The trip to the Coast.

Ok, I’ve stalled as long as is humanly possible so I should just bite the bullet and write the dam post. Although in truth I really don’t see how biting a bullet will help, I would have thought turning the computer on would be more advantageous.

Anyway, it all started late in the afternoon of the 23rd of August 1954. My mother, who always was a little on the largish side (we liked to call it big boned) was unusually large at this particular point in time. Not only that, she seemed to be in some mild discomfort, due to a ‘soon to be person‘ thinking it was about time he joined society. And so it was that early in the morning of the 24th of Aug, I was ejected from my womb with a view, in much the same manner that a pop-tart leaves the toaster. Not wanting to be a nuisance, I just slide right out of there (I’ve always been very considerate like that).

Skipping forward a few short years and you find the ol’ WT entering the prime of his life and looking forward to travelling to the coast to pick up his booty romance his wife. I got there on Friday arvo without incident, except for the huge crash that saw me stuck in gridlock for about 30 minutes (5 minutes from my destination!) still I can’t complain, judging by the total destruction of three cars involved, there were people having a worse time than me.

MDW had already bought me a nifty new phone that just about does it all, and I love it! But she also offered to buy me a camera. However knowing what a prick I am, she wouldn’t do it unless I made the final decision on which one, while actually standing in the store with her! She’s a clever one that MDW, experience has taught her well. Having reading a heap of reviews prior to going to the Coast, I ultimately decided on this baby. Even though I haven’t really done much with it yet, I know we’ll be really happy together, oh and speaking of which, I’d like to congratulate my good friends Dirty Aunt Marnie and Dirty Uncle Mark on the their recent betrothal. I suppose I’ll eventually forgive Marnie for breaking off our engagement, and throwing our wedding plans into disarray, to be with that refugee from Daktoka.

Anyway back to me, I’m the interesting one (something that Marnie will eventually come to realise after spending time with her gay lawyer). I learned some neat new lingo while I was on the Coast, I’m really hip now. Before I even went to the Coast, I downloaded all the groovy software available for my phone, but as expected, there was no data cable in the box. After much searching we finally found one, but the hip young dude in the shop, mediately recognised me as the ‘with it wannabe’ I really am, and said “yeah, you can get the data cable, but for only $10 more you can get a bluetooth dongle”.

Mmmmm d-o-n-g-l-e, I has to have one! He said “these are really simple, and if you change phones you don’t need to get another cable”, which I later discovered to mean “you wait until you try to get this fucking thing working you stupid old fart, that’ll teach you to try to act cool”. But hey, I’m down with it, and it only took me most of yesterday to realise I really am a stupid old fart. Oh well, I don’t need no stinking software!

**Brief update: One of the cats (Beau) was pleased to see me when I got back and cuddled all afternoon, the other two didn’t show up until around midnight, then they just ate a pissed off again.

WT is in da house!

I know it seems like I’ve been ignoring you, but that’s just not true (well actually is it is, but it wasn’t on purpose, I swear, profusely, specially when something doesn’t fit just right). The thing is, I’ve been on the Coast for a few days, and while the good news is that MDW finally has broadband there, the bad news is I forgot to take my passwords with me, so my intention to ‘post from the coast’ was unfulfilled. I promise to tell you all about it tomorrow.

Poncho’s Adoption Day

Three years ago today I adopted Poncho!  It’s really pretty amazing that I ended up with him.  For one thing, he was in the shelter about 4 hours from where I live.  I was really sick at the time, so my parents drove me all the way up there because I had seen a dog on their website that I liked.  We FINALLY got there and I walked in and said I would like to meet “Hunter”.  The girl said, “Hunter’s been adopted.”  I told her he was on the website that morning.  She said, “Oh, well I haven’t updated the website for a while.”  I was very disappointed.  After standing there very dejected for a while, I finally decided that since I was there I might as well take a look around at the other dogs who were up for adoption.

I didn’t have high hopes, but I walked out to the outdoor kennels, and this quiet dog caught my eye because he looked like a German Shorthair.  (I grew up with shorthairs, so I’m partial to them.)  I told my parents, “Look at this one!  I like him!”  They kept trying to drag me away from his kennel to look at other dogs.  “Yeah, he’s ok, but look at THIS dog…”  But I didn’t care about the other dogs, there was something about this dog.  And he was so quiet…all the other dogs were barking and carrying on…he was just sitting there quietly.

