First on the to-do list--mail the sold merchandise (DVDs). Then we drive over the mountain to Surprise Valley to have brother Brian appraised at the clinic and to get a TB test for him (both prerequisite to his attendance at the Work Activity Center).

While we are in the valley we'll try to collect some of the many filled book boxes that await us in storage: I have struck a deal with a book person who had been supplying a little bookstore in Cedarville. That store no longer wants to sell these books, having shifted focus, and so I acquire 25 to 30 boxes full cost-free to me up front; we'll split the proceeds as they sell.

Miracles never cease.

I printed out a little article I found online today about starting a used book store. It says that most such stores begin with the owner's collection as seed stock, but should have 10,000 volumes total stock by opening day. But that's for a local population of 50,000. We must revise downward somewhat for Modoc County. But I think we may have 5000 books, at least, by Nov. 2. Otherwise, by these lights it would appear that I've done everything right so far....
11:31:51 AM    comment []  trackback []  

The New York Times reported that a new, sometimes fatal communicable canine flu is spreading in kennels and dog tracks around the country.

The flu has killed greyhounds at tracks in Florida, Massachusetts, Arizona, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Texas and Iowa.

The Times story said:

Cynda Crawford, an immunologist at the University of Florida's College of Veterinary Medicine who is studying the virus, said that it spread most easily where dogs were housed together but that it could also be passed on the street, in dog runs or even by a human transferring it from one dog to another. Kennel workers have carried the virus home with them, she said.

How many dogs die from the virus is unclear, but scientists said the fatality rate is more than 1 percent and could be as high as 10 percent among puppies and older dogs.

Dr. Crawford first began investigating greyhound deaths in January 2004 at a racetrack in Jacksonville, Fla., where eight of the 24 greyhounds who contracted the virus died.

"This is a newly emerging pathogen," she said, "and we have very little information to make predictions about it. But I think the fatality rate is between 1 and 10 percent."

She added that because dogs had no natural immunity to the virus, virtually every animal exposed would be infected. About 80 percent of dogs that are infected with the virus will develop symptoms, Dr. Crawford said. She added that the symptoms were often mistaken for "kennel cough," a common canine illness that is caused by the Bordetella bronchiseptica bacteria.

Both diseases can cause coughing and gagging for up to three weeks, but dogs with canine flu may spike fevers as high as 106 degrees and have runny noses. A few will develop pneumonia, and some of those cases will be fatal. Antibiotics and fluid cut the pneumonia fatality rate, Dr. Crawford said.

The virus is an H3N8 flu closely related to an equine flu strain. It is not related to typical human flus or to the H5N1 avian flu that has killed about 100 people in Asia.

Google link to other coverage
10:52:08 AM    comment []  trackback []