Over-thinking It

I'll be the first to admit that I don't necessarily think the same way most people do. I'll also admit that I frequently overthink things that most people just let slide - for which they seem happier for having done so. It really makes relating to things - particularly popular fictions such as movies (or the news) - difficult for me to do.

Recently, I watched another post-apocalyptic movie via an online video streaming service. I think it was via Zune, this time, rather than the usual NetFlix. At any rate, we just watched the movie Priest. Like many post-apocalyptic dystopian fictions, the world of Priest was mostly a wasteland. All of humanity had retreated from the desolate countryside into equally as grim walled cities.

 

As I'm watching this movie, I'm bugged by this common dystopian view. I mean, I don't necessarily have a problem coping with the idea of grim cities - urban existence is almost inherently grim. What I have problem with is the dichotomy of the "safe" megalopolis surrounded by the dangerous and desolate wastelands. I can't get past the basic, real-life problem of resources I mean, I've never quite understood, "where does the food come from", in the wasteland/mega-cities school of dystopian sci-fi. And, from there, the rest of my ability to enjoy a mediocre story goes downhill.

Need to Stop Listening to the Radio

When Donna and I take the SUV out, she frequently has the station on WTOP. For her, it's just background noise and easily ignored. With my inability to filter, I get stuck listening to each and every story they drone out. Because the programming effects us differently (Donna not at all and me listening), Donna frequently talks over things - with a special nack for being most radio-obliterating right at the critical part of a given news report. Simply put, I hate listening to news radio when Donna's in the car. This is not to say that I'm fond of having the news on, in the first place: generally, all I'm hearing on news programming is "news of the annoyingly stupid".

Today was another exercise in the "news of the annoyingly stupid". The 9/11 commemorartion riders came through DC on their 1800-strong motorcycle convoy. Ok... First, this weekend isn't 9/11 - it's not even September. So, why this weekend (and, no, I don't care enough to Google for it). Secondly: why try to stream an 1800 motorcycle convoy through one of the worst traffic regions in the nation during rushhour???

Yeah, I know I'm a cranky bastard on my best days, but nothing about this debacle made sense. On top of it, it made little sense to me that the ride-supporters were chapped by the locals who had complaints about the timing of the ride (not the ride itself, mind you, just the timing). I get that people like to commemorate major events. I get that DC was tied to 9/11 by the fact that the Pentagon was one of the sites directly impacted by the events of that day. However, I think it's at least as selfish of the riders to time their event as they did as the ride-supporters seem to think people like me are for not liking the inconvenience it caused.

Unfortunately, a lot of people think that just because something is "for a good cause" that makes everything about how it's conducted is justafiable. It's the same effect that powers all the legal abuses and shortcuts because of "think of the children". To the people in the 1800-motorcycle convoy, it's just a ride to commemorate a tragedy. To the people that live here, along the pathway of that convoy it's more than just inconvenience, it's lost time and lost money. The extra time in traffic means wasted gas - and gas, particularly lately, is decidedly not free. The extra time in traffic means time spent in traffic hell that could be better spent with family, friends, etc. Time has value and for the sake of 1800 riders, tends of thousands of locals were compelled to spend their time in a way that they might have otherwise more-constructively spent it. Some people, anticipating the hell that the convoy was going to cause, opted to take off work. That's vacation days that they won't have to spend elsewhere. That's work-productivity lost at what might have been a critical time in their job-cycle.

But, hey, at least 1800 riders got to commemorate 9/11. Fuck everyone else.

Tell me, again, what that commemoration did for the people who died on 9/11? At least the Rolling Thunder folks do their stuff on a holiday.

Delegation and Failure

Honestly, I didn't know whether to post this on this site or my "serious"/work site. Technically, it's about work and would be well-situated there. However, this is more a philosophical post than a technical post. Thus, I opted to put it here...

For the last several jobs I've worked at, I've frequently been in the position where I had to push the tasks I was once responsible for onto groups with less exeperience than I have. This is the nature of an engineering role: you figure the stuff out, then you turn it over to others to manage - usually after simplifying and documenting that "stuff", first. Then, you move on to other things and act as a technical resource for those charged with the day-to-day care and feeding of that "stuff".

Invariably, part of the push-down process is figuring out which things are suitable for push-down and to whom. Part of "to whom" is knowing who's available to do the work and their skills set or prescribing the type of person that should be capable of doing the work and allowing the folks in charge of staffing to find people that meet your prescribed skills set. At the end of the day, it's a process that, if executed correctly by all parties involved, allows the "stuff" to be more widely used and kept healthy, and allows the engineer to mostly divorce himself from that "stuff".

The push-down process is one fraught with challenges and fear. While you, as an engineer, can decide what things can and should be pushed down and who it should be able to be pushed down to, there's always the fear that you won't be able to push it down. You have fear that the people you're pushing to won't be up to the challenge. You fear that the people you're pushing to won't do things the way you had envisioned, ultimately resulting in more work for you (first, by having to fix any breakage that results; and, second, having to undo all the stuff that resulted in the breakage or, worse, having found the unanticipated deviance so pathologically and intractably ingrained that you have to leave it in place and work around it). Further, if your a conscientious sort, you always have the worry that you're setting people up to fail.

It's this last that I hear over and over when it comes time for the push-down: "we might be setting them up to fail."

This is a hard one to argue against. Any time you pass a resposibility on to others, you pass on the possibility of failure. It's the nature of the beast. If you're giving anyone the ability to do anything meaningful, you're also giving them the ability to screw important things up. That said, if you've properly described the expected skills set for the task(s) and/or provided good procedural documentation, you've not only given them the ability to fail, you've also ensured that they have the tools to succeed. The only time you're "setting someone up to fail" is if you give them a tasking that they can't reasonably be expected to handle. If the people responsible for staffing ignore your staffing prescriptions, that's not your fault. If the people handling the passed-down responsibilities ignore the procedures you've tested, documented and passed-down, that's not your fault. The best you can do is to act in good faith and be there to clean up the mess when your efforts weren't enough (oh: and document why the failure occurred so that it might not happen again for the same reasons).

Way to Be...

"Exceptionally useless" is not a Good Way™ to be exceptional.

WTF, VZW?

