Showing posts with label Critical Mass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Critical Mass. Show all posts

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Mr. Woo Goes Fishing

Today's Spanish Banks Extension trip looked like this:
Tide pools, tide pools, as far as the eye could see ...


And those shallow pools, apparently, contained lots and lots of tiny little smelts.


Mr. Woo says they're no squirrels, but they'll have to do.

So many of you have dogs who catch things with their feet instead of their mouths. Now, who has a dog that goes fishing?


Can you spot the smelt in this photo?

Mmmm ... smelt ....

After eating a couple of smelt, Mr. Woo decided they were not the hors d'oeuvre for him. Too salty maybe. However, it did not stop him from catching and playing with them, then leaving them to their last gasps in the sand.

We had a little chat about being wasteful, and starving children in Africa, and not being Dexter, and Woo retorted that he was merely feeding the local fauna.

And sure enough, when I turned around, I saw we were being stalked by birds of all kinds.

Gulls

and terns

It took them no time at all to figure out that it was easier to let Wootie catch them than do it themselves. It was starting to get a little "The Birds" so I broke out the Chuck It and a game of ball to shoo them away.

The Wonder Twins had been waiting oh-so-patiently.

But with so much open space, sometimes Piper got a little confused about where her ball had been thrown.

"Hrrrmmm ... you claim to have thrown it, yet I see nothing."

"OOOHHH! There it is! ONMYWAY!!"

Mr. Woo was distracted from smelt fishing by the allure of chasing Piper (under Sport's careful supervision, naturally)

1) Grab neck 2) pull 3) force Piper to make Googly Eyes:

Until she wallops you with a roundhouse and sends you - literally - flying!


Tweed waits patiently while I take pictures of the hooligans.

And he is VERY happy when the attention is finally on him.

Sport kept an eye on everyone, like the good Warlord that he is.

After a couple hours, I noticed that the water level was rising on my boots, and it was time to head back. We ran into this fellow, who was apparently a puppy. This photo was taken a millisecond before Sport tried to beat the shit out of this enormous puppy. If you look closely, you can see his Mad Teeth (tm)!

What a jerk!

It's a bit hard to reconcile the Jerk with World's Cutest Old Man dog.
^^ money shot!

Fortunately, Sport is all snap and no damage, and the giant puppy ran off into the sunset (yeah okay, it was 2pm - semantics people!!) with a puppy pal.

When we reached the shore (??) Tweed did something he NEVER does. He *played* with a random dog.

Shakes up some courage.

PLAY!

You see why he liked this dog? A fellow "hands" (paws) user!

And some completely random pictures:

ohmygodthrowitthrowitthrowitohmygod.

Wheeeeeeee!!!!!!

Oh ... hai! How YOU doin'??

Sport is having a darn good time. We stopped at the vet to refill his prednisone and everyone was so happy to see him look so happy!

Yesterday's Critical Mass:
Joelene stayed home. This time Alfie was my faithful steed. I have a serious crush on my roadie!

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Randomness

Randomness Part 1

Baby Gulls

There is a seagull's nest on the building of the roof next door. The babies are hatched and walking around now. They look like fuzzy little Cadbury Malt Easter Eggs (tm) roaming around on the roof. They never really leave the nest except to run to greet the parents who throw up food for them. It's cute and disgusting all at the same time.

Regrettably, I do not own fantastic enough glass to get good, clear, close up shots of the babies so these photos are kinda shitty. But it was the best I could do, unless someone wants to sponsor my purchase of a 400mm!

They are pretty darned cute though. Maybe I can convinced the landlord next door to let me get on the roof?

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Randomness Part 2


Tweed, on a chair!

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Randomness Part 3

Fireworks

The annual "Celebration of Light" is here again already. Blech. I won't repeat my litany of complaints (loud, crowded, noisy, messy, knife fights, "WOOHOO"ing to all hours of the morning, terrified dogs - oh wait, I listed them again! Oops) about the fireworks, I will just tell you that IMO, I am ashamed to admit, the US (Saturday night) kicked Canada's (Wednesday Night) Pyrotechnic Ass. Yeah, as far as fireworks go, America's were really cool.

