Dog Transports Thanksgiving Weekend and Dec 5

I drove two white American Bulldogs the Saturday after Thanksgiving. They were so sweet! One was Bella, and the other Bonnie, but despite asking the transport, I couldn't figure out which was which. They were both underweight and small - smaller than Maggie and she isn't a large Boxer.

Here is the younger one -she was a pistol! It was cold and I didn't have a lot of time to take pictures, so this is her in mid-shake.

And then when she was done shaking.

Here is the older one. She curled up on the seat next to me while I drove and just fell asleep while I stroked her head. I also put the seat warmer on under her and she enjoyed the extra heat. (She didn't have a lot of body fat - I could see her whole rib cage and her spine.) I think she was exhausted (and hungry) and just wanted to get to her furever home and settle in.

I did another transport on Dec 5. I thought I was picking up 6 mid-sized puppies, but I didn't read the last version of the run sheet when it came out. Surprise! A litter of 7 small puppies were added at the last minute (which I didn't realize until I got to the meeting site). I put the litter of seven in my medium crate, and put the six loose puppies in the back. My barrier is for much larger dogs, so one escaped and attempted to surf the crate while I drove. This is Clancy the adventurous one.

My apologies for the crazy angles. I was driving and trying to take pictures with my SLR camera at the same time. Did I mention it was lightly snowing too?

This is small of the loose six puppies once I got to Catonsville, MD. The beagle is Marie and the other one is I think Kobe. Marie was dominant and I had to stop her from pinning and tussling with Alvin and Kobe at different points of the drive.

From right to left, is Kobe (I think), Korbin and Alvin. They all were super curious and wanted to get out and explore. There was one more dog - Jace but I think she was hiding when I tried to take pictures.

Sorry for the blurry pic of Korbin.

These are five of the seven pups from the same litter. All but one of the puppies where brown - there was one black puppy who was really shy and stayed in the back of the crate while I moved the rest.

After Clancy made a break from the back of the 4Runner, I plopped him on my lap for the ride. I tried to get some pictures, but he kept hiding her head around my body and under arm. He was sooo sweet! I almost stole him from the transport and brought him home. He was so snuggly and cuddly.

Here is Clancy again with the son of the driver of the next leg. I think Clancy stayed on his lap for the trip to Delaware.

All in all, a good two weekends of driving and me putting the 4Runner to good use. I'm not driving for the rest of the year. Next year I'll probably do more driving and try to remember to take more pictures. It helps me to remember all the dogs that are going to find new homes.

Return to the Living with a Crash

Finally finished moving on July 2. That's when I picked up my bike from the parking garage and turned in the keys to the old landlord. And let me just say, I'm exhausted. I spent the 3 day weekend for the 4th of July napping, sleeping late, napping, hitting a light pole in a completely empty parking lot in front of Burger King, napping, sleeping late, and catching up on 2 weeks worth of The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Chelsea Lately.

After hitting the light pole, my vehicle looked like a drunk car. I figured if I drove into DC for the fireworks at night, I would have been pulled over in a heartbeat. My poor 4Runner is below.

On the other hand, I finally was removed from the Bad Renters Banned List from Enterprise. There was a small incident back in 2004 where I rented a Envoy from Enterprise, let Dean drive it (even though he wasn't an authorized driver), and he got into a small fender bender. Where the New Orleans Police were called and filed a report. And Enterprise was notified. And I was banned. Originally, I thought it took 7 years to get off their list, but I guess it was only 5. Yeah me!

I'm driving a Ford Fusion, and it doesn't get really great gas mileage. On the other hand, it's got some serious pep. Serious pep. But the seat is designed for someone about 4 inches taller in the torso from me - essentially, not for a short person. There is a reason why I drove a Honda and now a Toyota. The seats are designed for someone my height.

Anyway, the 4Runner should be done next week. Did I mention I crashed it the day after I got it detailed? Super detailed? They steam cleaned the head liner and overhead! Argh.

I'm Back, Baby!

The MBA is finally done. I started two classes for the Human Resource concentration, but when I finished the first class (which covered pay and benefits in depth) and started the second (job analysis and designing pay structures), I called it quits. The area I really wanted to study was probably something like organizational behavior or group dynamics. So I just dropped the concentration and am going with the regular MBA. Which means I'm done! Done! Done! Done! All done! I submitted my application for graduation to the school - waiting to hear back from my Academic Counselor.

Of course, I can't just sit idly home. I'm moving locally (about 3 miles away) to a house with a fenced in backyard for the dogs. Since Trouble is dog-aggressive (and some people-aggressive), he hasn't been running around anywhere in a while. I used to bring Maggie and Trouble to the dog park at night, but caused a few problems: Namely, 1) this was illegal, and 2) sometimes I ran into other people at the dog park at night. I never had a problem but I figure I was bound to. When I brought the doggies home from the PetsHotel last time, they gave me a report saying Trouble "loved the individual play time with Maggie." I felt a huge pang of guilt because I knew he doesn't get enough exercise running around. So he should love running around the new back yard.

I'm actually looking forward to mowing the grass and planting some flowers in the front yard. I find pushing a lawn mower back and forth cathartic. Back and forth, slightly overlapping the row from before. I guess I like the orderliness about it.