So, in today's email, I find the below image/message from Verizon Wireless:

I find it a tad confusing. I mean, I upgraded both phones to Samsung Charges in June. So, it's not like either my handset or Donna's handsets are eligle for a "new every 2" uprade for nearly two years. So why email this to me. Am I supposed to tell my freinds, who aren't yet VZW customers, "hey: look at this awesome deal?" I mean, if that's the intent, it makes no sense, either? Why the hell would I recommend, to anyone, "go get Verizon so you can stream video at LTE speeds and blow through your data cap in under a day!" Seriously: it makes no sense at all. It would only have made sense to send me this if: A) either of my phones were not recently upgrades; or, B) VZW hadn't just put data caps in place for all new customers. Neither A nor B is true, so why spam me?

Lunchtime Atrocities

Where I work, most days of the week, there are very limited food choices. Basically, you have the option of eating down in the building cafeteria, walking over to the commisary (that's ½mi. walk from the exit of the building, which, itself is a ⅓ of a mile from my desk) or going off campus.

• The building cafeteria has several "food" options: Subway, a Chinese food place (it's a chain, too, I just can't remember it), two other sandwich shops, a hot foods concession, a burger stand, a salad bar and a pizza concession.
• The commisary is a ½-mi. walk from the exit of my building. And, since I work in a large building, the walk from my desk to that exit is ⅓-mi. walk). Down there, there's another subway, a pizza concession, a Starbucks, an icecream shop and a couple other low-grade concessions. If I wanted to walk further still, there's a Burger King
• The closest off-campus location is a ten-minute drive ...and that's after you've walked out to your car. And, given the parking situation on campus, you could easily have walked a half mile or more to get to you car (and, if you're in one of the "close" spots, you won't want to lose it over lunch, any way). That location is full of higher-end chains, but still chains

I'm not a big fan of chain food, in general. So, if I'm going to eat chain food, I try to minimize the insult by at least restricting myself to cheap chain food. Subway's cheap and it's convenient. Notice, I don't use the term "good".

Usually, what I get is the seafood sub. I order the 6" sandwich made with the Italian herb&cheese bread. I get it with American cheese, lettuce, tomato and a ton of hot peppers. Frankly, the hot peppers are the only thing with any flavor on it. Yes, I could order something with more flavorful ingredients, the problem is, those other "flavorful" ingredients have an awful flavor. So, I go with the filling but flavorless wonder.

Now, under normal circumstances, the combination I choose would at least have some flavor

• Seafood normally has flavor, but Subway's seafood salad is just chopped up faux-crab with no discernible spices and flavorless mayo (I assume it's mayo, but it's just as likely some kind of semi-edible bonding agent).
• The bread I choose claims to be "Italian herb and cheese". As near as I can tell, the "Italian herbs and cheese" Subway uses were chosen more to provide texture than flavor.
• American cheese, while normally mild, typically has flavor. Subway's? Not so much. It's mostly just a textural thing that provides a bit of filling - a very small bit of filling, given that they take one small square of cheese, cut it into two triangles and lay the triangles end-to-end, long-sides on a common axis, so as to give the appearance of covering the whole sandwich. Much as Mario's cake is a lie, so is Subway's cheese.
• Lettuce can have flavor, it's just that most sandwich places seem to choose to use iceberg or other basically flavorless lettuces. I don't know what token greenery Subway actually uses, but it's flavorless.
• Tomatoes... I loves me some tomatoes. As a kid, it used to boggle my mind that they were technically fruits. As an adult with a very nice garden in my yard, I almost find it hard to believe that I was ever confused about whether they were a fruit or vegetable. With Subway's tomatoes, the only confusion I have is, "is this actually food?" I mean, today's tomatoes were literally white (granted, it was a pinkish white, so, it had the suggestion that they were distantly related to the bright-red, flavorful tomatoes I've had elsewhere, but it's only enough of a hint to make you buy into them maybe being tomatoes). Their texture and flavor, however, I could replicate by cutting the bottoms off a styrofoam coffee cup, splashing them with ink from a red pen and tossing them on my sandwich.
• The only saving grace is the hot peppers. I don't know why the sandwich makers always boggle at me when I ask them to pile them on (sometimes saying things like "take what you think is an obscene amount of hot-peppers, then double it" to try to give them a picture of how much I want). Now, you'd think that canned sandwich peppers were canned sandwich peppers. Growing up, it didn't so much matter which brand was on the jar, the crushed hoagie peppers were zesty. I dunno where Subway gets theirs, but it definitely isn't from Talaricos. Yes, they too are gutless versions of the food substances they pretend to be.

Oh well. It saves me the hassle of having to go off campus and it makes my stomach shut up. Though, in truth, I don't know whether my stomach shuts up because it's been sated or because it fears that I'll assault it with another wave of utterly indifferent food.

All Your Eggs

Some good points in this article (http://is.gd/cQQ7e3). And, yes, I have a Plus account, but I won't soon be abandoning my other outlets.

Scarcity Improves Art

Improvements in technology are a double-edged sword. The shear, raw "horespower" of new technologies make all sorts of things that were difficult, if not impossible, to do in the past trivial. Unfortunately, it also seems that, as effort is removed, it lowers the bar to entry so much that the art is lost. You see it computer programming and you see it in movie-making. Much as "old school" coders were better because of limited resources, I think the same can be said of film-makers.

If modern coders were as efficient with their coding as the guys of the 50s, 60s and 70s were, we would already have truly immersive virtual reality and computers that put HAL 9000 to shame. Probably the only reason that the SciFi writers got things wrong on the timescale was because they were basing projects of technological growth and assuming the same level of skill and artistry would follow it. Unfortunately, not so much.

When I was a kid and first saw movies like Tron, Last Starfighter ...even up through Jurassic Park, it almost seemed like there'd be no need for physical actors within my lifetime. Unfortunately, what I've seen is that the effects have gone from enhancing the story to being the story. And it's sad.

Things Mis-heard

That Honda commercial sounds like they're singing, "I'm a horny ninja."



Supposedly, the song is actually "I'm a Hoodie Ninja", but, c'mon: tell me this isn't actually saying "horny".

