Black Acorn Dogs

2008-04-20T17:48:00.000-07:00

We have a momma dog and pups that we're fostering at work. She had nine healthy puppies 4 weeks ago, and we were lucky enough to have most of our employee trainers able to be there during the actual delivery. It was a bit of a fluke that we were all there, but was pretty amusing watching five or six trainers fumbling around and scrambling over when to intervene and when to let things be and how and why until our one trainer with lots of whelping experience arrived. It was certainly a bonding experience!

The night of, I called dibs on getting to pick the puppies collar colors. Dibs was informal due to the fact that no one else was clamoring for the "honor". I finally picked the colors last week and marked the pups with dots of nail polish. On Friday, Diane and I went shopping for bitty little collars in all of the right colors (nine different ones needed!). Today Diane came in with me and we sized them up and put all the collars on the pups. I'm not sure what it says about me or my life that this was one of my most anticipated moments of the week. It's not that my week was boring, but rather that I found this whole process very exciting. I have a whole little key made up that hangs on the puppies' door with the description of each pup and their color. I made the appropriate updates today to match the tweaks needed for variations between nail polish color and collar color. The puppies colors are red, blue, green, yellow, pink, purple, orange, black (was white), and the one distinctive brown pup who had no color originally... rainbow! I carefully pulled out six colors of nail polish to dab little dots and create a rainbow on the color key on the door. Perfecto.

Dad and Cindi, see what happens when I blog? You find out disturbing aspects to my personality that you never wanted to know.

Hooked on the New & Today's Rally

2008-03-09T18:20:00.000-07:00

Dad and Cindi, you'll be glad to hear this one:

Since getting our Garmin GPS, I did, without realizing, become addicted. Although it's not infallible, I no longer second-check directions before I get in the car and just drive. In areas where I am familiar, I often override it and go my own directions, but those are the exceptions.

Even Diane has learned the love the Garmin. She doesn't even know how to check the voice mail on her cell phone, and she figured out how to use it all by her little self. I have a funny feeling we'll be buying a second one at some point.

I drove up to Harrisburg last night for a Rally trial today, and left the GPS with Diane so she could drive up this morning. Good lord did I miss having it with me. I can't say I got lost, but I most certainly did take some extra "adventures". It just made me realize how much I don't miss pulling over and looking up Google Maps on my Trio. When I wasn't sure if I'd made the correct right turn, I kept waiting for a British voice (don't ask) to tell me that I was going the right direction and fix me. It's amazing how one new technology can so easily supplant another. It was only one year ago that I was utterly dependant on my Trio-powered Google Maps as my lifeline for getting around. Remember the old fashioned days where we'd use print-outs from Mapquest on actual paper? Shocking.

Yes, I do still carry regular maps... just in case. But I sure don't have them for all of the areas in which I travel.

We were in Harrisburg for a Rally trial at the Pawsabilities expo, and Ebby was fabulous. She stayed in the motel room without her crate, and although she was highly distracted at the trial in the expo center, at NO point did she get stressed out. I honestly think that's a first, especially considering that there were lots of people and a PA and the whole shebang. She handled the whole thing like a pro, and even with the distractions, I couldn't be happier. We are working on "double Qs" for our APDT Rally Championship, which means that we need to get a qualifying score in both Level 1 and Level 2 for five trials. We got two each today, so we have three more sets to go. Whoo hoo!

And after all that, I'm exhausted. Good night.

2008-01-01T20:59:00.001-08:00

I discovered this fall how easily it happens that people rent storage units and then never quite manage to give them up. We rented a 10 x 10 unit out of necessity when we put the house on the market this summer, and when we came off the market in November, I thought for a short time to have the unit cleared out by the end of the year so we could save the hefty monthly fee. I realized pretty quickly though, that it was worth quite a bit of money to me not to have all that crap back in the house. Lordie, did we have a lot of clutter. The next part of the plan was that we could try to get the stuff back that we need and care about, and maybe consolidate down into a smaller unit that we could just keep going for now. Hah. Despite the fact that there are a number of items we'd really like back, we've made one single trip up, and this whole holiday weekend passed without us managing to add to that tally.

How we did spend time today was that we went out geocaching again and made it a good excuse to go walking in the cold. We walked something between 3 and 5 miles and were pretty glad to get back home at the end of it, especially since the wind had picked up and we couldn't feel our hands. So far, we've found 3 caches out of 7 or 8 that we've hit. Three of the ones we can't find, we've been back to more than once. Argh! I do still think it'll be easier as we get more experience, and the hunt really is half the fun. We certainly won't run out of caches to look for since I downloaded 44 sites in Ashburn alone (there are more than those!) plus a bunch near work or along my commute in Arlington and quite a few near places that we often shop in Sterling. Yep, this is pretty addictive.

Like I Need Another Pastime

2007-12-30T19:27:00.000-08:00

Oh dear. I think we've found a new addicting hobby. I got a GPS unit for Christmas (thanks Dad and Cindi!), and we've dipped a toe (or a foot) into geocaching. I've thought to try it for a while with the GPS on one of my phones but it appears that it might not have worked out so well anyway. I was extremely surprised to discover that there are some 10 caches in easy walking distance of our house, so I want to use it as a good excuse to get our butts out the door and keep going for walks even while the weather is turning cold. We hit about five sites today and found one cache. One location was tricky because of high amount of vehicle and foot traffic, and one we put off for later due to dark and rain. The other two I hope will be easier as we get the hang of knowing what to look for.

If you're not familiar with geocaching, it is basically a giant scavenger hunt / treasure hunt where you find hidden locations primarily by their GPS coordinates. The "find" can range from a tiny watertight container with a simple logbook to a larger container with room to take a 'treasure' and leave a 'treasure'. The one we found today was a film canister, and I think some of the ones we didn't find will have been even smaller.

Ben came with us on the hunts, and we're deciding on the best way to teach him to sniff out caches (kidding!).

Lavender and Snow

2007-12-07T17:54:00.000-08:00

We had our first snow on Wednesday... just a few inches, but a real snow. There's a lavender plant in the garden beside driveway that's been blooming consistently all summer long, and I'd noticed just a few days ago that it's still been in bloom despite the fact that we've had several frosts. I love lavender. While I was brushing snow off my car, I could still catch whiffs of lavender. Incredible.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2007-11-27T20:49:00.000-08:00

Okay, yes I'm a few days late, but I could be writing this in June, eh? No whining!

We had the most stunningly beautiful weather on Thanksgiving -- shorts and t-shirt weather. Well, at least for the first part of the day. I worked for part of the day and by the time I came home and we took the dogs out, the wind had picked up to a level that made me worry (legitimately) that a tree was going to come down on our heads. Hey, it's not snowing and I'll take what we can get.

It was just Di and I this year, and we were about as low key as you can get. The plan was to get a spiral-cut honey ham and eat at the dining room table. Whoo hoo! Well, we got the ham early, and Wednesday night we decided to just go ahead and break it open for dinner. So we did. Then Thursday night by the time we got back from me working and then us taking the dogs out, we caved and just sat downstairs in front of the TV like any usual night. We did open a bottle of sparkling white and had a mimi-toast before we started eating. Does that count for something? To all family reading this, I really missed you, I really plan to come for at least at few days at Christmas.

The other fun thing that we did this weekend is put up a Christmas tree. We haven't had a tree up now in some four years. I think in 2003 we were moving for the week of Christmas (on Christmas Day, actually... we got to have a moving truck extra days for free because of that). In 2004, Indie was still a baby puppy so I was worried about him causing chaos with the tree. In 2006, Ben was still new enough in the house that he was randomly chewing on things and getting into trouble. I don't remember what was up in 2005, but probably the house was just still in too much disarray to be worth dealing with a tree, or maybe I was working too many hours to care about it. But we now have three lovely grown-up dogs who didn't flick an ear at the tree while I was putting it up, and haven't shown the slightest inclination toward removing ornaments. No one even paid it any attention while I was putting it up and decorating it. I should note that it is a fake tree, which may help it be less interesting. I was careful not to put up anything at all with wire hooks and there's only one fragile ornament on the entire tree. I was also careful not to put anything on low branches that I would be heartbroken to find in a masticated mess on the floor. So far, no worries though!

It's interesting how the way we decorate trees reflects a great deal of our personal style. The vast majority of our ornaments are red, a significant percentage are wooden or wood-facsimile, and almost all of them have some sort of nature theme. There are two garlands: one of red and gold beads and one of "wooden" red mini-apples. There are about 12 red birds perched on various branches. There are a plethora of horse-themed ornaments and then a bunch of other animals like dogs, cats, reindeer, moose, bears, a Chinese fish, and even a hermit crab. I went through the Christmas box and am going to Freecycle some 30 or 40 ornaments I've been hauling around since the late 80's, so the remaining ornaments are the ones that I really like or the ones that have special meaning, and that's pretty cool. The last interesting thing on the tree is the lights. This year, we used lights that are blue, although some of them are washed out so that the lights are actually blue and white and shades in between. We're really enjoying the unique effect, although I think Diane is going to look for new blue lights so that next year we can have solid blue lights with all of the red (and natural browns) of the ornaments.

Death to Nerds

2007-11-18T18:50:00.000-08:00

Not the human kind of Nerds... just the kind in my blog that certain people have been whining to me about for months. You know who you are. Or rather, you know who you are if you've had the patience to keep stopping by my blog in the past 10 months in hope that I've actually posted here. I was thinking today that I should just remove the blog link from my website, but since that was effort, I thought: what the heck, maybe I should just do a quick post instead.

So Cindi, Dad, Jenni, James and others... this post is for you.

I'm still actually online quite a bit these days, but my relationship with my computer is a lot healthier than it used to be. That doesn't mean I'm not sometimes still sucked into staying up until 3:00 AM doing ridiculous and unproductive things (though clearly none of those things have been included updating my blog!), but at least Bessie and I are not attached at the hip anymore. Days do in fact go by without powering her up. It's a good feeling.

