He feels like she has something wrong in one of her disks or maybe a tumor pushing on her spine. He said it isn't just her back legs, but her front legs look like they are acting a little funny as well (though not nearly as bad). He then outlined a series of tests that could be done to pinpoint the exact problem. One of these is a myelogram where they put dye into the spinal cord and take an x-ray which then might show what kind of damage there is. Plus bloodwork, anesthesia, etc., the tests were going to be about $3,200. One of the possible problems he mentioned was Wobbler Disease, which is some kind of spinal cord problem which is usually associated with disk damage or something like that. I looked it up in my copy of Wikipedia while I was waiting for them to take x-rays of Katie and it said the treatment is usually either surgery which may not be effective, or steroids, which is what he was recommending anyway. On the bill, the steroids were $9. So we'll see how that goes. He said the x-rays showed some arthritis in her spine, which is typical for old dogs and may put pressure on the spine. They didn't see any tumors, but that doesn't mean they're not there. And they couldn't see disk damage because the disks don't show up without an MRI or CT scan.

Meanwhile I hope to get Katie's sneakers in the mail which will give her better footing indoors (I put some comforters and blankets down in the house with no-slip things that go under rugs and she has quickly learned to stay on those) and keep her from getting her feet scraped up when she drags them on walks. For disk damage I need to cut back on her walks, rather than keeping up with the walks as therapy for myelopathy. I may order a doggie wheelchair if her back end doesn't get any better. Everything I see on the internet is for dogs who got wheelchairs and then died later because the dogs are usually pretty old by the time they get a wheelchair anyway. The good thing about these nerve-related problems is she isn't in much pain and is otherwise pretty alert and normal.

It's a pretty good show, about 4 science geeks and a normal girl. It is usually pretty dumb with it's oversimplified exaggerated portrayal of nerdom, but occasionally brilliant. And it comes up day-to-day, with a person at work pointing out a parallel with a group of us who eat lunch together at designated places for the day of the week, which the nerds do for dinner (and that is pretty geeky to do that for dinner).

Several episodes have included the song "Soft Kitty" which the weirdest science geek, Sheldon, likes to have sung to him when he is sick (in one episode, the girl offers to sing the song to him when he is sad after feeling betrayed by his friends, but he points out that "Soft Kitty" is only for when he is sick, and there is no song for when he is sad, concluding "I'm not a child").

Soft kitty, warm kitty
Little ball of fur
Happy kitty, sleepy kitty
Purr, purr, purr

I looked this up on some wikis about the show. They pointed out (I don't know how they know things like this) that the song is real, though it is called "Warm Kitty" and reverses the kitties in the first and second lines ("Warm kitty, soft kitty" and "Sleepy kitty, happy kitty"). Maybe the writers of the TV show changed it to avoid copyright problems (don't know if that would hold up, since it's still obviously the same thing), but I do think they improved it. "Soft kitty" is a much funnier name for the song and it seems appropriate to end on "sleepy kitty" if the idea is to put someone to sleep.

Later I was reading about a condition called degenerative myelopathy. It is a disease of the spinal cord and nerves in older dogs where the myelin sheath of the nerves starts to degrade and disrupts the communication of signals from the brain to the muscles. It isn't painful like arthritis, but it does cause dogs to fall down and affects their back ends usually. The degenerative aspect means it gets worse and worse and the back legs of the dog can be completely paralyzed in months and even spread to the front legs. If Katie has this, it is not good. But the decline has been pretty sharp lately making me think it isn't just arthritis, though it could also be a ruptured disk. I am thinking that if I take her to the neurologist they may be able to narrow it down quickly or maybe just start treatments as if she has the condition and see if that works, skipping the expensive tests and hoping the treatment isn't that expensive.

In the meantime, since her legs don't work that great, I thought I'd get her some shoes and my vet recommended some good ones from neopaws.com. These will give her better traction on the floors indoors and can protect her feet if she drags them while we are on walks (I got the summertime/indoor type instead of some of the cold or wet weather ones). David helped me trace her foot so we could order the correct size. They cost about as much as my shoes, but I am only getting them for the back legs. Exercise is actually supposed to help slow the effects, so if it helps her exercise that will be good, even though it won't do anything for the overall weakness and collapses. They also make those wheeled carts for the back ends of dogs that could work, including one that lets them still walk but the wheels keep them from collapsing. Fish oil tablets, which I would give her sometimes anyway, are also supposed to help, along with Vitamin E (3V Caps is a brand of fish oil tablet for dogs that has Vitamin E added). Changing her flea and heartworm medication may also help, and the brand Revolution is recommended by one site, so I may order some of that.