Why I Hate "The Hartford" Insurance Companies

So, on Saturday, May 28th, my SUV was backed into by a driver insured through The Hartford's Small Business auto insurance group. We exchanged information and went about our respective ways. I contacted my insurer to aprise them of the situation. They recommended I contact the other preson's insurer (The Hartford) and file a claim directly with them.

The Hartford, being a customer-service oriented company, doesn't really make themselves available for people to file claims. They only have agents available to open and process claims from 08:00-17:00 Eastern time during the regular business week. So, if you have a day job, you're stuck trying to call them during business hours. If you're like me, this is made difficult by not having predictable access to phones during those hours.

At any rate, the following Tuesday (5/31), I opted to go into work an hour late so that I could call the ass-hats at The Hartford. A little after 08:00, I called in and opened a claim. I was told that an adjuster would contact me within two business days. I informed them that I had limited phone-access, but they assured me that I would be contacted and that, if I wasn't reachable, they'd leave a message. Well, it's now 18 days later and I've yet to hear from an adjuster and there have been no voicemails left at any of my phone numbers. 

I guess I'm a bit spoiled by my insurance company. My insurance company allows one to file and track claims 24/7. Their only real hours limitation is that of individual claims adjusters. While their adjusters' hours are limited by comparison to the overall claims service process, their adjusters are very prompt about returning phone calls or contacting you via alternate means (such as email). Dealing with my insurance company shows how craptacular the service of companies, such as The Hartford's, is.

Interestingly, I opted to call the actual policy holder, Rick's Carpet and Flooring. I spoke with a nice gentleman (Rob, I believe) who told me that The Hartford had told them that they'd already taken care of the issue. I found this rather odd, considering that my vehicle was still not repaired and I had yet to be contacted by a claim's adjuster. Rick's is supposed to call me back, Monday, after they've had a chance to re-engage the Hartford and find out what the heck is up. They're a small, local, family-owned business, so, the solicitousness of their response was about on par with what I expected.

So, it should be interesting to see how this all works out. I may have to delay the start of one of my work days, next week, to try to track down an adjuster from The Hartford. The damage was only slight, but, at this point, it's more one of those "the principal of the thing" exercises.

Not How to Start The Weekend

This evening, as I drove home from work, I was thinking to myself, this looks like it could be a great weekend. I'd figured out that the reason why two weeks of my life had been spent troubleshooting a poorly performing system at work was because the standard Linux build didn't include PAE support. Thus, the 16GB-requiring application running on a 32GB system was thrashing the hell out of the host. I'd been able to get the requisite RPMs and shove them through our security process and get the boxes fixed before leaving for the day. All in all, not a bad way to end the week and start the weekend.

I drove home, with the top down, enjoying the beautiful, sunny weather (at least, that's what it was like at 17:00). First indications that my Friday - and possibly the remainder of the weekend - was about to go sideways was that, when I got home, the top to my car wouldn't go back up. So, I popped the rear seat cushion out and used the little allen-wrench thing to reset the top's safety lock. I hit the button and the top returned to the full, upright and closed position. So, no real problem, just a hassle.

Donna had come out to see why I was taking so long to come in. She suggested we pack up the pups and go down to the nearby dog-park. I was a touch leary, since Lady's only been to dog parks two times previous, and both of those with our dog-trainer present. She did pretty well, until a surly scotty dog decided to fuck with her. She didn't go nuts, or anything, but Lady definitely has an unnerving "back the fuck off" snarly-bark. No furball ensued, but, I decided discretion was the better part of valor and we left after a little less than half an hour at the park. One of the downsides of bully-ownership is that, no matter which dog starts it, the bully is seen to be at fault. C`est la vie.

Since we needed more milk and miscellaneous provisions, and it was nearby, we stopped in at Whole Foods. I stayed in the car with the steam engine-sounding, panting dogs while Donna ran in to shop. As I was sitting in the SUV, the thunder clouds started rolling in and the wind was kicking up. By the time Donna came back, the rain was beggining to come down.

We made our way home ...Duke Street to Telegraph Road, then onto Farmington. As usual, car after car was speeding through our neighborhood, using it as the shortcut between Telegraph Road and North Kings Highway. I turned onto Edgehill, on the home stretch to our house. Per usual, the oncoming cars were turning right off of Fort Drive and swinging wide into the oncoming lane - the one we were in. I was well on my side of the center-line of the street. As we were approaching the intersection, I saw a white Chevy utility-van roll the stop-sign and pull wide into our lane. I slowed to a near stop to try to allow him additional buffer to get himself back into our lane. He made no effort to cross back onto his side of the center-line. I sat there helplessly, a matter of seconds stretching into what felt like hours, as he smacked into my left front wheel and scraped the whole way down the side of my SUV. As he scraped by, I watched the mirro fold in and saw pieces of plastic popping off the SUV. I still don't know how the mirror did't get ripped off, given that he hit us hard enough to bend the wheel at the axel-mount and render the SUV undrivable. At least the airbags didn't deploy and the pups stayed well-fastend in their doggy seatbelts (yes, they actually make those - thankfully).

Now, this is the second time, in just about as many weeks, that the SUV has been hit by white utility-vans operated by careless drivers. The first time was two Saturday's ago at the 7Eleven near our house. The fuckwit driving it, a worker for Rick's Carpet & Flooring, had backed into us just as I was reaching for the drivers' door-handle. We'd stopped in on the way to the Saturday farmer's market in Falls Church (they carry Mtn. Dew Throw-back, so, it's a must to stop there). For some reason, he was unable to back out of his parking space without hitting us. It was mostly cosmetic damage, so, when his insurance company failed to return my call after I filed the initial claim, it hadn't been a huge priority to find out where the fuck their adjuster was.

