Friends,
America’s space shuttle program ended today with the successful landing of Atlantis. Times are tough in this country right now, but this really drove it home.
Your pal,
– bob
P.S. Image courtesy NASA’s photo stream on flickr.
Finality.
High-Energy Update!
Friends,
We’ve had a week or so to work out the dynamics here at the Damp Dog Lodge and some things have become clear; dogs are protective of their food, even if it’s not their own, and will start fights. Dogs who can’t hear very well are easily startled by other dogs approaching from outside of their diminished peripheral vision, and will start fights. Dogs who are not in any physical condition to play will try to murder dogs who try to start playing with them. Take away these conditions and no fights, right? I feed one over here and the other behind a locked door. Problem solved(-ish). One sleeps here, the other sleeps over there and the startling ends. Sorta. Playtime dog learns a lesson and stops initiating play. Easy to implement (of course not).
We’ve reached detente. An uneasy peace. There’s a floating demilitarized zone between the two, with each camp cautiously monitoring the other across this imaginary line. No loudspeakers or binoculars needed.
Now if we can figure out a way for the old guy to make it all the way out of the house to the doggy restroom area before the transaction commences…
Wearing slippers for safety reasons,
– bob
The Other Big Announcement
Friends,
The Monkey Boy has landed. He’s elderly, a little shaky, not as mobile or flexible, but still as majestic as ever. He still has the command of the room that he’s always had, but is certainly slowing down. At thirteen, he’s pretty old for a German Shorthaired Pointer to be sure, but even though his back legs fail every now and again, he’s still up for chasing a squirrel. For staring at the Stellar’s Jays for an uncomfortably long time.
Sure, I’ve already broken up a couple fights between him and the girly dog who knows for certain that she owns this place, but I think they’ll settle in for the next month. What I’m not sure about is whether I can deal with cooking up old guy food in my largely vegetarian kitchen. Chicken neck hash? Cripes.
I’ll have pictures soon, when my camera arrives from Canon repair.
Your pal,
– bob
P.S. I know you wanted to hear the real big announcement, but I wasn’t allowed to talk about it then. I think I’m clear to discuss it on Monday though…
And Then July Happened
Friends,
Well, where did we leave off? Oh yeah, I had half a job, my teensy racecar was overheating, and my family was itching to descend on the Damp Dog Lodge for the Fourth of July festivities here in America’s Cleanest Forest. How’d all that turn out? I might as well tell you about that stuff, but I’m saving the big announcement for tomorrow. It’s as close as you can get to exciting without crossing over that line. Think of it like having home made strawberry ice cream, only to find out that the chunks of fruit had frozen into blocks of ice. Let’s go!
The radiator problem in the tiny racecar was solved by installing a new one, but not just any one would do. Oh no. I had to get a shiny new extra capacity Koyo aluminum radiator from the good people at Good-Win Racing. While much more expensive than a stock replacement, it holds more coolant and is much shinier. It’s kinda neat to be able to run the air conditioning down in the desert without the thing boiling over. Trust me on this. It’s also shinier.
I was concerned, given the now proven to be wildly inaccurate weather predictions, that it’d be an unreasonably hot weekend for my guests so I bought an inflatable kiddie pool and water guns so that they could cool down a bit. I needn’t have worried since monsoonal cloud cover rolled in and made Sunday and Monday an absolute treat.
The only times tempers really flared was when somebody achieved more treats than somebody else. Minor slights, easily handled by bringing out more treats. The kitchen overflowed this weekend, presumably because my siblings thought that we all might go hungry and brought bags and boxes and coolers full of provisions.
Naturally, we all went to the Idyllwild Fourth of July Parade. It’s a tradition, an event and a spectacle all rolled up into one.
Some of us came for that spectacle. Some were excited about the entrants in the parade flinging candy at the crowd. Some just came to have a good time.
Some came to see men with dogs in their trousers riding motorcycles.
