Another of Scott's Homes on the Web

I have a dog that is smart enough to come in out of the heat. It's currently in the low 90's outside - she stayed out about five minutes, even though there was something worth barking at in the tree.

Yesterday afternoon about 3:30-4:30 I checked the Animal Humane Society web site. Nothing exciting. I got home, we did the weekly grocery shopping, got everything put away. About 9pm I checked the site again - and there was a new listing. Paris - a one-year-old female Lhasa Apso cross, white/cream/brown.

We were walking up to the door of the Coon Rapids building as they were unlocking it at 10am today. We found Paris' cage, got them to open it and let us take her into one of their 'get to know your prospective pet' rooms. We walked out at 11am with a new dog.

The icon is from the picture on the AHS site - I haven't been able to get one with her face yet.

YAY!!!!!

We just added a new dog to the household - Casar (pronounced say-zar), a black & white 18 pound Havanese. The Underground Rescue web site calls him Castro, there are some pictures at http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/21037991

I'll take pictures of my own and make an icon sometime.

iraunink and I have given up on getting Hansle from Andrea's Angels. We filled out the adoption application on Thursday, March 29th. They explicitly stated 'if you haven't heard from us in 72 hours, contact us' - so on Sunday, April 1st, I used their web contact form to try to contact them. On Wednesday, April 4th, I sent an e-mail straight to their gmail address. We have heard nothing back from them. I'm very angry with them, because I was very excited by the thought of having a Havanese (which I have wanted for fifteen years) who was about the same size as Ziggy.

So, today we went to an adoption event hosted by Underdog Rescue, and met Castro. He's a Havanese, and he's about twice as big as Ziggy. We filled out an adoption application - I expect we'll be hearing back from them early in the week. The lady who will be checking our references lives in South Minneapolis, and Castro is fostered within walking distance of Theo Wirth Parkway - I anticipate little problem with this. I am additionally encouraged by the fact that Underdog Rescue has a phone number to contact them on their web site.

She has been going downhill for the last few months. In the last week, she stopped eating anything other than hamburger, lunch meat, and cheese, and she stopped eating that sometime Friday. She was down to ten pounds at the vet this morning.

about an hour ago.

The MAST cell tumor had spread to at least his right lymph node, and that one almost literally exploded over the last week. It started weeping a pale pink fluid overnight Monday/Tuesday, he stopped eating, and looked like he was in pain.

The two girls are both about seven now, so I shouldn't have to do this for another 5-8 years.

We'll miss him.

Precious got out of the back yard yesterday morning. :-(

When I left the house this morning, the plan was for iraunink to go around and put up "Lost Dog" posters today. I saw a "Found Dog" poster at 40th & 10th that sounded very much like Precious - small black & white dog found near 40th & 12th on 5/31, with a phone number. I stopped and called iraunink, giving her the phone number. 6:45am was a touch earlier than I was willing to call the number.

About 9:30, iraunink called to tell me Precious was home. The person who had found Precious took her to their vet, who found her chip, looked it up, and called us. iraunink confirmed that she was our missing dog, and the finder helpfully volunteered to drop her off at home (since iraunink has no car today).

Yay!

azurelunatic associates Bujold, the IT industry, dogs, family, and The Frozen North with me.

Bujold
Lois McMaster Bujold, most well-known for her Vorkosiverse books. I've been a fan of her's since Joel H. talked me into reading The Warrior's Apprentice within a couple of years of it coming out - I got to read it, Shards of Honor and Ethan of Athos very quickly. And I've been devouring anything new by her ever since. This one of my two on-line fandoms (the other is the Liaden Universe), and I've been hosting in-person get-togethers ever since norabombay came to Minneapolis to look into maybe coming up for school.

The IT industry
I've been doing computer support as my job since June 1990. I've done it for a professional engineering firm, an IT hardware company, the Federal Reserve, a manufacturing company, and a non-bank money services company. I try to keep track at least superficially of what's going on the industry as a whole. I've done a lot of stuff - maybe just about anything - that involves x86 hardware. I've been running a Debian/Linux system since January 2000 at home that serves the domains fireopal.org & ytilaer.com, with e-mail, web, ssh & mailing list services. I want to get into a server/network admin role - my next step on that goal is getting an RHCE certification.

