Sweeney is a stud!

So Sweeney had his surgery today and is out and on his way home. Dr. Carmichael removed the P3 cleanly and closed the pad over the removed area. Sweeney will have crate restriction for a few weeks while the toe heals, followed by a prolonged rehab period (don't ask how long 'cause we play it by ear).

Now to the really cool part. While Sweeney was on the surgery table a Chihuahua came in needing an emergency c-section. She had already had several pups at home, but evidently the rest just wouldn't come. Well, Dr. Carmichael did the surgery but the Chihuahua needed a transfusion. The clinic didn't have any blood on hand, so they used Sweeney for the transfusion. So while he was out, Sweeney saved the life of someone's beloved pet and mother to puppies. SWEENEY ROCKS!

This is broken

Good and bad from the SEGC trial this past weekend in Cartersville. Let's do the good first. Sweeney won FCh Greyhounds on Saturday pretty convincingly. I do love to watch that dog run. Takes my breath away every time. Everett finished second on Saturday out of 17 FCh Whippets and Lobo tied for NBQ but we forfeited. On Sunday, Lobo finished 2nd in his flight of 10 and Everett finished 3rd in his. So, not firsts, but Maurice and Deb brought some damn good competition! Congratulations to them for their sweep on Sunday (1st in Open, FCh A, FCh B, Vet and BIE). DebMar's Lilly took Best in Event.

Now for the bad news. Sweeney broke a P3 in finals Saturday. He's having it taken care of as I type. With any luck at all, he'll be mended and back on the field soon. After being cared for by the immensely talented Dr. Toby Carmichael, Sweeney was barely aware of any injury and was being his usual goofy self.

If you have any questions about what is going on, or you hear any rumors, please feel free to contact me personally and I'll be glad to give you more info than I'm sure you'd want!

On another topic, sportsmanship is important. Let's keep this in mind especially when we're disappointed in the scores our dogs get. I know that I've had my moments on the field and shown my ass, but I hope that I've been able to make amends for those moments and have been able to grow and learn. Anyway, please try to remember that what we do is fun and a judge's score can't injure your dog. What's most important are the two ends to the dog. If they're wagging their tail and grinning then it's all good. No matter what the judges say.

SEGC

SEGC is this weekend at Old Mill. We should have good weather for the hounds (60's-70'ish) and hopefully dry.

Here's a picture of Sweeney.

Another Dan Gauss pic!

That's Lobo.

Thanks to Dan for this great picture! Once again, thanks Dan!!!

Where the wind comes sweepin down the plain

Spent the weekend in very rural Oklahoma. What a nice place to run the dogs! We were at Windyglen in Boswell Oklahoma. The trial was smallish, but the dogs that were there ran quite nicely. I saw a number of very nice open Borzoi and IG's. My guys did well with Ev taking breed both days and Lobo finishing second and third. Nellie had great practices both Saturday and Sunday. Very exciting stuff!

The best part of the trip was getting to see the good people in Region 4. I really enjoyed myself. I love that part of the country too. I think that if I had to move anywhere in the country, it would have to be somewhere in New Mexico/Texas/Oklahoma. The people are nice, the land is beautiful and sparsely populated and I just like the feel of the place. Go figure...

I've got a weekend off upcoming and then back out to the field. SEGC is the 21st and 22nd. Ya'll come!

Falling

It's been neat to get to go north for a couple of weekends in a row this year and see an early fall. Here in GA the temps are still getting to the 80's during the day even though it's cool in the mornings. It was quite different in WI this weekend, albeit far from unpleasant. The weather cooperated well and we had a couple of very nice days for the dogs to run. MWCC's field is quite nice, large enough to put a nice course on. I was pleased to see dogs working a bit more this weekend and putting in some nice runs. Thanks to Greg and Kevin for having me up to judge, especially after I had to cancel last year due to my torn hamstring. I got to see some of the 'Minnesota Mafia' again this weekend. They're nice folks with good, competitive dogs. Hopefully Al will come down for New Year's in GA. I'm big on getting the best dogs together and competing head to head to see who's the best of the best. Maybe I'll work on contacting as much of the top 20 and seeing what kind of entry we can get here.

Once again, flying isn't my favorite thing in the world. I'm glad that I don't travel a lot for my job and wonder how my father ever was able to travel as much as he did. When I was growing up, he would have to spend quite a bit of time away from home, travelling the world for business. I never really noticed how much he was away and just took it as a part of life. I know that I would be miserable if I had to spend so much time in airports and airplanes away from family and friends. At least on this trip I wasn't folded into a seat as I was flying Midwest and their service to and from Atlanta is all business class seating.

