Category: General

Another Successful WordPress Upgrade

Well, the sweating and sleepless nights are hopefully over for a little while now.  A few weeks ago, the WordPress community was informed there was a security hole in their toolset.  I just recently found enough time to dig into the upgrade process and get the blog protected again.  Based on my preliminary tests, this effort was completely successful and quite frankly not nearly as painful as I thought it was going to be.  In fact, it probably took me longer to create the graphic for this post than it did to complete all of the tasks.  Thankfully, I took the time to upgrade back in January which lined up well with the directions I had.  Kudos to the WordPress team for the quality in their documentation.  All of my plugins successfully migrated and my theme (the part I was dreading the most) came over without a hitch.  Now I can get back to making some posts, with this one (yes, I am counting this one) I have 3 more to hit my mark.

Hopefully the script kiddies out there will keep themselves busy with Windows 7 which is coming out soon and allow me to get some sleep although it looks like I need to spend a few minutes learning this new dashboard.

Errata – Or Rather Time To Man-Up

This does not look good.  It is the 16th and this is the first post I have made this month.  At least I have line of site to 3 posts (including this one), but I better start seeing some weird things soon or my quota will again be in jeopardy – I know, broken record but it is August and I am on goal and within tolerance of my New Year’s resolution – before you comment, how well are you doing on your resolutions to this point? 8^).  In this post, there is good news and bad news.  The good news first, my wife finally took the time to actually read my blog which requires me to use my second hand to count the number of readers so far.  So my readership is increasing, but this one came at a small price.  Having been with me to experience a number of the blog topics, she was in a position to correct some errors in my post.  I always want to be as accurate as possible, so I am taking the time to correct a few of the mistakes she found and follow up on another post.

Starting off, I would like to apologize to Applebee’s for incorrectly identifying their fine establishment as the one causing us hardships with the gift card.  You can read the post here if you are curious.  Linda reminded it was not at Applebees, but rather:

Chedduhs

That’s right, the episode with the gift card happened at Ched’duh’s in Springfield.  Please go out of your way enjoy Applebee’s fine cuisine and make your own choice about going to the other.

Secondly, the location of the Moose encounter  was not at Yellowstone National Park as indicated in my blog entry.  The moose was actually seen as we were exiting the Rocky Mountain National Park.  I sure hope he does not find out and decide to pay me a visit.

I also thought I would take the time to follow up on the post regarding Sunny D. You know, the one where they purposely labeled their container to deceive the consumer.  Anyway, as mentioned in the post I did take the time to comment on their website and thought I would simply provide the details of their response:

This was my submission to their corporate website:

Content: I want to comment on what I consider intentional and truly deceptive marketing practices by your company. I was recently at Sams and decided to go with your orange juice offering over your competitors based on your label indicating 100% Vitamin C. Unfortunately, I purchased a case of your product under false pretenses. Once home I eventually checked the nutrition facts and noticed that a single bottle of your product only provides 80 percent of the DV. Sure enough when I turned the bottle over I found the small print of per 8 oz serving. Now I ask you, does a company with integrity put this deceptive label on a 6.75 floz container?… or maybe you think the consumer would be more than willing to op en another bottle and try to guesstimate 1.25 floz to conform to the label. I’ll accept the fact I failed due diligence on the purchase, but as a result of being deceived I will be hard pressed to consider any of your products in the future. I hope the loss of company integrity was worth not increasing your unit size or changing your label appropriately.

This was the ONLY response I received from taking the time to comment on their website regarding what I think is a serious example of deception:

Subject: RE: [BULK] Message from Sunny D

 

Good Morning,

 

Thank you for contacting SunnyD and sharing your thoughts with us. I will certainly share your feedback with the rest of the team. Thank you again for writing. Have a wonderful day!

Sincerely,

Sunny Delight Beverages Co
Consumer Relations Department

Contact Center hours are M-F 8am-7pm

Wow, I am truly a satisfied customer and looking forward to my wonderful day.  I especially liked the [BULK] portion of their subject line so I am fully aware that the entry was never seen by anyone and the automated response had a built in delete submission line in the CGI.  My lifelong ban list would like to welcome Sunny D to their pages.

