Digital Analogue

Six to twelve inches, such bull

The newspaper was predicting ten inches of snow for today and the usual websites 6–12". My ass. That's more than a foot out there, and it's wet, sticky snow at that, so an enormous pain in the ass to shovel. They've plowed Broad St about ten times just in the last two or three hours—and it stopped snowing long before that—but they still haven't been plowing side streets, so even if I had done my driveway (and I haven't), I'd not be able to go anywhere with my car. Plus, I'm not sure I could get back up the driveway again.

My next-door neighbour actually spent almost six hours on the road this morning: two trying to get to work up in the Quad Cities (but only getting as far as Woodhull, because I-74 wasn't plowed), then a while getting back to Galesburg, then he was going to stop at the Hy-Vee on Henderson for supplies, but that exit from 34 was closed because of an accident, and then the Main St exit was under more than a foot of snow, so they stopped him from going on, but wouldn't let him turn around or go back. They kept him there for about two hours before he could finally come home. And then his pickup truck couldn't make it up the driveway, so he had to dig out the shovel and try to clear enough of a path. He has a snowblower, but it appears to be cold-blooded—worked fine when he tested it a month ago, in 50° weather, but wouldn't start today. Last I heard he was going to try warming it on an engine heater block to see if that helped (but by that point he'd gotten the truck up the driveway, so it was less urgent).

For my part, I have a chorus rehearsal tonight, and I'm wondering how many people will be there; a lot of the group come from some distance away, and may be snowed in. I also have some stuff I need to get printed and done at school, but I think I'll just put that off until I get back from New Orleans, because I have basically no way to get there other than walking, and I'd rather not trudge through snowdrifts for twenty minutes if I don't have to.

UPDATE: rehearsal cancelled at the last minute, when they realised that although we could get into the church, there was no place for anyone to park!

"I would believe only in a God that knows how to Dance." --Nietzsche

But it avails him not

A dog who is about to get a bath but does not want one looks so sad. (Smells better afterwards, though....)

"Memo to the City of Chicago: Crossing the street should not require tide charts." --Shalom Owen

Flunk Day II: Flunk Day Bites Back

My 142 exam was scheduled to go out today and be due Thursday. That seemed a little short, and so I'd thought of switching it to a Friday due date; but I wasn't sure, because this is totally Flunk Day season, and if Flunk Day were Thursday or Friday that would push my Friday due date to Monday, and midterm grades are due that day. So I put off changing it, and worked late into the night to put together the exam, graded homeworks, and so on, and when I finally went to sleep for a few hours I still hadn't prepped today's lectures. This is not unusual, actually, and it's the reason why I tend to spend 3rd and 4th hour sequestered in my office, feverishly writing out notes for lecture.

So I got up, took my shower, and was walking my dog---running late as usual, but hoping to get to my 9:20 Music Theory class close to on time---when Judy leans out her back door and says: "Ok, I have to ask, is today Flunk Day?" And I thought: "!" Because in all my figurings on how this is Flunk Day season, it never occurred to me that today might be the day. And despite not going to bed until after 6, I hadn't checked my email, and so I just didn't know. I rushed inside to find the dean's email: "YES-IT'S FLUNK DAY"

Well, that sure took a load off. At a somewhat more leisurely pace, I packed up a bag of dog stuff (including water bottle and bowl as well as plastic bags and toys), grabbed my dorky Bermuda hat, and loaded Nutmeg into the car to go to his, and my, second Flunk Day.

In all honesty, I simply cannot imagine a more perfect Flunk Day. The weather was the warmest it's been since September, the day clear with just a hint of clouds to accentuate the blue sky. As I arrived, about 9:30, the mud and foam pits were wrapping up, although I got gotten by one of my former students with a supersoaker first thing. Nutmeg was a hit (of course), and we wandered around the campus for about an hour and a half, chatting with people and watching the fun. Walking a dog, by the way, is a great excuse to be just wandering around aimlessly.

I ate lunch a little after 11 and then wandered some more (gotten again, this time by Erin, a ballroomer, who debarked from the slip-and-slide and gave me a great big hug), eventually landing in a circle of math and CS faculty for about a half an hour. At this point, Nutmeg was starting to get a little antsy, so I took him home. Lacking anything resembling a full night's sleep, I decided to take a nap for an hour and a half. This got me up at 3pm, and I thought about going back to sleep, but then I figured, hey, Flunk Day's just once a year, right? So I headed back in for another round.