This coming weekend is GIT in Oklahoma. I know, Oklahoma isn't Texas... Hopefully they'll have had a little rain and the ground won't be baked hard as a rock. We're going to take the dogs with us and get them out for the first time since my trip to NY during the summer. Hopefully they won't be too 'soft' to compete!

Around here things are quite busy. Em is playing softball and that takes a lot of our time. Softball is pretty serious business around here so we spend a lot of time at the ball field either practicing or playing games. Their team is good, but very young for their age bracket. The girls have a lot of fun and that's what it's all about.

The peeps are peeping. I'm wondering if I actually saw eggs in the nest of if I was seeing things. We'll know soon enough if we hear the cheeps of baby peeps!

Dogs that run

Finally! The weather is getting cooler and the dogs are getting restless. We're in the 50's here in GA in the mornings and it's making the hounds crazy. They're ready to get out and do some coursing. It'll be a couple of weeks, but we're getting ready.

Last weekend I judged in Minnesota, kicking off a busy schedule for the Fall. FWIW, flying sucks. My flight Friday night was delayed 2.5+ hours and my flight Sunday was canceled and I was originally re-booked on a flight Monday morning. Thanks to a really nice Delta ticketing agent, I was able to get out on Sunday night, albeit 3 hours later than scheduled. I'm appreciative of the fact that I can hop an airplane and get most anywhere I need to go pretty quickly, but I absolutely detest the experience of waiting... Waiting in line at security, waiting at the gate, waiting in the plane to take off, just generally waiting. I only really have one complaint though focusing on the airline. I hate the CJR. I'm kind of a big guy, broad in the shoulders. I was absolutely folded into the seat and I had an aisle seat. Ah well...

This weekend I'll be heading to Milwaukee, WI to judge. This should be fun as I'll be seeing many of the same people that I saw last weekend. Finally, next weekend we're going to Oklahoma. Finally the dogs will get to run a bit!

5 years

It's the 5 year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America. It wasn't an attack on New York, on the WTC but an attack on America. Too many people have forgotten that. Try not to forget.

Post

I've been too busy to post for a while now. So today I'm just going to post a picture of Everett doing what he does. Thanks to Dan Gauss for the awesome shot.

Say What???

According to Mark Malloch Brown, United Nations deputy secretary general, referring to the war between Hizbollah and Israel:

"It’s not helpful to couch this war in the language of international terrorism. Hizbollah employs terrorist tactics, it is an organisation however whose roots historically are completely separate and different from Al Qaeda."

Ummm, ok. So they're different in name, but make no mistake that Hizbollah is nothing more than a terrorist organization. Just another indication that the UN has lost it's usefulness...

I don't know

I don't want to believe that Floyd Landis used performance enhancing drugs to compete in the Tour this year. I think everyone should reserve judgement until the B sample is tested and tested again. There are explanations why his sample would come back positive. Until it is proven beyond doubt that he used, the headlines should read "Landis innocent of doping."

I have an update on Beth. She came through surgery well and is talking, sitting up and even went for a short walk yesterday. She's had some seizures but this can be expected with this kind of surgery. The best news is that the biopsy came back as benign. Let's pray for a full recovery.

Edit: Here's a nice, succinct comment on the Landis issue.

Tattoo you

I've been thinking a lot about tattoos lately. It seems like it's time to get something done (it's been a year since I had Sweeney put on my arm). I've got a rough design in mind but need to work on it some to get it to a refined enough state so that my tattoo artist can sketch it out for me.

I'm not sure what it is about tattoos and being tattooed. I like the artistic side of tattooing so I enjoy seeing the artists interpretation of an idea. I like the idea of wearing a piece of art on your body. I enjoy the process of being tattooed, it sort of becomes this zen moment. The buzz of the machine combined with the rhythm of the needle against skin puts me in some sort of a meditative state.

There's still a lot of stigma that goes along with being heavily tatooed. But as Marisa DiMattia explains, tattoos are becoming more high brow.

Anyway, we'll see how it goes. I've still got a few images of dogs I want done. Those will probably be realistic with little creative (beyond the photos Dan took ). So what I'm looking for now will be a little more creative and allow for more artistic interpretation.

On another subject, my good friend Beth Alley is in the hospital right now recovering from brain surgery. She was having some strange symptoms for a while and finally went in to the doctor and had an MRI. They found a tumor in her forehead about the size of a golf ball. She was immediately sent to the hospital for further tests and diagnoses. A neurologist did some more tests and looked at the MRI and decided that the tumor needed to come out immediately. So she had surgery yesterday morning to remove what turned out to be a grapefruit size tumor from her brain. The surgeon is confident he got the entire tumor and that she'll recover well. Please keep Beth in your thoughts and prayers. She's still in ICU so won't be able to receive visitors for a while and can't have gifts at the hospital. I hope and pray that she bounces back from this in typical Alley fashion.