I will contrast this to a recent corporate dialog with a company called RoadID.  I always wear their product whenever I run to give both myself and my wife a bit of comfort knowing there is a possibility I could be saved after keeling over on a long hot run.  Unfortunately, the strap came apart on it so I looked up their customer support email address from their company website and literally emailed their company president (yes, that is the address they gave out) and sent them short email telling them how much I liked their product and if there was a way I could purchase a replacement strap.  Almost immediately, a support representative contacted me and told me how to purchase another one, but they were going to send me one right away and waive the fee.  Hats off to Christy for going way above and beyond to satisfy a customer.  I’ll recommend RoadID to anyone who wants some security while away from home.

That’s all I have for now, time to start planning the remaining minimum 5 posts for this month

Another Medal for the Collection

Bix 7 MedalTo complete this month’s quota, I figured I would mention I recently earned another medal for my running collection.  I basically train year round for one key race a year and that race is the Bix7 held in Davenport Iowa.  For those who have never experienced it, the event is 7 miles  (actually 2 miles if you choose to do the QuickBix) in some difficult hills.  The first 7/10ths of the mile is basically straight up followed by ~2 miles down and then the smaller but definitely harder hill short of the turnaround and then reversed.  This year I finally lined up at the start without much injury for a change and that coupled with favorable start temperature led to a P.R. for me.  Usually the temperature and humidity are through the roof due to the late July start, but thanks to Global Warming (smirk) we starting the morning at 57 degrees (yes, I was shivering when I got out of the car) and warmed up to around 87 by mid race.  I’ve ran it in the past over 90 with 23 people going to the hospital that year.

The best part of this race is all the spectators that come out to cheer you on along the road.  Lots of bands are also playing around the route to help cheer on the 15K or so runners.  Of course there are also those participants who sacrifice themselves (at least their dignity) to run in costumes.  Standouts this year included 2 young men running in diapers with pacifiers, the annual appearance of the Elvis’ and the Oscar Mayer Wiener.   The wiener cracks me because he is in full costume and I can’t figure out how he actually makes it around the 2 mile Quick Bix.  If you want to get a dig on my wife, mention the fact she lost to the wiener one year.  There was a valid reason for this, but I am not going to reveal it because it is my favorite thing to kid her about.  For the record, Linda also had a P.R. in the Quick Bix but I am contributing that to performance enhancing drugs.

Almost forgot, similar to a site that has been burned into my retinas last year, this time I was subjected to a 6’4″ or so guy running in a bright blue spandex wrestling outfit and as far as I can tell, that was it.  While working hard to make it up the return hill, I took a brief look up the hill to see how much further I had to go.  Expecting to see some key landmarks I was instead met with this guys butt about 3 feet in front of my face.  Imagine if you will what this site consisted of about 5 miles into the race.  I had to mentally poke my eyes out just to keep from puking on the spot.  Fellow male runners, please stop the spandex on long runs or minimally put some shorts over it.  This warning does not apply to hot looking ladies.

Tomorrow starts the 361 days of training until next year’s race!

Another Medal Earned… or What Was I Thinking

Start of Steamboat Race 2009

Apparently I did not learn my lesson from last year. Yesterday was the 36th running of the Peoria Steamboat Race (15K and 4M) and as planned, I was at the starting line.  The actual photo was scanned from the Peoria Journal Star so all credit remains with them.  Since they did not ask my permission to put my image in their paper I decided I did not need to ask their permission to use it in my blog.  If you are interested, that’s me in the orange and shades – I could say I was honoring my Illini Alma Mater, but the real choice was based on being the coolest fabric (temp, not hipness).  I made a pact with myself at the end of the last Steamboat that I would not let it beat me and I would attempt it again in hopes of not getting injured early in the race.  I rarely break a commitment to myself so there I was, although this time I was not sure if I was ready.

Unlike last year, we decided to move our vacation to the two weeks leading up to the race day as opposed to last year where we headed out immediately after the race which resulted in serious leg cramping.  Rather than repeat that, we changed the vacation dates which had its own challenges.  The first of these was finding time and places to train while traveling.  As best we could, we stayed at hotels with treadmills and although it was pretty cold out at night (see the other challenge), I did get one road run in.  I am now a big fan of Comfort Inns and Courtyards – both of those hotels had excellent treadmills in them and operating ours that fit my late night running preference.  Luckily, I did not have to compete for the treadmill even once allowing me to get my entire 1:10-1:20 hour training sessions in.  The other challenge was the fact we were vacationing in the Yellowstone and Rocky Mountain National Park areas.  Yes folks, that puts me in the 9 to 12 thousand elevation level.  I had no idea how that elevation training would impact my performance other than I knew it was actually harder to run at that elevation than it would be in Peoria.  What I did know is I could not keep the same pace causing me to back off my pace significantly (was floating around 10 minute miles for a lot of it which is significantly off my preferred pace).  So I was running slower than I wanted, running less than the full 15K (due to the slower pace), reduced foot/knee impact from running on the treadmills instead of pavement, but had the unknown of the elevation benefits and it was significantly colder at that altitude over the steam bath that usually exists on race day. .   The reduced impact from the treadmill was somewhat of a blessing because my hip had developed a serious socket pain during the training runs before the vacation.  With the uncertainty, the decision was made to ease into the first two miles to give time to assess the body.

