Thanks to Greg I have a video of Strummer's Standard run at the USDAA trial a couple of weeks ago.
USDAA Jan 2010 Strummer from colliebrains on Vimeo.
The big surprise was the call on the dogwalk, I was sure he had gotten it. It's impossible to say from the video but it looks like a leap but that maybe he still hit the yellow but the judge had a better view than I did (I was behind) and he was lenient with his contact calls all weekend so I don't doubt the call. It's disappointing that I read it as a hit though. At one point when we were practicing almost daily I could usually tell from the sound of the footfalls whether it would be a hit or not and I'm either losing my touch or he's come up with some weird striding where he can still miss at the very end. Time to get out the video camera again and see where we're at. On the plus side his A-frame is perfect and oh if only he'd do the teeter that way all the time.
He seems nicely focused though, no running amok just some baby dog errors that I feel we shouldn't still be having. Despite my poor financial situation I signed us up for a half day workshop with Stacy Peardot hopefully to work on some basic training holes. We're in such a weird place right now I'm not sure what we know and don't know and I've been so focused on equipment rather than basic handling. Haven't had a lesson with Joy in months because all the practice fields have been snowed in. Frustrating to have all this time off and not be able to practice on a regular basis.
Instead I've started on painting the living room and it's going at a snail's pace. I had to remove a hideous wallpaper border, a chore that I thought would take an hour maybe two and it ended up taking all day and I still have a bunch of glue to remove that should take at least anouther 2 hours. Apparently the key is fabric softener mixed in with the hot water and I didn't break down and buy some until I had spent nearly all day scrubbing at the glue and backing paper with only hot water. The stuff in the kitchen came down no problemo with hot water so I don't know. I've got some words for the asshat who invented wallpaper if ever I run into him. Or maybe I should have the words with the former home owner since I know where he lives. I'm so happy now that it's finally gone, funny how such a stupid thing makes such a big difference. Now if only I could figure out what color to paint the walls. I wanted to do them in a light yellow but none of the samples in the store look right on the walls. We have a lot of windows and get a lot of light in the room and for some reason none of the colors look like they're supposed to when I get them on the walls. The same color looks totally different in the kitchen than it does in the living room. Frustrating and I feel like I'm at the point where it's a guessing game. Still, the primer that I've got up so far is better than the hideous sea foam green walls we had. Just wish I hadn't gotten so much of it in my hair. At least Strummer has only a tiny bit on him so far. I'm sure he'll get more colorful as the project progresses.
I am pretty sure he was calling the up contact not the bottom. Beautiful startline and aframe was awesome. You guys are looking great. A 1/2 day seminar with Stacy will be awesome for you.
ReplyDeleteDitto to everything kiwichick said. I'll add in the teeter too, just lovely.
ReplyDeleteI moved into my house six years ago and still haven't removed the childish wallpaper border thing in my bedroom, which was the baby's room. You have inspired me.
We removed the wallpaper and painted in the former kids room right when we moved in but left the entire rest of the house for 12 years. I fear I'll get halfway thru the living room then get fed up and leave it for another 12 years.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the key to removing wallpaper is scoring it so the remover stuff can soak through (you can buy a little roller tool that does it nicely for you) and then using remover stuff. I bought a mix; mix it in warm water and then spray it on and it's SO much easier to get the paper and glue off. Now that you've done the work.
ReplyDeleteBefore I moved into my house, I removed all the wallpaper in the huge office/den and 90% of the kitchen and left the rest because it would be easy to get to and do after I'd moved in. That was 8 years ago. So perhaps your fear about the living room is justified.
I also did 2 bedrooms after I moved in but was forced into completing them because I had someone moving in.
Did you ever see the wallpaper from the one bedroom and kitchen in my house? It's here.
P.S. I *love* wallpaper! I just don't like other people's choices of wallpaper. ;-)
Wow, now that is some wallpaper. I feel silly now for complaining about the stuff in my house. And the flooring! I wonder if you can even still get stuff like that, I need some new flooring in my kitchen.
ReplyDeleteI'll bet you could still get flooring like that. And I even have some like-new leftovers from when the previous owners installed it! (I replaced it all before I even moved in.)
ReplyDeleteI dont know how the judge could even seen the down contact from where he was. Great run, lovely weaves.
ReplyDeleteIve never herad about using fabric softener to remove wallpaper. I just usually buy the stuff from Lowes that helps remomve wallpapaer. But really, its just a lot of work no matter what. Dinaa
Oh, the stories I could tell of wallpaper in our first house and this current house. My sympathies. We did put up one wall of wallpaper, textured and painted, in our bedroom, but indeed, it's a @#$@# to change.
ReplyDeleteI actually LOVE to paint because it can be such an immediate gratification, but I understand on the color picks. We tried like 10 different greens in the bedroom and probably 20+ options for the half-walls in our main area. The red floor tiles and light throughout the day made good color after good color go bad.
Love the Strummer video, even with his silly spins and misses ... he looks good to me.
Strummer looked great! I'm glad to see you have video since I missed all your runs that weekend because of the two rings and running two dogs.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the person who said it was probably the up contact that he missed (wish they wouldn't judge silly up contacts - not fair to the big, long strided dogs).
Also, regarding paint colors - try a shade of Ivory (warm tones). We painted our bedroom ivory and it looks pale yellow (very nice) because of all the light.
ReplyDeleteThe 5 faults that he's calling is actually probably a tunnel before the dogwalk that you can't see on the video that I'm pretty sure Strummer pulled off of at the last minute when I booked over to the dogwalk to get ahead of him. The 10 faults could be the up but it looks to me like he got the up but who knows, maybe he was calling it late.
ReplyDeleteWe ended up using a cream color that was supposedly on the orange side but came out looking the perfect shade of yellow, pretty sure it was a warm tone. Now to talk Jonny out of painting the dining room purple.
Oh, no, don't talk him out of it! We were buying a house (a long time ago) with the perfect dining room to be painted purple (the highlight color on our china) and we bought artwork and other things in anticipation, then the sale fell through, so the next dining room had nice paneling so we couldn't paint that, and now my current dining room is lined with bookcases so you can't even SEE the walls so I'm still suffering from purple dining room envy! I think you should do it! Or at least just one wall. I might still do that in my kitchen (one wall) if I ever get around to taking down the rest of hte wallpaper.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I have much say in this matter anyway, he seems to have his heels dug in. I had a purple bedroom as a kid and I'm kind of over it. It's o.k. at the start but it gets depressing after a while. The compromise might be a very faint shade of purple. We almost painted the kitchen cabinets purple but after trying 2 shades and both of them looking awful we gave up.
ReplyDelete