The Big Habitrail in the Sky

photo of Captain Hill taken yesterday.

Over the last two weeks I've noticed Captain Hill's health deteriorating. Her movement becoming more laboured and restricted. It got to a point where she couldn't climb up the 90 degree tubes any more. Then even crawling into the next pod seemed to take all her energy just to get to the water.  The last few days I have had to feed her by hand as she couldn't even make it to the food bowl.


Tired, Captain Hill falls asleep in my hand.

It wasn't a huge surprise when I woke up today to find her deceased. At least she looked comfortable.  It looked like she died in her sleep.


"I'm glad I found her like this, in a rest position. It would have been terrible finding her stuck in a tube, death from over excursion (heart attack)."

Hamsters have an average life span of 3 years.  Given this knowledge it shouldn't come as a surprise that they will die in that time frame.  I'm saddened by the passing of my small adventurous friend.  I suppose I got more attached to her than I thought.

One of the reasons for getting a hamster, other than they are cute photo ops and inexpensive (on sale for $5 !), was that they have such a short life span.  It's perfect for a pet owner that doesn't want the responsibility for years and years (imagine owning a turtle?).  You could get a goldfish, but then you'd have to change the water every so often and keep the water temperature at a constant.  I suppose cleaning a hamster cage would be the same thing.  Travelling with a fish would be more difficult.

A hamster is perfect.  Perfect that is until you get attached to them.  Then you wish they lived longer.  Another day for another adventure.


The sun was just coming up over High Park


I buried her with her dino on wheels chew toy N43.645024 W79.460031

I'll miss this furry fluff ball.

Goodbye Captain Hill may you have more adventures complete with snack foods where ever you are. 

The Recovery of a Hamster

Captain Hill enjoys some Brussels sprouts

Captain Hill seemed better today. She wasn't bleeding any more so that was good. Her movement however seemed limited to getting food and sitting or sleeping in her fluffy bed area. She didn't really move much more than that. I'm going to keep an eye on her over the following days just to see if she's okay.


eating a peanut

Update:  Captain Hill started crawling around from level one to level three of the cage.  Although it looked like she was panting going up the tubes.  Maybe she's getting a bit overweight.  You'd think she was a smoker.  She'd crawl up a tube then just before going up the next one would stop, pant, like she was contemplating the next climb.  She hasn't been exercising in the ball as of late, it's possible she's getting out of shape.

Captain Hill, the $5 hamster

Feeding Captain Hill a peanut

Hamsters are on sale! "Hey, that's cool I always wanted to get a Hamster as a pet." Maybe because they eat and sleep all day. I could relate to that. And at $5, the only pet less expensive would be a pet fish or maybe a worm (more on that experiment here).

Of course once you add the food, the cage, the total racked up to about $200.00, Then with additional add ons, treats, more food, some hamster toys, shelving, bedding, and a hamster fluff supply over two and a half years the total increases to about $600. Then there was the operation add another $1200. Bringing us to a grand total of $1800, sorry $1805.

When Captain Hill had the tumor I thought about letting her go in a park, crawling off into the sunset. $1200 is a lot of money. I had been paid just then so I had the money and seeing the poor thing trying to crawl through tubes was sad. I had gotten attached to the thing, dammit.

Captain Hill made a full recovery from the surgery in less than a day. That was quite good news and she has been crawling around since and eating and sleeping.

Today I noticed she was leaving a trail of blood. I did some research online. It could be cysts developing in the ovaries. This is common in female hamsters that haven't produced off spring. It could also be a urinary infection or a vaginal discharge.

The pet doctor isn't open until monday so I can't do anything until then. I can only hope the bleeding stops or if it doesn't that my cheque comes in so I can afford to take her to the vet.

Fun with Pipes

Outside in the backyard working on a small project.

I woke up pretty late today.  I stayed up late last night to finish watching Community season two.  (Note: for people wanting to watch this show - It wasn't until the second half of the season that it picked up.  I thought the first season was written better overall.)

Anyhooo...  I ended up going outside today.  It turns out there's a backyard at my place that has a picnic table.  I figured while I was outside getting some sun, fresh air and some pipe cutting done that I'd take the hamster (Captain Hill) outside as well.  She's been in her cage, indoors, pretty much all week.


Cutting pipe with a pipe cutter.

We had about four hours before the sun started going down and the backyard was in the shade.  It's starting to get wintery here at night.  Captain Hill crawled around the table for about an hour before attempting to "fall" off the table to the ground.  I caught her twice in mid air then decided to place her in "the ball" so she could crawl around on the ground without getting lost or eaten by the neighbourhood falcon or cat.


