No not necessarily as in dogs that you go hunting with, but rather hunting for a new dog - that is how I spent a good deal of today with my wife. First it was up and at em cleaning up my mini-zoo. Then off to the North Hempstead Animal Shelter to check out the dogs. We saw a really friendly Lab mix (if you talk to the folks at the shelter) or Shepard mix (if you believe what it says on their site about the same dog). It was supposed to be only 10 months old, the claim was it was housebroken, it was friendly, good mannered on the leash, understood some commands, and deferred to the overpowering authority of our small chihuahua Pepe when he snarled at her. She was not the prettiest dog, but was easy on the eye. The only bad point was she was overweight. Not good for a 10 month old dog. We withheld judgement and headed over to the ASPCA shelter in NYC. There we took the tour and looked at all the available dogs, except the one we wanted to see. I had been there 3 days ago and saw a really nice looking Lab/Weimaraner mix (or so they claimed). It looked the part though. Today they said it was out on a walk, and would be back soon. Soon wound up being about a 1 1/2 to 2 hour wait for us. When we saw her, the lady who showed her to us was none to certain why she had been adopted then returned to the shelter. Being it cost $200 to adopt her (yes that is what the ASPCA is charging as her adoption fee, as opposed to the $29.50 fee of the North Hempstead Animal Shelter) there must have been a compelling reason that the last person brought her back to the ASPCA. A few days ago they told me it was something to do with the other adopter not being able to care for her, or something else benign. Today we find out she was going into the kitchen, somehow getting into the kitchen sink to grab dishes, then breaking them when they fell to the floor. Sounded hyper like. She was a bundle of energy, and I like that as she was very playful. Thing is she peed all over the floor without a bit of hesitation, and I had been told she was making inside and outside and was almost housebroken, which I guess really was code for not near housebroken at all.
Both dogs were responsive, apparently about a year old (though the first one looked older maybe because she was overweight), knew some commands, and got along good enough with the tiny terror Pepe. The first was much more mellow, easy on the leash, and friendly. The second was better looking, had more desire to play, was friendly, but pulling on the leash and hyper, and as I said made a mess while we were there. Decisions, decisions. We left both behind, and will think about it since we are in no rush. I sure like the playfulness of the second one, but am none to sure I want a dog that needs to be housebroken, especially one that weighs about 60 pounds, oh those messes! Decisions, decisions.
Here is a link to a set of pics of the first one at the North Hempstead Animal Shelter: http://www.petfinder.com/petnote/displaypet.cgi?petid=10435127.
No links available for the other one.
Got tomorrow to think about it if I want to scoop one up on Monday. I have all week to think about it if we want to look for another beasty next weekend. Decisions, decisions. Hunting dogs is not as easy as I had thought (although I can tell you, that $29.50 adoption fee is tempting compared to the $200.00 one).
All the best,
Glenn B
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Today In History - et tu Brute
Screw the fabricated Shakespeare lingo, let's go way back in the way-back machine to see what someone much closer to the source (in the temporal aspect) had to say about today in 44 AD. As per Wikipedia, according to Plutarch (Greek Historian and fabricator, how appropriate when found in Wikipedia) :
"A certain seer warned Caesar to be on his guard against a great peril on the day of the month of March which the Romans call the Ides; and when the day had come and Caesar was on his way to the senate-house, he greeted the seer with a jest and said: "The Ides of March has come,..." .
"A certain seer warned Caesar to be on his guard against a great peril on the day of the month of March which the Romans call the Ides; and when the day had come and Caesar was on his way to the senate-house, he greeted the seer with a jest and said: "The Ides of March has come,..." .
I think you know what happened after that, but if not, here it is in a nutsack: Julius Caesar went on his way to a meeting with the Roman Senate. His friend, and loyal Roman, Mark Anthony had learned of the plot and tried to get to him in time to warn him but was out maneuvered by the conspirators. On his way, Caesar was met by a group of senators near a Roman theater, and they went to a room therein to work on a petition. Clever were those Romans, they used a typical ploy that even would work today, getting a rat politician into a backroom to carry out behind the scenes dirty politics. Caesar, in my best guess, probably thought he was going to get what was coming to him in the form of a nice fat bribe. What he got though was something else, he got what was coming to him in the form of realization that the seer had been correct when those in the group of senators attacked him and stabbed him to death. Supposedly, 60 senators took part (must have been a big room) and he was stabbed over 23 times. Included among those senators was Brutus, fiendish backstabbing murdering bastard one time friend of Caesar (a friend up to that moment as far as Caesar had known).
I guess Caesar should have listened to what the seer had to say in the earlier prediction of that day, and to the words of the seer on that day itself. Oh did I forget to mention the seer's reply to Caesar's jest? Here it is, and maybe Caesar should have taken heed:
"Yes, the Ides of March has come, but it has not passed."
If you want to see more about the assassination of Julius Caesar, or about the Ides of March, you can go to my source for the above:
I am sure there has been lots of other stuff written about all this that you could find elsewhere with just a little effort.
All the best,
Glenn B
DELL - Rocks
At least their XPS premiere tech service does. I called them tonight because there were a bunch of problems that came up, a couple of different blue screens showing u when i started my PC, then when I tried to shut it down the fans went into overdrive and it would not shut off until I pulled the power cord. Well I was pissed because let us just say that hypothetically speaking I know someone in my house screwed up on the PC, and I know who it was, though my son admits nothing and denies everything, or so I suppose he will when i confront him about this (must have learned that from me). I tried to fix it to no avail, then got on the horn to Dell. After a 37 minute wait (very long, they usually picked up within a few minutes for the XPS service the few times I called in the past) I got a nice guy on the phone who ran through a list of possibilities with me as he tried to diagnose the problem. he had it sort of figured out in about 45 minutes or so, then he had to work me through the fix. That took somewhat longer, but it is apparently working now. He figured that somehow the video drivers got corrupted, I wonder how that could have happened. Whatever, he got it working, and you know what - my old Micron would have been up the creek without a paddle or even a canoe, because I am pretty sure Micron would have told me to pound sand because it was a software problem. This Dell is 4 years old, with 1o more months of warranty, and they got right to fixing it - software problem or not! I have to commend them, the techie did a damn good job. All in all I spent over 2 hours 40 minutes getting it fixed. But now that is out of the way, so maybe later today, I can get back to some serious blogging.
All the best,
Glenn B
All the best,
Glenn B
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