Some starting line number you mind find interesting:

  • 36th Running
  • 4,150 participants (total both 15K and 4M)
  • 480 15K participants
  • Race time – 7:00am
  • Time the alarm clock went off – 4:50am
  • Start Temperature: 68 (I personally think it was a lot hotter or it warmed up quickly during the time I was running
  •  91% Humidity (suckage)
  • 15K winner -48.23
  • 15K Last Place Winner – 2:15:08  (congrats to beating hundreds of thousands of people who decided to stay in their comfy beds)
  • My Finish: 1:20:35 (race stats have me at :49 but I am going with my watch over the timing chips)
  • My Ranking: 285

I did come in ahead of my time last year and pretty pleased with the results based on the thoughts going through me head at  the start of the race.  I attribute some of that to the spectators along the course.  There is nothing and I mean nothing more motivation that having a complete stranger clap for you and give you encouragement along the way.  A special thanks to the couple around the 6.5M mark that was calling out our bib numbers and spurring us on with personal words of encouragement.  I always try to thank them as I pass, but my small gesture never makes up for the large boost of adrenaline that results from hearing people cheering you on.  A few more miles and I was reaching for my medal at the finish line.

Steamboat 08-09

I used the same medal image to save some time (the latest one looks almost exactly the same but does not even have the date on it anyway, so no reason to really scan it again).  A lot of sweat and wear and tear on the feet got me that medal and I clutched it with pride as I headed over to the water station.  As I looked down at my watch those 35 seconds called out a challenge.  You guessed it, I plan to be back next year to break the 1:20 mark.  Nothing like a challenge to keep the rest of the 364 days interesting.  Next time you see someone on the road struggling to make it up the hill or pushing themselves to make it those final miles… give them a wave and smile.. we all need a little encouragement every now and then.

Time to put some ice on the legs.  Tomorrow starts another round of training cycles for the upcoming Bix 7M race.

Anatomy of an Art Project: ExactaRazzaMatazz

I have always been impressed by individuals with both a creative mind and the ability to actually deliver a work of art.  My definition of art is probably narrower than those in the representative field and has some definite parameters for me to consider worthy of my attention.  First off, it must be something I find unique.  If it can be reproduced in large batches it is not fit my definition. Nothing catches my attention more than when I see a common object that is rendered from a completely non-traditional viewpoint or perspective.  Secondly, it has to take some time to create.  A single stroke of paint across a white background is not art.  A vase sitting in the middle of a room with a white goldfish swimming in gold colored water with a human figurine on a fishhook is not art.  And lastly it has to be worth actually looking at.  The last one is pretty subjective, but the last time I was at the Chicago Museum of Art the displays in the basement consisted of the following two displays.  One room consisted entirely of dead birds stuck on large sticks and stuck in upright in the floor.  Each bird head was then covered with the shell of a stuffed animal’s head (as in just the outer covering).  After dismissing that display of having any value I was met with a room full of black and white photographs of people’s scars.  Crisp and well lit images, but boring and uninspiring. 

I can feel the art snobs getting their panties in a bunch about how art expands the mind and shouldn’t be confined to established ways of thinking.  I am guessing these people are going on and on about the symbolic images entwined in the goldfish display detailed above.  Pontificating on how society has lost are own color but unaware because we are bathing in the false reflection.   The fishhook clearly representing a desperate attempt to dye (metaphor) in color.  Seam reasonable to you?  A display for the enlightened and profound?  If so, then I have proven my point.  I made that particular scene up 5 minutes ago. 

