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On July 28th, 2009 at around 8AM Denmark-time, my ferret Pixel, not wanting to wait for her sleepy owners to get out of bed and let her out of her room for the usual ritual of morning ham or chicken, took matters into her own paws.

At around 8:30 a neighbor contacted us to report Pixel was on the ground outside the front entrance of the apartment block, not moving.

She had fallen six floors to her death.

Pixel was always an impatient girl, and smart enough to remember that she had made this Houdini escape once before. It was just a matter of being persistant enough to climb to the top of her cage, jump across a 1-foot (30 cm) gap to the window sill, squeeze herself through the partially-open window, and head for the nearby balcony, where she could scratch at the door to get our attention. She likely tried to turn around on the short window ledge or the balcony railing looking for a good spot to jump down into the balcony, and lost her balance.

When I arrived on the ground floor, her body was already beginning to cool. I took her upstairs and realized it was probably a very quick death, as I could see she hit the ground chin-first. One of her front paw fingers appeared to be broken too.

My girlfriend and I blame ourselves for two mistakes: first, I had left the window partially open to allow a breeze to keep the room cool during the day, and secondly the girlfriend did not put Pixel back in to her cage before going to bed (I was at work at the time) and only closed the door to my office, where Pixel's cage is. In itself this is not unusual, because it was common to find her curled up inside a blanket or sleeping-bag *outside* the cage next to my computer desk. She preferred to be nearby whenever she had the chance, so if we found her sleeping we just left her alone and closed the door to the room when we had to leave the apartment without her. The big error was in leaving the window open overnight, giving Pixel her opportunity the next morning.

She was 6 years old - that's roughly 60 years in human terms. Her birthday would have been this week. While occassionally acting like an old lady, she still had the attitude and energy of a kid. Even through 2 tumor surgeries, she never gave up enjoying her life with every waking moment.

Pixel was a remarkable ferret, energetic, quite intelligent for someone of her size, and an ambassador-of-sorts in educating people young and old about ferrets and what wonderful pets they can be. She was capable of displaying a wide range of body language and small facial expressions that made her more of a "little person" to me than just an animal.

She was my first pet after arriving in Europe, and she will not be the last. But she brought joy to my life (and to others) that no other animal has to-date, and I will miss her badly.

I post this to let people who knew her -- either through pictures, video, or heard her laughing/dooking over SL Voice or Skype as she played with me -- that she has passed away.

No memorial will be needed or accepted. Online venues and virtual worlds are inadequate or incomplete for me to properly express my loss. Perhaps you will understand if I occassionally babble-on with stories about her antics and adventures. She did mean a lot to me in many ways.

Photos of her can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/jimm.pratt/PixelPics#


Thanks for listening!

-Jimm

Not everything is captioned nor subjected to any sort of photographic standards, as it was more important to take photos instead of notes or a tripod. You can always ask about a photo you see and I will try to answer.

As last year, I split the photos into two groups:

SPEZI 2009 Expo
http://picasaweb.google.com/jimm.pratt/SPEZI2009Expo#

SPEZI 2009 Cycle tour- Germersheim to Copenhagen
http://picasaweb.google.com/jimm.pratt/ SPEZI2009CycleTourHome#

Enjoy!

I've installed MGMaps on my mobile phone today. With it, you should be able to see where I am during the SPEZI 2009 tour roughly every 2 hours or so, via http://www.gmap-track.com/user.php?user=digitalmouse.

Where-ever my position is displayed, I should be within 20-25 km (about 12-15 miles) of that point along the route I'm following (see the SPEZI post above, or scroll down this page a bit). My plan is to update my position when I stop for a break every 2 hours. If the position doesn't move for more than 4 hours, then I'm probably sleeping.

No guarantee that this will work, as it will try to report via a wireless internet access point then via the mobile phone's cell network. The later might be expensive, so I've set the auto-reporting at 2 hours (in case I forget to shut the GPS off) to keep the cost down. We'll see how long the pre-paid money lasts. At worst case, I'll update the position manually when I have internet access at a cafe somewhere.

instead of duplicating blog posts between here and my other main blog, the SPEZI trip this year will be tracked via http://thedigitalmouse.blogspot.com

enjoy!

Pre-amble: "A key to running successful “social networking sites” is to remember that they’re just communities. All communities, online or off, have one thing in common: members want to belong—to feel like part of something larger than themselves. Communicating effectively, setting clear and specific expectations, mentoring contributors, playing with trends, offering rewards, and praising liberally (but not excessively) can harness your members’ innate desires—and nurture great content in the process."

This article is good food for thought for the BYOND community. Full article can be found at: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/coachingcommunity