Mills in Mass

It's taken too long for me to write of this, nonetheless, it was one of the best weekends since I've called Boston home. Thanks to D & M for making the trip and to my (awesome) fiancée for doing so much to make the weekend go smoothly.

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I can manage approximately 10 weeks of a standard 15 week semester in conjunction with the day job before it all gets to me. How does it get to me? Foooooood. And this is why meals were the cornerstone of this weekend.

Chinese? Friday dinner. Takeout – although they do have a glorious buffet. Best place in town. UnitedHealth Foundation just released its ranking for healthiest states in these United States. Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire were all in the top 5. States don't make it to the top of this list without making some sacrifices. Chinese food from New England has a distinctly lighter taste than most areas. Kudos to both D & M for giving it a chance.

French? Saturday dinner at Pigalle. Getting there was a challenge. More specifically, it was my challenge. Turns out…there's more than one 75 Charles Street in Boston. In such cases, zip code is very important when entering the destination into the GPS. Fortunately, we were still in Boston when I finally admitted that we had driven to the wrong 75 Charles St. We were only 10 minutes late to dinner. Fiancée and I split the Arugula with Prosciutto appetizer and then went our separate ways for the entre. I had the Duck and she had the (not so) petite Beef Tenderloin and Braised Short Ribs. We were forced to cut dinner short because we had to make our way around the block to get to Blueman. We didn't have time for dessert. I'm pretty sure that I have to take fiancée back for dessert in the future.

Philadelphia? Sunday Lunch. Cheese steaks from Carl's. This is a bit of a divergence from the traditional Philly cheese steak. Not being a native Philadelphian, I am comfortable saying that these are way better. My go-to cheese steak is a small Teriyaki with mayo and mushrooms. Phantom ranked Carl's #8 on the list of top 10 cheese steaks in Bostonia. There are 3 critical factors that make Carl's so good.

1. Diced steak
2. Fresh bread
3. Excellent variety
4. The cheese and additional toppings is evenly mixed throughout the steak (not just gobbed on top).
5. LARGE portions. Did you notice that I only get the small?

I couldn't stop at 3.

American? Twice. Thursday dinner and Saturday lunch. On Thursday we took D & M to Mad Raven. This is one of the places that fiancée and I will miss once we move to Somerville. Good atmosphere. Good food. And we even got a good parking space. It was meant to be. On Saturday, I took D & M into deep Boston so that they would have the opportunity to see Fenway. If you haven't been to Fenway, it's a really cool stadium. We walked around the stadium to give them a feel for how small it is and to point out the green monstah, etc. One of the cool things about Fenway is that there are big sports bars tucked underneath of it. Cask 'n Flagon was under construction so we decided to have lunch at Game On. The waiters/waitresses offered terrible service, but the food is worth writing home about. Fiancée and I watched Clay Buchholz throw a no hitter in 2007 at Game On. …it was against the Orioles.

   

 

     
So that's about it for the food. The other attractions for the weekend included a tour of the oldest car collection in New England at Larz Anderson Museum, Blueman Group at the Charles Playhouse, and a the regular weekend dog walk through Catrock (M's shoes will never be the same).

There is a lot more to be said about this weekend but I realize that this blog post is already too long. Be sure to click through the Mills in Mass photo album on the left hand side for some more details and commentary. It was a terribly rainy weekend but the skies cleared up long enough to offer this sunset on Sunday night.

November Means...

Ah, November.

With each November come the official holiday season, weird rain-snows, and one step closer to graduating…again.  Yup, midterm exams and projects are all behind me leaving only 3 assignments, one final exam (Finance), and one final project (Global Strategy).  My last class is scheduled for December 17^th; the countdown is so on!  …seriously, there’s an 8 ½ x 11 sized countdown on our fridge.