I arrived at 3:30, just in time to catch the last of the Sno-Cones, and then head over to the Faculty-Friars softball game at 4, to kick the students' asses again this year. It was at this point that I received the first notice that I made the front page of the Register Mail---apparently I'm the photogenic face (or at least the photogenic crouched profile) of the Knox County Peace and Justice Coalition, which dedicated their Peace Tree yesterday.

We did, in fact, kick the asses of the students (well, by "we" I mean "other members of the faculty team", although I at least managed to achieve my goal of not embarrassing myself). Afterwards, I grabbed dinner on the Gizmo patio with Nathan, who was feeling a bit guilty about not granting a Flunk Day extension for a paper due tomorrow---it had already been extended once, but then, it's Flunk Day. I think the thing that tipped the balance was when I pointed out that if he didn't extend it, he'd just get a lot of crappy papers tomorrow. So he went off to send that email, and I returned to my car to trade my hat for a long-sleeved shirt and a blanket to sit on, for the concert.

I think I skipped the concert last year, but this year's was an a cappella group from Minneapolis named Marcoux Corner. The concert was great, hitting a variety of genres and (in true a cappella style) a bunch of songs that you wouldn't have expected to work without accompaniment. After being spoiled by the rich a cappella tradition at Brown, with groups of a dozen or so that rotate as various members graduate, it was fun to see a group of just four guys give such an awesome show. A highlight of the show was when they launched into a song and after just three words, a whole section of students started laughing and cheering. The opening verse didn't seem to warrant such attention, but the payoff was when they hit the refrain: they... well, why don't you just listen? (SO not work-safe. Seriously, don't click that link if there's anyone judgemental around.) If you can't listen to that where you are, I suppose the lyrics will do. (More, though not entirely, work-safe. Caveat lector.) Possibly the funniest part about the whole affair was when Terry Jackson, a Knox administrator who was sitting next to me, kept going on about it, and trying to remember where she'd heard it before---it's a Da Vinci's Notebook song, as she eventually managed to remember.

A few of us hung around and talked to the bass from the group for a while, but eventually they had to pack up, and it was dark and time for the movie to start anyway. The movie, Spider-Man II, was to be projected on an enormous (heh) inflatable (heh) screen, probably forty feet tall, erected (...) in front of Old Main. A much more efficient way to have a temporary outdoor movie screen than the heavy scaffolding I've seen some other places, although you do have to contend with the occasional wrinkle in the projection surface. The movie was great---I'm at least sympathetic to the idea that it was better than the original, though I haven't decided for sure myself. Nathan (who I ended up sitting next to again for the movie) claimed it was, and that it would be even better if the first 75 minutes of angst had been cut to about 45 minutes of angst, which is probably about right. On the other hand, they were certainly getting a lot of mileage out of dumping on Peter Parker every which way they could.

After the movie, the crowds dispersed fairly quickly, leaving surprisingly little mess behind them. I folded Nathan into the passenger seat of my Mini and gave him a ride home, and then arrived back here at about 10:30.

It almost feels like it should be an intercalary day. That tomorrow will be the real Monday, the real 18th of April. (As an aside, wouldn't it be nice if you could engineer that every once in a while?) I shouldn't have to put my garbage out tonight, because I didn't do any of the other usual Monday things. I should be prepping for my Monday classes, not my Tuesday free day.

The experience was fantastic. The vast majority of the college was there for at least one event, and probably most of the college---students, staff, and faculty---went to several. Hundreds of us went to the concert. Hundreds went through the inflatable obstacle course and slip-and-slide. Forty or so people played in the softball game, but at least a hundred people were watching. It's these shared experiences that help the College to bond as a community, and it's these memories that we will reminisce about a decade from now. Flunk Day is a fabulous event that it's too bad more colleges don't have.

"Whatever visceral appeal the "Life Begins When Sperm and Egg Walk Into a Bar" position may hold, it remains factually inaccurate; only a fringe of the medical community accepts the notion that emergency contraception is an abortifacient." --Dahlia Lithwick

It's *everywhere*

I gave Nutmeg a bath last night, and this seems to have triggered his spring shed. Just looking at him causes him to emit a cloud of discarded fur, and the results of him shaking are simply not to be believed.

Brush, brush, brush. Sigh.