There are those of us who don’t think it’s a proper parade unless the UC Riverside Pipe and Drum Band passes by. They stopped in front of us to finish the song they’d started 100-feet away and it was a real treat. There’s video of some of their performance, but it’s on Facebook and I don’t know if you’ll be able to see it. Let me know and I’ll see if I can get it somewhere else.
Then there was a Jeepster, which are as rare as hen’s teeth. Then another.
At the very end of the parade, the party fire truck. These folks were tearing all over the hill with sirens blaring, bells clanging and what sounded like wasted co-eds whooping all weekend. My folks were annoyed. I was entertained. If you had an antique fire truck with seating for twenty, what you you do?
I thought so.
Big announcement tomorrow! I hope you can still get to sleep.
Your pal,
– bob
Pollen: The Photo Series That Killed My Camera
Friends,
I haven’t driven the teensy tiny racecar in a few days and it has sat outside waiting for another trip to the Festival of Dirt. Also during this lovely springtime period, the local forest has been blowing its bits all over the neighborhood to encourage the propagation of little forests. You can tell which cars carry locals, for instance, by the greenish-yellow pollen dusting their windows and wherever any amount of crud has accumulated. Crud is my middle name since I don’t wash the cars very regularly (there’s only a finite amount of water up here, you know) and the pollen adhesion has taken on patterns formed by weeks old grime that I found kinda interesting.
I liked this shot for the swoop under the mirror. It’s almost like nature is dusting for prints of when I was speeding. Not that I would ever do that of course, but the forest is perfectly within its rights to investigate a hunch.
Then there’s the hood. Either the aerodynamics over the hood are nuts or this is completely random and makes no sense whatsoever. I’ll take both.
Then I was attacked by a swarm of mosquitos that came from nowhere down in the driveway, which prompted my frenzied swatting. The front of the lens of my camera flew off, as did some of the little shutter vanes and when I turned the camera off, the lens jammed and now it won’t restart. This stinks. Especially considering that my favorite camera holiday on the Fourth of next month is rapidly approaching. Cross your fingers that Canon can finish the repair in a week, like they say they can.
Your pal,
– bob
Cloud Services Are Atmospheric, Damp
Friends,
I presume you’ve purchased songs from Apple via iTunes, so launch the old girl, update to 10.3.1 and go check for the purchases that you’ve lost long ago on old forgotten machines. As long as the iTunes server remembers what you’ve purchased, you can download them again thanks to the giant piles of cash Apple has shoveled into the gaping maw of the music industry. Get them now before it’s too late!
– bob
A Jaunty Little Blogiversary!
Friends,
Today is the ninth anniversary of this little mess and I’d like to thank both of you for hanging in there and continuing to follow along. A lot has happened over these last nine years, of course. I lost a marriage and lost a house, then got a house and a new community to go with it. Lost too many family members and gained a bunch of little ones. Lost a dog and got a dog. Lost a job, then got a job, then lost some of that job again.
In the state, we recalled a governor then got a minor movie star to replace him, then we got our old governor back again. We lost our budget surplus, some wildlands burned (sorry, Smokey), then gasoline nearly reached five dollars a gallon.
Some might say that the timing of this anniversary suggests that the blog started as a belated reaction to 9-11, like so many other warbloggers. The follow-on wasn’t so much because of the beginning of the war, but that blogging tools were starting to mature then and I still needed a place to write after the loss of my copywriting gig. I will admit, though, that some of the pieces I posted did have a squirmy, chickenhawk flavor to them. I was in favor of invading Iraq before I was against it, for instance.
I’m now focusing my time here on other things, mostly local news and events. I tend to get less hate mail that way. Cute pictures of cute things seem to also grab my attention lately, whether I take them or not, so they’re going to continue. It’s been fun so far and I’m trying to pick up the posting pace as we approach the ten year mark. It’s hard to believe that our little blog is nearly all grown up. *sniff!*
So along with the Idyllwild Weather Clam and Mme. Puppy Dog, I thank you for stopping by. The next year should really be something.