Securitization has been in the dumps for the past year, but bankruptcy has been keeping the legal industry very busy.  Fiancée’s been ultra busy with one specific bankruptcy…you can guess (but I’ll never tell who it is)...which has left me with a handful of stories that no one can substantiate.  For example, the dingo and I ran into a wolf at our local hang out spot, the Paine Estate.  Yeah, a wolf.  But what’s the point of telling the story?  …I have no proof.

Paine estate has been the sight of some interesting recent activity.  While there have been numerous Cameron Diaz sightings in Boston, our tiny town is often overlooked by Hollywood.  Until now (maybe).  During one recent trip to Paine, I was ordered away from the house and back toward the parking lots.  Why?  I’ll let you be the judge:

The Man vs Food show was in Baltimore last week.  They went to Chaps Charcoal Restaurant and sampled some of the sandwiches and raved about the Chaps Pit Beef Sandwich.  Chaps is on Polaski Highway – if anyone’s been, tell me if it’s as good as they made it look on TV.  They also said that the best crabs in town were at OBrycki’s and encouraged viewers to try the Great Steak Challenge at Steak & Main.

Update: We can’t take this one horse town anymore, so we’re leaving!  We just signed a new lease in Somerville (atleast a 7 horse town).

Random Thought:  The Motorola Droid commercials start cool and quickly change into an expensive advertising mistake.

Random Update: The temperature in Rio de Janeiro is 77 degrees.

Running in the Rain

I learned how to do this photo effect last week.  It’s called selective desaturation and is really quite simple.  You don’t even need PhotoShop to pull this off…just a $.99 iPhone App called ColorSplash or perhaps less.  But, to be fair, using a real camera and PhotoShop yields much better quality and flexibility.

Fiancée and I partook in a road race this past weekend.  The Somerville 5k is our favorite race of the year.  Why?  Because this t-shirt is consistently better than any other race’s.  Oh yeah, it’s THAT good: long sleeve, good logo, cool sponsors, and always a new color (it was red this year). 

We’ve signed up (and paid) for this race for the past 3 years but only participated twice.  Due to a minor scheduling error, we missed last year’s race by exactly 24 hours.  We showed up on Sunday instead of Saturday.  To make matters worse, we learned of our mistake when we inquired to some lady who was wearing the ’08 race t-shirt on her way to breakfast.  She thought it was funny.  …I guess that’s what you get when you choose which non-profit to support based on their t-shirt.  Karma!

This year went much smoother.  When race registration opened some 6 weeks prior, fiancée signed us up immediately.  After all, the first 400 registrants get free t-shirts.  Little did we know at the time that we were the first 2 out of ~1000 racers to register!  In addition to free t-shirts, this guaranteed us the #1 and #2 bibs.  This may not be important to most, but we were ecstatic.  In our minds, we had already won.

The weather was terrible.  After we signed in and got the t-shirts, we debated whether or not to stay.  We ultimately opted to go for it.  My ‘conditioning’ must be paying off.  Here’s a picture of me after the ’07 race (top - landscape) and a picture of me as I finish this year’s ’09 race (bottom - portrait).

One of the shows that we watch is called Man vs Food.  It’s classy.  We gathered a new burger idea from last week’s show; instead of a bun, use a crispy cream donut!  The assembly would go something like this:

½ of Crispy Cream Donut

Bacon

Cheese

Patty

½ of Crispy Cream Donut

How awesome does that sound!?

On a slightly more frustrating note.  It’s very difficult to get Redskins coverage up here…unless they’re about ready to lose to the Lions.  Awesome.  Oh well, it’s not the first time that Washington has bailed out Detroit… 

To do, or not to do?

How do you manage your to-do list? 