Anyway, I'm packing up boxes and boxes of books. Seriously, lots of books. U-Haul has these 1.0 cubic foot boxes specifically for books, and I've got 18 filled and about half the books packed. I think I need to donate a mess once I get into the new place. I secretly want a library in my dream home and I've been collecting books in anticipation of that.

Will post more soon! I've done a few more dog transports since I posted last and I have pictures. Lots of cute puppies and one beautiful boxer named Champ.

When eHarmony Starts Sounding Like the Generic Women's Magazine

On top of receiving emails notifying me of potential matches, I have the joy of slogging through emails from eHarmony with articles about "3 Reasons Men Leave Women They Love" and what I can do about it. Here are some more: "The Top Kissing Complaints," "Dating Style: Casual Cool or Polished Sophisticate?" "Single Women: 7 Strategies for Meeting Mr. Right," etc. (All these cam be found at advice.eharmony.com.)

I admit I am torn. Part of me resents the fact that, according to the first article I mention, if a Man leaves a relationship, it was because of something I could control and a result of something I did or did not do. (Which I don't always believe is the problem.) (Unless this happens more than once, then it might very well be the type of man I am picking ... or something like that.)

As for the Dating style piece - shouldn't I dress the way I want too - whatever I'm comfortable with? Sometimes that's jeans and a sweater - sometimes that's a dress and heels?

On the other hand, I can see that perhaps the reason someone has signed up with eHarmony is, for whatever reason, they haven't found a partner yet. And maybe some of the reasons for this is that ... there are some things they can do differently.

But I have to say, my initial reaction whenever I get a "helpful" email from eHarmony with their advice is impatience and disgust. If I want to read one of those stupid articles where the answer to my relationship problems can be summed up and fixed in 5 paragraphs, I'll pick up one of this stupid Women's magazines like Glamour. At least eHarmony hasn't sent me any emails about sex - then I would have to turn to Cosmo for the magazine equivalent.

1 Down, 3 to Go

A week and a half ago (that's about the lag of when I think to post something, and then remember it again) I finished MBA 530 on Human Resource Management. I got a B minus which I'm very happy with considering I handed in a few assignments late. I'm now into the second week of the next course MBA 590 Project Management. I gotta say, I liked the HR course better, and the PM stuff is kind of boring - but that might the book.

The middle of July can't come fast enough!

Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me in DC!

Just bought my tickets for the NPR show Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me for May 14. I always enjoy the show when I catch on my local NPR station, but their following tag announcing the upcoming show was what convinced me to buy tickets:

"The last time we came to DC, we swore we wouldn't come back until there were different people to make fun of. DC - you heard our call!" Then they went on with the details of the show at George Washington University.

Pretty darn cool!

To see if the show is coming near you - look here.

Damn You Williams-Sonoma For Knowing My Weakness

After writing about my last temptation from Williams-Sonoma, I casually cruised the sale site for the after-Valentine's Day stuff, and I ran across this: the Zarafina Tea Maker Suite.

It's 1/3 off! And every reviewer had awesome things to say about it - and rated it 4 or 5 out of 5 stars. And there are separate settings for different types of tea and the strength that you want.

Damn you Williams-Sonoma! I resisted the hot chocolate maker (which is still on sale btw) since I usually only drink it in the winter. But tea? I drink tea all the time! And the Zarafina Tea Maker Suite looks so convenient. And handy. And is such a cool kitchen toy, er, I mean, tool.

Must. resist. sale.price.

Everytime I Hear a Republican Say They Don't Want "Big Giovernment," I Want to Punch Him (or Her) in the Face

Please. Just be honest. It's not that you don't want "big government." You don't want big government in social services or in domestic issues. You don't want government employees handling the duties needed to make the federal government run.

Instead, Republicans just hire the work out to contractors who do the work for profit. And have lobbyists. The following stats were reported by Morning Edition on NPR in Dec 2008.

-Since President Bush took office, the government has doubled the amount of
contracts with industry. The administration paid corporations more than $400
billion last year to work for everybody from the Forest Service to the CIA.

-The administration has given the majority of that contract money to
companies that didn't have to compete to get it — or faced only limited
competition.

-There are actually more contractors handling the war in Iraq
than American troops.

The current batch of contractors have former President Reagan to thank for kicking off the start of the largest number of contractors working for the federal government. Former President Clinton continued the trend, "And then came President Bush, who said "big government is not the answer" and shattered all the previous records for contracting out [work]" (NPR, Dec 1, 2008).

So really, this talk of no big government is a farce. Sort of like John McCain spouting off about how deregulation of the banking industry is good. Deregulation means less government oversight and therefore "smaller government." Yeah, we see how well that's been working out.

So Republicans, think about the spin you keep trying to put to the American public and jsut be honest about what you want. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the Democrats took the White House this last election. Or just STFU. Either one I'm good with.

Sources:
Obama To Tackle Explosion In Federal Contracts - NPR, Morning Edition, December 1, 2008.
McCain’s Pro-Deregulation History Exposed, Becoming a Major Liability in the Presidential Race - Rob Kellogg, Government Investment Watch, September 19, 2008.