Tivo

I mentioned Tivo in my last post. Just to expand on that a bit, Tivo Rocks! I've had some sort of PVR system for 5+ years. First it was the PVR offered by Dish Network. Not a bad product at all. Nice as an introduction machine. When I got pissed off at DN for screwing around with their contracts and using thier customers as pawns, I got DirecTV. DTV offered a Tivo based PVR system integrated with thier satellite receiver. It didn't take me long to figure out the Tivo is the way to go.

It's been a couple of years now since I got my Tivo and recently we began having trouble accessing recorded shows. Uh-Oh, that's a sure sign that the HD is going out. We were faced with a choice: Get a new PVR or fix the Tivo. After a little research, I confirmed what I had already heard - DirecTV no longer uses Tivo based PVR and has switched to a proprietary system. The choice became obvious, fix and upgrade the Tivo.

The nicest thing about Tivo (from a technical standpoint) is that it runs on the Linux OS and is open source. What that means is that it's pretty easy for Joe Anybody to hack/upgrade. What I was able to do is get my hands on a nice 300 GB drive (your average computer hard drive) and copy the OS from the old Tivo drive. I was skeptical at first, thinking it really couldn't be as easy as people make it out to be. Well, if you can swap out HD's, you can upgrade your Tivo. I went from a 40 GB drive (about 27 hours of recording time) to 300 GB (~265 hours)!!! All this for the cost of a drive (less than $100 if you shop around). Wow! No brainer!

The next thing I want to do is hack the system. Tivo offers something called HMO, Home Media Option. This allows you to show pictures, movies and play music from your computer through your Tivo box on your television. Unfortunately, HMO isn't enabled on the DirecTV system. So, you have to go in and hack the kernel to enable the USB ports and enable HMO. But, once this is done the Tivo box becomes another device on my home network, addressable from any workstation. Niiiiiice!

More...

I hadn't had a chance to watch the stage yesterday before I posted so I went home, cranked up the Tivo and watched 4 hours of domination. I have never seen nor heard about anything like what Floyd Landis did yesterday in the greatest bicycling race in the world. Landis left the peloton on the first climb and never looked back. He worked his way up to a lead of 9+ minutes over the holder of the Yellow Jersey, Oscar Periero. I actually had to laugh as he caught up with the breakaway group (6 minutes or so ahead of the peloton) as each rider did a double-take realizing that this was the same Floyd Landis as the day before.

This is the man who bonked on the most important day of the race. Actually, what he did was bonk and make yesterday the most important day of the race. Landis worked hard yesterday to make sure that he didn't bonk again, constantly pouring water over his head, drinking (he even kept an extra water bottle in his hands most of the day) and eating at regular intervals. He was making sure there was no way he was going to hit the wall for a second day. You could tell this was a man posessed and determined to regain his rightful position in the race and show the world that Wednesday was a total fluke.

I don't figure much will happen in today's stage. It's a rolling stage with a couple of catagorized climbs. Robbie McEwen might work to solidify his hold on the Green (points/sprinters) Jersey, especially working for his fourth stage win of the Tour. There probably won't be much change at the top of the General Classification. Floyd will ride a defensive stage and just work to keep his posistion in the GC. Damiano Cunego has a 5" advantage for the White (young rider) Jersey and will be looking to pad that lead. Mickael Rasmussen will hold on to his lead in the Polka Dot (climbers) Jersey with no challenge coming from the second place rider Floyd Landis.

Look for Floyd to ride a strong time trial on Saturday. He stated yesterday that he's not satisfied with a stage win, he's going to get the Yellow Jersey in Paris. Look for him to be the third American to be in Yellow on the Podium in Paris.

Vive Le Tour!

Amazing TdF stage

I can't believe what happened today in the Tour! Actually, the story begins with yesterday's stage when Floyd Landis hit the wall and just had no energy whatsoever. Floyd went from 1st to 11th, losing over 8 minutes as well as the Yellow Jersey.

Flash forward to today's stage. This was not as difficult a stage (yesterday was the most difficult mountain stage of the race), but still included some challenging climbs and nail biting descents. Landis today made back all but 30 seconds that he lost yesterday. After a small break by about 10 riders, the entire Phonak team rose to help Landis with the push he needed to break free of the peloton. From that point, it was all Landis. He caught and dropped every rider in the earlier breakaway, riding solo for most of the race and finishing the stage first. He's now risen to third in the General Classification and has an excellent shot at Yellow on Sunday when it matters the most!

