Category: Good Things

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Dogs…

I’ve pretty much always been lucky with dogs. Regrettably they have sometimes not been lucky to have me. I had to become a full adult to understand that training a dog is a matter of teaching them, not breaking them.

Sometimes you’ll see harsh training, and while that terrorizes the dog into submission it also breaks the dogs spirit and you never get to see the actual personality of the dog develop.

As an adult, the last 3 dogs I’ve had, I trained gently and let their personality develop. I find dogs that have personality far more rewarding than those who do not.

Jesse is no different. He’s smart, he does want to please but is easily bored or distracted. So right now we’re concentrating on the basics. No chomping on hands, arms, feet, or clothing. It’s not biting per se, he’s just mouthy and forgets that when he clamps down he can hurt ya.

He’s been remarkably surprised when after a few warnings I bare my teeth and try to chomp him back. Obviously that’s behavior he’s never seen from a human before and he doesn’t quite know what to make of it. I’ve chomped his ear lightly so now he knows I have teeth and am serious when I say NO. He’s only been here 6 days, and is making progress.

Walks are really good unless he sees a rabbit. Then all hell breaks loose. Again, nothing I haven’t dealt with before, and he’s getting much better about responding to commands though there’s still a way to go on that front.

He’s a generally happy pup, and as he’s to getting comfortable he’s also showing me more of who he is.

He is sweet, he’s a trickster, he seems to like a good joke, (even if I don’t seem to get it). He’s strong and fast, he also really seems to want to be all cuddly but then gets distracted with the mouth clamping a bit too hard on my hand, ending the cuddle session. Sunny and Etta both went through a similar phase, (Etta’s I remember all too well and have a scar or two to show for it!)

Right now he’s like a two year old child with boundless energy and even when he’s obviously tired, he fights going to sleep until gravity wins. It’s funny to watch. He’ll be sitting then his eyes start to close, then his behind slides out from under him and he catches himself on the way down.

I don’t think he likes me laughing at him when he does this, but it’s damn cute.

Took him to the vet yesterday because he was upchucking and it sounded like kennel cough. Turns out that’s not the problem, his stomach is a bit upset by the antibiotic he’s on for the next 8 days. That was a vet bill that I wasn’t expecting, but he’s gained a couple of pounds since he came to live with me. So that was good news if only that he’s been able to eat healthy and our twice daily long walks are doing him as much good as they’re doing me.

Multiple “Zoomies” in the back yard are apparently helping him too.

He is a lot of work. I hope at the end of this I’ll have a good trusting and trustworthy dog.

He’s a little defensive of his spaces, it’s going to take some time to teach him what is a problem and what isn’t anything to worry about.

At the moment, I’m having to get up to check on everything he decides to bark about. So he knows I’m interested and from my reaction he’s learning what is normal. Eventually, I’ll be able to tell from his voice if he’s saying “hello” or if the message is, “Dad! There’s something out here you need to deal with NOW!”

He’s talking to the lady next door instead of a full on bark. He says hello to her with a brief woof and then carries on the conversation with a series of low woofs, whines, and tail wags.

This is progress.

He’s taken to responding to my throwing one of his toys off the deck into the back yard by retrieving the toy as part of play and enjoying the stairmaster aspect of running up & down the back stairs. This is expected behavior, what is surprising is that when he’s tired he’ll bring the toy half way up the stairs, look me in the eye and drop it. Then he’ll come up the stairs and lay down. He watches as I go down the stairs to get the toy and seems to enjoy seeing me retrieving.

It’s hard to believe it’s only been a week tomorrow. At the same time I know that I’m looking at a minimum of at least 11 more weeks before he gets the routines and I fully understand what occupies him and satisfies his needs.

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World Meet Jesse, Jesse Meet World.

I mentioned in the last post that we were expecting a new resident.

Here he is. He had no name, no history, and nobody to love. The shelter said he was retriever / husky mix.

That should probably be amended to husky / retriever mix, because he’s a lot more like a husky personality.

He talks, he becomes fixated on things, (sometimes things he really should let go). Trying to dissuade him from digging right now is a major impossibility.