Today's incident was a bit more severe. After waiting nearly an hour and a half for a Fairfax County Police officer to show up, we were able to start the requisite paperwork. In fairness, a hellish storm had just torn through and caused all sorts of havoc on Richmond Highway between the Mt. Vernon police-station and our house - it was just such a departure from the norm where it's usually less than 10 minutes from the time you start your call with the dispatcher till the time they're at your door to find out what's up. The guy was contrite and admitted full fault (and, even if he hadn't, the guy living three houses down from the accident had been working in his front yard and stated he was willing to sign as a witness to the accident). The cop gave him two citations: one for the accident and one for driving an unsafe vehicle (it's citeable, in VA, to drive a vehicle with tires so bald you can see the chording). Unfortunately, while the guy claims he has insurance through Liberty Mutual, he wasn't able to provide proof of such insurance at the scene. In VA, unlike DC, it's not a citeable offense to not be able to provide proof of insurance at the scene of an accident. The officer instructed him to contact me with his insurance info so I could file a claim. The guy claimed he would do so as soon as he got home. Unfortunately, we're now four hours post-accident and two-hours post-citing, and there's been no such phone call. Given that the guy was "self-employed", didn't have the insurance paperwork and was driving a citably unsafe work vehicle, I've the sinking suspicion that this is going to have to be run against my insurance. Thank god I've got USAA.

For now, we're kinda boned. It's not even Saturday and we're kind of limited in what we can do. No dog parks, this weekend. Won't be able to run errands and pick anything up. And, I've got the prospect of dealing with insurance companies and trying to sort out a suitable rental vehicle come Monday. What's more, if the guy does fail to provide insurance or whatever, I'll probably be having to go to court in July when Fairfax brings their case against him. Fmeh.

On the plus side, no one was hurt and we do have good insurance. It's just annyoingly inconvenient.

And, in case you ever are involved in a vehicular incident with Donna ...it's not a pleasant experience. Even with her sole level of involvement being as a passenger - in both cases - she goes completely fucking bonkers on the other drivers. I really worry that if she doesn't start to keep her shit under control, it's going to lead to an unfortunate incident that I really don't want to have to deal with. Talk about need for "anger management" classes... Oy.

Disheartening Realization

When Puckett died, after being my pet for slightly less than seven full years, I'd hoped that the rescue we'd gotten him from had been wrong on their age estimate. When we'd brought him home, June of 2004, they'd estimated his age at about 1½ years of age. That would have made him less than nine when he died. As awesome as he was, I didn't want to think that he could have been that young. Knowing that we were the second family to adopt him (he lost his first rescue home when the couple that had adopted him got divorced), I'd sort of assumed that they must have meant he was 1½ years-old when they adopted him. This would have hopefully meant he was at least two years old, possibly over three years old when he came into our home. This would have meant he was nine or ten when we put him down at the beginning of April. Either age would still have been to young, too short a life for such a great dog, but, still: better than nine.

Recently, we adopted a new dog. It had taken about two months to find a dog that both said, "hey, you really want to take me home" and was cat compatible. The only other dog that said "take me home" pretty much failed pre-adoption cat testing. Ultimately, we found an AmBull/Pitbull-mix that both said "take me home" and gets along with cats. This is her:

A Pet ConFab

She and Grumbles frequently share my couch with each other. Basically, if I'm home, they're both on my couch with me

The other thing you might notice, if you've read prior posts on her predecessor, is that the sorta resembles Puckett. That was an accident, more than anything. I wasn't looking for a Puckett-clone. And, personality-wise, while both are/were very happy dogs, they are more different than just their gender and breed-mixes. I don't have any temptation to call out "Puckett" when I really mean her (closest I came to that was a reflex response to Donna screaming at me, "call your dog!" when she was being under-foot in the kitchen: my programmed response, after years of such entreaties was, "PUCKETT!").

When we adopted her, the rescue had her name listed as "Miss Lady". In reality, she didn't really know she had a name. However, she's very much not a lady, so, I kept the "Lady" part of the name mostly for its irony-value. She's just in recent days started responding to it as though she understands "oh, when they say 'Lady' they mean me." She's only ten months old and is still very much a puppy in her actions and outlook on the world. Seeing this puppyishness and remebering back to when we got Puckett, it becomes evident that Puckett died on the wrong side of nine years old.

Not a (Completely) Cold Fish

First, let me start out by saying that, if no one has yet coined the term "emotional initiative", I hereby stake my claim to its creation. What I mean by "emotional initiative" is the normal capacity to spontaneously react with appropriate emotional response for a given stimulus. In other words, the ability to viscerally feel the normal spectrum of emotions. Why this comes up is, lately, I think I've come to the realization that I generally lack this capability. It feels like most of my emotional existence lies on the bluer end of the emotional spectrum. But, mostly, I lack the ability to feel anything, or at least, it feels like I don't react with the same types or degree of emotions I seem to observe expressed by other people. I'm kind of dead inside.

What most brought this lack to light was the recent passing of my dog, Puckett. I've had pets "all my life". I've had dogs. I've had cats. I've had rabbits. While the passing of each saddened me, the loss of Puckett has been the one pet-death that has really hit me hard. He's the first pet I've actually missed. I've never really missed pets (hell, I don't really know that I miss people to any normal, non-detached degree). I think I've discovered why that is.

If you had to take the emotional state of "happiness" and put it into a tangible, physical form, that form would have been Puckett. There are plenty of dogs who are pretty up-beat, but Puckett seemed to just always be that way. I mean, the damned dog wagged his tail in his sleep! Even if you couldn't see him, you knew he was around just by the insistent thump of his tail wagging into his cage, a door frame, a door, a wall or whatever happened to be within tail-reach. He always had a kind of insistence with his happiness. As obnoxious as that may sound, somehow, with him, it wasn't. If it was anything, it was infectious. I don't know anyone that spent any amount of time with him that would disagree That's a huge part of why it has always boggled my mind that he was given up not just once, but twice. I still don't understand how it was I was lucky enough to have come upon him and I don't know how two sets of owners could have been stupid enough to let him go.

When we got the cancer diagnosis, it filled me with a sense of dread beyond simply knowing I'd too soon be without him. I knew that a big part of my happiness would be gone. It's that whole not seeming to have much of a capability to initiate the feelings of happiness or joy within myself. Things that tend to make most people happy sort of just roll off me like water off a duck's back. I'm able to acknowledge that good things have happened. I'm even able to sort of appreciate them. But, such things have, at best, a transient feeling to them - for better or worse, most things feel that way. Having Puckett around, I often felt like I was actually able to experience those kinds of feelings through him. He was the kind of dog you could just look at and it would lighten your spirits. And now, that's gone. All that's left is my "normal", dead self.

