Summer of Dan

See you soon, Sargeant :-/

I've been silent on here the last week or so only because of what was to happen this week.

For those that know Sargeant, they know a dog that is more than just a pet: a great friend, loving, understanding, proud, a companion, and someone everyone became attached to immediately when meeting him.

Today was our last day with him. It's become more and more apparent that this was the right decision, and it's never easy. But he's in a better place now, and we'll all miss him.

It's not a tough thing when you know it is the unselfish thing, to help a lifelong friend get through that tough time.

But before, during, and after it is tough, because it's so hard to remember that, even when you know it inside. Sargeant gave us 14 very special years and for that I am eternally grateful for.

But the selfish part of me wanted 14 more.

We will all see you someday buddy. Keep smiling, keep crying like a little girl when you get excited, and keep being yourself.

I miss you. Take care. I love you buddy.

Too bad he didn't fall

During the Sox game on Monday there was a moron that caught a foul ball and proceeded to celebrate about how great he was for way too long. Shortly after the jackass dropped it off the balcony by mistake, only to be rebuffed by the Fenway Faithful below when he wanted his ball back.

Youtube is this guy's second worst enemy, second only to the railing.

Some are lucky, some aren't...

There are things in life that I hope will never, ever, ever happen to me. When I think about it, there's actually a hell of a lot of these things. Today, I found two more.

While some may find it cool to be stuck in an elevator for an extended period of time, I'm really ok with it never being 41 hours. Without anyone knowing I'm in there. And not having any idea what the fuck is going on. Or wondering when I will get out.

This guy wasn't as lucky:

It basically screwed the guy's life up, according to this article, but I will put the key points so you don't need to sift through the 5423624083 word article from The New Yorker:

White never went back to work at the magazine. Caught up in media attention (which he shunned but thrilled to), prodded by friends, and perhaps provoked by overly solicitous overtures from McGraw-Hill, White fell under the sway of renown and grievance, and then that of the legal establishment. He got a lawyer, and came to believe that returning to work might signal a degree of mental fitness detrimental to litigation. Instead, he spent eight weeks in Anguilla. Eventually, Business Week had to let him go. The lawsuit he filed, for twenty-five million dollars, against the building’s management and the elevator-maintenance company, took four years. They settled for an amount that White is not allowed to disclose, but he will not contest that it was a low number, hardly six figures. He never learned why the elevator stopped; there was talk of a power dip, but nothing definite. Meanwhile, White no longer had his job, which he’d held for fifteen years, and lost all contact with his former colleagues. He lost his apartment, spent all his money, and searched, mostly in vain, for paying work. He is currently unemployed.

Looking back on the experience now, with a peculiarly melancholic kind of bewilderment, he recognizes that he walked onto an elevator one night, with his life in one kind of shape, and emerged from it with his life in another. Still, he now sees that it wasn’t so much the elevator that changed him as his reaction to it. He has come to terms with the trauma of the experience but not with his decision to pursue a lawsuit instead of returning to work. If anything, it prolonged the entrapment. He won’t blame the elevator.

Funny? Sure. But not if it happened to you, right? Maybe he quit smoking after. Talk about motivation.

In the same vein of both funny yet tragic, text messaging can lead to death...by stabbing. Multiple times.

Summarizing it: dood from Turkey texts his woman, his cell doesn't have a certain character, and with the nuances of the Turkish language what he says is misinterpreted and then her family takes turns stabbing him to death.

Just one more reminder of how envious I am that Flack doesn't even own a cellphone.

It tastes like cancer

The Niff is a dark chocolate fiend. It's widely known for it's antioxidant richness and how healthy it is for you, but the Niff graduated from a scant 60% dark chocolate or "cacoa" to a hearty 85% blend.

If you've never had chocolate that dark, you don't know what you're getting yourself into, especially if you love the sweet taste of Hershey chocolate which is barely even chocolate.

On holidays, I hunt down the heartiest dark chocolate for the Niff, usually finding something in the 87% range.

But now, I've found the ultimate.

Now I just need to locate this Holy Grail for the Niff. Dark Chocolate isn't something I particularly enjoy, unless it's in the 60% range, since anything higher than that tastes what I imagine cancer would taste like if it had a taste.

Breathing life into a family member

Growing up in the 80s meant growing up with one of the best video game systems of all time. I talked about my second dad  and how much he meant to me, and I'm lucky enough to have a few second dads with me, but none of them really work as best as they can.

But I could have a solution for that...

I'm not sure if it will fix the freezing issues I've been having, but we'll see. God I love Youtube and the Interwebs.

Random acts of stupidity

Following the Niff's grandfather's funeral yesterday, which was an almost all day event, we decided to go out for a run/ride to enjoy the weather and talk. It's a route we are quite familiar with near where we live that runs through a private school in Concord and for some reason reminds me very much of Hogwarts. Maybe it's because the kids live there, maybe I saw a cloak or two there before, I am not entirely sure.

