Hello Killdozer, Jones BBQ & Foot Massage, and Tortellini

This past weekend, I took a very quick trip to Southern California to meet up with Doug Wreden while he was in town. While we were there, we visited some of Doug’s friends, and to my joy, I got to meet their pets.

One of the people we visited was his friend Dash, better known online as Altrive. He has two cats, one named Killdozer and another named Jones BBQ & Foot Massage. Yes, I confirmed with him that those were indeed their actual, real names.

Jones BBQ & Foot Massage is apparently only a few months old, and he is a very energetic little kitten. He spent a lot of time entertaining himself by dig­ging through a paper bag lying on the kitchen floor.

As you’d probably expect from trying to take pictures of a black cat, most of the photos I took of Jones BBQ & Foot Massage were big black blobs, and a lot of them were out of focus. I did my best to edit the raw data from my camera sensor to enhance some of the details of his body, while still trying to accurately portray the light-sucking void that was his hair.

Killdozer is a very well-behaved cat who was very curious and friendly within minutes of meeting me. He was fairly active and always on the move, but after about half an hour, he finally calmed down a bit so I could take some still shots of him.

Like a majority of very young kittens, Jones BBQ & Foot Massage didn’t mind getting picked up, so I made Doug take over as the photographer and had a little pho­to shoot.

Adam Parkzer holding a black kitten

Adam Parkzer holding a black kitten

At our next stop, Doug introduced me to Eric and Abby, better known online as PointCrow and AbbyBagel. Their pet is a goldfish named Tortellini. Yes, just like the pasta.

You can literally feel the 🤌 through his piercing eyes and arching frown.

 

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Hello again, Mina the domestic shorthair cat; and Alki Beach Park in Seattle, Washington

Last month, I met Mina, a domestic shorthair cat. Before heading out of the Seattle Metropolitan Area to continue my transcontinental road trip, I had a fi­nal opportunity to visit and play with her one last time.

Earlier that day, a few friends and I went exploring at Alki Point, an area near the West Seattle neighborhood in Seattle, Washington. One of the friends I went with was Doug Wreden. We took another “typical Doug and Parkzer”-style photo in front of the Seattle skyline.

I wore long pants because I brought my point-and-shoot camera and I wanted sturdier pockets to hold it, but it was perfect shorts weather. The sun was shining but not too uncomfortably hot, and there was a light breeze coming from the water. The views were great, and we went on a weekend so there were a lot of other people out and it was fun people-watching.

We got some lunch from Marination Ma Kai. I ordered an entrée of four miso chicken tacos and a can of strawberry-lilikoi-flavored Hawaiian Sun. The food was great—the chicken was high-quality, the tacos weren’t excessively seasoned, and the garnish perfectly complemented the meat without being too sour.

After eating, we walked along the coastline to the Alki Point Lighthouse (which we later discovered was closed, as the tours only operate until La­bor Day), then we found some rental scooters and rode them all the way back to our parking spot. The last time I had used one of these scooters was way back in 2019 when I went to St. Paul, Minnesota, and I hadn’t ridden a scooter, bicycle, or anything of the sort since then. It was fun riding one again, especially because Alki had a separate, designated bike lane that I was able to use.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable trip.

 

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Hello, Mina the domestic shorthair cat

Last night, I met up with some friends to get dinner together and walk around Volunteer Park for a bit. After our adventure, I stopped by and visited her condo to meet Mina, her new cat.

Mina is a domestic shorthair that was originally a stray cat with some severe health problems, but she was able to be nursed back to health. Now, Mina is an extremely active, agile, and affectionate cat—probably one of the friendliest I’ve ever met. We suspect Mina is about a year old and has reached cat adulthood, but she still has the size, youth, and energy of a kitten.

It was a bit tricky to get some good pictures of Mina because the lighting wasn’t that great and she was always on the move, but I still got a handful of decent shots, especially after she had calmed down a bit and started grooming herself on the couch.

For the record, I’m not actually as tan as it may seem from this next photograph… Mina’s white hair just radiates light, so when I edit the photo such that her hair no longer blinds you, it ends up making my skin look pretty dark.

