Making Ripples: post-corporate adventures in Floyd County Virginia

Building/moving to a new home - day 102

Another milestone achieved - lights in the darkness

It was dark last night when I drove down the winding country lane that leads to our new home. In the headlights I could see that the melting snow was beginning to freeze again and the puddles in the roadway were beginning to ice over. The snowy darkness was punctuated only by lights shining from houses spread out along the road.

I was making a late run to deliver construction supplies and was thinking how nice it will be when we are living under our new roof. I was even feeling a bit wistful that we have not been able to make it happen sooner.

As I approached the last of the neighboring homes, I was startled to see the gleam of lights from our construction site. I anxiously wondered why our contractors were working so late.

As I rounded the last turn, I saw that the driveway was empty, but light was streaming from our new home and workshop! These were not construction spotlights used by our contractors, these lights meant the electricity was on and we finally had power!

Our on-site contractor had pushed himself to the limit to get everything wired up so we could have power for the long weekend. He left the lights on so we would know he had met his target!

Thanks to Bob Eich of Windy Hollow Construction, we will start the New Year with a home that we can work in at all hours. We are still surrounded by freezing mud and more work is needed before we have running water, but we have power and an Internet connection. Our dream of a quiet home in the country is one step closer to realization.

Today, we will install a mailbox and an extension on our wood stove chimney vent. Stay tuned for some important facts we learned about operating wood stoves at higher altitudes.

As we near the end of 2005, we thank you all for your support and encouragement. And, for those  of you who are still struggling to put, or keep, a roof over your heads in these uncertain times, we wish you the strength to persevere and achieve success, wherever you are.

Building/moving to a new home - day 100

The devil is in the details

In project management, it is generally understood that the last 5 percent of a project requires an enormous amount of effort, so when you feel that a project is 95 percent complete, be prepared for an uphill struggle to break out into the clear.

We have made great progress in the last 100 days, but there is a lot left to do. One hundred days ago we had 3 1/2 acres of forest with a well and a septic system. Our plans were to build a workshop this year and a house next year. Hurricane Katrina changed our plans. Then rising cost of materials made it advisable to complete construction while costs could still be managed. Today we have two buildings and five vaults of household furnishings on the site - some final assembly required.

Connecting Part A to Part B

Yesterday, our contractors teamed up to dig trenches between house and workshop and install power, water, and phone lines between the buildings. We should have power and water working in both buildings by the weekend, if all goes well.

Today, we expect Citizens, the local phone cooperative, to connect up our DSL service. Once this happens, we will be able to do research and order materials online without skipping down to Cafe Del Sol or to Chateau Thompson.

Note to those who plan to be their own General Contractors: An internet connection is one of your most valuable assets. You will use it to get answers, find materials, and to stay in touch with suppliers. When you cannot get online, you will waste hours you cannot spare.

Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud! (With apologies to Flanders and Swann)

As we get closer to putting in carpets and furnishing the house, it becomes apparent that something is wrong with the current picture. Our walls are pristine white, but our floors are covered with several inches of what looks like donkey-crap. It is the local clay mixed with large nuggets of gravel.

We have a boot brush at the door and we all use it, but the clay is tenacious and usually covers the lower six inches of our boots and a good portion of our pant legs.

Our yard, except for the gravel driveway, still consists of 2 inches of glare ice punctuated by islands of sticky clay. The only thing that stops us from falling on our butt is sliding into a convenient outcropping of clay. Any work done off the graveled area involves clay and more clay.

When we walk back on the driveway, our clay-covered boots pick up gravel which doesn't fall off until we walk into the house. Through this simple process we are gradually bringing the outside indoors.  :)

When we have a front porch and a means to keep the clay outside, we may be able to bring in furniture without messing up the house. That will be a project worth blogging.

I have ordered boot scrubbers and will purchase a new shop-vac to clean up the floor and give ourselves a fresh start, but I would appreciate any suggestions from those of you who have experience living with this problem. I have been advised by my contractors that we can expect four more months of wet weather and mud before the ground firms up and the grass seed takes hold.

