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The president of my company

The
president of my company had one of his anual state-of-the-company
addresses today.  He talked about where we’re doing well and where
we can use some improvement.  He also took the opportunity to
recognize some employees for exceptional work or accomplishments.
 
My
name was on two different slides for my own accomplishments.  I
was pleased just to see my name and receive the applause.  I have
to confess it wasn’t JUST my name on those two slides.  One was
because I had joined the company’s 1st Responder program and received
1st aid and CPR training.  So there was my name along with the
other 30 team members.  The second was because we had a power
disaster back in may or June that had the potential of wrecking things
for the company for days.  Me and, maybe 50 other people from IT
responded and spent our whole Sunday recovering and getting things
ready so that when people came to work at midnight they would be able
to move product out the door.
 
So neither of these were solo recognitions.  But it still felt good to be included.
 
…
 
They also gave me a $100 check for each recognition!
 
Woohoo!!
 
It will be a hot time in the old town tonight!!
 
Still, they recognized and rewarded my efforts and I appreciate the gesture.
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last night I had started

last night I had started several routine maintenance processes on my home computer:
    Virus scan
    Defragmentation of the C: and E: drives
    Norton Windows Repair (that’s not the right name)
    Backup
 
For
the backup I used WinRAR to compress everything within My Documents and
move it off to a series of 650MB files on the E: drive.  This
includes all my music, photos, websites and videos.  The size was
really very large.
 
When I went to bed the backup reported it had another 11 hours to go.
 
When
I came down from my shower to see how it was doing I saw Gabriel had
cancelled all my processes and started up his game.  I was mad at
him for cancelling all my stuff so he could play his game.  He
needs to respect my computer more. I told him never to cancel my stuff
again and I think he got the message.
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The dog is managing to

The
dog is managing to make it all the way through the night without
howling to get out of his crate.  He’s not whining or complaining
at all.  I managed another 7 consecutive hours of sleep! 
Ain’t it grand?
 
He’s
very laid back and seems very pliable right now.  The books I’ve
been reading and listening to recommend not starting to train a
puppy until he’s three months old.  At first I didn’t think
about this much and just assumed I had a couple more months to
go.  But then I realized that he’s already 2.5 months old!  I
figure we could start his training any time!
 
And by this I just mean the basics:
    sit
    come
    heel
    down
 
Maybe “drop it”.
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That’s not a slam or

That’s
not a slam or anything. She makes very rational well thought out
decisions but sometimes it just doesn’t work out due to something that
can only be labled as “chronic misfortune”.
It looks like regarding dog-poo I got all the bad luck. I had to get up
four times during the night on Sunday night to let the dog out. The dog
wasn’t fooling around and produced a tangible result each time. I don’t
feel all that bad about having to get up so many times in the middle of
the night — it was productive and served a purpose.
We’re putting him in a crate at night now.
Last
night when I went to bed I told my wife about how much I was looking
forward to enjoying a good night’s rest after being awake at all hours
the night before. We joked a little bit but she knew I wanted her to
take the dog out last night. So I went to sleep confident that I
wouldn’t have to get up for at least seven hours.
Can you believe that animal didn’t wake up AT ALL?! All night long: total silence!
That woman got away with not having to get up even once.
Yeesh.
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Who gets to say that? 

Who
gets to say that?  Well, I do.  My boss really is a hero in
the most real sense of the word.  Have a look at this article:
    http://www.ecnnews.com/cgi-bin/05/ntstory.pl?-sec-Pageone+fn-piexplosion-20050822-+page_0
 
Basically,
there was some construction going on at a house nearby and there was a
terrible explosion followed by billowing black smoke pouring out of the
house.  My boss was outside nearby and heard the explosion
followed by screams and shouts for help.  He ran over and although
he didn’t actually dive in to any flames there were very dense clouds
of black smoke billowing from the house.  He and three other
neighbors pulled two men from the house.  The first man actually
managed to walk out of the house on his own despite the fact his
body was covered 85% by 3rd degree burns.  He told my boss that
there was another man (his son) still inside the house.  The
builder had installed a cistern that was 8′ deep.  At the bottom
of this cistern was the unconscious victim.  Although my boss was
unable to breathe and borrowed a hose to breathe through he still
managed to find him in the pitch black and haul him to the ladder where
three other neighbors were able to haul the victim out.
 
It
was only later that evening at the hospital when my boss’s wife and son
showed up when he realized how much danger he had put himself in and
what might have happened.
 
When I think of an archetypal hero I think of someone who puts their own life in jeopardy
to rescue a stranger.  I think of that guy back in 1983, when an
airplane bounced off one of the bridges over the Potomac.  There
was ice floating in the river and people clinging to the ice
flowes.  Some slipped under and died.  This guy stopped his
car on the bridge and dove in the water to start rescuing people. 
I was stunned.
 
