four dogs, two cats, one vet, and me

Today I took all of the critters in to see the vet. Curzon, Onyx, and Obsidian were due for their annual checkups, I wanted to get weights on Jadzia and Ezri, and at that point I figured I might as well take Phoebe too. The trip went well, after a few sharp comments at Phoebe to stop whining about the cats, and everybody is completely healthy.

Weights:
Onyx - 9.05 lbs
Obsidian - 11.01 lbs
Jadzia - 35.8 lbs
Curzon - 42.2 lbs
Ezri - 32.0 lbs
Phoebe - 9.8 lbs

I'm pleased with everyone's weight except Jadzia, who is still tubby when she should be 30-32 lbs at the most. Maybe I need to cut her food down to 5 oz per meal instead of her current 6 oz, as her weight is not good and she was running 5.5 - 5.7 at the tournament last weekend. I know she needs more exercise, but the food may need to be chopped as well. I'll need to think that over a little more before I decide for sure, however.

Both cats need to get their teeth cleaned, which Dr. Obando thinks she can do with just the ten-minute knockout shot, which will save me a lot of money over longer anesthesia. I also had her price out the spay operation for Ezri, which will cost considerably more (of course) and require a full days' stay. I keep vacillating slightly, as I love her so much I almost do want the possibility of a puppy from her, but I would have little chance of spending the time with a litter of puppies that I would want to. Plus I'd want a "new Ezri" in about ten years, well after her reproductive prime, so that still isn't the answer. I should just be happy that there are plenty of Race/Dazzle girls available to carry on the line, although I think I'll inquire if any of Ezri's full siblings are going to be kept intact for breeding.

Now just to figure out when to spay her that won't conflict with a tournament or hold too long and chance her going into heat...

vehicular milestones

Last week Chris hit 18,000 miles on his motorcycle, the 2006 Honda ST1300. On Tuesday, I turned over 12,000 miles on my motorcycle, the 2007 BMW F800ST. And last night on his way to work, Chris took the 2004 Subaru Outback over 70,000 miles.

That's a lot of miles.

When I add everything up, at this point I estimate that I've driven about 135,000 miles in cars (70,000 in the Impala and 65,000 in the Subaru) and about 18,000 miles on motorcycles (8,000 on the Vulcan and 10,000 on the BMW). So in just over 13 years since getting my license, I've driven well over 150,000 miles. The actual number driven is probably higher than that, what with driving my mother's cars, Chris' car before we sold it, and so on, but I can definitely quantify the ones I've listed here.

So we've had the Subaru for five years this month (possibly even this week), and put 70,000 miles on it for an average of 14,000 miles per year. Most of this is for flyball tournaments, with only a few non-dogsport-related trips. We intend to keep the car for another 5 years or more, although Chris asked me the other day whether I'd get another Subaru again. My answer is an unequivocal yes, and I'd like to stay with the Outback series as long as the fit/finish on the current version works out when we are ready to buy again. Like right now I couldn't buy a new Outback - the armrests are completely retarded and the seatbelt ding is not able to be shut off, both of which would be huge issues for me. I've been really happy with the Subaru, it handles everything we throw at it without complaint, we haven't had any major issues with it, and other than the "time of life" it's at right now requiring the 60k service, a belt service, new brakes, and new tires all at one shot, we haven't had to spend much money on it at all. If I could just tow a small RV with it, I'd be perfectly set.

With nearly 10,000 miles of my own and just over a year of riding the BMW, I'm very happy that I bought it. It was a bit of a rush job last winter, as I needed something to commute on ASAP as driving for a daily commute is much more expensive (1 gallon of gas vs 2 gallons of gas plus $4 for parking). However, at this point I think I would buy the same bike again, as it has met my needs perfectly and I like it a lot. It could use a few more adjustments, with handlebar risers and a mud flap top of the list, but that's going to happen with just about any motorcycle so it's not something I fuss over. The bike always starts, always runs, and has never let me down when I needed it to do something. It's got its quirks, like that "extra neutral" between 5th and 6th gears that I sometimes hit, and it's really pissy doing 25 mph around Mercer right after getting off the highway, but nothing serious. I think I've definitely grown as a rider by having the bike, and now its size and displacement doesn't faze me at all. At this point I think a Hayabusa would be disturbing amounts of fun, whereas last year I couldn't even conceive of wanting such a powerful bike. However, stupid amounts of fun also involve stupid amounts of tickets, so I'm not planning to actually get a 'Busa any time soon.

'tis only a flesh wound

Well, apparently the wind and the rain were more vicious than we realized, as this is what greeted me when I got home today:

This is the view from the top of the front yard, looking backwards through the side yard towards the back yard. One of the 150+ foot fir trees went down today, probably about 10:00am or so, as Chris vaguely remembers hearing some noise shortly after he went to bed this morning. The tree extends from its rootball up on the road at the main entrance to Maderas, down the hill, over part of the yard, and into the blackberries and almost into the driveway of the people who live behind us.