Here's an amusing story I was going to share back around May but never got around to posting, however it continues to be just as entertaining to me now as it did then.

Back when I worked at AOL, I always had people assume I was vegetarian. After this happened many times with close co-workers and a boss, I finally assumed that it was because I always had "health food" out on my desk: fresh fruit, granola, peanut butter, 64 oz bottle of water, etc. Then sometime around April, I was finishing my second sessions with a dog training client and I told her how a fellow trainer had been feeding chips and cookies to Ebony as treats and how it would never occur to me to feed those kind of things to my dog, but then, I didn't really eat chips and cookies much myself. My client said "Yes, but you always eat so healthy". After I drove away, it dawned on me that it was a weird thing for her to say. How the heck would she know what I eat?

Two days later, I was planning to share the story at a sort of "happy hour" with some of our WOOFS! trainers. We were eating pizza, and as mine was handed to me, our owner (my boss) turned to me, physically took my pizza off my plate, and said "No. You can't have that." I just stared at her until she explained "It has meat." I could only laugh as I said "I'm NOT a vegetarian!"

Since then another co-worker also assumed I was a vegetarian, but he's since learned his lesson. A few weeks ago he had trouble believing me that I was eating a duck sandwich, and didn't believe you could just buy duck at the grocery store. I'm also pretty sure he didn't believe me last week when I brought in bear for lunch. It was just ground bear meat that I used to make a meat sauce for pasta, so it didn't look much different from ground beef. Bear is pretty gamey so I used an olive-heavy spaghetti sauce so that the strong flavor of the sauce would balance the strong flavor of the meat. Honestly, the best part of eating bear is getting to tell people you're eating bear.

I guess I'll always have that "vegetarian vibe", but I think, at least, that my boss and current set of co-workers have pretty well figured out that I'm not vegetarian.

No, YOURE a Nerd!

2007-01-31T12:57:00.000-08:00

Nostagia is such a funny thing. I'm eating Nerds candy, and their tangy goodness brings back memories. My childhood best friend and next door neighbor was Shelly, and Nerds was definitely on our favorite candies list. They were a new candy when we were young -- who guessed they'd still be around today? It was also in the earlier days of bottle deposits, and we used to troll around for empty discarded bottles to turn in for candy money. Of course, back then we could get one candy bar for every five cans or bottles we found, so we usually made out pretty well... you'd be amazed how many people toss out nickel bottles even in a small town. I wonder how many kids today would still even do this, collecting dirty old bottles and hauling them by foot a half mile or more for five measley cents each.

Anyway, we used to mix the Nerds with water into little coffee scoops and drink it. We called it "chandelier". Kids are so weird.... doncha love it?

Agility Match and Snow!

2007-01-22T10:40:00.000-08:00

Ebony had her first agility match on Saturday, and it was GREAT! Although I've competed with Melissa's dogs, and Ebby and I have competed in other things like Rally and herding, this is a big deal for me since this is what I've wanted to do all along. We ran a Gamblers course, which I only wanted to do for the practice (Gamblers course is a game where you get different points for different obstacles, and you only have 30 seconds to accrue 21 points; at the 30 second mark a whistle blows and you have another X seconds to complete the "gamble" which is a distance challenge where you the handler can't cross a line marked on the ground and have to direct from the distance). We didn't come close to qualifying, but I got what I wanted, which is that she was exuberant and focused and plain old happy to be doing it. Lots of energy! Then we ran a Jumpers (fast past because it's only jumps and tunnels, no other equipment) course, which is the one I really cared about. Wow, it was fantastic! She was tuned in, had plenty of drive, and we pulled off the one or two tricky handling areas on the course. The course was Open rather than Novice, which means it was even the next level of difficulty from what we'll be doing in a real trial. The only "bad" thing was that she skipped the last jump even though she was heading right for it, but I think it was purely because she was getting too tired. The biggest thing we need to work on right now is conditioning, and I think she's ready for the big time! Looks like we're going to register for our first trial March 30 and April 1! For those who know the difference, we'll be starting in USDAA.

On a different note, we got our first snow yesterday, though it was only about an inch. The dogs thought it was the greatest thing since sliced beef. Ben, especially, had a blast in the snow, and even this morning when we got up, he dashed around in the snow on the deck, rolling in it and sliding in it and generally just kicking it all over the place. Where is the video camera when you really need it?

2007-01-17T06:36:00.000-08:00

We had our first herding trial last weekend... and Ebby earned her HCT! Whoo hoo... she's a herding dog!

HCT stands for Herding Capability Test and really just tests to see that a dog has some interest in the sheep (or ducks, or cows, or whatever) and tries to do something with them other than eat them. I have some video that I'll post when I can get it off the camera (or at least grab some stills), but here's the one shot I have in the meantime:

A couple other Shiloh Shepherds came out this weekend to try their paw, er, hand at the HCT, and one of them earned a leg without ever having seen a sheep.

Sabine and Tessa:

Mary and Teri:

There were a couple other Shilohs doing more advanced herding, but those images are locked up on the other camera too.

Clean Glasses

2007-01-17T06:35:00.000-08:00

Joe, you will be pleased: one of the items I recently picked up from Freecycle (well, the only item actually) was a couple of bottles of lens cleaner for eyeglasses. Also, someone gave me a nice cloth for eyeglasses a while back. So now I can have nice, clean glasses all the time, and they will make me think of you.

As Much Fun As a Root Canal

2007-01-05T12:09:00.000-08:00

Got my first root canal this morning. So far, so good in that there is still no pain yet. Whoo hoo!

I had an agility lesson with Melissa on Sunday. It was fairly muddy out, and the first time I tried to make a fast pivot, I went DOWN. And when I say I went down, I mean that all I remember was seeing my feet against a backdrop of sky. I was completely unhurt, but it was certainly amusing, and I decorated myself with a fair amount of wet mud. Melissa's comment? She never said "you okay?" or anything... just deadpan said "You'll probably want to get some cleats". I've been laughing on and off all week thinking of that.

Freecycle

2007-01-03T10:18:00.000-08:00

I've discovered the joy of Freecycle. Freecycle is a nationwide network of little local groups where you can post things that you want to give away, and then anyone who is interested in your stuff can offer to make private arrangements for pick up.

We are saving things up for a garage sale in the spring, but there are some things that are just not worth hanging onto either because of their size and bulk or in a few cases, because they have a select audience. I've already gotten rid of Xena Season 1-6 on VHS, a weight bench with mismatched weights, and the toneau cover for my Toyota Rav4 which I forgot about when I sold the Rav last April. Next on the list is a huge box of cassettes, huge box of VHS tapes, and a VCR. I really hope those go, but if they don't, it's a heck of a lot easier now to stick them out on the curb for garbage day since we've already sorted them, boxed them up and let go of them psychologically. Freecycle is great because we HATE throwing away useful things, and this means that either our stuff finds a home with someone else who wants it *OR* the lack of response indicates that no one else wants that crap either, and we can chuck it in good conscience. So far the two things we've had no response for were a spare tire, which I'll hang on to anyway, and our old entertainment stand, which will probably go out to the curb tomorrow.

It's also interesting to see what people get post to rid of; I've think I've already seen it all. A bottle of lotion someone didn't care of the smell of. A sectional couch that appeared to be in great condition. A package of paper plates, or a few 2 liters of soda left over from a party. A chest freezer. A cat that needs a new home. There are some very basic ground rules, like you can't Freecycle anything illegal, but other than that, if people have it to part with, they'll post it. For the good stuff, the trick seems to be that you have to be FAST. I got seven responses to the weight bench, and three for the Xena tapes on VHS. Heck, I didn't know if anyone still used VHS.

We still have a boatload worth of things in the garage, but we've managed to get it to a point where we can, like, walk around in there. That's worth a lot all by itself.

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-25T20:19:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas from the Black Acorn pack!

Ebby, Indie, and Ben

Indie and Ben

Ben poses for the camera.

Ebony plays with the toy from her Secret Santa Paws.

Indie sacks out with his new kitty toy from Nani and Papa Bill after all the excitement.

Oh yeah... we exist too. Someone has to hold the camera. This is Diane and Erica with socks from Diane's mom.

Christmas Party That Went to the Dogs

2006-12-23T20:14:00.000-08:00

Ebby and I went to the Christmas party at our training center A Click Above today. You know, every time I think she's doing really well, she goes one step further. I expect Ebby to have a nice time at an event like this, especially since it's somewhere she's already well familiar with, but I think this was the first event I've ever taken her to where she was truly *relaxed* and happy the entire time. She had her ears forward the whole time; typically she had an anxious expression with her ears down a fair amount of the time. I find it extremely difficult to get nice pictures of her for this exact reason, because she does this even around the house. For some reason, she has been different this week. She's been very confident, and very affectionate. And today at the party, she was... well, a normal, happy dog. Now, the word normal is really the wrong one to use, because really the *average* dog does not behave so well and so calmly outside the house, but that's still the word I go for in my mind.

I kinda wish I knew what it was about this week that's kicked in this newest jump in her emotional evolution, but then, it doesn't really matter. I don't think I can really express how it feels to watch her continue to become more comfortable in her own skin.

2006-12-17T21:52:00.000-08:00

Ebony and I went herding for the first time this morning with some of our other Shiloh Shepherd friends, and we had a blast. She'd been up to see the sheep once before, just enough to tell that she "turned on" to them without trying to eat them, but that was back when Marti was still fostering her and my main focus was just trying to keep her from clawing her way back to Marti the entire time. I'd taken her in, but we just didn't even know each other yet.

This time she was still quite excited about the sheep, and I felt much more comfortable with directing her. She, ahem, left quite a bit of wool around the round pen but she definitely showed some potential (in the above picture, she's still showing a bit more "chase" posture than "herd" posture). And I'm getting the gist of it, and training me might be harder than training her anyway. We're actually going to enter a trial in January to see if we can get her first herding title. I hadn't been all that interested to get involved in herding because it gets expensive to train for something that we can't even practice on our own, and well, we just have a bunch of other irons in the fire, but we really had a good time so I'm looking forward to going back for more.

