Tag Archives: Crash

A Matter of Trust

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I woke up this morning, discovered I don’t like Fruit Loops, and set to work on my new website project (for which I am yet to purchase a domain, so I’m not talking about it at all!). I didn’t get very far, though I decided it is probably going to need to be a custom CMS rather than using something existing. I have a basic layout ready, I do need to work on it’s compatibility with Internet Explorer as it doesn’t show very well.

But that’s not what this posting is about. This posting is about my awesome puppy (who I need to take new photos of, probably tomorrow) who has proven over the last few days how much he can be trusted without a tether. On Monday I grilled my lunch and had him hanging out outside with me without a leash or tether, and he behaved well. The last few nights I’ve put his leash in my pocket and just untethered him to bring him indoors for the evening, and tonight he won the game (gah, I just lost The Game) by proving he can go outside, pee, and come back in without a chaperon. Of course, for the next few weeks I’ll have his leash in my pocket and be standing outside ready to run if I need to, but he has shown he can behave with less strict supervision. I’m looking forward to letting him roam free in a house at night when we finally move out!

Time Management

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I’m trying to make the best use of my morning time before I go to work rather than sleeping all day, in theory it will help me when it is time to leave my 2:30-5:30 job for full time work.

This morning I took Crash with me and went to Food Lion and bought breakfast stuff, lunch stuff, and some drinks. Breakfast will last most of the week, lunch stuff all week (with some to spare) and the drinks should last until next pay day. I filled up the truck, which should last two weeks unless I have to go somewhere much other than work, and after breakfast and lunch I took Crash on a walk.

Tonight I applied for another job, this time in Christiansburg, as an entry level help desk analyst. The pay is crap (for an IT job), but it’s better than what Kelly makes full time, and we always said that another job with similar pay would be enough to get ourselves off the ground.

We’re working on getting Crash to behave without needing a leash on, and today he hung out with me for about half an hour without a tether while I was grilling, and tonight stayed within hearing distance on the walk inside. He is still tethered and crated while we’re not around to watch him, naturally ;-).

Hopefully tomorrow I will get up and have breakfast, followed by an hour or two of programming on my current web-project, I also need to make a bunch of sandwiches to go in the fridge for the rest of the week. I’ll also continue to keep my eyes open on the various Craigslist pages and maybe checking out CareerBuilder and the other job site rounds, JMU, EMU, RMH, JenzaBar, DNR, etc.

But that is tomorrow, and tonight it is getting late, thus I shall sleep. Goodnight, world.

Ouch.

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Yesterday was a long day.

It involved a 1.5 hour interview for a summer job and around 8 hours of birthday party, both back to back (seperated only by the half hour drive from the camp back to the house).

Kelly was particularly stressed as she’d expected at least a one hour gap between our return at around 4:30 and when people started arriving, and the first people arrived at about 4:35.

The fire was fueled further by the fact that among the first people were two rather unusual characters who didn’t fit in with our group very well but managed to set the tone and mood for most of the evening. Several people had their parts to play in them being allowed to ‘crash’ the party, me included, but I don’t think any one person can (or should) take the full responsibility for it.

Those two aside it was an awesome time with everyone together and hanging out. Crash and Bella had a great time playing, Crash ate a whole lot of hot dogs and demonstrated that he really can lay down on command … if you have food.

The mood of the party finally changed at around 9 when the weird people were taken home (at their request, I believe), and we were all able to relax again. Ethan helped me out getting the fire started, which was still going strong at midnight, and about 2am when I went to check on it before sleeping it was still rather emberous. I doused it with several large cups of water, and it looked like it was almost completely out, but when I took Crash out to pee this morning (wow, I didn’t remember that part..) there was a lot more ash than wood left and it had done what I wanted it to do – burnt itself out.

So now it is 12:00pm. I’m laying in bed with a massive headache, if it’s from lack of sleep catching up or too much sleep while trying to catch up, I don’t know. Crash has been amazing despite being in his crate since about 8 or 9 when I refilled both sides of his food bowl (it’s one of those double-bowled bowl things) with water. I really need to get up and let him out, we’ll probably play outside for a bit but that will last entirely based on how I feel. So far the prospects aren’t looking too good.

SilverStripe

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Yesterday I made a personal site using SilverStripe, and it was my first experience with the CMS that worked. I think last time I didn’t follow the instructions or something and problems arose multiple times.