 

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I spent another week surrounded by two dogs and a cat

Around this time last month, I spent a week petsitting Bullet, Kaya, and Drake. Erin had another trip that she had to go on, so I came back to her house to take care of the dogs and cat again for another week.

Although I wouldn’t say the dogs have separation anxiety, Kaya still gets pretty sad when her parents leave. For the first several hours, she insists on sit­ting by the door awaiting their return.

Drake, on the other hand, as a fairly normal and independent cat, has full faith that they will eventually return. He instead decided to use the cat door to go out onto the covered balcony and take a nap outdoors.

Kaya noticed Drake and wanted to join him, so she went outside as well. She wanted to sunbathe, but managed to only get half her body in the sun, prob­a­bly because she got blinded by the sun and couldn’t see where she was.

I set up my computer workstation upstairs on a table near the living room, and Bullet decided to set up shop there as well. He spent a lot of time laying next to my chair and at my feet, making sure that I wouldn’t go anywhere without him.

On one of the days, I went into the guest room to change into my exercise shorts so I could take the dogs for a walk. Apparently Drake was sleeping on the bed, and he did not appreciate the interruption.

Hello Bullet.

While Drake was away using the litter box, Bullet swept in and took his spot at the base of the bed in the guest room. Drake was not very happy when he returned.

One of Drake’s favorite activities is sunbathing. However, when he is upstairs and far away from the balcony, but needs sun now, we have to make do with what’s available. Here is Drake using some of the natural light shining in during the morning and sticking his head into the sun strip.

Because this is my second time petsitting, the dogs are much more comfortable with me now than they were last time. They like to spend a lot of time around the guest room where I sleep, and when I got out of the shower one day, I noticed that they had repossessed my pillow.

Hello Drake.

I went to snap a photo of Kaya out on the patio, but when I kneeled down, she got up to walk over to me; I captured the photograph as she was getting up, and found it hilarious that she looks like an alpaca in this picture.

We have tentative plans for me to petsit again in September, so more photos to come soon…

 

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I spent a week surrounded by two dogs and a cat

Almost a year ago, I blogged about meeting Erin Krell’s pets for the first time—Bullet and Kaya the Alaskan Klee Kais, and Drake the domestic longhair. I’ve obviously visited them many times since then, but recently for a week, I petsit them while Erin went on vacation with her husband.

This was the first time I had lived with animals ever since moving out from my previous living situation with a roommate who had three cats. It can ob­vi­ously get pretty distracting, but it was nice having them around, and usually, it was a healthy type of distraction—they would prompt me to get off my computer for a bit and move around with them.

The day before I took over petsitting for a week, Erin, her husband, and I went to pick up some burgers and a fish sandwich from a restaurant and brought the dogs along. Here are Bullet and Kaya patiently awaiting their parents’ return.

The dogs enjoyed spending time outside, which was useful for me to go out and get some fresh air. We went on walks every day except for one day when it rained all day, and I took them out to the backyard an additional four times per day so they could go to the bathroom.

One convenient part about their house was that the exercise room had a direct view of the backyard, so the dogs were able to sunbathe, while I would be indoors lifting weights and keeping an eye on them to make sure they weren’t doing anything too wild.

Drake, as you’d expect from a fairly normal cat, was very independent. He would roam around the house at his leisure, then make his way downstairs when his internal clock told him it’s time for his next meal. After eating, he would make his way back upstairs to a comfortable spot and clean himself up.

Here is Bullet staring deep into my soul and trying to figure out why I won’t give him another treat, even though it’s already been AN ENTIRE 12 MI­NUTES since his last treat.

Kaya had a little bit of separation anxiety, laid by the front door a lot, and slept in Erin and her husband’s bed for a while. However, at some point, I think she realized that her parents were on vacation and hadn’t just gotten lost coming back from the grocery store, so she curled up in a ball and slept overnight next to me in the guest room for the second half of the week.

