Hokay, so… Emylene rocks, and she got me lotsa cool stuff for my birthday. Specifically, she:
– baked me a batch of chocolate-chip cookies (my favorite, ya know), using (I think?) this recipe from Martha “Jailbird” Stewart
– got me a cool long-sleeved shirt and an all-weather log book from geocaching.com (I guess she’s been reading my blog entries)
– got me a really cool (okay, maybe that’s stretching the term “cool” a little) soups-and-stews cookbook, since she’s knows I’ve been hunting for a good 15-bean soup recipe (and my old crock-pot)
– took me out to dinner at Betelnut, where you can get Pan-Asian Cuisine, and check out all the hotties as they check each other out, et cetera
– went to the East Bay Vivarium and adopted our first pet (and my favorite birthday gift), a Madagascar hissing cockroach!!!

Some of you will remember that I was saddened a while back by the passing of Karl, the blue-eyed porcupine pufferfish (mascot of 826 Valencia). So, we decided to name our new pet Karl, partly in memoriam, and partly because “Karl the Cockroach” has a nice sound to it.

This weekend, we made a trip (my first) out the East Bay Vivarium to pick up some fancier goodies for Karl’s terrarium, and we moved it from a temporary spot (the kitchen table – oops, maybe Em thinks I shouldn’t have said that) to its new location in our office, right between our respective PCs. There’s now a lamp shining down through the (screened) top of the terrarium, the better to see Karl by, and a really cool half-of-a-small-hollow-log thing that he likes to climb on, and sleep under. We bought some dry cat food (recommended by the experts) for him to eat (it’s high in protein, which they tell me is good for him), but he doesn’t seem to care for it much. But I know from some hand-feeding experiments that he *loves* iceberg lettuce, and will do just about anything for a morsel of Western Hazelnut bread (good thing, because Em and I like it, too).

Here’s a little snapshot (click it for a full-sized image) I took of Karl munching some bread while perched on my palm. I’m very likely to fill these pages with cockroach-related links and facts, but I’ll start with the answers I’d ask for first:
– no, he doesn’t bite
– no, he doesn’t carry or spread disease
– no, he doesn’t smell
– yes, they (Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches) do really hiss, but we haven’t actually heard Karl hiss yet

I had a hamster once, very long ago, and a praying mantis (not as long ago), and most recently Em and I baby-sat (snake-sat?) a really beautiful snake for a friend who was moving. But this is our first pet together, and he’s a real cutie. If you live in the area, come by and say hi to him – he has no playmates in his terrarium, so I figure it’s good for him to have new humans to play with. [Actually, he's pretty shy - I only got him onto my palm by luring him there with the bread.]

If you aren’t in the area, you can (okay, I geeked out big-time, and stayed up late last night rigging this up) check in on him via the 24-hour KarlCam!! Yes, really.

He’s not that active, most of the time, so if you want to see cool video clips of his relatives in action, check out this QuickTime video clip, or this one.

Thanks, Emylene!!

Also, overdue birthday-related thanks go out today to:
– Michelle Parise and Norm Davis (they sent me a nice birthday card, and Michelle sent me a couple of nice e-mails, including one in which she claimed that she actually reads this blog!)
– Jay Gamez (he sent me some good info on IVR systems that I passed along to some colleagues of mine)
– Erika Seid (she sent me a really *pretty* birthday card – she doesn’t read this blog, but who does?)
– the Aspillas (especially Imelda) for sending me another nice birthday card
– the Rochmans (my brothers and parents, anyhow) for hunting me down on my cell phone so they could wish me a happy birthday (good thing incoming calls are free on my Nextel plan)

Final Note: Since we don’t know when Karl was actually hatched/born, and he was a birthday present for me, we’re going to celebrate his birthday on November 14th as well. Happy (belated) Birthday, Karl!