Nutcracker Puppy

If you press the secret button, he does this.

Things I Find in the Woods

Looking back at my photography archive, another possible direction to take my online inscriptions could be a site like www.scarybridges.com. Except it would be like thingsifindinthewoods.com.

This weekends discovery would be this monstrosity, found by ever-loving dog on the shore of Beaverdam Reservoir near Bramblton VA. When I first saw it, I thought it was a steam shovel scoop, but the huge flywheels and concrete pad on a slope suggest it had a different use: I'm pretty sure it's a rock crusher. Basalt is mined through out the area for use as gravel, and there's the old Luck Stone Quarry to the north.
 

Bearings made from a different material. Soft iron or ceramic? Unclear.

Snakes molt in the strangest places. This one found a stub on the end of a twig at the top of the flywheel to get started.

This flywheel was attached to the shaft using a giant pin. In 2014, having a rusty metal shard spinning round and round looks like mutilation hazard.

Tension spring for the crusher.

Did I mention the snake was 3 feet long?

It looks like the flywheels were packed with concrete to give them more rotational mass.

Bearing plates where put together with gaskets.

Grease holes? It looks like they were cast in after the main pour.

Free Treats

At first I thought a giant demon had gotten drunk and then missed when it attempted to puke into the trash barrel, but closer inspection revealed someone had dumped a few pounds of cat food, perhaps on the way to the trash barrel.

The dog wanted to clean it up.

The answer was "No."

Photography Backlog

Old life goal: teach dog to make me coffee.

Bad dog.

New life goal: Finish sorting/organizing 2012 roller derby photos before 2013 season is up.

The large question is do I work backwards or fowards?

I took nearly 3,000 photos at the Freedom Belles bout in october 2012. That's not my  home league, but it will take a long time to push through. I think the only photos that I have that anyone still cares about are from the first NoVa Roller Derby Bout of 2013 and the 2012 Championships.

I hate being indecisive, but I'm good at it, and I like being good at things.

-Edit-
 I already did June 2012 once here. How did that get in twice? Nuts!

Sympathy Hunger

My friends dog died.

Lost for what to do to help them feel better, we bought them beer and chocolate, because that often makes us feel better, even if we don't feel bad or even if we feel quite good.

Then, I smartly left the cache in a shopping bag for a week or so.

We came home friday night to find the dog had eaten the chocolate. I guess he felt bad about losing an enemy he had always despised and tried to end his own small misery forever. Unfortunately, I did not buy enough chocolate to kill a 90 pound dog, though a 2-3 lb dog may have felt a bit queasy. Instead, I think he was simply satisfied that he had eaten something, and thus totally missed his goal.

Wait, this walk is for you!

First he wants it more than anything. Then it's the worst thing in the world.

¡Es yo si que es!

I have a theory. The dog can only quantify things into three values.

In dog land, there can be:
-No things (A)
-A thing (B)

-Many things (C)

 

In this photo, the dog is wearing many socks.


Socks only make him look more strange and awkward.

Code Brown

I am ready for this chapter of our doggy life to be over.

Dad was right, of course.

Putting the dog in the box does not discourage him as much as one would hope.

He missed again

The vet informs me that there is nothing obviously medically wrong with The Dog. We had a lovely conversation where she mentioned his white bloodcell count was slightly elevated, signalling slight allergies, or a parasite. I will pick up some de-worming medications today during lunch hour.

I have been worried that the problem is behavioral. Perhaps while he was at the kennel, he learned that any impervious surface will do, and thus finds the floor to be as good a drop zone as anywhere else. To head off this possibility, we tied walking him until he pooped, theory being he'd need to wait awhile before he was ready to go again. That seemed like it was working, but it wasn't.

Today was strike three. I found a stinking pile of mutt offal accompanied by a large yellow puddle, leading to another bathroom floor cleaning extravaganza. The floor isn't level, so liquids find all kinds of fun places to hide relative to the start point in the middle of the room.

Strike three also means escalation of the corrective procedures:
The Box is back.

It's been 18 months since you've seen it. You thought it was gone. It was collapsed, hiding in the basement, with the zip-lock baggy holding the small parts labeled "your loose screws." Now, it's back, it's in the living room, and it wants something.

I called The Dog.

"Box!" I yelled, and pointed to the door.