On a personal front, a hobby of mine is trying to reproduce pieces of art I find fascinating.  In no way do I hope to achieve the same level of quality on a particular piece but then again, I really do not consider myself an artist.  I enjoy experiencing the journey and insights from other more creative minds.  Typically this process starts by seeing something that catches my attention.  If it is something that fits my definition of art (see above), the very next thought is whether I could produce something similar.  This does not have to be in the same image or even in the same medium.  Maybe the creative thought can be expanded or possibly a complete different approach could be used to create it.  If this is feasible, it goes on my list of things to do when I have some free time.  This list is fairly huge, but like the “Life List” it is constantly being worked.  

That was a very long intro to my most recent execution of the art process.  I found a link on the web to an artist that actually carved/sculpted in the colored wax medium.  In particular, he made pieces of art out of standard Crayola Crayons.  I was blown away similar to when I saw images of geometric shapes made of carved pencils.  After about an hour of pondering this art form I decided it would only require crayons, small carving knives and some steady hands.  All of which were readily available (at least the first two materials).   It was time to get to work.

I now had the end goal in mind.  First a quick trip to the store to get some crayons.  The next step was to devise a plan of attack.  I would need a way to make a pattern on the crayon so I would know where to cut.  Once the pattern was put on I figured a razor blade could be used to shave away the wax.  A little bit of patience and presto a piece of art would pop out.  Unfortunately, that was not the case.  To get this far took more that anticipated.

Crayon Art

I am not going to give all the details to make it interesting for others who enjoy this type of journey, but I will give some insights to help you out.  I used tape to put the pattern on the crayon.  The thinking is this would also give some support to the crayon as I began removing material.  This was a good assumption that worked out to some extent, but not sufficient to prevent catastrophe in the early attempts.  By the way, I did end up using an exacto knife instead of a straight razor blade which saved a tremendous amount of fatigue on the hands.  The wax did dull the blades pretty fast so recommend you have a few spares around.  Diving into the first version, I started carving immediately after putting the tape on.  The chosen pattern quickly pointed out a flaw in my approach.  After carving for about an hour realization hit that I didnt’ know how deep to cut.  The crayon had some serious weak points in it by making the spiral too thin on the bottom side of the carving.  Eventually I dug too deep (much like the dwarfs did in the Tolkien Trilogy)  and the result was a disappointing mess – see the attempt on the far left.

Crayon Carving Attempts

That image lets the cat out of the bag that this required a number of attempts.  Modification to process required.  I needed a way to know when to stop carving from the top.  There had to be some indicator put into the crayon as a guide.  A trip to the garage resulted in the idea of a large finishing nail.  Getting this guide in place ended up being as difficult as the carving.  Rather than just give away how I did it, I will tell you that it required a significant amount of patience and HAS TO BE CENTERED in the crayon.  Easily typed, difficult to execute.  You can barely make out the guide in this image.

 Crayon with Guide

Two crayons were complete destroyed getting this perfected.  With nail correctly placed I was able to carve the tealish crayon in the image above.  I was working from the bottom to the tip and pretty pleased with the progress until trouble reared its ugly head.  I overestimated the length of the nail and didn’t taper (thin) the carving enough.  When the final cuts were being put into the top portion of the crayon I felt it give. 

Failure 

3 hours of work wasted.  Two changes had to be made to prevent this in the future.  First off the taper had to happen before the end of the nail.  Secondly, there needed to be side supports to give it more support as I neared the tip.  I ended up embedding wire on the outside of the pattern which ended up adding at least two hours to the carving time working around the wires and delicately removing the tape holding the wires so I could finish the carving.  Hint, use one of your extra sharp blades to slice the tape rather than unwrapping it.   Once the majority of carving was done, I switched blades and started cleaning up the cuts.  Pressure was on at this point since the crayon was fully exposed and in a weakened state.  Any slight misstep here would cause heartbreak.  Also make sure the nail can slide in and out easily since any pressure will surely collapse the spiral.

Carving complete

Follow the jump to read the rest of the story

Continue reading Anatomy of an Art Project: ExactaRazzaMatazz

Happy Easter!!

Easter Bunny

Just a quick post today to wish everyone a happy holiday.  So what do you think of my image today?  I was on my way back from my parents’ house and all of a sudden some rogue synapse fired bringing into memory recall a doodle I had made some years back.  I was with my brother (also at my parents’ house) on Easter Eve.  I think all of his kids are beyond this age now so I will not ruin anything for them, but we were doing some prep for a standard Easter morning surprise.  My brother wanted to add a card to the things we were making to signify who they were left from.  I decided to whip up this little image which quite frankly was going pretty good until in my haste, a rogue whisker was made.  Working in the medium of ink, I was unable to repair it so I embellished a little bit.  I call it “Easter Bunny Smoking Plastic Grass”.  Obviously, my brother vetoed it, but since I can remember, I’ve actually saved and scanned all my various doodles… a bad habit formed from sitting in too many unproductive meetings with an active imagination.  My intent is someday to print them out and bound them into a coffee table book as an interesting conversation piece.

