Category: Personal

Items of personal interest to me, my family and my friends.

Brownies

Bobby 2 Comments

Not sure how much I've written about my hounds, but just to recap I'll give everyone a review.

I have two dogs. Lucy is my Beagle, and she's 4 years old. She was a birthday present from my sister back in 2002 and she's been a great dog. She has some of the normal Beagle issues, but overall she is a great companion.

After a couple years I started to realize that I just couldn't spend as much time with Lucy as I would like, so I decided to get her a friend. After extensive pondering I settled on a Basset Hound. This conclusion was based on two things, first I wanted to keep with the naming scheme and get her an Ethel. A Basset named Ethel seemed like a logical choice (no disrespect to Vivian Vance intended). The other determining factor was the fictional Basset Hound, Flash, from the Dukes of Hazzard. My childhood memories of the Dukes gave me the perception that Basset Hounds were lazy dogs that would just lay around and be no trouble. At the time, I had no idea how wrong this idea was.

Lucy and Ethel in a chair

My Brother-in-Law's mother found me a Basset Hound from her neighbor out in Kearny Nebraska. She acquired a Basset for me, we drove halfway to Nebraska and thus Ethel joined my family.

Ethel wasn't quite what I expected. I expected her to be laid back and sleepy, quite the opposite she has been a ball of fire. She is likes to chew, craves attention, never sits still and is constantly in to everything – which brings me to today's story.

Ethel in the sun

Sunday afternoons are a good time for me to watch the football game and get a few things done around the house. While cleaning the kitchen I found some chocolate brownies from a couple weeks ago that didn't get eaten and threw them in the trash. A few minutes later, after catching a few minutes of the game on the downstairs TV, I discovered the empty pan on the floor. Of course, Ethel was the prime suspect, but I wanted to be sure. I grabbed Lucy and smelled her breath – normal dog. Ethel, on the other hand, smelled like she had just had dinner at the Hershey factory.

Being the good parent I am, I was immediately concerned. The toxicity of chocolate to dogs is well known. I turned to the best reference source in the house, my computer, and did a little Internet research. Ethel's about 40 lbs and there probably wasn't enough chocolate in the brownies to do her any damage, but how could I take a chance.

Ethel

When a dog eats chocolate there is a time window of 1-4 hours where the worst of the poisoning can be averted by causing the dog to puke. The way to do this is create a Hydrogen Peroxide solution and give it to the dog – this will induce vomiting. The reference site I found suggested using a Turkey Baster, but being a bachelor that has only cooked a couple Turkeys in my whole life, a Turkey Baster isn't in my arsenal of kitchen utensils. I wisely decided it shouldn't be too hard to just us a measuring cup and pour the solution in her mouth. I proceeded to make this solution, usher her outside and attempt to administer the medication. Unfortunately, this didn't work as well as planned. Attempting to hold down a 40lb Basset and pour hydrogen peroxide down her throat is neither fun nor advisable. Many scratches later most of the tonic was on the ground and Ethel was not puking. Undeterred (but irritated because I was missing the Bronocos beating up on the stealers) I came up with plan B. I grabbed a funnel that I keep for kitchen use thinking that getting a funnel in her mouth would be easier than holding it open and pouring out of a measuring cup. This turned out to be a much better plan and the recommended 4 tbsp dosage (or a close approximation) was successfully introduced to Ethel's gullet.

The poor dog got to run around the back yard and dry heave for the next 15 minutes, but, much to my chagrin, didn't vomit any significant portion of the brownies. All out of ideas I finally turned to final resort (which probably should have been my first move) , the local emergency Vet clinic. A girl named Ally answered the phone and reassured me that the brownies likely did not contain enough chocolat to cause any permanent damage. The worst symptom she suspected would be some diarrhea.

In the end, Ethel has not experienced any ill effects from the brownies and I'm recovering from the wounds inflicted by her claws. I guess this crazy Basset will be with me for a while yet.

The downward spiral

Bobby

Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, has an interesting article on the relationship between mood and energy levels. I think he has an interesting insight here – one that can be brought into the realm of fitness and overall physical appearance.

People get caught in 'feedback loops' where their negative actions encourage them to make more negative actions. If a person wakes up in the morning and feels fat and ugly, what do they do? Do they hop out of bed with a smile and head to the gym? Most of us roll over, sleep a few more hours, get up, order a pizza and watch a movie. These actions further decrease our self esteem and worsen our condition. My sister is a beauty consultant and we have discussed this several times. She notices the same thing. If you want to sell makeup you don't approach the women that REALLY NEED IT. Instead you approach women that are fashion concious and attractive. Why? Because you would have to change the attitudes of women that are concerned about their looks and the sale is much to hard. Approaching individuals that are already concerned about their appearance and helping them attain their goals is much more fruitful.