I made the mistake of letting him watch me pull the gopher stakes out of the ground. the small 2 inch diameter holes were all expanded to 12 inch holes in seconds. They were deep enough for him to put his whole head in.

I suppose he was trying to help, but didn’t realize the gopher stakes were to keep gophers out of the yard, not to cover up gopher holes. I’ll admit, his solution was elegant. Dig the little bastards out of the ground and eat them. Thankfully, he didn’t find anything or that would have been a serious mess for day 3.

I decided to call him Jesse after seeing just how fast and agile he is. Jesse Owens, or Jesse James your choice…

The shelter said he was a year old… Uh wrong! he’s still teething. Add that to the husky determination and you get a bit of a buzz saw.

I’ve thus far been able to mostly keep ahead of it, but It’s a challenge to say the least. Vigilance must be 100%. Take your eyes off him for a hot minute and he lives up to his name regarding speed, and you’ll never know what he has in his mouth. think 2 year old human on speed.

On the plus side, I’ve radically increased my activity and surprisingly my BP is down.

More as anything of interest develops.

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Sometimes you just don’t feel fresh…

When I get that not so fresh feeling, I delete crap!

This morning I started with the last remaining Twitter Account. Buh Bye Jack, and you can censor the hell out of yourself.

Then I remembered that I still had Google Accounts. Adios Google! It had been a while since I’d checked in on those accounts. Remember when it used to be your search history, Google Drive, Calendar, and an email account? Whoa nellie! Google has expanded their tendrils into a lot more than just those innocuous and helpful things. And their privacy settings have become as tedious as Facebook’s used to be. They’re not my problem anymore. All Google accounts have been deleted. Sure cleaned up my mail and calendar programs too. Without those accounts, I have no need to maintain synchronization anymore.

Facebook has been gone for years and I’m the better for it.

I’d love to 86 Dropbox too. Unfortunately I have one application that uses it, so for the time being they get a reprieve.

Found an OLD Yahoo account – Burned it down!

Right now, I’m feeling fresh as a daisy!

The thing about all these “Services” is that they find a way to collect information on you and that information is a security leak about your daily life. Do you really want your business out there?

The way things are going… I don’t.

Now lets see if I can figure out how to configure my server to handle all the stuff that I was outsourcing…

Have a great day.

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After 7 Months…

The car saga is finally coming to a close.

I’ll call it done when the check has cleared!

Back in November 2019 I had a little “boo boo” driving home form Orange County. At the time I thought it was just going to be an annoyance. If I’d only known…

Short story, car sits in repair shop for a month. I get tired of the fighting between the body shop and the insurance company and tell them, “Just FIX the damn thing, I’ll pay the difference.”

December 31 I pick up the car and drive it home. 1st week of Jan 2020 I call the insurance company to have a discussion with one of their adjusters and the adjuster agrees that they should have paid for all of the repairs not just the portion they did pay for. He says he’s sending a check. I think hurrah!

Check never comes. I call the insurance company and they tell me the check has been cashed. I ask by whom? I’m told by the shop…

I call the shop and ask them to send me the amount owed.. At the time I’m thinking, “No big deal.”

Here begins the saga.

The insurance company hasn’t paid everything the shop thinks they should have. So they’re holding onto the money. Eventually the shop stops returning my phone calls and emails and I think they’re just hoping I’ll go away.

They don’t know me very well.

I keep trying to be reasonable, and they keep blowing me off. This goes on for months, until I happen to need some things from the dealership.

While I’m there, I ask to speak with the General Manager of the Dealership and explain the situation. I’m polite, I’m reasonable, and I tell him that I, as a customer shouldn’t be embroiled in their insurance battles or their personnel issues. Those things are none of my concern.

He agrees and says he’ll look into it. Shortly thereafter I start getting notices from the insurance company that supplemental claims are being opened. Knowing what little I know fo the way the process works I figured that it’s just the shop and the insurance company’s way of dealing with the disputed amounts and ignore the notifications.

Again, that’s none of my concern.

Yesterday afternoon I get a call from the insurance company asking where my car is.

Hmmm. It’s in my garage last time I looked.

