Puppy Dog Blue: July 2006

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Randy's Farm

I'm so disappointed. This is the only picture that I was able to salvage from the one night trip to Randy's Farm. When I was downloading the pictures, I should have zigged when I zagged and they are all gone. I'm so disappointed.

Despite that, I arrived at 9:00 on Friday night and was asleep by 10:30. The next morning, we got up and started splitting wood. Randy had a number of hickory trees die over the course of the summer and needed to be cut down and split. Gary and his son, Cody, cooked breakfast and we ate at 9:00. After breakfast Randy, Chuck, myself and Blue went on the four wheelers around Randy's property. After driving for an hour Blue started barking and it was evident that she was extremely tired. So we had to put her on the back of Randy's four wheeler and she couldn't have been happier.

We got back to Randy's house at 10:30 and Gary and Cody were splitting another tree and we started to help until we took a break for lunch. After lunch we finished splitting the second tree and it was time for me to get home. I think I left around 2:00.

This was the first time that I had ever had Blue outside without a leash and the "parent" in me is so nervous to let her go. I experienced this with Rage and I've always been afraid that she'll run away or not come back and the thought of letting her go, which makes her extremely happy, is terrifying. I imagine that parents face this question all the time and I never truly get over the fear of letting something go. It is different with children though, you like to think that you've taught your child to know right from wrong, good from bad, etc. With a puppy dog there's no guarantee that she'll do the right thing or stay close to the house, or not wander off too far. Trust is such an amazing feeling. Nevertheless, I let Blue go and she couldn't have been better. She knew to stay near me and she also knew to come when I called her, which is something that she doesn't always do at home. She kept up with us and she's always good in the car. She was a really good puppy dog this weekend.

Friday, July 28, 2006

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Mashed Potatoes

I am only writing the following for posterity:

Since Miranda's been at home during the summer she has been an absolutely wonderful wife. She has literally had dinner ready when I got home from work. I don't tell her how much I appreciate what she's done, but I really do, I realize that I'm lucky and this fantasy world will end when she school starts back.

Nevertheless, the other day she cooked meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Miranda's recipe for mashed potatoes: potatoes, salt, and pepper. She asked how the mashed potatoes were and I said that they were good but a little dry. She then responded that she cooked the potatoes for 30 minutes. I asked her about the milk and butter that I thought were also ingredients. She had no idea what I was talking about. It was funny and priceless all at the same time.

So I'm back in the real world, no vacation time until Christmas. I noticed that before the vacation, weeks were dragging by, but now they seem to be going by quickly. It is amazing how the mind can affect what we believe is a long time when in reality it is no longer of a period of time than anything else.

I came across a neat website, What I Should Read Next. The concept is simple, type in the name of the book and this will spit out books that you may enjoy. This is handy for me because there are certain books that I really enjoy and I can be a voracious reader at times, but if nothing piques my interest then I really could care less about reading anything. For example, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is my all time favorite book, so perhaps I should be reading these instead of guess what I would like or not like.

By the way, this site also has a music and movie equivalent.

Have you ever thought about your life in terms of a timeline? I've often thought that seeing your life relative to where you are and what you're doing now would be a pretty neat experience. Somewhat out of body if you will. Dandelife will plot your life on a timeline. This is my next internet project, behind trying to keep up with publishing a book of the first year of my little project, and of course, I'm sure there will be a link at sometime.

I'm beginning to think that the point of all of this is that we have to keep doing, don't be complacent, don't just sit there.

Monday, July 24, 2006

Pool Party

Although Miranda and I arrived at the party later that everyone else, here's some pictures from the festivities from Saturday night.Â As a disclaimer, I did not take any of these pictures, Ashley T. took them, so I'm not responsible for all of the pictures of the guys playing water volleyball.

Greg and I getting our grill on, on.

Stephen and Dantabulous.

How unathletic and dejected does Chris look in this picture? It's almost as if he was scared of Team Toney and was bracing for the inevitable, but he got the volleyball smashed in his face for just showing up, up. Also, notice how Stephen's team is laughing or at least smiling and Hetty's team is not.

Ashley, Wendy and Ashley F.

