Bradley Robertson dot com - Blog

New Site Update

Bradley Robertson — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 17:09:50 +0000

I has been almost 9 months since I posted about revising this site. I also realize I am about 8 months over-due on posting an update regarding that. Well, I ran in to some problems. Initially I was going to programatically transfer from Drupal to Wordpress, and I still could if it weren't for one of the decisions I made after making that post. I decided that I wanted to split this current site in two. This current site will be more autobiographic and resumé based. The new site will contain my blog, videos, pictures.

Because of the decision to split the site transferring posts from one domain to another became a little more daunting that I wanted to endeavor in. Since then I have been manually moving my content a few posts at a time. I haven't seriously undertaken this task for at least 4 months though. I hit the half-way point and just kind of wanted to take a break for a while. Previously I said I would complete the transition by US Independence Day. Maybe I will hit that milestone this year.

Great response from an artist about music piracy and my personal confession.

Bradley Robertson — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 21:05:16 +0000

I was doing my daily scanning of Fark when I came across a link to an article on The Consumerist about an NPR intern who has a collection of 11,000 songs she didn't pay for. Apparently this has caused quite an uproar considering she plans on eventually making a living in the music industry, but she doesn't feel that bad about what she has done even though she knows it was wrong. In the article The Consumerist links to a blog post on The Trichordist written by David Lowery, of the bands Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker. Being a casual fan of Cracker I clicked the link, and I was impressed with Lowery's well thought out response. Any summary I could provide would not be doing the article justice so I implore you to take the time the read his post.

One part of the article I found interesting was when Lowery suggested the intern could do the right thing by paying the royalties due to the songwriters and performing artists. He suggests:

Let’s just make the calculation based on exactly what the artist should make. First, the mechanical royalty to the songwriters. This is generally the artist. The royalty that is supposed to be paid by law is 9.1 cents a song for every download or copy. So that is $1,001 for all 11,000 of your songs. Now let’s suppose the artist has an average 15% royalty rate. This is calculated at wholesale value. Trust me, but this comes to 10.35 cents a song or $1,138.50. So to ethically and morally “get right” with the artists you would need to pay $2,139.50.

There were two things I found interesting about this formula. First, it was a confirmation to me of just how little the average artist makes off of CD/Digital music sales. Second, it is similar to how I have tried to make amends for the music I have illegally downloaded over the years.

Regarding the former, I want to clarify some things first. I never amassed a collection of 11,000 songs. Prior to 2007 I downloaded less than 500 songs. Some were from file sharing sites, others were done by ripping online radio streams. Regardless of the method, the reason I put 2007 as the last date I downloaded anything without paying for it is because that is when Amazon MP3 went live. I knew that from 1999-2007 I was depriving the artists the small pittance they made. I also felt bad about it, just not enough to discontinue doing it. The reason I continued to download music illegally was there was no easy way to do so legally.

Before you start going off about how iTunes debuted in 2001 I need to clarify what I mean by easy. I have never owned any sort of of iDevice or any portable device that supported Windows Plays for Sure DRM. I bought my first in dash car MP3 player in 2005, and my first stand-alone (a Creative Zen 1st Gen) in 2006. Neither of which would play any sort of DRM music except for the Zen that had the ability to play files from Audible. Really what it came down to is I refused to pay for any digital content that had DRM. I was against DRM then, and still am now. Sure you could easily bypass the DRM by burning the songs as a music CD then rip the CD to MP3. I felt at that time I might as well just buy the commercially available CD and rip that to my computer instead. In most cases I would spend the same about of money, and I would have a physical back-up of my music (which I have taken advantage of to re-rip my music at higher bit-rates as storage became cheaper). What I am getting at is I wasn't against paying for music, I was against paying for music in a DRM'ed format. When Amazon MP3 hit the scene I stopped downloading music illegally and started paying for it.

You might ask, "Why didn't I just buy the CDs for all of my music and not download anything?" Well for better or worse, most of the music I stole I only wanted that particular song, and not the whole CD for a playlist or a video project. It doesn't make what I did any less wrong, but it is the truth.

