This will learn me to clean out my photo folders

Tagged twice in 2 days for silly internet games, how fun. Team Small Dog has commissioned me to post the 5th photo from my 5th folder of photos. Unfortunately this is what came up: If you click on the photo so it's bigger and squint really hard maybe you can see the hawk taking off from the tree. It's from one of the trails/roads near or around the Boulder Reservoir. I probably should have cheated and picked a more interesting photo, it's not like you're going to know. Rather than spend time and money on photography classes or say reading the camera's user manual to figure out how it works I go out there and start pushing buttons and messing around reasoning that at some point I'll figure it out. As a result I get a lot of folders full of experiments. Every once in a while I set about deleting them but what happens is I sit down at the computer and then I smell smoke coming from the kitchen and while I'm dousing the fire I notice it's awfully quiet which can only mean that someone fuzzy is getting into mischief then someone else fuzzy starts bark screaming at who knows what then I notice all the fuzz on the carpet and go looking for the vacuum cleaner which happens to be next to a pile of laundry I've been meaning to do for 3 days now and then the sun comes out and I have to go for a bike ride and next thing I know it's 8:30 p.m. and I'm sprawled on the couch alseep in a pile of drool. In the grand scheme of things this is not a problem until someone tags you for internet games and the shame of your poor computer housekeeping is brought to light.

The one cool thing about this little exercise is that I discovered a video clip I didn't know I had in the folder. It's from an Alkaline Trio concert nearly 3 years ago. I was trying to take photos at the show and a woman told me that they'd come out better if I turned the flash off. Yeah, like I know how to turn the flash off. I was pushing buttons and flipping through menus and somehow must have shot some video. Major punk rock points to anyone who can name that tune from the 4 seconds of footage. Even Jonny can't figure it out and he has every last one of their songs tattooed in his brain.



Maybe I can have do-overs on the photo thing? If I pick the 4th photo in the 4th folder I get a nice pic of Strummy at the Boulder Rez:
No I'm not tired. Throw it again!


Or if we go to the 5th photo, 5th folder of 2008 after I got my nicer camera we get a photo of my gimpy foot pre-surgery. Which reminds me, I never posted a post-surgery photo of new and improved bionic foot with the badass scar. I promise to get to that because I know you're all just dying to see it.



I feel bad about giving you homework on the weekend so I won't tag anyone directly but if you feel like playing go right ahead.

25 Things or Something

Somebody in Facebook finally tagged me for this. Took so long to type, may as well put it here too. I'm probably the last person left to do this like I was the last person ever to see the original Star Wars in the theater. Yes, I am that old. Oooh, can that go on my list? Are you all sick of this game already? Would it be more fun if I made up half the things on my list and let you guess which were true?

1. Dogs. Yes. I have lots of dogs. Mostly crazy, like to bark a lot. If you come to my house you will leave covered in dog hair and maybe even some slobber and possibly with less of your hearing because of all the barking.

2. No the dogs are not a substitute for kids. I have no kids but that's because I had other stuff I wanted to do with my life. Plus I get to spend all my money on agility competitions and fancy mountain bikes instead of college tuition.

3. 25 things is a lot. I'm stuck already.

4. I've been a vegetarian for around 24 of my 44 years. I'm trying to reintroduce some humanely raised, organic, free range, hand fed by monks in some isolated mountain range animal products back into my life. So far it's not going well. Meat is murder, or something. Protein is overrated.

5. Are we done yet?

6. I nearly drowned in Lake Michigan when I was a teenager. I did not see a Bright Light or have any amazing last minute revelations. Just thought, 'Oh well', then my boyfriend pulled me out of the undertow.

7. I started running when I was 12 and ran my first marathon when I was 18. A guy had a heart attack and died at the halfway point. I saw him being loaded onto the ambulance. He was a doctor/cardiac specialist I think and an experienced runner. The marathon was called the 'Heart Marathon' and was a benefit for the American Heart Association. I didn't run another marathon for 16 years.

8. I ran what was probably my last marathon a few years ago in Edinburgh, Scotland.

9. Henry Rollins and the rest of Black Flag stayed at my house back in the 80's. I didn't think much of him before I met him and thought even less of him after. Greg Ginn stayed up until the wee hours playing guitar though so that made up for it.