Is there a solution that will let us keep the inside of the house clean and leave the clay outside? I have seen some boot brushes with water jets, but would like to hear from someone who has used them.

Building/moving to a new home - day 98

A Big Day at the New Homesite

We started the day by widening the driveway. Michael Shortt's father delivered a truckload of gravel and Michael's son and his Bobcat created more parking places.

Gretchen says that our front yard is now a giant turnaround. She may be right because we find that country living means having room for all of our contractors to park at once plus leaving enough parking space for our friends to drop in and see what we are doing. The UPS truck driver has to fend for himself.

The driveway widening was necessitated by the impending arrival of the five Smart Vaults with most of the St Lawrence household goods in them.

Using Smart Move is a smart move

The storage vault approach to moving has a lot to recommend it when your house is still full of contractor tools and every square foot of floor is covered with thick gobbets of drying clay and gravel from the driveway. Your household goods are safely protected until your house is really ready for furniture.

Our five Smart Vaults were delivered on time and unloaded in less than an hour by Ivy Harvell, a UPS/Overnite employee from the Charlotte, NC terminal. Ivy placed the vaults exactly where I wanted them on our newly created driveway parking spaces. He was a pleasure to work with.

We set the Smart Vaults up as an entrance arcade for the still-unfinished St Lawrence home. These vaults will flank the approach to the front door until we have the finished flooring installed, at which point we will unload the vaults in a veritable frenzy of interior decorating activity.

The whole Smart Move experience was so effortless that I would recommend it to anyone who needs temporary storage on the sending or receiving end of their move.

The only disappointment was the inability to track the Smart vaults as advertised. The customer service rep who had been so helpful in setting up the move completely dropped the ball when it came to  arranging for me to track the smart vaults with the built-in GPS tracking system. She said tracking involved some sort of a setup by a technician and she was going to send me an email wih the necessary codes and passwords. It never happened. I would guess that this free service is not actually debugged yet because it should not require a technician to activate tracking.

Bottom line: Smart Move offers a convenient containerized shipping system at a firm price for the homeowner. It is a total and welcome change from the traditional moving experience. Just don't expect to track your shipment online yet.

We've made our way through the smoke and are now a wood-burning family - almost

By means of a very intense phone conversation with the Blue Ridge Heating and Air installation team, I managed to convert a January 3 date for completion of our stove installation to an early morning arrival today.

They arrived and set to work and eventually discovered they had not brought the necessary parts, so one member of the team was dispatched to the nearest store which was 20 miles away.

The remaining installer did a creditable job of installing the roof-mounted kit for the wood stove and we finally thought we had a working wood stove. I started a fire, which drew very well, but the blower didn't work. I was assured by this "experienced" installation team that the blower would come on when the stove got hot enough (109 degrees F). I was gullible enough to believe them.

The team then finished the installation of the pellet stove, which had been smoking ever since it was first installed several weeks ago. They packed up their tools and presented us with a final bill which included $900 of installation labor that the salesman had failed to mention or itemize. We had paid in advance for these stoves and had taken great care to ask was everything included in our invoice. We had been assured by Bob Martin that everything was included. It was not.

We made out a check for the balance of the invoice, including $900 of unanticipated expense and bid our installers goodbye.

A half hour later I verified that the house wood stove was hot enough to burn the hand and yet the blower would not come on. I called our installers and gave them the choice of returning to the scene of the crime now or tomorrow morning. They wisely decided to came back and arrived within the hour.

After giving me all sorts of explanations why the blower wasn't supposed to run, I told them to short out the thermostat so I could control the blower no matter how hot or cold the stove was. It took them another fifteen minutes before they managed to replace the faulty thermostat with a jumper. After that the blower worked as I wanted it to.

We ran both stoves for the rest of the day. The wood stove in the house is an excellent source of heat. The blower produces a high volume of warm air which raised the temperature of the entire house in a relatively short time. When we install the overhead fans, we should have no problem distributing the heat evenly.