Now that the confession of my wrong-doing is out of the way, it is time for me to explain how I am making amends. First I want to point out that I no longer have a copy of many of the songs I downloaded. They were either deleted shortly after using them in a playlist or were lost due to mechanical failure of a hard drive with the back-up image being more than a year old. The one's I do still have I have slowly purchased from either Amazon or Google Music as I find them on my hard drive or add them to a playlist. I basically only have 3 playlists I use and listen to. Those are radio singles from all my CDs and purchased MP3s, an 8 hour Party Mix that is constantly evolving, and a down-beat chillaxin' mix. I am more likely to listen to Pandora One or SiriusXM (of which the latter breaks out the portion that goes to copyright holders on your billing). Even though the aforementioned playlists are easily accessible to me at any time on my phone, I have found that as I get older I would rather someone else act as my DJ.

I'm not going to pretend that paying for all my downloaded music and paying for all the radio services I use makes up for what I did in the past. I obviously helped perpetuate others ability to share the songs I downloaded and subsequently shared. It is hard put a price on that lost revenue that allowed others to steal as well, but I definitely don't think the price the RIAA suggests of $11k per song is reasonable either. At the very least, I feel like I am accepting what did, discontinuing my previous transgressions, and doing what I can within my means to pay for the items I previously stole. Hopefully others, including the NPR intern, will come to the same conclusion and the recording industry can start to recover in the future.

New Site Coming Soon

Bradley Robertson — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 16:00:22 +0000

I took the site down over the weekend thinking that 1) I might start working on an update and 2) that I would have to make changes to the live files. Well I finally figured out how to install and use a development server on my home computer so I don't need to take the site offline except when I am uploading and replacing new files. My hope is to get the new site uploaded by Independence Day. If I'm not done by then, I will at least post another update. In case you are are wondering, the update will be to move from Drupal to Wordpress. Wordpress is just simpler to use, and easier to access on mobile devices and tablets. I plan on keeping a similar design, but with a new CMS. TTFN.

Battling Online Identity Creation

Bradley Robertson — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:43:15 +0000

One of the things I rarely talk about on this site is my family. More specifically, my daughter. Yes, I have a daughter, and I believe this the first time I have mentioned her. Based on the title of this entry I am sure you know where I am going with this. Before I start talking about this specific issue and how it relates to my daughter, (and the incident that that brought this all to head) I want to address how I see others treating the issue.

Chances are if you are over 25, at least one of your friends on Facebook has a child. Chances are also good that same person posts pictures of their child a couple times a week, or makes a post referencing something their child did. Why shouldn’t they? They love their child, and want to share the amusing/quirky/silly/cute things they do with their friends and family. 20 years ago that was not as easy. Typically you would call your friends and family a occasionally to give a status update on your child’s development. Less often you might send prints you got doubles or triples of when you have your film (yes film) processed at the local drug store. Some might even say it’s so easy a caveman could do – wrong company I know, but the metaphor still applies.

Here’s the rub: when you share your pictures of your child on Facebook you are potentially establishing your child’s online identity even if you have your privacy locked down as tight as Facebook allows. How? Several years ago Facebook setup an option that allows users to share photos with non-Facebook users by sharing a direct link to the picture or Album. Assuming your privacy settings are in set up correctly, if your mom tries to share your photos with her co-workers via that method, the link should not work for her co-workers. However, nothing is stopping grandma from downloading the album from Facebook and sharing it image files via email. While it is unlikely those co-workers would forward the images further, you have no control on what they do with them once grandma has sent them out to the ether.

Let’s say none of this bothers you so far and you have your profile completely public, or at the very least you have your photos public. Let’s also suggest that this hypothetical grandma doesn’t have a Facebook account, but has no problems sending emails back and forth and attaching links to websites. For that reason, you send grandma the public link to one of the photo albums so she can see it. Likewise, other friends of yours had shared the link with people they know because, lets face it, your child is the cutest child that has ever graced the face of the Earth. Well, one of your savvier friends points out the picture of your naked toddler could end up being masturbatory fodder for pedophile and suggests you take it down. You realize the error, and delete the photo from the album. You can’t destroy any copies that might have been saved, but you assume that you have prevented the image from being distributed from the source any longer.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be true. According to this Ars Technica story, they have found images that were supposedly deleted 3 years ago but are still accessible via a direct link. According to the article, the reason for this is they have a backlog off requests for deletion of the shareable links and all links are supposed to be deleted within 45 days as those seem to be managed by a 3rd party. Notice that they mention only the links are being deleted, and not necessarily the files themselves? The author didn’t really explore this part of the issue, but it would not surprise me at all if Facebook is keeping any file uploaded regardless of whether or not the user as deleted the file.

