Risking the intellectual integrity of my blog...

Here are a few early pictures of Izzy, one of our foster kittens from about a year ago:

Late one night, Anna found her in the bathroom, anemic and too weak to walk. We took her to the emergency vet at 3:30am. When she tested positive for feline leukemia virus (FeLV), we were faced with the difficult decision to euthanize her. She was such a happy kitten, but FeLV is often a (painfully) terminal illness. It is not uncommon for rescue/adoption organizations to euthanize FeLV-positive kittens when they show signs of trouble. This is for the kitten's own well being, but also due to resource limitations. The resources needed to care for and quarantine dying kittens could be used to rescue otherwise healthy kittens. Such is the difficult reality of regions with significant feral cat overpopulation.

Since Izzy did not seem to be in pain, we opted to give her every chance, and tried to help her how we could. Over the next several days, we nursed her back to health with nutritional supplements and TLC. She bounced back, found a great home, and eventually tested negative for FeLV (indicating that her body fought off the infection before it became chronic). She's been doing great for almost a year, her owners sent us these photos yesterday:

Virgin America nitpicks

Nonfunctional Gogo Inflight Wifi: -10
The holy grail of passenger perks, ended up being a holy carrot on a stick. Worse than nonfunctional, the HTTP redirector simply takes you to 127.0.0.1 while advertising that "you are now connected to the Internet." I've never had it work for me on a single flight. Technically, they do offer wifi, but it only connects you to yourself. FAIL!

Chris Cornell soundtrack: -1
Virgin's techno-savvy demographic overlaps significantly with Twitter's. One of Twitters coolest celebrity (ex-)users had some infamously choice words to describe Cornell's latest offering. Does anyone disagree with that review, or not think of it when hearing the album?

No Web Check-in For Hotel Kiosk Users: -5
My hotel guest computer system was so thoroughly locked down, the Virgin America web site check-in process simply wouldn't work. The web site mostly worked and I could even log in and print my itinerary. But apparently, no Javascript + no Flash = no check-in or pre-printed boarding passes for you! Grosvenor Suites shares half the blame for this, though. IE 5.5 on a 486 with everything locked, does that even count as Internet access?

In-flight "Entertainment": +/- 0
It's like Skynet's retarded cousin. So much potential, utterly wasted and occasionally embarrassing.
Movies on demand: decent selection, overpriced as hell. Par for course.
Chat & TV Chat: very cool, but nobody uses it. /sadpanda
Games: Doom was pretty neat 15 years ago. It's forgivable if it's just there for geek cred, but it looks like the feature offering.
TV: I got to watch WSOP, good enough.
"Best of the Web": More like the best of the web from 6+ months ago. Web content rots quickly.

Pre-boarding Trivia Contest T-shirt giveaway: +5
Kudos for trying.

Airfare: +100
San Diego to San Francisco (and back!) for $120. Ninety minutes, each way. You're doing something right, at least...keep it up!