"If you walk/swim far enough, everything is west of St. Louis. Including, amazingly enough, St. Louis." --David Singleton

Roughing it

I drove back to Galesburg this morning via Galva, to pick up my dog. Nutmeg must have enjoyed his time at the Lucky Dog Lodge, because when I arrived he ran out to greet me, shaking with excitement, and then immediately tried to run back in. :) He got an A+ on his report card, and I'm quite happy with the service---I fully plan to use them again if I need to kennel Nutmeg for more than a day or two. (My vet's kennel is a lot more convenient for the shorter stays.)

The road to Galva was simply plastered with signs welcoming back the National Guard unit that (just this weekend, I gather) arrived back from Iraq. They started several miles away from town, and literally every changeable-letter sign along the way had some sort of "welcome back" message. That was pretty cool.

Back in Galesburg, I set about getting things back in order. It seemed a little chilly in my apartment; it often does when my downstairs neighbour isn't home for a couple days, since she controls the thermostat and without her coming and going, her apartment doesn't cool off as much. But I checked a thermometer and it was actually just 60°! And colder downstairs. I put a call in to the landlord, but until I get a response I do at least have a space heater. And just a few moments ago I thought of hanging a sheet across the doorway into the kitchen, which is already being surprisingly effective at keeping heat in. Then I made tea, and I'm just about to take a pizza out of the oven. I'll have to bake something tonight. It'll keep the kitchen livable at least. :)

The best case: Get salary from America, build a house in England, live with a Japanese wife, and eat Chinese food.
Pretty good case: Get salary from England, build a house in America, live with a Chinese wife, and eat Japanese food.
The worst case: Get salary from China, build a house in Japan, live with a British wife, and eat American food. --Bungei Shunju

Pratfalls

I suppose I should feel bad for this, but I find a cute little twenty-pound dog tripping over one of his toys to be completely adorable. He looks so surprised!And you really don't see dogs trip that often, really. So it even has the added benefit of novelty.

"It doesn't outrage me that roughly half of you disagree. But it does outrage me to hear my position disparaged as capitulation to terror, sympathy for Osama bin Laden, soft-headedness or a shallow desire to advance domestic liberal social programs no matter what the risks." --Eric Zorn

My dog is so smart

This morning, on our walk, I told him to "leave it"---the command I use to mean variably "stop barking at that squirrel", "stop licking that food wrapper", "don't even think about eating that piece of poo", etc.---and he looked up at me and then looked straight at the pocket I keep my treats in, expectantly. Evidently "leave it" now means "I'll give you a treat if you look at me right now", and more importantly, he's trained me to offer him a treat every time he goes sniffing at something unsavoury. Hmm.

Earlier this week, he was laying down in the hallway chewing on a rope toy, and I sighed and said, "I have to go to work now. You know what that means..." and he did! With no further prompting, he stood up and trotted into the kitchen, into his dog bed, and looked back at me sadly. I gave him a big old treat and he seemed somewhat mollified.

And my no-leash-at-night policy was vindicated already last night. It was cold and rainy and I just didn't want to go outside. I let him out, he peed, and then he raced right back in to get the treat he knew was waiting for him. And I stayed completely dry. Success!

"No matter how you feel about Bush, watching him speak is difficult. It's like watching a drunk man cross an icy street." --Tucker Carlson

GOOD dog

Well, tonight marks a major, important moment in my relationship with my dog. What on earth, you ask? Well, I let him out back without a leash.

It was super-scary, actually, but I had to do it at some point if I was to achieve my goal: sometime before the first snow, I want to be able to let him out the back door to relieve himself while I stand up on the somewhat-less-cold enclosed porch. And it's starting to get cold, and no time like the present, right? So I pulled out my big-bucks treats, some variety of Beggin Strips I think, and I waved them under his nose immediately before opening the porch door and letting him out.

For his part, he actually was reluctant to even step off the stairs without me. I actually had to go outside as far as the sidewalk before he'd run onto the grass. He did, and he went, and he ran right back when I called him inside. And he got his treats.

Whew.

"The intuitive bottom line on the Macintosh versus PC productivity debate is actually pretty simple: I've never met a PC user whose focus on the job he or she was supposed to be doing wasn't significantly diluted by the need to accommodate the PC and its software, but I've never met a business Mac user who considered the machine anything other than a tool, like a telephone or typewriter, for getting the job done." --Paul Murphy

Doggies

For a couple days I'm dogsitting---Mom & Dad are visiting Kathy in Ames, and they dropped off Cinnamon at my place. It's interesting seeing the two of them interact; they really have very different personalities. I don't remember this happening when Nutmeg visited my parents, but I think he's a little jealous of when I give attention to Cinnamon....