By the way, I was curious enough about the origin of rabbits and eggs I decided to Wiki It.  Interestingly, it is a tradition brought to America from the Germans and was really focused on the hare and not the rabbit.  The association might have originated from a similar nesting trait between the hare and a Lapwing (bird).  Each uses a ground nest and resulted in the myth that hare’s laid eggs in the Spring.

Oh well, hope you had a good holiday.  I’ve been working on some posts so there should be some additional output coming soon.  Until then, I hope Alice isn’t haunted by my grass smoking white rabbit.

The Yang and the Um Day

EyeFirst off, I have to admit I am currently on a major sugar high.  My wife and I tried out the new ice cream establishment in Peoria Heights – the previous home of delicious Spotted Cow.  Unfortunately, I cannot remember the name of the establishment (two uncommon names), but apparently it is a small ice cream boutique chain out of Boston.  We both decided to splurge and get the dipped waffle cones.  Linda chose the nestle crunch with cake batter ice cream and I went with the dark chocolate cone with seriously chocolate ice cream flavor.  Wow, that was tasty.  Needless to say, my sugar level is through the roof, but it was totally worth it.  A tad expensive, but we both agreed it was far better than our previous favorite Cold Stone.

On to the topic of the day.  Yesterday morning I had my one year check up on my LASIK surgery.  Nothing like an 8:25am appointment on a cold, snowy and windy Saturday morning to get the day started.  Being that early, I figured there would only be few people there and I’d be in and out quickly.  I was totally shocked when I entered the building and there was a line of people waiting to get checked in.  Faster than expected, I made it up to the counter and noticed once again a large number of flowers behind the desk.  Every single time I have had an appointment, there have been a large number of wrapped up flowers with various names on it.  First thought was there must be a large number of birthdays or possibly births or the doctors were extremely appreciative of their helpers.  After validating all my insurance information, I proceeded to the waiting area where about 30 people were sitting.  Somewhat stunned, I took a seat in the socially acceptable location – translated, maximized distance from existing customers, much like the bathroom principle with the exception you are still allowed to talk to people and make eye contact.  Pondering the situation, it clicked that Fridays were a primary LASIK surgery day and they always had a followup the day after.  This gave and explanation to the large number of people.  My name was eventually called and the nurse began verifying my vision.  She started asking me if I was taking my steroid and anti-inflammatory drops and how everything was going.  This was not processing correctly so mentioned that I stopped taking the drops over a year ago which resulted in a strange look.  Remembering the deduction in the waiting room, I mentioned that I was in for my 1 year checkup.  With that cleared up, she took down all my powers (dual eye 20/15) and moved me to another room to get checked out by my doctor.  Good News!  Everything is fine and the eye healed up perfectly.  Definitely one of the best decisions I’ve made in a long time.

Another quandary was resolved at the checkout desk.  An older lady was completing her exit papers ahead of me and trying to plan her next followup a few days later.  Guessing with the fact she was not wearing any glasses and needed such a quick followup, the assumption was she just had cataract surgery (too old for LASIK) and was in for her post-surgery followup.  As she was getting ready to go, the receptionist handed her one of the flowers (with her name on it) and said it was a gift from her doctor.  That made a lot more sense than my original thought.  What a nice thing to do, it is relatively cheap compared to the cost of the surgery and it sure made the lady very happy.  Kudos to the doctor for a very nice touch.