On any given weekend, I like to have 3 things on my list.    These are usually things that are significant enough for me to require me to block out some time.  Alternately, it’s something that should be done to give myself a fighting chance in the upcoming week.  For example, this weekend a wanted to:

1.    Head to the orchard to formally kick-off the Fall season

2.    Finish reading for Global Strategy and make a dent in the reading for Short Term Finance

3.    Laundry

Funny thing about my lists…they have a mind of their own.  Numbers 1 and 3 were crossed-off by Saturday afternoon leaving only the reading.  I’ve been watching fiancée read her book (‘Unless’ by Carol Shields) for the past day and a half…but I’m yet to make significant progress.  Argh.  Instead, I’ve resorted to mental strategies that make me feel better about the state of my list.  My favorite strategy is to concentrate on the completion percentage:

completion percentage = completed to-do list items / total to-do list items

By Saturday afternoon, my completion percentage was 2 / 3 = 66%.  I knew that I didn’t really feel like reading case studies right now…SO…I added a new item to the list (e.g. vacuum), completed it, and crossed it off.  Once I completed that task, my completion percentage moved from 66% to 3 / 4 = 75%!  PROGRESS!!  If you’re not careful, this strategy can get the better of you.  For example, I am not above adding an item to the list (e.g. exercise) that I’ve ALREADY completed: 4 / 5 = MORE PROGRESS!  By the way, this same technique can be loosely applied to pad investment portfolios at the end of a quarter.

In other news, I really thought Luke was going to pick Malissa in the last episode of More to Love.  Ah, c’est la vie. 

Fiancée has had two favorite things this week: 1) the E*Trade commercial where the baby calls his golf buddy  a shank-a-potamus and 2) Miley Cirus’s Party in the USA.  In her honor, I’ve added it to the ‘Give it Listen’ section on the left.  Be forewarned… like it or not, it’s really difficult to get out of your head.  It was a hot weekend in New England: NASCAR was in New Hampshire; U2 was in Boston; youth hockey season started; and we had two neighbors move out (yeah!).

…tough weekend for USC, BYU, and the Pats.  On the other hand, hail to the Redskins.

Fiancée just finished her book.  It smells like she's making apple crisp.  ...I better go check it out.

Dear Desk Job

Ah, Labor Day. 

It’s the one day all year when America collectively exalts, “Dear Desk Job, go screw.”  We spent the long weekend in mountain tops of PA quietly nestled at 2000ft above sea level.  You’ve heard of places where the sun don’t shine, right?  Well we had plenty of sun shine, but this is the kind of place that even MapQuest is yet to locate.  It’s awesome up there; cell phones are just video games, XM is a waste of money, and you can forget about GPS.  OK, it’s not THAT Oregon Trail but my point is still valid: it’s great to disconnect and be in a place where the sound of a passing car is infrequent at best.

We brought the dingo with us so we had to stop every 90 minutes to let him decompress.  But once we got there, the yard was all his.  Life is good.  Food plays a major role in our Pennsylvacations.  Check out this diet:

Friday

• Panera: Toasted Cinnamon Crunch Bagel w/ Hazelnut Cream Cheese
• McDonald’s Double Cheeseburger
• Pepperoni and Mushroom Pizza
• Chicken Parm on a bed of rice
• Caramel Cashew ice cream on a waffle cone

Saturday

• Éclairs from Wegman’s
• toast & cheese
• sausage & pepper sub
• fries
• hot dogs & hamburgers

Sunday

• toast & cheese
• éclairs
• mozzarella & portabella sub
• Burger King

…and then wash it all down with coffee, a Heineken, and more Weis’s Black Cherry Soda than any individual should consume.  …It’s probably obvious that the fast food happened on the way to/from PA.  Needless to say, I’m still not functioning properly.

I’m getting back into the swing of things at the office.  I kinda have to because Fall Semester also started up this week.  Global Strategy should be a straight forward class: do the reading, form an opinion, defend your position.  Naturally, Short Term Financial Management will require a bit more work.  The STFM teacher reminds me of Carol Bartz (a lot)…so she’s OK in my book.  It’ll take some serious discipline to keep my motivation ‘up’ for the entire semester.  Interestingly enough, I’m less anxious to conclude the Master’s than I was the Bachelor’s.  

