This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
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Um, here I go again… A couple months ago Brain died. Leaving Nacho as the only bird in the house. Soon after, while at the petstore for birdfood for Nacho, I saw a fuzzy little green bird with a round head in the bird section, who was all sweet and slow moving and came to the side of the cage and interacted when I sat and talked to it. Brandy really liked it too and talked to it and told me it was just a baby bird. A ringneck.
I was tempted, but it was too soon after Brain, and I needed money for Christmas, and it was a bigger bird and would require more elaborate care than the budgies I’d had in the past and would need a new cage and toys and stuff too.
Over the next couple months, every time I went to the petstore, I went over to the cute green ringneck and talked to it. I was thinking more and more I wanted to bring it home. And I was getting more and more worried that someone else would buy it. And I was starting to feel guilty that I had not brought it home yet. It was starting to look less babyish and slightly more grown up.
It was time. Last weekend I bought it and brought it home. The sex won’t be clear until it is over a year or so old (unless I get a DNA test) but I have decided for now to call it a “he”. The name will be Zuri Kidege Minter. Points for anybody who gets why. :-) We think the language overlaps the natural range of the subspecies of this bird (Psittacula krameri krameri) although perhaps not by much.
Anyway, his name is Zuri.
I’m working on taming him by spending a lot of time with my hand in the cage, but it is tough! He will eat grapes from my hand already though! But isn’t quite ready to be handled directly without being caught yet. :-) Working on it. Got to play with him every day.
Average lifespan in captivity is 25-30 years according to one site I found, and I have heard they can live much longer than that as well. So I’ve signed up for a long commitment. Zuri will hopefully be with me a long long time! I will try to be a good bird daddy.
Nacho may still need a small friend who can share the same cage though. That may happen before too long.
The Minter household is growing! :-) There is talk of Glo-Fish too! Someone stop me before I have a whole zoo! Right now I have Nacho the budgie, Nala the anole, Zuri the ringneck, and a bunch of crickets to feed Nala. Oh, and the Roomba.
Psittacula krameri
Description: Generally green, face, abdomen and under wing-coverts yellowish-green; nape and back of head variably washed with blue; chin, broad cheek-stripe and narrow line from cere to eye black; narrow band to nape pink; upperside of middle tail-feathers blue with greenish-yellow tips, outer feathers green; underside of outer tail-feathers olive-yellowish, middle feathers blackish; bill blackish-red with black tips; iris yellowish-white; feet greenish-grey.
There is a new member of the family this morning. He is hiding in the green leaves in his terrarium. Oops. Now he’s up on his branch. He was green a minute ago, now he is brown.
Amy (Brandy’s daughter), with a little help from mom, got me an Anole. They were going to get me a Hermit Crab, but the pet stores all were out. But it was good. Whenever I’ve done the Pet Selector my #1 choice has always come out as an anole.
And it is so cute!!!
Cynthia suggested we name him by doing the Abulsme permutation. Anole turns into Nlaoe which when you add the extra letters for pronuncability becomes Nalaboce. (Well, it could be Nalaobe, but I did it quickly last night.) So we decided that was Nala Boce.
Amy thought some more name was in order, so started trying things out. We were working in a text file on my computer. Amy was the last one to work on the file.
This morning, I found “nala boce uboo-boo” written in the file.
So Nala Boce Uboo-boo will be the anoles name. We will probably call him Nala. Um… or her. I don’t really know if it is a him or a her and haven’t researched how to tell yet. Nala sounds like a girl’s name. So lets say she.
So welcome to Nala Boce Uboo-boo Minter. Thank you Amy!
Green Anole
The green anole is a relative common lizard, slight in build, with a narrow head and a long, slender tail that can be twice as long as the rest of the animal. Color can vary from gray-brown, to brown, to bright green; each animal can change its color to blend with surroundings. Males can have a noticeable dewlap that is pink when displayed. Commonly referred to as a “chameleon” due to its ability to change color, but not a true chameleon.
Yes indeed, another Day is ready. Two within 24 hours! Go me!
2003 Q3 Random Vacation – Day 3
Yes, indeed, while Marilyn and Chad may be able to describe it better since they saw it from the outside, the bike completely somersaulted on me, I flew into the air and in a fraction of a second stuck my left arm out to catch myself and tried to protect the camera with my right hand. I smashed into the ground and the bike landed on top of me.
It will probably be a bit longer until the next one gets out, although Marilyn has promised to do some of her commentary on the Days she has this next coming weekend. Here is the updated status:
Days @, 0, 1, 2, 3: Posted
Days 4, 5, 6: Waiting for Marilyn Commentary (then Chad).
