SykWatch Friday

The Texas Hill Country.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to All!!

I hope everyone spends their holiday enjoying whatever it is that makes you most happy, and most thankful.

Let the Holidays begin!!

Trial Pics!

Ok, I had an extremely hard time deciding among all the great photos that Cardigrandma captured, and still had so many to share, so be patient. In addition to Holly, Mikey, and Meg, there are great pictures of some of the other canine athletes at the trial. Thank you Mom!!

Fort Bend KC Trial - New Title!

Well, Saturday started with a bang; as in my head banging into the hatch on my Cruiser while I was loading the car. D'oh!! The top of my head is still sore.

Great news!! There was an measuring judge at the trial and I did a challenge measure with Holly; he measured her at just a tick under 11 inches! Yippee, she's officially able to compete at 4 inches Preferred! And. . . drum roll please. . . she finished her Novice Jumpers title with first place and a perfect score of 100 and a course time of 33.69 seconds (SCT 46 seconds). Pictures to follow later this week.

Mikey had a dropped bar in Open Jumpers, and got a refusal at the weaves in Excellent Standard, so no Q's. The refusal was my fault; I stumbled a little doing a front-front cross from the chute to the weaves (see the course below) and got in Mikey's way at the entry to the weaves. Take a look at that course. It may not look so bad on 'paper', but it was a tight course; I watched many, many dogs stumble on the hard turn from jump 2 to the dog walk. I really felt sorry for all the long legged and big, heavy dogs, although it ended up being a fun course for my short legged boy. As usual, I was really pleased with Mikey; he always tries so hard, and ALWAYS has a great time. The dropped bars in Jumpers are getting really frustrating; it's really aggravating to have perfect course after perfect course, except for a dropped bar. Grrrr!

My dad's dog Meg did NOT take off and tour the ring in either her Jumpers or Standard courses. Unfortunately, she still ended up with an off course in each, so no Q's for her either.

Holly and Mikey say 'Hi'

SkyWatch Friday

Touched By An Angel

Farewell dear master, yet not farewell.

I am gone, before your face,

A moment's time, A little space.

When ye come where I have stepped,

Ye will wonder why you wept.

Godspeed, sweet girl.

Faison's Confederate Angel MX MXJ MAD CD RN CGC

Bobbie

Memories

I'm trying to convince myself to relax some today, and wait to plunge into closet cleaning and moving prep tomorrow. I'm feeling nostalgic today. We just got back from our morning walk on the bayou, and as we walked, I was thinking about the hundreds of walks I've taken out there. With two generations of dogs. I've lived in this apartment for almost six years, longer than I've lived anywhere except my parents home; and I lived in this complex, in a different apartment, for almost a year back in 2000. A lot of history, many memories here. The holiday season always makes me feel nostalgic too. I hate that I'm going to be moving in the middle of the holidays.

A little more about the new job. I will be working for a large pharma company called Covidien, as a statistical/SAS (Statistical Analysis System) programmer. SAS programming has been a large part of my work for the past four years, but this is a huge change in my career path. Most of my career has been in laboratory/pilot plants, doing bacterial fermentation (microbiology). I essentially got this last job because my boss was someone I had worked for early in my career, and he knew I would be able to learn the new skills for the job. And the change ended up being a God-send. A little over two years ago, I started having symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, and today, I don't think I could do the work I used to do; large scale fermentation is physically demanding work. I used to jokingly call it blue collar science. I know I couldn't do that type of work now and have anything physically left over to do much agility, or keep up the exercise that have been doing. Although it was initially a difficult transition, from hands-on to sitting behind a computer all day, it's one of those things that seems to have been meant to be.

I don't know if moving to St. Louis is one of those 'meant to be' things, but in this economy, I'm (mostly) grateful to have found a good position so quickly after being laid-off. I don't actually know yet when I'll be moving. We agreed on a start date of December 15, assuming that the whole move thing goes smoothly. Lucky me, the company is offering a complete relocation package! I'll be going up in the next couple of weeks to look for a place to live; I've done some hunting myself on the internet, and the company will be hooking me up with a realtor. I hope, hope, hope! that I will be able to rent a small home or townhouse, since I'm pretty sick of living in an apartment, with people stomping around on my ceiling day and night.

As for dog related activities, we ended up doing a ton of agility last week. We went over to my parents on Tuesday, where I set up a mini course to work on rear crosses. I'm trying to figure out the timing with Mikey that will keep him from dropping so many bars on turns. And Holly's rear-cross is weak, because she's a little bit slower, and I can usually get in place for a front-cross. And then we had class at on Wednesday. Nothing of interest from class, except that classes are getting bigger (too big) now that it's cooling off. And Friday, for my dad's birthday, and since he was off work, we went to Leaps 'n Bounds for some more agility. We had a great time, although it got pretty darn warm/hot. November in Houston! I'm glad we got so much agility crammed into last week, since the forecast is thunder storms Monday through Thursday, and we've got a trial next Saturday (my last trial here, *sniff*). I'm trying to decide whether to enter Mikey at a local show in breed the weekend after Thanksgiving. I'm not sure if I'll have time for for a show, or if I'll still actually be here by then. On the other hand, it would be soooo nice to have him finish. . .

Holly and Mikey say 'Hi'.

Since I'm wallowing in nostalgia this morning, here are some pictures of Misty, as a baby, and when she was a seasoned citizen (she almost made it to her 14th birthday). To save any guessing, she was a fawn Doberman with natural ears.

Oh hell, if I'm going to wallow. . . Three generations. . . My mom, my grandmother, and me, plus Misty and Bobbie.

Position in St. Louis Accepted!

Like the kid in the movie 'Home Alone', I'll keep telling myself "This is it. Don't get scared now!"

Off to clear my mind with some agility!!!

SkyWatch Friday

You Guys Are Awesome!

Dog people are soooo awesome! Thank you for all the words of encouragement and congrats, and all the great suggestions! Hmmm, taking this job would mean I would be much closer for the National in Wichita (ooops, Topeka). . . Hmmm. . .

I Got An Offer

. . . in St. Louis (Hazelwood) Missouri. Decision time. Anybody out there reading this from the St. Louis area?