Microchip your pets! A story of the lost...

I walk out of my apartment this morning after a down pour of rain all night. Passing another gentleman walking his small poodle mix I am nearly run over by this medium size lab mix. She is muddy, soaking wet, and confused.... and collarless. She seemed distraught running around in circles as if to ask me how to get home.

This is a very personal subject to me. I am the proud parent of two beautiful rescued cats.

She was friendly and loving, not at all what I would expect from a lost animal. Around her neck the hair was flattened as if she had been wearing a collar previously ( for a long time). This beautiful creature is also trained! Sit, stay, shake, she knew them all.

So, I called First Regional Animal Hospital.

They offered to check her for a microchip, and if needed hold her for the owner or animal control to come pick up. I cannot keep a dog in my apartment so either way she needed to go to FRAH. On the drive over she sat in the back seat whining at me, as if to say 'This isn't the way home!" it was heartbreaking. They gladly met me outside with a temporary leash and led her inside. This dog loved everyone and everything, she was given water and treats while being scanned for a microchip.

To my horror. No chip.

What. The. Hell.

How could someone love this animal so much and not microchip her? It is not clear why she didn't have a collar on. She could have lost it, been let out without it, or worse.... was dropped off without one. I can't imagine the last one as a possibility, so we're just going to ignore it. She's beautiful, groomed, clean, trained, and at some point collared. Someone loves this animal, and it is clear she wants to go home.

BUT SHE ISN'T MICROCHIPPED.

Microchipping could have already had this girl back home. I would have happily drove her to where she needed to be. I am confident she belong(s/ed) to someone here in the apartment complex, so while at FRAH I took about fifteen pictures to make a flyer for her. At this point no one has claimed her. I put up two flyers on either side of the mailboxes, dropped one off at the office, and posted one on each entrance of the local Wal*Mart.

People, please. Microchipping is the only voice your animal has if they lose their tags for any reason and are lost. Its also smart to have them insured with the microchipping company, most offer insurance for a 5-15 annual fee if your pet is injured while lost. It is also a good idea to consider pet insurance, you never know when a tragedy like this or something serious could strike.

Do yourself, your family, and most of all, your pet a favor and microchip them. In nearly all cases the animal doesn't even feel the injection. Be a hero. Microchip and insure your pets! Locally here in Arizona, the humane society will microchip your pet for about 25.00, thats it. 25.00. Is your pet worth it?

( going to a vet to have it done could be as much as 150.00... )

Home Again - Microchips

Trupanion Pet Insurance

Valucre

I remember.

I remember way back when…. When it was cool to Role Play.

When people gave a shit about spelling, grammar, and punctuation. While anyone and everyone is welcome on this website, its nice to finally have a place where people want to get better at their Role Play… Where people are ACTIVE. Where the staff is ACTIVE. All in all, this is a great web forum to express creativity.

Ah. Creativity.

Funny isn’t it? That people get too busy ( including myself ) to be creative? It’s a shame; really. Valucre has been my home on the net for a while now. I silently stalk the pages and pages of Role-Play, while working behind the scenes with their PR&M (Public Relations and Marketing) department. Valucre is quickly becoming one of the best free-form Role-Play sites on the net.

218 active members. 148,578 posts. 11,199 threads.

The most active Role-Play section is Terrenus, with almost 15,000 individual posts between the “Lands of Terrenus” and the “Towns” section(s).

While this could be considered a shameless plug, check out the site, and maybe it could be your home too. <3

Valucre - Best Freeform Role-Play on the net!

Valucre - Facebook

Valucre - Twitter

Remember, Remember, The Fifth of November

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-mJJIxurAIQ

Let's hurt the bankers.



Facebook page: www.facebook.com/Nov.Fifth

Find a Credit Union Near You: www.findacreditunion.com

This was a lesion I learned YEARS ago. I have not used an actual bank since 2004. The banks are money hungry assholes. I was denied credit cards, loans, and other means of financial assistance. I was charged outrageous fees and costs of just having an account.

I have encouraged every single friend, family member, or stranger I have ever struck up a conversation with to move to a credit union. Credit unions are owned by the people, ordinary members like you. They are not a hungry, irresponsible corporation looking to make a buck.

Why Credit Unions?

“Banks are community, regional or national for-profit corporations owned by private investors and governed by a paid board of directors chosen by the stockholders. The board of directors is authorized to make major decisions without consulting (and sometimes even notifying) the banking customers. The select group of private owners share any profit. Funds are insured with federal deposit insurance (FDIC).

Credit unions are not-for-profit financial cooperatives owned by their members and governed by a board of directors elected by, and from among, those members. All members (anyone with money in an account) is entitled to vote on major decisions affecting the credit union. Usually there is a common bond among the members, such as belonging to the same organization or living in the same geographical area. Credit unions accept deposits from their members and use them to make short-term loans. Deposits are regarded as purchases of shares, and all earnings of the credit union are paid out as dividends to members. Credit unions with the word "federal" as part of their name are regulated by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), a U.S. government agency, and are federally insured by the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund (NCUSIF). This fund is maintained by premiums paid by federal credit unions. Because credit unions have a historically low failure rate, the NCUSIF, according to a Treasury study, is one of the most secure federal insurance programs in existence today.

Both financial institutions usually offer basic banking services (checking and savings accounts, consumer loans, etc.) with many offering a fuller range of services (online banking, debit cards, credit cards, mortgages, foreign currencies, etc.).

At the end of the day, banking with a truly local bank is better than a corporate-level bank, but credit unions will have more of a positive impact on the consumer & his/her local community.” – From Bank Transfer Day’s Notes http://www.facebook.com/Nov.Fifth

Don’t fall for this.

Don’t stand for this.

Move your funds to a CREDIT UNION before or on NOVEMBER 5, 2011.

