Sunday, December 31, 2017

Cocktails


 

Monday, December 25, 2017

Christmas

 




Abide

 


Christmas Tree


 

Thursday, December 14, 2017

New Foraging Toy

Harlan really took to this toy quickly. I did not even have to slowly introduce him to it. It comes full of shredded paper, a couple vine balls and some wooden blocks. A few stashed treats in there and this bird is busy for awhile.

The back opens up for re-stocking, but because of the way it opens, you have to be sure to install it right side up (so it "hinges" top instead of down) it it gets pulled down really fast with a bird the size of a grey parrot. I think I'll most just load food in through the holes.


Also, the plastic screw clamp that attaches it to the cage is really not strong enough for Harlan. I simply tied a long zip tie around the flat tab at the back of the top of the toy, and the cage. Problem solved...

It's important to have foraging toys like this for parrots that, literally, make food a challenge to get to. In the wild these highly intelligent animals spend most of their day looking for food. In our homes, most of their food is just sitting there in a bowl.

Providing toys like this, with food inside, is basically a mental health requirement for a parrot in the home. Harlan will eat food that he has to work for before eating from the bowl. He'll also eat food that aren't his favorites this way.











Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Feathers

Harlan, the Grey Parrot, has been loosing feathers like crazy. It's his first molt. I have read that African Grey Parrots have upwards of 8000 feathers (for most parrots that's in the 5-6 thousand range). They change them all out over the course of a few weeks to a few months, every year!

The big thing about this is that clipped wing weathers are being replaced. He'll soon be able to fly. And he'll have to learn how to fly, and perhaps more importantly, how to land, with injury. Parrots are not born with much of an idea about flying, they have to be taught. This is a challenging time...

So far, my strategy has been to work with him every day on going a short distance in the air (he can go a few feet with clipped wings, but can not stay level), from the cage top to me and back. He gets excited about doing this and has learned it well. If I can get him to fly on command, I hope he'll fly less on his own. 









A Tech Project Gone Well!

For a change...

I've been dreading doing this, but I'm at it today. Awhile ago, I used the wrong external hard drive for a backup and (ironically) over-wrote the backup of some files I want to keep.

Because of various computer issues that I never fully addressed, that started like 4 years ago when my main desktop died, and I didn't have a lot of money, I've been using a several mickey mouse systems since. I didn't actually have a working directory of all these specific files any place. I guess I had not been paying attention. I am (ironically again) pretty good about backups. I had like 4. But over the past few years as PCs and drives died or got re-formatted, I was down to one copy of that stuff. And I erased it.

Well it wasn't the only copy. I still have three dead PCs in the basement that go back 10 years probably. At least one I knew had 2 500 GB drives (dating back to a time when 500 GB was a huge drive) in it with a ton of old stuff, including what was once the main copy of the files in question.

I finally decided to figure this out. I bought on Amazon a device that seemed like it would do the job.





I pulled out a drive from the dusty old PC, plugged this thing all up, powered it on, and bam! in a few seconds my computer opened a file browser on the old drive. It even detected the drive format. I'm copying the files now.

I seriously can not remember when something went so smoothly.












Monday, November 27, 2017

Cockatiel Art!

 


New Toy

I put inside this ball a couple Nutraberries (sort of granola balls for birds), a chili pepper, a cinnamon stick and a couple large walnuts.  Harlan's been trying the get the treats out for a good 20 minutes.











Monday, November 13, 2017

Feathers

Harlan's all red, adult tail feathers are coming in, pushing out the juvenile feathers that have the dark edges. They grow up so fast...

 

Friday, October 27, 2017

New Feathers?

It looks like Harlan may be growing in some new, adult, tail feathers. The adult tail feathers will be all bright red, without the dark edges the lower feathers have in this photo.









ASUS 7" ZenPad Z170C-A1-BK Won't Charge

We had an Asus tablet quit working.

It wouldn't start up, obviously, but also wouldn't charge, it seemed. Dead.

When it was plugged in there was no indication, and the screen stayed black. Holding the power and volume up button also did nothing.

