Thursday night myself, Sue and Yoshi joined KaptainK and Digger for a protest organized by Citizen Canine. See the CRD is changing the rules drastically for some of the parks that Yoshi and Digger currently get to enjoy sans leash. The new rules will force dog owners to leash their dogs, or face the fines.

There are numerous reasons why we do not support this. CRD claims that dogs are destroying the vegetation, are harming and fouling the shoreline, are causing too many conflicts with humans, and that the humans are not cleaning up after their dogs.

The way I see it is that the CRD has not provided any concrete evidence that the dogs are in fact ruining vegetation. This is a park located next to a large city. It sees a lot of traffic on hot days. It sees lots of humans year round. I am not going to say that dogs are not the culprit, because they may be doing part of it. I do disagree with placing the blame soley on dogs (and that is how it feels to me).

As for dogs harming and fouling the shoreline, again, I can only offer what I have seen, and that is the humans who visit the park are much more destructive than the dogs. Again, my eyes. Neither side of this argument has provided concrete proof to support their case.

I understand that there will be dog vs. human conflicts. There will be conflicts even if dogs are on leash. As I see it, the CRD only receives complaints when there is a conflict. They do not hear the thousands of non conflitcts that occur each year. This leads to the CRD having a tainted view. Personal experience has shown that in the 2.5 years I have walked Yoshi there, I have had probably close to 100 non conflicts, with exactly 1 conflict. To me that is pretty good odds.

If CRD really wanted to encourage dog owners to clean up after their pets, perhaps they should strategically place garbage cans throughout the park. As it is currently there are only cans at the main beaches. I don’t think anyone would want to carry around a stinky bag when going on a 45 minute walk. If owners knew that a can was only a couple minutes away, I am sure more people would clean up.

The other disturbing fact is that the CRD is pushing through these rule changes despite the fact that the experts are advising against it. They didn’t try to fix the problem with education, instead they change the rules, and punish the good dog owners while doing nothing to deter the bad dog owners.

The other disturbing fact is that currently CRD does not have enough funds to enforce the current rules. It is unknown how they will be able to effectively enforce the new rules. It really does seem silly that one of the parks largest user groups is getting punished when no other is.

Damn truck. It is starting to show its age a little. There are a few rattles, squeaks, clunks, and odd noises every now and then. But it has always been reliable.

Today I dropped it off for routine maintenance, which I knew was going to be an expensive one. I got the call right at lunch. The water pump needs to be replaced. :jawdrop:

Crap. That sucks. Big time. This more than doubles the already large bill I was expecting.

Firday night Sue and I went to Vancouver to visit with her mom, and her mom’s new black lab puppy (Sheba)!

Oh so cute, cuddly, and fuzzy!

She is a sweet little dog that (so far) is really well behaved. She likes her crate for eating in, but is becoming a little reluctant to sleep in it. She runs around in the grass and whips that stubby little tail of hers around.

She likes to chew on sticks, is already retrieving a little, and loves to sleep on peoples feet. Such a sweetheart.

If you are interested, here are some more pics.

Bike to work week – Day 5

Not much to report here. It was an easy ride to work with Sue. The return trip (mostly uphill) was a little different though. We had to be out at the ferry with time to spare, so I sped home very quickly so we could finish packing bags, load the truck and go. I made it home in just a hair over 10 minutes, when normally it takes closer to 15.

Bike to work week – Day 4

I came out lame today. I went to bed a little later than normal last night, the cat kept me awake for what felt like half the night, then I woke up at 6 and couldn’t get back to sleep. When I did get up, my throat was all scratchy, and in general I felt like poo. It was also pretty windy today.

I decided not to ride. I felt a little bad for not riding, but I had to go home at lunch, and I didn’t want to push myself while I am feeling sick. Lame excuses I know. Anyway … tomorrow I will ride.

Bike to work week – Day 3

Woah, tough ride on to work today. I used my big bike for commuting, and it doesn’t roll as well and the road bike. It was fun though. Very bouncy fun. I didn’t find any outstanding morons and that makes me happy.

Bike to work week – Day 2

Nothing special to report, not like yesterday.

I did go home for lunch today though, and since I was on my roadie, my stats for the day are:

Total Distance Ridden: 21.31 km
Time to cover that distance: 0.59.45
Average speed: 21.4 km/h
Max speed: 40.5 km/h

Pretty good I would say. I will be doing the same thing on Thursday (going home for lunch).

A Night of Improv

It was hilarious. Sue and I went a year ago, and it was pretty funny. Those seats were up quite high on the balcony.

This show was completely different. We were very close to the stage, and we could see every facial expression. Their skits were funny. They played some of the same games that they do on Who’s Line, but being in the large crowd, the laughter was contagious, and everything was way more funny than the last show we saw.

With it being the late show I was wondering how the show would turn out. Either the first show would be a good warmup, or it would tire them out. I would go with the warmup route.

One bad side was that some of the skits went on too long. On tv they can edit out parts of skits, and generally shorten things up if needed. Can’t really do that with a live show. You could tell that a couple skits they just wanted to end, but couldn’t get the ending in there. The worst was the Improv Jeopardy. It started off really funny, but went on too long. Then there was an improved song that they just coundn’t end. Don’t get me wrong, it was still hilarious, but it just felt like it dragged on.

Another negative was the length. In total the show was 1.5 hours long ( a good length), but it seemed like 20 minutes. It just went by so quickly! 😀

Sue, kaptaink, and myself were kept in stitches for most of the show, and Greg Proops’ opening monologue was quite funny. There is something about a show like that, that is best seen live. Definitely worth the price of admission.

Wooppee! As a gift to Sue for her birthday, I got her a ticket to go see A Night of Improv at the Royal Theatre.

When I originally went to get the tickets, the lady asked me if it was important I get seats for the show. I asked why, and she mentioned that if I waited a couple more days, more seats were going to go on sale because they had put on a second show! 😀

I waited the extra couple days, and scored 5th row seats, centre stage. 8)

Tonight kaptaink, Sue, and myself will have a great time watching a large portion of the cast from Who’s Line Is It Anyway perform. I am really looking forward to it!

Yesterday was a grand day. After waking up, and opening a couple presents, I made breakfast for Sue (with a little help from her). Home made Eggs Benedict. Yum.

Then it was out to Elk Lake for a field walk with Yoshi.

After that Sue went shopping with some friends.

Lastly we went to kaptaink’s shak for some sushi, cake, and hockey (too bad Flames!).

It was a great day. I hope you enjoyed it Sue!