Facebook isn’t the only social media outlet that has come under fire for things of this nature, but it stuck out to me due to the article’s recent publish date. Which brings me back to how this affects my daughter. As much as I would love to share things about my daughter far and wide across the internet I have resisted. My reasoning against doing this is I feel like if make every picture I take of her public, she will have strong online presence before she can even legally create her first online account at the age of 13 per COPPA. I know many parents don’t even give a second thought to this, but I think it should be her choice what people can learn about her online. When she turns of age and wants to upload all of the pictures that I have taken during that time to her own personal account, and make it public that is her choice. I will probably encourage her not to, but I will leave it up to her.

Finally, I want to discuss the incident that brought this to a head recently. I found out that one of the people I had been sharing some photos with via a relatively private online photo site had been sharing those same pictures with over 50 people. Some of those contacts were individuals that I explicitly did not want to share photos with for various reasons. I was furious. I later found out that the person re-sharing didn’t realize it the photos were being re-dissiminated so far and wide. The list was originally created to send just a few pictures of the birth and that’s it. Unfortunately, the service the person was using was automatically sending updates any new pictures were added. The problem has been since corrected. However, it has made me reconsider even letting my wife have access to these online photos, and only using online storage as a back-up since a local back-up hard drive can be destroyed in a fire. I may just go back to sharing prints like I, and everyone else used to 20 years ago.

Basically I just wanted to put this out there to reinforce that nothing you publish online is truly private, and to offer up my example as a learning experience. I know some of my views won’t be popular, and I am okay with that. Everyone has the right to raise their children the way they see fit provided they are abiding by the law. However, just because technology has made it easier to share our lives and experiences it doesn’t mean we share all of it. At the very least, think twice about sharing information about others that have no say in the matter.

I'm back again..

Bradley Robertson — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 22:29:43 +0000

No matter how hard I try to ignore this site I just can't bring myself to do it. I've been working on this site on and off for almost 5 years now, and I can't seem to find a good alternative for the same or less than I pay for my hosting currently. I know I mentioned previously that I had moved to Google+. I did, and I still use the service. However, I didn't like it as a means to convey longer topics. Staying within the Google family I took at look at Blogger and determined that while I could probably get by with it, it didn't serve all my needs. Not to mention the work that would be involved to port over my content. I may revisit that in the future, and if I do I plan on pointing my domain there as well.

In the upcoming weeks and months look for a book review or two, maybe a new on-going series, and at least one possible about kids and the digital age. TTFN.

I've moved to Google Plus

Bradley Robertson — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 18:44:32 +0000

Well, it finally happened. I will no longer be posting on this site. I mentioned previously that I would start posting on both my site and Facebook to gain a little more readership. I have had a love/hate relationship for a while now. I have made my profile inactive twice and deleted it and started over once. I now use Google+ and Twitter almost exclusively when it comes to social media. As a result, I am directing you to follow me on Google+. It is quicker and easier to make a post about an article, or just some random thoughts. Lately, I have been writing a few paragraphs for each article I post, always forgetting I have this site.

This site will stay up and running so that I maintain some sort of non-social media presence. However, I asking you to join me on Google+ if you want to continue hearing about the Ramblings and Meanderings That Make Up My Life.

Change is a coming

Bradley Robertson — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 03:41:11 +0000

As is obvious by the publish dates on this site I haven't been doing much with it recently. However, I am hoping to change that. On Facebook I would usually post one or two articles a day about something that I found interesting, humorous, that pissed me off, or a combination of the above. Well, I recently deleted my Facebook account and need an outlet for that. Since I have more followers on Twitter (where I will be promoting my posts) than I did on Facebook I figured would start posting the articles on my site. It will take a little more time, but at least I will still be able to share. These new items will be under the category of "News" vs most of my posts being under the term "Blog".

I will probably start posting a story or two each day next week. Hopefully I'll hit a nerve with someone and spark some discussion.

