My Dogs Come First: August 2006

Hurricane season continues

Boo. This morning I woke up to no Interet access - but by the time I finally got in to the phone number to bitch, it was back up. I unplug my modem and wireless when the computer is off after having the first router I ever hooked up toasted by a storm. Toasted the WAN side of the modem, too. So it wasn't on my end.

Anyway, this had been a tense few days leading up to a grand fizzle.

Don't get me wrong, I love fizzles like this.

Gotta admit, a bit of light rain beats a hurricane - of any catagory - any day. Doppler graphic is courtesy of www.tbo.com and pretty much shows just how this system has come and gone. It has now been reduced to a tropical depression and there is very little orange or red intensity in the rain bands. I've heard no thunder... just light rain.

Nice.

I take that back... ver light thunder in the distance - but it's [knocking on wood] not the red or magenta kind.

Tags: hurricanes, tropical storm Ernesto

Elba and the Alarm Clock

Elba and the Alarm Clock
Originally uploaded by newsgrrl.

Finally have photos of all the dogs up. Elba is in the background and Vain, known as the house Alarm Clock and conscience, is pictured to the front. Vain is 9 years old and is Tory's half brother... they share the same sire.

Vain is the dog that started me in carting. He has two titles in carting and took third in his first trial at the 2002 American Rottweiler Club Nationals in his division - first time off the property in a cart.

Payback for siblings is everything... Tory was put in harness for three training periods and he went with Vain to Miami to compete in carting trial, both were shown off-lead. Tory beat Vain by seconds and took first place to Vain's second.

Sweet.

Tags: dogs, Rottweilers and senior dogs

Semi-svelt and semi-content

I was at lunch with my sister and a friend today. The friend is sehr petite and going to Weight Watchers. My sister is getting ready to do something in regards to weight reduction and me? I'm keeping my diet below 1,300 calories at max - mostly trying to stay below 1,000 and debating starting with a real program. I need to say that I am not overweight for my height... but I weigh more than I want to.

One of the nice things about alot of places is that most have Web sites and most of those have nutrition listings available for what they serve. So it helps you to know that that regular DQ Mocha Moo you've decided to have in order to pacify your dark side is more than half your caloric allotment for the day ringing in at 590 calories. Hey, at least I'm looking.

Eating at Mimi's with an iced tea and a Thai Chicken wrap was within my range... I guess. Unlike most - Mimi's only offers caloric information on it's lifestyle fare. BFD. Anyway, sitting there regaling in the flavor I realized that tomorrow it will be 11 months since I quit smoking. Go me!

I wish I could 'undo the velcro and toss out the padding.' I gained the requisite 20 pounds and have been able to shake off 7. I need go back to Curves, I've not been there in about a month. Not that Curves does it all... but it does keep me active until I can get it together to start running or biking.

One of the things I do to keep me grounded - I keep a food journal which keeps me honest and is such a pain in the ass. I don't even try to record the caloric amounts anymore to the things that are 'questionable' - I just highlight them to let me know I know what I'm doing, and I also read the diet-blog.

Tags: diet, nutritional information and quit smoking

Blog cleaning...

Blog cleaning. Kind of like housecleaning I suppose.
I made some changes to the right side of the blog... I got rid of some blogs that have changed in quality since I put them up last year. There are some blogs I don't read anymore - Wonkette, for example lost it's cachet when Cox left [she took it with her] so her personal blog is listed instead. I listed CNN 360 even though it gives me a headache having to sort through the different correspondents writing.

Serious. Trouble.

Trouble
Originally uploaded by newsgrrl.

Priss [front] is the house security service and takes her job seriously. She'll sound off at loud radios pausing to turn. Treefrogs with deep voices. Things that go bump in the night. She's a serious girl who was taken by her "loving family" and tied to a tree in front of Animal Services. Problem was, Animal Services had moved to another building.
She had no water and it was a sunny July day in Florida.
I just happened to be in Animal Services looking at a puppy 40 minutes after she arrived. It took me one look to decide that I'd take her. She's been with us ever since. Behind her is Tory. I love her askance look... it is so "her."

Tags: dogs, Rottweilers and senior dogs

The undisputed King

The undisputed King
Originally uploaded by newsgrrl.

There is a portion of the property that I haven't been able to mow yet with all the rain. The dogs go and roll in it... This is Tory, senior male of the household.

Tags: dogs, Rottweilers and senior dogs

So, like we are back

Didn't make it back on at the beginning of the storm season, but better late than never. Hopefully it will remain dry which will lead to a calm year. Even if we are getting ready to enter the blender season of September.

Several changes here... It was becoming such an issue to get online with my Dell PC that blogging was becoming painful. So. . . finally gave up at the end of June and bought a mac mini [via eBay] that's running OS X Tiger. Then I bought an Apple Airport wireless base station... Then picked up a new 19 inch monitor. Then got my iBook up on Panther... loaded GarageSale on both and we be jammin' now. I have serious space issues that can be remedied by selling stuff I no longer use.want.need on eBay. Go me.

Next thing is to get the iBook ramped up on memory and convert it to Tiger.

With the personal conversion to mac... and the difficulty of getting to photos on my Sony Mavica CD200, I decided to buy a Nikon Coolpix L4 that was on sale at the big W... It has only 4 megapixels, but on the Web, even 2.1 was perfect so this is just what the doctor ordered. The Sony does everything that the Nikon doesn't so it's not going anywhere...

The Nikon is the camera it have used to capture the dogs - and will ease the way to get photos for eBay. There is a method to the madness.

Tags: Nikon Coolpix L4, Apple Airport wireless base and Apple Mac mini