Mmmmm...Millsey-burgers

Random Question: Is it easier to wake up on days that you have to head into the office?  Or days that you don’t have to head into the office?

Hello Millsey-burgers!  I’ve been cooking dinner this week because I’ve got all the time in the world.  I stick to grill food and by that standard, tonight was no different.  However, by every other standard, tonight was the big dance in Cinderella’s castle.  I promised fiancée the meal of her choice tonight and she picked Millsey-burgers.  If you haven’t had opportunity, then you haven’t quite lived yet.  I believe it was Papa John who said, “better ingredients, better pizza, Papa John’s.”  I think he’s onto something, and that’s why I take a similar approach with my burgers.  Only the freshest or best ground beef, garlic, blue cheese, teriyaki glaze, spices, and herbs for these burgers!

I imagine today is the closest that I’ll ever get to a three-a-day again (and I’m OK with that). Comparatively, today’s three-a-day was far more enjoyable than the ones that I recall from college.  I ran a gentle 6k in the morning, hiked with the dingo in the afternoon, and played indoor this evening.  Having run around a competitive soccer field for the majority of my life, I’m surprised that I still have the tolerance to run for exercise.  I always thought that I would graduate to swimming, cycling, or nothing (the later being the most likely result).  To this day, I still like the idea of running 5k’s as long as they have t-shirts and/or chasing a little ball around field with 11 or 21 other aptly conditioned futballers.

Tonight’s soccer game was a big deal because it’s the last game of the regular season AND the last game that I can play this season.  Once school starts, I can’t fit-in the indoor league (bummer).  15 minutes into the game we’re down 3-1 but by half we’ve evened the score.  We ended up winning, 8-4, and I recorded three goals and one assist.  Fortunately, I went out on a positive note.  I haven’t quite grasped that this is my last semester of the Masters.  If all goes well, I will have finished the program in 3.5 years.

More Randomness: At the park today, Jake and I saw a snake and a toad.  He totally ignored both.  What is it about squirrels and rabbits that drive him crazy?

Exercise: The Golf Way

Considering I’m on StayCation, I got a really early start to the day.  Secretly, I think that my fiancée found pleasure in my 6a alarm.  Sr. Honda was required at the dealership by 7a to have the breaks replaced.  The repairs went as smooth as can be expected.  Unfortunately for Honda Village, I’ve concluded that   dealer maintenance may be one of the biggest legal scams.  Oh well, such is life.

However!  The #1 legal scam in America is the entire wedding industry!  Double you oh double you.  Every vendor tries to take advantage of every customer.  Today, we received a digital proof of our save-the-dates.  We like them but wanted to try out a different set of colors.  Well, there’s a fee for that.  Apparently, the incremental cost of changing a PageMaker file (or whatever) and producing a PDF is worth $25.  …instead, I brought the mock-ups into Photoshop and changed the colors on my own in about 4 minutes.  At that pace, I could’ve altered 15 mock-ups in 1 hour which equates to an hourly rate of $375.  Not too shabby.  By the way, don’t abbreviate save-the-dates; you’ll end up with something wholly unexpected.

While the car was getting repaired, I managed to fit in a round of golf with Kyle.  I think this is the second full round that I’ve been able to fit in all summer.  Disappointing?  Yes, but not as disappointing as my scores.  For 16 holes my scores kept to a slow boil.  And then there was #17; the second most difficult hole on the course and host to a truly classic melt down.  It was a near perfect reenactment of Tin Cup.  3 balls in swamp…but I knew I could clear it if I just hit one more.  Golf is a difficult mental challenge…just take the drop.

The agony of #17 was somewhat mitigated by my purchase of Golfshot GPS.  I heard about this from one of the iPhone TV commercials.  Very cool.  Look for it the next time an iPhone commercial comes on (you shouldn’t have to wait too long).

Solar Power

OK, it’s no surprise that I burn like California during the dry season.  A David-sunburn may be the eighth wonder of the world.  They’re great for the electricity bill – instead of turning on the lights; I simply roll up my sleeve.