Still still going

2006-12-15T11:43:00.000-08:00

7 hours later and they've still been entertaining themselves by gnawing on the bones all day, despite the hammering and noises downstairs. This was a definite score.

Still going

2006-12-15T06:45:00.000-08:00

Almost an hour after I put the ribs down and their still going. This was the best idea ever.

Although, I am kind of glad I'm planning to give them all baths tomorrow.

Ah, The Power of Distraction

2006-12-15T06:04:00.000-08:00

The guys are back to do some more work on the house today (the deck did get finished Tuesday and looks fantastic, incidentally). I planned the dogs' breakfast around the guys coming and saved it to feed the dogs when they arrived, since the dogs have to be crated anyway. I swapped out the food I was planning to feed tomorrow -- big racks of beef ribs that we got for 72 cents a pound. I figure those will keep the dogs occupied for a good while and they should be all tired out and ready to nap in their crates when they're finished. Sure enough, they're having such a great time eating that they haven't even noticed all the noises going on downstairs. I won't be surprised if this occupies them for more than an hour.

Whoops, 15 minutes in, Ben just realized he can hear noises and voices downstairs. He barked for about 5 seconds, then returned to his ribs. Heh heh.

2006-12-13T12:05:00.000-08:00

Happy, happy! My new computer arrived yesterday. I've been busily setting it up, and it is my new friend.

I'm not thrilled about having to go through some of these steps again since I just went through full re-install three weeks ago, EXCEPT that nothing has really been working quite right on my other machine this whole time. E-mail has been flaky and slow, and I haven't wanted to dig in and get truly organized since I knew it would all be temporary. My old hard drive is still out at DriveSavers so I still hold out hope that I'll be doing some more major organization soon (please, please, please), but even when the data comes back (when, not if, please please please), at this this machine is my new 'home'. Hallelujah.

And I've already managed to get e-mail working properly. And fast.

My life may still be acting like a situation comedy, but at least I have a new computer! Huzzah!

A Day in the Life

2006-12-12T10:22:00.000-08:00

I swear, if my life were on TV this week it would be a situation comedy.

Yesterday was flat out miserable, but in little ways that I won't even remember a few weeks from now. The dogs are so wonderful though. I was working from home with them because they're rebuiling our back deck. It was getting near the end of the day, and I lay down across the couch for a minute to try to slow the pounding of my headache and stretch my poor achy back. Both boys came and brought me toys. Indie dropped his ball on my chest and Ben dropped his rope on my stomach. Then they both stood there expectantly, waiting for me to toss or tug. Dogs simply don't get the concept of "bad days", and I think that's what we love about them. Today is a little better, if nothing else just because I'm in better humor and more of a mood to laugh at the pure ridiculousness of it all.

I had to drop the dogs with Melissa this morning because they are (still!) not finished rebuilding the deck, and I couldn't be there this morning. This made a lovely start to the day though, because I dropped them off, and they were so excited to be there that they didn't even care that I was leaving. Rather than forcing me to drag him into the house, Indie dragged ME the house so that he could get to the yard (no external gate, for safety). Ben was just overall excitable. Once outside, Ebby stood at the fence until I got into the car, but neither of the boys even looked back at me, and instead ran off to pee on the big tree and romp with their buddy dogs. As I drove slowly down the driveway, all three of them ran alongside the van for just a moment, but had already run off by the time I reached the end of the fenceline. It warmed my heart to see them having such a good time, and with Ebby and especially Indie, it makes me happier than words can express to witness them being so unconcerned with my departure.

Returning from Evanston

2006-12-06T06:23:00.000-08:00

(As written Tues afternoon):
We're driving back from he airport from Evanston, IL, where we had our two-day workshop. Whenever I'm driving in unfamiliar regions, I love looking at the subtle differences in the architecture of houses. The houses here are very cute but somewhat boxy in that the roofs have very low peaks. Houses in the northeast tend to have higher peaks on the roofs, which I've always thought was to help the snow slide off and reduce ice build-up and weight on the roof. The Chicago area has no lack of snow, so there must be other reasons for a local convention of lower peaked roofs. Very interesting to me, at any rate.

Evanston is a really nice little college town that feels very clean, sociable, attractive and safe (no clue if it IS safe, but there were lots of people walking casually on the streets at all times of the day, and I didn't see anyone who looked like they were wandering aimless or looking for trouble). I particularly note that they were walking, because the area seemed to be quite pedestrian friendly -- something that is sorely missing in the D.C. metro area and suburbs. There was a plethora of little shops and restaurants, and I even had a chance to stop in a little shop called Kiss My K9 that sells holistic products, high end foods, and a small selection of toys and leashes. I bought a used hardcover book at a great price for the plane ride home. I also had a few minutes to stop into a camping supplies store next door (sign on the door welcoming dogs -- gotta love that), and I as I wandered around with the question "Is there anything here that I need?" I realized that many women ask themselves that question when browsing purses and handbags. I'm perfectly happy to ask myself that in a camping store. I didn't buy anything there although I did come close. Definitely a little town I'd enjoy returning to in the future.

My Porn Star Name is 'Lady Union' -- I Win

2006-12-04T21:37:00.001-08:00

I'm in Chicago tonight, although I'll be home tomorrow. One of hte most interesting things today was actually on my flight itself. I got on the plane and sat down, and I felt like I had an amazing amount of room. My knees weren't touching the back of the seat. I felt like the seat was overall larger than usual (though I think that was an illusion). It felt downright *luxurious* it felt just to fly with unexpected legroom. It was most striking to me that I was packed on this 100% full flight with more than a hundred other strangers six across, and I was feeling delight with my sheer amount of personal space. Now, I am not a large person, so it also made me think about how it must feel to fly for people of a more substantial stature than myself. I can't imagine how miserable those little tiny seats must be.

I did realize shortly after boarding that I'd been booked into the Economy Plus section, and that explained the extra legroom. It's just crazy to have the Economy Plus option and not take it. I don't know what it cost for this flight, but I think it's usually about 25 bucks and so worth it.

When they came around with the drink cart, I asked for cranberry juice, and they handed me an entire full-sized can. All for me. Once again, I was struck by how much I appreciated that one can of juice, since most flights I've been on in recent times either give you a tiny can or else just pour you out a cup of juice and continue on down the line with the rest of the can.

We had a workshop all day, went for tapas (first time I'd done tapas... both yummy and entertaining), and finished up in the hotel bar with some of the most interesting round I've ever done of generating our porn star names, soap opera names (we also kept going into defining our soap opera characters), and moving into generating our alien names, paint chip colors, rock band names, and Internet cam names. I promise you that it was a lot more fun that it might sound like... hilarity did ensue.

Did I Actually Just Say That?

2006-11-30T12:24:00.000-08:00

I've decided today that I want to go back to school to become an animal behaviorist. This idea gelled after I was reading through a site with little behavior quizzes and I came across the term allelomimetic and I actually cared to learn more about what it meant. I spend enough free time in such pursuits that it would actually make sense to try to get paid for it.

My next thing I plan to do is become independently wealthy so I would be able to actually pay for tuition. If this doesn't work out, maybe I'll look into my cousin Karey's childhood dream occupation, being a bird. Hey, we all need dreams, right?

Of Course It's My Turn!

2006-11-29T08:40:00.000-08:00

Ben is such a goofball. He's been with us for five months now, and despite the fact that he should know the routines well, he still gets excited when it's Walk Time and his walk is over. He sees us getting the next dog ready, and he's still right at the door, all excited as if it were his turn... again. You just got back, ya nut! We're convinced that he thinks we might forget and take him an extra time.

It's Beginning to Smell a Lot Like Christmas

2006-11-28T10:23:00.000-08:00

No Christmas tree again this year, because for the third year in a row, we have a new dog in the house. (Actually might be just the second, but three years ago we were moving during Christmas, literally speaking, as in we got to have a moving truck for an extra day because the U-haul place is closed on Christmas Day). I think we could swing doing a tree this year, but Ben is still a bit of a crazy puppy, so easier to just skip and we'll do one next year. I don't want to have to chase ornaments around the house or worry that someone will get a hook through their tongue.

We bought a balsam wreath last weekend and hung it on the front door. That does the trick more nicely than I'd expected. Every time we come in or out the door, we get a breathful of evergreen. We already have a new tradition, which is that every time Diane or I comes through the door, we say "It smells like Christmas!"

We also have one of those little ceramic trees on top of the television set -- the kind with little plastic "bulbs" that light up when you plug in the tree. It came from Diane's mother (I think she made it), but Grandma Jean used to always have one when we were a kid too, so at least it feels like Real Christmas Decoration.

(An example, though I can't imagine that these usually go for this much money:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Ceramic-Christmas-Tree-w-lights-base-Ceramic-Mold_W0QQitemZ290054144632QQihZ019QQcategoryZ3090QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting)

2006-11-14T17:09:00.000-08:00

I guess it's been a month now since we switched all of the dogs from kibble to raw diet. Indie has been on for an extra month since he was on the pre-packaged rolls of raw meat mix to start out. There was no way all three dogs were going to eat that though, if for no other reason than it would have been crazy expensive. I'm much happier with their current diet anyway. This week they've been eating chicken and beef. Chicken days mean that everyone gets a half chicken (yes, bone and all). Beef days, they're getting 1 to 1 1/2 pound chunks of sirloin tip. Believe it or not, it costs the same or less to feed them now than when they were on kibble and canned food. It's funny to think how intimidated I was to switch them to raw diet. It's quite easy, it's not that expensive, and they eat in their crates, so it's not messy, either.