After some looking around, it sounded like the thing to try was to disconnect the battery inside.

The front separates from the back by undoing a series of snaps. I used a watch case knife to slowly pry open the gap along the silver trim that goes around the bezel. Working the knife around the sides separated the back. A butter knife would probably work.

The battery connector comes off straight up and away from the motherboard. This wasn't clear at first.

I had the thing disconnected for just 2 or 3 minutes. Reconnecting it, and plugging in the USB resulted in immediate charging. After a couple minutes it had enough charge to boot up.

The key with these things seems to be to never let them really go to dead zero charge. I know even my Nexus table behaves badly if that happens (although I have never had to open it up).

We don't we design better consumer electronics?









Jeff Sexton

007 1:144 Scale 1:350 Enterprise 10 Barrel Brewing 14 1856 2001 A Space Odyssey 3D modeling 40and20 4th of July 78 RPM Abyss Adam West Advertising Agora Models Air Canada Airline Airways Brewing Alan Bennett Alaska Alberta Alberta Street Pub Alfa Romeo Spider Touring Gran Sport Amati Amazon Amnesia Brewing AMT Analog signal Android Anomalies and Alternative Science Antiques Apache Apollo Apple Apple Stores Art Artisanal Beer Works Assembly Brewing Aston Martin Astoria Asus Atlas Audrey Augmented reality Aurora Famous Fighters auto-awesome Automobile Autos Aviary Aviation Backups Baelic Brewing Bale Breaker Brewing Bandai Barack Obama Barley Brown's Beer Bars Base Camp Brewing Batman Battery Beards Beer Beer Bar Bell System Bellwether Berkshire Hathaway Betty White Beyond the Fringe Bigfoot Bikes Bill Clinton Bird Food Bird Toys Birds Birthdays Bleriot Bleriot XI Block 15 Brewing Blogger Bojack Horseman Bolton Landing Brewing Boltons Boneyard Brewing Books Boxer Ramen Boxer Ramon Breakside Brewing Brian Eno Build Management Buoy Brewing Burger King Business and Economy Business Process Execution Language Bye & Bye Byte-order mark Canadian Carrot Cats Chex Mix Chihuly Chipmonk Christmas Civil Defense Clinton Clocks Closet Doors CNN Cockatiels Cocktails Collections Columbia Grafonola Columbia River George Columbia River Gorge Corners Corvallis County Cork Crooked Stave Brewing Crows Crux Brewing Cuisinart Culmination Brewing David Byne DB5 Dear Jane Debian Deschutes Brewing DFW C.V Diabetes Dick Curtis Digital Living Network Alliance Digital television Dinosaurs Disney Doll House Don the Beachcomber Double Mountain Brewing Dow Jones Industrial Average Dragons Dudley Moore Duesenburg SJ Roadster Durham University DVD E-mail address E9 Eagle Eagle Creek Fire Eaglemoss Easter ebauche Ecliptic Economics Ed Ed and Olive Eels EJB Elgin Elysian Brewing Energy development Enterprise Enterprise JavaBean ESP Evergreen Air Museum Everybody's Brewing Ex Novo Brewing F-84G Thunderjet Facebook Family Photos Fathers Day Fearless Brewing Fedora Ferment Brewing Ferns Festival of The Dark Arts Filesharing Finance Finger Firesign Theater Fireworks Flowers Flying Sub Food Ford Fort George Brewing Fossil fuel Free House Garfield James Abram Garfield Minus Garfield Gateway Brewing Gene Sexton Gene Wilder George Carlin Gigantic Brewing Gilgamesh Brewing Glass Glassfish Global warming Golden Arches Goldfinger Goofy Google Google Assistant Google Buzz Google Docs Google Home Google Lively Google Photos Google Reader Google Wave Google+ Goose Graffiti Grammar Gravy Great Divide Brewing Great Notion Brewing Greek Festival Greenhouse gas Gruen GT40 H. G. Wells Half-Life 2 