We've been trying for coming up on two months, now, to try to find a pup to fill some of the huge hole he's left. What should be a fun experience, getting to "interview" lots of dogs, has been a soul-crushing experience. Each time, I go out, hoping to find that connection. For the most part, I haven't. Yeah, the first part of the visits are often uplifting, but then there's the hangover from it - the emotional letdown of going home, empty-handed. Sometimes, it's even worse.

A couple weekends ago, I met Mook. He was a nifty Boxer/American Pitbull mix. Something about the way we interacted said to me, "you need to take me home." He was too big. He was an energetic handful. But, in spite of that, there was still that, "you need to take me home" feeling to him. Unfortunately, he fairly badly failed cat-testing. Give we've got two cats, we have to have a dog that gets along with cats. So, I had to take a pass on him.

This weekend, we met two dogs, Micah and Miss Lady. Each had qulities to recommend them.

Our current dog, Cira, seemed to love the time we spent at the dog park with Micah. Yeah, she was having fun playing with all the dogs, but she did seem to be gravitating towards him, in particular. I got the feeling that, were we to bring him home, they'd be the doggy version of "best buds for life." Unfortunately, I didn't feel much of a "you need to take me home" feeling from him. I don't know whether this was just because he was surrounded by and distracted from playing with a pack of other dogs or just that there wasn't really a connection to be made (I'm firmly of the school that dogs claim their owners at least as much as we claim them). I just don't know. I'm thinking that, before I can say, "we need to bring this guy home," we need to try to get a meeting under circumstances that are likely to foster a connection. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how best to go about that. Worse, because of prior disappointments, I'm afraid to try to make a connection in case he fails the cat test.

After meeting with Micah, we had to take Cira home to bathe her. She'd gotten quite dirt and slobber covered from the 40+ minutes of running around in the Clarendon dog park. This cost us the opportunity to meet another boy - at least for this weekend - but still left us with time to go meet Miss Lady. Like Micah, Miss Lady is a gorgeous-looking dog. Where Micah was a gorgeous red-brindled and sleek bully, Miss Lady is a too-skinny ball of energy recently rescued from a high-kill shelter. She has arresting white/blue eyes and a friendly demeanor that says, "you want to take me home." Or, at least, I think it does.

Her eyes and her manner are evocative of Puckett. I'm hoping it's mostly her manner and not just the color and quality of her eyes.

At any rate, meeting her did make me feel something. I should probably sort out the source if I'm to do the decision justice. Yesterday, her interaction with Cira was very poor. So, I'd thought I'd been rescued from having to sort out whether the source of that feeling was genuine or not. Today, however, when we went to a dog adoption event in Columbia, to meet a different dog, Miss Lady was there. And, today, she and Cira got along very much differently than their first encounter suggested they ever might. There wasn't anything in the way of raised hackles. There wasn't any growling, snarling, barking or baring of teeth. There also wasn't any of the "I don't like you so I'm going to go over here and do my best to ignore you" posturing we'd seen the day before. In fact, they just generally seemed a lot more interested in each other and able to get along. At one point, I was giving dog-treats to each and Miss Lady thought she'd try to intercept one that I was giving to Cira. Cira calmly asserted herself and no growling (etc.) was evidenced from either dog. More of an "it's my turn" from Cira and an, "ok, we have to take turns" from Miss Lady. So, now I'm torn, again.

Worse, I'm a touch beaten. Part of me really wants this dog. Part of me is really afraid that the universe is teasing me, again. And, a third part of me is thinking, "you're really overthinking all of this." Probably, I am. I don't know that most people go through this when looking for dogs. Most people are more impulsive in their decisions. Most people are easier to let themselves go. Or, at least it seems that way. I just don't really know. All I know is that it's really draining. All I really know is that feeling tends to be really draining. Perhaps that's why I tend not to do it, much?

Is There a Doggy eHarmony?

Seems that the recent spate of bad dog-luck is extending into our search for a replacement for Puckett. Winston's rescue organization non-sense and Snoop's cat-test failure both sucked, but they'd mostly appealed to Donna rather than me.

Recently, we'd found Mook. When we first visited, my initial thoughts were "this guy's too big" and "Donna would never be able to control him." So, I'd sorta written him off almost immediately. Unfortunately (not under normal circumstances, but in this case, sort of "yes"), the rescue-coordinator that was seeing after him was the same one that we got Cira from after Lana died. She had pictures of Cira as a puppy and her siblings that she wanted to show to us. So, while she and Donna looked through her computer for the pictures, I was left to commune with Mook. Unfortunately, that was long enough to let me see something in him I liked that I hadn't seen in the others.

After we left, and we walked into Snoop's cat-test failure, I found myself less than disappointed that Snoop had failed. Snoop was a nice enough dog, but, he hadn't stirred anything in me like Mook had. So, it left me with a reason to contact Mook's rescue-coordinator and ask "can you please cat-test him". She was happy to do so. 

That request was made Sunday evening. I've been waiting, cautiously hopeful, since then. Today, the result of that test came in:

We did the cat test.  I picked up Mook and took him to Kitty City.  [The Evaluator] was there and performed the test.

******* 

[Evaulator's] Write-Up:

Mook is too interested in cats for me to feel safe about suggesting him for a home with cats. He viewed a cat thru a wire door and barked intently and loudly. He did re-direct easily for a treat somewhat easily and focused on me when I asked him to sit. This was positive. When I put down a circular, plastic cat toy with a fake mouse in it this REALLY seemed to interest him, so much that he bloodied his mouth playing with it trying to get the mouse. He became VERY fixated on this toy and the fake mouse.

I suspect strongly that a cat that moved quickly at all would catch his interest and he would give chase. I think that he has a strong chance of hurting a cat (perhaps unintentionally) by chasing/catching. If a cat hissed or scratched back he may go after it and hurt it. He may retreat but from what I saw with regards to his interest in the cat via barking and VERY strong interest in the small fake mouse, I suspect he has a decent sized prey drive.