I can't imagine ever going back to kibble, no matter how "premium". All of Indie's skin problems have cleared right up, although they will kick back in if he eats one piece of anything with grain (like a crouton I dropped the other night). I suspect that once he's off kibble for 6-12 months he won't be so hypersensitive. It's also fitting to note that Katie's health was only better after we got her off the kibble too, although in her case we were doing home cooked meals. For anyone that didn't know Kate, she passed away at age 15 nearly one year ago exactly, and the last four years of her life were chock full of health challenges that we, amazingly, were able to get under a great deal of control. Boy, would she have liked raw diet.

One of the fun things about going to raw is shopping for sales. I am not a shopper by nature, but it has become almost a game to see what kind of interesting cuts of meat and what kind of bargains we can find. In the kibble days, it used to cost $2 per day per dog, so the game is to try to buy meat that will be that price or cheaper. If each dog eats roughly 2 pounds a day, that puts the target at $1 a pound or better, although all three dogs eat less than 2 pounds a day and some meats go farther than others, for example a pound of sirloin tip goes farther than a pound of whole chicken because the chicken has more bone and I guess the beef is just more rich. And it averages out, where we almost always buy chicken for less than $1/lb but the sirloin tip was purchased at a killer price of $1.55/lb (killer for beef, that is). That one was fun because it was sold in huge 15 pound hunks (we bought three, and yes, we have a big chest freezer now).

But the other fun thing is that we, Diane and I, have been eating much better since putting the dogs on raw. As we run around looking at meat, meat, and more meat, we find great cuts that just call out for us to eat them. It's given me a massive creative boost for coming up with ideas of new things to make, which has been a challenge since I tried to start eating healthy over the summer. And even more, we're eating things that I would have never thought of before. We've had liver and onions twice now. I'd never in my adult life tried it (or wished to), but wouldn't ya know I really enjoyed it. And it's healthy, cheap, and simple as heck. We've been cooking up whole chickens, which I've never done either, but in different and creative ways. Previously, my idea of cooking a whole chicken would have been just to roast it... whole.

The last whole chicken we made, Sunday night, created a story that strikes me as hilarious. We've been on a rawfeeding Yahoo! group, and someone posted a question about whether they should buy a whole chicken, remove the breasts for their family, and feed the dog the rest. Well, the answer is no, you really need to feed the whole thing because chicken is quite bony already, and you need the meat to be in there. Well, as we've been playing around with meat in new and creative ways, Diane and I have discovered that we actually prefer some of the odd cuts and scraps, like the backs and necks, and we've always preferred legs and thighs to the breasts. For dinner on Sunday night, I hacked up two whole chickens, removed 3 of the 4 breasts, gave them to the dogs for dinner, and we cooked the rest for ourselves. It cracks me up that we basically took the most expensive cuts to feed the dogs and ate all the "leftover junk". Hey, we'll probably do it again... we had to fight over who got stuck with the fourth breast. (Well, not really fought over, but it did get left until last).

Other things we've made in the last month:
* Pork roast with ginger and squash and apples -- mmmm... so yummy
* Flat roasted chicken with lemon and rosemary where I split the chicken at the underside and laid it flat with salted lemons under the chicken and under the skin -- holy cow, that meat got flavored through and through
* Gizzards, chicken necks, smoked turkey necks (tasted just like the turkey legs at the renaissance faire), and chicken liver with onions -- I never would have expected to place all that on the "exciting things" list
* Whole chicken hacked up into parts with a rub of sage, rosemary, and thyme with coarse kosher salt and roasted with sweet potatoes and purple potatoes also coated with the same herbs but oil instead of salt

On deck in the freezer are racks of pork ribs that we haven't worked up to yet, but I can't wait until we're ready to feed those. They come in packs of 2, so that means that two packages equal one each for the dogs and one for us. Yay!

We feed chicken feet as evening snacks now. There's one case where I have no desire to sample. I'll certainly let you know if that changes.

Landscaping Company Turns Away Gay Couple

2006-11-10T16:06:00.000-08:00

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/landscaper-under-fire-for-refusing-to/20061109231409990006?ncid=NWS00010000000001

This makes me very sad. A landscaping company refused to provide service for a couple on the grounds that they were gay. Came right out and said so when the couple requested an estimate. "I need to tell you that we cannot meet with you because we choose not to work for homosexuals."

The couple that asked for the estimate forwarded the refusal email on to 200 friends, urging them not to patronize the business. Pretty reasonable response, in my book. They want to be picky-choosy about who they do business with, well, right back atcha.

But then the Internet got a hold of it, and the couple that runs the company were attacked pretty heavily to the point that there were threats made against them and their family. I'm sure I can imagine the basic Net flaming in action, which carries to extreme when you're talking about impact to your real life business.

Somehow I doubt that this little "life lesson" has taught them anything about being more open to dealing with homosexuals. To quote from this article, "The crowd of tolerance and diversity is not so tolerant."

There's a little poll on the page "Should businesses be able to reject clients based on sexual orientation." I stared at it for a little bit before clicking Yes. I could change my tune in the next hour (I actually did by the time I was done typing this), but frankly, I don't like either answer. Should businesses reject people based on orientation? Hell no. But nor am I comfortable forcing a small business to work with anyone. Granted, I chose that answer because we're talking about a small family business. If we were talking about Wal-mart, or let's say, Denny's, I feel unequivocably different. I feel it would be outright unacceptable for a larger company to turn away, or poorly treat, a customer based on race, religion, sexual orientaion, gender, etc. I suppose I might set the difference in my mind as a standard of "retail business" versus "client business". I think it would also be outrageous to walk into a public garden center and have the Farber's ask me to leave for being gay. If that had been the scenario in the article, then yeah, I'd have voted No. I suppose that really, the Farbers should be expected to lie about why they won't work with the homos just like they would have to lie about their reasoning if they refused to work with a black family or a Muslim family. Yeah, I definitely already changed my mind on the poll question.

Don't get me wrong. I absolutely think there should be a penalty for discrimination. I think that Mr. Lord and Mr. Lackey had the right of it when they decided to publicize the discrimination and call for a boycott. That's a very appropriate way to handle things when a business makes poor decisions. The subsequent hate mail and threats though... that helps nobody. Looks like all it did was confirm to the Farbers that they made the right choice by not working with "those people". Woo woo... big win for the advancement of social causes.

And then again, it does feel good to know that people cared enough to raise a big stink and express that such behavior is not okay. Mostly heterosexual people, from what I can gather. That's not meaningless.

The whole thing is just sad.

Vote Early, Vote Often!

2006-11-07T08:29:00.000-08:00

Make sure to get out and vote!

I like to go first thing in the morning when we don't have to stand in any line. We did 6:30 again this morning, and we didn't have to wait for anything.

There's also still time to vote for Joe (link in my previous entry).

Important Survey

2006-11-03T15:50:00.000-08:00

If you take only ONE survey, this should be it:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=823332830297

Rally Obedience Competition

2006-10-22T20:15:00.000-07:00

Whoo hoo! Thanks to my dad and Billy, who sent me in the right direction for getting the video off my darn camera (awesome camera, but the software it came with stinks), I have some video of our Rally Obedience trial last weekend. I'm linking rather than embedding it here because, while I may think it's absolutely fascinating, it's probably not the most riveting thing I've posted.

Ebony's Rally Obedience Run

I'm particularly proud of this run because it is our best ever, both in the quality of our work and the actual final score, which was 204. All four of our runs were very nice last weekend, which also made me very happy. My main goal wasn't to have qualifying runs (aka "passing" if you think of these tests in a "pass/fail" sense), but to get and keep Ebby's focus. In our other trials, there have been points where she has gotten stressed out and I've lost her. You can see a shadow of that in the beginning of the video, where she starts paying more attention to what's going on in the next ring, but we got it back on the video as well as consistently for the rest of the weekend. I couldn't have asked for more. It's been two and a half years since Ebony came home with us, but every month that passes leaves me more amazed than the last at how well she's doing and how far she has come. And I'm coming to realize that far from peaking, she's only just begun to show what she can do.

My videographer was a friend of ours from our local Shiloh group. It was a surprise, and a particularly nice one, that she came out to check out the Rally trial and to cheer us on. I won't be surprised to see her girl out there sometime next year!

Trial was at Breakaway Action Dogs in Frederick, MD on October 14 and 15.

Brookville Rarities Show Fall 2006

2006-10-20T20:34:00.000-07:00

Somehow I've delayed posting a bunch of pictures and quick stories about what I've been up to this month. Well, here are a few shots from the Brookville show at the begining of this month. The event is mostly a Rarities Dog Show with Shiloh Shepherd Specialties, but I kept very busy this trip helping to run the NKC Obedience trial that ran at the same time. I also set up a Rally Obedience practice course on Saturday, and we had a bunch of dogs and handler give it a try. I got a bunch of photos and video, though none so lovely as the ones taken by those taken by Heather Yates (http://www.macshilohs.com). The two below were Heather's, and there are quite a few more fabulous shots that I do not have posted anywhere at this time.

Photos:
http://www.blackacorndogs.com/files/albums/2006.09.30_Brookville/index.html

Video:
http://www.blackacorndogs.com/files/albums/2006.09.30_Brookville/index0003.html

For those interested, this is the link for the full obedience trial results:
http://www.blackacorndogs.com/results_2006.09.30_Brookville.html

[For some sad reason, my site is down at the moment I'm posting this, but it ought to be back up soon]

Despite the nice tank top in the shots below, the weekend was COLD COLD COLD. While it had warmed up considerably on Sunday afternoon, Friday night and Saturday morning were absolutely bitter. I tented at the fairgrounds, and the first thing I did on Saturday AM was put my hand in Ebony's water bowl in the tent. I was shocked that there was not a layer of ice across the top. Luckily, I had enough gear that I kept warm while I slept, because I've tented when I did not have enough to stay warm and it is miserable.

As you can see in some of the pictures above, Heather and James also stayed on-site in a camper, and Lori, Marti, and Cher stayed in Lori's RV. With the evening-time addition of Tracy and Gary, we had more fun in the evenings than you can shake a stick at. (Hey James, hmm... Fun, Onna Stick? Er, that sounds vaguely dirty... nevermind). Heather and James made steaks and corn pudding and waffles and Lori made/brought a whole bunch of stuff and Marti had her special "ooey gooey" brownies. I came home at the end of the weekend with more inside jokes than I've probably had in one event since I was in high school, including the newly invented drink I got to coin a name for: Hillbilly Mimosas. Lemonade and champagne with breakfast... who'da thunk?

With all that going on, I never did get to see any of the actual dog show itself. I can't wait until the next one in May.

2006-10-20T20:06:00.000-07:00

Erica and Ebony display 3rd and 4th place ribbons from the NKC Obedience trial at 'Brookville Classic' Rarities Dog Show in Brookville, PA September 30-October 1, 2006

2006-10-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

Erica and Ebony at Brookville, PA Rarities Dog Show

Shiloh Agility

2006-09-24T08:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was our Shiloh club agility day up at Melissa's place. I, for one, could happily do that every weekend. I have photos and video up at:

http://www.blackacorndogs.com/files/albums/2006.09.23_ShilohAgility/video.html
http://www.blackacorndogs.com/files/albums/2006.09.23_ShilohAgility

That includes a promised shot of Ebony in the weaves, although not in ours.

Here's one of the videos from that page, including almost everyone who was there:

We brought Ben for a while, just to see how he'd do around everyone since he was overwhelmed at the last Shiloh event I took him to. I had Diane come with me in a separate car so she could take him home after a little while, but darn if he didn't make it the whole day. Additionally, he got to participate in some of the session, including the tunnels and a-frame. He was also adorable and sweet with Marti's puppy Ember, although I don't have any photographic evidence. I was so glad we brought him along.

Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire

2006-09-19T08:24:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, Diane and I went to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire along with my friend, CTB (don't ask). The photo below is our mutual friend Sabrina, the Ink Witch, who has a booth at the Faire. Getting to see Sabrina was Perk #2 for making the 2.5 hour trip (5 hours total) so soon after our marathon tour of the Northeastern/Mid-Atlantic coast. Perk #1 was that I finally ordered my weave poles (for agility; those are the ones where there is a straight line of 6 or 12 poles where the dog runs through, weaving back and forth through the poles). I had to pick them up in Lancaster last Saturday or else wait for a trial about an hour away at the end of next month. We needed a good excuse to haul up to the PA Renn Faire anyway, so voila. And now I have my weave poles! I should have some video up of them in action by next weekend.

Vacation Finale

2006-09-17T22:04:00.000-07:00

So it took a couple days to get it all up there, but that's the end of them. Thanks for following along.

I'd love to know what you think of this format for sharing. It was fun to do all of the video along the trip, and I think next time I might do it again but would try to do a little more story telling and narrative long with some of scenery shots and the like. It's a bit tricky since I only have 30 seconds per clip, but the fact that I can stitch the clips together should make it a little easier. I also figured out this week how to chop the clips up to remove junky bits, so look out, world.

So did you like having all the videos? Did I post a reasonable amount of photos, or was it too much to have all in the blog? (I still plan to post photos in my albums section of the site, but that'll take a bit more time to organize). Positive feedback means I'm more likely to do this kind of thing again, so you can take that as a promise or a warning!

I had fun recording our trip to share with you, and I hope you had fun coming along with us.

Wednesday, Day 5 -- Video

2006-09-17T21:49:00.000-07:00

Our final day at the beach started bright and early as the sun rose and Diane and I went out to walk the beach and collect seashells. Then we headed over to Assateague Island to see the wild horses and other wildlife. We finished up with a side trip to Rehoboth Beach before heading home. Well, Diane did; I missed most of Rehoboth Beach when I took a little 90 minute nap in the car. Hey, we did a LOT last week!

Morning on the beach in Ocean City, Maryland:

The wild ponies (horses) on Assateague Island:

Rehoboth Beach, here we are:

Time to head home:

2006-09-17T18:58:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, Day 5: Shore birds in the sea grass near the surf on Rehoboth Beach, Delaware

2006-09-17T18:56:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, Day 5: A herd of wild horses hangs out in the roadway on Assateague island. We saw more horses relaxing in roadways than anywhere else on the island.

2006-09-17T18:56:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, Day 5: Baby horse on Assateague Island

2006-09-17T18:55:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, Day 5: "Life of the Forest" trail on Assateague Island -- ponies (horses) graze in the background

2006-09-17T18:54:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, Day 5: Erica watches the waves on Assateague Island

2006-09-17T18:53:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, Day 5: Public beach on Assateague Island; Diane collects shells near the waves

2006-09-17T18:52:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, Day 5: Public beach on north end of Assateague Island

2006-09-17T18:49:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, Day 5: Sunrise on the beach from our hotel room in Ocean City, MD

Tuesday, Day 4 -- Video

2006-09-15T20:03:00.000-07:00

We spent all day Tuesday in Ocean City. We got up soon after sunrise to walk along the beach and collect shells. I like to walk at the edge of the surf, but that did mean that some of the big waves were able to get me and I had wet shorts for half the morning. We spent the afternoon in all the little boardwalk shops, and finished up with an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet at Jonah and the Whale. The crab legs were great, but I ate way too many.

Sunrise from our balcony:

Diane and I beachcombing and playing in the surf:

Inside "Just Moosin' Around" beside The Purple Moose Saloon in Ocean City. We'd spent time in Maine trying to find some good moose stuff for Diane, and wouldn't it figure we'd find a whole store of just moose stuff in Ocean City, Maryland!

For what it's worth, it's my camera that makes me sound like I have a lisp -- I'm fairly sure that wasn't me in any of these videos.

2006-09-15T19:35:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, Day 4: Seagulls at sunrise hover beside our balcony above the boardwalk in Ocean City, MD

2006-09-15T19:33:00.001-07:00

Tuesday, Day 4: Diane looks at the bird tracks on the beach

2006-09-15T19:33:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, Day 4: Diane shows off some of her seashells

2006-09-15T19:29:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, Day 4: Erica in kid play plane on the beach in Ocean City, MD

2006-09-15T19:26:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, Day 4: Diane in kid play truck on the beach in Ocean City, MD

2006-09-15T19:25:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, Day 4: Surf on the rocks in Ocean City, MD

2006-09-15T19:24:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, Day 4: Kites on the beach in Ocean City, MD

Monday, Day 3 -- Video

2006-09-14T23:24:00.000-07:00

Monday was all about traveling from Maine down to Ocean City. We made better time than I expected, which means that it took something like 12 hours to get between the two. It was tiring, but still a fun part of the vacation.

We stopped off at The Seashell Shop on the way through Rehoboth Beach:

I was delighted that our hotel room view and location was every bit as fantastic as I'd hoped:

There's nothing like a nice meal after a long drive:

Sunday, Day 2 Video -- Morning

2006-09-14T22:54:00.000-07:00

Chilly morning in Waterville, Maine:

Tour of the yard and taking home some tomatoes from the garden (which turned out to be delicious):

Several hundred bikers caravaning down to Augusta, Maine for the annual Toy Run, and some of the many, many people lining the roads to watch:

Portland Head Light lighthouse in Portland, Maine:

2006-09-14T22:50:00.000-07:00

Sunday, Day 2: Bad Hamster, this lobster's for you.

2006-09-14T22:49:00.000-07:00

Sunday, Day 2: Diane, sister Susan, mom Betty, stepdad Bob, brother-in-law Dan enjoy lobster and clam dinner hosted by Susan and Dan

2006-09-14T22:46:00.000-07:00

Sunday, Day 2: Abby, John, and Evan enjoying lobster dinner

2006-09-14T22:44:00.000-07:00

Sunday, Day 2: Diane's sister Susan and brother-in-law Dan at Portland Head Light lighthouse in Portland, Maine

2006-09-14T22:43:00.000-07:00

Sunday, Day 2: Portland Head Light in Fort Williams Park, Portland, Maine

2006-09-10T03:10:00.000-07:00

Erica on the Old Orchard Beach pier; amusement park ferris wheel visible in background

2006-09-10T03:09:00.001-07:00

Diane under the pier

2006-09-10T03:09:00.000-07:00

Diane on Old Orchard Beach; amusement park flume ride visible in background

2006-09-10T03:08:00.000-07:00

Brother Wayne, mom Betty, and Diane

Vacation 2006, Day 1

2006-09-10T02:57:00.000-07:00

Pet sitter at the house, away messages on at work, and we are on VACATION.

Rain, Rain, Go Away?

2006-09-05T15:31:00.000-07:00

My dogs are the biggest wusses in the state. Like much of the U.S., we have had a long, dry summer. We have hardly had to walk in the rain for several months.

All of sudden, now that it's been rainy all weekend, none of the dogs want to go outside to go to the bathroom. I'll let them out, and they'll all three hover around by the door waiting for me to let them back in. This has been going on since Saturday, every time it has been even drizzling. Three big shepherd dogs, built to range on a farm for hours and miles every day in all sorts of weather, and they won't go out to pee in DRIZZLE.

Good grief.

'Crocodile Hunter' Dead at 44

2006-09-04T07:22:00.000-07:00

'Crocodile Hunter' Dead at 44

"CAIRNS, Australia (Sept. 4) -- Steve Irwin, the hugely popular Australian television personality and conservationist known as the "Crocodile Hunter," was killed Monday by a stingray while filming off the Great Barrier Reef. He was 44."

Wow. Rest in peace, Steve.

The Raw Diet Bandwagon

2006-09-02T17:00:00.000-07:00

We've officially joined the ranks of raw feeders. Due to Indie's awful allergies, we are now trying him on raw diet, starting last night. We're feeding Bravo, a prepared food that comes frozen in a tube or patties, and includes the meat, organs, ground bone, and some vegetation. Seeing what incredible results others have had by turning to raw diet, I have high hopes for this, but we shall see. I'll say this much... he LOVES the food. I'm giving the other two dogs a bit as well, and if this does kick Indie's allergy problem, I will try switching everyone over. They sure are excited about it.

Ebony had a very nice, though drizzly, agility lesson this morning. The most fun part was working through the weave poles with guides up ["weaving" is 12 poles that the dog is supposed to serpentine through, and guides, in this case, are short bits of garden fencing which discourage but to not prevent dog from going the wrong way in the poles]. This is the first time she's gone through weave poles without a x-pen channels or open channel weaves, and I couldn't believe that she figured it out extremely fast and hardly popped out at all. We need to work very quickly on getting speed through the poles, but I was impressed at how well she did. Melissa said that dogs don't tend to have a hard time learning weave poles: people do. She's done this so many times that I guess she would know! Ebony had a ton of energy today, probably because it was damp and chilly, but it made it a lot of fun. My biggest challenge with Ebony is that she quits very easily, so I love when she's "up".

The Dogs and Diet

2006-09-01T07:44:00.000-07:00

Just finished Ebony's first group agility class, and it went great! I can't believe that I can let this dog off-leash around other dogs in an exciting atmosphere, have them come shooting around right next to us, and still have her pay attention to ME. I never thought I'd see the day. She's really enjoying agility, and that's what I care about!

Ben is doing well too. He's really turned a corner the last week or two and is starting to truly settle in. His self-control has grown immensely, and he's even becoming a real snuggle-bug, which of course, we love. He's now been with us for a little over two months.

Poor Indie is having a rough time with his allergies. We're going to finally make the jump to try raw diet, and I'm going to pick up our starter food/ingredients this afternoon. We've been playing with diet like crazy, have been doing homeopathic treatments, home cooked food, but it's like Katie all over again. Katie's issues were digestive, Indie's are primarily skin related, but the associated hassle to get them balanced is the same. This dog is not even two years old yet -- he is just too darn young to be so unhealthy. We'll be trying desperately to work alternative options for healing, because I'm quite convinced that Western medicine only helps for treatment and management of these problems while doing nothing to actually correct these problems. Kate was on prednisone for the last couple years, but that was an acceptable trade-off for an old dog. I'll be damned if we put a 2-year old on steroids without trying everything everything else we can think of first.

I can't help but think that all of these learnings could benefit my own health someday. Oh wait.. they already have. Whole Dog Journal has had more positive impact on my recent dietary improvements than any human-based information source I've ever seen. And the more I experience how my dogs are visibly and immediately impacted by changes to diet, supplements, stress or other health factors, the more sensitive I become to such changes in my own life.

I recently made the decision to cut out two major things from my diet: high fructose corn syrup and partially-hydrogenated oils. I was motivated to choose those particular two by a friend who'd done the same, making the observation that simply cutting those two things knocks out a substantial spectrum of mystery foods and things that are truly bad for us. I also try to skip anything that's fried or processed and steer toward whole ingredients, i.e. if you can't describe where it comes from, you probably don't want to know. It's probably been 1-2 months now and early results are that I absolutely have more energy when I'm keeping up on it, and when I do end up eating crap food (like at a two-day meeting I had this week, where I had greasy quesadillas Wednesday and pizza Thursday), I know it. My skin knows it, my insides know it, my energy level knows it. Once doesn't seem to be a big deal but two or more meals in close proximity and my body starts recognizing the difference. I'm sure it's no big surprise, but I also notice that I'm about 5 times as likely to eat more than necessary when eating crap food than when eating healthy food, even when the healthy food is extremly yummy. Or maybe it's just that overeating on crappy food sits in my stomach a lot heavier, I don't know. But I'm happy about the changes, and I just need to keep them up.

2006-07-31T12:42:00.000-07:00

Daily Show on Life

I love it:

Star Trek/Monty Python Mash-up

2006-07-25T11:17:00.000-07:00

Okay, so the zombie one wasn't a big hit... perhaps this one should have wider geek appeal. Also hilarious, at least to me.

Star Trek Sings "Knights of the Round Table"
http://www.devilducky.com/media/48608/

PETA Tactics

2006-07-24T06:51:00.000-07:00

Knowing PETA, this doesn't surprise me.

(If you're not familiar with Randy Cassingham's This is True, check it out further... he has some of the most objective reporting around. I've been subscribing for probably close to ten years.)

The following story is from This is True dated 17 July 2005. It is
Copyright 2005 Randy Cassingham, all rights reserved, and reprinted here
with
permission:

"Ethical" Defined
After more than 100 dead dogs were dumped in a trash dumpster over
four weeks, police in Ahoskie, N.C., kept an eye on the trash receptacle
behind a supermarket. Sure enough, a van drove up and officers watched
the occupants throw in heavy plastic bags. They detained the two people
in the van and found 18 dead dogs in plastic bags in the dumpster,
including puppies; 13 more dead dogs were still in the van. Police say
the van is registered to the headquarters of People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals, and the two occupants, Andrew B. Cook, 24, and
Adria Joy Hinkle, 27, identified themselves as PETA employees. An autopsy
performed on one of the dogs found it was healthy before it was killed.
Police say PETA has been picking up the animals -- alive -- from North
Carolina animal shelters, promising to find them good homes. Cook and
Hinkle have been charged with 62 felony counts of animal cruelty. In
response to the arrests PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said it's against
the group's policy for employees to dump animals in the trash, but "that
for some animals in North Carolina, there is no kinder option than
euthanasia." (Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald) ...Oops, my mistake: that's
"Playing God" Defined.

In his author's notes section, Cassingham had more to say about this
story:

The more I learn about PETA, the less I think of
them. The story of them killing animals isn't even unusual. According to
PETA's own filings, in 2004 PETA killed 86.3 percent of the
animals entrusted to its care -- a number that's rising, not falling.
Meanwhile, the SPCA in PETA's home town (Norfolk, Va.) was able to find
loving homes for 73 percent of the animals put in its care. A shortage of
funds? Nope: last year PETA took in $29 million in tax-exempt donations.
It simply has other priorities for the funds, like funding terrorism
(yes, really). But don't take my word for it: I got my figures from
http://www.PETAkillsAnimals.com
-- and they have copies of PETA's state and federal filings to back it
up. The bottom line: if you donate money to PETA because you think they
care for and about animals, you need to think some more. PETA literally
yells and screams about how others "kill animals" but this is how
they operate? Pathetic.

And you know what I wonder? PETA's official count of animals
they kill is 86.3 percent. But if they're going around picking up
animals, killing them while they drive around and not even giving them a
chance to be adopted, and then destroying the evidence by dumping
the bodies in the trash, are those deaths being reported? My
guess: no. While 86.3 percent is awful, the actual number is probably
much, much higher. How dare they lecture anyone
about the "ethical" treatment of animals!

(This is True is a weekly column featuring
weird-but-true news
stories from around the world, and has been published since 1994. Click
the link for info about free subscriptions.)

Zombie Ettiquette

2006-07-19T15:50:00.000-07:00

You need to listen to this before reading the lyrics, even though the lyrics are right there on the page.

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/lyrics/re-your-brains

I discovered this on Knitwitch's Sci-fi/Fantasy Zone podcast; I was listening for the first time and this was the one thing that ensures I will be back for a second listen.

2006-07-13T13:25:00.000-07:00

This is fun -- Uncut Video is in beta and is really cool. Here's Ben playing with the hose in the backyard like the big goofy puppy that he is.

Diane is thrilled because she has wanted to have a water dog. Well, she sure got it!

2006-06-19T10:22:00.000-07:00

Had a really nice weekend. Dad, Chris (step-brother) and Marisa (his step-daughter) came in to town for part of the weekend for Marisa's flight back to Germany. They'd decided to make a day or two of it while they were here. We got to do the monument tour in downtown DC on Friday and spent the day at zoo on Saturday before heading to the airport. It was up in the 90's and we were out in the sun most of the time, so we're lucky we didn't melt them in the Virginia heat. Will post some pictures later!

Fighting Cybercrime with Cyberpowers

2006-06-15T13:59:00.000-07:00

This was so funny:

http://wuvt.blogspot.com/2006/06/cyber-detective-case-238532.html

Things You Don't Want to Hear at Work

2006-06-09T10:16:00.000-07:00

Something you don't want to hear while you're working away at your desk:

A voice on the intercom: "This is Security; it is now safe to enter the building. This is Security, it is now safe to enter the building".

There was a moment of silence, and then laughter from all of the people in surrounding cubes. You see, we weren't aware that it was UNSAFE to enter the building, having been in it the whole time.

Too funny.

2006-06-08T09:06:00.000-07:00

Pictures from Heather from the Brookville Rarities Show and Shiloh Shepherd Specialty last Memorial Day Weekend. The headshot of Ebony was, I think, when we were waiting outside the ring and the other shot is Ebby and I showing in the conformation ring. (Heather's site: http://www.macshilohs.com)

Our Luck Holds Out

2006-06-04T19:50:00.001-07:00

As you can see from the photos below, all three dogs have been together today. The photos are from a run we took out behind Diane's work, but the three dogs have been out in the house together for most of the day. There was one point where things got a bit too exciting in a stairway that ended in an hour of crate time for everyone, but other than that, they've all been communicating very well. We still have a couple weeks of settling in ahead of us, but I couldn't have dreamed things would be already going this smoothly at this point. We still can't get over how much Ben and Indie are enjoying each other's company.

2006-06-04T19:50:00.000-07:00

Ebby, Ben, and Indie

2006-06-04T19:49:00.000-07:00

The new Black Acorn Pack

Photo Repost

2006-06-03T18:39:00.000-07:00

Due to popular request for photos, here's a repost of the photos from the day we met Ben before we really thought we'd be taking him.

Playdate with Ben

Unbelievable

2006-06-03T18:33:00.000-07:00

The boys love each other. They are already like peas in a pod. I can't believe it. I think if Indie had to pick right this minute, he'd choose Ben over Ebony. During their times out together today, they've been like two little kids running off to swap baseball cards together, or whatever the heck little kids do these days. Play on the X-box probably. Whatever. Indie even lets Ben take his tennis ball away from him, and I can assure you, that's huge. He does tolerate Ben taking it, he *lets* him have it. Ebony and Ben have been doing well all afternoon too, and it's all I've been able to do to hold off trying three-dogs-out-together until tomorrow morning. In the long run, one more night won't kill anyone (by anyone, I mean me and Diane) but waiting until everyone is really comfortable with each other individually could certainly set the right precedent with which to move forward.

We still can't believe how well this is going.

2006-06-03T07:08:00.000-07:00

Once again, a pack of three.

So far, so good. Ben and Indie have been getting along like old buddies. It's a little shocking. We've been doing the integration very slowly, but it's going so much better than we could have imagined.

We brought Ben home on Thursday night and crated him downstairs. The only time the dogs got together was on their two walks, where we walked Ben and Ebony together and then Ben and Indie together. On Indie's walk, we kept them across the street from each other and didn't let them interact on Thursday night. Indie barked at Ben at first, and then started whining when he realized who it was. A great start.

Friday morning, we let Indie and Ben walk together side by side. They mostly ignored each other, which was perfect. They didn't seem particular about which dog was out in front, and they walked side by side for parts of the walk, bumping shoulders companionably. Indie has already shown signs of looking for Ben's reaction when there is something scary, and that's exactly what we're hoping for. Although Ben is only a year old, he is very confident with a stable and friendly temperment, and will be a great role model.

Last night, we got the party started for real, and let Indie and Ben loose together in the house. I was prepared for fireworks, but they played together more nicely than Indie and Ebby play! We had a few predictable tense moments, but Ben and Indie figured out quickly how to collaboratively tug with toys and proceeded to destroy a good dozen plush and tug toys from the toy box.

The boys tugging #1
The boys tugging #2
The boys tugging #3
The Carnage

We still got our fireworks later when we let Ebby out. All hell broke loose. Ben went nutso, tearing around the house, and then Indie started chasing Ben in a more serious manner while Ebby contributed to the mass confusion by barking and running. Soooo... three dogs loose together won't be happening quite yet. We have three crates lined up in the dining room and they all have to take turns coming out. At the moment, all three of them have been crated for the last hour to encourage them to nap, and to give ME some quiet time! Indie hasn't had any time to play yet this morning, but Ebby and Ben had about 45 minutes of nice time, where Ebby had to put Ben in his place a few times, and then taught him how to chew quietly on some of the bones that are scattered around the living room. It's so much fun to watch the dogs learn from each other.

It's official... we've got a new dog!

A Week In The Life

2006-06-01T08:45:00.000-07:00

Gosh, I actually have so much blog-worthy material this week that I haven't known where to start.

I got my new stereo installed in the van last Thursday. This was necessary because the stock stereo didn't have a CD player. I went ahead and added iPod connector, and I've now stepped into the grand world of iPod users. I don't own any (or many) digital songs, but I really like listening to podcasts, so I saved off many hours of podcasts for my drive Friday.

Friday I drove to Brookville, PA (near Punxsutawney in Western PA) for the big Rarities Dog show and Shiloh Specialty, including a Shiloh Regional and the National Specialty. Just Ebby and I went, and Diane stayed home with Indie. We tented on the fairgrounds, and Ebony did great! I expected her to be a little nervous most of the weekend, but she was quite comfortable, even in the tent overnight. She got a leg of an NKC obedience title, Companion Intermediate, and I took her in the show ring 4 times for the Spay/Neuter class. She took it all in stride, and on Saturday, she even "auto-stacked" both times in the ring (which means she set up her feet in the right position all by herself. For Shilohs, the position is just like you see in German Shepherd show pictures, with one rear leg stretched out behind.)

We went home Sunday night, and fortunately did not try the air conditioning, despite the heat. On Monday, I turned on the air conditioning while Diane and I were running around on errands, and some valve broke in the coolant system, stranding us at Target. The tow truck couldn't give us a ride all the way home, so instead of calling a cab, we decided to hoof it. It was about 5 miles, and the stupid part was that the heat was incredible. We bought a couple liters of water, took plenty of opportunies to rest and cool off in the shade, and made it home without incident. The nice thing was that we were able to take the bike trail (the W&OD Trail) for most of the trip back. Seeing all the other morons out in the heat ON PURPOSE made me feel a lot better about our decision. The whole incident killed any chance for a productive day off, but it was a fun adventure.

Ben comes home with us tonight. Although I've talked about him, I haven't exactly mentioned this here that he's coming to live with us (Dad, if you're still keeping up with the blog... surprise!). I imagine we'll be in for a rough week or two while everyone adjusts to having a third dog in the pack, but I expect it to go pretty well once they're settled. Both Ebony and Indie have had time to spend with Ben outside of the house and it's gone well, and I think Ben will end up as a good influence. Can't say I'm looking forward to the extra walks though... we're already thinking about getting the house together so we might upgrade to a yard again in another year or two.

Army of Duckness

2006-05-25T07:08:00.000-07:00

Army of Duckness

These little guys are destined for the Brookville Rarities and Shiloh Shepherd Speciality Show this weekend. I'm transporting them up, and they needed a little post-storage bath. They'll be part of Shiloh Rescue fundraising activities, Bobbing for Ducks. They will swim in a baby pool, and dog owners will buy chances for their dog to pull one out of the baby pool. I think ducks with an X have a bigger prize, and all chances bought have a small prize. I haven't seen it in action before, but should be a hoot.

2006-05-23T11:26:00.000-07:00

5-6 puppies, one cat. You need to watch for yourself to see what happens.

http://www.jokaroo.com/funnyvideos/puppies_vs_cat.html

This really cracked me up.

Lonely Dog and Road Tripping

2006-05-22T08:10:00.000-07:00

Poor Miss Ebony has been having a rough week with the boy gone. She had an accident in the house overnight the first two nights, I think because her stomach was nervy. I don't think she's ever been alone like that before! Even before she came to us and lived in that horrible kennel, at least there were always other dogs around. Poor old girl.

All reports are that Indie and Ben are doing really well. By yesterday, they've been turned out just the two of them with no other dogs as distractions. The house feels really empty, but just a couple more days!

I had a home check to do with Virginia German Shepherd Rescue yesterday in Winchester, so Diane and Ebony and I all trucked out together. The woman I did the home check for asked me to bring Ebby, and she welcomed Ebby into the house while we talked. Ebby wasn't too sure what to think of being in someone else's house, but she did get cookies. Then we spent a lot longer in Winchester than we'd expected (yesterday was supposed to be about house cleaning... oops!). It was fun though, because while Diane went into stores like Wal-mart, I hung out in the van with Ebony, and I read for a bit and napped for a bit, and took Ebony for a little walk in one locatio. In Martin's grocery store, Diane picked up some food from the hot food bar and we had a little picnic in the back of the van. I just love traveling around in that thing. Ebony was a little unsure at what we were doing all day, but it was really good for her to be out and about for non-dog-related stuff. And we had fun too.

BLK ACRN, and My Poor Pooches!

2006-05-18T16:13:00.000-07:00

Had a trip to DMV this morning which went incredibly smoothly. I only waited for about 5 minutes and then had a friendly and competent clerk who took care of my tricky request with no problem. And the exciting part is that I no longer have truck plates and was able to get my BLK ACRN plates back on. Yay!

In more difficult news, we dropped Indie and Ben off today with our trainer, where they will spend the entire week. It's going to be very good for Indie, but very hard on us! The primary purpose of this visit is to let Indie realize that Diane and I are not the only humans in the world he can feel comfortable with. We were going to do this at the end of last summer and had to abort when there was a heat wave. They are scheduled to spent a couple hours outside twice a day (AM and PM), mostly be crated when in the house, and she doesn't have central air conditioning, so this is clearly a springtime or autumn endeavor here in Virginia. The secondary purpose is for Indie and Ben to spend time together on neutral ground and under supervision. We had them together with muzzles last Sunday (I say we, but Diane and I weren't allowed to stay and watch because Indie overreacts if we're present -- if this sounds like a bad thing to do, I can assure you that it's necessary and I feel worse for us than I feel for him, plus Marti was able to stay). The reports from Melissa and Marti were that the did much better than expected and that we'd work up to no muzzles during this week. Well, darned if Melissa didn't get them to muzzleless interaction by the second session today, including a the very beginnings of play behavior and even polite interactions in the house. The great thing is that they'll also both be around some of her other dogs in controlled circumstances, which they both need (Indie for reactivity and Ben for overexuberence). This is going to be so good for those guys.

Weekend Report

2006-05-15T14:51:00.000-07:00

Great Rally trial with Ebony this weekend! Our runs (four of them) weren't as good as I was hoping, but she did really well, and we did qualify for 3 our of 4 of them. That means 3 legs out of 10 required for Novice Championship, and I think points toward the next title which crosses over between 1st and 2nd level (there are 3 total).

I unfortunately left the lights on overnight in the van and the battery was dead in the morning and I had to quickly switch to Diane's 4Runner. I ended up being late to the trial and therefore missed the walk-through where you get to walk the course before the judging starts. That was a little stressful, but we made it through pretty well anyway. Thankfully it was a fairly straightforward course without a lot of odd turns or angles to get between stations. We got through our first run by 9AM so I went back home, got the van going, and drove back to the trial. It was only 45 minutes away in Frederick, MD, so not a big deal. The family of Indie's littermate Saphira all came out to watch the trial and were there for our second run of the afternoon. As I mentioned before, they just started taking Rally-O in the same class as Indie, so it's nice for them to get to see how it works, but it was so nice having them there. It was a little bit like having family with me.

Saturday Diane and I ran some errands together which was surprisingly very fun since we haven't done that in a while (because I don't go... not because she doesn't). We also made it to the used book store and I managed to burn up a 50 credit that we had. Whoo hoo! That'll keep me busy for a while.

Next weekend is the first weekend with NOTHING already scheduled that I've had in... months? I think months. I can't WAIT. I'm so going to clean the house. (Gosh, that just sounds wrong...)

Another 1st Class Night

2006-05-10T16:56:00.000-07:00

Last night was a fun class night. It was the first time we've ever had both dogs in class on the same night, and thankfully, having the van made it a lot easier. Ebony has Novice Obedience at 6:30 and Indie has Rally Obedience at 8:50. The plan is that Diane and I both go, she can come in or hang out in the van as she chooses, and we grab subs or something during the hour break.

That was pretty close to how it actually played out. Except that what happened is both of the dogs apparently caught wind that something interesting was happening and got super nutsy before we even left the house. Then Indie didn't want to get in the van since he was afraid Ben would be in there (we did two sessions over the weekend where we drove them around together -- we discovered the the dogs are surprisingly calm together while they're in crates). When we got to the training center, we got them both out for a short walk, and then Indie needed to go back in the crate while Ebony and I went to class. However, instead, both of them went cuckoo-dog; Indie pitched a fit about going back in the crate and Ebony pitched a fit about not being *allowed* to go back in the van/crate. I'm sure it would have been amusing to watch while I tried to sort out two wacko dogs leaping around and over my head in the tight quarters of the van. I ended up getting into class 10 minutes late. Oops. Once inside class, Ebby was a complete goofball, but fortunately "completely goofball" these days is still a sane and controllable dog, even if not very well focused. She has a Rally trial this weekend in Frederick, MD so I'm crossing my fingers for the adage of "bad dress rehearsal, great performance."

Indie did really well in his class. We ditched the idea of repeating sub-Novice/CGC again because his dog-dog reactivity and fear of me leaving him with someone else were, if anything, getting worse by trying to force the issue every week. Rally class takes the pressure off by keeping him occupied in what is usually an individual task. (Rally is obedience done with signs that tell you want to do next, like in Rally racing. Same obedience moves as formal obedience but layed out as a course with signs such as: Start, Halt/Sit, Left Turn, heel right in a 360, Fast, Normal, etc.) Last night, we spent so much time on introductory information that we didn't have a chance to run through a course individually, and they just layed out the signs for random practice and familiarization. This mean that all ten so handlers and dogs were going every which direction around the ring in mild chaos. Indie surprised me by doing fantastically. The only incident we had was at the very end of class where two Bearded Collies got into a tussle about 10 feet away. It's pretty usunsual to have fights in class, and this one certainly wasn't serious, but Indie took great exception to it. Hey, why not end the night with some adrenaline? He settled down afterward, which is as much as I'll ask from him right now.

Next week should be a little easier with then once Ebby and Indie get the hang of the fact that they're both going to class and have to take turns. It's just a new version of the same ol', same ol'.

Shout out to Indie's sister Saphira, also in his Rally class, who passed her CGC test at the end of last session! Go Saphira!

It's All Relative

2006-05-04T07:01:00.000-07:00

I had to drop the van off for some work today because some of the welding came loose on one of the crates in the back where they had to cut and reweld it to make it fit. Diane dropped me off at the shop, and then I drove her to work, and will pick her up later. I had the weirdest sensation while getting behind the wheel of the 4-Runner: it feels TINY. I feel like I'm driving some little sports car. Granted, the 4-Runner is not a full-sized truck or anything, but it is a full-sized SUV. Such a strange sensation.

I've found that I really enjoy driving the van for more reasons than I'd expected. I'd banked on that people would drive like jerks around me and want to always be in front of me so they wouldn't get stuck behind me, or would cut me off because they, well, wouldn't want to get stuck behind me. As it turns out, precious few people do that, AND people are extremely accomodating about letting me pull out or letting me merge. I figure it's because I'm big enough to be noticable, maybe even intimidating, they don't want to get stuck in my blind spot, and that people know I'm unlikely to be zippy. People are also less likely to get impatient if I'm in front of them and not going as fast as they'd like. I was amazed at how differently people's expectations seem to be with a van than with a small vehicle like my old Rav4. It makes the van a pretty relaxing way to travel.

Avon Walk for Breast Cancer 2006

2006-05-02T12:26:00.001-07:00

Erica and Pack-up Team Leader Carolyn

The Avon Walk was last weekend, and it was terrific. We had 2,500 walkers, 350 crew, and raised $5.8 million. And if that wasn't good enough, we had nice weather. The entire time. This is the seventh year I've done this event, and that's a first. It's rained the last three years, and last year was a monsoon.

I was Division Leader for the Wellness Village, aka camp or Tent City, for the third year, and I already signed up to do it again. I don't get to see much of the actual walk, but my crew makes sure everyone gets all set up with a tent, a hot meal, and plenty of water. We keep the place clean (a big job on a site with 2500 people) and secure, and make sure the walkers are taken care of. Crewing is a big job with long hours, but it's worth it.

One of the most important things that happens during the event is that people have the opportunity to tell their stories. The ways in which people are affected by breast cancer is overwhelming. Events like this one give people something to do, a way to fight this invisible enemy. When I started this event seven years ago, I didn't have anyone close to me who'd been affected, yet a few years ago, my Aunt Kathy was diagnosed with breast cancer. It's a very emotional thing for me to know that the more years I do this event, the chances are higher and higher that more people in my life will be directly affected, and is that much more reason to continue on. Then breast cancer aside, I have other very important people in my life with horrible conditions requiring chemotherapy; I've gotta think that research that goes into chemo alternatives for breast cancer will trickle into other fields of research and help those with other forms of cancer and nasty diseases where the body simply rebels against itself.

So I guess the most important reason to keep doing this is because I can.

Fried Pidgeon, Anyone?

2006-04-25T07:28:00.000-07:00

I've just discovered the real purpose of grill covers.

Diane and I got all ready to grill for the first time of the season yesterday. We got a bit of a surprise:

My first thought was that we'd had some kind of crazy windstorm, and then I noticed a little blue egg in the middle of all that straw. The darn mourning doves had built a nest in our grill!

This explained several things, like why we've had a pair of mourning doves suddenly hanging out (and pooping) on the corner of our deck this year. It also explains why Indie has been spending a lot of time sniffing the grill in the last few weeks.

The one lone egg was somehow missing this morning, so I don't know what happened to it, but we're going to give the darn creatures a little bit of time to finish their business before we reclaim the grill. Hopefully they haven't done damage or created a fire hazard while they've been in there, but we'll find out soon enough. I don't know why there was only one egg or why it was gone this morning, but hopefully it's just been shifted to another part of the "nest" and wasn't eaten by some *other* creature that discovered how to get in there.

Next year, grill cover.

1st Agility of the Year

2006-04-22T19:59:00.000-07:00

We had our first agility lesson of the season with Melissa on Friday night, and it went better than I could have hoped (minus the fact that we had to quit a little early due to rain). Indie, naturally, ran through straight and curved tunnels like he was born to them, and was a pro over the low teeter. Furthermore, he jumped like a rabbit, of course right after I told Melissa about how he's continued to have a tough time with his hips. I'm pretty sure he was working on solid adrenaline though. He was really excited to be up there again. Ebony hasn't had as much exposure as Indie, so she needed some reminder with tunnels, but she was able to consistently take the A-frame and tire with minimal direction from me. I can't remember if she's even practiced the tire before. She was also popping back and for over 24" jump in beautiful arched form. I do have high hopes that I can get her trialing by the end of summer. We have a heck of a start, that's for sure!

Happy Earth Day!

2006-04-22T19:51:00.000-07:00

I went out this morning to do trail clean-up on our Adopt-a-Trail at claude Moore Park in Sterling. Diane had to work, so I was on my own for our trail. This was a little rougher than I expected, because there was a lot more pruning and sawing than I'd counted on. I was surprised because it hasn't been all that many weeks since we've been out. On top of that, it rained all morning, so when I was done, I really needed a hot shower. On the brighter note, I wasn't chilled or uncomfortable while I was working, and it was quite a pleasant way to recognize Earth Day. Our trail is a pretty half-mile loop right near the Visitor's Center, and has places where it's hardwood, places where it's predominately evergreen, and places where it's open. There is lots of dogwood along the trail, and it's just started to bloom.

Today was the annual "all hands on deck" day where they bring in extra volunteers to do general trash pick-up around the park, but we unfortunately lost a lot of folks to the weather. I'm really sore tonight, but it felt good to get out and do something really physical.

Best in Show

2006-04-21T19:26:00.000-07:00

I love the movie Best in Show. I must have watched it 50 times. I'm not a big movie watcher, but it's *the* movie I put in when I'm doing something, say on the computer as I am tonight, and I'm only half watching the television. It's a little disturbing, but I just do not get sick of it.

"I woke up, I was so glad"

"We were so lucky to be raise with catalogs"

"It worked for my family... you know, until my mom committed suicide in '81."

Smash My Viper

2006-04-20T13:01:00.000-07:00

I bet Al Gore never envisioned the Internet being used for stuff like this back when he invented it:

http://www.smashmyviper.com/

Here's video:
http://www.smashmyviper.com/v/20060216.php

It's an advertising site like Million Dollar Pixels where you can purchase a key scratch or hole drilled in a (previously good condition) shiny red Dodge Viper. Or cough up a little more money and they will throw your item of choice at the Viper, or Loiusville Slugger it. Good stuff.

Shiloh Playdate

2006-04-19T12:33:00.000-07:00

Back is MUCH better incidentally. Just took a couple weeks to get straightened out. Hey, could have been worse!

New album is up of a pup we went to play with this weekend. We just brought Ebony, but we worked him with Indie a little on Sunday. Marti from this photos is his current foster; she's the same one who fostered Ebony. The other dogs in here (Much and Tuck) are two of her three. The third isn't much for rowdiness and does not appear here. :D

http://www.blackacorndogs.com/files/albums/2006.04.15_playdate_ben/index.html

I have a couple videos I might post later. One of them is of Ebony bouncing off the head of her favorite boy, Muchie.