As near as I can tell, the fir tree fell south down the hill and landed on the major branch of the maple tree. The trunk of the fir rolled down the edge of the maple trunk, finally taking out the major branch which fell out and to the side. This caused the fir tree to finish rolling a bit more to the same side, pulling the remaining rootball out of the ground, as it crashed all of the way down. Four feet more to the right and it would've crushed my pink dogwood, as it is the little tree lost one of its major branches. Four feet to the left and it would have probably stayed caught in the maple tree, being supported by the three major trunks.

And of course, if the angle of fall had been 30 degrees to the right, our deck would be splinters.

Here is a video I took of the entire trunk, it shows the size of the tree much more clearly than a few pictures can manage.

I'm now going to be looking up tree companies, as this is far too large to take care of by ourselves like we had planned with a smaller one that went down in November. I'm also now worried about the dead tree about twenty feet away from the one that went down, and want it gone as well. Finally, I need someone to tell me if that maple has any chance of living through its injury, and if not then it will have to be taken down as well.

Like I didn't have enough expensive things in my life right now with car maintenance and the new furnace last January. Bah. I will be thankful that my house was not harmed, but I think I am going to grumble about this just a bit. Plus we now have a giant hole in our "tree wall" blocking us from that new development, which is pretty annoying. Oh well - perhaps time to invest in some fast-growing shrubbery.

...the wonders I've seen.

My name is John Crichton... an astronaut. Three years ago I got shot through a wormhole. I'm in a distant part of the universe aboard this living ship of escaped prisoners, my friends. I've made enemies. Powerful. Dangerous. Now all I want is to find a way home, to warn Earth. Look upward, and share... the wonders I have seen.

On March 19, 1999, the pilot episode for Farscape aired. Originally planned for five seasons, the last season was canceled and the story arc compressed to close out in four seasons, later followed by a four-hour miniseries to fully end the storyline. Chris first started watching the show around 2003 with a friend who loved it, and I watched the series around 2005. Along with Firefly, I think it's one of the best science fiction shows in recent years, and it's really too bad that it got canceled. Where else would you find a Jim Henson muppet as a main character, complete with a flatulence problem? At any rate, on the tenth anniversary earlier this month there were limited edition shirts available on Zazzle, so I picked up one for each of us. The front simply states "...share the wonders I've seen." while the back outlines the "Farscape 10th Anniversary Uncharted Territories Tour." I'm wearing mine today.

Yes, I'm a nerd. If you read this blog, you should know this by now.

It's been a little over a month since I got my Kindle, and I love it more than I had originally thought I would. I knew it would be a bit of a gamble, no matter how much I liked it in the short time I had played with those owned by friends, but I'm certain now that it is a gamble that has paid off big time. I've bought 17 Kindle books so far, although two of those were free purchases and one was an oops, and have read most of them already. Books I've read on my Kindle so far include
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
World Without End
The Shadow Queen
Renegade's Magic
Dragon Harper
Wishful Drinking
Twilight Saga (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn)

I am currently reading The Buried Pyramid, Coraline, Anathem, and Red Mars. Ten books in one month isn't unheard of for me to do, but having the Kindle with me makes reading more much easier, especially with the large books. I'm also reading multiple books simultaneously, which I've never done before, and am actually rather enjoying. I only have one physical book on my reading list (and I'm about halfway done), and that is the copy of Ender in Exile that I received for my birthday. I've also bought and downloaded Wil Wheaton's 2008 chapbook Sunken Treasure, as well as copied over the NAFA and UFLI flyball rulebooks. Finally, there are plenty of free Kindle books available, including this page of converted Gutenburg Project books. All in all, I'm completely thrilled with my new Kindle and I happily use it every day - probably only second in usage to my iPhone.

I love technology.

a flyball anniversary

Five years ago this weekend, on March 13-14 2004, Jadzia and I had our debut weekend of flyball competition. We had adopted her almost a year previously, and discovered flyball six months before her first tournament. On top of that, we had brought a crazy little purebred border collie puppy boy into her life just three months before this tournament. We loaded up the Impala (this was just before we got the Subaru), and headed up to Cloverdale to attend the Kings "March Madness" tournament.