But life is based on the Yang and the Um (for the non-Koreans, the Ying and the Yang).  The dualism of life; the good and the bad, sweet and the sour, life and death.  It is this constant opposition that keeps us grounded (morality) and leads to our character definition.  I came home from the appointment elated that my surgery was a complete success.  Later that day, there was a large crack against our great room window.  Typically this indicates a bird had just realized the concept of glass.  I didn’t think much of it since this tends to happen 2 or 3 times a week usually leaving the bird somewhat stunned, but able to fly off once the webs clear.  About an hour later I happened to look out the window and saw a beautiful cardinal sitting under our porch furniture below our large picture windows.  He looked alert, but was just sitting there opening and closing his beak.  It was still pretty cold out and the wind was gusting causing him to continually adjust his balance.  I pondered the situation for a few minutes while observing the bird.  Typically, if the birds don’t initially break their necks, they are able to recover and fly off.  Rarely do their wings get seriously injured since the impact is typically on the beak/head.  But this bird was alert, but wasn’t really moving that much other than adjusting to keep from being blown over.  It didn’t appear any sound was coming out of his beak movements but it was a steady opening and closing motion.  I could try to shield him from the wind or possibly get a box and move him to the basement until he recovered, but eventually decided to let it be hoping he would pull through.  If he was seriously injured, there was nothing I could anyway.  I also didn’t know what the laws were pertaining to a state bird (other than I think they are protected in some manner).  Going on with my daily tasks, eventually the situation left my thoughts.  I checked to see if the bird was still there later in the night and I am sorry to report, the little guy didn’t make it.  He had succumbed to the cold so he must have badly injured himself.  Yes, it was just a bird, but it did trigger memories from the teachings in the dojo.  The happiness of clarified sight in the morning paired with the reality of death in the evening.  The good news is one of the local farm cats will find a special treat when the show up to get out of the cold.

Life is a circle (see the pupil)

Physical Therapy Causes a Pain in the Rear

Back in May of 2008, I was playing third in my softball league when a high fly ball headed to my right.  I spent a lot of energy to chase the foul ball down and had finally made it to the down trajectory when the umpire called it out of play (past the benches).  Frustrated at having spent a significant amount of energy for nothing, I simply took my left arm and swiped it underhand across my body and snatched it out of the air as the ball came down in front of me.  What I was not expecting was the loud pop that came from my left shoulder.  Although it sounded bad, it did not seem to impair my motion at the time so I continued playing the rest of the game.  In the weeks that followed, my shoulder started to flare up every time I raised my arm past shoulder height or extended my forearm greater than 10 degrees from my side.  Having had my right shoulder rebuilt already I was familiar with rotator cuff tears, but it did not feel the same.  I continued to give it time to heal and finally gave up last January and went to a local sports injury/medicine center.  Unfortunately, I’ve been there several times for my other shoulder, both my inside knee medials, multiple hand fractures and a broken elbow – yes, all sports injuries .. sigh.  After my MRI it was decided I did not have a tear, but rather an impingement.  This resulted in my first Cortisone shot (NEVER EVER AGAIN!) and a series of therapy appointments to strengthen the area around the rotator cuff.

Due to work, my sessions were at 7:00am.  On the second to last day I was looking for something in my truck and noticed my insurance card was just thrown in the glove compartment so I took the time to put it in my standard place in case I needed to retrieve it someday.  As I pulled into the patient parking lot, I noticed it was again completely empty, but a beer bottle was sitting in my preferred parking place.  Preferred representing the calculated parking location based on variables such as A=distance between other cars, B=devoid of sharp objects to puncture the tires, C=entry effort and D=exit effort.  Preferred then represents maxA + maxB +minC + minD = max in range[driver’s ed parking lot to outdoor waterpark parking in Winter].  Quickly doing the math, I picked a spot on the side of the building in order to compensate for appointments that came after mine.

2/3rds of the way through my session, my shoulder was starting to feel the burn.  It is amazing how little weight it takes to fatigue an isolated rotator cuff.  In the middle of a rowing set, an individual comes up and asks if I drive a black truck.  Immediately, I surmised I was not going to be pleased with what followed.  Sure enough, he was delivering something to the building and backed into the rear of my truck.  Unbelievable — suddenly the pain drained out of my shoulder and headed right for my butt.  I finished my therapy and headed out to see the damage.

Truck Dent

It ended up not being that bad.  He somehow missed my side panels and the bumper successfully performed its role.

Truck Bumper

He provided me all of his insurance information and to his credit, took responsibility for the mistake offering apologies.  I called up his agent, AllState, submitted my claim and scheduled an appointment to have the damage assessed.  I was somewhat annoyed I had to flex some time at work to get the truck to the assessor, but made it there at the set time.  Expecting a lengthy discussion regarding what they were and were not going to do, I patiently waited as the assessor looked over the damage.  10 minutes later, he returned, asked me where I wanted it fixed at, called up the service manager there, verified that a new bumper was available, confirmed the charge and cut me a check for over $540 to cover the replacement.   Wow, kudos to AllState for making things right.  I thought I would share this story since often times I rail against bad service encountered in almost a daily frequency.  There are definitely some bright spots out there and they should be recognized for their efforts.

