What else could it be? This is Crash, my golden retriever. He weighs 115lb (not overweight, either, he’s just that big!), he will beat you to death with his excited tail, and is generally a furball of happy.
You may have noticed the last four posts resemble an old adage.. It wasn’t intentional, at least, it wasn’t when I posted the first one. Something new, something old, something moo, something gold. Cheesy, yes. I just hope that someone enjoyed it!
One of my facebook friends (someone I went to school with many years ago) apparently was hacked or scammed or something, and sent out messages to me and to all my friends. I will probably take a look at my security settings for that reason later, but I wanted to post a couple of images that came up as a result of it.
In short, I am ‘friends’ with two dogs. The first is Fetch, he is the dog of a couple of friends, Ben and Bethany, and his response was rather amusing. I may be biased (though I didn’t write it), but I found the second response funnier – that of Crash.
Enjoy!
And …
I was going through my photo collection (it’s HUGE) yesterday and found some photos and a couple of videos of Crash, our 100lb Golden Retriever, from within a week or so of getting him from the SPCA, aged 3 months.
He was always a big dog, and I’m slightly surprised to think that in the photos he seems so little. It was also amusing seeing some of the photos and videos, looking at characteristics he had then that he still has now, and things he doesn’t really do any more. Mostly just the way he lays down awkwardly twisted..
Yeah, it was a fairly boring day today. I sat around and looked at Craigslist and eBay both for jobs and computer stuff. I’m partly pricing rackmount servers and/or equipment with hopes of starting towards the wish-list, partly getting ideas and otherwise just looking to see what is out there.
After “Lunch” Kelly and I went to the two local thrift stores to just look. Kelly bought a tree thing that had photos hanging from it (I think she’ll be using it for earrings and such) and some pants, and I bought a balancing-Kiwis puzzle.
Tomorrow I need to watch a training video for work that I’ve had for a while and haven’t gotten around to watching, and we’re also supposed to go and watch “Where the Wild Things Are.”
I’d like to visit Target and the Halloween store tomorrow if we can, and see if we can’t get Crash either a Bee or a Dinosaur costume. It would be hilarious if we can..
Speaking of Crash, we need to walk him shortly as it’s getting rainy and we’re going out this evening..
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!
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.
This is partly to test WordPress’s new Blog-by-email. We’ll see how it works.
Yesterday I received a phone call from Rackspace, with a variation of that dreaded message. “We’ve decided to move forward with other candidates.”
I felt kinda like some of the people on Millionaire must feel when they’ve been going for the million dollars, and got the answer wrong and going home with $25,000.
Let me explain. What I had were two options, I could work at Rackspace for ~$45k/yr doing something I would really enjoy or I could work at a camp doing something I would also enjoy for the summer making ~$150/wk. I had 2 really great interviews at Rackspace, even they said the second one went really well, but apparently not good enough.
I’m trying to keep positive, I’m still applying for 2-3 jobs including one at JMU, and working at camp will still pay all our bills (and let us catch up on the ones we’re having to skip this month) along with Kelly’s summer job. I’ll just have to start applying again as summer comes to a close.
I’m particularly looking for IT work within VA, and I don’t mind commuting up to 2 hours each way in order to take a job worth anywhere from $30k up (So from the DC Metro area down to Blacksburgish, and out to Richmond. I’m in the Harrisonburg/Rockingham County area right now). I intend to relocate if the job is at the outer reaches of that range along with my wife and puppy. I have reliable transport, and while I have no formal computing qualifications I have professional and personal experience with PHP/MySQL, computer hardware testing, computer software installation and general computer troubleshooting and problem solving. I’ve worked on a service desk (Level 1 and 2) for a 5000 user organization supporting Novell Netware and Active Directory (on the same network) as well as Alcatel based PBX systems. I’ve also been administrating Linux servers for several years. I’m happy to take an entry-level position (Helpdesk, Desktop support, etc), though I’d like a company with good promotion paths that will allow me to progress beyond, as I’d like to move into server administration, and possibly network administration also.