I think my boss is a hero in every sense of the word and he has my respect and admiration.
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N.O.B.L.E. stands for North Of

N.O.B.L.E. stands for North Of Boston Library Exchange. 
Its just a way of exchanging books between 28 libraries on the North
Shore.  I can use the web at home, at work or in a library and
look up books like it was a card catalog.  If the book happens to
be in another town I can either go to that town and check it out using
my own library card or I can ask my library to fetch it for me. 
In this way our libraries don’t end up with 28 copies of the same book
when they can share stock between them all.
 
I think its a pretty good idea, especially in a relatively densely populated area like Boston.
 
Today I was able to go over to the Salem Public Library and check out a book on tape called, How to be your Dog’s Best Friend, by the Monks of New Skete. 
As I understand it they’ve been breeding and training German Shepherds
and advocate a compassionate approach to training.  However, they
also seem to recognize that the dog is an animal and a part of a
pack.  I have been trying to avoid a training method that used too
soft a touch.  I’m not a “hitter” or someone who is interested in
hurting my dog, but I think it must take a lot of work to apply such a
gentle approach.  The monks seem to strike a pretty good
balance.  And I’m sure they’ve learned a lot about training
dogs.  So I think I will follow their recomendations.
 
So
I couldn’t find anywhere to park over there so I parked about five
blocks away and strolled through the historic homes in the sunshine and
mild breezes to get over there.  Then I stopped for pad thai at
Bangkok Paradise. 
 
It was a really nice way to spend my lunch break.
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So the weekend went well.

So
the weekend went well. On Saturday we went over to some old friends’
new house. They’ve only just bought it a couple of months ago and are
still getting settled. We hadn’t seen them in many months and it was
good to see how well they’re doing. Its a very nice house in a very
nice neighborhood, which is within walking distance of an elementary
school, a middle school and a golf course. I think they’ll be very
happy there.

Our
kids and their kids were all really happy to see each other, which was
nice. I wasn’t sure if the time between visits would make them grow
apart, but they seem to have a good time with each other. As far as I
could tell they all treated each other well and had a good time! What
else could you ask for? We brought Peterman with us. Our hosts were
very patient with his house-training issues and didn’t seem to mind his
“accidents”. Our friends have a 3 year old springer spaniel named Rosie
that we’ve hosted several times and I wasn’t sure how she and Peterman
would get along. Turns out that they loved playing with each other!
When Rosie wouldn’t pay attention to Peterman he barked at her and even
nipped her tail a couple of times! I was surprised at how bold Peterman
was because Rosie is enormous compared to him. But he wanted to wrestle
and play with her just like she was another little puppy. He was so
tired that he spent all Saturday night and most of Sunday recovering
his energy.

El
Doggo seems to be doing well. He’s learned that when he gets his leash
on and we go out front that he’s expected to pee. He does it virtually
every time. He seems to be able to urinate when he intends to — now we
just need him to be NOT urinate when he DOESN’T intend to. We’ve had
this 3′ pen set up in the kitchen and had it lined with newspapers and
a large incontinence pad. We were trying to use this pen instead of a
crate in his crate-training. But I think its too large. And although
dogs are supposed to dislike defecating where they sleep this
preference doesn’t seem to extend to their water bowls.

Last
night I discovered that Peterman and dropped a giant load squarely in
his water bowl! UGH! Poop Soup is pretty foul stuff! I decided to bring
it outside to distribute on the area where we want him to … deposit
his packages and on the way down the stairs I stepped on a doll that
had been left there. Although I didn’t fall, spill or drip any of the
soup I had images of splashing poop soup all over the basement den!
ugh. It was pretty foul stuff.

Afterwards,
I got his pen all fixed up - a new pad on the bottom with a couple
layers of newspaper on top of it. I got everything just “so” and stood
back to admire my handiwork. Peterman showed his appreciation by
immediately pee-ing all over it.

This
is when I decided that something was absolutely wrong with how we were
approaching this whole issue. He should have been treating the whole
inside of this pen as his “bed” and not defecating in it! All the books
said this was the case! But on Sunday morning I had discovered a load
squarely in the middle of the towel we had neatly folded and provided
as his “bed”.

Something was amiss here!

Liz
suggested that maybe the pen was too large and he wasn’t considering it
his bed — or maybe he didn’t recognize the towel as a “bed”. So we
stowed him in the crate last night when we went to bed.

90
minutes after I went to sleep he was whining and crying. I got up and
took him out and the dog got busy and urinated like he was supposed to.
I took him back in and deposited him in his crate. No crying or whining
or complaints.

A
couple of hours after that he cried and whined again. So I woke up and
took him out front again. And this time he took care of number one AND
number two! I took him back and deposited him in his crate without any
complaints from him.

I think he woke up
again in the middle of the night and we repeated the steps again. I
think he needed to go out three times while I was trying to sleep. But
he wasn’t crying for attention or because he was sad or lonely or
anything. He cried so he could be let out and pee/poop!! That’s just
what he’s supposed to do! This is great!