The History of Halloween

Bradley Robertson — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 15:34:19 +0000

I wanted to take the time to reiterate that Halloween is not an evil holiday despite what Jack Chick or some of the mainstream media might say. In an effort to try to promote that message an organization called Halloween Army was formed to encourage the spreading of a positive message about Halloween. Anyone who has read my blog knows that I feel it is important to help create fun and positive Halloween memories for children. I have this belief for two reasons. 1) The holiday was created for children as a reaction to mischief nights that occurred in the first half of the 20th Century. Children need this one day a year where "acting out" is okay. In a society where children are being faced with, and being asked to make adult decisions earlier and earlier it is important to still have this child focused holiday. 2)Children who have positive experiences with Halloween grow-up to be adults who have positive views about Halloween. I try to do my part each year with my Halloween display. Based on the reactions I get from the kids each year once I start setting it up I think it is working. Since I doubt there are any young ones who read this site, my message today is meant for adults. The best way that I know how to do that is to share the high level history of Halloween published by Halloween Army. The below information has been republished with permission

Halloween is a holiday celebrated on the night of October 31. Traditional activities include trick-or-treating, bonfires, costume parties, visiting “haunted houses” and carving jack-o-lanterns. Irish and Scottish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. Other western countries embraced the holiday in the late twentieth century including Ireland, the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom as well as of Australia and New Zealand. Halloween has its origins in the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain (pronounced “sah-win”).

The festival of Samhain is a celebration of the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture. Samhain was a time used by the ancient pagans to take stock of supplies and prepare for winter. The ancient Gaels believed that on October 31, the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead overlapped and the deceased would come back to life and cause havoc such as sickness or damaged crops.

The festival would frequently involve bonfires. It is believed that the fires attracted insects to the area which attracted bats to the area. These are additional attributes of the history of Halloween. Masks and consumes were worn in an attempt to mimic the evil spirits or appease them.

Trick-or-treating, is an activity for children on or around Halloween in which they proceed from house to house in costumes, asking for treats such as confectionery with the question, “Trick or treat?” The “trick” part of “trick or treat” is a threat to play a trick on the homeowner or his property if no treat is given. Trick-or-treating is one of the main traditions of Halloween. It has become socially expected that if one lives in a neighborhood with children one should purchase treats in preparation for trick-or-treaters.

The history of Halloween has evolved. The activity is popular in the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, and due to increased American cultural influence in recent years, imported through exposure to US television and other media, trick-or-treating has started to occur among children in many parts of Europe, and in the Saudi Aramco camps of Dhahran, Akaria compounds and Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia. The most significant growth — and resistance is in the United Kingdom, where the police have threatened to prosecute parents who allow their children to carry out the “trick” element. In continental Europe, where the commerce-driven importation of Halloween is seen with more skepticism, numerous destructive or illegal “tricks” and police warnings have further raised suspicion about this game and Halloween in general.

In Ohio, Iowa, and Massachusetts, the night designated for Trick-or-treating is often referred to as Beggars Night.

Part of the history of Halloween is Halloween costumes. The practice of dressing up in costumes and begging door to door for treats on holidays goes back to the Middle Ages, and includes Christmas wassailing. Trick-or-treating resembles the late medieval practice of “souling,” when poor folk would go door to door on Hallowmas (November 1), receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day (November 2). It originated in Ireland and Britain, although similar practices for the souls of the dead were found as far south as Italy. Shakespeare mentions the practice in his comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593), when Speed accuses his master of “puling [whimpering, whining], like a beggar at Hallowmas.”

Yet there is no evidence that souling was ever practiced in America, and trick-or-treating may have developed in America independent of any Irish or British antecedent. There is little primary Halloween history documentation of masking or costuming on Halloween — in Ireland, the UK, or America — before 1900. The earliest known reference to ritual begging on Halloween in English speaking North America occurs in 1911, when a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario, near the border of upstate New York, reported that it was normal for the smaller children to go street guising (see below) on Halloween between 6 and 7 p.m., visiting shops and neighbors to be rewarded with nuts and candies for their rhymes and songs. Another isolated reference appears, place unknown, in 1915, with a third reference in Chicago in 1920. The thousands of Halloween postcards produced between the turn of the 20th century and the 1920s commonly show children but do not depict trick-or-treating. Ruth Edna Kelley, in her 1919 history of the holiday, The Book of Hallowe’en, makes no mention of such a custom in the chapter “Hallowe’en in America.” It does not seem to have become a widespread practice until the 1930s, with the earliest known uses in print of the term “trick or treat” appearing in 1934, and the first use in a national publication occurring in 1939. Thus, although a quarter million Scots-Irish immigrated to America between 1717 and 1770, the Irish Potato Famine brought almost a million immigrants in 1845–1849, and British and Irish immigration to America peaked in the 1880s, ritualized begging on Halloween was virtually unknown in America until generations later.