The pellet stove is still producing an unacceptable amount of smoke inside the workshop. It appears that the stovepipe is still leaking. I read the installation instructions again and will contact the factory for an alternate stovepipe configuration. I will contract with another firm to install the new stovepipe, as I do not trust Blue Ridge Heating and Air to do the job.

They sell excellent brands of wood stoves. It is too bad that they know so little about the stoves that they sell. From the problems I have seen with these two installations, I feel that a customer puts themselves at risk by having this company install their stove. Other customers may have different experiences entirely. Let the buyer beware.

Tomorrow is another day

The pace is picking up. Tomorrow, a trench will be dug between house and workshop to house water pipes, electrical cables and CAT 5 cables for DSL and telephone.

We will finish piling up the cord of firewood delivered yesterday and dumped where the trench is to go tomorrow.

I will probably devote a few words to the problems we encounter with the local clay. You may have some suggestions for dealing with this stuff.

More later...

Feline organizational structures- part 4

In my continuing observation of the interaction of the Thompson and St Lawrence cats, I am struck anew by the similarities with corporate acquisitions.

When a large corporation acquires a small corporation, there are expectations by management that are at odds with the expectations of the individuals involved.

Management expects that everything will work out as planned, while the individuals affected are forced to make an unpleasant set of decisions. Their comfortable working relationships are threatened by individuals who throw their weight around in an effort to establish dominance.

In life, as in business, it is not what you say, but what you do that determines how things come out. (In the picture above, Loki is getting some online education.)

You can't hide in your cubicle forever

This morning I woke up at 4:00 am when my undercat, Sherman, prodded me repeatedly in the ribs. He had decided that it was time to go out and explore the Thompson household. He had observed that the Thompson cats slept at night and he was determined to learn more about the strange place we were in.

Gretchen and I understand that our time here is short, as there is a limit to which we can impose ourselves on Doug and Amy. Our cats, like employees, are not privy to management plans and see this visit as a permanent move that they are must eventually live with.

Each day Sherman and Buffy get more restless with the room they occupy and venture further out into the household. They stare back as Dr Jekyll growls at them and they sniff curiously at Loki as he bumbles into them. They are emboldened when the challenges they encounter result in no damage.

What they don't know is that the large Thompson cats are declawed. All they see is that the Thompson cats growl ferociously at them, but eventually leave them alone.

I do not know how long it will take our cats to realize that sound and size are not the only determining factors here at Chateau Thompson. In the meantime, they are acting cautiously and waiting to see where this all leads.

We hope to move them into their new home as quickly as possible. Major events are happening today which are crucial to making their new home ready to occupy. These events will be blogged later.

Character played and personal profile

Sherman has moved from relative invisibility here at the Thompson household to the leading member of the visiting St Lawrence feline team. He pushes the envelope daily by exploring more of the Thompson house and even uses the Executive Restroom provided for the Thompson cats. He uses this futuristic, highly automated facility as casually as if he had one at home.

Sherman is a Wild Card in this situation. Normally fearful and retiring, he has assumed an entirely different persona and ventures forth like a secret agent, non-violent but determined to explore his options. He is still gathering data, but it is evident that he is up to something. I have seen him do this before, usually before making a break for it in an effort to escape a situation he is not pleased with.

The cat named Trouble manages to live a hermit's life in the busy Thompson household. He comes out at rare intervals from his hiding place in the remote parts of the house and flees as soon as he sees an unfamiliar face. Rescued from a life on the streets, he is happy to live a life of quiet solitude. He does not seem to interact with the other cats in the household. His position on the organizational structure is Elsewhere! 

Feline organizational structures- part 3

Overcoming adversity

When sickness strikes one member  of a group, it can bring out protective attitudes in other group members who normally exhibit only hostile behavior. This picture, by Amy Thompson, captures a unique moment in the Thompson household.