Taos, NM

Listening today to ktao out of Taos, NM (www.ktao.com). The DJ's are way too liberal for my tastes, but I get to hear about what is happening in Taos and hear some good music as well. I love Taos and the area around it and have to get a fix in every once in a while. I can smell the sage and pinon just thinking about it! I can't wait to get out there and spend a few days again.

We got to go see Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest this past weekend. The movie was great! I'd say it's even better than the first even if there are a few weak moments. The comedy is better in Dead Man's Chest and the CGI and makeup are incredible. I mean incredible! Take a couple of hours and lose yourself in this flick!

The movie was great, but what's with families going to an 8:30 showing and bringing young kids??? I mean kids young enough that they're going to wail througout the movie! Get a grip people. We spend good money to see a movie in a theater so that we can experience what the director and producers intended, not to hear your brats screaming at the top of their lungs!!! I know Hollywood blames the internet for most of their financial woes, but perhaps they should blame theater owners who can't control the patrons...

Musings

Today I'm listening to Drive By Truckers.

Tolerance means that we shouldn't judge a culture for their rituals and practices, just as we expect another culture not to judge us. We can't hold the whole world up to our Western ideals and expect everyone to comply with our perhaps misguided perception of right and wrong. If we choose to judge another culture's values, we are no better than Islamic terrorists who judge bomb our country because of our values and customs.

The Tour de France. I'll admit that I didn't start following the Tour daily until 1999 when Lance won his first. Sure, I have been a casual observer for 20 + years (ie I know a bit about Greg LeMond and I remember hearing and reading about Miguel Induráin's wins), but I never really followed until Lance began his dominance. I wondered how it would be watching this year's race without Lance. I've not been disappointed (except by Jan Ullrich, et al who have been caught up in the doping scandal). George Hincapie looks like the man to beat since he's stayed with the leaders in the sprint section of the race, can climb as well as anyone else (just look at how many climbs he assisted Lance) and he does well in time trialing. My prediction is that he'll be on the podium in Paris, probably in Yellow. My almost dark horse is going to be Cadel Evans. I just have a feeling that it's Evans' year to shine. Look for him to be on the podium in Paris as well. As for the third spot, I'm not sure. It easily could be another Discovery member, but I won't be so bold as to predict. Floyd Landis looks good as well, Levi Leipheimer isn't quite shining like many thought he would before the Tour.

Holy Guacamole!

This article talks about getting kids started saving money early on. I'm proud that it seems our kids are aware of the importance of saving, even if their mother and I sometimes don't demonstrate it. What struck me was this: "...the US savings rate has turned ``negative," and millions are saddled with credit card debt. (Collectively, we spend more than we make, and 43 percent of households spend $1.25 for every $1 they make...)."

So now I don't feel so bad alone! In reality, we're working hard to be on the other end of that statistic. It's damn hard work, but soon we'll be there. Sometimes it's hard not having a credit card (not for extra spending $$$, but for expense account type stuff), but in the long run it's worth it.

At least it hasn't been 2 weeks!

I know, it's been a while. Haven't been too busy to post, just not motivated.

I spent Sunday and Monday running the dogs in Cartersville. It was extremely hot but the people and the dogs all survived. I'm a believer that if your dogs are in condition and you provide plenty of warm up/cool down and water the dogs will perform well and can handle heat. There was a lot of good news from the weekend, Everett finished 3rd on Sunday, Lobo finished 2nd on Monday, Ev BoB Monday. The best part of the weekend was Nellie's little practice run on Monday. For the first time, I practiced Nellie by myself without her running from me to Ruthanna or versa vice. She took off like a shot and handled the little turn with grace. That girl really knows how to handle her body while she's running. She has exceptional agility and good speed. I'm absolutely thrilled that she's showing a desire for "the game"!

I've been listening to a variety of music over the past few days. Of course in the car most of my time is spent listening to Sirius, mostly Raw Dog or Blue Collar Comedy. At home, it's been The White Stripes and Gorillaz mostly. I've recently discovered the quality of The White Stripes and really enjoy the relative simplicity and basic, almost bare tunes of their music. As an extension, The Raconteurs are quite good. This group of Detroit musicians includes Jack White from The White Stripes. It's a bit of a different sound with a little more complexity and range.

Quote of the day

This from Neal Boortz, regarding the proposal by Iowa Senator Charles Grassley to tax pimps and hookers: "Hookers could not possibly be a greater blight on our society than politicians."

Read Nealz Nuze.