I asked if I could take him to the meet and greet room.  We took him in there.  I took a look at his teeth (I can’t help myself, I worked for vets, I brushed Marley’s teeth every night for 12 1/2 years…I always look at teeth!) and was quite shocked to see that he still had PUPPY teeth!!!  This was not quite what I had planned on, but I was in love so I said, “I want THIS one.”  I did ask them to give him a bath before I took him home…you’ve never seen anyone look so pitiful!  They kept telling him, “this is a GOOD thing!”  He did NOT believe them!!!  They gave him a nice crocheted blanket to take home with him, especially since he had a long ride ahead of him.

Seems he’d only been in the shelter a few days.  He was found with a dog they think was his mother, walking along the side of Highway 93.  He obviously had a hard life…when I got him home he didn’t even know how to play with a toy, didn’t know how to hold a bone!  He was 5 months old and no one had ever played with him!!!

Now he’s gone from being a poor little shelter puppy to being spoiled rotten!!!  And those teeth, they’re pearly white!  I tease him that Hollywood will be calling any time!  I brush them every night!  And toys!  He’s got more toys than most kids!!!  I’m so lucky that Hunter had been adopted so that I was able to find my Poncho!  But I still tease him when I give him baths that they are “good things!”

Just a short clip

Not much happening around here lately, but I did finally leave the house and go for a walk, and I filmed some of it for you viewing pleasure. I think it may be a bit jerky as I made it low res to upload quicker, sorry.

Did you notice the stiff legged pee position that Belle has now?

Updated: My apologies to those who asked about the music, I realised I hadn’t put it in the credits until it was too late, and it takes too long to redo the whole process, so here it is… it was the Canadian band Bourne and MacLeod, the song was Dance and Celebrate.

Oh look! It’s WT!!

Yes here I am, and aren’t you just thrilled to bits? It’s about time I gave you all the long awaited explanation of why I’m two timing my blog, and what I find so attractive about plurk.

Have you ever been in any of the following situations?

1. You’ve laboured for hours, to produce a post where all the pictures are lined up just right, all the grammar and spelling are perfect, and most importantly the content is interesting and informative, only to have it sit on your blog for days struggling to get out of single figure comments.
2. You subtly raise some contentious, thought provoking or ironic point, only to have the nuance completely ignored for the more obvious cheap shots about what you were wearing some 20 years ago.
3. You pose a question, and wait with baited breathe for the next morning, where you can read all the humorous responses, except there aren’t any.
4. You get tired of waiting hours, if not days, for positive feedback(or any feedback) for a post that has been a labour of love (and quite often requested by someone).
5. You suffer from severe blog exhaustion after visiting all you friends’ blogs and waiting for the myriad of header pictures, sidebar bling and blaring music to finish loading before you can even read the post.
6. You leave a breathtakingly brilliant comment on a blog, come back in a couple of days to check for a reaction and find nothing, not even any recognition that you took the time to input something in the first place.
7. You write 800 well chosen words, arrange them in neat sentences and put all those sentences into pretty paragraphs, only to have the blog software malfunction and eat the lot.

No? Me either, but if you have experienced any of those situations and didn’t like it, then plurk may just be the thing for you! Plurk is like a cross between Instant Messaging and Blog Commenting. It’s supercharged commenting without the distraction of having to spend hours visiting blogs, wading through epic posts that would put War and Peace to shame, and wrestling with Word Verification.  The term for this whole process is ‘Micro-Blogging’ and the attraction for me is that all the comments from all the plurks (which are in fact just mini posts) appear in the one place and in real time. It makes for a fun diversion, although it can be addictive and terribly time consuming. There are some idiosyncrasies, like the timeline going backwards, and people’s obsession with karma, but it doesn’t take long to get used to. (I did try Twitter for a while, but that sucked big time).

So there you have it, the reason I’ve been absent so much lately. However, having said that, the thing that I’ve noticed about plurk is it’s accererated life cycle, you get up and running much quicker than when you started blogging, and you attract readers (friends) much quicker too, but I also see the potential for burnout as being extremely high if you get too involved. Who knows how long I’ll keep doing it, but for now it’s a lot of fun.

**Updated: As an interesting aside, it seems those who are most likely to comment on a post, also seem more likely to enjoy plurking. You just need to check the comments on this post for evidence of that.