Your best pal in the whole wide world,
– bob
The Rise Of The Monkey Boy
Friends,
The old man of our doggie universe, Bruno the monkey-brained boy, will be summering at the Damp Dog Lodge this year and I have to say that I’m thrilled. He’s not feeling so hot lately and is having some fairly serious neurological problems, but I’ve gotta say that I hope he’ll really enjoy the next month or so up here in the pines. The fresh air, the critters scampering about, the birds to stare at…
Will he actually manage to live through the month? We can hope.
At least he’ll have a lovely time.
– bob
Small Stories About Disappointing Things
Friends,
As the tags indicate, I think these things are related to each other in some way. I’m not sure you’ll agree, but let’s throw this stuff in the pot and see if we end up with stew…
- There were a couple little automobile races on Sunday, starting with the American classic — the Indianapolis 500. My houseguests and I didn’t care so much, but we watched the thing anyway and towards the end, fell in love with the pluck of rookie JR Hildebrand. What a clever fuel strategy! What skill staying out of trouble and holding his line! Look! It’s the white flag and this kid’s in front! And then he crashed on Turn Four, right before the finish line. On to our next story…
- Nascar certainly can’t let Indy Car have all the fun, so they decided to run a longer race on the same day. Again, we didn’t care until the very end, but what’s this? Dale Earnhardt Jr. is winning in the last lap! What skill staying out of trouble and holding his line! What a clever fuel strategy! Then he ran out of gas and some other guy won. Now for weasels.
- My dear friend called this evening with a story that gives sharks and bastards a bad name. Her father is struggling with Alzheimer’s Disease, but lawyers would like to depose him to testify in a dispute over a land deal from the 80s. His lawyers protested that he was too ill to travel and sit and speak under oath for hours, but the opposition hired an investigator to prove this wrong. Video camera at the ready, the investigator ignited an M80 outside his front door and recorded him ambling to the window to determine the source of the commotion. See? He can move around just fine, your honor. One more…
- As long-time followers of this mess surely know, my hours at the Far Eastern Outpost of San Diego’s Omnipresent Charitable Organization have been cut in half. In fact, my Wednesdays are literally cut in half to make the timing work. This knowledge did not prevent one of the bosses from getting huffy that I was not available to solve problems with his personal home computer not receiving company email in a timely manner. Allow me to clarify — one of the people who got together and decided to send me halfway out into the dodgy financial wilderness has the gall to protest that I’m not there often enough? Really? Seriously? I find this behavior stunning.
So, how was your Wednesday?
– bob
This Seems Bad
Friends,
This stinks. A real virus out in the wild for Macintosh? Really? For reals? Don’t sign up for any antivirus software for the Mac just yet. Even they don’t know how to deal with this at the moment, so don’t throw money at folks out of panic. Here at our Secret Alpine Laboratory, we’ve been working on a timer to let you know exactly when to panic. Not yet, my pretties. Not yet.
Just be careful out there people.
– bob
UPDATE: Here’s a non-hysterical list of antivirus and malware-ratting-out software for the Mac from Lifehacker. I’m going to run some free stuff for a little while to see if it doesn’t stink too bad and I’ll let you know how that turns out. This whole think stinks, kinda like the Russian mob telling you that you have to start wearing briefs under your kilt.
Another Good Use Of Bandwidth
Friends,
It seemed like a good idea when my hours at The Festival of Dirt were cut in half to go out and get a new job. The job numbers are looking up, I hear. Plus, the Great Recession (as we’re calling it now) is finally over. Good news! Nifty! Should be a piece of cake to find new employment!
Well dear readers, this has not been the case. I’ve submitted resumes for positions that are essentially what I do now and for jobs that I would love to do, but I haven’t heard from anybody except spammers who will rewrite my resume for a fee or provide me with a sure-fire job finding toolkit, also for a fee. I find this infuriating on two levels, as I’m sure you do. The end goal of my job search isn’t actually to give other people money (which seems intuitive, but when you’re busy being evil, maybe you miss the simple stuff) nor is it to provide personal information to a mailing list instead of an employer. This country’s economy has gone through a very rough patch, but that’s no excuse to prey on the desperate.