Trick-or-treating spread from the western United States eastward, stalled by sugar rationing that began in April 1942 during World War II and did not end until June 1947.

Early national attention to trick-or-treating was given in October 1947 issues of the children’s magazines Jack and Jill and Children’s Activities, and by Halloween episodes of the network radio programs The Baby Snooks Show in 1946 and The Jack Benny Show and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet in 1948. The custom had become firmly established in popular culture by 1952, when Walt Disney portrayed it in the cartoon Trick or Treat, Ozzie and Harriet were besieged by trick-or-treaters on an episode of their television show, and UNICEF first conducted a national campaign for children to raise funds for the charity while trick-or-treating.

Trick-or-treating on the prairie. Although some popular histories of Halloween have characterized trick-or-treating as an adult invention to rechannel Halloween activities away from vandalism, nothing in the historical record supports this theory. To the contrary, adults, as reported in newspapers from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s, typically saw it as a form of extortion, with reactions ranging from bemused indulgence to anger. Likewise, as portrayed on radio shows, children would have to explain what trick-or-treating was to puzzled adults, and not the other way around. Sometimes even the children protested: for Halloween 1948, members of the Madison Square Boys Club in New York City carried a parade banner that read “American Boys Don’t Beg.”

A jack-o’-lantern (sometimes also spelled Jack O’Lantern) is typically a carved pumpkin. It is associated chiefly with the holiday Halloween. Typically the top is cut off, and the inside flesh then scooped out; an image, usually a monstrous face, is carved onto the outside surface, and the lid replaced. During the night, a candle is placed inside to illuminate the effect. The term is not particularly common outside North America, although the practice of carving lanterns for Halloween is.

In folklore, an old Irish folk tale tells of Jack, a lazy yet shrewd farmer who uses a cross to trap the Devil. One story says that Jack tricked the Devil into climbing an apple tree, and once he was up there Jack quickly placed crosses around the trunk or carved a cross into the bark, so that the Devil couldn’t get down. Another myth says that Jack put a key in the Devil’s pocket while he was suspended upside-down;

Another version of the myth says that Jack was getting chased by some villagers from whom he had stolen, when he met the Devil, who claimed it was time for him to die. However, the thief stalled his death by tempting the Devil with a chance to bedevil the church-going villagers chasing him. Jack told the Devil to turn into a coin with which he would pay for the stolen goods (the Devil could take on any shape he wanted); later, when the coin/Devil disappeared, the Christian villagers would fight over who had stolen it. The Devil agreed to this plan. He turned himself into a silver coin and jumped into Jack’s wallet, only to find himself next to a cross Jack had also picked up in the village. Jack had closed the wallet tight, and the cross stripped the Devil of his powers; and so he was trapped. In both myths, Jack only lets the Devil go when he agrees never to take his soul. After a while the thief died, as all living things do. Of course, his life had been too sinful for Jack to go to heaven; however, the Devil had promised not to take his soul, and so he was barred from Hell as well. Jack now had nowhere to go. He asked how he would see where to go, as he had no light, and the Devil mockingly tossed him an ember that would never burn out from the flames of hell. Jack carved out one of his turnips (which was his favorite food), put the ember inside it, and began endlessly wandering the Earth for a resting place. He became known as “Jack of the Lantern”, or Jack-o’-Lantern.

There are variations on the legend:

Some versions include a “wise and good man”, or even God helping Jack to prevail over the Devil. There are different versions of Jack’s bargain with the Devil. Some variations say the deal was only temporary but the Devil, embarrassed and vengeful, refuses Jack entry to hell after Jack dies. Jack is considered a greedy man and is not allowed into either heaven or hell, without any mention of the Devil.

Despite the colorful legends, the term jack-o’-lantern originally meant a night watchman, or man with a lantern, with the earliest known use in the mid-17th century; and later, meaning an ignis fatuus or will-o’-the-wisp. In Labrador and Newfoundland, both names “Jacky Lantern” and “Jack the Lantern” refer to the will-o’-the-wisp concept rather than the pumpkin carving aspect.