Captain Hill explores the back yard in "the Ball".

I realize it's been a while since doing a blog entry and this entry is not that exciting.  I've still got a whole bunch of entries from the past that have to be "posted".  Maybe I'll get around to doing that over the next few days.

Hands of Horror, Feet of Death

"What place of hell have you brought me to?"

While on the way to the bank with Captain Hill, I realize this sounds odd, taking the hamster out to the bank. I suppose this requires some explanation. The hamster has been in the cage for some time. I suppose I was thinking she needed some air or something in the way of a change from the ordinary everyday scenery that she gets from being in her cage.  I needed to go to the bank.  This brings us to bringing the hamster along for the ride.

Being put into a smaller cage and then into a shopping bag probably isn't much in the way of scenery. Hamsters have poor eyesight though. So being in a bag might not be that bad, at least the hamster would get to experience the different smells from the outside world. As I write this I'm reminded of the oversized lady we walked by wearing some cheap smelling perfume that she bathed in. I winced as we passed her. Hamsters with an acute sense of smell... well I'm sure that Captain Hill didn't enjoy that particular moment in time.


"Hold gently, Do NOT squeeze!"

Anyhooo... while making our way to the bank we were met by William and Irmena with their two kids. They were going to a neighbourhood open house "Welcome to the neighbourhood" party. It was a get together to meet people in the surrounding area hosted by some folks just a few blocks from where we were standing.  They invited me to tag along.  I think they might have also mentioned free food.


Within ten minutes we were in the backyard of someone's house. I noticed that there were a lot of kids and everyone that were considered adults were coupled. Spotlight on the single creepy guy with the hamster.  Thank goodness I don't live in a dark basement.  Oh wait, I do.  Creepy.

Since Asha and Finn, William and Irmena's kids, already knew Captain Hill was in the bag there wasn't much point in trying to conceal the hamster from the other kids. There were a ton of kids.  Luckily there were only a few kids that noticed the others were busy playing on the swings or playing tag further off in the yard. The kids that did notice the hamster were more than enough.  I'm sure to Captain Hill  there were enough of them to freak her out. I let the hamster out of the cage and onto the ground so Asha could have a better look at her.  Next thing you know there's a swarm of little hands flailing out to touch Captain Hill.

 Kids, human kids, are small, uncoordinated for the most part, are attracted to small furry animals and also have a very short attention span.  This makes for a dangerous combination.  Not knowing hold to hold a hamster properly could be very uncomfortable.  Despite trying to teach them how to hold the hamster properly there was still that one kid that went to hold Captain Hill like a toothpaste tube.


Captain Hill didn't seem to mind this little girl's grasp.

There was one girl that held the hamster in a weird way.  The correct way to hold a small creature is to have one hand underneath to hold it's weight, the other hand to cover the animal so it doesn't fall (or leap away).  Despite the two hands clutching the hamster Captain Hill looked like she was falling asleep...  that or the oxygen was being squished out of her.  I couldn't tell.

I placed her back in the cage in the bag.  The kids had started running around the yard.  I was afraid she would get stepped on.  Kids are like chickens with their heads cut off.  Running around, not looking where they were going.  It was all pretty nutty.


One of the kids looks in the bag to see if Captain Hill is doing okay.

Eventually I left the party and made it to the bank.

Captain Hill versus the Beach

Captain Hill eating veal sandwich

Going to the beach seemed like a good idea this morning when I couldn't think of anything else to do.  I figured I should get outside for some fresh air and at the same time bring Captain Hill out for an adventure (aka photo shoot).

Since getting her back from Mean Little Mama she hasn't used the hamster wheel.  I'm not sure why.  It's possible she's gotten too fat...  er... big to use it.  It could also be that it fell over with her in it once too often back when it was supported by a stand and not attached to the cage wall.  What ever the case may be I thought it would be good for her to get out of the cage and get some exercise.   Plus the scenery change couldn't hurt could it?

It took about 3 hours to get the beach.  Stopped off to get a veal sandwich at Nonna's, then stopped off at the hardware store to get a garden shovel, then stopped off at McDonalds to get a large orange juice (the plastic cup would be used to help make the sand castle).  We took the Queen street car leisurely across town to end up at Leslie, about 15 minutes walk from Coxwell.  There was construction that wouldn't let the streetcars  go any further.