Speaking of desperate though, if I’m going to embark on Plan B, to get some freelance work to make up the other half of my salary, my poor website would need a refresh. You remember the old, tired, iWeb template site, don’t you? No?
It was pretty simple and I didn’t update it very often, so nobody showed up. The hit count was low and very few people gave it a second thought, but that’s about to change!
The new site, pictured at the top, is better in every way. It has pages and links, which makes it a proper website. A picture of the Mighty Jeepster is now on every page to lend some much-needed dynamism. The webcam is still there, plus there are now colored rectangles, which make it more modern. Also, the web development software I’m now using has some settings that make the thing render differently depending on the browser you’re using, which I hadn’t intended.
Overall, it’s really great and you should visit!
Your pal,
– bob
Chief, This Computing Thing Is Just A Fad
Friends,
Thirty years ago today, Xerox introduced to the public a computer that changed the world, the Xerox 8010, commonly known as the Xerox Star. Why should you care? Well, it was the first computer available to the public with a graphical user interface. The first with a mouse. The first designed to be networked into workgroups with shared printers and files. The first to use a document collaboration protocol based on hypertext, with embedded links to other documents.
Essentially, everything you know about how computers are supposed to look and how they’re supposed to work was either invented or refined at Xerox PARC and marketed first in this machine. And you could have all of this for the low, low price of $16,595 back in 1981 (which would be worth roughly $41,525 today, in case you were wondering).
So go out today and hug an interface designer to celebrate, won’t you?
– bob
A Jaunty Little Trip Planner – Pennsylvania in August Edition
Friends,
Let’s go to Butler, PA this summer to celebrate the 71st birthday of the jeep at the home of Bantam Motors. Parades! Trail rides!
Maybe we’ll have jobs by then that’ll give us the time off.
Mark your calendars!
– bob
Earthquake Watch 2011! – Is and Isn’t Edition
Friends,
Japanese authorities today raised the severity rating of the slow motion disaster occurring at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to 7. Now I know what you’re saying (he really does. it’s kinda creepy. – ed), “On a scale of what? 1 to 10? 1 to 100? I need context.” This is a 7 on a scale of one to Chernobyl, where Chernobyl also equals 7. There’s no need to panic though. Just listen to the soothing words of Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan…
“Right now, the situation of the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima plant has been stabilizing step by step. The amount of radiation leaks is on the decline,” he said. “But we are not at the stage yet where we can let our guards down.”
The amount’s on the decline! Hooray! Maybe this is just some bureaucratic way to divert more resources to the problem. Like the difference here between a storm warning and an urgent storm warning…
And a spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), which runs the plant, suggested it could even end up being worse than Chernobyl.
Oh. Dear.
“The classification of seven means there’s a leak of radiation into the wider environment; and although it’ll be interpreted as being ‘the same as Chernobyl’, it’s not the same,” said Paddy Regan, professor of physics at the UK’s University of Surrey.
It’s not the same! Paddy says so.
And what Paddy says, goes. For now.
– bob
Super Fun Friday Part IV: Monday Edition
Friends,
I’ve had a couple days to wrap my shrinking, dark gray mind around the job situation—oh! you didn’t hear? A bunch more people got laid off here at the Festival of Dirt and my job, considered a “luxury” was to be eliminated completely. Were it not for the intervention of my current boss, I wouldn’t be enjoying the half-time status I do right now.
This has left me scrambling for more work to fill in the gap, but I’m not my greatest salesman. There are a couple little gigs available here and there, but nothing long term. Not yet anyway.
If you might happen to know of someone who needs someone to keep their personal computers, servers or networks running, or who has a website that needs maintenance, or even someone to edit their copy or write something new, drop me an email. You know the address, it’s info at bobtherieau dot com.
Your best pal,
– bob