Halloween costumes are outfits worn on or around October 31, the day of Halloween. Halloween is a modern-day holiday originating in the Pagan Celtic holiday of Samhain (in Christian times, the eve of All Saints Day). Although popular histories of Halloween claim that the practice goes back to ancient celebrations of Samhain, in fact there is little primary documentation of masking or costuming on Halloween before the twentieth century. Costuming became popular for Halloween parties in America in the early 1900s, as often for adults as for children. The first mass-produced Halloween costumes appeared in stores in the 1930s when trick-or-treating was becoming popular in the United States.

What sets Halloween costumes apart from costumes for other celebrations or days of dressing up is that they are often designed to imitate supernatural and scary beings. Costumes are traditionally those of monsters such as vampires, ghosts, skeletons, witches, and devils. There are also costumes of pop culture figures like presidents, or film, television, and cartoon characters. Another popular trend is for women (and in some cases, men) to use Halloween as an excuse to wear particularly revealing costumes, showing off more skin than would be socially acceptable otherwise.

Today is National Feral Cat Day

Bradley Robertson — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 17:28:48 +0000

If you have been following my Twitter account or are friends with me on Facebook over the last 3 months then you know that I have been taking care of an adult outdoor stray cat and most recently a stray kitten. I started taking care of Buddy (the adult stray) in July. After about a month of feeding him it was obvious to me that I had become his primary food source. In any other year I probably would have decided to take him in as my own. However, with the arrival of a new baby just weeks away I didn't want put any more stress on my current pets, or have another pet that I would have to watch when dealing with a newborn. As a result, I started thinking about Buddy's options for the upcoming winter even though it was still in the mid to high 90's in my area.

At first I looked at dog houses and realized that most of them were too big to help retain the body heat of a cat. Then I started finding DIY winter cat shelters. During that search I came across the Alley Cat Allies site, the originator of Feral Cat Day. On their site I found a wealth of resources on how to care for stray and feral cats. One thing I noticed that they focussed on was Trap, Neuter, and Return or "TNR." Raising awareness about the TNR initiative is one of the main goals of National Feral Cat Day.

Before delving more into the TNR program I want take a moment to distinguish stray and feral cats. Stray cats (sometimes referred to as "lost cats") are friendly around humans. Once you have established a bond of trust with them they will let you pet them, pick them up, and depending on the cat even sit in your lap. Feral cats on the other hand, usually will not let you within a 5-10 foot buffer zone. They are generally afraid of people and typically find places to hide during the day. If you feed a feral they will eventually see you as their caretaker and will be amicable toward you, but the likelihood of you ever being able to pet them is low. Stray cats can eventually become feral if they are left alone without consistent human contact. Whether it be a no-kill shelter, a foster home, or your house the best place for a stray cat is always in an indoor home. If you do find a stray cat I urge you to make any attempt possible to find the original owner, or find the cat a new "forever home" as many cat adoption agencies like to say.

While stray cats can be adopted or taken in, feral cats will always remain feral and cannot be taken in as pets. Even a cat that is found to be free of disease is still likely to be euthanized if taken to a shelter because it cannot be adopted out. Because of this it is important to use TNR for colony management. Trap, Neuter, and Return campaigns have a dual effect on colonies. First, neutering males helps prevent a colony from increasing in size due to the inability to reproduce. Second, neutered males are much less aggressive than intact males. Diseases such as FeLV and FIV are spread most often by fighting males, as well as by infected mothers who have litters. Because of the latter reason you may be wondering why it isn't recommended for females to be spayed. Well, it isn't that it isn't recommended as much as there is a greater benefit to neutering just the males compared to just the females. Neutering is cheaper and less invasive than spaying. Additionally, there is a greater decrease of aggression in neutered males compared to spayed females. When possible females should be spayed, but it is important to note the cost is higher and the recovery time is longer.

In areas where TNR has been implemented, not only are the colonies healthier and smaller, but there are fewer occurrences of feral cats unnecessarily being euthanized. You may be thinking that this is a lot of work, and you are correct. That is not to say that you have an obligation to implement a TNR initiative in your area. Not everyone likes cats or has the time and money to manage a colony, and that's fine. Simply being supportive of these efforts by your neighbors and friends goes a long way.