10. I can touch my tongue to my nose and when I was a little kid I was convinced I was going to make a fortune with this talent when I grew up. Things did not work out quite as planned.

11. My family had Kerry Blue Terriers when I was a kid growing up. My first dog as an adult was a 6 year old Akita rescued from the Boulder Humane Society. His name was Roscoe and he lived to be 13. He was supposed to be my husband's dog but in the end he chose me for his #1 buddy. Now I have a herd of crazy herding dogs and mixes thereof.

12. In my 20's I was engaged to a guy who played drums in a band called 'Impulse Manslaughter'. I lived with him for nearly 3 years then left him before we got married for my current husband who I'd known for maybe 3 weeks. It was a hard thing for me to do but my husband and I have been married 18 years now and jilted fiancee ended up married with a kid so all turned out for the best.

13. I don't like Mondays.

14. I believe what I believe in.

15. I went through WAY too many cans of Aquanet and tubs of Depp in the 80's.

16. I have lots of fancy pieces of paper that say I'm smart and stuff. They cost me a lot of time and money to get. I'm not sure if they're right or not but for now I'm going with it.

17. My dogs have lots of fancy pieces of paper too that say they're smart and stuff. They have more pieces of paper than me so they must be smarter.

18. I love math and science and numbers and stuff.

19. I sang in a punk rock band when I was in college. Probably the less said about that the better.

20. I am fashionally challenged. I'm amazed every day that goes by that the 'What Not to Wear' people have not tracked me down.

21. Writing is not my strong point. See #20 above.

22. Wow, I'm almost to 25.

23. I like chocolate. A lot. This explains the triathlon/running obsession.

24. I have 5 bikes and 3 pairs of running shoes.

25. Is it the weekend yet?

Running Dogwalk Practice

I shot some video of our last practice before I left for Chicago. Plank/table at 4' in the backyard. The first session was his worst ever in the backyard but somewhat typical of what I see out at the practice field when he's having a bad day-8/14 hits (45%). Second session was a few hours later and that was more typical of what I've been seeing in the yard-10/10 (100%). The only explanation I can come up with for the difference is that the plank was set high on the table for the first session. He had to get on it from the side and I'm guessing it threw off his striding. I lowered the plank for the second session and he was able to manage a more straight on approach. The bad part is that his approach shouldn't matter, he should adjust his stride to hit the bottom no matter where he hits the top. I'm hoping he'll catch on eventually with enough reps but this part of the lesson seems to be eluding him. The more hopeful possibility is that he learned what he was supposed to do from the first session because of all the failures. The good news is that he's not jumping, I suppose that's something. I'm going to start backchaining the 4' dogwalk out at the practice field when I get back. Will be interesting to see how the first few sessions go after the short break.

There was an interesting discussion on Facebook's running contact group about the notion of a rotary gallop. The idea is that if a dog is doing a rotary gallop across the dogwalk he will hit the yellow. I've been looking very closely at the video, frame by frame on my t.v. and it looks to me like Strum's doing a transverse gallop but it's so hard to see with the quality of the video and my VCR. I'm going to see if I can get some still photos. I'm not sure if the distinction between tranverse and rotary is important. In any case Strum is doing the same gait down the plank when he hits and when he misses and he has one hit where he's doing some weird combination of gaits. It's impossible for me to distinguish his gait when he's running anyway so it's not something I can select for in training but it's interesting to look at after the fact. Yeah, I know, I'm a geek.