Halloween Harlan Hawaii Helbros High-definition television Hilo Hilo Brewing History Ho 229 Hollywood Theater Hopworks Urban Brewery Horizon Models HP Hybrid electric vehicle IBM Impala Inner city Instagram Insulin Investing IPMS Iris Irony J.C. Penny James Bond Jane Austen Java Java Architecture for XML Binding JC Penny JDBC Jeannine Stahltaube Jeff's! Jim Davis joe the plumber John McCain Jonathan Miller Jubelale Kapaau Karma Kauai Kay Thompson Kermit the Frog Keys Keys Lounge Kids and Teens Kona LA Auto Show Labrewtory Larry King Laser Laserdisc Leavenworth Wenatchee River Level Brewing Lilly Tomlin linux Little Beast Brewing Lloyd Center Logging Lowry Sexton LPs Lucky Lab Magnets Mark Cuban Market trends Martin Mull Maytag McDonald Mediatomb Meier and Frank Mel Brooks Mercury Microsoft Microsoft Windows Migration Brewing Mobius Models modern Times Brewing Money Monkey monsters Moon MOUNT HOOD Mount Tabor Movie Reviews Multnomah Falls Music Music industry Muxtape MySQL NetBeans Netflix Nikon Nikon Z50 Ninkasi Brewing Nintendo Nissan Cube Norm Coleman North Bar Nuclear fallout Nuclear warfare Nuggest Nuts OBF Office Depot Offshoot Beer Co Oktoberfest Ola Brewing Old Town Brewing Olive Open ESB Oracle Corporation Orca Oregon Orion Space Clipper Owls Pacific Ocean Packard Boattail Pam American Parrots Patio Sale PDX Pearl District Pearl District Portland Oregon Peppers Performance Review Peter Cook Peter Iredale Pets Pfriem Brewing Philip K Dick Phone Book photography Pizza Plank Town Brewing Play Station PlayStation 3 pluspora Pocher Podcast Poke Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver Polar Lights Politics Pono Brewing Portal Portland Portland Development Commission Presidents Pride and Prejudice Programming Projects PS3 PS4 Pumpkins Quotation Marks Rad Power Radio Radio Room Ramen Ramon Recipes Recording Industry Association of America Renewable energy Reservoir Reuben's Brewing Reubens Brewing RIAA Richmond Pub Robot Chicken Rock-paper-scissors Rogue Brewing Round 2 Sales San Francisco Santa Sarcasm Sasquatch Brewing SATA Science fiction film Sea Quake Brewing Seattle Selfie Serbia Service-oriented architecture Seward Shelby Cobra Shipwreck Shopping Signs Silver Moon Brewing Slide Rule Snow Soap Soap Cutter Social Security Social Studies Society6 Sony Sopwith F.1 Camel BR.1 Soviet Space 1999 Space Race Spad XIII Speaker Repair Spirit of St. Louis Spitfire SQL Squirrel's St Patricks Day Stanford Hospital Star Trek Star Wars Starbucks Stock market Storm Breaker Strip search Stripes Studebaker Studellac Sun Microsystems Supernatural T-Mobile Tablet Tamiya Tamiya Spitfire Taube TechCrunch Technical Television Terminal Gravity Thanksgiving The Producers ThinkGeek Three Creeks Brewing Thunder Island Brewing Tiki Time Bandits Toaster Tom Peterson Tools Top Ferment Total Recall Transportation Security Administration Trumpeter Tubboat Tyco UFOs Unicode United States United States Department of Homeland Security Universal Plug and Play Unknown Primates USB USS Yorktown Valcom Van Gilder Hotel Vegetable garden VHS Victoria Video Video game Vintage Images Vintage Vintage! Virtual world Volcano Hawaii Volvo C70 Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea Wall Street War of the Worlds Warren Buffett Warrenton watches Watercolor Wayfinder Brewing We Can Remember It for You Wholesale Web service Web Services Description Language Whiskey Wii Windows 7 Windows Phone 7 Windows Vista Windows XP Windy Wingnut Wings Wood Worthy Brewing WWI WWII X-Files X-ray vision XML XML Schema Y2K Yeti YouTube Yugo Zero Mostel Zima Zoom H2n