If this sunburn could talk, it would tell of the couple of hours that I spent at the concrete beach today.  There were four other folks in attendance at the pool.  No one talked to each other and it was great!  I finished a chapter in my finance book (The Role of Working Capital) and listened to a Darius Rucker album.  Sitting at the pool conjured memories of the Damascus pool: swim meets, pulling on the lane rope to make backstroke more fun, no breath 25’s, the high dive, cow tails from the store, the kiddy pool, the honey suckle, the frustrations of adult swim, and Speedos.  Ugh, Speedo-fitting-day was the official low point of the whole season.    And how could I forget the welcome to our OOL sign.  No matter how many times I try to explain the humor behind this sign, no one ever reciprocates.

  

After the pool, I headed over to the driving range for a bucket of balls.  Ain’t life grand?  The range is definitely the place to be this week – I imagine it has something to do with the Deutsche Bank Championship.  The guy that was hitting next to me had several dozen drivers all lined up on the fence behind us.  I had no idea what was doing or if it worth it.  My instinct told me to hurry up and place the face.  After all, what average golfer would bring a spread like that to a public range?  My imagination ran wild until I heard him take a step back onto the concrete behind us; the dummy was wearing metal spikes.  Obviously not a pro…right?

As a side note, the Celtics training facility is just down the road from here and has turned town into a hot spot for pro athletes.  

On the way home, I saw a car accident happen.  I was one lane over and two cars behind the car that got hit.  Fortunately, no one was hurt.  In fact, there was only minor damage done.  The car in front of me took off and, suddenly, it was my move.  So, what do you do?

a)       You’re a witness to a car accident.  Park your car and give your contact information to both parties involved.

b)       You’ve got things to do.  Check one more time to make sure everyone’s OK and then head on down the road.

I started pulling away.  Through the intersection.  Past the Papa Gino’s.  And that’s as far as I could go.  I couldn’t drive another hundred feet.  I felt this overwhelming responsibility to go back to the scene o’ the crime.  So I did and probably made my sunburn a lot worse.

Moral of the story: apply sun screen before taking an active role in society.

One Must Ease Into a StayCation

I’m easing into this staycation.  The challenge: Can dingo and I get through this week without wishing the other would go back to the office?

It was a slow day and rightfully so. 

I carved out some time to take a 6k run around town and get the pup to park for about an hour and half.  By the way, Jake is THE most spoiled animal on the face of this planet.  An animal couldn’t get better care at the Smithsonian.  On a related note, we’re VERY happy that we left Wags for Walks when Katrina left…’cause dang…those folks just don’t have a clue: an over burdened and under qualified dog walker is a bad combination.

I got the opportunity to return a few e-mails that ‘ve been stacking up.  There’s something humbling about being happy to find 30 minutes to run a 6k…only to find out that Troy ran a half marathon this weekend past.  It makes me think twice about including my race distance and time in my blog posts…oh well, next time.

It was a lot quieter tonight when I took dingo for a walk; see, there’s no need for air conditioning in MA any more.  We had our 7 days of 90 degree weather, and now I think fall is here.  It’ll get down into the 50’s tonight in Boston.  Believe it or not, there’s a frost warning for parts of NH and Maine.  Oh well, the CMA Music Festival is on tonight – I am satisfied.

I gave Kytalia a call yesterday to get a baby update and learned something new!  I always thought that “any day now” was the last stage before labor.  Oh no.  As it turns out, there’s another whole stage.  It’s called the “later today” stage.  This stage is characterized by frequent labor walks, foot massages, and cleaning (because there won’t be time for that later).  The real kicker is that even this stage can last for several days.

Ouch, Was That the Wall?

We all knew it would happen eventually, and today, it finally did.  Dingo and I have gone over the edge.  He's bored of me and I'm looking for things to help pass the time.