I took photos on both nights, but as the prospect of editing them seems tedious to me, I decided not to bother. I don't have a tripod so the photos often do not come out really well, and fireworks photos are not really my "thing" ... I suspect they are boring to other people as well. So I will just offer the one composite I put together of the progress of a Fireball from last night's show:

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Randomness Part 4

Sport spontaneously eats

Don't get *too* excited - Sport has sporadically over the last few weeks voluntarily consumed food, so this may mean nothing. However, it was pretty cool this morning to see him take his place in the food bowl line and eat an entire meal, un-coaxed by me, out his own bowl. He even wandered around and licked the other bowls when the dogs were done. He not only ate, but showed definite enthusiasm for eating.

He seems to like raw beef - but not raw hamburger - so yesterday I bought him several pounds of raw beef from Surrey Meats where I usually buy my turkey necks from.
Hopefully he doesn't go off raw beef or I'm stuck with oodles of the stuff.

"Oh hai ... Where's the beef??"

The next obstacle, assuming Sport keeps eating, will be to see if he gains weight and condition as well. Eating in and of itself is not quite good enough. Fingers crossed.



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Randomness Part 5

Piper on a chair too!

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Randomness Part 6

Critical Mass, July 2008

On Friday I hopped on Joelene and rode up to the Vancouver Art Gallery to participate in this month's edition of Critical Mass Vancouver. It was pretty fun. We rode all over the city; hipsters, doorknobs, families, freaks and even some spandex cowboys tagged long - there were maybe a thousand cyclists along for the ride.


I expect it was pretty usual:

lots of bicycles

Lots of really pissed off people in cars screaming obscenities at the cyclists (though my one experience with corking was positive, and the two cars I was corking were driven/stopped by friendly, supportive people). This is not a political blog, but this cyclist would like to remind motorists that Mass only happens ONCE a month. She also reminds motorists that when you are stuck in a traffic jam due to something vehicular, you do not

A) try to run over other motorists in your rush to go somewhere
B) get out of your car and threaten the lives of other motorists for being in your way or
C) get of our your vehicle and walk up and down the sidewalk telling people they are assholes while clapping your hands sarcastically (this means you CANADIAN POSTAL SERVICE WOMAN ON THE CAUSEWAY) ... so maybe don't do them at Critical Mass time.

But if you do in fact engage in these activities normally in traffic jams, the Food Lady is sorry to say that you are, sadly, a total douche.

One girl crashed her bike badly in Stanley Park (where was her helmet? Mine was on my head, where it ALWAYS is - even if I am going for a laid back Sunday cruise around the seawall, my helmet is strapped to my noggin! /end lecture)

And I learned the hard way that the Causeway through Stanley Park is not, as I had thought, a meandering flat land, but actually a constant, punishing incline... at least for me it was. IOW, Food Lady needs to do more climbing, as this is her very weak cycling area.



I would also like to thank the nice young man who invited me to come play something called "Bicycle Polo" on Thursdays for his generous invitation ... but I'm totally not doing that!!


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Randomness Part 7

Sport stole Tweed's spot in the bedroom last night. Tweed was very put out.


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Randomness Part 8

3WAAW gets another blog award, this one from MuppetDog





RULES
Here are the rules for the Brillante Weblog Premio 2008 Award:

1. The winner can put the logo on her blog.
2. Link the person you received your award from.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs of the girls you've nominated.

The problem? The Food Lady does not read "at least 7" other blogs with any regularity. The Food Lady lists her favourite blogs on the right hand side of this site, and those are pretty well all she reads. The Food Lady is also lazy, and doesn't feel like going around nominating other blogs for awards - she has to go buy a new Fifa (tm) and take the dogs for a run.

So The Food Lady humbly suggests to the makers of these awards that the rules not be so stringent! A top 3 pay-it-forwards would be sufficient! For Heaven's Sakes!! (that one was for you, Fi!)


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Randomness Part 9, an addition

Newer, better Fifa (tm) joins the 3WAAW household

Went back to the used sporting goods store today. There were some new, used Fifas (tm) and I picked out a real beauty:

The fellows at the store were nice enough to let some air out of it for me, and then let Woo come inside and test it, so we would be sure he would not try to drown himself for the second time this weekend.

Fifa the Fourth (tm) was a big hit.

And not just with Wootie. Piper likes it too.

Woo teaches Fifa(tm) a lesson it won't soon forget!

Tweed wants nothing to do with the scary soccer ball.

*snicker*