As a note, this is the last time I test fate and touch my insurance card in the morning.

Congratulations, It’s A Poochon

I’d like to introduce you to the newest member of the family.  Over the weekend, we picked up our Christmas present for my mother-in-law.  Why so long after December 25th?  No, we are not procrastinators – although year after year I have to convince my wife that the closer to Xmas you get, the better deals are, not to mention AFTER the big day.  You don’t believe me do you?  Okay, next year check out the prices of Chia Pets on December 1st and check it again on December 24th.  Most people like a Chia Pet for Xmas, but EVERYONE likes a Chia Pet for half price.  With those words of insight, I would like to introduce Benji.

Benji

Benji was bred in Clinton IA and is a Poochon which is basically a crossbreed of a Poodle and a Bischon Frise.  We are a poodle family (lost one, still have two) so I am really not that much into designer breeds, but this little guy was available and he sure is cute.  Linda thinks he looks a little like a panda, I on the other hand, think he looks like the Predator which is also cool.  At this point he is mostly fluffy fur, but much more alert than our poodles were when they were brought home for the first time.  He also doesn’t make a lot of noise which may be due to just getting acquainted to the strange surroundings – for my mother-in-law’s sake, let’s hope it is his normal disposition.

Benji

In order to keep him out of harm’s way and safe from the curiosity of our two spoiled dogs while we had supper, we put him in pop-up cage.  This was definitely not something he was used to and quite frankly not a big fan.

Benji sulking in his cage

At this point he did start making some noise including a all out raise to the moon howl.  Our white poodle does this exact same thing if we do not pick up the phone after 2 or 3 rings.  Don’t ask us why, but it is nice to have a secondary notification that someone is trying to contact us, especially since his howl carries a lot further than our ringer.  At this point, Benji decided to show off.  We looked over and noticed he was literally climbing the cage.  This I thought was amazing for such a small puppy.  I predict he becomes an explorer and plan to keep the dangerous stuff pretty high.  Here is a shot we took of his climbing skills – keep in mind he is only like 6 weeks old.

Benji climbing

As soon as we finished supper, we rescued him from his cage and let him loose.  My dogs were doing pretty well with him until he went for their food bowls.  They are used to being the only dogs and have very little visitors out here in the country so they did not appreciate that one bit and had a little altercation.  Benji was a little scared at that point, but they need to get this resolved between them real quick.  After a few minutes of “discussion” they settled back down and went their own ways.  Benji decided to start exploring and found a small table with a ledge full of magazines.  I am not sure if he wanted protection from our dogs or just likes being off the floor, but he ended up climbing up the magazines and making himself comfortable.

Benji climbing up the end table

Since he liked it there so much we decided to remove the magazines (they were slipping around) and make a little cozy bed out of it.  This immediately became his favorite place to be and ended up taking a snooze.

Benji sleeping

We gave him a toy skunk which surprisingly looked like a twin.  Just for reference, here is a pulled out image.

Benji sleeping

Might as well show off my kids while I am at it.  I don’t want them reading this blog and getting jealous.

Neither of them were very happy at the moment because they really did not want any part of the new guy.  Our two dog agility stars are Rizzi (Osiris) on the left at 10lbs and Kerby (Kerberos) on the right at 5lbs.  If Benji currently weighs more than 1.5lbs I would be shocked.  Oh, and yes, our dogs are named after gods of the dead, but Linda demanded they had cute sounding short names she wouldn’t be embarrassed to call out in the agility ring. Kerby was actually from the same breeder in IA.  There, that should make our boys happy.

Unfortunately, at this point Benji was pretty exhausted from his big homecoming.  He definitely just wanted to catch some Z’s and nothing was going to stop him from doing that.  Clearly he is comfortable around us and looks like he going to fit right in.

Benji looking cute

Benji looking cute

While we were visiting Linda’s Mom, we wanted to make sure the sweater she got for him fit.  Our dogs are not fond of their cold weather coats, but Benji seemed to have no problem with his.  It is still too early to tell if he actually likes it, but he definitely did not fight it.  He is quite the cutie.