Justin F. digging it.

Danimal getting his set on, on.

Left to right: Stephen, Ryan, Justin F., King, Richie, Hetty, Dantastic.

Hetty, with authority.

Blogged with Flock

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Ultimate Frisbee - Irving, Texas

Today, I traveled to Irving to see my little brother play in an ultimate frisbee tournament. He is part of a mish-mash of a team that is from Austin, and apparently (I think) he's the only college player playing on this team today. TJ's college team is ranked 9th in the nation and you can visit their website at Texas Ultimate. Upon Duk's request, I tried to take as many action shots as possible and if TJ wants prints of any of these he can either order them from my Flickr page or I can email as needed.

These were the clouds as I walked up to the field. I can't remember the last time I saw clouds here in Texas during daylight hours.

This tournament was located at the Las Colinas Polo fields.

The first game was somewhat close, I think the final score was 15-10, team Austin. As I found out, you play for 2 hours or the first team to 15. The following are pictures from that first game.

Action shot, excellent.

This is the beginning of game 2. The first possession, TJ threw a really long pass for a score.

I believe that this is another score by TJ.

I was too late for this picture, this was a really long pass that TJ caught (one of at least two long passes) for a score.

This is TJ expressing his disgust with me and my camera. I guess this means that I need a new camera. I'll just tell Miranda that we won't be getting bedroom furniture anytime soon and I'm sure she'll be fine with that.

Obligatory picture of myself.

Good times, the team that TJ was on was the #1 seeded team and they dominated the second game. I left with the score 10-2 team Austin. I did leave my first two audio posts to assist in describing the action as I was there feeling the action.

Blogged with Flock

Ultimate Frisbee - Audio Post II

Ultimate Frisbee - Audio Post I

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Texas Trans Corridor

Last night my mother and I went to a public hearing on the I-35 Texas Trans Corridor, which the state of Texas is apparently required to have in order to complete it's phase 1 environmental study according to the terms of the Federal Highway Administration and the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. For those of you who don't know, the Texas Trans Corridor is intended to be a new highway which will span approximately 1,200 feet and contain commercial trucking lanes, passenger vehicle lanes, freight train lanes, passenger train lanes, and a utility corridor. Here is the official map for the Texas Trans Corridor. The preferred route is to pass right through my parents' farm. As with all things in life, there are those who are vehemently opposed and those who are in favor of, of. Personally, I would hate to see what my parents worked so hard for be taken away. It simply wouldn't be fair, but the practical side of me knows the political machine is near impossible to stop. The legislation was passed in 2002 and as I stated above, we are already in the phase 1 environmental study.

The best thing I've about this subject with what seems to be some pretty tough questions was this Texas Cattleman article.

Before I get too far, here's the opposition's website, Corridor Watch. Also, here's a Google search for Texas Trans Corridor so that you can see what's out there.

The hearing on Wednesday night was interesting. It started with the folks who are opposed outside of the auditorium wanting all those who oppose to sign up. They let us know that Carole Keaton Strayhorn, who is running for Texas governor, is opposed the the Texas Trans Corridor. Once inside my mother and I signed in and we mingled a bit. I tried to read most of the information presented to us.

Saturday, July 15, 2006

The Last Picture

This is the last picture from our vacation. We drove home late Friday night and this was taken outside the Sonic in Childress, Texas. As I have been trying to document my trip I found out that Yahoo has a pretty neat website called Trip Planner which can be used to document a person's trip. It works with Flickr and it allows you to post a bunch of pictures and commentary without taking up room on your blog.

It's been 3 weeks since we got back and it's been 3 weeks since I took my last picture. I cannot remember the last time I had gone such a span of time without taking a picture. Of course for most this would probably not be a very big deal, but it is for me. So I promise, new content sometime soon.

Finally, I didn't find this until after I wished TJ a happy birthday, but apparently with Audioblogger I can sing happy birthday to the next birthday recipient and have it posted to my blog. Anyone who has a Blogger blog can do this and yes, Miranda hates this idea.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Happy Birthday TJ - #22

Happy Birthday TJ! This is embarrassing, but Mom came by the house today and she reminded me that tomorrow is TJ's birthday and to be quite honest, I had completely forgotten. TJ is almost done with school and I know that he's super-excited to be entering into the work world next year. As I am sure you are well aware, enjoy it while you can, it's downhill from here (downhill in the sense that you'll have a mortgage, a car payment, constant bills, etc.).