Murder in da hood and Hotel for Dogs

As if I don't have enough weirdness to deal with at the moment, there was a murder down my street last night, less than 2 blocks away. Click on that link and do you see the yellowish house behind the cop cars in the first photo? That is my house. I'm pretty sure it's not a good thing when your house is in the photo of a murder scene. Somebody shot somebody in the street! I do not live in the 'Hood, it's a comatose rural/suburban neighborhood, lots of rich folks with big houses. Police haven't identified the victim or shooter or determined whether or not they're connected with the neighborhood. The shooter is still at large. I swear I've had more incidents with people shooting guns since I've moved to Boulder than I ever had when I lived in Chicago. When I first moved to Boulder one of my neighbors started shooting down the hall one night right outside my apartment door. Best part is that I tried to send Jonny outside last night. I called him about 20-30 minutes after the shooting and he told me the street was blocked off, cops everywhere etc. and at the time he didn't know what was going on. I was amazed he hadn't gone outside to see what was up and told him he'd better go check in case it was a blown gas main or something and he might need to evacuate. He had even heard the gunshots but didn't think they were actual gunshots and certainly didn't assume they were from down the street and someone was getting shot. Strummer freaked out at them as well but Strummer's always freaking out about something so he didn't think much of it. It looks like 2009 is going to be the year of 'Never a Dull Moment'. While my neighborhood was getting shot up I was at the movies at an actual movie theater for the first time in forever watching 'Hotel for Dogs'. I would give it a rating of 4 steaming, stinking piles of dog poop and yes, duh, I figured it would be bad but wow it was even worse than I suspected it could possibly be. I realize it's a kids' movie but man even the kids in the theater didn't seem entertained. Does Hollywood think kids are that stupid? I don't know, the kids sitting next to me were making fun of it and I hardly could blame them. The only time I heard the theater laughing was for the obligatory 'guy gets kicked in the groin' scene. Doesn't matter the age group or audience, Hollywood seems incapable of letting us leave the theater without witnessing a kick to the groin. Regardless of age group the theater always erupts in riotous laughter so they must know what they're doing. There was plenty of product placement for Pedigree dog food and they even showed part of one of their commercials for their shelter dog campaign. Am I the only one that tears up at those stupid commercials? Drives me crazy that I do that, I feel so played but I can't help myself. And sure enough despite myself I'm on the verge of bawling when they show it during the movie. I'm such an ass. The only other interesting/bizarre part of the movie was a montage with the dogs with a Tim Armstrong song playing in the background. Even after all these years of punk rock having gone commercial I still find it slightly unnerving when I hear it in a mainstream setting. Especially when it's from someone like Tim Armstrong. I still have an Operation Ivy t-shirt that I bought from him back in the 80's when he was called 'Lint' and had a bad drug problem. He came through the other side though and now is a bazillionaire and apparently hawking his brilliance to crappy movies. In any case the thoughts and memories of all this were a welcome distraction from the movie. There were some cute dogs in it to be sure but they weren't enough to make up for the rest of it and by the end I was ready to claw my eyeballs out. I don't normally go to kid movies or hokey dog movies or any combination thereof but my friend really wanted to go and couldn't get anyone to go with him, not even his younger nieces who said it was way too uncool to be caught at that flick. He got SO excited when I told him I'd go with him and I was feeling guilty about dragging him to the X-Files movie last time I was in town. This is someone who hates violence of all kinds and likes Disney movies and old classic movies. Because of the violence he walked out of Slumdog Millionaire which is what I really would have liked to have seen but that will wait for another day. And my friend loved Hotel for Dogs so it was worth it. Tonight we're meeting up with another of my friends for burritos at my favorite Mexican restaurant. It'll mean an annoying drive into the city but it'll be good to get out of the 'burbs for an evening and to get together with my old friends. One more day and then I'm on my way home. Can't wait to see what happens next. Or maybe I can.

Paper AND Plastic

Paper or plastic? My grandmother has solved this age old problem by insisting on both. This makes carrying the grocery bags nigh on impossible since the paper bag gets in the way of the handles of the plastic bag. At first I'm not sure if this is some sort of weird store policy. Maybe the store manager has an intense hatred of Al Gore and is bound and determined to prove that global warming is a myth? But the bagger woman tells me she's known my grandmother for 12 years and this is what she insists on. I can't even begin to fathom the logic but I've long ago given up trying. Often my trips home are like something out of a 'Seinfeld' episode except maybe not so amusing when it's happening to you.

