Discharged Listings

I am begining to think that I should rename this site to snottylaces.ca. This cold I acquired last week still haunts me. I must have discharged a gallon of snot by now. I was feeling great this morning, but as the day dragged on my sinuses became more stuffed up. Must have something to do with the weather.

To top it off, I set up the VCR to tape the WRC Rallye De France on Sunday. I sat down to watch it tonight, and after rewinding the tape I discovered that I had started taping halfway through the two hour show! Crap! Before I set up the VCR I checked the channel listings. It showed Speed showing it back to back. For some weird reason, I decided to tape both showings of it (I set the VCR to tape for 4 hours). As it turned out, the last hour of my tape had the first hour of the race, and the first hour of the tape had te last hour of the race. Good race too. I love watching WRC racing.

Ginger Turnaround

Today was the SPCA Walkathon that I mentioned previously

It was quite foggy as we left this morning, and that made standing around before the start a little chilly. There were lots of dogs, and even more people. Sue and I were both quite surprised at the turnout. Hopefully it turned out to be a great fundraiser for the SPCA. Sue and I raised $200 thanks in large part to our friends, co-workers, and family. Thanks guys, the pledges definitely went to a good cause.

Prior to the start we checked out the tents, and watched some of the Capital Comets doing agility. This guy loved the A-frame. He would get to the top, and stop there to look at all the dogs down below.

Soon it was time to go. Holy smokes there were lots of people and dogs participating.

Yoshi made friends with Ginger and we walked with her for a while.

The Sun popped out from behind the clouds, and warmed everyone up.

It was quite the sight to see that many dogs out for a walk, all at once. The best part was that I didn’t see or hear any dogs not getting along. Absolutely wonderful. A very cute sight was an older woman pushing a baby carriage that contained here little dog. I guess he was too tired!

We started at Ogden Point, and the turnaround was Mile Zero. Since this was in the off leash area, we let Yoshi off to go run around a bit. It was a sea of dogs there. All shapes, sizes, colors, and breeds. Lots of fun! The above picture is of Yoshi and Sue as we were about to start walking back.

It was lots of fun, and it sure felt great to help out a cause that I believe in.

Draining Goodbyes

Ugh. Have I mentioned I hate being sick? Once again I woke up, and knew I was sick. :grr: I hate that. This time I woke up at 3 am to hear the rain pounding on the roof, the wind tearing through the trees. I was laying on my back, and every time I swallowed I would experience a small wave of pain. I was swallowing a lot since my sinuses were draining down my throat. I tosssed and turned but could not get comfortable. Some time around 5 I think I fell asleep again.

The alarm went off at 7. Closing in on 7:30 I decided to drag my butt out of bed. The shower felt good, but not that good. I was still sick. The magical powers of the shower hadn’t changed a thing.

Sue said her goodbyes, then returned moments later. Dead battery. I think the Cherry bomb needs a new battery.

Wait, back to the topic at hand. I am going to stay at work long enough to determine if anything extremely important needs to get done. If not, I am going home. My head is in a fog today, and I am a walking zombie. Work is not good for Zombies.

Un-busy Walkathon

Not much happening these days. I have been pretty un-busy. Sue is back now, and I am glad for that, but she has been busy the past couple days, so I haven’t seen a lot of her.

Yoshi and I had a little spin at the park last night.

I need to get out on a bike some time soon!

I also need to come up with some solution for the Photo Club. It is dark too early. We can try doing some night shoots, but I think those will get boring quite quickly. I am hoping that I can get permission some time to shoot with the club, inside the English Inn, which is right across the street from where I live. I still have to go and talk to them about that though.

Tonight we are going out for cake and a movie at a friends house.

This Sunday is the BC SPCA Walkathon. Should you wish to pledge Sue and I, shoot me an email and we will discuss.

Oscur Watur

Weee! This iz my furst post heer. Greg wasnt looking so I made me account.

Twoday wuz fun. I got to plaa with Oscur at the beech. It wuz a new beech though. Greg called it Albrt Hed. It smelld different from my beech so I mayd sure all the dawgs new I wuz there.

Oscur and I ran lotz and swam in the watur lotz. I run into the watur very fast, but Oscur wuz slow geting in. He swim good for a yung dawg.

I got cold from swimming and Greg wudnt let me swim ane mor. We ran lotz more. We had to leav and I still wantd to run. No fare! I slept well on the wey home thou.

It was reel fun!

Rainbow Debris

What a crazy day yesterday! Holy smokes. I got up early and met up with Todd and Lisa. We headed over to the Dallas Road near Ross Bay Cemetary to cheer on some friends that were in the Royal Victoria Marathon. Congratulations to Laurie and Jeanette for completing the half marathon, and big congrats to Duncan for completing the full marathon! That is awesome you guys.

Around lunch time I bundled up, grabbed some gear, got Yoshi in the truck and headed up to Nanaimo for Thanksgiving dinner number 1. It was an eventful drive on the way up. It was raining and windy the whole way, but the cooles thing was driving through the ends of a rainbow. Twice! Yep, before this one corner, the rainbow ended right on the highway, and right after the corner was another end of a rainbow. It was pretty cool!

