“The worst thing about Europe is that you can’t go out in the middle of the night and get a Slurpee.” – Tellis Frank
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Alex Brings Us Joy
Alex is a funny dog. He is a fairly large (> 100 pounds), intact Bernese male. He has a large beautiful head, massive bone and a beautiful coat. And, he likes to play with toys.
He has about 50 toys, too. He is particularly fond of his hedgehog, his reindeer, a moose, a monkey, pink bunny, and his little chicken. Here he is with his little chicken after a bit of play:
And, a here is a compilation of him playing with toys.
He goes in for minor surgery tomorrow to remove a cyst that is growing on his butt. We will all be happy to see it gone!
Posted under: Stuff You Gotta Know! • by Rick on 02/24/2013 at 10:16 AM
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Friday, February 22, 2013
The Search for a New Truck
Our 2002 Suburban is getting a bit old, with 120,000 miles now. It seems every month, something needs work. The truck has been a real workhorse for us, hauling us and dogs to dog shows, moving us across the country, carrying as many as 11 dogs to the cabin, getting us back to Colorado each year for a vacation (with at least 3 dogs and 2 cats), providing a "truck" when we need to haul a bunch of stuff.
But, the passenger side-view mirror is busted, the lift gate is not working right, the SES light comes on based on data from a knock sensor (that may or may not be bad).
On the other hand, the truck has new shoes, new brakes, a new serpentine belt. It is in good condition on the interior and only a few scratches on the exterior.
We recently started looking at replacements. Our needs are very specific: we still need to be able carry three dogs, preferably in crates. We need enough additional storage to make our annual migration to the cabin. We'd like to have certain comforts such as memory seats, heated seats, a navigation system, bluetooth phone control, satelite radio, etc. And, it would be really, really nice if a new vehicle was a bit smaller than the Suburban (bought to haul up to 10 dogs), and got better gas mileage. Oh, and it needs some "off road" capabilities like true 4WD and good ground clearance in order to be compatible with life at the cabin.
Not to be found.
We've looked at Jeep Cherokee, Ford Explorer (and Expedition, yikes), and smaller vehicles such as a GMC Acadia or a Mazda CX-9. Today, we even broke down and looked at a new Suburban. These vehicles are either too small for our live cargo, or the seats don't fold down fully to truly give us the cargo space that it seems is there, or the quality and finish just did not seem good to us. Even the Suburban (and Tahoe) have changed the way they fold the rear seats down so that we could no longer get three dog crates in the back! That seems crazy for a vehicle that was the workhorse utility vehicle for so long! The sales guy said it had become a soccer mom SUV instead of working person's utility vehicle.
So, the search is abandoned. Supposedly Chevy will fix the seat issue with the Suburban/Tahoe in the 2014 model (we'll see.) And, we don't plan to always have three dogs, so maybe over time our needs will change.
I must say the Jeep Grand Cherokee and the Ford Explorer looked like really nice vehicles that might meet our needs one day.
Posted under: Stuff You Gotta Know! • by Rick on 02/22/2013 at 02:03 PM
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Thursday, February 14, 2013
I Need Ideas
Okay. The new web platform is fully deployed. I focused on getting Lynne's blog up-and-running because people actually read it. Then, I turned my attention to enabling some really cool features on my site. Things like the Fancy Gallery, polls, tags, etc.
Now that it all seems to be working, I have nothing to say.
Wish I could think of a good blog topic tonight.
Posted under: Stuff You Gotta Know! • by Rick on 02/14/2013 at 07:08 PM
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Friday, February 08, 2013
Another Hummingbird Post
Here is another movie of a hummingbird. This was also taken many years ago and the movie won't play in the original post. So, I'm reposting it and sharing it again. It was taken with a Phantom Miro eX4 camera at 1000 frames-per-second.
Posted under: Stuff You Gotta Know! • by Rick on 02/08/2013 at 05:35 AM
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Thursday, February 07, 2013
Old Hummingbird Movie
I had this movie from 4 or 5 years ago posted on my web site. But, the upgrade has broken the post, so I thought I'd post it again.
This is a couple of hummingbirds sparring. I don't know if this is mating behavior (one is male the other female), or competition for food. All this takes place in less than 2 seconds.
Posted under: Stuff You Gotta Know! • by Rick on 02/07/2013 at 11:55 AM
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