Mosby is now the elder stateswoman of the house. It was pretty lonely with just one cat, and so Shan and I decided to try to start July out on a happier note so we started the process to adopt a new cat.

I'd like to introduce everyone to Gracie.






Her name comes from "Amazing Grace", because that was Chloe's favorite song. It is another adjustment getting used to having a kitten in the house again. This morning she decided to play fetch and she was running over me to bring her mouse to Shannon. She is really sweet, incredibly talkative, and pretty mischievous. Missing Chloe has been tough, but it's hard not to smile when Gracie is around. By the way, she has already decided on a nickname -- "Cheeseball".

Hopefully Chloe is enjoying herself somewhere without steps and high beds and is enjoying looking down watching Mosby having to learn how to deal with a kitten.