One year + 100 days...
I know, I know... It's been WAAAAY too long AGAAAAAAAIN, since blogging...

Thank you everyone of all concerns etc. via Twitter, Lucy's guestbook, email and such.

We have not been sitting still here, although the efforts involved are not immediately appearant on HamsterTracker.com:

• We have made the switch to green electricity! So HamsterTracker™ is running on a CO₂ free environment
• Also I am looking forward to our upcomming fibreglass internet connection
• Lucy is enjoying life without cameras (since she doesn't appreciate the *Flash*)
• A faulty disk in the HamsterTracker™-Server has been succesfully replaced!
• etc.
• etc..
• etc...

Lucy has been getting a lot of attention, even though she could do perfectly without. Lucy^5.0 is much more to herself as opposed to the other Lucy's. She's also not to fond of the camera (read: *Flash*).


" Dude, why are you wakening me AGAIN? .... " - Lucy



" Oke, oke! Just give me a moment, oke? " - Lucy


I envited Lucy over to the couch,
so she could have her night out ( This time WITH camera... Please don't tell! )



" Dude, why are you wakening me AGAIN? .... " - Lucy



Talk soon! Mkay?

I know, I know... It's been WAAAAY too long, since blogging...

It's been very busy for me, not all HamsterTracker™-Related, but a very interesting time!
To make it up for you, I've posted this (longer than usual) item for you.
There actually three items in this one post: Two Happy Hamster reviews, Daffodil stuff and Lucy^5.0, ofcourse! Hoping to make it up to you.
Here we go:

(independent) Happy Hamster Reviews

I suppose there is no greater kick than finding a video (or two) on the book I wrote.
I found these (accidentally) while Googlin'.

Lucy does know her way around her mansion. If you are unaware of Lucy's latest Mansion Expansion; ... Lucy now has a Basement, Livingroom, Bedroom, Meditation Attic as well as some un-named spaces.

I must mention that Lucy has been exploring it all extensively... leaving her scent marks all over. That's how hamsters make it their owm.

She truly does feel at home; here's a photoshoot (the first after much counseling, see previous post):

I just LOVE Lucy's mole on Lucy's left pinky! I guess the T.S.A. will let Lucy^5.0 pass immediately after this publication! USA here we come! (???)


All excited about the weather phenonimum called snow, Lucy wanted to get outside a.s.a.p. to 'throw some snowballs' as she stated.

I explained that snow is really cold to the touch, as well as that I do not have gloves with four fingers on each hand... It took some convincing;

It's been a while since I've blogged... This doesn't mean that I've been sitting still. :-)

I have started working on Lucy's Statistical Graphs a few weeks ago and since then we experienced some setbacks: Although the Data Scanner software I developed about a year ago to load Lucy's data easily into a spreadsheet. I had forgotton that Lucy^5.0 needed all new graphs and such...

This involved much copy & pasting previous graphs, while changing data-ranges to reflect Lucy's latest statistics.

Meanwhile I experimented with hooking up more camera's to Lucy's webcams... This had interesting results... The HamsterTracker™-Server froze... didn't respond to ANYTHING... so I was forced to the most brutal reset imaginable; cutting power...

Lucy's water consumption is a bit in-accurate!

Lucy did love to knaw on the cage, rubbing her belly against the water dispenser. Causing a terribly wet cage (which I ofcourse had to clean :-) as well as distorting the data collected.

Since I moved Lucy's water bottle to the front of her mansion this water spoilage hasn't taken place! :-)

We haven't been sitting still here at HamsterTracker™.com! Lucy and me are in therapy, trying to overcome (or, at least for me, PREDICT) when Lucy is in a BYTING mood...

We are making progress, fortunately! I noticed that Lucy easily get's over excited, (why I do not understand or know), when we have contact... A gentle cuddle, using my hand can go from loving, to a bite in an instant...

On another thought, I worked on expanding Lucy's mansion! After a joyfull experience, buying a second hand Habitrail Safari cage (via a Dutch auction site)... I finally could replace Lucy's (a bit worn out after nine+ or so years) Lucy's Living room with a(n used) but much better one!