Here is Bullet, exhausted after a session of fetch. And by a session of fetch, I mean me fetching the toy, and Bullet running back and forth giving e­mo­tion­al support.

Bullet is probably one of the smartest and most intuitive dogs I’ve ever met, but even the smartest dogs sometimes have internal clock errors. Here is Bul­let miscalculating the time and asking for his dinner half an hour too early.

Here is Drake after dinner one day, forgetting to retract his tongue back into his mouth after finishing grooming himself.

And for some bonus photos, here is Kaya sitting below Erin’s desk while she works, which I took a few weeks ago…

… as well as Drake staring off into the distance, looking like a wise old man, probably solving integral calculus and differential equations in his head.

 

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Another routine trip to Seattle

With so many of our new employees being in the Seattle Metropolitan Area, I’ve added a week-long visit to Seattle as part of my routine trips, in ad­di­tion to the already-existing Southern California trips. This past week, I went to visit some co-workers and friends to get some work done and do some more exploring.

Flying from DFW to SEA

The day after arriving, my plan was to stay around the Seattle area and visit one of my co-workers. The night of landing in Seattle, I stayed in a hotel overlooking Puget Sound; it had a nice view the following morning after the sun came up.

Seattle

Right before checking out, a friendly seagull came to visit me right in front of my window. At first I was concerned it would fly away, so I started taking photos from far away just so I could make sure I had a picture of it, but as I got closer, it stood its ground; eventually, I was able to get right up to it and get some close-ups. That particular area right next to the window is slightly covered by the ledge above, so I’m guessing it was happily sitting there for some shelter from the rain.

Seagull

Over the weekend, I visited Doug Wreden, mostly just to spend time together and play video games. On Saturday, I joined him as a guest on his Twitch live stream where we played Tetris 99, TypeRacer, and Mario Party with his viewers. Content from this stream has been added to the “Collaborations” sec­tion of my YouTube channel.

After squeezing in a few more work days early on in the week, I spent the final day before departure with Allie, who you may remember as the owner of the cats Simon and Henry.

She has apparently walked past the Starbucks Reserve Roastery in downtown Seattle a handful of times but never actually went in, so we took my trip here as an opportunity to check it out. It’s basically like three very large Starbucks stores put together, with some special menu items and even a section for alcohol. There was also a section where you could see a lot of the coffee-making machinery, as well as a coffee library in the corner that was a lot qui­eter than the main area.

Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Seattle

Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Seattle

After coffee, we visited the NEKO Cat Café, considering both of us are cat enthusiasts. You may remember that, the last time I was here, we went to Meow­tro­pol­i­tan; this time, we decided to try out a different cat café that was in walking distance of the Roastery that we were already at.

NEKO was quite a pleasant surprise, because apparently, they had moved all the adult cats to a different location, and the only cats available in the Seattle location were kittens. If you’re familiar with cats, you know that some of them take some time to familiarize with you, so they may be shy at first; these kittens weren’t like that at all, and they were all eager to snuggle and get picked up.

NEKO Cat Café in Seattle

NEKO Cat Café in Seattle

NEKO Cat Café in Seattle

NEKO Cat Café in Seattle

NEKO Cat Café in Seattle

NEKO Cat Café in Seattle

After almost an hour in kitten heaven, we got some dinner at Kizuki Ramen.

We ate at their Capitol Hill location, which made me slightly concerned due to potential political riots after Kyle Rittenhouse inevitably gets found in­no­cent in his ongoing murder trial, but the jury was still deliberating by the end of the day and didn’t come to a verdict, so we were able to enjoy a peace­ful dinner.

Ramen

Afterwards, we drove around a bit in Seattle to do some sightseeing, then I dropped Allie off so she could go home for the night.

After my flight today, I’m back in Texas—I flew back into Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, then drove out to Decatur to spend a night here a bit closer to my next destination so I could break up the monotony of the drive tomorrow by a little bit.

I still have a few photos to share of my time in Dallas, but not quite enough for it to warrant its own entire blog post, so I’m most likely going to do a Texas round-up after I wrap up my stay in Amarillo and make it to Albuquerque.

 

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