Cats, like people, compete for social status within a group and often show aggression towards those who threaten their position in the group. This can change when one of the cats in a groups falls ill.

Tonight Dr Jekyll, normally one of the most aggressive cats in the Thompson household, took on the role of nursing Loki, who has been exhibiting signs of feline epilepsy. 

Jekyll licked Loki awake, then walked him to the litter box where he stood guard. Then he stood guard while the kitten fed from the community feeding station. Normally the kitten is pushed out of the way by the larger cats, including Jekyll, so this new behavior by Jekyll was highly unusual, to say the least.

Loki has had several brief seizures since we arrived. At first we thought they might be nightmares, because they usually occurred when he was sleeping, sometimes even when he was purring.  When it happened, he would shake uncontrollably for almost a minute and then collapse in a semi-conscious state with irregular breathing and trembling. He recovered each time after we comforted him. The other cats were in attendance during some of these attacks, so it may have been evident to them that the kitten was unwell.

Doug and Amy will be taking Loki to see the vet as soon as possible, but it is a good sign, to me at least, that he is getting special attention from another cat as well.

We have seen for ourselves how our cats will become especially protective of us whenever we get sick or injured, but this is the first time I had seen an aggressive cat become protective of another.

I hope you are all well during this holiday season and if you are not, I hope that you are receiving the same love and attention that we are able to give Loki. It is a difficult time when you are sick or injured. Having a friend or loved one to look after you is the best that you can ask for.

Be well and take care of each other. May we all start the new year in good health and a good state of mind.

Building/moving to a new home - day 96

Burned by a stove dealer

Some otherwise reliable companies exhibit a strange dichotomy. They pay attention to you during the sales cycle and seem to answer questions intelligently. Then, during the delivery/installation cycle things begin to fall apart and you get strange nonsequitur answers when you start asking questions.

We bought two stoves from Blue Ridge Heating and Air in Christiansburg. One is a pellet stove and one is a wood stove. We paid in advance, which may have been a mistake because the sales part of the business seems to have lost interest in seeing that we get an adequate installation.

The installation people we have met are friendly and try to be helpful, but they tell a different story than we hear from the sales people. They are also unreliable when it comes to delivering what is promised.

We got the first clue that we might be in trouble when the installation crew showed up the first time without one of the stoves and missing half a ton of hardwood pellets which they had lost in a ditch on the way to our house.

They installed the pellet stove without the fresh air intake we ordered and were going to leave without testing the stove. I got them to fire up the stove and it seemed to work, so they left with a promise to come back with the other stove, the missing half ton of pellets, and the missing fresh air intake.

I asked them about the fresh air intake before they left and they said those were sold only on gas-fired stoves. I immediately checked with the salesman and he said they came with the pellet stove also and would be installed when the installers cam back again.

We ran the pellet stove for a few hours and noticed that the workshop was filling up with smoke. I called Blue Ridge Heating and Air again and was assured by Bob Martin that it was the oil burning off the stove pipe. When I asked how long this would take, he said he had one which had smoked for months!

I now knew that I was dealing with an extreme case of poor customer service and I had better get busy if we wanted a working installation.

I got a flashlight and examined the stovepipe. Small jets of smoke was spurting out of every joint in the stovepipe. I talked to the installer and he said he could use high-temperature silicone to seal the joints in the stove pipe. I did not bother asking him why this wasn't a standard practice for pellet stoves, since the stack runs at a positive pressure because of the blower that forces air through the combustion chamber.

When the installer came back he did not bring the fresh air adapter I had purchased. He said that the fresh air adapter would not fit on this stove! My confidence level was reaching new lows.

He told me he was going to drill another hole in the wall to let the fresh air in. When I checked later, he had marked the hole position where the air inlet would be covered by snow drifts! Fortunately, he had not drilled the hole in the wall.

I am going to have a meeting of the minds with these people Tuesday morning. I want to know exactly what it is they sell and who is telling the truth. If I do not get good answers, we are going to get a competent crew to finish installing these stoves and will deduct the charges from our final bill.

