April 01, 2007
Puppies!!!
Our girl Martini is a mommy!!! She had her puppies early Friday morning at our breeder friend's house. She had:
- 5 chocolate girls
- 2 chocolate girls
- 1 black girl
- 2 black girls
We were able to visit for a spell today and took about 50 pictures which are in a Flickr set. She's been away from home for about a week and a half. I can't believe how much I miss her - and how much she missed me. She couldn't get enough pets. I can't wait for her to come home. It'll be a few more weeks, but we'll be able to visit a few more times.
We're not sure if we're going to keep one of the puppies. It seems like it would be a bit crazy what with the baby and all, but they're so undeniably cute.
We took some video too, but I haven't processed that yet.
March 07, 2006
Martini Frost Jam
033_martini_frost_jam.mp3 - 23.7MB - 50:35
Stuff is all out of order. I have stuff I MEANT to put out last week, but now it'll likely wait for NEXT week, unless I get some new stuff this weekend that just HAS to go up before it. Or whatever. Who cares?
Anyway, I start out talking about our Wunderhund, Martini.
Flickr
Click the pic for a full photo set of the weekend. Darling Rose took the photos at the trial and outside. I took the ribbon photos at home.
Although Martini had run in competition before, this was my first time handling her. It was an AKC Novice Agility trial put on by the Smack-Dab Agility club of Warrenville, IL. We ran in "Standard" and "Jumpers with Weaves," one of each both Saturday and Sunday. Going in to the weekend, she needed one more qualifying run (or 'leg,') for her Standard title, and two more legs for her Jumpers title.
On Saturday, we knocked it out of the park. Not only did she pass both runs, thus earning one title, she also took a 1st place and a 3rd place. She was dead on - though I miscued her once, likely costing us Second Place in the Jumpers run by losing about 3.5 seconds. But we lost out to one of our friends - a relative of Martini's, actually - so it's all good. In both events, she earned perfect 100 scores.
Sunday wasn't as over-the-top successful, but she did pass both events again. There were no placements and no perfect scores. In the Standard run, I wasn't paying attention to her, and didn't give her enough direction to avoid going to the wrong obstacle right off the bat. We recovered pretty well from that, but it cost us 5 points. In the Jumpers run, she missed a jump (called a refusal), but I was able to call her back and take another run at it to finish the course. However in both runs, she had problems doing the weave poles - something she did perfectly on Saturday. Since I had to reset her a few times on those, we ended up get a 5-point deduction for going over the allowed time. I think by that point, she was just really tired.
But a pass is a pass is a pass, and the second Jumpers pass on Sunday earned her second title. In two days, she picked up 8 ribbons, 2 titles, and 4 stuffed toys. Can you guess which were her favorites? Though tiring, far away, and early in the morning, it was a whole lot of fun. Winning is fun, I guess.
On my way into work this morning, Tuesday, there was a kickass fog over everything. Serendipity had whispered in my ear and told me to grab my camera in the morning, and I also happened to have the camcorder from work with me, so I went on a photographic spree. On the drive in, I had my co-pilot shoot video of the passing shrouded scenery. I hope to edit that into some kind of music-backed video in the not to distant future. And once I got in to work, I found that the fog had actually frozen to the trees and buildings. I took 144 photos, recording the whole while. Click the photo below to get to the full photo set on Flickr.
Flickr
I end the show with a song from The Podsafe Music Network, Elliot Smith's "Memory Lane." Very cool stuff. The background music interspersed throughout is stuff I played live on my Korg Karma as I mixed the recorded audio segments together. Let me know which parts sucked the hardest.
As always, thanks for stopping by!
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September 22, 2005
Sexy Sadie
018_sadie.mp3 - 7.8MB - 22:39
Oblivion and Rose get their first kitty, a mainly whilte calico named Sadie. Not much in the way of notes. Photos are on Flickr.
Contact info:
- email: eblo at ratula dot net
- call: 206-FEW-EBLO (206-339-3256)
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July 05, 2005
Fireworks!
Last night, we got to a good spot to watch our local fireworks display just in time as they were starting. The whole show lasted about 25 minutes, and for a small city, I must say we represented. This grand finale rivaled anything we've seen in Chicago - perhaps made more spectacular because we were so close, but as you can hear for yourself, it lasted about a minute. I've don't know if I've ever seen so much phosphorus burning at once before. Impressive. And parking was a breeze- we were home in about 5 minutes. Small towns do have some advantages.
Other random, cool things I saw in the sky this weekend included an F-4 Phantom flying into KUGN on Friday evening (not sure what was up with that, but it was very cool to see), what I think was the Lima, Lima flight team flying formation over our house (I think they were performing west of us earlier in the day - they flew from the west, made a fairly sloppy 180 to the right, and headed back west. There were 6 of them, and though they were high, looked like what I remeber them flying), and 3 Wacos playing tag around Campbell Airport (C81), sometimes with smoke on. Oh, and a botched banner pick-up, that was kind of cool. I need to get flying again.
Otherwise, it was mostly a working weekend. A. had to do work work, I added another gate to our fence, painted the hinges on the other gate, put down the timbers around our garden and a flower bed, and did other general putzing around. We swam quite a bit, too. And I had to run in to work on Sunday to kick a persnickety machine. So we worked, but in a very laid-back manner.
And hey, I broke my laptop. I dropped it off the couch right onto the power plug. The plug broke and afterward the laptop was not fully recognizing the AC. It'll run the lappy, but not recharge the battery. So I took the plug apart and rewired it. Same deal. I brought it in to work today and plugged in the adapter I have here. Same deal. So it looks like I busted the connector on the motherboard for the second tie in about 6 months. I'm getting a lot of use out of this warranty, let me tell you. . . ..
That's all the babble for now. For today's podcast rec., check out K9Cast with Tara and Walter. Tara saw one of my posts talking about hearing protection for Martini in the airplane and took it upon herself to do some more research for me. In Show #3, she gave me some great suggestions on alternative earplugs to try. They've also discussed training, picking up strays, etc., so if you like dogs at all, definitely give them a listen. Thanks for the tips, Tara and Walter.
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206-FEW-EBLO (206-339-3256)
May 01, 2005
Flying Puppy!!!
While dodging raindrops today, we took Martini for her first airplane ride!!! Even though we have a harness for her, Amy sat in back with her and she did GREAT!
More pictures here.
She was having fun looking out the windows, but she stayed very calm. After a while, the continuous loud noise seemed to get to her, so it we went back to the airport and landed. She wasnt really anxious, but was snuggling way into Amy's lap and seemed to get better when Amy covered her ears. It wasn't a very long flight, but to have the whole family up was very cool.
Anyone know of a way to protect her hearing? We thought of putting a bandana around her head, but didn't test it out this time. Other thoughts welcome.
More pictures here.