I had to make 2 trips to the Skokie Jewel yesterday, one with my grandmother and another when my aunt realized there was no real food in the house and sent me back with the real list. Many of the items on this new list were still baffling to me but I did what I was told and hopefully no one will go hungry. Plus it is always an interesting cultural experience going to the Skokie Jewel, a great place to people watch if you're into that sort of thing. The afternoon crowd consisted of lots of slow moving little old Jewish ladies sporting garish but probably very expensive full length fur coats. One such woman decided to befriend me at the deli counter and it's a good thing since I needed help. One of the items on my new and improved list was sliced turkey and chicken. The pre-packaged stuff looked particularly vile so I decided to get some 'freshly' sliced stuff from the deli. Probably just as vile but somehow it looked better. I had no idea how much meat to get so I randomly chose a 1/2 lb of each and when I saw how much it was, well, it looked like a lot. Just as I was wondering if it could be frozen a fur clad woman shuffled over and informed me that boy was I going to enjoy this meat, it's most excellent. She insisted that I keep a bit in the fridge at a time and freeze the rest, it will be delicious and fresh. I thanked her and told her I was grateful for the info. because I'm a vegetarian and have no idea about freezing meat or what is good meat or anything about meat for that matter. Well, this was absolutely the wrong thing to say because that generation in this part of the world still considers vegetarians to be communist freaks. I'm not in Boulder anymore, Toto. She scrunched up her nose and gave me a disdainful look but continued to chat away to me because old ladies at the Jewel on a Thursday afternoon love to give you advice even if you're a communist freak. Maybe even especially if you're a communist freak.

Did you know that eggplants can sweat and that making them do so supposedly makes them taste better? It must be true because the internets told me so. I decided to make Eggplant Parmesan for my grandmother which yes I know is not super uber healthy but is better than the crackers and Chex Mix she has been eating and I found a recipe that seemed healthier than the stuff you get in restaurants. Instead of frying the eggplant in a heavy batter I used a light egg/breadcrumb coating and pre-baked them instead. I also cheated and used tomato sauce out of a jar instead of making it from scratch but I figured this venture was already iffy enough, no need to make it harder just for the sake of it. I did go to the bother of sweating the eggplants though, it seemed worth it if it would guarantee they would not be bitter. In the end there were no fires (I'm much better with the oven than I am with the stove), a minmum of mess and my cooking was a big hit with my grandmother. She loves eggplant parmesan but for some reason never prepares it for herself so I knew it would be a nice treat for her. I thought it was good too, maybe there's hope for me after all. Now if anybody has any helpful hints from Heloise on how to get charred oatmeal off the top of a smooth topped electric stove I'm all ears.

I can haz Eggplant Parmesan??!!


No? Fine. Be that way.

Update

Apparently you can start a fire fairly easily with an electric stove. And I was only trying to cook oatmeal.

Sheecawgo

I missed the inauguration speech yesterday darn it. I've never before had the slightest interest in listening to the speech so I didn't realize it would be mid-morning. I could have at least watched or listened from work. A coworker was listening and by the time I realized what it was it was nearly over. I know I can watch it on the net somewhere but I wanted to see history in the making. Oh well. I know I'm probably being naive but for the first time in like ever I'm starting to sort of kind of maybe have a teensy bit of faith in a president. At the very least he's articulate and smart and has a sense of diplomacy and maybe for the first time in forever the rest of the world will not be laughing at us or fearing us or hating us so much that they want to crash airplanes into our buildings. In any case yesterday felt like the light at the end of a horrible, long, dark, rank tunnel full of sewer rats and cholera. And judging by the incomprehensible size of the crowds in DC I'm guessing I'm not alone in that sentiment.

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I made it to Chicago today with one of the most hassle free travel experiences I've ever had. Bus to the airport was on time, plane left on time, landed 5 minutes early, waited maybe 2 minutes for my friend to pick me up, no traffic between the airport and my granparent's house-crazy! No turbulence on the plane, no screaming kids, no one hacking up a lung, I had a window seat with no one next to me and the guy on the aisle slept almost the whole way. He woke up long enough to tell me that if I needed out just let him know, no need for me to feel trapped. How nice is that? If travel was like that all the time I might do more of it or at least not dread it when I have to do it.

My grandfather is in a hospice just now and for a 92 year old Alzheimer's patient who's just had 2 heart attacks in the space of a week he's not looking half bad. He was awake when I came in the room and knew who I was. He would have a short conversation then close his eyes and fade out then bam he'd blink awake and talk to me again. They're sending him home on Friday, something I thought would never happen. Nobody really knows how long he'll go. He'll be bedridden and won't have much quality of life but thankfully he doesn't appear to be in pain.

My grandmother was pretty happy to see me and I thought the nurse was going to burst into tears when she saw how happy my grandmother got. Yeah, the mega-expensive plane ticket was worth it.

