There were cats there! There is one big black huge one, and one mostly-white one with a few black markings. My brain did not remember the cat names.

And then over at the other place, an adorable little part-Siamese kitten, just a double handful and with still mostly only baby fluff and those still-squishy claws that are the little needles. Her name is Tommy. Adorable, and vicious.

I'd thought that I would have to install more drivers for things off of disks. Turned out that some of the updated stuff at the OS company homepage had some of the drivers I needed on there.

Unfortunately, there was a bluescreen when the camera tried to install. I have not quite a Bad Feeling About That, but a sufficiently mildly uneasy one.

But, when I restarted after the bluescreen, I got sound, which meant that the audio driver was in the whole bucketload... sweet. One less thing to hunt down in all the boiling madness.

Still haven't got IM programs back in and running. If you need private words with me, I'm always at my LJ address, given that I'm a permanent user, yay me.

I don't want to guilt-trip anyone into taking an animal that they don't really want or can't afford to take care of, but suffice to say that if anyone in the Georgia area wants kittens, this would be the place to look first for humane reasons.

Our two lovely cats were strays, and are winding up to be lovely, pretty, loving little mutts. shammash was a kitten when he came to us. eris_raven was a teenage cat, and does have a few lingering issues, but is still a very loyal and caring cat who loves being petted (usually at 3 am).

As a 20-year resident of the Fairbanks area (1980 to 2000), I offer the following:

Pros:
Beautiful summers, lovely winters, good schools, few "snow days", good teachers, a very active small-town school district, an excellent library, swimming pools, sports, a world-renowned symphony orchestra where you can attend in bunny boots and Carharts, a good university with plenty of real research going on, wildlife, the aurora borealis, wild roses, birch trees, spruce trees, aspen trees, Summer Fine Arts Camp for kids, stuff for the space-crazed organized by UAF's Geophysical Institute, the Midnight Sun Run, the way sunset doesn't start until 10 in the summer, and dawn's 4 or so, and sunset/twilight/sunrise lasts all night, Hot Licks (mm, ice cream, comparable to Ben & Jerry's only local).

Cons:
Cost of living, temperature in the winter, amount of snow (up to three feet), lack of pop culture (this can also be a pro), occasional lack of plumbing in the cheaper-rent out-of-town residences, moose as public nuisance, red squirrels as public nuisance, wind chill (not so bad in the hills in Fairbanks proper, but down North Pole way, worse), darkness, major medical procedures (such as many operations) taking place in Seattle, bad public transportation, yellow jacket hornets, ice fog, thermal inversions causing air quality alerts for violation of carbon monoxide standards four times a year in the winter (never in summer), mosquitoes.

Summer weather:
80 is hot. 60 is average. Rainy season in July/August. Frost in September. Breakup in April/May. Roses at the end of May/start of June.

Winter weather:
20 is warm. 0 is typical. -10 is also typical. -20 is too cold for outside recess. -40 is where propane kept outside gets too cold to flow. -50 is either school out or attendance optional. -60, definitely no school. '89 was the last time I think it hit -60 when I was there. It's a dry cold. A large snowfall will give you 3 inches. Black ice with a slight dusting of snow on top is the most dangerous. Studded snow tires are supposed to come off May 01. Shovel, sand/kitty litter and chains must be in trunk of car during winter by law of common sense. A down jacket is a serious investment but worth it.

Wildlife:
Moose, red squirrels, the odd caribou, the odd bear, mosquitoes, dragonflies, damselflies, horseflies, yellowjacket wasps, baldfaced hornets, red-backed voles, shrews, foxes, sled dogs, and more.


( A few more notes... )

One of the things on my to-do list for a while has been the sorting of all my bottles of nail polish into different baggies, by color. I have far too much nail polish, but it was all Necessary when I got it...

So I sorted, and then, much to my surprise, I found a bag at the bottom of the nail polish bucket that contained some glitter, the perfume I'd been looking for, and my missing jewelry!

Hooray, me.

I'll be smelling like myself tomorrow. Not that the one cookie-scented perfume (Auric Blends, "One Love") is a bad scent, it's just not quite on.

I'll also be having blue nails tomorrow, because I'm trying to use up the one tiny bottle of blue nail polish. After that, maybe pink. Or maybe not.

http://www.remembrall.slashcity.net/fiction/virginarchive.html


I'm also installing junk again, and getting pushed to the point of tears by LJ's stupid web interface on the update journal rich text mode shit.