These people claim they cannot guarantee or service a stove they don't install, but from what I have seen so far, their guarantee and their service is highly suspect. I have had three conversations with Bob Martin and with someone named John and I continue to get reassuring statements and no results.

Unless I see a change in their operating basis, I would have to say that Blue Ridge Heating and Air carries a good line of stoves, but I would get someone else to install them. This really does not make sense, because these people have been in business for years. Surely these issues would have been sorted out long ago.

Stay tuned. Meanwhile, I owe Fred an apology as he warned me about this company and I did not heed his advice.

I have questions for my readers who may have had similar experiences:

What do you think? Is my stove dealer just blowing smoke?
How have you solved this kind of customer support problem?

Merry Christmas!

Gretchen and I appreciate your continuing support for this weblog and for cheering us on during our new house project.

We may not be living in this house yet, but we celebrate the Christmas Season with a wreath that promises a new future and many Christmases to come. We hope that most of you are enjoying the companionship of friends and loved ones.

For those who are protecting us in far places, we offer thanks that you have the courage to handle the hard tasks and terrible sacrifices that are required to purchase freedom.  We hope that you know that your efforts are deeply appreciated by all who value liberty and justice. You are the people who are actually making a difference. We wish you all a safe return.

I am thankful for all of the friends who have helped make this weblog what it is today. Your advice and support have helped Ripples evolve from a personal journal to a continuing series of essays focused on improving the quality of life and developing meaningful work.

Your support has encouraged me to continue publishing books and to develop ways to encourage others to find the life and work that they deserve.

We are entering a new phase of our lives with this move to Floyd. We look forward to becoming active members of this community and I plan to write about the cultural and social trends that continue to shape this unique region. It promises to be most interesting.

We have been warmly received by this community and hope to be able to return the flow by contributing in like measure.

This scene in the Cafe del Sol is typical of the enthusiastic welcome we have encountered ever since we arrived. Santa's helper, Ann Bower, is asking Gretchen if she has been good this year.

I would definitely say so. Very good, indeed!  :)

Our Christmas greetings would not be complete without thanking Doug and Amy Thompson for taking us in and providing a Christmas haven for us and our cats. They have given us shelter and a measure of friendship that we will never forget. Thanks to them, we are enjoying our happiest Christmas ever at a time that would otherwise have been extraordinarily difficult.

Feline organizational structures- part 2

This continues the observation of a forced merger of two groups of cats, each of which had a stable organization before the merger. Like Watership Down, this post is only marginally about animal behavior. You are free to draw whatever parallels you would like.

Merging of corporate feline cultures - changes start occurring in each culture

The Thompson Family Cats used to have the run of the house and had a well-established pecking order. They were, and still are, friendly and outgoing toward strange humans, whom they view as potential allies and sources of food. They were active during the day and tended to sleep at night, aligning their activities with their primary clients, Amy and Doug Thompson.

I use the term clients advisedly because these cats seem to regard the Thompsons with the same regard that consultants treat clients. They listen politely but ignore everything said. They put on a daily show and tell to keep their clients amused and to insure that the clients keep the food coming. I did not get any indication that these cats considered themselves owned or otherwise beholden to the Thompsons. The Thompsons and ourselves are considered part of the entertainment.

The St Lawrence Family Cats are wary of strangers and are happy to stay in the room they share with us because they find themselves in a strange house with many hostile cats. They are very aware that their survival depends on our protection so they show more interest in us than they ever did before.

Our two cats sleep most of the day and are very active at night. This means that they can explore the house at night when the Thompson cats are sleeping. These nightly forays usually end with a headlong dash back to the safety of our room when the Thompson cats wake up and investigate who is wandering around and jumping on couches.

Our cats now recognize that our bedroom belongs to them and are now willing to defend the place against the Thompson cats. This is in stark contrast to the earliest days when they didn't know that they had a place of their own. Their behavior has changed. In the beginning our cats would flee whenever a Thompson cat would appear. Now they sit in the doorway when the Thompson cats approach, but they flee when the Thompson cats get too close. They cannot stand their ground long enough to interact.