We spent about 1.5 hrs at the park today tossing the ball...Jake is usually interested in me enough to go get each ball that I toss.  But not today.  Today, we hit the wall.  We've played catch/toss for so many days in a row, that Jake doesn't feel like playing any more.  So today, we played toss...with a twist.  Here's the new process:

1. MO/PO toss the ball
2. Jake does not go get the ball
3. If we're lucky, another dog goes to get the ball
4. If we're not so lucky, MO/PO go get the ball 

Fortunately, Jake and I didn't get cabin fever earlier in the week.  KaNina will be back tomorrow to take dingo out for some much needed Jake/CoCo interaction...not a moment too soon.

Happy Force of July!

...the title of this post only makes sense if you, like I, have put in LOTS of Spike-TV-time this week.  I'm sorry.

What an awesome day!  This is the kind of day that dogs live for.  The sun was shining, temps were in the mid 70's, and there was a light breeze coming from the northwest.  The cloudcover tumbled across their shepherds gentle coax like monarchs in late summer.  ...I have clearly missed my calling!

Since its been extra soggy for the recall-able past, going to the park is a bit of an adventure.  Be sure to dress properly!

Dingo got a lot of exercise today.  I'm happy to report that MO& PO's confidence among large numbers of unknown dingos and dingets is growing by the day.  There were quite a few pups at the dog spa today - but nothinglike the carnage that found us on 7/3; unlike that day, there was a much more favorable owner:dog ratio.  I think that this tends to keep the dogs in-check.  Even after an hour of catch in the lake and fields, Jake was still read to go.  Ah, to be young.

To boot or to swell, that is the question

Buzzz…..Buzzzz….SWAT! That began our memorable journey today at the ROCK (aka malaria central).

Our adventures took place on a somewhat sunny morning.  Wait …. What?!?!? Did I just mention the word sunshine? I did indeedy! The three of us (yes, MO FINALLY had a vacation day) were in high spirits as we took off for the park.

But wait!  I’m getting a little ahead of myself.  As MO tends to “throw on” errands to otherwise seemingly fun trips, we had to make a stop before the park.  “But it’s in Weston too!” MO said.  So off we went.

WELL…..40 minutes after the “oh-so-easy errand” …. We finally arrived at the Park amidst whimpers and cries from the Dingo (my interpretation of those were “GUYS, it’s just AROUND the corner! Can we get there ALREADY!!).  Anywhoo …. PO and MO (and their trusty GPS device) continued to run into the same sign every time – ROAD CLOSED.   After much frustration (and realizing that we are just MADE to be on the show The Amazing Race)….the Park was in sight.

Ahem …. PO decides to go down a new trail today.  So harmless and inviting...at first glance:

Okay, fine….all is well and good….MO and Dingo love adventure and new things.  Well….new things we found.  I would call them Larry, Mo and Curly … although there were more than three so …. Let’s add Ringo, John, George….the list can go on (enter your favorite name here).  MOSQUITOS unite!  There must have been a political rally or something for “Mosquitos attack everyone who takes a step into their area”.   To save the gory details (and I mean gory), we trotted out of that area as soon as we could (noting “oh look …. Still swamp water….SUPER!”).

So, that adventure being over (somewhat for the moment with a few battle wounds to show for it)….we soon saw THE LAKE.  Ah, dog’s love at first sight. 

Young Jacob showed his appreciation by running up to the Lake, and then deciding to boot up his entire breakfast onto the rocky shore. OH Jacob.

Then, out of the corner of her eye (or maybe it was the galloping sound of feet), MO saw a blur of fur and next thing we know, there’s what seems like 50 dogs.  OK, slight exaggeration … but STILL.  It was ridiculous. 

Young Dingo couldn’t hold onto his tennis ball because there were ball stealers ALL over the place, PO had to fend off hungry dogs from eating Young Jacob's thrown-up leftovers (at the same time as he was trying to clean it up) and MO was trying to keep an eye on Dingo and the madhouse scene.  Here ... we pause for a moment and give PO a LOT of credit for this scene.  His task was far from pretty. SIGH.  Young Jacob started to look fed up (I mean, all the poor dog wanted was to go swimming after his tennis ball) and MO agreed.  It was time to move on.

