Long Time No Post

The job run-up to the end of the year is insane. I have a whole bunch of stuff about half done, but no time to finish any of it.

My old cell phone started going odd, so I replaced it with a Motorola Droid. Android has a Blogger client, and I'm test-driving it with this post.

I can barely type with all ten fingers, let alone just my thumbs.

Gray-Horse Melanoma

Gray horses are born dark and grow lighter over time. They also account for nearly all of the melanoma cases that occur in horses. Roughly seventy percent of grays have at least one visible melanoma by the age of ten. By fifteen, the rate is up to eighty percent.

Many years ago, I saw several aged gray horses die very unpleasantly after their melanomas suddenly went crazy, growing and multiplying wildly. I told myself I would never own a gray, so of course now I have two.

Beau is 14 years old and has the same five tiny tumors that haven't grown at all in the six years I've had him. Almost-10-year-old Judge was cancer-free until two years ago. His first melanoma on his tail grew from about the size of a 00 buckshot to over an inch in diameter since then. A second one appeared down inside his left ear back in April, and rapidly grew to about half an inch.

Based on the rate of cancer growth, my vet said Judge would need to go to a university teaching hospital for treatment. None of the currently available treatments are particularly successful though, none effecting a cure. All too often, they only "wake up" the cancer which then returns far more aggressively, leading to death.

While searching the web for any new progress with equine melanoma, I found references to research at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine using frankincense essential oil to treat this frustrating disease.

My holistic vet gave the idea of treating Judge's tumors with topical frankincense oil a thumbs-up. The oil is non-irritating to normal tissue, and the worst it would do is have no effect on the cancer while making him smell nice. She said if the straight oil proved to be well-tolerated I should add some DMSO to help it penetrate better.

In the clinical environment, researchers treat the tumors as many as five times a day. There was no way I could match that schedule, so I tried once a day for starters.

To my delight and amazement, the tumor inside Judge's ear began to respond immediately. The tumor had originally been very hard to the touch with a smooth surface. After I started applying the oil, its consistency became much softer. The surface is becoming crumbly and starting to flake away.

The much larger tumor on his tail hasn't shown any noticeable changes yet, but now that I've added the DMSO, I'm hopeful. If only one is going to improve, I'm glad it's the one inside his ear. The tail is a much easier surgical site if it eventually comes to that.

Frankincense has been used in medicine from the first milennium BCE. So-called "modern medicine" likes to denigrate anything outside itself as harmful at worst, quackery at best. If that were true, we never would have survived as a species to this day.

I'm The Fun Police

After over forty years with horses, I have been well-trained in how to behave around them. My instructors were merciless in demanding strict attention to safety around the barn. Failing to give these large, powerful, highly reactive animals the respect they deserve can be very dangerous.

Now, though, the vast majority of horse owners don't have the benefit of proper training. Oh, it's still available all right, but they either do not know or do not care. They know little to nothing about the huge responsibility they've undertaken. Somehow, neither they, their barbarian children, nor their hapless horses get killed for the most part. Damfino how they accomplish that.
Today was a perfect example. It was a nice day, albeit windy, and I hoped to work with Sarge on Foot Handling 101. He's still a very green three-year-old who can be quick with his heels, and needs to know how to stand like a little gentleman for hoof trimming.

But no sooner did we go into the barn to start training than several other boarders showed up. Ignorant boarders. Ignorant boarders with ill-mannered children and loose dogs.

Enter four running, screeching, arm-waving little girls and a bouncing sawed-off little rat-dog-thing. Fortunately I was working on Sarge's front feet at the time, and thanks to the trust we've already built up, reflexes honed by much defensive training, and a lifetime spent with very quick critters, I managed to keep the situation from going seriously pear-shaped.

Now if I had ever acted like that in public at their age, I would not be alive today. My parents did not tolerate such behavior at all. But with the exception of one still-memorable scene when I first encountered a down escalator at about age four, I knew how to conduct myself in a polite, respectful manner.

The kids continued to run around, jump and shriek, throw things at each other, open trash cans storing feed that belonged to other boarders, and (only once) tried to play with my plastic tote full of grooming tools outside the stall.

That was when stopped I gritting my teeth and told them quite firmly they had better stop fooling around with other people's property, settle down and be quiet around horses, and take their noisy games outside. They froze in their tracks, wide-eyed, and hustled their butts out the door where they switched to throwing screaming tantrums when they all couldn't ride the same horse at the same time.

And the parents' reactions to the noisy play and tantrums? Absolutely nothing. Obviously this crap is perfectly normal and expected to them.

News flash, people. You're the grown-ups. The whole world is not your children's playground. There's a time and a place for everything, and it's your job to teach this to your precious darlings, not mine.