********

My current dog, Jack, and my deceased dog, Dylan, are/were also very interested in cats and at times acted similar to Mook.  They were around a cat at my parents, but they never hurt one.  I agree with [The Evaluator's] description of the events that took place, but I am not sure I would rule him out of your home - because of your past relationship with AFH.  We know you care for your animals and would not risk anyone getting hurt.  Mook's website postings will be updated to no cats for other adopters.

Should you decide to try Mook, you will need to make a lifestyle change (keeping the cats and dog separate, etc) indefinitely to keep the cats safe.  This type of change is certainly not something everyone wants to do.  And, you can't risk not knowing where the animals are and forgetting to shut a door or gate to keep the cats separated from Mook.

When Mook first arrived, he did not play well with other dogs and was a complete pain-in-the-ass with his jumping/humping, so I see hope for him, but hurting a cat is not something anyone wants and it would make sense if you decided he is not the dog for your family.  If the prey drive is there, the training won't change the behavior and things may not still work out in the long run.

Please let me know your thoughts.

My thoughts? Ugh... My thoughts were split. The emotional part of me that Mook had grown on while Donna and his coordinator looked for pictures made me want to risk it. For better or worse, I have a strong "executive function" to my thinking processes. For as impulsive as Donna tends to be, I tend to be deliberative. So, even though I wanted to take the risk, my rational side said, "no, not a good idea." So, with a heavy heart, I wrote back to Mook's coordinator:

Dunno if you remember our house. We live in a two-story duplex with a semi-finished basement. The bedrooms are on one floor, Donna's work-space is in the basement and the main floor is where day-to-day living takes place. I'm not sure how we'd be able to partition the house such that we could ensure no bad "accidents". It wouldn't be fair to either Mook or the cats, even if we could partition, as it would mean keeping one or the other mostly segregated from the human occupants of the house. For me, that would probably only be marginally better than kenneling. While it might be ok for a short-term fostering situation, I wouldn't want to make it a permanent thing for a dog that likely has the best part of a decade left on his clock and cats that have the best part of half a decade left on their clocks.

Ugh. Seems our dog-luck, with the exception of finding Cira, is at a low, lately. Who knows, maybe with the luck-run we'd had in finding Lana, then Puckett, then Cira - all with next to nothing in the way of compatibility issues - we ran through our fair allotment of dog-luck and need to "recharge" it.

I'm feeling like I need to find the canine equivalent of Match.Com. =)

The part of me that he grew on while you and Donna looked at Cira's picture, make me want to take the risk. However in good conscience (i.e., my internal "voice of reason"), I don't think I can. I don't want to put him through the disruption of trying to integrate him here and then, if that fails, having to put him through the disruption of putting him back into fostering.

Have you any suggestions on how we get our luck back (since there is no dog version of Match.Com)? I mean, the run of three (Lana/Puckett/Cira) made it seem like it wasn't unreasonable to expect to find a bull-type that would work and that "spoke" to us. Just been a lot of disappointment, post-Puckett.

It sucks. Mook is a really awesome dog with a lot of potential. Unfortunately, right now, Mook isn't a dog I can take the risk on. When I adopt a dog, I want to pretty much know that we'll be his furever home.

So, I guess the question stands: is there a Match.Com for dog rescues. If there isn't there damned well should be. I think I read, recently, that something like 1-in-600 dogs that ends up in shelters/rescues/etc. ever get placed. Between basic compatibility issues (such as getting along with incumbent pets), the whole "is this my dog/am I this dog's human" question and finding rescue organizations that are worth working with (I've found several good ones and, unfortunately, a couple really unpleasant ones, over the years), trying to do the right thing and going the rescue route is hard. The experience makes me really understand why it is that people, looking for a dog, don't go the rescue route. Finding a puppy is just easier, and most people are all about "easy".

Right now, I just feel soul-punched. I miss Puckett. It feels like "my dog is dead" in a much more significant way than just the fact of Puckett's passing. It feels like there's not a light at the end of the tunnel. It's particularly weird given that, in my life, I've seen five dogs to their end. This is the first time I've felt like this is my end with dogs. Half the time, I feel like the dogs we're looking at are more for Donna's benefit than mine.

I Just Don't Get It (The Dog Rescue Organization Edition)

There's a lot of things out there that I just don't "get". So, undoubtedly, I have or will continue to post "I Don't Get It" posts. This post is prompted by the complete and utter dismay, hurt, confusion and fury caused by our attempts to wade back into the doggy-adoption pool.

Back in 2003, when Donna and I were in the first year of our marriage, we'd decided we wanted to add a furry member to our family. We knew that we liked boxers, bulldogs and similar dog breeds. We had a shelter near our house - the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria's Viola Lawson dog shelter. Unfortunately, at the time, they didn't have any dogs that both spoke to us and didn't trigger Donna's (mild) dog allergies. So, we expanded our searches.

Initially, we tried to see if any of the breed-specific specialty rescue groups had any dogs we were interested in. Our first stab at this process was the local Boxer Rescue group. We got in contact with them and ended up selecting a pup named AnnaBelle:

AnnaBelle

As you can see, she was a lightly-brindled, Bogey-faced boxer with un-altered ears or tail. She was very sweet. Unfortunately, she was overly excited by the presence of our cats. We were willing to work with her to help her adjust. However, the woman who was fostering her decided that we were an unfit household. Apparently, our yard and our house weren't big enough and we didn't have enough time for her. Now, I might have been able to take this at face value had I not seen the house where she was being fostered (I'd gone there to do the initial paperwork). This woman lived in a townhouse not even half the size of ours and it had no yard. Factor in that this woman already had another boxer (or two - can't remember, clearly, at this point) and had a day-job of her own, and all I could think was, "are you fucking crazy?? How is her fostering situation even remotely better than what we were looking to offer that we could be considered unfit for the reasons given?" So, I kind of decided, "lesson learned: don't go to breed-specific rescues. The people that involved with them are well-meaning but a little too into their charges to see the big picture."

That lesson learned, I decided to do a more generalized search. We tried again with the Lawson shelter, but they still had no pups that we liked and didn't trigger Donna's allergies. So, I hit up Google. By way of Google, I found PetFinder.Com. I put in the search string "boxer" and our ZIPcode. Bunches of results came back. There were few fully boxer dogs in the results that weren't in breed-specific rescues. Since I'd already decided to avoid breed-specific rescues, they were straight-out for consideration.

