The squirrel is gone

Last night when I got home, I did a little "squirrel scene investigation" and determined that the squirrel had somehow gotten in to our place through the laundry room. There's open access from that room to the space above our ceiling, so that made sense.

I decided that the easiest place to trap him would be right back in the laundry room. We have a Havahart live trap, so I set it up and baited it with some pieces of bread with almond extract on them. We hadn't heard any squirrel noises, and we were a bit concerned that he might have gotten trapped someplace inside our walls.

I checked the trap first thing in the morning, and there was nothing. I checked again a couple of hours later, and there was the squirrel. Almond extract works quite well. We're pretty certain it's the same squirrel. There's always a chance that we might have attracted a second one to come in from outside, but I didn't see any signs of that. I think this one got in around the dryer vent hose. We're going to try to get our landlord, Mr. Useless, to put some kind of screen over the vent to keep animals out. If a squirrel got in, then mice can get in even easier. I'd do it myself, only it's in a concrete wall, and I don't feel like spending money on hardware that will properly mount in concrete. It's not my house, and not my responsibility to spend my money upgrading or maintaining it.

Getting this fixed is going to be much more difficult than getting rid of the squirrel was.

Squirrel Wars

I got a call from Norah at work. Apparently we have a squirrel loose in the space between our ceiling and the floor above. Last summer we had a couple of birds in the laundry room, then in the fall we had yellow jackets, now a squirrel? I like nature well enough, but this is ridiculous. Unfortunately we haven't been able to figure out how all this wildlife is getting inside, and our landlord is being his typically unhelpful self.

Getting rid of this squirrel is going to be interesting.

Slashdot | RIAA Sues Woman Who Has Never Used a Computer

Slashdot | RIAA Sues Woman Who Has Never Used a Computer

Good to see the recording industry is continuing their incredibly stupid war against their own customers. The sooner the record companies go out of business, the better. Their entire business model is obsolete now, they desperately need to die off. They used to be a necessary to handle the physical distribution of records, now they've become little more than a mafia trying to intimidate people in to doing business with them or else.

Need I say more?

I got a page a day desk calendar for Christmas called "The 365 Stupidest Things Ever Said (TM)". Here's today's item.

On Integrity, Senatorial

Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition... to the early use of military by the US against Iraq.... On January 11, I voted in favor of a resolution that would have insisted that economic sanctions be given more time to work and against a resolution giving the president the immediate authority to go to war.

January 22, 1991, letter from Senator John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) to a constituent

Thank you for contacting me to express your support for the actions of President Bush in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. From the outset of the invasion, I have strongly and unequivocally supported President Bush's response to the crises and the policy goals he has established with our military deployment in the Persian Gulf.

January 31, 1991, letter from Senator John Kerry to the same constituent