You chose to have horses. Nobody forced you to do this. Learn something before you take on a potentially dangerous activity. HORSES ARE HORSES, not Disney cartoons. The 230 grain +P Hornady XTP I keep in my carry gun delivers 461 foot-pounds of energy out of a five inch barrel. A thousand-pound spooking horse can hit you with well over 7,500 foot pounds of energy.

And I will not hesitate to put the heavy thumb on your offspring to protect myself, and them, from experiencing that first-hand.*

* I've already been splattered by horses plenty of times during the aforementioned forty-plus years when being as careful as humanly possible. Every experienced horse person knows of somebody who was killed or nearly killed doing everything right. I am in no hurry for a repeat.

Ordered A Rifle

When I got my first paycheck from the new job, I almost fainted. Recovering quickly, I decided it was absolutely time to get that precision rifle.

So I did my homework, talked to lots of people, fondled a bunch of very nice guns, and ended up ordering one of these:

Now I need information to help me select an appropriate scope. Any suggestions?

Crazy Busy

Starting my second week on the job, I have to say this gig is awesome.

To paraphrase Crocodile Dundee, the network where I was working before wasn't a network. This is a network.

Data centers in 27 countries, 60,000 employees worldwide. And these people actually treat their network like it's important.

I have management tools I could only dream about before. Oh, I could write up business cases, do cost analyses, bring in vendors to put on dog-and-pony shows for management, and hope I'd actually get somebody to buy off on getting us what we needed to do our jobs.

Fat chance.

Once again, those idiots did me a favor when they laid me off.

The workload is enormous, but I don't mind a bit. It's acual, real work, not make-work dreamed up by admin-weenies trying to justify their existence. A second new hire started today, saw what he was getting himself into, and quit on the spot. Didn't even make it to lunch time.

What kind of lazy slugs are these people who expect to be paid big bucks for doing nothing? Oh, wait . . .

JOGI!!

With due credit, and apologies, to Joe.

Not much has been happening on this blog because Real Life™ got in the way. I found myself suddenly and unexpectedly needing to find new employment.

In this economy for sure, that quickly becomes a more-than-full-time occupation in itself. Trolling the employment sites, applying for anything I was even remotely qualified for, calling those headhunters that hunted me in the past, e-mails, phone calls, and the absolute worst of all.

Buying an Interview Suit.

Think "Career Girl Barbie." Gack.

Did I mention how much I hate the term "overqualified?"

I'm also not too crazy right now about volunteer organizations that refuse to understand that they are not The Very Most Important Thing in their members' lives. Sorry, folks, but Being Able To Pay My Bills takes precedence.

Anyway . . .

I now have a much better job with a Global Corporation with significantly higher pay, more flexible hours, and the option (indeed requirement) to work from home at least part of the time.

And I have to get a passport.

Sure, the workload will be insane. Current staff there puts in 70+ hours a week. No problem, I've been doing that for 18 years in IT. But instead of being expected to cover everything from servers, routers, switches, firewalls, and applications to carrier circuits, outside agency issues, and user desktop troubleshooting, I will have one specific area to focus on. That in itself will feel like a vacation.

My first day will be November 2, unless they can push my paperwork through faster. They want to start me middle of this week if possible.

I really should thank the **multiple expletives deleted** agency I used to work for.

Cabela's Was Right

Last month, Cabela's proactively notified their California ammunition customers that they would no longer be able to ship to them if AB962 was signed into law.

Governor Arnold "I made millions shooting guns in movies but you peasants shouldn't have any" Schwarzenegger did exactly that just before the veto deadline.

According to his statement, he actually believes this will reduce crime. Or at least he says so. If it does, it will pretty much be a first, since no other gun control legislation has ever done so. A far more frequent effect of restricting citizens' access to firearms is an increase in violent crime.

Just as every single other restriction has only resulted in criminals obtaining weapons through off-book channels, this will do the same with ammunition. They're criminals. That's what they do.

Kommiefornia California will undoubtedly see some other effects that certain people there will consider good ones. Some gun owners will move to other states in disgust. Others will decide it's just too onerous to keep going and give up on owning guns. Gun-haters, gun-fearers, and gun-banners love anything that reduces the number of law-abiding gun owners.

Some who live there keep fighting the good fight.

The rest will bend over, grab their ankles, and submit to thumbprinting and registration. Until the next time another draconian law whittles away at the ranks.

Oh, sure, it could have been worse. The bill that was signed was previously amended to remove requirements for ammunution sellers to be licensed and restricting ammunition transfers to not more than fifty rounds a month.

Fifty rounds a month isn't even enough to maintain basic proficiency, never mind training or competition. I've never taken even a four-hour training class that used less than two hundred rounds.

It's easy to say this is California, what do you expect? But no matter where we live, every one of these worthless laws harms us all. Every one sets another dangerous precedent. And worst of all, when they don't accomplish anything, the idiots who wrote them are motivated to DO IT AGAIN, ONLY HARDER THIS TIME.