And Cinnamon is much more canny when it comes to getting into things. Nutmeg has for months been successfully blocked in the kitchen by the simple expedient of leaning a card table in the doorway. Cinnamon instantly figured out that he could stick his nose in the narrow gap between the bottom of the card table and the door jamb. Even after I blocked this gap with my wine rack, it took him less than an hour to charge the bottom of it to make it tip over.

Today, I pushed the card table flush with the doorway and held it up with a chair (with a heavy box on it to prevent him from moving or jumping on top of it. Also, I again pushed the wine rack to block where the gap used to be before I pushed the table flush. I'm still not sure how, but in the six hours I was gone during the day, he managed to move the wine rack out of the way and pull the card table back, enough to give him and Nutmeg room to wander the apartment.

Tonight, before I left to supervise the programming contest practice, I put another chair in front of the table. So now there's a collapsed card table, two chairs, and a wine rack blocking this doorway. It worked! We'll try it again tomorrow.

It is not necessary to say anything the opposite of which is absurd. --Clive Moss

Dude, lighten up.

So I'm walking my dog this morning, and as I'm walking past an apartment building, a guy pulls up in a pickup truck to go into the building office. But when he gets out, the grumpy old man starts yelling at me. It seems that I should be keeping my dog in my yard, as "this is an office, and people are coming and going through this area". Buh? I think Nutmeg peed in the grass there, although I wasn't really paying close attention; he certainly hadn't left any presents there (and I would have cleaned that up anyway). I responded in a somewhat befuddled manner that he'd only peed, and the guy said, "yeah, but people still have to walk through it!" Then he made a loud noise of disgust and stomped off into the building.

Bizarre. I mean I'm not going to be losing any sleep over this, but I just had to share.

"It's true! He totally is! In a roundabout way, he reminds me of Chris Rock's stand up routine where he says that people have two options: good relationship and boring, or bad relationship and exciting.... Alan Keyes is the GOP's bad boyfriend." --Leigh Anne Wilson

Right now

My dog is methodically licking every square millimetre of the side of my desk chair. I have no idea what is so appealing about it, but he's not easily distracted from the task.

Been busy for the last week, but I do remain alive. (Ah, ha, ha, ha...) Hopefully I'll get around to posting more soon.

"Bush may not have been born stupid, but he has achieved stupidity, and now he wears it as a badge of honor." --Jacob Weisberg

Cinco de Mayo

I saw the first lightning bugs of the year last night when letting the dog out back. Actually, I don't really remember seeing them for the last few years, what with not really having yards and such.

Obedience school today? Nutmeg was not nearly so bad as last week. Even with all the other dogs there, I was able to keep him attentive to me and and doing what I said. Until, that is, Emily (the instructor) walked up---she had bits of hot dog in her pockets, see, and I just couldn't compete with that kind of hard cash. Clearly I need to go shopping before next week. :)

"We're all condemned to certain death, after which there may or may not be a bonus round." --Cary Tennis

SLEEP

The last few weeks, I feel like I've just always been tired. Even when averaging over seven hours a night. Yesterday, after having gotten almost seven hours of sleep the night before, I got home at 2-ish to let Nutmeg out, and when I came back in, I sat down on the floor to play with him, and ended just laying down right there and falling asleep. Until, get this, 6pm. Which was when my dog woke me up; I took him for a quick trip outside and came back in, where I took off my shoes and figured I'd lay down in my bed for a few hours. I woke up at midnight, thought, "huh, never fed the dog, well, he's not complaining", and went back to sleep. Same again a few hours later. He finally got me up at 8am, for which I can hardly blame him. That was, let's see, about 18 hours of sleep. I must have needed it, but it's not like I've been particularly sleep deprived lately. Certainly nowhere near the levels I sustained for over a decade through high school, college, and most of grad school.

Anyway, I went to the vet this morning to wrap up Nutmeg's roundworm treatment and pick up his tapeworm treatment (ah, pound puppies), and also picked up a flea preventative. The tapeworm stuff goes in his food, so he'll get it tonight, but the flea stuff is a little bit of liquid that gets put on the scruff of his neck. He's now spent the last ten minutes freaking out about it; he didn't mind the application, but almost immediately afterward started rolling around and flipping over and growling. I can only assume a causal relationship. Perhaps next month I'll try the other kind of flea stuff.

