Third ADBC is Up!

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011 Leave a Comment

Today is Star Wars Day. (“May the fourth be with you!”) And I finally get to register for classes! I am thrilled about this. I am less thrilled that I had to wait this long and that I have to physically go to the campus — in the rain! — to do so. But I am hoping to get everything squared away for at least the summer session today. We shall see how that goes.

In completely other news, the third Assistance Dog Blog Carnival was put up last night and there are more than a dozen wonderful posts about “Reactions” from all aspects of the assistance dog world. Including my own post from last week about retiring my previous guide dogs. I highly recommend clicking over and reading some, if not all of the contributions to this quarterly event. And if you are so inclined please pass along the link!

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April 10, 2011

Sunday, April 10th, 2011 2 Comments

Things with Uschi seem to take one step forward and fifteen backward. I did finally speak with Jay and he is planning to come out Tuesday. He’s bringing something called a calming cap. I’ve never heard of it before. My only fear is that anything we try — especially something drastic — might just make things worse. Guess we’ll see.

Yesterday, the Star Wars marathon continued. I armed myself with homemade hot fudge and so perhaps that’s why I didn’t seem to mind that we were finishing out the prequels. Though, Revenge of the Sith is mostly action, which is good since there is some really awful writing in that movie and the acting in some cases doesn’t help much. Anyway, we’re onto the original trilogy next week and so that’s something.

I am practically buried under a mountain of books to read. And none of them are proving to be all that interesting at the moment. But Kelley Armstrong‘s The Gathering comes out Tuesday and I am very excited. Oh, and I randomly received a birthday present of books last week. It was quite a shock, especially since my birthday is ore than a month off.

And here ends a rather boring post.

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Babblings

Sunday, March 27th, 2011 Leave a Comment

Today was a pretty laid back kind of day.

I’m still working my way through Feed. It’s a very interesting read and I have a lot of thoughts about it, though, I don’t know how much that will translate into actually writing a review. As it is I’m still trying to form a completely opinion on the book. I don’t dislike it by any means, but something about it that I haven’t yet defined keeps me from saying right out that I do in fact like it. I know that makes no sense; it doesn’t even make sense to me! I think my issue is that I’m very engaged in the story, but then there will be something that just knocks me right out of the narrative. Today, for instance I spent the better part of 20 minutes venting to Alice about one small line about blindness that isn’t really central to the plot but nonetheless bothered me greatly. Partly this is because its a throwaway reference so I can’t tell where specifically the stress is, but the point that was being made was nonetheless entirely incorrect and bothered me greatly.

Uschi and I also ran some errands today. I think I am finally settling into this partnership because her continued calm and focused work seems more natural and less of an odd surprise. It was still a bit chilly out, but the sun was shining and the wind has died down considerably as opposed to yesterday, so we actually walked a bit out of our way just to get some good working time in. I’m used to taking the dogs out for at least five miles daily for both our benefits, but this winter made it virtually impossible to do that regularly. It was refreshing and pleasant and I’m looking forward to being able to get back into this habit again. The only downside, though, is now that I’ve moved I no longer have any real destination nearby to walk to. There are sidewalks and back paths to walk that are safe and quiet, but to get to any real place other than CVS I need to take the bus. It’s kind of a shame, but it could be worse.

The rest of the day has been taken up by the continued Star Wars marathon. And in case you were at all wondering how serious my half-brother is about the “all things” aspect, I can inform you that not only am I irrevocably damaged from having to sit through The Star Wars Holiday Special, but also today we watched both of the Ewok TV movies. I have fond memories of watching the latter two films as a child — and I have a stuffed Ewok in my office — so I won’t say they were bad, but I don’t think they’ve aged well. Ugh. Anyway, next up are the prequels.

Tomorrow I have a doctor’s appointment and then Uschi and I are meeting friends for lunch and dinner. If nothing else, it should be a busy day!

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March 25, 2011

Friday, March 25th, 2011 Leave a Comment

I had a bunch of things that I wanted to get done today and in the end I was terribly busy and didn’t do any of those intended things.

Instead, I had to make an impromptu run to the bank to sort a minor catastrophe out. It’s far too boring to elaborate on, but it’s resolved and was mostly the bank’s fault. I was very impressed with Uschi while we were at the bank. She was incredibly calm and attentive and honestly all the things a good guide dog should be. But it wasn’t so much how well behaved she was that I found noteworthy, it was the fact that she had been super extra crazy energetic and excited before we left and was a might sniffy en route. I really can’t wrap my head around how different she acts when it comes to actually working; she really is unrecognizable from the dog I share a home with.

I also finally got my new scanner today and spent an inordinately lengthy amount of time setting up and installing it. Seems to be working rather well. Also, it’s black and matches my computer, which is to say it will be a huge dust magnet. And I’m quickly running out of room for all the junk I spread on my desk and around the office.

Typing all that out makes it seem like not nearly as chaotic as it was to go through, but nonetheless I’m exhausted by the day and very much looking forward to relaxing at home. Hoping to finish reading Feed tonight and thanks to Netflix I think there is more Star Wars to marathon.

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March 19, 2011

Saturday, March 19th, 2011 Leave a Comment

The Star Wars marathon is on a temporary hiatus because it seems that somehow my Empire Strikes Back DVD is cracked in two. I suspect this came about during my move last September, but as I haven’t watched any of these films in ages I can’t truly be sure when or how this happened. Anyway, will have to replace the DVD before we can continue on with the watching.

Instead, I have been attempting to rid the house of dog hair. I say attempt because not only is this a futile effort but also because I took a rather lengthy break to watch The Prestige, which I found surprisingly good. I don’t know why I’m always annoyed with myself for liking a Christopher Nolan film, especially since I generally do enjoy his work, but I always am. I think I still have anger from The Dark Knight. I will say that I did find the ending almost a cheat, but having not read the book the film is based on I can’t say if I really can blame Nolan for that. Anyway, it was an interesting film and even if it weren’t there was more than enough eye candy to keep me interested.

Anyway, on a marginally related topic, I saw the features for The Lord of the Rings extended edition Blu-ray were unveiled and I’m quite happy. Obviously, the entirety of the DVD release is there, but also the Costa Botes documentaries are included. These were part of the double theatrical/extended edition release that I staunchly refused to buy since I already owned two copies of the films. But because of that I have never seen these bonus features. So, while I doubt there’s anything that I haven’t really seen and/or read about, it is a nice addition.

Aside from all that things here are quite boring. Uschi’s been on an intermittent food strike; probably I jinxed things when I was said how well she’s been doing. She did pick at her food a bit today, so hopefully she’ll be hungry enough later tonight or tomorrow morning to get back on a normal schedule. The warmer weather has brought with us more opportunities to take some leisurely walks, which I think we’re both rather enjoying. I really want to do more in downtown Schenectady, but the crossings there are set up in such a superbly asinine way. The traffic buttons are usually far removed than the actual crosswalk, so using them is sometimes pointless. However a lot of the lights change very quickly! I’ve been focusing on downtown Albany where the crossings are more routine and I can leave myself to pay attention to other things, like Uschi’s animal distraction or propensity to sniff. All in all, she’s doing a fabulous job for our lack of extensive curb-to-curb work. Along with this better weather comes the option of calling Jay, our Fidelco instructor, and having a “make-up” day of training. I don’t really feel an strong need for it and so have been going back and forth about bothering to call and set it up. We’ll see.

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