ON TO THE trails and field!  Happy days are here again! Tennis balls were thrown, dogs were met, everything was hunky dory.

Alas, even though MO was covered from head to toe – a skeeter decided that since her hand was uncovered, he was going to have some fun.  Needless to say, MO’s hand started swelling, PO kept swatting his back and young Jacob had the biggest smile on his face.  It was time to head back home to the Center of the Universe.

Dingo decided (similar to the day before) to take off one LAST time …. This time after a pack of running dogs through the woods.  SIGH.  Again, our attempts at getting his attention were on deaf puppy ears.  He was having too much fun. Finally he decided he had enough and we could NOW go home.  Thanks Dingo!   A happy and tired puppy at the end of the day.  Really, what more can you ask for in life?  Simple things are often the best things in life. 

Em-You-Dee-Dee-Why

The weather sucks again today.  Here's what I was greeted by when I stepped outside this morning.  Another beautiful day!  However, Jake and I refuse to be defeated...ok, more Jake than I.  We took a look at the weather map and spotted our window of opportunity.  By weather.com's calculation, we could arrive at The Rock as early as 11a and be mostly in the clear.  Onward we trekked. 

The park was rather quiet, so Jake and I nearly had the whole place to ourselves.  There was this one random, seemingly owner-less, dog that was thumping about.  J-Dog avoided him altogether.

I threw the ball in the lake for Jake a bunch of times, then we mudded through the fields, and finally headed over to the ol' bunny slope.  Along the way we heard a Baskin-Robbins Pack, you know...31 different dogs.  Sure enough, one of the younger dogs came darting towards us.  Jake was cool and so was the other dog...until...they saw a bird hopping around on the forest floor about 15' away.  They both took-off toward the defenseless chew toy.  Fortunately, when I called to Jake, he stopped.  But not Cameron!  Camoron chased after the bird, caught it, and then played keep away from the dog walker.  The DW didn't really stand a chance, his knees were buckling under the weight of the 31 dog leashes wrapped around his neck.  The whole pack ended up chasing Camoron through the muddy forest.  Jake and I lost sight of him after about 1 minute of watching.  Finally, we spent about 10 minutes on the bunny slope.  Could you imagine running up this thing for exercise?

 On our way back to the car, another bird (or maybe it was a chipmunk) caught dingo's eye.  This time, there was no holding him back with a single verbal command.  Jake darted and ignored me but didn't catch his prey.  Eventually he came over to me but it wasn't before some other guy with a dog (on a leash) said to me, "that's why I keep this one on a leash...he's unpredictable."  I don't think he was trying to make a point, but being less interesting to Jake than the phantom bird was a bit of shot to my pride.  Now, Jake is asleep.  What a life!?

Thunder Dog

Growing up, we had dogs.  First was Sheena, the Chesapeake Bay Retriever who was affectionately named after Sheena Easton. Next came Cookie, the German Shepherd.  To the best of my knowledge, both Sheena and Cookie were terrified of thunder.  Surprisingly, young Jacob doesn't seem to care mind it at all.  We had t-storms roll through here for a solid portion of the day and he slept right through them!

