Kevin update

Haven't posted any Kevin updates lately.

He still eludes being held or touched.

Here's one from the other night that looks promising. :)

The video makes him look huge, but he's really not as big as he may seem.

When I eat breakfast, he hangs on the side of his cage waiting for a taste. It's usually a bran flake from my Raisin Bran. He loves them.

Once I can find a larger table, I plan to connect another cage to his so he has more space to explore.

Chomp

Kevin loves peanut butter.

Kevin can also bite harder than he has been.

Last night I decided to give Kevin a special treat: peanut butter. I have read that they can eat it, in very tiny amounts. Too much and it can block their airways(?) I guess that makes sense, since it's very sticky.

Anyway, I smeared the tiniest amount on my finger tip and offered it to him. He licked and nibbled at it until it was gone. He then wanted more. I gave him more. This time, he decided to bite my finger. He bit it fairly hard too, although it didn't break skin or leave a mark. This is more inline with what I originally expected. :)

I also tried a few times to pick him up, but he wouldn't have any of that.

Earlier in the week I placed a large rock in his cage for him to climb on, and hopefully wear down his little nails. I noticed they were getting a little long, and since I can't hold him to trim them, this is the best I can do.

He was cautious at first, but now he seems to like it.

His routine now is to climb up to the door and almost immediately he'll climb back down and wait for me to put my hand in the cage and offer him a treat. He knows that I won't give him anything at the door anymore.

Trust

It turns out that Kevin doesn't like carrots. I tried to give some as a treat and he completely ignored it and wanted to bite my finger instead.

I got brave and let him take a bite. Or two. Or three. Or ten.

It didn't break the skin or hurt at all. Either he went easy on me or that's the best he can do.

I tried to coax him onto my open hand later, using a few different seeds as bait. He seemed puzzled and bit me a few times. Again, no pain or blood shed, but he was pretty determined to make my hand go away.

I think his biggest problem is that he closes his eyes when he puts his face near my hand. He goes into cautious, defensive mode. I guess he's protecting himself in case I attack? His vision is already bad because he's a mouse, but with his eyes closed he can't see where the seeds are to grab one so he just bites at random with hope that he'll find an edible snack.

Anyway, I think this was a huge step in building trust with him. I wish someone had told me that the bites didn't hurt or draw blood. Is this really normal for a domestic mouse?

When he climbs up at the door, he's starting to look down at the table more often as if he's tempted to jump down. I still try to avoid giving him any treats when he's there, and instead give them to him inside his cage.

Still patient

Kevin is still eluding my attempts to pet him or hold him. He does seem to be getting used to the hand intrusions in his cage though. Even my kids were able to almost pet him yesterday when they were over.

One of these days I'll keep my hand in the cage when he attempts to nip me and see if he'll try it more than once. :)

A Google photos compilation video of a bunch of clips...

Don't touch my stuff

This week I discovered that Kevin doesn't particularly like "the big hand" going inside his cage.

I thought we were making good progress toward him being held, so I attempted to pet him while he was inside his cage. If he ran off, all I had to do was stir up the bedding on the floor of the cage a little and he'd come running back to make me stop.

He tried to nip at me a couple of times as if to say "No, we'll have none of that. Beat it!" No broken or even scratched skin, but they were definitely his teeth that I felt. It was still kind of cute. He was getting a little too excited, so I gave him a few treats and left him alone.

No more of this

Last night i tried a different approach. I've stopped giving him treats by allowing him to climb up to the door and hang out to take them from me, and instead I am now putting my hand inside the cage to give them to him. I think he just needs to get used to having my hand in the cage to build more trust.

Kevin, one week later

Kevin is getting better about coming to the cage door for treats. I tried to pet him a few times last night when he climbed up to see if I had anything for him. Needless to say, he dropped back into the cage and scurried off quickly. :)

Kyle and Kaitlyn came over for dinner and had fun giving him treats. We had to coax him down though since he seemed more interested in sleeping.

Later in the evening I tried putting a seed in my open hand and resting it on the cage bottom. He approached very cautiously to smell my hand. He even tried to nip my finger once; I felt his teeth brush against my finger. One thing I noticed, and Kaitlyn also noticed, is that he squints when he's taking food from you. I think that's a sign that he's still a little bit afraid.

More progress

Last night, for the first time, I was able to put my hand inside the cage and give Kevin a couple of treats, as he hid inside the tube to his eating area. He doesn't seem to like the sunflower seeds as much as I expected. I had hamsters when I was younger and they loved them. Pumpkin seeds and, what I think are, watermelon seeds seem to be his fav.

Even when I don't have treats for him, I hold my fingers near the cage so he can get used to me. He doesn't run away as often.

He still fills his water bowl with bedding. I had to clean it twice this morning before I left for work. I need to find something better soon.

I should also mention that Kevin has his own Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/kevin_the_mouse/

Yyyyep... why not.

Slow progress is still progress

On Tuesday evening, I made my first real attempt to hand-feed Kevin treats through the bars. He accepted them without too much trouble and came back for more many times, but he tends to run off to eat them. He's very quick.

More treats please!

He has a really bad habit of filling his water bowl with bedding and I have to clean it out and refill it. I need to find a small water bottle that will fit through the bars of the cage. Pet Valu didn't have anything suitable.

This evening I hand-fed him more treats through the bars. I feel like he's getting used to me now, but I'm still not confident enough to attempt to pick him up for fear he'll jump out of my hands and get lost in the apartment, or worse, hurt.

2 Days with Kevin

I managed to clean Kevin's cage on Sunday. I waited until he was in another area of the cage, then disconnect the other parts and cleaned them. He's still very skittish. When he smells my fingers or I put my face near the cage, he scampers off to his eating "room". I would too if I was him.