"Yes [I swing that way], but whereas many of our gay friends prefer to swing for the fences, I prefer to bunt." --insafemode

Redux

And the day was great fun, except for the one super-scary moment.

After this morning's post, I went home to let the dog out and brought him back with me. He was super-excited to meet all the people (and eat all the crap they dropped in the grass). I meandered through the festivities, from lunch on the patio to the other side of Seymour where a big group was playing Ultimate and they'd set up a variety of different inflatable games (like an obstacle course, a gladiator game, and a human foosball arena). Oh, and the mechanical bull. Everywhere, students---who never see dogs---were gushing with adoration for my cute little puppy.

After over an hour of this, I ran into Chris, who wanted to meet at some point today (and who can blame him---we've set a partial deadline of Friday for some of his thesis work!), and we decided to just meet then. Dog and all. :) Initially, Nutmeg was ok in the office, but he just kept crying to go back outside, which made things a little difficult, but we managed. Then I went back to wandering around, and eventually he started barking at random things, so I took him home.

At home, he finally got to meet Judy's other dog Rusty, which was cute and ate up another twenty minutes before I brought him in and blocked him in the kitchen so I could go play softball.

At 4:00 was the Faculty-Friars softball game. A "Friar", in this context, is one of the twenty or so people that got woken up at 3:30 this morning to go off, start drinking, and then run Flunk Day. (Sensible, no?) And every year, in the afternoon, they face off with the faculty in a friendly game of 16" softball. (Which, by the way, a number of the new faculty had never even heard of, to my amusement.) Apparently, it's usually pretty close.

This year it wasn't, really; and they didn't even seem that drunk---the faculty creamed them. Go us! I played outfield, and caught the second out of the game, and fielded another ball later on that was decently played but didn't amount to anything; and all my at-bats resulted in respectable hits, although I never got to run it in.

The top of the last inning, the faculty was at bat and had brought in a few runs, when one of the scariest things I've ever seen happened. One of the profs swung the bat and it slipped from his hands at extremely high speed, straight at the faculty dugout area, at about eye level. One prof ducked and another threw her hands up---thank goodness, as it would've got her square in the face otherwise and probably, seriously, killed her. As it was, in the two seconds it took everyone to get to her side, the back of her hands already had inch-high mounds on them from the broken blood vessels. I ran to the relief table, which had gatorade and band aids but NO ICE, but someone grabbed a cup and ran into the cafeteria to get some, which I ran back. Both hands had huge lumps on the back of them by this point, and a moment later security pulled up in their Mule to take her off the field. Another prof went to the hospital with her. Here's hoping nothing was broken, but I don't really see how that's possible!

By common agreement, we continued the game (the fac dugout moved back a bit, though), and for the bottom of that inning we even gave them loaded bases and three extra outs, but we still won. Yay us.

Now to head home and pick up Nutmeg to go to our first day of obedience school. Should be fun!

"Pot takes an obnoxious asshole teenage boy, and makes him kinda tolerable." --Dan Savage

Antics

The other day, I'd left Nutmeg alone for maybe seven hours---longer than usual---and so of course when I got home he really wanted to go out. We did, and the neighbourhood kids converged on him instantly. He sort of ran his shoulder into the ground, like he kind of wanted to roll over and let them pet him, and kind of not. One of the kids asked what was wrong with him, and I said he probably just needed to go to the bathroom. Sure enough, the kids eventually got him on his back and started petting him, and he managed to release a stream of urine that arced over his head, narrowly missing the kids. Then they let us go over to the other side of the yard to take care of business. And you know what? Now they don't pester us immediately after we hit the door. Overall, I consider the whole thing a positive learning experience.

The worms came back on Thursday, and this morning I gave him the second dose of the worm medicine. Hopefully, that's the end of that.

This morning, on our walk, we saw a snake! It was the first time I'd ever seen one in person, aside from at a zoo or that one time the animal guy came to our school when I was in junior high. Maybe about a centimetre in diameter, and it would have been about two feet long if it stretched out, I think. I didn't really get a good look at its markings, because I was busy pulling Nutmeg back and walking on, and fortunately it wasn't aggressive or anything. Freaked me out, though.

And finally, just now, he fell off the back of the couch. After I stopped laughing, I pulled him out. He's now rather reticent on laying down up there, although he still wants to be able to see, so he gets in the weirdest positions. :)

"The gay community can do nothing 'for gay youth', other than keep our hands off 'em." --Dan Savage

Not for the squeamish

Today I was walking my dog, and as dogs do when out on a walk, he found a spot and started to poo.

