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Journal Entries for June 2007
June 1, 2007 - 12:05 AM
Here are some pictures from our trip to Lethbridge last weekend. Sorry it took so long, it's been a busy week.

































June 14, 2007 - 10:35 PM
Sleepin Puppy

Remembering BJ



It's been a busy week, and even though I've tried to keep myself occupied with other things, in the few quiet moments of the day I still find time to mourn my dear friend. Memories of him pop up at some of the strangest times, and at other times I have been reminded of puppy stories long forgotten. One of my favorites was the tail of how he became known as Sir Weasel. On long road trips, he would always want to sit on your lap in the front seat. This got to be tiresome as when he wasn't sticking his head out the window, he'd be licking your face and we would often banish him to the back seat of the car. Well, sure enough, after a few minutes a small head would appear on the arm rest between the driver and passengers' seats, resting on two front paws. After a few moments had passed, the paws would creep forward and the head would again rest for a minute. Mom and I would glance at him out of the corner of our eyes and smile at his sneakiness but not say anything lest he be encouraged. Well before long - the entire dog was lying on the arm rest between the seats, still pretending to be inconspicuous. Having accomplished his mission this far, he would then place one paw on my lap. Then the other. Then he'd scoot forward and rest some of his weight on my knee. Then he'd crawl across my lap. Then he would sit up and be *RIGHT* back where he started, except so proud of himself for being so sneaky and we would be laughing by this point as well, fully validating his efforts. It was then that we dubbed him Sir Weasel - beacuse of his sneakiness.

The Water Thief Gets Licked

One of my favorite games to play with BJ was when I would get down on my hands and knees and pretend to drink his water. Upon hearing the mock- lapping sounds I'd be making, he would come over, growl at me while pushing me away with his head and then drink furiously - I suppose in an attempt to consume all the water before I could drink any of it. As soon as I'd back off and he'd get full however, my face became the next target for his tongue's affection, and I got a lickin'!

The Water Thief Gets Licked

The Water Thief Gets Licked

I miss my puppy.

June 17, 2007 - 4:59 PM
Jason and Son

Man, so much to recap. First of all, there's Jason's new boy, Conner. I went by to see them last weekend and accidently crashed their baby shower.

A view from the Seadoo

Two weekends ago I went to Pine Lake. Originally that Friday evening Pat and I were going to take our watercraft to Ghost Lake to blow the dust out of the jets. About half way there Pat phoned to say that they had *just* paved the boat launch and there was no way to get a boat in or out of the water. At this news, I turned around and went home. That night, I took apart Ib's Luxman L-30 amplifier and found the problem to be only a pair of blown fuses.

Early the next morning I got up and set out in Rusty, Seadoo in tow. We stopped by my cousins' house to pick up the wakeboard and I wove my way up to Pine Lake through a variety of back roads across Rural Alberta - but not before stopping at the Petro Canada in Innisafil and filling both Rusty AND Seadoo with "premium" gasoline. I figured it'd been some time since Rusty had been out on a good highway run, so why not give him some good gas? We got out the lake and I dropped Seadoo in the water at the Provincial campsite (where it's free to do so) and went out on the water for a rip. It turned out that Pat, who originally was going to meet me out there did not end up making it, so I spent the day there by myself.

What would Pine Lake be without a waffle cone holding together two scoops of sweet, green chocolate chip mint ice cream? I think I actually had two that day. With Seadoo parked on the beach, some familiar faces emerged from the woodwork and a few of us went for Seadoo rides before Seadoo sunk. Although I'd checked the drain plugs on the back of the hull twice, I neglected to check all the hoses within the engine compartment and one particular hose I remove as part of my winterization ritual had not been reconnected to it's spiggot upon the jet pump. Consequently, water poured into the compartment at a steady rate until the craft began to lose power and sat incredibly low in the water to the point where I pulled up to the docks and was nose to nose with the feet of those people standing thereupon. Not good! I thought and in a sudden bolt of recollection recalled the disconnected hose.