This morning, I left small strips of paper towel in his cage and he used them to "wallpaper" his sleeping quarters. I gave him a full sheet of tissue later in the evening and he managed to figure out how to get it up to his sleeping area; he dragged it backwards up the pipe. Smart little guy.

Meet Kevin

Today I adopted Kevin from the Ottawa Humane Society. He's 6 months old and was born on March 16, according to his papers. He cost me $10 and they included the cage. I picked up some food while I was there for $9.

The adoption process was easy and fairly quick. They had a few other mice to choose from, but I think when they said I'd want Kevin once I saw him it gave him an advantage. :) They said they usually sit his cage on the counter and he's active all day. When I was leaving they asked me if I was going to keep his name and I said I would. It suits him.

I walked to the nearby Pet Valu later in the afternoon and purchased some treats and fresh bedding.

I'm not even going to attempt to pet or pick him up for a while. I've had hamsters and a rat in the past, so I know how to approach the situation, but he's way more skittish and fast than they ever were.

Bikes are all working... knock on wood

I brought the rear rim of the Allegro 1X to the bike shop to get a spoke fixed. I had expected the work to be completed early Saturday so I could get in some riding but it didn't happen until after 4pm. $35.31 later it's fixed. What a cost difference in comparison to getting a spoke fixed on the Neo Carbon. Of course, it's too different shops; one specializing in electric bikes and the other regular bikes. They may claim that e-bikes are just like regular bikes, but they're not when it comes to repairs. That's something to keep in mind if you're thinking of getting one.

I discovered the obvious on Friday as I rode the Neo Carbon home and I saw that I had almost double the charge remaining in the battery than I usually do. Changing my riding style takes all the credit for that. I've started coasting as often as I can, whereas before I would always pedal, even downhill, to get to where I'm going faster. What a difference. This should have been obvious right from the start. Duh. :)

I need to ride 28.6kms per day, every day, for the entire month to catch up on my Great Cycle Challenge goal of 750kms. I've switched to a longer route to and from work that should help make up for lost time, but it's only going to help if the weather cooperates every day. Fingers crossed.

Bikes... the things I hate about them

After replacing the inner tube in the rear wheel of the Neo Carbon (and finding a third puncture on the old one) all was well up until yesterday.

About half way home I heard a spoke "pop" sound. If you've broken a spoke, you know that sound. Fortunately, the bike shop I got it at was along my route home. Unfortunately, after waiting half an hour, they told me it couldn't be fixed yesterday because it was more complicated than they first thought, with the spoke pattern and all. On top of that, it was going to cost around $55 to fix. I don't think I have much choice than to get it fixed there, since it's the rear wheel with the motor in the hub. I hope that estimate isn't higher today after they realized it was more work.

As if that's not bad enough, when I took the Allegro out for an hour on Saturday, I heard that familiar spoke pop. I couldn't find a broken spoke, but the wheel became untrue. I managed to finish my ride and had planned to take it to a regular bike shop yesterday after I got home from work. By the time I walked home, I wasn't in much of a mood to go back out and spend more money. I'll probably do that today.

What sucks even more is that today was suppose to be the first day of the Great Cycle Challenge.

Come on June, be good to me.

Update: the repair cost is $98.25 :(

More bike woes

This happens at least once or twice a year: flat tires.

It happened to me this morning, about 1½ kms from work. I walked it the rest of the way and checked it out when I got to the bike room. I lucked out and found a tiny thorn stuck in the tire. When I pumped up the tire I could feel the air leaking out where the thorn had been. Finding the leak is half the battle. Or so I thought.

I went down at lunch and attempted to repair the flat. The Neo Carbon's rear wheel is held on with 19mm nuts, and I don't carry wrenches with me, so I had to repair it without removing the wheel. That's not too difficult. Once I repaired it, and put some air in the tire, I examined the tire for any other punctures. I found a small metal sliver stuck in the tire. I removed it and air came out. Of all the shitty luck. Why me?

Once again, I removed the inner tube enough to patch the second hole. I was fortunate enough to find someone in the underground parking who had a portable air pump so I could inflate it to the right pressure.

I returned my bike to the bike room and crossed my fingers that it would stay inflated, but in the back of my mind I didn't have much confidence in my repair job.

I went back down an hour later to find it flat once again. If I had a 19mm wrench with me, I would have replaced the entire inner tube like I usually do and this probably wouldn't be a problem.

I hate taking the bus.

Ride comparison

After riding home from work yesterday on my Neo Carbon I decided to take my Jamis Allegro 1X for a ride. The weather was warm enough, so I changed quickly and headed out for a ~10km ride that I had mapped out earlier in the week.

What a difference.

I fully expected more of a workout, but it felt like I was pedaling with the brakes on. And to think that I used to ride ~40kms per day to and from work on this bike.

I need to do this more often for the workout. I'm aiming for a daily ride after work, weather permitting. First, I need to make a few adjustments to the gears this weekend.

ContourROAM upgrade to ContourROAM 2

I discovered this last week while trying to find a fix for an issue I had with my ContourROAM camera not keeping the correct time:

How To Upgrade ROAM1 into ROAM2

http://www.wikihow.com/Mod-a-Contour-Roam-to-60Fps#How_To_Upgrade_ROAM1_into_ROAM2_sub

There are other web sites and videos that all describe the procedure. Be sure to install the Contour StoryTeller software and check out some of the other new features that get added.

There is one complaint about doing this though; it doesn't record well under low light after the upgrade. If filming at night is important for you, don't do it.

The upgrade/hack also fixed my time issue. :)