Once we got back to the car, I showed him the box. Not only are these two things that David can't eat since they have gluten (and an extra sore point is that people with Celiac disease tend to agree that pizza is one of the things they miss the most), but the idea of combining two things with so many calories that are so bad for you in one box is just amazing. David was suitably outraged. We imagined there must also be a Saturday morning ad campaign to go with this product, telling kids to go ask their parents for Pizza and Cookies for dinner. What a product.

I flipped back to the TV and Vanderbilt even had the ball. The first play I witnessed was a screen pass to the left and Vanderbilt got a 30-40 yard gain to get inside the Arkansas 20 yard line. Holy cow. The next play the quarterback kept the ball and ran straight ahead into a wide open field, getting a first down inside the 10 yard line. A running play tacked on another few yards, now inside the 5 yard line. Vanderbilt is about to go up 15 points over a ranked team! How can they mess this up, I'm thinking? How about fumbling the ball? Next play, Vanderbilt fumbles the ball. I turned the TV off before the Arkansas player could run it all the way back into the end zone. For a Vanderbilt fan, this is good defense: turn the TV off before the other team can score. Turns out Arkansas went for a 2 point conversion and tied the game. The game is still on, but the ending is certain. I only had to watch 3 plays.

Summary:

Pros:

• Bright!
• Functioning mode memory
• Only 3 modes
• Optional 5 modes

Cons:

• Not regulated
• Gets hot on High
• Needs a Medium (instead of strobe)
• Rough threads

Summary:

Pros:

• Forward clicky
• Infinitely variable output
• Very low Low
• Nice quality build
• Cool looking
• Good throw

Cons:

• No preset modes
• Gets hot on li-ion batteries

Right now I pay about $8 per year to register the domain name. Other than that cost, Wiki Media's software is free and I am hosting the domain on my igirder account that I was already paying for. I don't really want to pay much more and I am wary of changing the domain after the debacle of changing my ipod battery site from its original home on speedfactory's personal web pages to my own igirder domain and losing my page rank and essentially all the money I had been making at Amazon and AdSense. However, it might be worth an extra $8 a year to keep this new domain registered and make the switch someday.

For each article he goes to the country and reports on what he finds out. It is a pretty funny picture of each country (I've read the Iceland and Greece articles so far) plus gives you a lot of details about their economic troubles. Nothing complicated or technical, but still good information, if a little superficial (which he admits). The articles are almost more of a travelogue than news article. He says about two Greek tax collectors that although they are both whistle blowers fearing for their jobs, they can't stand each other. He writes "This, I'd be told many times by other Greeks, was very Greek." In Greece the government workers were making 3 times the average private sector wage. However, he also points out that in the private sector most people list themselves as self-employed and report almost no income in order to avoid taxes. If the tax agency investigated, you could just bribe them to leave you alone or fight the charges in court which would take forever. Knowing the court battle would take forever, the tax agency generally would just give up.

He started the series with Iceland where he talks about these really aggressive Icelandic fishermen giving up fishing to become investment bankers and ruining the country by taking the same kinds of risks as investment bankers that they took as North Atlantic fishermen. He points out that Iceland is just this really, really sparsely populated country and everyone knows everyone else. He asks a guy if he knows Bjork. He says of course he does. Everyone knows everyone in Iceland. And the guy adds that not only is Bjork a bad singer, but so is her mother.

He has also covered Germany who loaned out most of the money and are now stuck with paying most of the bills. Ireland is another place where the speculative bubble burst in a big way. And just this month he has written about California where the people insist the government stay in operation but also keep refusing to allow the government to collect taxes.

Vanity Fair only gives you a teaser of the first article on Iceland. But I found a PDF version here and a web version on a Congressman's website, though it is missing the last paragraph.

• Iceland Wall Street on the Tundra, April 2010
• Greece Beware of Greeks Bearing Bonds, October 2010
• Ireland When Irish Eyes Are Crying, March 2011
• Germany It's the Economy, Dummkopf!, September 2011
• California California and Bust, November 2011

Instead I figured I could just get the text of the article and read a text document. But you don't just put files on the iPod and open them like you do on a computer. I have a free eReader called Stanza on my iPod. It is pretty good, allowing you to customize the text size, color, background, etc. and it is easy to flip through pages with just a tap (as opposed to scrolling by brushing your finger on the screen).

Summary:

Pros:

• Well built
• Compact
• Nice Low

Cons:

• Can't tighten head down
• Modes are H-M-L
• Cool tint
• 3-second On memory