For more information about Feral Cats visit Alley Cat Allies at http://http://alleycat.org

For more information about low cost spay or neuter as low as $15 in the Kansas City area visit No More Homeless Pets KC at http://nmhpkc.org/

The Grape Coffee House and Bar

Bradley Robertson — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 19:06:13 +0000

Any one who knows me well knows I spent a good junk of my teenage years at The Grape Coffee House and Bar. I have been going through all my old pictures I took at The Grape (which can be seen at the previous link) and I was wondering if I could find a copy of a new article that I was [mis]-quoted in regarding The Grape. I found a text only version of that article in the Kansas City Star's archives. There seemed to be a few scanning errors of the original text as midway through it starts talking about gardening. I have removed those parts and pieced back together the best way that makes since. Some of my fellow Grape rats are also mentioned in photo captions, sans photos in this article. I hope everyone enjoys this and that the KC Star does not object to me reposting this.

The Kansas City Star
1999-07-07
Section: METROPOLITAN
Edition: JOHNSON COUNTY
Page: B1
Coffee house home to teens The Grape's youth, brew draw praise from its regulars
MHARI DOYLE The Kansas City Star

For many teen-agers who think they suffer a woeful fate by being from Johnson County, a sliver of salvation sits in the middle of an Overland Park strip shopping center, flanked by a Hy-Vee and a Tanner's Bar & Grill. While their urban peers flock to Westport coffee houses, some Johnson County youths have carved out a place for their suburban version of a kaffeeklatsch - the Grape Coffee House and Bar.

``It's an oasis in a sea of absurdity,'' said Joe Sandor, 19, a graduate of Shawnee Mission East High School. ``It's a haven for those who feel they don't mesh with Johnson County. ... You really get to meet people (here) who don't fit the norm or the standard.''

Johnson County has plenty of teen hangouts, including other coffee houses. But Grape fans say no other place has that special blend of hipness, youth and coffee beans.

The Grape, 10126 W. 119th St., provides the stage for hundreds of Johnson County teens and young adults to act out their daily dramas - from political debates to gossip to discussions about where to go next.

Inside the gray stucco walls of the coffee house, young coffee drinkers wearing athletic shoes or tie-dyed T-shirts clash with the Grape's antique touches, such as vintage tea sets and Victorian-era cabinets.

``I've never thought about the location,'' said Kate Oland, 18, a St. Thomas Aquinas High School graduate. ``I'm just so used to walking down to Hy-Vee to get something to eat.''

Sandor travels to the Grape from Lawrence, where he will attend the University of Kansas in the fall.

``Over the years we've accumulated so many people,'' Sandor said.

``One of the regulars might know 90 percent of the people here. It started to become a family.''

Oland goes to the Grape because all her friends are there, she said.

``We'll say, 'I'll see you there,' and you don't even have to say we're going to the Grape,'' Oland said. ``There's such a wide range of people here.''

On most nights, the small coffee shop is packed with teens, unmindful of the line of SUVs headed for the grocery. They usually slurp down Grape specials - frozen mocha drinks with whipped cream - as they talk with friends and inhale cigarettes.

The Grape sells alcohol and tobacco, including many types of cigars, and [missing text from faulty scan] ... But there's no discrimination among cliques. No matter who you are, you come here to talk.''

Roman Goykhman, 20, and Jonya Sablin, 21, have been going to the coffee house since they were exchange students at Shawnee Mission West High School. ``It's a good place to hang,'' said Sablin, who is from Ukraine. ``And we meet people before we go places.''

Bradley Robertson, 19, a graduate of Blue Valley Northwest High School, feels secure at the Grape, he said. ``It's always going to be the Grape,'' Robertson said. ``There are people here I can relate to, and this is where I've gotten accustomed to. I won't stop coming.''

Many teens, including (clockwise, from left) Matt Yeager, Kim Sleszynski, Joe Oland and (background) Kelly Witcher, use the Grape Coffee House and Bar as a place to meet people or hang out.

Desiree Hannen (left) and Molly Kitchen are among the teens who hang out at the Grape Coffee House and Bar in Overland Park.

To reach Mhari Doyle, call (816) 234-7729 or send e-mail to doylem@kcstar.com

I still talk to many of the people in this article via Facebook. If you were metioned I hope you enjoyed this blast from the past. I still remember that particular summer very well. While I may not have realized it at the time, those were some of best days of my life.