Hamster's building craft

Another weekend spent building stuff for the hamsters.

They have already made a hole on the floor in the central building of the linkage that connects the two containers that are their living space, and they are working on making a hole on the mid-landing of one of the stairs.

First they pee on it, then when the cardboard is soggy and wrinkly they chew it until they make a hole. Destroyers of cardboard buildings, all three of them.

No appreciation of the time and effort I put in to make those buildings, ungrateful furry brats! And the problem is we threw away all the other buildings when Cocoa passed away, so there is no alternative linkage bridge at the moment. =(

So I have to build a new one, and this time I am going with ice cream stick instead of cardboard. Well, the wall of the central building will probably still be cardboard, given the size, but the floor will be wooden ice cream sticks.

Over the last few weekends I have made a spiral staircase, one straight staircase and one folded staircase. All three are meant as the first part of the linkage of the two containers, the ground to central platform part.

Yes, really only need two but I made three for variety and back up.

Still no central building, and also need to bridge the gap between those staircases and the central platform, which I intend to do with a short staircase or bridge structure.

I purposely designed it this way so it's easier to isolate the three hamsters when it comes to giving treat, just remove the bridge structure and I have three areas for each of the hamsters to eat in peace without the others attempt to steal their treat.

Anyway, still much to do, so I guess still many weekends without the time for anything else.

Other |enjoyable events| category entries.

I went out (15)

It has been a long while since the last entry of this series, and to be honest, I thought that was the final entry of the series.

But I kept on recording the date and reason I went out, not because I still intend to post a blog entry, but simply because I like data.

Ya, I am weird like that. =P

Despite the surge in Covid-19 cases recently, it's fair to say that people no longer care about it. Plenty of people without mask in public enclosed places for a long while now. I do still wear mask when I am out and about, and wash my hands thoroughly after I got home, but I am probably the minority nowadays.

Anyway, I went to office to work today, and this going out today marks the 365th day I went out of the house since the Movement Control Order (MCO) started back in 2020. The MCO has ended a while back, but that doesn't change the antisocial stay-at-home person that I am.

I have just crunched the data, 215 of them since July 2022. I am not going to list all 215 of them, but the top reason why I went out of the house may be a surprise to you.

I categorized the reason of going out of the house into seven category: 1. work, 2. eat out, 3. takeaway meal (to eat at home), 4. chauffeur duty, 5. visit mom at nursing house, 6. family trip, 7. others.

Chauffeur duty includes but not limited to, driving kids to and from tuition, school, activities, et cetera; pick up and drop of relatives at airport; driving wifey to places; delivery of wifey's stuff to friends or customer.

The category 'others' includes things like going to the bank, clinic, hospital, lawyer firm, car service, that sort of stuff.

There are of course days when I was out for more than one of the reasons listed, I categorized such a day under the main reason I was out, or the first thing I did on that day I was out. For example if I went to work and takeaway lunch home, the main reason is work.

So, anyway, three categories have double digit percentage out of the 215 days out, the third highest being 'eat out' at 13.0% (28 days), the second highest being 'work' at 19.5% (42 days).

The indisputable top reason I went out since July last year till now is to be a driver, a whopping 41.4% (89 days)!

Ya, data does not lie.

Alrighty, let's end this entry in the manner of this series. As of 14th of December 2023, 1388 days have past since the beginning of Movement Control Order on 18th of March in 2020. I have been out of the house 365 times in 198.3 weeks, so about 1.84 times per week on average, or about once every 3.8 days.

Other |temperamental thoughts| category entries.

Inefficiency

I have been working on a thermal model for many days now, and it's not a start from scratch model, but I am still not done.

The progress is so slow despite working exclusively on that one model and no other. I have other models to work on in the backlog, *sigh...*

Today I didn't had time to work on the model, spent the whole day to prepare one presentation, something I have to present tomorrow.

Whole day for one presentation with ten subjects, and it's a miraculous day with only one meeting that I need to attend.

Why am I so slow? Is it some end of the year effect?

Other |temperamental thoughts| category entries.

徒劳无功

星期五晚餐后，开始为三个小毛孩制造些建筑物。

那三只仓鼠，总是在不对的地方小便，我那做得很满意，连接它们两个生活容器的楼梯，已经多处被它们尿到纸皮湿透，要烂了。

星期五晚餐后做的吊桥，情人老婆仔不满意，而且也没有想象中那么容易当作连接两个容器的桥梁，所以基本上是作废了。

星期六午餐后到晚餐前，还有晚餐后几个小时，做了个螺旋楼梯。第一个版本情人老婆仔不满意，仓鼠也只会上不懂得怎么下那楼梯，所以拆散做了第二个版本。

螺旋楼梯的顶端暂且是一个平台，完成后就放在仓鼠生活的容器里，要看看是否适合仓鼠运用后才继续下一步逐渐建成连接容器的完整楼梯。

晚餐后情人老婆仔用苹果引诱仓鼠们去用那螺旋楼梯，看来上楼梯不是问题，下楼梯也不知道是不是问题，但就是常常与其好好走完楼梯，它们会下到一半就跳下去，有时也会掉下去。

所以我在螺旋楼梯外围加上了类似围墙的东西。加完那围墙我觉得那螺旋楼梯好像比较像是艺术品，不像实用的楼梯…

再放回让仓鼠试用，好像也没有什么差别，是有会好好用楼梯走完的，但更多是走捷径和还是会有跌倒掉下去的。

两天总共用了有八、九个小时来做这些东西，结果好像都不行。

唉～ 怎么最近总是感觉很徒劳无功？

随兴随想 |系列|

我的不一样

二哥的大女儿每年不是全级第一名就是第二名，令人敬佩的学霸！

今天得知弟弟的大女儿也是全级第一名，又一位学霸！真厉害。

我，呃… 我没有女儿…

我玩笑的问了我那好好学习的儿子，他很笃定的自认不能全级第一。他应该也没有那野心吧？

其实他已经很好了，应该是比我中学时还要好，更重要的是他有正确的态度和自律，所以我很欣慰。

另一个态度很有问题又毫无自律的儿子，每况愈下的成绩在几个学期后已经到了触手可及全级倒数第一名的地位。

处于全级倒数十五百分率，再持续他下滑的趋势，全级最后一名是非常可能的事，唉～

当然不希望他会往那个第一前进，但他不改他那错误的态度，很难会有正向的进步。

或许有些人就是需要走冤枉路、吃尽苦，才会醒觉领悟的吧？

还在等他醒觉的那一天…

随兴随想 |系列|

Bye November

While November is Movember for the world, well, for those who know about Movember, November is also slacker month for me.

If you haven't noticed after more than a decade, there are only four blog entries in November, while the rest of the months have eleven entries.

Yup, very consistent, all these years.

For November is my self-proclaimed slacker month, where I get to slack and only post four entries, hehe. =P

But it's December now, so back to posting an entry every few days, instead of about one per week.

Oh well, it's not like I have been living up to my slacker extraordinaire reputation these few years anyway...

Other |temperamental thoughts| category entries.

一团糟

说了好一阵子，那要和同事分享我八字的皮毛知识的事，今天终于都发生了。

坦白说，真的是一团糟！

亏我为了准备分享的资料，忙到靠近凌晨一点，今天连第一个重要步骤都没有完成，更不用讲分析八字的部分了。

就是，根本都还没有到如何运用来分析八字的部分，时间就已经结束了。

不知道是解释能力，还是理解能力的问题？

还是就是想得太完美，而事实就是不可能在短短不到一个小时的时间里能够分享那么多的资讯的。

感觉很徒劳无功就是了，唉～

随兴随想 |系列|