Jadzia was utterly terrified, but really wanted to make me happy as her owner, so she did her best. Even with six months of practice, we still couldn't put a harness on her due to her history of abuse, so I ran her with just a regular collar for this first weekend. Jadzia was worried by all the dogs, all the noises, and my own nervousness at running her in competition for the first time. Despite having a crate to herself (this was before we got an e-pen), she was so high-strung that she could only relax if she was curled up in my lap. Finally, to add even more stress to the mix, she was debuting as a savage height dog to bring the jump height down from 16" to 14" - not your typical debut plan. We had not practiced the concept of a rerun, so the first time she had to rerun due to a missed jump she was so scared she just flattened and peed on the mats from fright. I was so embarassed about that, as I knew that meant a forfeit, but Randy (the judge) came up to me and said "I can tell she's terrified and that was not a failure to potty your dog, so that will be a "no time" and not a "foul" on the race record." We cleaned up the mess and moved on with the day.

Jadzia ran with Scooter, Bear, Rudy, and Rainey, all running on 14" jumps in Division 2 on both days. We placed 6th on Saturday with a best time of 20.20, and 6th on Sunday with a best time of 20.38.

Jadzia earned her FD title in her first heat, her FDX title in her first race, her FDCh title in her first day, and her FDCh-S title in her first weekend. I know no other dog in JCJ has done that, I'm not aware of any dog in Region 7 that has managed it, and probably few dogs anywhere have that sort of debut weekend to their credit. Despite the less-than-ideal conditions, Jadzia rose to the occasion and was truly a rising star that began her ascension into flyball that day.

As of today, Jadzia has earned 34,247 points in NAFA competition and 3110 points in U-FLI competition. She was the first dog in JCJ history to earn the FMCh, ONYX, and FGDCh titles, with the last one earned at 30,000 points at our tournament last June. She has run in 47 total tournaments (44 NAFA and 3 UFLI) across Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. Jadzia's personal best time is a 4.51 on 8" jumps, and she was part of the club record-setting team that ran a 19.54 on 14" jumps on May 31, 2008 - the lineup was Curzon, Jadzia, Zoey, and Skye.

More important than the ribbons on the wall and the letters after her name, however, is the confidence and accomplishment that Jadzia has earned for herself. Gone is the terrified little border collie who cowered at a discouraged word, gone is the dog who could not handle the level of crazy at a flyball tournament, gone is the dog who was too afraid to make a noise. Jadzia gleefully barks out her impatience in the flyball ring, sings in the morning when she wakes up, and growls to put the puppy or the terrier in line at home. She still skitters in fright upon occasion, and she'll never have the happy-go-lucky attitude of Curzon and Ezri - but the strides she has made are amazing nonetheless. We are blessed to have this little bordergirl in our lives, and I look forward to continuing to race with her for another five years or more.

Photo 1 is Jadzia running on March 13, 2004.
Photo 2 is Jadzia sitting with Joy, with Bill in the background, on March 14, 2004.

a week of changes

The past ten days or so have been full of changes in my work life and in my flyball life. The end results are still settling out, but it seems that both sets of changes are for the better at least as far as I am concerned.

Last Thursday at work two people were fired from my department, due to "inappropriate use of work resources" as the official reason. One of them was someone I've worked with since I began at Immunex in 2001, and I'm rather sad that he is not around anymore. It's a very weird situation, in a way, as he left before the announcement and I'm pretty sure I won't see him again any time soon. It's very odd to just have someone essentially up and disappear, and leaves a vague sense of disquiet even though I know why and how it happened. I sent him a short email wishing him the best to his personal account, but I'm sure talking to anyone outside of his family is very far down on the list right now. His departure left a void in our group, as he was heading up a couple of projects, and so those had to be reassigned. On Tuesday the decision was finalized and announced - I will be the purification lead for the next FIH (first-in-human) molecule that will be coming to us in early April. This is a great opportunity for me, although it is sudden, and I intend to prepare and make the most of it.

In my personal and flyball life, change has come as well although not nearly as neatly. The tension and disagreements between two people and the rest of the club finally came to a head last Sunday, and ended up with the two people being voted out of the club. This was not a good situation, there were plenty of mistakes on both sides, but it is now over and done with and we can move on with our lives. I've been learning even more interesting information about interactions between other club members and these two people since Sunday, and every word I hear just confirms that we made the right decision. I ended a friendship over this situation, and perhaps it is one that I should have ended earlier, but it was only in the past two weeks that I was truly sure of what that person was doing behind my back. I don't need that kind of stress in my life, and the old saw "with friends like these, who needs enemies?" has never held more true for me.

It will be interesting to see how the changes to both my personal and professional lives settle out over the next few weeks. I firmly believe they will all be for the better and that I will benefit over time from both of them, even if they don't seem that way right now. There is plenty of work to be done, and I'm moving forward to meet the challenges ahead.

(Yes, I am being deliberately generic in my comments to avoid names. If you know who I am talking about, please do not post it publicly)

I love technology

Through the power of the internet, I have just purchased a PDF copy of Wil Wheaton's new book Sunken Treasure and sent it to my Kindle.

The future is now and it is awesome.