I don't like to believe the anthropomorphizations I create for him, but I'm pretty sure the his body language was expressing shock and disbelief. The Box is not the doggy happy-fun time. (That's the couch, for those who've been watching.) He did not want to go into The Box. He pretended to walk in, but started to veer around in the entrance. No missing this time! "IN!" I yelled, and nudged him towards the door. There he will spend free time until we get this sorted out.

 

The Phantom Shitter Strikes Again

My first encounter with the Phantom Shitter was at the Boy Scout National Jamboree in 1997. There may have even been several at work in unison. Regardless, there was someone who was pretty good at finding ways and places leave fresh corpulites that would not be considered acceptable by social norms in American Culture. There were collapsed lincoln log piles in the shower and behind tents and such. Good times. I was glad to leave that behind, hoping it was over.

Of course, it wasn't.

In high school, we discussed metaphysical manifestation of alienation, and the Phantom Shitter phenomenon was brought up as a common example. An academic premonition that would linger in my mind when our hero stuck the graduate dorm in the Spring of 2006. Hall meetings were held. Guards were posted in the bathroom. Fees were charged. Fetid piles periodically arrived. They threatened to take the doors off the stalls.

To my deep surprise, Phantom Shitter has struck again! In my own house! I got home Wednesday night, walked the dog, and then settled down on the porch to drink beer and waste my life surfing the internet. Then, The Girly came home, and called me into the house. "Have you been to the bathroom since you got home?"

I hadn't. Beer first, pee later. You know how it works. Order is critically important in that game.

She pointed into the bathroom.

There was a large stinking pile of poop.

She denied responsibility. I denied responsibility. The Dog denied responsibility.

Great. Someone broke into the house shit on the floor. Just like Baltimore.

-or-

Someone was lying.

We decided to let the matter stay. A few plastic bags and paper towels vanished the problem. Vanished, that is, until Friday, when The Girly texted me at work to tell me it happened again. She proposed to take The Dog to the vet for interrogation.

Just like East Germany. They have quite a file on him.

The vet wants a stool sample and a urine sample

Great.

Portrait Model

He's not as noble as you think he might be.

Obligatory Christmas Photos

A lot of work with an old hat and an unwilling model.

Let Jag

I'm not dead. I went to Minneapolis. Then I went to Costa Rica. Then I went to Chicago (with a cumulative 40 hours of driving). Then I went to San Fransisco.

I'm sure my dog has given up on me.

Good things he likes to make new friends.

Ways to Torture Your Dog

Dogs are relatively color blind, and therefore don't know why tie-dye is cool.

Dogs can't read, so you can put a kick me sign anywhere and they still don't get it.

The Pain

This is what I have to deal with on a daily basis.

Fuzz

I backed over the dog again.


It has not yet dawned on him that cuddling up with the wheels of my desk chair is a bad idea.

When I push back my chair to engage in walking meditation (machination, really!) I get him good. There are little tufts of dog hair around the floor.

There is a perfectly good dog bed beside me, out of chair range, that goes un-used.

Why?

Some things just can't be explained.

"Oh no. Not again."

It was somewhere between 00:00 and 01:30. I had just finished a Borderlands bender and collapsed in bed. About the time my consiousness was starting to drift from my body, like a plastic bag leaving a throny tree, the dog lept up and tore out of the bedroom. Organic noices eminated from the living room.

"Did the dog just puke?" The Girly asked.

"No." I said, hoping that the certainty in my denial would cover whatever was now certainly all over the floor.

We drug ourselves out of bed to examine the damage.

I am always amazed at the volume a dog is able to puke in a single motion. Actually, the disconnect between the dog stomach and the dog head is just as amazing. The first thought after a good purging is clearly the joy and delight of having a large pile of warm food suddenly appear out of nowhere. Also, the dog has been known to wander the house, violently heaving, torso shaking with each convulsion, clearly indicating that the dog stomach has given up all attempts at digesting it's contents, while the dog head has clearly not gotten the message, and seems somewhere between apathetic and confused about the messages that the round thing back there is trying to send it. If the stomach wants empty, it has to push through the head to get its point of view recognized. Compare this, for example, to someone with a raging hangover. Just pass them the bucket.

"It looked like he puked up his brain, which would explain alot." The Girly would later muse about the event.

Having the dog keep you up all night on monday puts a damper on the whole week.

Having learned our lesson the first time the dog exploded, we scheduled a vet appointment first thing in the morning. Vetrinary care is a lot like what you'd hope human care would be: we bagged a 0930 appointment, put down $200, and walked out with a diagnosis and a perscription for some medication to kill all the alien bacteria in the dog.

