Senior cats are prone to kidney disease - keep a lookout for symptoms

Kidney disease was brought to the forefront during the pet food recall, but what most people don't know is that kidney disease is very common in senior cats (7 years and older). If caught early enough, it can be treated and you can still have a few quality years left with your beloved cat.

Read more about my experience here and find out what to look out for.

The Grinch has been found

Yes folks, we've found the Grinch, at least one of them and this one resides in Boston, MA.

It seems like local Boy Scouts were collecting things for care packages to send to the troops, a noble thing to do if you ask me, but a city official by the name of Marsha Weinerman thought it sent a Pro-war message and shut their collection down.

The Boy Scouts leader got permission twice from the election board to place boxes for people to donate items for the care packages at polling places. Yes, he asked twice and was told it was OK. Then one person complained and Ms. Weinerman stepped in, notified law enforcement and shut them down saying they didn't have permission from the election board.

It took one complaint, from one person to shut this effort down, when all these boys were doing was trying to help and send a little love and hometown things to troops overseas. They said it had nothing to do with Pro-war, it was support and care for the troops, nothing more and nothing less.

The Boy Scouts are still collecting, just not at polling places. They didn't realize that such a good deed was going to be such a difficult task.

Here are some links to articles about the Grinch.

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/8125.html

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/blogs/boston/2007/11/14/dont-ever-change-cambridge/

What's your Halloween personality?

What Your Halloween Habits Say About You

You're a friendly person, but not the life of the party. You like making someone else's day - and you'll dress up if you think of a really fun costume. Sneaky and devious, people should really watch out for you. You are usually underestimated and forgotten. Your inner child is bittersweet, thoughtful, and never too greedy. You truly fear the dark side of humanity. You are a true misanthrope. You're logical, rational, and not easily effected. Not a lot scares you... especially when it comes to the paranormal. You are picky and high maintenance. If you wear a Halloween costume, it's only when you really feel like it. And it has to be perfect.

What's" Your Halloween Personality?

Oklahoma considering merit-based teacher pay

Depending on which side you're on, it's a good thing or a bad thing.

Teachers have gotten pay raises at least twice since Governor Brad Henry took office. Education was one of his big platforms in running, being a former teacher himself and his wife is still a teacher. These raises were given to keep the teachers in the state, a lot were leaving for Texas and other states in the region and to try and bring Oklahoma teacher pay closer to the regional average.

Some have said the teachers didn't deserve the raises, saying education hasn't really improved, but yet the teachers get more money now without proving they deserve it.

There are great teachers out there, ones that engage the students and actually make the students want to learn, these teachers should be paid more than the teacher down the hall that just hands out assignments for students to work on and then sit there and read the paper. Why should they get paid the same when the one teachers obviously cares about their students and the other sees it as just a job?

That's where this merit-based pay comes in, according to legislatures this would lead to more accountability and effort in the classrooms. They point to statistics where student performance improving under teachers that are rewarded for academic gains.

Teachers, however, seem to be against it, saying that it would force them to compete instead of work together. They also say that tying the pay raises/rewards to test scores doesn't really show how good of a teacher they are.

I think it may be time for merit-based pay. I don't see how they say it would make the teachers compete against each other, what would the competition be? Who is the better teacher? Who gets the most pay? Shouldn't the education of their students be their top priority, not how much more or less they make compared to Mr./Mrs. Jones down the hall? If they are a good teacher, I don't see how a merit-based pay system should hurt them.

Right now it seems like the Governor and the legislators are at a stalemate right now. The Governor saying that teacher pay must be at the regional level before he'd consider it and the legislature saying that teacher pay should not go up any more until this is implemented.

Big Brother producers fixing vote?

If you've read any of the message boards for Big Brother 8, I'm sure you've heard the rumors that the producers have tried talking some of the house guests into changing their vote. If true and this is coming from the people with the live feeds, it seems like the producers don't want America's Player to leave quite yet.

Admittedly, this is the first season that I have watched Big Brother, so I can't compare to any of the other seasons, but it is the first season with America's Player. I guess the biggest question is, would the producers really try and fix the vote to keep America's Player in the game?

Maybe, maybe not, I'm not sure, but I guess we'll find out tonight in the eviction ceremony, if Eric doesn't get voted out, then maybe what people are saying on the boards are true.

Your thoughts?

How safe are your bridges?

With what happened in Minnesota with the bridge collapse, how safe do you feel crossing the bridges in your state?

Here, in Oklahoma, I don't feel so safe. I found out we lead the nation in structurally deficeint bridges, including the I40 Crosstown. Wonderful huh?

They had a big press conference yesterday to address the public's concerns following what happened in Minnesota. They say none of the bridges are in danger of collapse and if they were, they would close them down. Well, they didn't think the bridge in Minnesota was going to collapse either, so that doesn't make me feel that safe.

Truckers come through here all the time and even they don't like the I40 Crosstown bridge. It is being addressed though, I40 is actually in phase four of being moved and improved, so the crosstown won't be an issue, but that's still a long way off.

The federal government requires inspections every two years, they inspect this bridge every six months.

I think more needs to be done.

Your thoughts?

Just about time to spend tons of money for back to school

I remember when I was a kid, my parents biggest expense for back to school were clothes, not so nowadays. Now we have to practically provide the whole class with supplies.

I'm not sure about where you live, but up until about fourth grade here, all supplies go into the "community" supplies for the class and the teachers hand things out as needed. I can understand needing paper, pencils, crayons, scissors, etc. for your child, but my youngest is suppose to bring in 60 number two pencils for school. Sixty! Can you believe that? Not everyone is made of money and it seems like half the kids in the classes don't bring in supplies at all.

With everything they're asking for for my sons third grade class, we will probably spend about $60 if we bought everything, oh and that includes hand sanitizer too! I'm just wondering what the schools actually supply now, other than the classroom and teachers?

Is it like this everywhere? Or is it just really screwed up here in Oklahoma?