Things I Learned While In Colorado:
1. When Miranda sings she has one note. Literally, she sings in one note. At first it's really cute and funny, but after 3 hours of the same note it can get to a fellow.
2. I thought that being in the same car with my wife for 12 hours would ruin our relationship, but it didn't, it was really nice and I think we had a good time despite being in a confined space.
3. We both strangely missed our dogs. In fact, it got to be the last day and we both mentioned how it would be nice to get home to the puppy dogs. Sad, but true.
4. Going and seeing and doing is much better than sitting and reading and tanning.
5. I had a 12 day beard and it was wonderful. I don't think that my boss would really object, but I also think that he wouldn't condone. Perhaps for another time.
5. Miranda and I really do love each other.

On another note, since my wife and I have caught the hiking bug I stumbled across Trail Link. Trail Link is a search engine of all trails in the US. A nifty and handy website if you want to go camping and need to know where some trails are to hike.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Back To The Real World

Well you will notice that I've done some house-keeping with the blog. I've changed the background color, the color of the text, added a button where you can now email me, and added a few new links:
1. Upcoming Movies,
2. Cody Lane (how did I not have his website on my site I do not know),
3. Dallas Mavs Message Board, and
4. Texas Tech football on Yahoo.

My goal is still to keep the interface clean, its just that with quite a few of the photos, the white sky really didn't stand out against the white background, everything seemed to be washed out, out. I really do like the new look, but I don't know that I'm completely done tinkering with the new look.

Ashley T. asked in the most recent comment how I was able to post so many pictures. The long and short of it is that there is a new internet browser called Flock. One of the interesting things about Flock is that you can access your Flickr photos while using the browser and you can publish a post from the browser as well. Thus, I can be on any page and still post to this blog. In addition to that publishing photos is as simple as dragging and dropping the photos onto my blog post created by Flock. It also allows you to pull over as many photos as your heart desires which is why there are so many pictures in the vacation posts. As I read over this, it sounds awfully confusing, however, it's really very easy and I would be more than happy to show anyone and everyone how this is done.

I also need to respond to Duk, yes, I think that Cantstandya and I would love to venture to Oklahoma for Labor Day. I think it will be fun.

I also stumbled across a neat little website that lets me know when someone has left a comment. It doesn't let me read the comment, but with all of these really long posts it can be a real drag as to when someone may have left a comment. If you have a blog then do not be afraid to use Commentful.

I still have a few comments to wrap up the vacation that I'll try to get to in a post later in the week, but for the most part I think it's back to business. As an aside, the picture above was taken at sunset, while Miranda was driving back from Breckenridge to our motel in Dillon. The sun was setting, and I put that tungsten filter on the photo and I think it looks amazing.

Friday, July 07, 2006

The Royal Gorge

Friday morning Miranda and I got up early and headed for Canon City, Colorado to see the Royal Gorge, the world's highest suspension bridge. Because we made it there before their normal business hours, we were able to get into the park for the early bird special price of $14 per person instead of $21 per person. I know this would make some of you feel old, however, I was very excited as the prospect of saving money and not worried about being labeled something else.

When you first enter the park, there's a really neat water-clock.

Here's some history on the bridge.

This picture is looking off of a ledge about 15 feet away from the cliff. I was nervous.

Artsy picture of a tree.

A wide shot of the gorge.

The bridge was really incredible. The bridge is really just a bunch of small wires holding up and spanning this massive structure. What you walked on to go across was wood planks, nothing special. Some of them didn't seem to be screwed into the structure itself.

The wires.

A shot of the gorge from the bridge.

It's hard to explain how thin these wires are, they are no bigger than 10 or 12 gauge wire. Strength in numbers.

Most people walk across the bridge, however there were some individuals who drove across the bridge. Because it's a suspension bridge it is susceptible to swaying and it is certainly a strange feeling.