The very sweet lady is clearly confused. I explain what I believe to be the truth of the situation and direct her to scans of the final invoice, and email communications where I’d done the math and explained what I was expecting from them. She reviews the documents and says first, that it’s nice that I’d sent all the supporting documentation to them. Usually, it’s a situation of “he said / she said”.

I tell her that I’m all about keeping everyone in the loop and that this way the insurance company knows that I held up my end of the bargain, (paying my deductible and covering additional expenses that I’d authorized). I tell her that what I’m looking for is to extricate myself from the machinations of the insurance company and the shop.

She agrees and laughs when I tell her, “I just want to tap dance away from the mess.”

She thanks me for explaining it to her, and says that she’ll see what she can do.

I hang up the phone as I have many times thinking, “I appreciate her efforts, but doubt anything will come of it.”

About 20 minutes later I get a notification that I have another email from the insurance company. It says that a check has been issued. I’m thinking, “Huh, that’s neat but I’ve been here before.”

5 Minutes later the sweet young lady calls me back and verbally confirms that the check is being mailed and that I should see it in 5 to 7 days. I thank her profusely for her efforts.

10 minutes later there’s another email notification saying that another check is being sent to me. This one is for a lot less so I’ll have to see what the insurance company is sending and why.

Hopefully, this will put an end to the whole mess. I will go in for routine maintenance (It’s a different branch of the business) But I’m not going to be having any body work done by that shop in the future. As to additional cars… the jury is still out on that.

Next on the agenda is the donation of two dead trucks for a tax credit.

Trust me you don’t want to know that story!

Who knows? Maybe I’ll just find an old used pickup truck, pay cash for it and drive it into the ground. It would be a lot easier to “Mad Max” a pickup. The way things are going that might be the best option.

The moral of the story is: Be tenacious. Have the documentation. Be certain of what your goal is, and that you’re correct.

Funny, our politicians could learn from item 2 and 3 couldn’t they?

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Ahhh, Finally a decent night’s sleep

GOPR0058.jpegIt’s been weeks since I went to bed and slept soundly through until morning.

The sleep application running on my phone shows the disruptions and restlessness much more clearly than I actually recall being awake.

It’s amazing how lack of sleep makes ya feel like crap. In my case I start to feel really stupid and have a hard time keeping any single thought in my head. I become scattered and then I get really quiet. 

But last night was bliss!

I went to bed, fell asleep immediately. I woke up to the pink blush of the sunrise across the mountain and actually felt ready to get up and start my day. 

I’ve been doing chores and enjoying them. (God, I must be sick!)

Thursday, Friday, and yesterday I felt poorly. I wondered if I’d caught the Covid Boogyman virus. I had no fever and I could still taste & smell and had no other symptoms. So I took it easy and kept a watchful eye on my stats. With all the media attention and masked up people, it was easy to wonder if I’d caught IT and was I gonna die.

My 80 something year old mother is panicking on the other side of the country for the same reasons. I’d spoken to her on Thursday and did my level best to hide that I wasn’t feeling well.

I did tell her that she should turn off the steady diet of CNN but she was having none of that. She told me that apparently some of my brother-in-laws relatives died of Covid.

They were in their 80s and honestly I question if it was Covid or just old age. I did my best to calm her down. Thankfully, the conversation was short. Between the strain of creating the illusion that I was fine and her going on & on about Covid I was pretty short on patience.

This morning I feel pretty much normal. I’m a little stiff from the lack of activity over the past few days, but my head is clear. (I can add 2+2 without a calculator so that’s a plus.)

Been going through the accumulated email catching up. More properly, I’ve been going through the email and deleting the ton of junk mail that the filters missed. It’s funny, only about 1 in 10 emails actually has anything important in it.

It’s hard to believe that we’ve already gotten through almost all of July. 

Time feels like it’s stopped, but the days on the calendar have flown by. I guess that’s a function of the news not really changing. I mean there really hasn’t been much different since about April. I’m finding it easy to lose days and entire weeks.

Ah well, off to complete some more chores that have backed up.

Hope you’re all having a great Sunday.