Anyway, after the hose had been sorted out and the main compartment drained, I pulled up on the beach and revisited the familiar camp site where I ran into The Fish, also known more commonly as Allison. She wanted to go swimming so we ran down the dock and lept into the water. I did a big cannonball and found that the water at the south end of the lake was considerably colder than the water at the north end of the lake! It was chilly! I found out from her dad later that the lake had only melted about three weeks previous. I'm not sure if it was the cold or the maze of fish hooks I was trying to avoid in the water but I believe it was at this point that the Seadoo key slipped off over my head and disappeared. Unfortunately, we still swam around for a good 45 minutes before I went to get back on the Seadoo and discovered with a sick feeling of shock and horror that it was no longer at it's usual place around my neck. We spent the rest of that day searching the water - the docks, the swimming area, the shore line on both sides of the docks - everywhere - but to no avail. I even rented a paddle boat to go look in the water to see if perhaps it had drifted out away from the shore instead of towards it by the wake of a passing boat - but by the time the sun had dipped behind the trees of the west bank, it still had not been found and I was forced to give up on it.

Allison's dad was kind enough to drive me up to the north end of the lake to pick up Rusty with the trailer and we brought them back to Sandy Cove where Shane helped me load the Seadoo up on it. The Fish and I had to get in the water and swim the Seadoo around to the boat launch, as without that key it is merely a very expensive buoy. I brought it back to Calgary and parked it for a few days so I could call around the local dealerships to find out about getting it re-keyed. The first place I called was Bow Cycle, who has always given me great service and decent prices. They said they could do it but they were booked solid for a few weeks. Next I phoned Blackfoot Motosports, and was shocked and apawled to find out they wanted to charge me an hour and a half of labour simply to re-program a key on it. I own the service manual which describes, in detail, the process. I know for a fact that it is a 10 minute job AT THE MOST! Hour and a half labour times ninety eight bucks per hour - plus the price of the key itself, I would have been looking at over $200 dollars for one key. I thought that for all this hassle, I'd get a second key made as well to save myself the trouble next time, but I didn't even want to ask them how much more that would have cost. Quite perturbed by this discovery, I phoned Turple Brothers in Red Deer where I bought the craft, and the guy there was very helpful. Refreshingly helpful. "If you can get it here by 5:00 today we can do it for you right away. I'll just pull someone off something else as it only takes a few minutes." he said. That made me loath Blackfoot even more, as this was another dealer admitting the minimal time consumption of the procedure. Since I was at work in Calgary, there was no way I'd be able to get there that day, but he told me they were open late on Thursdays. Wednesday morning, June 6th now, I went into work and Ib asked if anyone would mind going to Red Deer that day. I perked up and said I'd go if I could drive my own vehicle since I'd been planning to go up there the following day anyways. That was fine, so I arranged with Al to meet him in Red Deer and quickly went home to get the Seadoo and a change of clothes.

It had been raining heavy all night and everything was soggy Wednesday morning when I went to grab the Seadoo, parked in the back yard of my parents' house. When I arrived there I saw my mom's car still parked in the driveway so I figured I'd hitch up the Seadoo, get it all ready to go and then pop in and say hi to her and puppy. I backed up and hitched up, then started to pull away but before I'd made it a few feet away one of my tires hit a patch of mud in the yard and began to spin. It was only a little at first but after a bit of rocking and trying to go back and forth I found my wheel digging itself into the ground, not getting loose as was my intention. Thinking quickly I went and grabbed some gravel from the driveway and sprinkled it under the spinning wheel. This helped and I was able to move forward a bit, but soon got stuck again requiring a repeat of the process. After several buckets of gravel had been spread under one (sometimes both) tires, I got back on solid ground, but a good half hour had passed by now and I noticed my mom's car was no longer in the driveway. I thought about going in and saying hi to my puppy, but whenever I do he gets so sad when I leave. It would have only been an in and an out and I knew he'd probably be sleeping so I just let the sleeping dog lie. I was late in getting to Red Deer by this time anyways.