Fun Monday. Picture this!

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Fun Monday, partly because they seemed to be getting away from the ’show and tell’ aspect which was the whole idea in the first place (but mostly because I am lazy). So now Angela, of Aoj and the Lurchers fame has finally got it back on track.

Having signed up, I realised that I don’t actually have any favourite photos, but then that’s no excuse is it? I’ve decided to bend the rules a little, and post several, the first is rather clever I think, given that it’s a photo of a bunch of my photos! Shit! I just found it and it’s a crap photo, so that idea just bit the dust, but here it is if you’re interested.

Okay, let’s just go with a couple of arty/nature ones for starters…

and

and now some intersting Coke Cola shots…

and..

Boy it sure is hard to write a post, plurk, IM and talk on the phone at the same time!!

Have a nice Fun Monday and be sure to do the rounds.

Some housekeeping and some thoughts.

Before I do anything, I need to clear something up about the Belle Update post, and I’ll do so by what’s known in html as an ‘ol’ or ordered list (as oppose to a ‘ul’, see if you can guess that one for yourself). Both tags come from the precursor to html, which was called GML (or Generalised Markup Language) and has been around since the 60s. The earliest migration to PC usage was through Wordstar (yes I know there’s sources other than Wiki, but Wiki is written so morons can understand, damn! did I just type that, I only meant to think it). Anyway, long before MSWord made documentation accessible to any clown with a keyboard, we Mainframe types had to write all our documentation using codes (or tags) that were very similar to HTML, in fact that stands for HyperText Markup Language so you now know where the name came from. Hahaha, ok enough…I was going to make this a humorous post, but humour is just too easy, so I went with tedius instead. Ah tedium, now that’s a real art!

So, onto the housekeeping:

1. Laurie did not write that email (hers was way worse…kidding!).
2. I have no idea who did write it.
3. Ok, I did.
4. Don’t piss Equoni off, the consequences can be uncomfortable.
5. Don’t wear tight underwear, for the same reason.
6. Don’t piss Swampy off, ah heck, go ahead and piss her off, it’s fun.
7. Don’t piss in bed (not related to the incident, but important nonetheless)
8. ‘Bitch’ is such a subjective term of endearment.
9. Be careful with satire, when it’s sharp it can be very dangerous.
10. Laurie is lucky she wasn’t near Montana or Colorado yesterday morning.
11. I’m glad I don’t live near Montana or Colorado (just a personal preference).
12. I think people should show me more love.

I was going to explain why I have sold my sole to plurk, but that can wait for another day, I can see you all starting to nod off.

Could this implode?

I think I have just reached another level in cross promotion. But I’m a little concerned about the effect on the space time continuum.

Ok! Ok! I get it! You want Belle.

Geeze you try to do the right thing and all you get is abuse (and not the nice ’self’ kind either). Here I am trying to be a nice guy (which you all know is not easy for me) and letting someone use the Dingo to pay tribute to her cherished (but somewhat late) companion and all I get is hate mail!

Here’s just a small portion of what I received yesterday “Hey fuck you dipshit! So you don’t want to post any more, boo fucking hoo! Getting someone else to do your posts is just bullshit, suck it up you turd-sniffing moron! If I wanted to read about touch feely crap I’d buy a Care Bears comic. Get over it you pussy and post about Belle, or any other dog you throw under a truck, I love me some crippled animal stories.  And teach that other bitch you got doing your work for you to swear for chrissakes! - Sincerely, Laurie“

Now you all know that I’m a rather cultured person who is averse to bad language, so I’ve cleaned it up a bit and redacted some of the more unpleasant stuff, but you get the gist. Plus, truth be told, I almost drowned in the milk of human kindness you guys were spraying around yesterday, fuck me you women are a supportive lot!

Anyway, in an effort to forestall any more of these missives from this miss, and to avoid further pissy epistles, here’s a Belle update:

Her leg is about as good as it ever going to get, it still doesn’t bend and probably never will, but she’s getting around just fine and annoying the shit out of everyone within reach. I do still manipulate her leg every night in the vain attempt to restore some range of motion, but it’s pretty unsuccessful.

Here’s a bunch of short clips that I’ve strung together into one really long boring one, but I like the music…

My Tribute to Marley on her Birthday

Marley on her 7th Birthday

The love of my life was an angel in a puppy-suit named Marley.  She was my baby, my life, my world, my everything.  If you believe a soulmate is the joining of two souls that find each other through all of eternity and make one perfect match, she was it for me.