I stopped off under a picnic station (a bunch of picnic tables under a roof in the park) to eat my sandwich.  I gave some of the veal to Captain Hill.  She actually liked it and I got some funny photos of her eating.

The hamster book recommends that you feed a hamster some kind of meat once a week.  The protein can be live crickets, dog food, or some mind of cooked meat (excluding pork - because it's too fatty).  So veal it was.

We then went down to the beach where I started creating a sand castle which came to look more like a sand pit with cup shaped mounds.  In my brain I thought it could be a simplified hamster scaled down version of Easter island.  Sure why not?

The shoot went well.  Watching the hamster waddle toward the lake to be caught in the small waves of water was interesting.  Being a desert animal I don't think captain hill liked the water much.  She would wander back onto the sand to dry herself.

Ears back.  Captain Hill seems put off by the new sandy surroundings

In the "sand castle"

"Duck and cover"

The sand blowing has stopped

looking around the beach.

happy trails

Captain Hill meets the water

Captain Hill versus the Air Duct

The entrance to the air duct

I woke up this morning to what sounded like a squirrel trapped between the floors trying to eat it's way out. I've seen squirrels outside trying to get in because at one point they had a nest. Being tired I didn't really think much of it. It was 3:30 after all and I had just plopped into bed about three hours earlier after a long day at work.

The scratching kept going. It seemed loud. So not being able to get back to sleep I went up stairs to feed Captain Hill. I had only fed her part of my pork souvlaki on a bun that I grabbed as part of our second meal last night so thought I should feed her some supplementary hamster food (the dry stuff).

When I got upstairs I noticed that she wasn't in the POD. "Uh oh" I checked to see if she escaped the same way as a few weeks ago but the doors were still taped shut. Upon further inspection, I found that one of the tube caps had fallen off. She probably pushed it off and it had landed right into the air duct. Cheryl had moved the POD over the air duct to make room for the new furniture she acquired. The weird timing and coincidence allowed the hamster to most likely fall right into the duct. ugh.


Drop ins welcome

It's now 5:52. I've opened up some of the vents in the basement hoping the hamster will drop in. I've also placed a peanut at the entry to the air duct in the case that she's alive she'll return to the familiar place and eat it if she's hungry. I've also placed a peanut next to the open duct in the basement to hopefully lure her toward the opening. Below I've put a pile of peanuts in a box with a towel as a cushion.

All I can do is wait. That is unless I can find out how to take apart the furnace. This is logically where I think the hamster would be as it's the lowest place to go. I'm not sure if there's a filter that would grab the hamster before going into the body of the furnace. I'll have to wait for Cheryl to wake up and ask her.

"One ping and one ping only."

In the meantime I'm trying to listen for any sounds that might give the position of the hamster away. It's so quiet right now the ticking clock on the wall seems loud. I'm hoping that Captain Hill has found somewhere comfortable and is sleeping right now. It would be around the time she was sleeping.

UPDATE 6:25

I thought I heard the air duct upstairs make noise so I went to check and the peanut was gone. After lifting up the grill and looking in (I found a quarter) I didn't see any sign of the hamster. Then off to the edge of my eye I caught movement. Captain Hill not only had the peanut jammed in her face but was looking at me at floor level. How did she get out of the duct?


Yay! Captain Hill returns to the POD.

I returned her to the POD with food and fresh water. I taped the cap shut. The Captain ate some, drank a lot, and went to sleep.

That concludes today's air duct adventures.

Day before lift off

Captain Hill crawls on the grass.

I worked today. It would be the only day of the week that I would work. In terms of going on vacation or going away it was bad timing job wise. The previous week had no work days scheduled and the week I got back I'd have only one day scheduled for work. So two days of work in three weeks.

It's not like I knew what the work schedule would be like when i started to plan taking time off once I figured out when Rollercon was. Just finding someone that could work in my spot was challenging enough. Toronto has been pretty busy this last year with work. At least for playback operators. I kept getting job offers while I was working. Something that's not that usual in past years.

My first thing to do once I got home was to change the hamster cage (aka The POD). While doing that I took the Hamster outside for a bit so she could crawl around in the grass and breathe in the fresh air. The following are some of the photos taken with the Fuji W3 in 2D mode.


crawling toward me and the camera...


Hears something...

Andy's travelling to Taiwan.

I arrived home from London to find the Captain had escaped. My friend Andy was having a going away party. The dilemma was choosing between whether to go to the party to see a friend off or look for the hamster. My logic told me that the hamster had been missing for a maximum of two and a half days. There really wasn't much I could do.