So while I continue to look for work, if you or someone/an organization you know is looking for an IT worker, let me know about them, or let them know about me!
We’re kinda hanging in the family room, Crash, Kelly and I. We’re watching Family Feud on TV, the Porter family are playing the final game. Oop, they just lost, getting 159 points (needed 200 to get $20,000).
I’m also talking to a friend who has a DVD of photos of his son, from newborn through the first year that he is trying to recover. It isn’t going well.
Kelly just moved to the other chair beside Crash, and he started trying to chew the blanket she’s wearing to keep warm. She’s not doing too well, has a sore throat. She really enjoys the look on his face when she pats him on the nose with a rope toy and hums a tune. We’re working especially to train him out of mouthing/biting people, and we’ll also be working in the next few days training him to not jump up on people when he’s excited (or at all, really).
Just took him out to ‘potty’ and he peed, but hasn’t pooped for a while. Now he’s kinda ignoring lunch in favour of laying beside the chair and licking himself. So far he has acquired at least 6 names or variations on names, all of them in the first 3 days. Crash, Chase, Crush, Crash Taylor, Chuck, Trash.. as well as the obvious ones like Pup and Puppy.
I’ve given myself a coding project for the afternoon, after I retrieve the power pack for the macbook. It’ll be a whois and status facility for UCCN, which will begin our web-integration with IRC. The first will be a web form that queries whether a nickname is online, and if so returns normal public information about them (their hidden host name, public channels, etc). The second will be a status image that returns ‘online’ or ‘offline’ depending on whether the user is online or not (duh..). Both will be dependent on the SQL database from Denora, and will probably also utilize the SQL database from Anope for Nickserv aliases/groups. It will detect if someone is online but not using their primary nickname.
I also need to work on the web interface for Supportive, and will be developing an improved version of the java.php @ www.unitedchristianchat.net/java/java.php, both in look and in function.
So, I shall stop blogging nothingness and go get my power pack!
We got him Friday, today is Monday, and what a weekend we have had! The first night he didn’t have a crate so was wandering free in our room, and we were awake every two hours whenever he whined or made noise. He also peed on newspaper, which was OK.
Saturday we got a crate, (thanks Dawndrea!) and he was in and out of it most of the day being locked in and such. He still whined all night and we got little sleep again.
Sunday went well, we got up early anyway as there was a sunrise service at church followed by breakfast (thanks Debi and John!), and so we fed him before church, and then came back and pooped him after feeding Azule and checking on Peanut Butter (a dog and a sheep we have been petsitting for this weekend, along with a cat whose name I do not know).
He got to run around with his cousin Bella, as well as eating a big bowl of sloppy joe that we hadn’t finished at lunch. Dawndrea also called to tell us that she’d looked at Crash’s paperwork and thinks he’s more than likely purebred retriever, as his mother is a retriever and she and her three puppies that went to the SPCA were all from a breeder.
Today he’s been out and about a bit more, I let him loose in the back yard for a bit and had him chasing a tennis ball around, and we also let him off leash while we did dishes in the kitchen (after closing doors and blocking the door-less doorway to the living room). Now he’s asleep in his crate again, and we’re planning to give him dinner and then put him in the car and drive to the park (he’d never walk that far, aside from getting tired we have to pick him up by the harness and ‘make him’ walk because he just flops down and won’t move inside or outside or anywhere he needs to be.
We did have a call from the SPCA today warning us about a potential illness he could have, called entropion. Quoting Wikipedia, “Entropion is a medical condition in which the eyelids fold inward. It is very uncomfortable, as the eyelashes rub against the cornea constantly.”
Basically it will be confirmed at his checkup (which will be free aside from shots) this week, and if he does have it it can be fixed when he’s neutered in June. Kelly suspects he may be OK, as she noticed the eyes of Crash’s brothers were watering and not as healthy looking as his were, I suppose we’ll find out for sure in a few days.
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