Firsts

Sarge is reaching the point in his training where he trusts me enough to give me the benefit of the doubt. I can present new things for him to learn, and because I haven't hurt him, his immediate reaction is calm curiosity instead of fear.

Today, I decided to try girthing him for the first time. With the scarring in his back, he might not be able to wear a girth comfortably. If so, he would be permanently retired at the ripe old age of three. I seriously doubt he'll ever be able to handle a saddle with the weight of a rider, but driving in harness might still be a possibility.

I used a training surcingle, first letting him look it over and then just laying it over his back. He thought that was okay, so I let down the off side, reached under him, and brought up the buckle end on his near side. Just holding against him was okay, too, so I buckled it on the longest hole.

No objection, so I took it up one notch, then another. The surcingle was girthed as snugly as if it was part of a driving harness. And Sarge's reaction to this? Yawn.

There was none of the excitement that used to happen back in the bad old days, when terrified horses were snubbed to posts as saddles were strapped in place. No bucking, no resistance, no pain, no fear. There was no halter, no rope, no physical restraint at all. And it took less than five minutes from start to finish.

After Sarge wandered around for a while looking bored by the whole thing, I figured why not introduce him to the round pen and longeing? After all, so far so good, and a chance to move out more would test how comfortable the surcingle really was for him.

So I put his halter on and led him out to the round pen. Once inside, I took his halter off to avoid any possibility he could catch it on the fence. Using a longe whip only to wiggle along his side as a suggestion to stay out on the circle instead of right next to me, he walked and trotted calmly in both directions for about ten minutes or so. Plenty of time for a first attempt.

Then we went back to the barn. I groomed him, told him he was wonderful, and turned him back out. Thus endeth the lesson.

Good horse training appears very boring, because nothing seems to be happening. A horse should walk off the very first time he wears a saddle the same as if it's the thousandth time. If anything more spectacular happens, it's my fault and not the horse's.

Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. Sound familiar?

Bite Me, FTC

The Federal Trade Commission is cracking down on product endorsements in blogs.

I write here from time to time about various items I have found useful. I place links to some companies, such as Wilson Combat and HideAwayKnife, in my blog sidebar because I use and like their products.

And I've bought and paid for every one of these items.

A company paying me to review their stuff? Please. First, you need to have, like, more than five readers for that to happen. Second, I don't do that.

A few companies have e-mailed me to post links, offering free or discounted merchandise in return, or a cut of any sales that come from my blog. I have never taken any of them up on their offers. I blog as a way to say things I want to say, not for commercial gain.

However, the FTC can choose to investigate me just because I post anything at all that might possibly imply I might possibly have some theoretical obscure relationship with an equipment manufacturer.

I love my Megan Magnum holster that I ordered, waited for, and paid for. Ditto my full custom built Wilson Combat 1911 based off their Elite Professional and my many HideAway knives. I wear Galco and Wilderness belts because they last and I like them, not because anyone paid me to.

I feed my horses Triple Crown Performance and Woody's Exacta Oats because I like their quality control and ingredients. I use an Ansur treeless saddle because I did a lot of research when I wanted to find something that wouldn't harm my horses' backs, and it has proven to be exactly that.

And not one of these companies has ever given me one red cent. Or any free products. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

I will continue to express my personal opinions about things I have bought and paid for myself.

Bite me, FTC.

Sarge Has A Girlfriend

The last time Sarge (and Milton The EvilPony™ Bad Example for company) had to be separated from the herd for a while, a fat roan Quarter Horse mare moved in at the boarding farm. Since the barn owner wisely introduces newcomers gradually, he put her in with just Sarge and Milton at first. She started hanging around with Sarge, and quickly became thoroughly attached.

So now Sarge has a girlfriend, but he doesn't seem nearly as invested in the relationship as she is.

Yesterday when I went out to treat Sarge's scar, all the horses were out in the 50-acre pasture. I saw what looked like a chestnut-colored, Sarge-shaped blob off in the distance, so I called him. His head popped up, he whinnied, and came at a run. Fat Roan Mare initially followed him, but then stopped about fifty yards away.

I sprayed his withers with skin conditioner and treated his one spot of ringworm (love those childhood diseases) without having to halter him. He then chose to leave his herdmates and followed me all the way back to the barn by himself. Not "buddy sour" at all, no sir.

Fat Roan Mare kept calling him, but he ignored her and stayed with me. To reward him for following me back voluntarily, I made a big fuss over him, let him in the barn, and gave him some grain. Fat Roan Mare was still outside, pacing and yelling. He still completely ignored her tantrums, walking out of the barn like a gentleman when I opened the door. Then Sarge and Fat Roan Mare went back out to the pasture together.

That's what I love best about positive horse training, when they do the right things totally of their own volition, because they want to.

But I feel a little sorry for Fat Roan Mare's owners. They will probably get an unpleasant surprise one of these days when they try to take her away from her boyfriend. She sure is the clingy type.