As we turned off on of the roads onto a side road a pickup truck with two prepubescent boys roll up behind us and out comes a fast food cup at our heads, chalk full of soda and ice. It was one of those Matrix-style things where I saw it barely clear my head and then the Niff's as it landed on the ground next to us. Being on a bike I could do very little other than scream profanities to them trying to get them to pull over so I could kick the ever loving shit out of them but they didn't stop for some reason.

This wasn't really that much of a shock to the Niff who runs frequently outside and says all the time that people yell things at her, drive real close to scare her, throw things in her general direction, and generally are complete assholes.

Out of nowhere, campus security rolls up behind us and I hear this guy ask me what I first hear to be something like "does that happen all the time?" and we kinda shrug it off and are like "yeah, all the time", and he looks at me like I just slapped his mother in the face in front of him. Wondering if I heard incorrectly I said, "Wait…what?" and he repeated his question:

"Do you usually throw your trash on the ground?"

And I laughed because here I am, on a fucking mountain bike going up a hill, with a water bottle strapped to my bike, and the Niff is running next to me.

I should have said, "Yeah, in fact, I am really good at throwing things of soda underneath trucks and they come soaring back at me over the cab and almost hit me in the head…want me to show you?"

But I didn't, I said, "What?? Those kids in that truck up there threw it at us!" at which point rent-a-campus-cop took off like a bat out of hell chasing down the kids. A few minutes later I see the punks drive by us, and I had the presence of mind to get the plate as I saw them laughing at us, with rent-a-campus-cop behind them by a few car lengths. He pulled over and I told him that was them and he said he got them, got their plate number and told them to go and pick it up, and it would do them good to say sorry on their  way back. The Niff says she heard them laugh a sarcastic sorry when they rolled by but I was too busy playing Colombo to even hear them.

These kids couldn't have been more than 16, and they are definitely locals so I think the next thing to do is hunt for someone with a shitty pickup truck around here with a license plate that is 245 8849 and stop over at their house to have a chat with their dad. This should be fun.

Just…wow…wow…

Everyone that knows me knows how much I love tech gadgets and I love seeing new innovations.

But sometimes they go overboard. So far overboard that they leave me with nothing to say but "Wow" with a blank stare on my face. This is one of those innovations:

It's some knit sweater looking thing designed for privacy when using a laptop in a public place.

Yeah, I see no problems with putting a laptop that oozes heat in a sweater and sticking your head into it. No, not at all…

Almost settled

It's been over a month since we moved in, and I finally have that "almost settled" feeling. There are just a few boxes remaining to be unpacked with variations pictures and decorations to be hung, as well as some boxes in Mantown I need to delve into. It's good though, I don't have this feeling that I always need to come home and unpack. That's a good feeling.

Random picture time of us, the kittehs, and the new place!

 

The tree hugger in me

I'm not sure if you'd consider someone who cares about wildlife and living things as a tree hugger, but it's probably something close to that. As you can see now, I've personalized my blog quite a bit, from the staredown banner to the new badges in the right column. What can I say, I have soft spot in my heart for defenseless animals. I guess that explains why I'm friends with Flack.

Undying Loyalty

Sometimes I read articles that just get me. Rather than just post links of it, that eventually go dead, I post the article (with the link attached), and this one got me. If you're an animal lover, get the tissues ready. And if you're not, well, what kind of a person are you???!!?

This is the true story of a devoted Akita dog from Tokyo named Hachiko, who waited at the train station for his deceased owner every night for 10 years until his death.

Hachiko was brought to Tokyo in 1924 by his owner, a college professor named Hidesamuro Ueno. Each day, when Ueno left for work, Hachiko would stand by the door to watch him go. When the professor came home at 4 o'clock, Hachiko would go to the Shibuya Station to meet him.

Though this simple act alone shows a tremendous amount of loyalty, that's not the end of it: The following year, Ueno died of a stroke while at the university. Hachiko didn't realize that he was gone, and so the dog returned to the train station every single day to await his master. He became such a familiar presence there, in fact, that the station master set out food for the dog and gave him a bed in the station. Even so, Hachiko never shifted loyalties – every day at 4 o'clock, he hopefully waited by the tracks as the train pulled in, searching for his best friend's face among the people getting off.

Hachiko's love for his master impressed many people who passed through the station, including one of Ueno's former students, who became fascinated by the Akita breed after seeing Hachiko. He discovered that there were only 30 Akitas living in Japan, and began to write articles about Hachiko and his remarkable breed, turning the world's most loyal dog into a household name, and creating a resurgence in popularity for the Akita.

Hachiko died in 1935, after 10 long years of waiting for his master. But the dog would not be forgotten – a year before his death, Shibuya Station installed a bronze statue of the aging dog, to honor its mascot. Though the statue was melted down during World War II, a new version was created in 1948 by the son of the original artist. Go to the station now, and you'll be able to see the bronze statue of Hachiko – still waiting, as ever, for his master to come home.

 

Now that is some straight up serious ass loyalty. I used to think only dogs could have that kind of loyalty, but after living the last few years with Ray and Lola, I'm beginning to think it depends on whether or not the animal thinks of you as theirs in their mind, much like Hachiko thought of his master.