Trying out the new sweater

Pet my belly

It finally came time to head home and leave Benji and his new mother to the bonding the process.  The potty training process is always the hard part, but Linda’s mother does not work so that should be easier to get him out on a regular basis.  He had not gone most of the day, but while he was in the cage we ended up putting a newspaper in the corner.  As soon as we did that, he ran over to it and relieved himself.  Apparently, he already had a little familiarization which will help tremendously.

Welcome to the family Benji!

Brian and Benji

We might just have to bring him home with us 8^)

It’s My Blogging Anniversary

Okay, it is officially tomorrow, but it will be my 1 year anniversary of committing to this whole blogging whim.  If nothing else, I get to check another thing off my life list.  I held myself to completing at least a year of this with a determination at the end of that time to decide to continue or not.  For my own selfish reason I decided to provide a summary of this year’s output (data includes this post):

  • According to the WordPress Stats: Total Posts 99 and 27 comments
  • Total pages (according to MS Word):155
  • Total number of words (according to MS Word):66,172
  • Post topics (some posts had multiple categories)
    • Birds:9
    • General:9
    • Observation:59
    • Ramblings:6
    • Recollection:10
    • Service:13
    • Uncategorized:0
    • Wildlife:0
  • Blogs by month (numbers did not come out right – think WordPress was reporting wrong by month
    • 12/0:1
    • 1/08:12
    • 2/08:7
    • 3/08:9
    • 4/08:7
    • 5/08:13
    • 6/08:7
    • 7/08:6
    • 8/08:6
    • 9/08:6
    • 10/08/:10
    • 11/08:7
    • 12/08:7
  • Writing style: conversational
  • Most common grammatical error: using “to” instead of “too”- Word loves to point this out to me
  • Number of WordPress uprades:1
  • Number of reference links used:45
  • Number of images used:81
  • Languages uses: 2 (English and a Greek word)
  • Completed Life List Items: 4
    • Ran the Steamboat 15K – toughest in IL
    • Purchased apiece of art
    • Blogging for one year
  • Maintained convictions:2
    • Never giving Metallica a penny of my money
    • Ban from RIAA backed musicians (and I won by the way – RIAA has decided to stop suing their customers – await upcoming post on this topic)
  • Posted 85 more items than my brother over at Dead Reckonings (he clocked in at 13) – yeah, he has me on quality by far… really far actually, but I like to harp on my tiny infrequent wins over my parent’s favorite 8^)
  • Personal Revelations:
    • I actually read more books than I thought this year
    • My disposition is clearly on the sarcasm side
    • Pet peeve – bad service
    • I remember more than I thought from my childhood
    • Clearly interested in marketing and economics – ironic since those were my worst subjects in school
    • Definitely leveraging all of his elective psychology classes
    • Enjoys nature

I must admit, I enjoyed my time blogging and I am pretty pleased with the end result.  It strange being able to look back and actually have snapshots in time with aspects that impacted your life along with your person reaction or reasoning at that time.  Since only a year has passed, most of my viewpoints have not changed a great deal, however, it may be interesting to review this content in 5 years or so to see if my disposition has changed or life experiences have altered the way I look at certain situations.  As of now, I have decided to continue with this effort, but I want to change a few things in an effort to improve upon the output:

  • Infuse a more graphic perspective – what probably has not come out in all this is my interest in photography and all things related to art in general.  You probably caught a little bit of that with the art purchase post and the photos of wildlife etc.  While creating this summary, I was shocked at how skewed it was to the textual side.
  • I need to get caught up with my observations.  I still have a large number of items written down that I want to post on the blog.  If nothing else, I want to be sure and capture the thoughts associated with those occurrences when they happen.
  •   Branch out into some additional topics.  This year I focused on the bird side of the wildlife (and thus why it had its own category).  Being out in the country, I have a great variety of different insects and animals that I get to observe just about every day including; deer, snakes, spiders, coyotes etc.  I also want to add a new category on the topic of stupid engineering.  I am getting tired of poor execution on product delivery and have a growing list of examples I would like to share.
  • And finally, and to be honest, the most apprehensive goal is to increase viewer numbers and comments.  I purposely left this site unadvertised and somewhat private as I navigated through what I wanted to do with this site.  I was also struggling with the ramifications of knowing others would be viewing the content and might be offended or think differently of me if they did not agree with a position I took or a comment that was made.  This is still a concern of mine, but the only way I’ll get an answer to this is to simply try it.

Lastly, I would like to thank everyone that did take the time to read my ramblings and especially appreciative of those who invested time to add comments.  It has been fun and looking forward to continuing this in 2009.