You ever feel like that? Wow, is everything nuts right now.
The biggest, and saddest, news is that we’re almost certainly going to have to say goodbye to Oliver next week. He is severely anemic, and we’ve systematically eliminated potentially treatable causes over the past couple of weeks. Our last try is doubling his prednisone dose to see if we’ve not been giving him enough to get on top of an autoimmune disorder. If that works, he’ll improve over the next several days. (Dr. Patton is pretty much calling it a long shot, though.)
We have an appointment next Tuesday morning. If a miracle happens and Oliver gets better, then Lea’s taking him in to get more blood drawn to check his RBC count. If he doesn’t improve, then I’m taking him in to go to heaven. I’ll have a good post up for him that day.
He’s an awesome cat—the first one I’ve ever loved. I’m not doing well with it—no one is—but we were blessed to be able to rescue him and give him, and have him give us, six good years. More later. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. We really appreciate them.
In other news, in light of this revelation about Facebook and its shadow profiling, I’m about to delete my personal Facebook profile. It is much easier and more fun to stay on than to get off, but I finally had a “that’s enough” moment reading that article and the ones preceding it. I don’t know how close the water is to boiling, but this frog is jumping out.
Now make sure you understand what’s going on. Say you and your friend Sally are both on Facebook. Sally uploads some contact information that contains a telephone number for you that you had not previously provided to Facebook. Facebook notes that, and puts it on your “shadow profile.”
Now whether or not a tortured reading of their Terms of Service indicates you “consented” to that, it’s sleazy as hell.
The article further makes clear that Facebook will still work very hard to know as much about me (and other non-FB members) as possible, but I don’t have to help them.
“What about all of that stuff you already shared? Do you really believe they’ll delete it?” I don’t know. But even if they don’t, if I stop sharing today, then the fidelity of the information that I have shared gradually degrades, does it not?
(Oh, I got over my affection for Foursquare really quickly, too.)
Finally, it’s an uncharacteristically busy social week for me. Lunch with two cool fellow Rocket City Bloggers tomorrow. Seeing some fun high school friends tomorrow night. On Thursday is the Rocket City Bloggers meet and greet, to which I’m really looking forward. You can RSVP as late as 4:00 Wednesday, June 26, so if it sounds like something you’d enjoy, come see us. And on Friday, I’m having lunch with an old high school friend I haven’t seen in more than 26 years.
Oh, and you want to wave at Saturn? Check it out. (Probably should have saved that for Thursday miscellanea #242, but oh well.)
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My supervisor will think I’ve cracked if I take a break to “wave at Saturn.” On the other hand, it’s a good excuse for a very late lunch.
I miss my Saturn, come to think of it. Good car.
Oliver looks very much like our Thomas. Losing a pet is not a happy thing to have to deal with; we get attached to the little buggers. I wish you all peace.
I learned a lot working on my dad’s Saturn, kemtee. IIRC, it had some great gas mileage.
Think I might check out Saturn with the telescope I picked up at a thrift store the other day. It’s a beginner’s scope, perfect for an object like a planet.
I honestly can’t remember if the MPG was great or not, but I will say that it ran beautifully. Both of them — I owned two SLs in succession before buying the Cruiser. And when they didn’t, I fully appreciated that I wasn’t going to be handed a load of BS from their service department. For a woman, that’s a big thing.
I do miss that brand.
And why can’t *I* find telescopes at the thrift shop? All I turn up are moldy purses and worn out ballgowns.
Here is the arc of Saturn:
Beginning: Competitive products; absolutely outstanding job of establishing and cultivating a culture. The no-haggle pricing (which was a big novelty then); the Spring Hill love-ins; “a different kind of company”…
Middle: Very little effort to keep the cars above the midpoint. New front ends and rear ends with no real change between. No new models; nothing but small cars. Consequently lineup becomes steadily less competitive.
End: “Oh no, Saturn’s dying! What do we do?” Here’s a midsize sedan sold under two other names. Here’s a small car sold under three other names. Here’s an SUV sold under three other names. Here’s a minivan sold under three other names. Here’s a sports car sold under two other names.
Saturn was a great idea and succeeded in the beginning because GM didn’t act like GM with it. When they got complacent and figured out they had a big problem, they acted like GM to save it. As a result, in the end it died pretty much the same way Pontiac and Oldsmobile did.
And that’s how you go from raging success to burned-out hulk in just 20 model years, start to finish.
GM was pretty much hands-off in the beginning. I agree totally that once they started acting like GM, it got effed up.
Saturns appealed to those of us who just wanted a decent car. Didn’t need anything too fancy; didn’t want a hassle getting it; weren’t particular about being on the cutting edge of things. Just wanted a dang car.
Unfortunately, that’s not how the car market really works.