Rusty and I raced to Red Deer and I met up with Al and began to work. We were fixing up lights at the Safeway downtown. About 1:30 I got a call from my brother, which I had been expecting, asking if I had picked up the Seadoo. I guess he saw the tire tracks in the yard, noticed the Seadoo was gone and figured either I'd picked it up or someone else had made off with it. He'd just got home himself and I appologized for tearing up the grass but admitted it was I who had taken the craft to Red Deer where I was working, so that I could get it re-keyed while I was out of town. As we were talking, he went out on the deck to bring BJ in. There was a pause, and then Blair just said "John..." I could hear in his voice that something was wrong. There was a pause, and then he continued. "I think BJ is dead. His eyes are open and he is not breathing." I didn't realize yet that he had just got home, so I asked what had happened. He told me he'd just got home and found him on the deck like that on his bed.

I was a bit surprised by my initial reaction to this news. The first sensation that came over me was relief. I suppose it might have even been a bit of selfishness as the relief was less in that BJ had been released from his old, blind, deaf body, but more in that I wasn't going to have to take him to the vet to have his life removed from him. Blair detailed the way he found him and I thanked God that he had gone peacefully, but right before I prepared to hang up the phone the sorrow pummeled me and swept over me like a tidal wave. As my phone closed, I crumpled to the ground where I stood in the frozen food section of Safeway and began to sob on the floor of the store. Kneeling down, face in my hands, I wept and wept over the loss of my dear friend.

Speeding Rusty

The plans of staying overnight in Red Deer that night dissolved faster than sugar in Tea and I began to force myself to put certain thoughts aside so I could finish the tasks at hand and get out of there as quickly as possible. As soon as things were completed there, I hitched up and brought the Seadoo down to Turple Brothers, which was on the way back to Calgary. The family had promised not to do anything with BJ until I got home, and I didn't want to have to bring the Seadoo back to Calgary that night, only to have to bring it up to Red Deer again the following day so I had them re-key it before I returned to Calgary. After all, I thought, I'm not racing home to see him before he dies... Business in Red Deer accomplished, I returned to Calgary and parked out front of my parents' house. When I walked through the door, my brother was sitting on the couch and looked like he was in shock. My mom ran to hug me and we began to sob on each others' shoulders. My dad had run out somewhere to pick something up, and I asked where BJ was. They told me he was still exactly where they'd discovered him, on his bed on the deck. It seemed like a long, strange walk to the deck door, knowing I was going there to see my dog but that his tail would not be wagging in greeting this time. When I stepped through the deck doors I saw him lying there on his bed, and he really did look peaceful. At first glace, he looked like he was just sleeping! But as Blair had pointed out earlier, one eye was open and his tummy was no longer rising or falling. I collapsed on the bed beside him and sobbed the words "Oh, my dear friend" over and over as I petted his head and ran my hands over his back. He seemed very real, even smelled like BJ and yet - he wasn't. The moment of utter grief had hit, and as the tears fell I felt like there was no less of them to follow. My mom came out and was also weeping. "He loved you so much." she said. "You were the only one who took him for proper walks, and nobody played with him the way you did." She made her way back into the house but I could not pull myself away from him. I felt like leaving him now would be like betraying the 15 years of friendships and loyalty he'd shown to me.