This would indicate that the current pecking order puts all four Thompson cats above the two St Lawrence cats. Since I see no reason to artificially alter the pecking order, I am giving our cats every opportunity to fraternize with Doug Thompson's cats in the hopes that the group will achieve a stable equilibrium as soon as possible.

Character played and personal profile

Antichrist is the cat at the top of the power structure. He has been so confident of his supremacy that it only takes one look from him to make any of the other cats immediately back down. He is "The King" and can be found in the highest places in the house.

Antichrist's only worry is that Dr Jekyll, the #2 cat, is far more aggressive than he is when it comes to meeting and mingling with the new cats that we brought in. This has shaken Antichrist's confidence and has caused him to actively seek assurance from the Thompsons and from us whenever possible.

Jekyll is currently the most aggressive cat in the house. He seems to have adopted the Avis motto as his own: "I'm #2 so I try harder!" He promotes himself both to our cats and to us. It is very hard to take a decent picture of him as he is usually in the middle of all the action and will hog the picture when he sees the camera. Jekyll plays the role of "Challenger".

Buffy is the only female in the group. Even though they are all neutered, she seems to exert an enormous influence upon Antichrist and Jekyll. She is very aloof and seems to be biding her time. She attracts the most interest of any cat in the group. She is playing the role of "Cleopatra" .  Her position in the group is based on her strong personality, not her strength.

Building/moving to a new home - day 93

The pace is picking up

As the sun struggles to make it over the hill on this sub-freezing morning we are poised for another day of activity at the new home site. Patches of glare ice lie in wait on all secondary roads and many driveways are actually impassable. This makes for extremely hazardous driving and throws a big crimp in delivery schedules, but we seem to have found an answer..

We were able to lay down enough crushed rock on our job site to ensure that work could continue in all areas. As a result, Our well drilling contractor was finally able to get his trucks and ditch digging equipment out to our site and start the final phase of getting us connected to the well that he dug so many months ago.

Yesterday the wellhead was prepared for installing the pump and some preliminary work was done on the long trench from the well to the house. This trench for a water pipe and the electrical cable for the pump will pass under the driveway. To ensure that the driveway will not have to be disturbed in the future, a pipe will be installed under it as a conduit for the water pipe and power connections. The trenching and the laying of pipes and electrical cable will occur today.

By the end of today, we should have a complete well water system installed. This will include the submersible pump down in the well and a water tank in the crawlspace of our new home. Once that is done, our on-site contractor will install the hot water heater and connect the well water system to the house plumbing.

Another trench will be dug from the house to the workshop to bring water to the workshop, which has its own water heater. This should occur in a few days.

Today's site activity will also include hooking up the new electrical service in the workshop. At this point the 8000 watt auxiliary generator, which has been running for many weeks to power the job site, will be shut down and prepared for its long-term use as a back-up emergency generator.

Important Note

I had mentioned in an earlier post that water damage had occurred to our house modules because of improper preparation for transport to the site. The builder, Souther Heritage Homes, responded promptly to my request and put in temporary heaters to dry out the wet areas. We did a walk-through yesterday with Jason, the installation manager, and Butch Jarrett, our sales contact, and satisfied ourselves that the dampness has now been totally handled and that a program is in place to handle any damage to the drywall.

The modules are extremely well-built and they survived the long trip to the site and being hoisted by a crane and being placed on a foundation with virtually no stress cracking. I was impressed, as I have seen more evidence of drywall joint stress cracking and nail pops on some new homes that were built in place.

There is more to be done by the builder, but we need to get the house heated before this work can proceed, which leads to the next big action item, installation of the wood stove.

Upcoming event of note

We are expecting delivery of our Dutchwest wood stove tomorrow. The hearth will receive its final polishing today, so all will be ready for this most important event. I have even ordered an initial delivery of firewood, so we can begin using the stove immediately without having to get out my chain saw and making some.