I'm having a hard time figuring out everyone's schedules, when I'm supposed to take my grandmother to the hospice and bring her home (sounds simple but somehow my family has made it into a confusing logic problem) plus other complications I won't bore you all with. A simple trip to the grocery store tomorrow is turning into a major expedition. When you work full time and juggle several hobbies you learn to be very efficient with time. I squeeze grocery shopping in before work or at night on my way home from swim practice, it's certainly not the centerpiece of my day and I don't put a whole lot of thought into it. I could not understand the big fuss or why my grandmother needed to go with me since I could probably get it done in half the time myself until I realized that for her it's something to look forward to, something to get her out of the house and the hospice and give her a sense of normalcy. I now feel bad telling her she couldn't go and now that I've realized what's going on I'll certainly take her with me tomorrow but as you can see I'm a little slow with fitting into the rhythm of what's going on around here and switching gears from my own way of doing things. It'll be a bit chaotic at first when they move my grandfather home but so much better and easier for everybody.

Despite my grandmother's protests I think I'm going to try cooking her something tomorrow. Dinner for her seems to be another crazy overblown problem so when we were at the hospice I told her I'd make her dinner tomorrow. She can hardly hear at all but boy she heard that and protested loudly, 'Oh no you won't!' Then she turned to the nurses and said, 'Her husband, now he can cook'. Yeah, I know I suck at cooking and the insurance company would prefer that I wouldn't but I sort of kind of want to learn and now I finally have the time and a reason to do it so why not try? If it's a disaster then there's always take-out. And she has an electric stove so the potential for fires is reduced I think. Plus the food she has on her shopping list! Half of it is crackers or snack food of some kind. She never used to be like this and I'm determined to make her something somewhat healthy.

It's weird being in a house with no dogs. My grandmother always had a dog but when the last one died maybe 8 years ago she never got another because it was too much work with them in their 80's. The house felt so empty in the years that I came home after the dog died and now that I have a houseful of my own dogs it feels even weirder. Tomorrow or Friday I'll visit my friend who just adopted a second dog that I haven't met yet so I'll get a little doggy fix.

Now if someone could please do something about the weather. It was 71 in Boulder today and, uh, 20 something here. Why ever did I move away?

Lucky Dog

Yeah, I know, the last thing all you people in the midwest and on the east coast want to hear about is how we've had temp's. in the 60's for the past 3 days and how it's going to get even warmer well into next week. The punchline to this cruel joke is that in 2 days I have to leave paradise and go to the frozen tundra of Chicago which I believe had a high of 18 degrees today and that was good compared to the -40 wind chills and 18" of snow they had the few days before. Let's not even talk about the plane fare for this little excursion either. Let's just say there really is no such thing as bereavement/emergency fares which were actually $90 higher than the regular ticket prices on the website. But my family is in a bad state and I need to go so there's no choice but to suck it up and quit my whining.

I did manage to squeeze in a bike ride yesterday and today though my knee's been acting up so I couldn't go for very long, maybe 1 1/4 hours each day. Still it was nice to enjoy a couple of beautiful sunny days on the trails and feel actual sweat dripping down my back. Don't worry, winter will be back soon I'm sure.

I took some photos of the fire damage along the Foothills Trail and looking towards the foothills from the Eagle trail. It still smells like smoke but it wasn't too bad. It will grow back soon enough and by spring I'll bet you won't even be able to tell there was a fire. It's good for the plants and soil too.




This is not a fire damaged area but I liked the view of the Boulder Reservoir from the top of Ice Hill on the Eagle Trail. You can see the snow-packed trail on Ice Hill. I turned around here because I didn't feel like dealing with it with my knee feeling gimpy. It's much steeper and longer than it looks from the photo.


Today's wildlife report includes a coyote in a field off a dirt road and a Golden Eagle that swooped down to eye level and crossed the trail right in front of me. Amazing! Of course I didn't have my camera today and even if I did I never would have gotten it out of my pack in time. Will have to enjoy it as a memory. One of these days I'll go out with my camera with the intention of taking pictures but it's hard to leave my bike at home, especially when it's shorts weather in January.

I shot some running dogwalk video in my yard with the plank at 4' but I think I'll wait until the plane ride to process it. Today's results were 8/14 (45%) for the morning session and 10/10 (100%) for the afternoon session. I think the poor results from the morning were because I had the plank set too high on the table. This changed the angle of the plank and also made it harder for him to get on the plank as he had to come in from the side. Or who knows. I think the break from training next week will do us both some good.