Worse case scenarios - a) the resident cat, Lucy, made up for all the times the Captain ran up to her at full ramming speed in the hamster ball. b) The hamster found her way into the air ducts, got stuck and died.

Both theories I didn't like much.  After doing some house investigation I didn't smell any rotting and didn't see any body parts on the floor so I was pretty sure the Captain was just some where sleeping. Perhaps the couch.

I thought that's where I'd be if I were the hamster. It's warm and dark with a close proximity to the POD. Plus there's food in the couch as Cheryl tends to drop crumbs when she's eating.  I know this because I've cleaned the couch before.  I'm not talking huge things like whole crackers, just little particles of food.  I want you the reader to know that Cheryl is not a slob.  Cheryl noticed a toilet paper roll knocked over saturday. So we pieced together, like a Crime Scene Investigation, that it was pushed or knocked over by the hamster after escaping from the back of the POD.

The latch sometimes flips open. With a nudge, I figured the hamster made it's way out and crawled out the open back panel. Once on the outside, while crawling around, the hamster then pushed the toilet paper over, then fell to the ground (about a 60cm drop). Once on the floor crawled along the wall past the shelf and to the couch. It's dark, and made of soft material that the hamster could easily climb up and into. Plus there's food in there. I found a pretzel bit when pulling up a cushion.

I decided to go see Andy. I wouldn't see her for at least a year otherwise and dead or alive the hamster would eventually be found. As dark as that might seem there was nothing I could do.  Also I always wanted to meet Andy.  I knew her through Bill and had only met her in passing.  She was always someone in the background that I never said "Hi" to.  We had kept in touch over the internet and by that I mean maybe one or two messages a year.  But from that and her facebook postings there was something quirky about the girl I liked.  I also figured that Bill or other people I'd know would be at the party and it would be good to see them too.

On the way to Andy's place I stopped by the local grocery store to pick up some peanuts to use as a lure for the hamster when I got back home. This bag of peanuts would later become a conversation piece as I talked to people later on that night.

After an hour of commuting I ended up standing at the front door to the going away party with no one answering the door. It's times like this where I wished I had phone numbers of people that were going to be there. I didn't. After about 20 minutes of looking like some squinting stalker on the front porch I eventually left. Maybe I got the address wrong?  the event got cancelled?  ugh. 

While on the subway travelling back home between the Summerhill and Rosedale stations, the train is outside above ground, my phone picked up a text message. It was Andy saying that they didn't hear the doorbell or door knocking because they were all in the back yard.  Someone had found my card with a message that I'd been there and luckily passed it on along with my phone number.

Using the incoming phone number attached to the text message I texted the person back saying I was turning around. At Bloor I reversed course and headed back to the party.


Andy at her going away backyard party



Posing for the 3D camera.

The party was fun. I ended up chatting to various people, talking about the 3D camera, eating a large number of hot dogs, taking photos and explained numerous times why I had a bag of peanuts. Photos of people dancing, being clocked on the head with stuffed animals, lawn bowling. Fun stuff.

It was good to see Andy in real life as well. Talking to someone on facebook is one thing but it's definitely not the same as actually meeting them in person. I'm glad I went and in the end was happy to meet her even if never to see her again.  She was going away after all.  Maybe our paths would cross again some day in the future.  She took a bunch of our addresses so she could send mail to us.  While it seemed like a nice thing to look forward to I won't get my hopes up.  Every time I travel I usually don't send mail.  It's one of those things you need time to do.  Maybe if she was stuck indoors somewhere because of the weather?  I think about being in London when it rained.  I was outside exploring.

On the way back home I received some text messages from Cheryl (the landlord). She and Lucy (the cat) had located Captain Hill in the couch and the hamster had run behind the shelf unit. I instructed Cheryl to block the floor vents and told her I was on the way home.

By the time I got to Dundas West station I had more text messages on my phone. The last one stated that Cheryl had caught the hamster in her derby helmet and scooped it up putting in back into the cage (POD).


Captain Hill with banana chip

I got home and gave the hamster a banana chip. One should note that banana chips cut length wise down the banana are not easily moved by the hamster. It does provide some entertainment when she tried to squeeze into a tube with the banana slice horizontal. I am evil.

Captain Hill versus the outdoors

Captain Hill near the school yard fence.

There's a heat wave this week. Today isn't supposed to be that bad (28°C / 82°F). Over the course of the next few days the temperature is supposed to steadily climb reaching it's peak on thursday where the mercury will hit 37°C or 99°F on the thermometer. I'm sure there are people that live closer to the equator thinking I'm a wimp. To them I say "Yes, I am!". I like cooler temperatures in general.