This time however, worked a treat. It’s not your average CMS, where absolutely everything is configured via a web panel and then stored in SQL. SilverStripe has the basics in SQL (Pages) and the rest is left up to the developer. Once again, a piece of software where its greatest asset is its greatest downfall, and proves, once again, that perfect all-around software does not exist. Either it’s simple for the newbies who want a good looking website, or it’s technical for developers and geeks who want a website that will do anything they ask it to with minimal fuss in breaking their entire index.php-based site with a parse error.

SilverStripe doesn’t have dynamic site names/descriptions like WordPress does. I had to go and edit that in the theme itself. Not a problem, I just need to remember to change it if I change themes.

As far as which is ‘better’, I no longer have a preference. They both do an awesome job at what they do, and I may at some point transfer the UCCN Support site to SilverStripe from WordPress. I’ll still keep the LifeCity site running WP, and probably the I-aL site running it too. WordPress is easy to install and configure, SilverStripe will probably prove easier to develop for.

Don’t take my word for it, test them and decide for yourself!

In other news, we took crash to the vet for his first-week checkup, and he’s doing really well. He weighed in at 28.2lb, and no sign (at this stage) of entropion, thus everything is probably good on that front! Going back in a couple of weeks for his shots, that won’t be such a good time for him 😉

Crash

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dscf7028

It’s been 24 hours now since we gained the latest addition to our family.

His name: Crash

His age: 10 weeks

His weight: 20 lbs.

He’s a Golden Retriever mixed with something unknown, we picked him out at the SPCA yesterday. He keeps becoming true to his name: particularly when steps or running are involved. He seems to be really good at falling down steps, and likes trying to run between peoples legs when running in the yard. We worked on teaching him “sit” today, as well as beginning work on not biting which he has been doing a lot. Right now he is out in the yard on the leash with Kelly, running around with his “cousin” Bella, Katie’s dog. They played a little at Katie’s house yesterday, and Bella was running circles around Crash, and he’d kinda wobble after her.

So far the cats are keeping their distances, Peel is definately getting the closest out of the three. Kreamer and Emma are just kinda there, and get very hissy when he runs after them.

I’m gonna go out and hang out with them for a while before we come back in for dinner!

For those interested, photos and videos: Here

Danger! Danger! Lights and Sirens!

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EDIT: This was found this morning: http://www.rocktownweekly.com/news_details.php?AID=32235&CHID=1 – We’d suspected he’d gone to 259 to try and go for the West Virginia border, but he didn’t make it that far.

So tonight, after watching American Carol (funny movie with an interesting message, btw..), and visiting CiCi’s pizza (and not eating much), and socialising with my in-laws, Kel and I dropped by the apartment to grab some things before coming up to Broadway for the night.

That was all well and good, got the laptop and some clothes, etc. Anyway, we were leaving our street, and turning right onto Mount Clinton Pike, and a black SUV with blue lights flashing comes past towards VA-42 at speed. We’re just thinking “Wow…thats weird…”, and turn to follow a little, and hear lots of sirens coming at us from the opposite direction. There was a white Bronco came up Mt Clinton with a large amount of smoke coming out.. followed by approximately 8 police cars of various descriptions. We were nearly hit by the first SUV as it U-turned on Mt Clinton to join the chase.

We carried on toward 42, where a further 4 police vehicles were encountered – a black SUV which took the right-turn at speed (crossed the center line in front of us), a cop with lights off sitting in a parking lot, a state cop and a city cop with crossed the tracks and turned onto 42-North (later U-turned to go south and up Mt Clinton Pike as well).

We continued driving, expected it had moved away from us. Anyhow, arriving in Broadway, about 15 mins later, 2 cop cars were sitting at the South entrance to Broadway on VA-42 conversing, and about 4-5 minutes after passing them (and parking up, discussing what had happened with Kelly’s parents and brother who were a couple of minutes ahead of us) we heard the chase come back through Broadway heading North – this time vehicles sounding in much worse condition.

I’ll be watching Google News a lot, as well as keeping an eye on the news sites (CNN as well as more local places), but if anyone has any idea what was going on, it would be interesting to know! There is speculation it was drug related, and there are reports within the last 24 hours of drug busts made this week, but whether this is related or another matter entirely remains to be seen.