Today was the official midway point of my vacation.  Unfortunately for both me and dingo, it also signified MID-TERM day.  ahhh!  The mid-term is over, but the damage has been done...Jake and I have lost precious bonding hours that can never be recaptured.  He has a habit of huffing and puffing when he's trying to be noticed which provided me with just the right amount of comic relief to get through the take-home exam (glorious).  Please direct all sympathy to me...Jake got to go out on an extended playgroup with his gf's.  While he was here, he spent most of his time on his gigantic Nantucket dog bed:

The BIG Day

This morning was 'it': the day that dingo and PO went to Cat Rock Ski Resort (and dog spa) without any help from MO or KaNina.  Lots of stars had to align; I was mostly worried about these:

1. I needed to be more interesting to Jake than anything around us (squirrels included)
2. I needed to have a calm, cool, and collected energy about me (even if I was uber-nervous)


3. Jake needed to listen to all of my verbal commands


4. furthest out of my control...I needed all of the other dogs/owners to have THEIR stuff together

Once we got there, it didn't take long for things to get interesting.  We crossed over the first bridge and ran into a dog walker with 8 dogs.  I didn't flinch and neither did Jake.  He checked in with me and I allowed him to go say, 'hi' to the other pack.  He was awesome.  Everything was cool (they were starting to play with one another)...BUT...there was a little yipper that started to squabbel with another one of the dogs in the pack and some others joined in the brief chaos.  I whistled to Jake and he came bounding over to me.  Success!  'at a boy!  Unfortunately, we're out of treats so I could only give him some well deserved pats on his noggen. That was the last we saw of them, which was fine with me, but you could hear them every once in a while from the other side of the park when they would get out of control.  We're lucky to have KaNina because they refuse to take more than 5 dogs on normal playgroups.

> wait a tick...some guy just dedicated The Night that the Lights went out in Georgia to his wife.  Like, whoa.

Anyhow, we ran into CoCo (et al) at the resevoir.  It was cool to see the young lovebirds frollick and play.  I don't know what Jake is doing in this picture...but whatever. 

Jake's terrified of most things the first time he encounters them but he eventually warms to them (vacuum excluded).  Here he is making his case for the purchase of a new house on a lake.

...when I signed up for the YouTube channel, I had to scroll through the list to find my year of birth - I don't remember having to do this in the past.

Is it lunch time yet? 

One Happy Pup

Can a guy get some sunshine!?  This is what I saw when I stepped outside this morning, at 10a (yeah, 10...jeolous?).  And why wouldn't it be raining?  After all, this has been the coldest and wettest June on record!  Global warming, what?  lol

I was pretty stoked for Jacob when the rain started to disappate because playgroup with KaNina is never the same when it rains.  When dingo came home, I learned of a new norm that is tearing at the very fiber of our good society: byciclists that poo in the woods.  Really?  Really.  Really!?  Reeeeally?  Reeeeeally.

Surprising?  Yes.

Understandable?  I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. 

Perhaps I'm out of line, but, if I'm required to carry a poo-bag to pick-up after an animal, couldn't you do the same?  By the way, where do you keep the TP?

Anyhow, dingo had a great time at playgroup (I can tell because he slept for the next 2 hours).  Once he woke up, we hopped in the car and headed over to the estate for some additional excercise.    It rained a bit, but we didn't mind.

Welcome to The Dog Days

Welcome to my vacation Blog!

Allow me to set the stage; I’m on ‘vacation’ this week and have no intention of leaving my quaint Massachusetts asylum.  SO, during the working hours, from now through Thursday, the dingo and I will be left almost entirely to our own devices.  Fortunately, his maternal-owner (and my fiancée) will arrive home every evening and ensure that both Donkey and I are still, in fact, alive.

One may draw the conclusion that, I’ve ‘got it made.’  I understand your position, I have virtually no responsibilities from the office, there’s plenty of protein-rich sustenance in the refrigerator, and it’s just me and man’s best friend for the near entirety of the day!  Can it get any better? 

I beg of you to temper your exuberance.  For you have never encountered the fury which is Jake’s tongue.  Sure, his kisses are a pleasant reminder of his love, affection, and loyalty.  BUT, the calculated timing of said gesture has caught many a passerby off guard.  To our friends who have fallen victim in the past, I apologize…and consider closing your mouth before you get down to his level next time.

As I attempt to nap on the couch today, fear not for me Argentina…we have plenty of mouthwash/toothpaste and I just charged the toothbrush to full power this morning.