The good news is that the cycle will work in positive ways as well as negative. If you head to the gym, buy well fitting stylish clothes, regularly spend $25 on a haircut, eat right and are concerned about your appearance you can change your motivations. You will want to work out more, buy more clothes, eat better more often and continue to improve yourself. My advice to anyone who wants to change their lifestyle is to start with the little things. Dress better, eat better, meet more people, save a little money, join a gym. Don't start big, but worry about the details. Start working out once a week, then stop having a bowl of ice cream after every meal. It's a long, slow, hard road, but if you start out with small steps eventually you will get there.

Asphalt Jungle

Bobby

My Dad turned 60 today – so as a birthday tribute I thought I’d write a little about him.

Now my Dad probably wasn’t the perfect father, any more than I’ve been the perfect son. Seems like we take something away from every relationship in our lives. When I think about Dad there is one thing, more than any other, that I think he instilled in me that has made a significant impact in my personal and professional life. Dad is a strong believer that all men are created equal – actually that’s not quite true. He has always been a strong believer that he was any man’s equal.

Growing up we were financially poor. Not dirt poor like my grandmother was during the depression, but poor enough that there weren’t many luxuries around. We always seemed to have more time on our hands than money, so if my Dad wanted something he’d build it. He figured that if somebody else was smart enough to create a particular item he could build it. One of his favorite sayings always was “if somebody put it together I can take it apart”. This attitude prevailed throughout my childhood. As a result I laid carpet, rebuilt cars, welded, framed, landscaped, wired, you name it we did it.

My personal favorite anecdote about my Dad’s building skills stems from the time he decided to pave the driveway. We lived about 10 miles outside of town on a little dirt road about a mile long with 3 other houses on it. Our driveway was probably 100 yards long or so and when it rained or snowed the whole driveway and yard was a mudhole. When Mom and Dad first moved there, not long before I was born, it was terrible. Dad hauled gravel in and it gradually got better, but what he really wanted was an asphalt driveway.

My grandparents lived closer in to town and not far from their house was a dump of sorts. On summer in the mid 80’s a road construction crew dumped some used asphalt from a road project in this dump. These days it seems like the paving companies try to grind up the old asphalt and recycle it. Back then they would just rip up huge chunks and dump them. All these big pieces of used road gave my Dad an idea.

During the summer we would often go to my grandparents and help farm their land and a neighbor’s place that my Dad rented. I was probably 13 years old and would spend every day helping out. That summer, at the end of the day, we would go down to the dump and load my Dad’s 69 GMC half-ton pickup with these pieces of asphalt. Often the truck would be severly overloaded and we would have to drive about 15 mph all the way home.

Once we had accumulated a large enough amount of used road we would pile it up and heat it. The most efficient means of cooking the asphalt was to use our weed burner. Those of you not from an agricultural background probably don’t know how a weed burner works. Basically it’s a large lawnmower engine mounted on a large fan. When you start it the fan blows air down an aluminum tube about 10 feet long. A large barrel feeds diesel fuel into this fan and down the tube. Once everything is going a piece of cloth dipped in diesel and attached to a wire is lit on fire and poked up the end of the tube (I usually got to do this). With a woosh the burner would light and shoot flame out the end. We would take this farm implement (on the hottest day of the summer no less) and heat all of our accumulated asphalt to soften it. While I heated it, Dad would take his tractor with the blade and spread it down our driveway.

At the time it seemed like it took forever – in reality it was probably only a few weeks. It took many loads of heavy used road and many hours of cooking and spreading, but by the time we were done we had a (somewhat) respectably paved driveway. Sure, it wasn’t nice and smooth like it would have been if it was done by professional pavers, but like I said we had more money than time. It sure made an impression on my. Now, 20+ years later I can still remember that summe vividly. Loading the rough, heavy asphalt until your hands bled and the truck wouldn’t hold anymore. Standing out in the heat cooking down the used oil. Not an easy thing to forget.

I’ve got many, many stories like that. Summer days working in the truck, piecing 50 year old farm equipment back together since there was no way we could buy anything newer. Spending fall Saturday selling potatoes and a flea market to make ends meet. Irrigating, moving sprinkler pipe, chopping wood in the winter since it was our only form of heat. Building fence, loading cattle, it was a small time operation and we did what we had to do to keep it going. Through it all Dad never once let on that we were any worse off than anyone else. In fact, he managed to convince me that we were smarter and stronger than most. If we couldn’t build it, it wasn’t worth happening. For that (and many other things) I’m truly grateful.

Happy Birthday Dad.

Lack of information

Bobby

What is with people and their websites? Do most people not realize we don’t all know who you are or where you are from? Does it not cross to the average web designer’s mind that the Internet is a GLOBAL thing and visitors only know where you are if you tell them?

Case in point, I have some friends, Larry and Ginger Darrington who run a company named Angel Light Pyrotechnics. They do fireworks s and other pyrotechnic stuff (hence the name).