Dogs
I'm a dog person. I grew up with chihuahuas. As much as I like chihuahuas, I won't buy one - they're too territorial for my life-style, we'd drive each other nuts. My first significant purchase after I bought my house was a dog - that was Ben, my first Shih Tzu. I've had three Shih Tzu's die on me - Ben had a car accident, Chela died of old age, and Gizmo's liver started eating his red blood cells. I've currently got Mac (Macguyver), a prize-winning former show dog, Josie, who is half-Shih Tzu/half unknown terrier, and Precious, a former puppy-mill mom who is all carbonel's fault.

Family
Wife, Mom, Dad, "The Evil Step-Mother", brother, sister-in-law, three nieces, three step-sisters, two step-brothers (TESM's kids - I've only seen two of the step-sisters and neither of the step-brothers in the last 10+ years), mother-in-law, two step-daughters, one step-son, two sons-in-law, three grand-kids, and a host of relatives of my wife. The step-kids each had one kid - the boy had a boy, the two girls had girls. My brother's in Iraq driving a semi for an obscene amount of money. Dad & TESM are currently living on the road. Mom lives in Duluth. The step-brothers/sisters live in Duluth, Duluth, North Carolina, Oregon & Missouri. Wife's brothers & sisters mostly live in the Twin Cities - the one exception is out on the Left Coast. We get together with my wife's family more frequently than mine.

Oh, yeah - the family fast track. I went from single with no prospects to being a grand-father in 729 days. My first date with iraunink was 5 April 2000. We got married on 5 October 2000. The first grand-kid was born on 4 April 2002. If someone had told me on Valentine's Day 2000 that I'd be celebrating Valentine's Day 2001 with my wife, I would have told them they were nuts!

The Frozen North
I live in Minneapolis, MN. I moved to Duluth, MN to start first grade. I went to college at MTU, in Houghton, MI. The first year I was there the previous snowfall records were broken, possibly shatterd, by 300" inches of snow. There was a spot 20-30 miles north of Houghton that got 360" of snow - yes, 10 yards. I like my snow and cold, and complain bitterly about the summer heat. For that matter, I've been known to complain that we only get a real winter here in Minneapolis once every four or five years! If I were to move away from Minneapolis/St. Paul, the only likely place would be the Pacific Northwest - I'll trade the lack of snow in winter for the low summer highs.

I'll give a try at if I know you, you've just to ask and I'll come up with five things I associate with you. If I don't know you, I may amuse myself by picking five arbitrary things (or not).

We'd been planning on getting Mac neutered for a while now - the breeder said she wasn't going to try to use him any more after this past January.

Last month, he developed a growth on the underside of the base of his tail - it was a couple of millimeters across when we noticed it, it's up to a centimeter or so across, and nearly that much high, as of yesterday. Yes, the underside of the base of his tail - it interferes (at least somewhat) with certain bodily functions.

We'd decided to take him in to have it looked at after he got his hair-cut on the 1st. We'd had a vet visit scheduled, which we had to cancel due to a conflict. We finally got in yesterday. The vet looked, poked, and declared 'this should come off'. Not unexpected.

So, we dropped Mac off at the vet at 8AM. They have since anesthetized him, neutered him, cut off other bits, woke him up, declared he's doing fine, and are prepping him to come home. I'm supposed to pick him up at 3PM. He's going to be very happy to see me - he hates going to that place!

We'll see how he does over the next few days - if he won't leave the incisions alone, he's going to have to have one of those nifty cone collars put on. Which I'm fairly certain he doesn't like.

iraunink & I just looked at the schedule, and concluded that the only day we can host is a week from Sunday, April 27th. For a May date, we'd have to see if someone else was interested in hosting.

Who's up for the 27th? We'd probably be going for a 12:00 start time, and sending everyone home by 3:00 - it is fortuitous circumstance that has me not working until 3:30.