Anyhow, I managed to stay indoors for most of today by going through photos from my trip to Kitchener and photos from RollerCon 2008. I want to post a few before the week is over. It's nice to have an air conditioned environment and live in a basement in times like these.

While the computers crunched through the photo data I kept up the productivity levels by cleaning Captain Hill's space pod. This woke up the Captain from her nap and she climbed out of the sleep pod, which was no longer attached to the main pods, and started to crawl around the desk. It was at this point that I decided that she needed fresh air and proceeded to take her outside for an impromptu photo shoot on the grass across the street.


Captain Hill explores the grass across the street

Captain Hill versus The Banana Chip

Captain Hill with a freshly made banana chip.

With a food dehydrator I've been making a constant array of chips out of bananas and fuji apples. The hamster seems to like this stuff. I figured tonight would be a good time to take some photos of the sampling of these chips.


Stuffing the banana chip in mouth.


Ready and looking for the next piece of food.


Found a apple chip


The Captain inspects my multi max receiver


Attempting to escape from the POD


Here's a good product placement photo for the Habitrail

Captain Hill VS the robot teddy bear

Captain Hill inspects the teddy bear robot

While looking for cable to hook up the Genesis to the TV I found an old robot figurine complete with mini back drop in my cable kit. It was a pretty good guess that I hadn't required coaxial cable in a few years. I'd been looking for the robot ever since work finished on Earth Final Conflict. It had sat on my desk back then for the entire fifth season along with some figurines of the Gatchaman team.


Stuffed with almonds.

There was a whole series of these robot bear figurines. Imported from Japan and sold in boxes kind of like trading cards in that you wouldn't know which one you had until you opened the box.

Captain Hill VS The Dinosaur

Captain Hill 'examines' the toy Dinosaur

Is it just me or are there companies that make toys for kids, then if the toy isn't successful they repackage the same toy for animals? Are manufacturing rules for making toys for animals less strict compared to making toys for human kids? If I buy a squeaky hamburger toy for a friend's five year child that was made for a dog is that toy going to decompose into hazardous chemicals compared to the human toy equivalent?

If so then I address the receiver of said hamburger to stop using it. Your boy has probably gotten too old for that toy anyway.

For the past week or so, Captain Hill has been gnawing away at the plastic cage (dubbed Space pod one) and making a huge racket. Almost like clockwork I'd be up at 4am wondering why the hamster chose that particular time to start munching. To fix this I bought a few hamster chew toys.

Some multi-coloured triangles made of lava rock and this dinosaur on wheels made of wood. The wheels actually work, the dinosaur can roll. The idea being that Captain Hill would work on the toys leaving the cage alone and make less noise. For all I know the hamster is just filing away the plastic to make a grand escape.

I've placed one triangle into the cage and for a night it stopped the gnawing the plastic. I woke up instead to the sound of rocks being thrown around. That's what I thought it was. I turned on the lights to find the triangle wedged into Captain Hill's mouth. The noise was from the Captain charging into the tube hole and bouncing back due to the triangle being wider than the tube opening. It must have been about an hour that passed before I stopped hearing the noise. Either the hamster had given up or I just fell asleep from exhaustion.

The next day the triangle wedge had disappeared and the plastic pod gnawing continued.

Tonight I have put the other two wedges into the cage along with the dinosaur. Will keep you updated.

The bowl runneth over

The Captain crawls out of the bowl into a dish.

I made some fried rice and while getting the hamster it's food went back to the table to find the hamster had gotten into my bowl of food. I had eaten most of it by the time the hamster crawled in.

So instead of feeding the usual peanut shaped hamster vittles I added some more fried rice to a dish and took photos as the hamster cleaned off the plate.


Finishing off the fried rice sample.

Space Pod One

The hamster habitat (aka Space Station One)

Up until now I hadn't really taken the time to photograph the hamster in her environment. That is I've taken photos with bad tungsten low level lighting but no photos that were crisp with nice lighting. I wanted a photo to show people what the configuration of the cage was as well as the cage itself.

I transported the hamster and her habitrail to the basement where I set up some black material as a backdrop (It really makes the cage look like it's in space). Then with the limited space I positioned the lights and took some photos. What follows are the results...


"I smell a raisin."


"Uh, hey hello... food bowl... empty... could you get on that?"


Captain Hill in her sleeping pod.


Sitting in the food bowl.


In the observation deck.


until next time...