WE ARE THE 99%.

LET OUR VOICES BE HEARD.

The Occupy Movement and .Anonymous.

  

I’ve been keeping up on the #OccupyEverywhere.

http://www.occupytogether.org/

http://occupylove.org/

Something needs to change. When you really sit down and look at this world it’s shocking to me how blind people are. How can you look at this world and not see a serious miscarriage of justice? I applaud the people standing up for the rest of us to make a difference. Our voices will be heard. The years of oppression, corruption, and greed will end. This is the beginning of something amazing. I hope this movement will change the world.

I have not been able to stand among the people that I working toward global equality. I, like many others, are a slave to the dollar. I am infuriated by the 1% that have more then half the country’s money. Our children are poor, hungry, and illiterate, but the 1% have nothing to ever want for.

How has this become so acceptable? It isn’t.

I have also become aware of the importance of the Anonymous. They have saved so many. I applaud their work. They have done what the government, the police, and so many others, have not been able to do. They have busted a huge ring of child pornographers. I have never seen a more powerful and meaningful operation like DarkNet. You know who you are. Don’t stop until every single disgusting human responsible for these acts are behind bars, or dead. This is unforgivable.

We do not forgive.

We do not forget.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAnonMessage

I have never been so proud of such exceptional human beings in my life.

The more I hear and see if the Anonymous group the more I have hope that this world will get better. They have exposed so many things that the public would have otherwise been blind to.

Don’t stop.

Departure Flights

Dear Steve Gonsalves [ Ghost Hunters ], I get you bro.

You go through all these emotions when you make the decision to fly somewhere. For me, this was a new adventure in a place I had never been before. After I booked the flight, I was scared, anxious, excited, and unsure, a crazy concoction of emotions. I counted the days down excitedly, but that uneasy feeling did not go away.

I did all my research before I packed my bags, everything under the 3.4FLoz was met in accordance with the TSA website. I packed for warm weather, cool weather, and comfortable. Because of my careful and obsessive compulsive disorder, I made it though airport security without a single issue or an out of place eyelash.

I got my Starbucks.

Arriving at my gate, I watched all the people boarding their flights, saying goodbyes on phones, and checking in baggage. It was interesting to see how anxious some of my other would-be passengers were. It was almost reassuring that I wasn’t the only one. I had my boarding pass in hand, scanned it, and was on my way.

A quick scan on the plane reviled it was less then 1/3 booked. And me, being me. Was sat in the only section on the whole plane making it full. The two other women in the row were flying together. I was the outsider. The informed me in an almost ‘do this’ fashion that ‘once the flight attendant gave the okay, we could change seats - if we wanted’ I assumed we was me. I was happy to oblige them, and moved as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

As the plan taxied the run way, I became nervous. This was only my second time flying - and I was alone. This time there was no one to hold my hand. There was no one to share the experience with me. Nervously, I looked to the woman sitting across me in the  ‘new’ row, searching her face for some kind of comfort as the plane readied its position for take off. Though she glanced my direction, she offered no reassuring smile or gesture of comfort... to my dismay.

I sent my last text message before we were in the air, it was to people who I wanted to be the executors of my estate if something did happen, because, lets face it, doesn’t everyone feel ‘if something is going to happen, it can, will, and does.... to me.’ I realized when I sent these messages that I was truly afraid. There are many things I plan to do when I get home, a will being one of them. While I don’t know if my text messages to my loved ones would serve proof that I wanted them to have ‘the power’ if something happened, I felt it was better then nothing.

It seemed like an eternity before the plan was ready to actually take off. My new seat was directly over the left wing. A series of tests was done, starting, stopping, testing breaks, the landing gear, the wing gear, everything.

They pressurized the cabin, sending me into a silent, full on, panic attack. I tried to breathe slowly, and deeply, but this just wasn’t working. I pictured the plane crashing on the runway and how it would play out on the nightly news. I couldn’t help it, however morbid it may sound. 

The creaking and winding of the of the plane made the issues worse. The turbines. Oh the turbines... As I felt the plane lift off, the ground now a sad casualty to the magic of flight... I was freaking out. I prayed. ( I am writing this while waiting to arrive in Oakland, currently 40 minutes and counting. ) I sat in the middle of the row with the windows open, convinced I needed to make myself see this take place, maybe it would make me less afraid.

I don’t know how far from the ground we were when we started hitting turbulence. If I thought I was afraid before, it didn’t compare to how upset I was now. Before leaving home I had taken motion sickness pills ( I also suffer from rare but severe vertigo. ) and in all my careful planning... had forgotten my ibuprofen. With a stuffed up sinus, it started to become a migraine, and my panic did not help.

I looked around for the flight attendant when we finally got into the air. They were chit chatting in the back of the plane - while I starred at them in a needy manner. You know the look. Well, they ignored me. The pain grew worse while I waited my turn to be served. Finally. I let them know I needed pain killers. They did get me what I needed. More turbulence. At this point, I was done with it. So over it at this point. Then, I needed to potty. On the last flight, I was so afraid of getting out of my seat I waited three hours.

I wasn’t going to be able to wait, I unbuckled my seat belt with my trembling fingers, and walked to the back of the plane to use the lavatory. I hurriedly did my business and went back to my seat, promptly buckling my seatbelt. The flight attendant checked on me and let me know I could use my Macbook if I wanted. I did, I am. More turbulence as I write this. It sends my mind back to visions of the nightly news....

I can’t wait to get my feet back on the ground where they belong.

I think that if I want to pursue a job that affords me the luxury of travel, I need to get over this. I can’t drive everywhere.... right? Right.

We’re now decending at 2200 feet... or did he say 22000...? I have ‘The Dark Knight’ in my ear, so I am not sure. But we are about to arrive. If I manage to post this online... I made it.