Using 93% of my Habitrail Safari Tubes I managed to connect it into one whole ... extreme ... see for yourself below:

Lucy also has the tendency to knaw on her cage. She does that exactly where Lucy's drinking bottle was... This resulted in HUUUUGE water consumption data! Sometimes almost the whole bottle in one night!

This did of course mess up the water consumption data as well as making Lucy's living room VERY wet! While she was knawing on her cage she probably rubbed against the water valve, releasing H₂O all over the floor!

Therefore I had to take measures: I moved the water bottle to the front of her mansion (for the very first time in history).

In case you where wondering why I havent updated for quite a while...
It wat because of Lucy's fits... for some reason she tends to bite me without problable cause... It was a few weeks ago that Lucy got me really bad: We were enjoying some great time on the couch; when Lucy tried to chew on it... I responded with a gentle poke, hoping to "snap" her out of it...Which WORKED ... for like 15 seconds...
Then Lucy^5.0 struk my hand that I put there on the couch for reconciliation... *BITE*... *AUW(TCH)* ... Moved my hand... knocked Lucy accidentally from the couch on the floor...

As it seems, Lucy^5.0 has trouble handeling her 'Famous-ness'.
It was suggested that Lucy would remain out of general publicity, in the hope that Lucy will (slowly) get used to the pucblic-life!

Although it does contain some errors (where DOES that light (magically come from) at the corner of Lucy's ground floor...

Sorry for not updating earlier, but I've been looking out for the Glow Eindhoven festival 2011 for weeks now! I've been experimenting with my DSLR camera in shooting photographs with 30 second exposure time since I took a course last year, just before Glow 2010. It's facinating to shoot photographs like that; when someone passes (accidentely), it doesn't show up in the final picture (unless they cary a torch or something). I've learned a lot yesterday; one of them is to keep in focus of the actual reason of being there to photograph. I must admit I got distracted along the way, shooting exciting photographs which do not have much to do with Glow Eindhoven.

Please allow me to share the following fun adventure I experienced:
(Before I get back to real HamsterTracker™-Business, down below)

Lucy is pretty persuasive as well as demanding attention every day! Not that I mind, although Lucy did/does have a way to draw my attention: Cage Knawning is a popular activity by her. She has a lot of stuff to knaw on to keep her teeth in shape ( Hamsters DO need to knaw ), she prefers her cage every once in a while.

Currently I am training myself only to interact with Lucy, when she's not engaged in such activity...

Which does seem to help, a bit...

Lucy build quite a food-stash on her way up and down to her 'Meditation room (See this room in the previous post below). She makes a lot of noise going up as well as going down. There are two of these (what I'd like to call:) S-tubes, put there mainly so Lucy doesn't have a three feet drop.

Lucy^5.0 likes to use these as pantries, similar to all previous Lucy's ... :-)

Lucy has also been spending a lot of time in her explorer ball! She loves it! Whenever I hold the ball in front of her opened front door; she immediately climbs in, every time !

She loves running around in the living room. In the beginning she bumped a lot into obsticals. Now she learned to avoid them or slow down before hitting an obstical (like wall, my feet, chairs etc).
Good excersise for me and my camera:

Last week, I expanded Lucy's mansion with her ( for HamsterTracker.com's-regular-visitor, familiar- ) "Meditation-Room". (Needless to say), Lucy LOVES it! (A LOT!)
When I entered the living room in a morning, I found Lucy 'meditating':

We did/do/are doing, this a lot; the couch thing; Lucy loves to get out and explore using her Explorer Ball as well as checking up with me on the couch. Lucy is the firsrt hamster to actually invent the 'Digging-game' in the corner of the couch (instead of the 'Touch-downs' scored by climbing up the couch)!

Lucy doesn't mind my hand, while trying to stop this 'couch-destruction'; it's actually a pretty fun game, SHE invented ! :-)

Here, in the Hetherlands we have experienced a very lousy summer; it felt like autumn all the way; being rainy, cloudy and way too cold for the season.
Fortunatly, the weather can be very erratic over here; these last few days, ever since autumn started we've been experiencing summer-like weather... Enough for me to go out with my camera and shoot some 'Summer in Autumn' photographs:

Because Lucy's growing up, really fast, regardless of the weather; I took some time to enhance Lucy's mansion with a 1 meter+ (one yard+) = climb to her 'Meditation Room'. Lucy has been exploring the room for quite some time; running up and down many, many times :-)

It's a great distraction for Lucy; which we can see in Lucy's Treadmill performance; the interest in her new mansion expansion is greater as opposed to running in her treadmill!
Who can blame her?
:-)

When Lucy asks ...