Alien bacteria introduced by eating alien poop.

So, for the next week, he's been getting ant-acid (OTC from walgreens!), a pro-biotic (to encourage dog bacteria in his dog stomach) and, ironically, an anti-biotic to kill the alien bacteria in his dog stomach.

This is Why He's Stupid

He was sniffing for crumbs this morning and went to sniff the counter and banged his head on the door.

I was teasing him with the dog toy when we were playing tug of war, and I tricked him and he fell over backwards ackwardly.

A moment later he made a dive and hit my knee head first.

Just now, I heard whining at the door. It's dark. I gave the screen a good shove to open it, but it bounced hard against a hard, meaty object.

Defensive Posture

To celebrate Presidents day, the Girly scheduled a vet appointment to honor the leaders of our great nation, and more importantly, ensure that the dog and I were not bored.

The visit went pretty well, until, when being smothered in affection by the vet (a nice young lady) and the tech (a nice young lady) he growled. The committee decided that muzzling the 97 lb toothy oaf was a good idea. (I know he bites like a toothless baby, but I knew they didn't and weren't going to risk it. My attitude: "Remember how I train you not to do that? This is why...") We struggled to muzzle him. He knows how to open his mouth and wriggle. They offered "the towel trick", whatever that was. I gave it one more try, just to be nice to the oaf. He and I took a long walk in the parking lot where lots of wriggling and wrestling took place. We came back, muzzle in hand, Mutt wriggly as ever.

"Sorry," I said, slightly bloody and very slobbery. The tech put a slip knot leash on him and went away.

A few minutes later, the vet came back. I felt sheepish. My dog can be humiliating at times.

"That was easy. We're just going to finish everything. He's a lot more relaxed when your not here. He's probably trying to protect you from us."

*

Well, damn.


I laughed and through up my hands in surrender. The vet left the room, i fiddled with the RFID scanner. (The vet would later scan him. -beep- "Oh, that's cute, you talk to computers!")

I must admit, I had never really thought about the possibility of my dog protecting me...

 

Which is made of of this...

Trying to protect me. Brave, strong, and noble are not adjectives The Dog garners at first examination.  The situation is, by our account, the other way around. I keep him out of traffic. Fed. Out of fights, out of trash, and generally have to act like a helicopter dad to keep vet trips on the ixnay. I like my vets a lot, from a distance. I shoot him with rubber bands and water when he barks. We always joke about how happy he'll be when the burglars break the windows to get in. New friends and a dog door! I write this with a firm and steady hand: I have done nothing to incentivize or ingratiate my dog to defending my well being.

Our dog is not a weapon. More of a smelly doorstop.

However, the protective explanation would explain why our efforts to train him to not growl at bicycles, old men, and sometimes visitors fail. The worst incident on record happened when The Girly slipped and fell on ice during a walk, and he went after an elderly lady trying to help her up. I had just chalked this up to his unwillingness to do anything that doesn't have dog treat as a terminal punctuation mark.

Over-protective dog bastard? I'd buy it (along with the 350$ vet bill...).

The vet gave me the card of her favorite trainer.

"She works with rescue pit bulls and Rottweilers."

He lay on the floor and I rubbed his belly while they ran my credit card.

Dog bastard.

Couch Potato

I spent something like 6-8 hours trying to get my laptop (running ubuntu 10.10) to cooperate with a webcam so I could see if the dog really was sleeping on the couch.

It seemed so simple:

A) Install Zoneminder
B) Plug in web cam
C) Beer!

Instead, it went something like this:
A) Install Zoneminder
B) Plug in web cam
   b.1) Check to see if web cam works, discover that Zoneminder doesn't like it for some reason.
   b.2) Try every setting available on Zoneminder, to no avail
   b.3) Apply some "fixes" to Zoneminder perl. Camera now works with green and black garbage images.
   b.4) Crash Zoneminder several times
   b.5) Read a bunch on Zoneminder wiki and forum.
   b.6) Work through crashes to test every combination of settings, to no avail
   b.7) Read enough to piece together that something new has crept into the code that hates the camera/driver combination
   b.7) sudo apt-get remove zoneminder
C) Install Motion
D) Beer!

The deep irony is, of course, that The Girly walked in from work, and there was the dog, sleeping on the couch.