This installation requires that an insulated stovepipe be put through the roof, so I will be watching the process quite closely. This is not an area where a quick and dirty installation will suffice, as we are providing a conduit for extremely hot gases through a joint which must be leak-proof for many years.

There is an elaborate through-the-roof installation kit involved which provides both insulation and sealing, which I will describe in a future post.

Feline organizational structures- part 1

The case for observing cat organizations closely

There is a recurring organizational pattern in groups of living things which bears inspection. As the dominant species on this planet, we often tend to think we invented time and motion studies, downsizing, and interdepartmental strife. This is far from the truth, as groups of animals have been doing these same organizational activities ever since they crawled out of the sea.

After 50 years of making a living by interacting with business organizations, I am still struck by the marvelous parallels that exist in nature. It occurred to me this morning that there are useful lessons to be learned by observing the actions of organized groups of non-humans.

We can look at the power struggles of cats, for example, and see what is actually at the bottom of this behavior without the painful emotional reaction that comes from observing power struggles that hit closer to home. It is easier to be objective and actually learn something from observing cat "harassment", for example, than from reading a case study about employee harassment.

I have a unique opportunity to observe a group of six cats in action, so you will be subjected to my off-the-cuff analysis of what happens and how their actions might be relevant to your business life. You have been warned. There is still time to switch to Blue Ridge Blog and see Marie's pictures instead. :)

Merging of corporate cultures - the first days

Gretchen and I and our two cats have invaded the quiet harmony of the Thompson household and their four cats. Until we arrived, the four cats of the household were a temporarily stable organization.

All males, they are dominated by Antichrist, a large black shorthair. The second in command is Dr Jeckyl, a rangy and energetic orange tabby. Third is Trouble, a retiring grey and white alley cat. At the bottom of the group is Loki, a black kitten who plays the part of the harmless Fool.

In our group of two cats, Buffy is the dominant one, an Alpha Female who takes no nonsense from her brother, Sherman. Buffy is a serenely beautiful and intelligent cream-colored Abyssinian mix wih a chronically bad temper. Sherman is a jet black Abyssinian mix with a fearful/adventurous/affectionate multiple personality.

Like many corporate mergers, this merger was forced on those involved by external circumstances. In spite of our efforts to manage the encounter, the cats began their own efforts to take advantage of the disruption and move up in the pecking order and settle old scores.

Antichrist lost control of his group in the first moments of the merger as Dr Jeckyl moved in and tried to establish a new order of relationships by being the first to dominate the newcomers. While Antichrist waited nervously, Jeckyl boldly approached the newcomers while they were still in their transporters and after a moments inspection, began a strange keening wail directed at Buffy, who stared back without flinching.

Trouble retreated to the nether regions of the house and was not seen for days. Loki bumbled around underfoot, peering in one cage after another. Sherman retreated to the back of his transport cage and bided his time.

This corporate merger proceeded to evolve over the next few hours and I will pick it up in the next post. Meanwhile, I would like to provide character sketches of the individuals involved. Like the characters in one of my favorite business blogs, Big Picture Small Office, these cats are unique individuals as well as characters in a larger drama.

Character played and personal profile

The Fool is generally found at the bottom of the corporate ladder and Loki plays that part in this household drama.

Loki is the only kitten I know who runs like he had six legs. An engaging kitten with a carefree attitude toward life, he stumbles across his older housemates, arousing their disapproval and flits off with a cheerful "so sue me" attitude.

He has a congenital motor disability which makes him even more clumsy than the usual kitten but what he lacks in coordination, he makes up in unstinting affection and entertainment value.

Loki is at bottom of the household pecking order, but is the most communicative and affectionate cat in the group. He can generally be heard purring loudly while tucked in against your side. Like many individuals at the bottom of the organization, he has a lot to offer if you treat him right.

Pictures will accompany these character sketches in the future. Stayed tuned.