It seemed to be taking longer than usual, and then he moved a little but was still in that funny stance, and I walked around to look---the last bit was stuck to him and not going anywhere. Yuck.

Lacking a better response, I put on the plastic bag with which I normally just clean up after him, and try to knock it out, thinking it just needed a little jostle or something. It wouldn't release, and of course Nutmeg was Not Very Happy about all this, and kept scurrying away as I tried to swipe at his butt with a plastic bag. I couldn't hold him, of course, because my one hand held the leash and the other was busy with the bag.

Finally I managed to grab onto the turd and pulled at it. There was the faintest little snapping feeling, Nutmeg (poor dog!) yelped higher and louder than I've ever heard him before, and having solved the problem I realised what it was: at some point he had licked up a strand of my hair, which had proceeded to embed itself half in the shit he'd shat and half not. Oops!

The net result was a slightly discomfited dog, a slightly grossed-out owner, and a slightly late Operating Systems class. The things we do for our dogs.

"So, if you're a sparrow with a whale... fist 'er." --Dan Savage

Worms!

Yesterday as I was taking Nutmeg for his morning walk, I made a discovery. I went to clean up after him, and sitting there were about three little worms. They looked like angel-hair pasta or something; about two or three inches long, maybe a millimetre in diameter, and definitely round. Ugh. So, after I got back to the house, I called the vet and asked about it.

Since I had just administered his heartworm medication on Thursday evening, that probably made a few of them let go, and that's how I discovered them. But to really get them out of his system I needed to give him some roundworm medication---1cc of banana-flavoured medicine that I have to put in his mouth with a funky syringe thing, once now and once in two weeks. Subsequently, the heartworm medication I give him once a month should keep away any further infestation.

Yuck.

"Apple doesn't support the plus sign." --Apple tech support

With catlike tread

My dog has just discovered how to climb up and walk along the back of my couch. This gives him a great view out the window, even when he lays down (on the back of the couch).

I'm beginning to wonder if I have a mouse or something back there, because he discovered this tactic in a relentless effort to get at what's under/behind my couch. I've looked a couple times, with no result, but he's really persistent. It's freaking me out a bit, to be honest.

"I'm trying to keep her from killing your wife!" --Will Parker
"Mind your own business!" --Ali Hakim, "Oklahoma!"

Thunderstorms.

At least, that's my best guess as to what made my dog crazy this morning. He got me up at 7, whining and crying, so I took him out (in the pouring rain, I might add), but he refused to so much as pee. After a few minutes, I brought him back in, dried him off a little with a towel, fed him, and decided to go back to bed for an hour. About twenty minutes later he started crying again, and this time when I took him out he finally peed after like five minutes; and then he kept up his crying after we got back in. What's weird, though, is that the whining wouldn't start at the lightning or thunderclaps, but at random times. So I have no idea.

This afternoon, when I got home, he was just fine. At least, as long as he was occupied downstairs; he kept staring up my attic stairs and whining, looking at me, and looking up them and whining some more---he'd go up and come down and then start the routine again. I checked; nothing there. Again, no clue what set him off.

I did, however, spend about an hour outside with him on the 12' lead tied to the laundry pole, and we worked on "Nutmeg, Come!" for about ten minutes. He seemed to be getting it pretty fast; of course, the training treats may have aided in that regard, somewhat.

"Sign a few contracts, the well-intentioned advise, and you'll get all the same rights as straight couples—that's an outrageous fiction, but not as outrageous as the notion that being almost equal under the law is good enough." --Laura Conaway

DOG

I'm now the proud companion of a 1-year-old male corgi-sheltie mix. After inspecting the apartment, and spending a fair amount of time in my beanbag, he is now sprawled on my green rug, sleeping. Good boy!

Now I just need to come up with a name. "Zwei" is really tempting (can anyone guess why?) but he doesn't quite have the right look. Aside from that, I was thinking perhaps "Nutmeg" or something, to go along with "Cinnamon". I'm sure I'll come up with something good, but I really have to do it soon, because I feel like a dufus trying to get his attention without a name to call.

I'll get pictures up at some point, but I'm tired now and I really still should write my lectures for tomorrow. He's really, cute, though; the sheltie-type fur is very puppylike, especially when it's short. He has the huge corgi ears, except that his right ear stands up properly while his left ear flops down. It's absolutely adorable.

"Too many people see religious hypocrites and think that the only alternative is to become irreligious." --Fr Henry Bodah