Looking for cat health advice

 blather, cats  9 Responses »
Dec 212009
 

OK, here’s the story. Koshka is a female cat, about 9-10 years of age. I had to take her to the vet *again* today because she has a sore in her mouth… the sore hurts her enough that she not only has trouble eating, she *refuses* to eat. The sore seems to be caused by some proteins or other in her bloodstream… which are a result of her “kidney insufficiency” (the step before “kidney failure”). In order to clear up the sore and allow her to eat and put on some weight, the kidney insufficiency needs to be cleaned up; and the best approach to that is to get her to eat a special low-protein cat food. But… the sore prevents her from eating much of *anything,* and thus she’s stuck in a vicious cycle of FAIL.

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The vets are at a bit of a loss. She got a steroid shot today; a previous steroid shot *seemed* to bump up her appetite.
<> So, anybody got a clue for me here? I need to fix at least one of two problems:

1) Clear up that sore so’s she can eat

2) Jack up her appetite enough that she’ll eat regardless of the pain

Preferably, clear up the sore *AND*  somehow give her the munchies. It’s getting about to the point where I’m entertaining the notion of building a bong large enough to put a cat in, and get her trashed on pot… if I understand the effects adequately, it’d both reduce pain and increase appetite. But being a teetotaler in rural Utah, I’ve not the slightest damned clue how to go about buying about a bale of pot. I don’t think they sell it at Wal Mart or the ranch supply stores. And I understand that there are some minor legal issues.

So I’m kinda back to THIS…

 Posted by at 7:22 pm

Air Doc 16: Dornier Do 31 VTOL flight handbook

 aircraft, awesomeness, drawings, new products  3 Responses »
Dec 212009
 

Now available: a PDF copy of a 343 page Dornier flight handbook… “Vorlaufiges Flughandbuch Transportflugzeug Dornier Do 31 E1/E3,” dated 1 August 1969. Scanned in full color from an actual copy. Contains just about everything you need to know to fly the Do 31 VTOL transport aircraft… assuming you actually *have* a Do 31 lying around, and you read German. Includes engine design details and operations; instrument panel layouts; control, hydraulic and electrical system schematics; low-speed reaction control system details; landing gear details; takeoff performance, landing performance, fuel consumption… the whole bit. A whole lot of information regarding an aircraft for which there’s typically not a whole lot of information readily available.

The manual comes in two PDF files, each about 25 megabytes (split apart to make downloading easier and more reliable) .

Air Doc 16 can be downloaded for $6.50.


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 Posted by at 2:32 pm

Martin art for an operational HL-10

 aircraft, drawings, projects, spacecraft  4 Responses »
Dec 202009
 

Just like the title says. No further information than what you see here… looks like some sort of either science or recon platform. Note the substantial antenna sticking out the back, and the optical sensor looking through a hatch on the top of the vehicle.

Also of note are the disturbingly creepy “virtual reality goggles” worn by the pilot and copilot. To me these look like fiber optic cables running directly to periscopes on the underside. This would make sense as the cockpit layout would preclude any sort of decent forward vision, making landing a challenged. But it’s still pretty creepy lookin’ in a Matrixy sort of way.

Dates from the mid/late ’60’s.

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 Posted by at 10:58 pm

North American Rockwell Space Shuttle, 1971

 aircraft, drawings, projects, spacecraft  4 Responses »
Dec 192009
 

OK ya cheap mooches, here’s a great big diagram of the Space Shuttle as NAR saw it in 1971. Click on the pic to embiggen.

Note the four J-2 rocket engines rather than three SSME’s. Also note the airlock in the nose ahead of the cockpit and the RCS pods at the tips of the wings and the vertical tail.

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NOW don’t you want to support the cause? Buy My Stuff, such as aerospace drawings and documents and Aerospace Projects Review. Or you could just Donate. For more posts like this, click on the Unwanted Blog header up top and then click on the “Projects” category to the right (or just click the “Projects” link to the right, if you happen to see it).

UPDATE: here’s a slighty larger black & white version of the above drawing. 

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 Posted by at 5:09 pm

Wind Turbines + Farm

 photography  2 Responses »
Dec 182009
 

Took this shot a few months back in rural Illinois. The turbines were actually turning at a pretty good clip.

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While these are, sadly, not nuclear powerplants, it’s still nice to see additional power generation capability being installed.

 Posted by at 10:03 pm

The Saturn launched space station for Dyna Soar

 aircraft, awesomeness, drawings, projects, spacecraft  3 Responses »
Dec 182009
 

Along with the Titan launched station shown here, Boeing also put forward a design for a “wet lab” space station to be launched by a Saturn I. This station would be a prepackaged unit not unlike the Manned orbiting Laboratory, but permanently fixed to the front of the Saturn I’s S-IV second stage. Once in orbit solar panels would unfurl. The hydrogen tank of the S-IV would be available for further utilization.

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And to access the space station, Boeing suggested an operational version of the Dyna Soar as a Space Shuttle. The Shuttle would differ from the X-20 Dyna Soar in that the systems, materials and design would be refined after lessons learned from the X-20; the mass of science instruments would be deleted, freeing up considerable space in the center section to install seating for four space suited passengers (see here, here and here for more on that), and the power and thermal control systems in the aft repackaged to make room for a passageway tunnel leading into the Transstage adapter. Additional cargo space would be provided by splicing in a cylindrical section between the adapter and the Transstage. With further refinement, a sixth passenger could be squeezed into the aft section. Additionally, docking probes would be added to the upper side of the Dyna Soar wings.
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If you like the sort of aerospace history stuff I post, you can support the cause by Buying My Stuff, which includes aerospace drawings and documents, as well as the journal of unbuilt aircraft and spacecraft projects, Aerospace Projects Review. Or you could just Donate. To the right for more posts like this, click on the Unwanted Blog header up top and then click on the “Projects” tag to the right.

 Posted by at 9:37 pm

Stinky the friendly cat

 awesomeness, cats, photography  3 Responses »
Dec 182009
 

I’ve noticed that Stinky always wants to be friends with whatever cats are around, even when they don’t want to be friends with him. It’s a very common sight to see him walking along side-by-side with another cat, wrapping his tail around theirs. It may well be that it’s actually not what it seems to be in human terms – after all, he’s a cat, not a human – but it sure does look like affection.

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 Posted by at 7:44 pm
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