Days 7, 8, 9: Waiting for Sam to start them
In any case, enjoy everybody!
A lot of you have been bugging me about the slow progress on the report on the 2003 Q3 Random Vacation to Idaho. A bunch is still in the works, and more may be posted shortly. But at long last, another day is ready. Here is Day 2.
2003 Q3 Random Vacation – Day 2
We scrambled down that ridge, then up another ridge, then started to head down the next ridge…Â and realized we would have to go down, then up again…Â and we were still three quarters of a mile from the spot.
For those curious about progress, here is a current status report:
Days @, 0, 1, 2: Posted
Day 3: Waiting for Sam to insert Chad’s comments, then post.
Days 4, 5, 6: Waiting for Marilyn’s comments. (Then Chad’s)
Days 7, 8, 9: Waiting for Sam to start them.
We’ll try to pick up the pace. :-)
I did almost all of my Christmas shopping in a 12 hour period on Thursday. Some online, some in stores with the help of Brandy and Amy, who then helped wrap too. The last thing I had forgotten and then remembered later I dealt with last night. Now the only thing left is to mail a couple boxes. Probably won’t get to that until Monday, so they will probably be late. Oh well.
But everything is bought. Woo!
I have now added a section of the site for purpose of keeping track of the new 2004 Q1 Weight and Body Fat contests. Invitiations were sent to selected people at the end of November. The entry period has already ended and the contest begun. Data on the charts and graphs on the site will be updated as I get to the emails with the readings as I go through my email in order.
2004 Q1 Fitness Contest
Reviving something I did back in 2002, I invited a variety of friends to do a weight / body fat contest to try to get in shape. A few entered. Periodic Updates will appear here as the contest progresses. This contest goes from Dec 1 2003 to Mar 31 2004. Full rules and explainations of scoring are included below the score chart.
In addition, I took this opportunity to remove the Pager, Eating and Music portions of the site, which were suffering from lack of updates. The Pictures section is too, but it stays for now because it has a bunch of stuff in it. :-)
The October 2003 Top Ten, which was revealed to the winners a few weeks ago, has now been posted publicly.
October 2003 Top Ten!!
Realizing he was behind after taking some time off for his wedding and honeymoon (some excuse) Al decided he needed to catch up, and did things such as sending me the alphabet… one letter per email… several times. Along with several other similar things. He was clearly trying to take the number one spot this month. He came out two alphabets short. Brandy once again took the top spot. And remarkably, she did it all with real emails that actually contained actual sentences and conversation! Congratulations once again Brandy!
For those out there who might be interested… Since I was introduced to her back in the beginning of 2003, I’ve been spending a lot of time with Brandy. (See recent Email Top Ten results.) That is especially true since I bought my house and moved to PA. She has helped me a lot with the new place and all sorts of other things. And we’ve just been hanging out a lot and going out and doing things together and such. In any case, as of a few weeks ago we switched from “just friends” mode to “dating” mode and are doing the couple thing it seems. :-)
Brandy teased me about making a blog entry announcing it, since I do them about lots of things, and I hesitated for a couple weeks because I’ve had bad luck sharing such information in the past, and tend to prefer to keep such things mostly to myself. But it is snowing today, and I feel like it, so I thought I would go ahead.
So Brandy, here ya go, the “I Know Why The Rug Is Blue” post is real. :-) [Inside Joke] See you when the roads are passable again. :-)
Well… sort of. While I was visiting my mother for Thanksgiving she told me that the next edition of her church’smember directory would have a picture that I took as the cover of the book. Yes, it is only a local church directory, and the picture is not perfect, but I still think it is pretty cool.
My Picture: Church Bell
My Mom’s Church
I decided that since everybody else does, I’d add a “BlogRoll” sort of thing here. I was going to put it in a right hand column, but doing that looked like it would take more time, so I just went ahead and added it on the left. There are two sections:
Friends: Of the people on my annual top twenty email list (which I update monthly) those people who run their own sites get links. Right now that is Al, Rebecca and Ron. Some of the others in that top twenty currently used to have sites, but they are defunct now I gather. Oh well.
Visit Daily: This is just a list of places I seem to check daily or almost daily to see what is up. There are a bunch of other places on my bookmark list in my browser that I check fairly often, but the ones here are part of the normal routine. I’ve actually included a couple that were once part of my routine but I have sort of fallen out of, but want to go back to. I may add or remove places from here as my habits change. If anybody has some suggestions for other must read daily URLs, let me know. :-)
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