Just south of Ladysmith there was a three car accident that had occurred just a couple minutes before I got there. The people were out of their cars and walking about, there was debris all over the highway, two cars were off the side of the road, but one car that was prety badly mangled, was resting in the left lane against the median. One person was out directing traffic, so there was a real slow down right there. I have always hated rubber neckers, and sure enough I was stuck behind a real bad one. The older guy in the buick in front of me slowed down appropriately, but then started gawking at the wreck. He started slowing down even more! I was watching what he was doing, and I couldn’t belive it. He was being pretty dangerous. I honked at him a couple times to hopefully get his eyes back on the road. Like I sai, there was debris on the road, but there was also people walking alongside the highway. He absolutely needed his eyes on the road. :grr:

After that the rest of the drive was clear sailing. Dinner with my mom and sister was excellent, and Yoshi had a good time too. My original plan was to stay the night and head back to Victoria on Monday, but I ended up coming home last night. I am happy to say that nothing stupid happened on the drive back.

Tuckered Americano

Yoshi and I went for a grand walk today. After stopping at Starbucks for a loverly Americano, we headed to Elk Lake park for a field walk. It was slighlty cool out so the Americano kept me perfectly warm. As soon as we got there Yoshi was revved up and ready to go. As soon as I opened the truck door he exploded out onto the field. We started the walk with Boomer the 11 month old Doberman Pinscher. He was a cutie, and you could definitely tell he was young. He weighed over 70 lbs though! The other dog in our small group was a greyhound. Wow, I thought Yoshi was fast, but compared to the greyhound, he seem average.

We parted out ways with the other two dogs and walked a long way. Two people and their dogs caught up to us, and we all stopped and talked for a long time as the three dogs played. Again, one was a pup, and the other was a large dog named Timber. Their respective owners were pretty nice and we swapped lots of funny dog stories.

Indestructable Circles

Krista got Yoshi a toy for his birthday. Last night was our first opportunity to use his brand spankin new Jawz ball. We have had a Chuck It for a long time, but Yoshi would destroy the tennis ball in just a few throws. He would still want to play, but throwing a no-longer-round tennis ball is difficult.

This new ball is all but indestructable, fits in the Chuck It, and floats. It is a wonder ball. Oh, and for anyone who has a dog who loves to retrieve, you simply must get a Chuck It.

Anyway, back to last night. Yoshi and I got to the field, he was all prepared for running his butt off. I started off with a short throw, and he scampered off after it. He dropped it halfway back like he normally does. I picked it up, and gave it another short throw, with the same result.

Now, by this point Yoshi was getting pretty insistent and whiney. I picked up the wonder ball, and gave it a good throw down the field (about 3/4 the length of a soccer field). Yoshi goes tearing off after it, he slides to a stop on top of it, grabs it, the spits it out and comes running back to me. That stinker left it at the other end of the field! :O

With Yoshi walking circles around me I walked down to pick it up and threw it again (not quite as long). He ran to it, picked it up, spit it out, and came back to me. :O

I couldn’t believe it. I figured that he must not think it is his ball since it would have felt a lot different than a tennis ball (what he is used to). I walked to it again, but this time I picked it up with my hand and tossed it to him (about 5 feet). He grabbed it, ran at me and dropped it. I repeated a couple times until he realized this strange rubber ball was his.

After that I was able to use the Chuck It with the Jawz and give his a really good run! He was pretty happy last night.

Frazzled Ducks

Tonight was the latest shoot of the photo club. It was rough shooting tonight. Fading light, wind, rain, and having borrowed a friends camera all added to the difficulty level.

Our shot was located at the Government House. I had never been there before. Tres cool! There are lots of neat gardens to shoot, a small waterfall, a duck pond (with some wacked out ducks), and of course the mansion itself.

The camera I was using proved rather taxing. About 5 pictures into the shoot, the battery warning started flashing. Then, I was having trouble focusing my shots properly. There were all sorts of blinky lights going off, and none of them were green. Perhaps RTFM should be my motto from now on. I was getting a bit frazzled by the end.

Anyway, it was quite fun to wander around there.

Skip to the pictures

Our next meeting is in two weeks, and I will need to figure out some other interesting place to shoot. By the time 6:45 rolled around tonight, there wasn’t enough light left to shoot easily. I will have to try and arrange an indoor venue.

Any ideas? }:)

Closest Digital Inventory

Do they get the point?

I used FuturePhoto recently, and for the first time I got the pics sent to the closest store (it is only a block away from work). This saved on shipping fees, so that is a bonus.

I get there, and wait for a couple minutes until someone finally comes out to help. I showed him the order number, and he hunts around under the counter for my order. When he finally finds it, he flops a binder down in front of me and asks me to fill out the next row. What?

They have this great piece of software that uploads your prints to their server for printing. Digital images, digital computers, digital software. All digital, yet I still had to fill out my order number, date, name, phone number, and signature.

As I was filling this out I couldn’t help but think that this guy had already handed me the pics (without requiring ID).

A) I could have filled out any old thing I wanted to.

B) Why didn’t they have some sort of digital system set up? You know a computer setup with a scanner, scan the bar code on the package, voila, confirmation done.

So, while I was in the process, I asked the guy why they needed all this info. He stammered and searched for an answer. The best he could come up with is that they needed some sort of way of tracking picked up packages so that they can update their inventory.

Hmmm, perhaps come up with a better system. Something that can’t be easily forged.

muddylaces

Spreading mud since 1975.