Today is Marley’s birthday, and I wanted to do a special post to honor her and to wish her a Happy Birthday.  I always made such a big deal out of her birthdays, especially after I was told I would lose her at an early age because of her liver disease…each birthday was a victory.  And she was SO easy to spoil.  She was so sweet and so happy and so easy to love.

If you have time, please take 3 minutes and listen to this special song…it really sets the tone for this post…and I was SO proud of myself for figuring out how to put it in!!!  This song ALWAYS meant Marley to me, especially now after I lost her.  (Reminder…if you play it with the arrow in the lower left corner instead of the big one in the center you’ll stay here in the post instead of going to YouTube.)

I knew I was getting Marley weeks before she was actually old enough to come home.  The day the call came that I could come get her, I was making bread (yes, I USED to cook!).  I left it rising in the oven, I didn’t care if it exploded…I was going to get my puppy!  I drove all the way into town, but there had been some sort of delay.  I ended up walking the aisles of the hardware store next door for an hour or two while I anxiously waited.  But finally the puppies were there.  I knew the moment I saw her that she was meant to be mine.

Happily I took her home, and I was eager to begin our new relationship, but she was less sure.  She spent the day hiding under the kitchen table, curled up with an old purple ski hat!

But soon we were happily walking together along the River…something we would love to share for our lifetime together.  Her first time coming up the Riverbank she almost made it to the top and then she tumbled head over heals backwards…I helped her back up then as she reached the top I snapped this picture…

This post would not be complete without the picture of her first time in the River…It’s like baby’s Christening…and it’s my FAVORITE baby picture…

Marley was such a happy puppy.  She used to like to “hold my hand” when we walked outside…she’d take the edge of my sleeve gently in her teeth and just skip along beside me.  It was hard to get pictures of her because as soon as she saw me she came to me.

When Marley was one we had the adventure of a lifetime and drove the Alaska Highway!  It was amazing and Marley made friends all along the way.  At one hotel she was so popular that they sent a special room service tray just for her!  When we returned to Bozeman 10 months later we ended up living in the car for 4 months, but even then she was happy and I was happy because we were together.  And in the crisp fall Canyon mornings we walked quietly beside the River enjoying the beauty surrounding us and the beauty of what we shared.

We loved to play silly games like hide and seek, or dancing around together, or chasing toys.

We could simply disappear into each other, so that nothing in the whole world existed except us and our joy and our love for each other.

When Marley was two she was diagnosed with degenerative liver disease and I was told that she would not live to the age of 5.  This was devastating.  I did TONS of research, did everything I could possibly do for her, had the help of a different, wonderful vet who believed in her, and I am very happy to tell you that she lived to be 13 1/2 years old!

There are two flowers that will always mean Marley to me, white daisies and yellow roses.  White daisies because they are fresh and sweet and innocent like she was, and because they grow wild along our River.  Many times I would see Marley sitting, surrounded by daisies, feet wet from the River, brown eyes shining with happiness.  Yellow roses because she loved them so.  We had a little yellow rose bush at our house in Colorado that put out the most fragrant yellow roses.  Marley used to go up to it, close her eyes and stretch her nose out to the newest bloom and sniff just as deep as she could, then she’d sigh with utter delight.  It was one of the sweetest things I’ve ever seen.

Marley always preferred to be close to me.  Even when we were walking by the River or hiking, she would stay by my side instead of running ahead as dogs usually do.  And, if I sat down to watch the River or read a book, she’d lay next to me instead of exploring. We were only apart a total of 15 nights in 13 1/2 years.  I was told over the telephone each night that she was ok, but I’m not sure I was.  We avoided separation…the cost to our hearts was simply too great.

Marley’s last time at the River

Marley filled my heart and my life.  Her liver disease with its occasional crisis brought an acute awareness that someday I would have to let her go.  It also caused me to treasure all the more every moment of time that we shared.  The pain in my heart living without her is only slightly lessened by the absolute knowledge that Marley is safe in heavenly realms, and I know she is sitting at the very edge watching and waiting, and the first thing I will see when it is my turn to move beyond these earthly bounds will be her beautiful smiling face and shining brown eyes, and once again she will take my hand gently in her mouth and side by side we’ll continue our journey home.