However, I did find a sweet-looking American Bulldog/Boxer mix named Lana that was in the care of "A Forever Home" dog rescue.

Lana

Her PetFinder profile said she was sweet-natured, low-key and good with cats and young children (at the time, we were still hoping to have human children). So, we contacted A Forever Home to find out when/where we could meet her. They were having an adoption event at the PetCo in Chantilly, VA in just a few days. So, we put in an application and marked our calender to go meet her. We got there before she did, so we waited. Eventually, they brought her in and I think we fell in love almost immediately. We made arrangements for home inspection and a home visit. In just a couple weeks, Lana was ours and our family was starting to feel complete.

By the next summer, we were feeling the urge to get a playmate for Lana. Things hadn's been going well on the baby front. We'd not yet given up, but we still felt the need for another dog. So, same lessons from the past in mind, we started searching again. We tried A Forever Home, first, before hitting up PetFinder, but they didn't have any pups whose pictures spoke to us (no bullies of any sort at the time). I still don't remember what my search term was this time, but it turned up Puckett:

Puckett

The above isn't really a bad picture of him.Puckett just was not a classically good looking dog. He was 100% personality. Fortunately, the Picture that his rescue organization (Friends of Homeless Animals) had placed on his profile page captured that personality (I've done a lot of perusing of PetFinder, in recent months, and I've yet to find a picture of a dog that really makes the dog speak to me in quite the same way). So, we called their phone number and made arrangements to visit and to bring Lana along for an introduction.

FoHA is out in the boonies of (barely) Northern Virginia. So, it was a little less than an hour's drive from our house to their compound. It was a beautiful, late-spring day that day. We hopped out of the Saturn and uncarted Lana and tracked down the woman we'd spoken to prior to our trip. She let us into the play/introduction yard and went to fetch-up Puckett. Lana had scurried off to explore  the play yard. Eventually, the staffer showed up with Puckett and brought him into the yard. Puckett introduced himself by rushing headlong at Lana and attempting to bowl her over. He kind of bounced off and the two of them began running around the yard, playing with each other. Things looked good, so we arranged the home inspection and visit.

Later that week, a volunteer came out to bring Puckett for a visit. We needed to ensure he wouldn't try to eat the cats and FoHA needed to make sure our home was adequate for his needs. The visit went well, and by the following Sunday, they brought him back and we signed paperwork on our new boy. So, by June 21st, we were a two-dog househould.

We went along as a two-dog household until December of this past year. Then, we were, briefly, a one-dog household, again. Fortunately, we were able to find a new pup through A Forever Home, again.

Cira

Things were right with the world: we were a two-dog household again. Then, Puckett got sick and, all-too-quickly, we were, yet again, a one-dog household. All in the space of about five months, two dogs, gone, and a hole left in our lives, again.

So, I started the search, again. I tried with both FoHA and A Forever Home. Neither seems to have as many bullies, any more, as they did when we got Lana and Puckett. I can only assume that, with things like the Michael Vick nonsense (and the resultant awareness that seemed to spawn TV shows like The Pit Boss and Pitbulls and Parolees) that there's an up-surge in interest in rescuing bullies. This is good for an unjustly-maligned group of breeds, but not so good when you're the one looking to fill a hole in your home. Worse, it seems like the ones that are available for rescue are getting snapped up by breed-specific rescues.

And, that's where we found ourselves: stuck with having to contact breed-specific rescues. I'd learned my lesson once, before, and had avoided them. Unfortunately, it seems that I no longer had the choice on dealing with them. Unfortunately, it seems that what caused my prior lesson to be learned hasn't really changed. Worse, it seems like, with the influx of new "rescuers" the "blinded by good intentions" effect is even worse.

Yesterday, we had a second home visit with this guy:

Winston

Yeah. He has a resemblence to Puckett. It was accidental. The first pictures we'd seen of him, he looked only like a white dog with mismatched eyes and batty ears. Wasn't until they sent us more pix that the resemblence became more acute (and, I overheard our neighbors comment to that effect during his first visit).

Everything had seemed to go well. The woman who ran the rescue was present and agreed that he wasn't cat-aggressive, just very curious. She offered us the option of keeping him a few weeks to see how things went. She said she'd just need to set us up with a "foster-to-adopt" contract. Unfortunately, she hadn't had the contracts with her. So, she'd need to arrange to come back the next day (today) with the requisite contracts.

In retrospect, this seemed kind of fishy. I mean, what kind of well-run rescue organization doesn't bring the paperwork with them for an adoption visit? When I offered to let her use my computer to download and print any forms she needed, she balked, claiming that she didn't have her login information to get the forms. So, she and the woman who was actually fostering the dog packed up and left indicating they'd bring him and the paperwork by at around 13:00.

Last night, I couldn't sleep. I was excited by the prospect of the new dog. I didn't get to sleep until after 4AM, this morning. Thus, I ended up sleeping in later than I usually do. I came downstairs to take care of my morning medicine and finish readying the house for the new arrival (we'd gone out the night before, after they'd left, and picked up toys a second pet gate to assist with the transition process). I then logged into my computer to read the morning email.

I was really only expecting to see the usual FaceBook notification and miscellaneous spam. Instead, I found a fucking bomb in my inbox:

Good morning Tom,

[The foster] and I have intensively talked about Winston and we both feel that he is going to be "too much dog" for your household. He is still all puppy and needs intensive training and exercise, more than other puppies his age because he is so outgoing and interested in everything. You are working fulltime and Donna seems very busy with her household plus he will need to get desensitized with the cats which will take much effort and patience to do so. Sarah [sic.], your dog is absolutely adorable and we think a little more laid back older male who gets along with cats would be a much better fit for you.

I have asked [the foster] to not bring Winston over today. After all we need to make sure that everybody, dog and human, are happy at the end. Let me know how you feel about it. I would be happy to talk to you about it on the phone if you wish. Thanks, and I am looking forward to your reply.