Technical Update: We're (finally) fully functional on an iPad !

September 25, 2011:
I've noticed that HamsterTracker.com was not fully navigatable on an iP(ad/od/hone) device for quite a while now! Since these devices are touch enabled it doesn't support the 'hover' events that the main menu relies on...

So I started experimenting on changing the CSS (= 'Cascading Style Sheet') to see if I could get it to support the 'click' event as well... after two hours of (very enjoyable) puzz'ling I did get it to work on an iPad!

It required some software modifications on the HamsterTracker™-Server... which unfortunately FAILED last night... Resulting in an broken menu... Fortunately this was only a display problem on the website. After another hour of puzzeling I found the culprit; fixed it, modified the HamsterTracker™-Server to generate proper stuff... Now I am hoping for the best, tonight :-)

As of today, HamsterTracker.com's Menu is fully functional on an iPad !

Hopefully tomorrow too... ;-)
I've also split this front page; it was too huge; now the front page features Lucy^5.0, while the news archives, start with Lucy^4.0.
HamsterTracker™-Software Development Dept.

These last 16 days have been a blast here at HamsterTracker™ Head Quarters: Lucy is getting used to my hand appearing in her mansion! She will quickly explore my hand in search of a pineseed.
She is very gentile to me; she did put her teath in my fingers a couple of times... she did that very gently too. Maybe she mistaked it for a pineseed, I don't know. At least she now seems to know that my fingers are not food for her :-)
Lucy is also very inquisitive... every morning when I enter the living room, she is sitting up looking towards the door I enter, amazingly cute! Of course that will get her a treat or two!
So when Lucy came with the following suggestion, I couldn't resist:

The above photo's are shot using a 100mm macro lens. I didn't open the front door; it's shot 'through' the cage, while standing a meter (yard) away...
That's why you see these 'lines' in the photo; these are the bars or her cage walls of her mansion.

But she is still in the process of learning that she shouldn't jump out of my hands, while on the couch. One time she fell on the floor a 50 cm (about half a yard) drop... Fortunately I could pick her up immediately preventing her from escaping in the livingroom!
The two times I put Lucy back in her mansion; she urinated in my hands. Although it's only a few drops, it is very smelly and it made me wash my hands immediately.

This last week I've been spending quite a lot of fun time in getting to know Lucy (as well as Lucy getting to know me). We are improving on our trust in eachother; I play the 'put my hand in her mansion' (a.k.a. Hand-Game) a lot, while holding a pine-seed. This blonde Lucy also LOVES her pine-seeds, b.t.w....

We spent some time on the couch as well; (just a minute or five or so, being Lucy's first experience.) She loved it, although she didn't really like me when I picked her up (for training as well as) returning to her mansion. When she was back 'at home', I discovered that she pied in my hand... a quick hand wash later, I was back on giving her a 'pat on the back' and she didn't mind at all!!!

We have also been working on our language skills; Lucy now knows her name is Lucy... and for some reason she automatically called me Dude... :-)

These last three days where really exciting! I did have to get used to a hamster making noise while treadin' her treadmill. Lucy on the otherhand needed to get herself aquainted with her new living space. This meant sniffing and rubbing her scent glands (on both her hips) all over the place. I tried to not bother Lucy too much; whenever I opened her cage, Lucy went into a defensive mode; holding up one paw, showing that she didn't approve.
Yesterday evenening we had a breakthrough; she didn't mind my hand being in her quarters as well as accepting a first pine-seed straight from my hand! :-)

We are getting to know and used to eachother...

Finally, THE DAY HAS ARRIVED!
I got a phone call yesterday anouncing the arrival of Lucy 5.0!

That's where I instantly fell in love with Lucy^5.0!
She's about 6-7 weeks old; although she looks much more mature. She is a so called 'half-long haired' Golden 'Teddy Bear', as well as Blond (or Cinnamon).
Therefore she looks a 'bit more' than she actually is: