The Round Corner

I have been remiss in posting life events and the like, mostly lurking because of the time of year (work is somewhat all-consuming in November) but I wanted to share an observation from the History channel:

Was drinking a cup of coffee and staring blankly at the history channel when a WWII veteran described the Dayeh people of Borneo "a very polite people".

They are, by cultural and religious bent, head hunters.

The last three times I have heard the phase "a very polite people" they were all aborigine people who are either 1) head hunters or 2) cannibals.

Regardless of the other drawback of those traditions, I'm thinking that is one check in the plus column.

That is all.

Looking for Crash-space Tuesday night -- I have to be there Wednesday a.m. for business reasons but for various reasons I'm not authorized an overnight.

Thanks.....

This alone should prove that Glenn Beck and his like are so full of crap it is coming out their ears.

So angry I am not sure what to say, other that it is embarrassing that at the beginning of the 21st century someone is trying to do this type of re-write of history.

Argh.

I learned a number of lessons this extended weekend (extended as I took a day off from work to do some magical, mystical touring of the numbered routed of Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire:

#1) Yahoo knows where things are in this area. Google, most decidedly, does *NOT*. At some point in the past, I had learned this and promptly forgotten it.

I had planned to leave work at 4 p.m. to go borrow a dog Eiledon's Uigbiorn de Lindeau, in order to have is eyes and hips checked in preparation for a potential breeding. Alas, life intervened and I didn't get out of work until after 6 p.m.

Hence, lesson #2

#2) Avoid navigating by computer directions *IN THE DARK* in *SOUTHERN NEW HAMPSHIRE* if at all possible.

My computer directions got me to the wrong end of the correct road. For those who do not, as a habit, drive a 4-wheel drive truck with *LOTS* of ground clearance, let me share with you lesson

#3) When you see the "Warning: Summer Maintenance Only" sign, turn around at your first safe opportunity.

I did manage to get safety there, albeit after almost an hour in the correct town, about 40 minutes of which was on the right road.

So, I spent the night in the home of a friend who's mailing address used to include "The Little Brown House at XXXXX Farm" and kidnapped her dog who is still registered in K & my name's, but is firmly ensconced on the farm.

Meet Biorn, one of the many fine giant ridiculous dogs in our lives....




We left shortly after breakfast for Petersham, MA, a small town with one of only three vets in Massachusetts qualified to do CERF eye exams. He charmed everyone by being one of the first Briards they had ever met who was genuinely jolly. Uigbiorn is Old Norse for War Bear, but Teddy Bear would have fit him better. He was a trooper, and after much examination, was pronounced sound of vision.

We then took our second "Summer Maintenance" road. However, the Massachusetts one was paved and did not have ruts that threatened to swallow the Hyundai, so I stuck to my directions and actually found my way back to numbered routes that I recognized, leading to lesson

#4) When traveling in aforementioned hinterlands of southern New England, stick to the numbered routes as much as humanly possible.

I then swung by the house (which was, fortuitously, on the way to vet number 2) and we went to Ashford, CT to one of only a handful of vets willing to do hip x-rays without anesthesia. An hour later, we left with knowledge that he would get somewhere between a Fair and a Good rating from the OFA, and that he is likely fertile enough to start his own country.

If he comes back OFA good, his most likely mate will be Teeha, the gardening Briard and great vole hunter:



Armed with Yahoo directions, I made it back to the Northland so that Biornie, as he is known to his friends, could sleep in his own (owner's) bed.

As a footnote to the weekend, I lost two somewhat scraggly to begin with tomato plants to this monster and three of his/her cousins:




Some research revealed that this is a Tomato Hornworm, a caterpillar that feeds largely on night shades and potato plants.

I dropped four of them in the meadow portion of the yard, across the driveway from my tomatoes in the hopes they would find some appropriate weed to eat. Hrrrummph.

Such was life in the fast lane this weekend.

Tags: gardening, giant ridiculous dogs, road warrior

No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick.

If you agree, please post this in all your social networking accounts.

So, in between plundering farm stands and helping groom matociquala's dog, I did some catchup mowing...carefully as I have let the yard overgrow to the point of providing a near-ideal environment for the Northern Leopard Frog, and I do try not to mulch any vertebrates when I mow.

For anyone curious, you can see the Leopard Frogs here. I think the racing stripes are pretty cool and ours have narrow leg bands that give them almost a more tiger than leopard look.

Off to catch a decent night's sleep before going back to the daily grind.

...I think would be the title if my life were a book, and the last day or two the opening scene.

It started Thursday. After 2.5 days of being largely stationary in a semi-annual revenue meeting for our region, I got out a little early in the afternoon and "legalized" my recent purchase of the 1989 Toyota Pickup. Two hours and a couple hundred dollars later, I arrived home and asked K. to roll down to West Hartford with me to pickup the truck. So we did, making my total road hours a little over 5 for the day. Somewhere along the line I will need to make carbon footprint amends.

Friday the truck went into work with me and collected some pallets for brianrogers in order to safely store his *lifetime* collection of comic books while house-selling attempts commence, and a spare for me to use in operation Garage Evacuation . Along the way, some of the "quirks" that go along came to light with the truck -- a marker bulb died, and an intermittent skip became apparent in the combustion (likely a fouled plug, the last owner left almost no gas in the tank) as well as me doing a laundry list of things that should be fixed over time but won't make the truck fail inspection. Currently the only issues that I know need addressed are the recently burnt out bulb and a cracked taillight that I might get away with taping for inspection. The skip I'm hitting a parts store tomorrow for new spark plugs. It never hurts to start there and work your way back through the fire portion of an ICE (Internal combustion engine).



It truly is ugly but it hauls pallets well. After a morning trip to the dump, K and I cruised down to deliver the pallets and collect some wonderful three berry pie in "payment". It was fun to hear someone else tell stupid manager tricks stories from a different workplace....it makes my current job not seem so lonely.

Alas, along the way, Yo-Yo's driver side window worked its way loose of the window crank mechanism and lodged solidly in the door. The ease with which the inner panel came off the door is suspicious, to say the least. The window is up for overnight but still not quite right -- tomorrow I am going to enlist some help from K. to either try to get the window the rest of the way seated into the mechanism or else invest in some suitably rubbery adhesive to hold it there in there so that the window can be rolled down without it unseating.

For anyone interested in some interesting rebuttals to what the Republican Party and the right wing crazies rhetoric regarding health care reform, I highly recommend Elizabeth Moon's e_moon60 recent entries. Hello, reality.

I am the proud owner once again of the ugliest mechanically sound (knock on wood) pickup truck in North America ... pictured below with former owner's spouse....



K. told me not to tell anyone because 1) we would be asked to help people move and 2) because it is ugly enough that she wants to be able to claim it spontaneously erupted from the driveway or that it is one of the relics left in the driveway by our land lord.

But, at least once I have jumped through various insurance and dmv hoops,we will truly be a 2 car family again and I can park unafraid at work that anyone will bother to key my car because the boss is a b*tch .... I am on my third episode and tired of it. If anyone attempts this with Yo-Yo here, I might have to giggle maniacly at their futile attempts at hurting her image.

Selling or aware of someone selling a reliable, CHEAP used car or truck, vaguely decent on gas, now or in the near future.

New England area preferred....

no puppies on the way.

**Sulking Now**

Human physiology is amazingly consistent. In my Master Fitness Trainer Class in 1992 I learned that peak swelling/muscular discomfort from exertion is 24-48 hours after exercise.

However, the falling-off-a-wall thing with matociquala was worth the muscle soreness that creeped up and whacked me on the back of the head at about 5 pm last night. Aspirin is my friend.

Apparently is was a fairly successful outing for someone who hasn't even looked at a climbing wall in about 8 years -- I think the term is "I sent a 5.6". After that, muscle fatigue got the best of me for the most part. I may have gotten the bug badly enough to find a local place to visit on occasion and make the trek an hour plus south every once in a while to track progress against the walls there. The rumor is they are highly sandbagged in their ratings.

Today is a hooky from work (with permission slip :) ) to find out if we have puppies on the way. Off to finish dog outs and load up the clown car for the trip to the vet for an ultrsound.

like a turtle to his balcony, and you know where that's at -- Richard Brautigan

This week was a long one -- the Production Manager who works for me was off on vacation, so I got to pretend I was twins, doing his job and mine. This meant a week of 4 am wake-ups and 7 pm roll back in the driveway.

By the end of the week, I had no ankles left and less patience. In particular because the guy on vacation had done a miserable job on the associate reviews that he had left me to ... review.

In the meantime, between the raindrops the small raised-bed gardens that I put together earlier in the are starting to be fruitful -- the first summer squash has officially been picked, little green tomatoes are in sight, and there are maybe a dozen ears of corn started. I spent last week and this week hand pollinating to be sure of the corn, even though bumble bees seemed highly interested and active on the plants.

The lettuce is past (actually, prematurely consumed by the slug invasion), and a stand-alone mound that I had put together for squash that also fell victim to the slug now has volunteer potatoes coming up from some of the compost I used in its creation. Yeah, volunteers.

The saga of the slowly rotting house we rent has entered a new chapter - leaky roof in the garage. Complicated by the "stuff" in the garage. I spent a good bit of last weekend clearing out about 1/4 of the garage below the leak and airing it out, throwing out some destroyed books that I was slowly listing on Ebay and Amazon, and moving the remainder out of range of the leak. I had hoped it was due to particularly heavy rains but this week proved that it has truly hit a "sieve" phase and I will be calling the landlord to find out if he intends to fix it, contract someone to put a Florida roof on it, or wants me to put the Florida roof on and take my materials and labor off the rent. I would do the roof itself but it is going to require re-sheeting, which would involve enlisting help I couldn't afford to pay up-front. Bugger.

At least it was a pleasant day -- errands including some dumpster diving for a friend, and dinner of chili courtesy of matociaquala.

So, I just finished "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou.

It is a stark reminder of how you can be privileged in your upbringing and not even realize it.

I would be more eloquent, but really, Maya Angelou does it much better than I could.

With the help of a friend that does this for a living, the new kennel website for the dogs is growing in leaps and bounds.

http://www.eiledonbriards.com

Since Karen is on the road, I have much time on my hands to plot with Dawn Shepherd, a wonderful person who owns two of our Briards. I find it amusing that she has Briards given her last name -- if you ever need some webdesign at a reasonable price she is a great place to start.

http://dawnshepherd.com/

...even though I am one.

The poll below says it all. In particular, this is a passionate question for me because the way my pay is structured, 12% of my potential pay annually comes from our August bonus.

Poll #1424770 Corporate Malfeasance in My World
Open to: Friends, detailed results viewable to: Friends, participants: 4

How much of my bonus will my company pay in August?

At least I was not one of the many who already GOT my pink slip, but the uncertainty of whether or not they are paying is almost worse than knowing for sure it isn't happening. I hope to find out next week

So,

This week has been a series of adventures culminating in the odd but mundane.

It started with the weekend at the Wrentham Dog Show. Banyon and Ace (pictured below, courtesy of batwrangler each had at least one nice day at the show. On Saturday, Banyon took her first "major" at the show. To receive a championship, dogs need 15 points, with two shows being ones that they receive 3 or more points that day. The judge was kind and understanding when she was a little spooky, and as the classes went on she decidedhe wasn't going to kill her.

Ace's day was Sunday when he finished his Championship. Now matociquala and her BRE can dye him purple if they like.

He is pictured here with Banyon:



And his ill-gotten gains from Sunday -- the ribbons are what he earned for the win but we buy "Championship Toys" for the dogs -- the Orange Orangutang seemed just the thing with him missing his monkey matociquala




Tuesday I had to leave work early to take one of the dogs, Chimere, to the vet. We thought her Lyme may have made a comeback, but her blood test came back below the threshold for being symptomatic. The options of what is wrong, because her symptoms are vague and mild, is maddening so for now we are leaving her on her Doxycycline to rule out some other tickborne disease, adding the treatment for Guardia, and hoping its just a false pregnancy (she had a spectacular one last time, including minding a toy like a puppy for about 4 weeks before abandoning it as a "defective" puppy when it failed to "wean" and start walking.)

Wednesday we ran Uri into the vet for testing as she had come into season. Normally from the first day you notice them in heat, there is a 7-8 day window before they are fertile. By Thursday morning, we had a call back from the vet letting us know that no, she was farther along and needed to be in North Carolina by Saturday. Which, despite the short notice was terribly polite of her. I made rental car arrangements and Karen left yesterday evening for The Long Drive South.

Today, other than dog care I have been working on making the yard less of a haven for pests -- mosquitos and ticks specifically. This has involved some tree work removing lower branches, mowing towards Mordor (specifically, I have Stopped in a birch grove. Eaten a frugal supper (ca. 10 p.m.). Most of it was re-mowing along with some reclaimation work close to the dog yard. Although I am not a fan of pesticides, tomorrow I'll be spraying a mosquito/bug spray to reduce the pests even more -- the girl we are breeding shouldn't get any topical pesticides applied. Even treating the environment is not the best but we have to do something for her, so I'm opting to try and create a chemical barrier as well as make it physically harder for them to reside. There is a safe heartworm medication (daily) so at least that is not a worry.

Anyone interested in pictures of the sire and dam can see them on our website: Eiledon Briards

Off to let out more dogs to enjoy a much drier yard -- with some aggressive lower branch pruning and a little sun co-operation today, the yard is drier than its been in weeks. That may not seem exciting to you boys and girls, but it is to me. Despite the mosquito damage I took in the process.

After the somewhat surreal Tuesday, Wednesday was much more mundane.

Actually the mound of laundry we hauled down to the laundry mat was somewhat surreal. Tomorrow I will be trying to clean out the garage enough to get at our washer and dryer, just for the sake of not having to deal with that type of mound again. The garage is a daunting task, but the cost of doing a hatchback full of laundry all at once has convinced me that waiting any longer is foolhardy -- particularly since the evil landlord has finally sent a lease renewal for the next year. I find I get very passive aggressive whenever we are in lease-limbo, feeling like any move to unpack, clean-up or install anything might thought off the Karmic forces and make me loose the game of chicken we play every 6 months to a year.

Besides the laundry, I got to Look back at lights of Hobbiton from first slopes of the Green Hill Country.

Sparing you all the photos.

Instead, I will share with you one of my favorite local critters -- I suspect this one is responsible for the drop in the total number of mice...




This one is large enough that mouse pinkies are "just right" for a meal.

A funny thing happened courtesy of FaceBook.

A person I had not heard from in about 19 years contacted me about four or five days ago. He had been one of those people raised privileged and unconscious of it -- his father owned a cruising sailboat, was a member of a yacht club, and though the same unconscious opportunities offered by being raised in that environment that Malcolm Gladwell covers in his recent book "Outliers" -- by the time Chris was 19, he probably had close to 10,000 hours aboard ships.

In the time since I last say him, in between earning and losing a couple of fortunes (right now is a low point) he was also on the Courageous in 2005 for reclaiming the America's cup with what is now the "old lady" of 12-meter sailing.

He now is the Captain of America 2, another America's cup veteran, as one of the staff of The 12 Meter Yacht Development Foundation . In essences, it is a non-profit that is still standing up as a way to fund the preservation of racing 12-meters that might otherwise go to a boneyard.

The basic "business model" that supports this ship, an older trawler, and soon the sister-ship #46 is that the foundation offers a day-sail on the ship to a non-profit that is doing a fund raising auction. There is a reserve set which is the amount that is expected to come back to the foundation -- anything over that is retained by the other non-profit. The foundation auctions netted about $250K for other non-profits last year, something less for themselves. This is important as the maintenance & mooring expenses are not insignificant for this type of ship.

The ship herself was worth the 5 hour round trip driving time. All aluminum, with even 1980's technology an amazing sight to behold for me. I was raised in a poor-man's sailing family -- my family spent years at the Rhode Island shore in a small boat yard in Avondale Rhode Island spending half the summer working on the hull of an old wood schooner, the other half sailing out to Block Island and back, or along other parts of Narragansett bay.

On this boat, all of the "trims" or adjustments to the ship had hydraulic assist or enough run of lines to out-of-sight blocks to give a huge, and necessary, mechanical advantage. There were adjustments even for the shape of the hull. It was a far cry from the hand-hauled lines of my childhood.

I arrived at the Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters in Greenwich, CT at about 2:30 in the afternoon. There is a small private dock there where the America 2 can take on guests and crew. First, one of the high-school aged volunteers arrived, a young man by the name of Sandy who goes to private school and was already "free" for the summer. He and I amused ourselves a bit with our personal observations of the Captain (he has not changed much :)) and bonded a bit waiting for his arrival.

The first part of the afternoon consisted largely of pulling all the "working materials" off of the boat to present a clean appearance for the expected guests.

As for the trip, after week of iffy and miserable weather, the stars aligned and we got a sunny and beautiful afternoon. There were a total of 4 crew -- the Captain, myself and two high school sailors of decent sail experience. I a truly a novice on this sort of ship and was along strictly as muscle (though I found out how soft I had gotten over the last couple years -- more workout time for me going forward) and two guests. Unlike the usually company, the wife of this husband and wife team had contacted the foundation privately and paid some unknown sum for a private outing for his birthday. They are both professionals in the financial field that appear to have weathered the recent economic downturn well, largely from coming form the layer of management below those truly responsible for our economic ills.

Fortunately, the guests wanted to be involved as really the minimum number of hands necessary for running that ship is 5. Between the two they counted as one. We headed out in very fickle winds, having a hard time catching a decent enough breeze to get much more than 4 knots. However, the quiet, the sea breeze and the green gray of the water was enough for me to be happy. However, as the sun started to fade a little, the shifty winds picked up and with some active tacking we caught some good winds and picked up to about 8 knots -- while 9 MPH might not seem a lot, it is plenty on a ship with that displacement.

The trip in yielded the perfect Long Island Sound sunset. Our guests were pleased on many different levels -- the mid-ride winds satisfied the husband's desire for speed, and our chatty-Kathy Captain shared everything from the boats history to 12-meter politics, connecting this short cruise to the history, tradition and excitement of 12 meter racing.

One of the amusing factoids that I learned is that the design restrictions on 12-meters currently INTENTIONALLY keep these from being faster then they are. The intent is that 12-m racing is supposed to be a tactician knife fight, where one error can lose a lead and engineering cannot save you from yourself.

The wind grew a bit chill on the way back in, but nothing bad enough to ruin an afternoon on the sound.

As a footnote, if netcurmudgeon or ashacat wants to get in touch, Chris would love to hear from the two of you -- I can provide contact info.

So,

Nothing quite like finding out that the total familial dental co-pay between the work I should get done and the work K. **NEEDS** to get done is, at a round number, about 5K. I am the lesser of the evils.

Books, Anyone?

I'll be listing more throughout the week if you don't find anything that floats your boat.

Speaking of which, tomorrow will be my one big boondoggle of my vacation, running down to Greenwich, CT to sail as crew on the America 2. Haven't hauled lines in well-nigh 20 years.

Going to bed now so there is some hope I get a decent nights sleep.

Year End Physical Inventory is DUN.

I am a little more grey.

Whoever nicknamed this YEPI! had a miserably punny sense of humor.

But today is the first day of eleven before I have to go back to work, though there may be some irritating odds, ends and spreadsheets that I will need to address in the interim.

So, given that I fell away from that task, I am once Mowing to Mordor. Based on the time on task today, I have Crossed The Water on a plank bridge, but not quite made it to Tookland. But the day is not over.

Before picture:


After Picture:



And, of course, The Silly Old Dog surveying the boundary between mowed and unmowed. She approves of yard work and gardening as the only house dog trustworthy off lead to "help" in the front yard.




Karen was in Topsfield, MA with our girl Eiledon's Uri de Lindeau. I did not attend as Uri is much easier to show solo than with company. If she goes with one person, she is happy and adjusted. If she has two to keep track of, she is a mess to try and show. She officially is now Ch. Eiledon's Uri de Lindeau -- we had thought she finished a month ago but we counted one win incorrectly and she was a point short.

It is a good thing we never cut down our dogs.

She is also making noises of coming into season, so it is nice that she is officially a champion before the breeding. It does not change the quality of the dog, but many puppy buyers have a hard time digesting that since so many people make much-ado about "Champion Bloodlines". With enough money, any dog can finish in the US. Doing it on a budget, now that is an accomplishment.

I will post the official championship picture when it comes. But the fake championship photo (from when we THOUGHT she finished) is available here