Each time I read this email, I get more furious. I play back in my mind what could have caused this and can't really find anything. I mean, for fuck's sake: the foster for the dog has a day job. This dog sits in a cage, during the day, while she and her husband are at work. At our house, Donna is home all day and would be able to oversee the transition. We already have a trainer (we've used previously for Cira) who is a pitbull specialist (he has three of his own) to help us with training and adjustment. We have one bully and had two previously. Our pets are well fed, receive lots of attention and get regular medical care. The foster, at the prior visit, had been all too happy with the situation, as had the person that did the home inspection and the person who did our background check.

Judging by how the foster reacted to the rescue organizer's weird conduct towards the end of yesterday's meeting, it seems unlikely that the foster had any part in the decision. I can only assume that something she wasn't willing to discuss changed the rescue organizer's mind. Worse, rather than saying, "I can't place this dog here, we need to find a better fit," it seemed like she chose the ruse to disengage. So, right now, I'm feeling hurt, confused and lied to. It actually feels worse than our first foray into rescues.

Dear rescue organizers: one in 600 homeless dogs ever finds a home. It's great that you care about the dogs you've accepted into your charge, but your level of "caring" blinds you to the ability to place dogs in good homes. Worse, because you're holding onto these dogs for some kind of "perfect" home, you can't accept new dogs. It's your conduct that means that more dogs die than have to. You are the embodiement of "the road to hell being paved with good intentions."

Granted, this isn't true of all rescue organizations. Like I say, we've had good experiences with two places, now. For those two organizations, I feel eternally grateful. Now, though, I'm just really gun-shy about breed-specific organizations. So, I dunno if/when I'm likely to find a pup to fill this hole, because it seems like these groups have cornered the market on the kinds of pups we like.

Don't Abuse the Cat!

I'm a UNIX geek. The first UNIX-based system I interacted with was in 1989 in the second half of my freshman year at Penn State. I've had them as hobby systems for pretty much the entire time since college. I've also worked with them, in a professional capacity since the mid-90s. So, I've got a bit of experience with using them.

With that much time using UNIX systems, I've developed some habits and something bordering on beliefs about how to use them. When people do things that violate those habits or "beliefs", it kinda hits a nerve. One of the biggest (irrational) annoyances is when people fire up two commands to accomplish what could be done with one. The biggest annoyance in this family of annoyances is piping the output of cat to another program that can read the file directly. The most common of these seems to be the infamous `cat ${file} | grep ${PATTERN}`. The one that probably annoys me the most, however, is `cat ${file} | more`.

Whut. The. Fuck. Seriously? Did you just type that? Worse: did I actually see you write in an operations guide to use that as a standard procedure? FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

Seriously: I die a bit, inside, every time I witness someone write/say "cat file | grep TERM" (or similar). There's been more than a few SA's (team members, customers, etc.) that have heard me bellow, "don't abuse the cat!"

Morning Games

Living with cats is always an olfactory adventure. Even if you keep their box scrupulously clean and the cats are quiet and out of sight, whenever you walk into a home with cats, you know it instantly.

Aside from the ever present scent of eau de cat, other smells can come up. Today was one of those days. I came down from bed to telecommute (it's a documentation week). As I'm sitting on my couch, tapping away at a document with "KLG and Hoda" blaring in the background, I notice a kind of rotty smell. I'd assumed it was something in the trash, but that wasn't it. I didn't see anything within sight that would account for it, either.

I wanted to just ignore it. Unfortunately, it was one of those odors that you couldn't just ignore (and, it was only after finding it's source that I figured out why that was). So, I got up off the couch and began to try to localize the smell. Oddly, no matter which direction away from my couch I went, the smell quickly faded. I thought to myself, "not good: that means the smell is in or under where I'm sitting". Awesome.

I got down on my hands and knees to see if I could spy the source of the smell. Bare knees on hardwood floors sucks, by the way. After wracking my knees, I was at least able to determine that I couldn't see the smell source, but that it appeared to be emanating from under the couch rather than from within it. Small victories, I suppose.

I stood up, and began to clear the area to where I'd need to move the couch. Once cleared, I slid the couch out - muttering under my breath about yet more scratches to the hardwood being caused by the couch grinding grit across the floor. There, dead center of the spot previously covered by the couch was the rotting body of a mouse.

I can only surmise that, due to the prior night's chill, it had snuck into our house for warmth. Usually, when this happens, I find bloody remains scattered about the living-room floor. I can only guess that the cats chased the little guy under the couch where he died of a fear-induced heart attack. Given where he was, there was no way for the cats to fish him out, either.

At any rate: big thanks to my cats for forcing me to start the day with a game of "find that awful smell".

En Garde?

Every time I see the Tampa Bay Lightning's coach, I think, "he must have gotten that scar in a duel."

Seriously, just look at this guy:

Guy Bouche

He looks like he's been in a damned sword-fight (or two). When you see him during a game, all fired up, you're just waiting form him to whip out a gauntlet, slap someone, and then poke him with an Épée.

That's Just About Annoying

I am a StumbleUpon user. It's a great way to kill time. Sometimes, it's amusing; sometimes horrifying; many times it brings you things that can't be "unseen." And, there are times where it brings you stuff that's just fucking annoying. A few minutes ago was one of those annoying Stumbles. Apparently, someone liked something hosted on MSN's entertainment portal. I don't inherently have a problem with MSN or entertainment sites. I don't even particularly have a problem with the main content of the page StumbleUpon sent me to. No, what I have a problem with is this:

All I can think is "Fuck you, Microsoft." I really don't like a websit telling me "use a different browser" particularly to tell me to use their browser (I can be tolerate being told, "this site best viewed in a more standards-compliant browser, but that's about it. Telling me "use our browser so that the you can see all of the nifty standards we've broken rendered correctly" just pisses me off). Even if I was inclined to change browsers, I wouldn't be going back to that site. Shit like this pisses me off. Makes me want to add MSN addresses to my hosts file's loopback list. 

Fuckers.

Whatever asshats thought this was a good idea need to die slowly in a fire.

One Step Closer

Just got word back: our adoption papers have been approved (vet and other references checks are passed and the home visit was a "go"). Now, we just gotta get coordinated on when they can bring the new pup over to see if he's good with cats.

Pack Mule

That's Gizmo/Winston with doggy carry-packs on. He's high energy, so, may have to keep him weighted down on walks to help tire him out. And, yes, he's got mismatched eyes.