We saw Larry recently, and he told us about an upcoming air show with a WWII re-enactment that he was shooting for. Explosions, vintage airplanes, sounds like a good time to me. Well, this show is tomorrow, so we decided to go. I couldn’t remember where it was, so I did some searching. Of course, the first place I went was the Angel Light site. They had nice pictures, but not dates/times/locations/directions. Next I started looking for the air show. Hunted all over, finally found a link to the air show from a UK based site (none of the US sites I could find listed it). Finally found the National Radial Engine Exhibition site. Nice picture of a parachuter, and even a admonition to “Come spend the day…”, but no directions, no schedule, no maps, nothing. Even checked the Washington County website, which was (incorrectly) listed in the National Radial Engine Exhibition site, no significant information there either.

Thing is, this show is in Akron Colorado an eastern Colorado farming community of 1700 people. You would think an event like this would be a big deal for the local economy. You would think it would be worthwhile to publicize it a LITTLE.

Sometimes I just don’t get the logic of some of these people

Drop a few

Bobby 4 Comments

In my never ending quest to get in better shape, I’ve started a little calorie counting. Only been going on for a couple days, so we will see how it goes.

Anyway, went out and looked for a good food log site today and found dropafew.com. Drop a Few is an open source project for tracking weight loss and calories. Not bad for a free app, doesn’t look like there is much activity out there, so I hope it isn’t abandoned, but I’m going to try it for a while.

Back from the Coast

Bobby 4 Comments

So, my trip out the west coast is over. This was my first trip to California, and I found it very different than I imagined.

The first thing I noticed was the traffic. Everyone always talks about how bad the Southern California traffic is. Personally I thought it was FANTASTIC. If you don’t live here in Northern Colorado, you might not understand. Our community has an incredibly high traffic cop to driver ratio. In fact I got pulled over myself just a couple weeks ago. Out in Cali it’s completely different. Everyone out there drives with a flagrant disregard for any kind of personal safety. No one even seems to notice the lines that the state so generously painted on the streets. In fact I think California could improve their budget if they just saved all that pigment. Traffic cops were nowhere to be found. It’s a free-for-all and I had a blast (of course my sister, the untrusting individual that she is, didn’t enjoy the roads as much as I did).

The other major eye-opener in San Diego was the lack of Beautiful People™. TV, Movies, popular culture in general creates this image of Southern California as being full of sun-kissed, large breasted, scantily clad, bleached blonde women and statuesque surfer men with rippling muscles wearing wetsuits during the day and Armani at night. This was just not the case. Perhaps different areas fit this stereotype better, but San Diego, Ocean Beach, Pacific Beach, even La Jolla just didn’t give me this impression. On the contrary, population was (generally) split into two different categories. One was the same kind of 30-40 something parents running around in mini-vans and SUVs with their kids that we have in Colorado (this includes the tourists). The other were beach bums that haven’t changed clothes in the last 5 years. You know the kind – the people that are working on (or have) killing all their brain cells with pot. Sure, there was a mix, large hispanic population, plenty of flashy/expensive cars, but overall the biggest difference from here were the bohemian style beach culture. Not what I really expected at all.

Overall, it was a great trip. I’ll probably post more comments, stories and pics in the near future. For now I’m just glad to be home.

When I’m 84

Bobby 6 Comments


My Grandmother had her 84th birthday this July. Anyone who knows her will testify that she’s not like any other 84 year old. Until just a few years ago she was still employed full time at the post office. She still would be, but she had some health problems, so now she’s retired. My grandfather is a farmer, and they still live on the farm – their home since the 1940s.

We all took her out to the Country Buffet (CB), since it’s her favorite place. It’s just about what it sounds like and wouldn’t be my choice, but hey, it wasn’t my birthday.

A good time was had by all. Unfortunately, we didn’t get too many good pictures of her.
Grandma, Grandpa and John
I forgot my camera and Lindsey’s was full from their trip to Iowa, so what you see here is pretty much what we got.

As usual, John was a major hit. Going to be a low blow when he gets a little sister and isn’t always the center of attention.

Great Grandmas Birthday Balloon Hat

After we finished eating Mr. Clay the balloon guy showed up. Since his dad was out of town I took John over to have a balloon made.

It was amazing. We stood there for at least 20 minutes, waiting for John’s turn. He was totally riveted to the balloon man and his creations. For those of you who don’t know, John is more active than most two year olds, the boy never stands still. While waiting for the balloon he stood there holding my hand with only the occasional nervous jump.

Balloon Hat

Finally our turn came. Since John doesn’t talk much, he couldn’t make a request, so I suggested a surprise. Mr. Clay proceeded to ask me how big our car was. Since Lindsey’s Tahoe was at it’s full 8 person capacity, recommended not getting too carried away.

The Balloon man proceeded to make the HUGE hat you see here (not sure what he would have made if I told him we had enough room). I remember thinking that John wouldn’t wear that. He can be kind of difficult that way, but I was wrong. The Balloon Man put it on his head and John wore it all the way home. He was completely fascinated by the whole experience.