I
was just doing it wrong! By confining him to the small space he didn’t
have anywhere that wasn’t his bed to foul — so he cried and needed a
hand. Perfect!

Mind
you, I’m fairly sleepy today, but I understand that the more time he
spends in his crate the longer he’ll be able to “hold it”.

So I think we’re on the right track.

I should get some more coffee — I have to be productive today.

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I expect the weekend to

I
expect the weekend to be quiet.  We’re supposed to go over to some
friends’ house on Saturday.  They’ve just moved in to a new home
on the other side of Boston.  We haven’t seen them in a very long
time and I know the ladies are anxious to see each other.  Our
kids all get along well and me and the husband get along well.
 
So I’m looking forward to that. 
 
Ben should be home shortly.  I’ll be curious to see how his big event went.
 
I should call my folks too. 
 
I’ve gotta get out of this office.  I’ve lost all my focus and can hardly finish a thing. 
 
Time to wind it up!
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I understand that at this

I
understand that at this time in the dog’s life its important to
introduce him to as many new things as possible.  They say that it
contributes greatly to a dogs comfort level for the rest of his life if
he’s seen all the kinds of environments he’s liable to encounter before
12 weeks of age.  I don’t know how much stock to put in this –
I’ve read it in more than one place and heard it from a couple of
people.
 
While
I’m not sure HOW true to it is, I’ve always wanted to the dog to come
with me on walks through the woods and the adventures me and the kids
go on so I decided to take him to that section of the Middlesex Fells
behind the old Boston Regional Medical Center (BRMC).  There’s a
resovoir back there with nice trails and hard-pack fire roads going
around it.  Since Ben was on his overnight adventure it was just
the five of us. 
 
We met a LOT of other dogs.  Heck, I think we met six weimeraners! 
There were several bulldogs, a collie, a poodle, a greyhound, some
dalmatians and innumerable black labs.  We had a good time and its
funny how people warm up to a puppy so quickly!  I’ve never seen
anything like it — well, except for babies.  Babies attract
people in the same fashion, but not so universally, I think.
 
There’s
a resovoir up there and many of these dogs were going to go
swimming.  Another time we’ll have Petie/Buckaroo give it a go but
last night all the kids were with me and there were so many other
dogs.  It just seemed like the wrong time.  I think we’ll be
back soon so I’m not worried about it.
 
He
has many opportunities to go out front and is getting more used to cars
going by. He seems fine with it.  He was never bothered by
them.  I want to take him to play at the beach this evening. 
I think that will be a nice thing to do.  We’ll go down to Revere
beach and have a walk along the water.  Its not the nicest beach I
know of but its certainly the closest.  I think he’ll like the
waves.
 
This morning when I woke up there was a pee and a poop waiting for me.  I cleaned it up and gave him a breakfast of Bil-Jac
puppy food with a splash of milk. Its a dry kibble that was
recommended.  When he’s older we’ll switch him over to one of the
frozen meat diets.  My parents have done that with their German
Shepherd and I think its a good idea.  It makes logical sense,
doesn’t it?
 
So, the dog is good.
 
Gabriel
and Chloe and Grace are all doing well.  They also liked
meeting all the other dogs.  Liz found some kind of silver
necklace on the trail last night and Chloe has fallen in love with
it. 
 
Chloe’s
American Girl doll came back yesterday!  “Nellie” had lost an arm
in a freak playroom accident.  It was tragic.  Chloe was very
sad and was in tears because she thought her favorite doll would never
have an arm again.  Fortunately, the company who makes American
Girl dolls also operate an American Girl Hospital.  Injured dolls
can be sent to this site in Wisconsin where their damaged parts are
repaird, they’re cleaned and mended and their hair gets brushed. 
When she came back yesterday she was wearing a hospital gown with a
little ID bracelet and had a tiny balloon on a stick that said “Get
Well”.  It was really cute.
 
Chloe was thrilled. 
 
I better get back to work.  I have a tricky problem this morning that will require more brain cells than I have.
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So a couple of posts

So
a couple of posts ago I said something about Liz being in a tizzy about
Ben loosing his food and gear for the overnight event.  It turned
out that the sleeping bag was never lost.  But all the gear and
his food were missing.
 
She
had gone to the site of his daycamp to drop him off but realized he was
missing all this stuff and came back frantic to find it.
 
And she did eventually find it.
 
Ben was
supposed to have put it in to his backpack so he wouldn’t lose
it.  Instead he set the white plastic garbage bag down NEXT to his
backpack.  As it turns out this is right next to Peterman’s
pen.  When I got home last night Peterman had pooped all over the
inside of his pen so I cleaned it all up and must have thought the
plastic bag contained newspapers from Peterman’s pen instead of gear
for the overnight trip.
 
Because I threw it out.
 
I just tossed it in the garbage can along with all the rest of the day’s garbage.
 
So…
yeah, it was my fault.  I threw it out and brought down the wrath
of Liz upon Benjamin.  Sure, Ben should have put it in his bag
like he was told, but I should have been more careful too.
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