Earlier that afternoon, Blair had dug a hole in the back yard for him to rest in, and after we'd all said our goodbye's, he and I wrapped BJ up in the blanket he fell asleep in ever so gently. We lifted the bundle up and as I reached underneath him I noticed the bed was still warm. I picked him up and carried him over to the hole where was both lowered the blanket into the ground. It all seemed to happen so fast. I knew it was the right thing to do, but at the same time I felt like the whole procedure was lacking in ceremony. I knelt on the ground beside the hole and Blair and I stared into the ground in silence for a few moments at the warm blanket that now contained the remains of our friend. One of his little paws stuck out from the blanket and that image has stuck in my head. It brought an unmistakable sense of reality to the scene. It wasn't merely a blanket we were burrying. It wasn't a dream or an illusion. That paw, the same paw that had been used to beg for food at the table during countless meals, the same paw he would place in the palm of your outstretched hand when commanded to Shake-A-Paw, the same paw he would pick at the snow or dirt with whenever a scent seemed submerged beneath, that paw meant that this was final.

With my hands I began to crumble clumps of dirt into the hole. As we sprinkled more and more dirt into the hole over him, Blair muttered the infamous words, "Dust to dust... Ashes to Ashes." It was very sombre. Soon the hole became a mound, a pile of memories in the ground.



Casey at work

On a brighter note, while I was working in Red Deer I ran into Casey at Parkland mall! Now this wasn't terribly extrodinary as she lives there. She was manning one of those booths that sells little jewlery and nicknacks. Al and I went to the food court and had some lunch, and I was musing over how I'd run into Casey in that mall. It then occured to me that in that very same mall, in fact - that very same food court a few years ago I'd run into an old fling of mine I met working at a Future Shop in Calgary several years earlier. I was thinking about Andrea and how it had been several years since I'd stumbled across her sitting in that very food court. Al and I finished our meals and I waved to Casey as we walked back past her booth. (That was also when I took the picture seen above. hehe) I hadn't walked more than a hundred feet when I walked past a young woman who caught my eye. As she passed, I stopped in my tracks and went, There is no way... "Andrea?" She stopped, turned around and replied, "Hi John." It was crazy. The small world gets even smaller. After a quick reminisce we went on our ways and here if I didn't run into her again in the parking lot as she was driving away. Such is my life.

Changing a ballast I'd installed several years earlier

It's interesting when things come full circle in life. Last week I changed the ballast above which I myself had installed back in January of 2003. I often write little things on ballasts and lamps I install, and the other guys at Sylvania have commented on different things they've come across that I've left behind for them to find over the years.

Jolene and Nadine with Squash rackets

Intense Nadine

Last week Jolene, Nadine, Bo, and I went and played Squash. For me, it was the first time I'd ever taken up a squash racket but after weeks of being re-introduced to badminton it was fairly easy to pick up. After attacking the squash courts we moved over to the gym and played badminton for the remainder of the evening.

The convergence board from my Toshiba 61H71

The next bit of news I have from the past two weeks has to do with an element of my life I have, until this point, lived without quite happily. One of the greatest ironies with me installing cable for Shaw was the fact that I didn't own a TV. I've never owned a TV. Now it is true that Bo has one and I would usually get my TV fix upstairs with his, but as for myself, I had never myself owned a television. Well, a couple of weeks ago my friend Chris from Shaw had his big screen go funky. I looked at it and even got him a price for the repair which I could easily do myself, but he recieved his tax return and decided to buy a new flat screen. He phoned me up and asked if I would like to have his old one, and would take in trade my 28' extension ladder which, as I was no longer working at Shaw, I would never need again anyways. A deal was struck and I brought his TV over to my house. The parts were ordered and it sat for a few weeks awaiting their arrival.

STK392-100 amp removed from the convergence board

Last weekend I finally had time to tackle the TV, and after a few hours I emerged victorious with a fully functional, beautiful 61" HDTV projection unit a mere 4 years old. The parts I used cost less than $25, including delivery and taxes, and for a little bit of head scratching and elbow bending, plus a ladder I now can no longer claim a TV-Less household. So far I've only used it as a computer monitor though, as I don't have cable or satellite run to the basement yet. Project for a rainy day I guess, which we seem to be having a lot of lately.

Nice smelling purple flowers

Stopped and smelled the flowers the other day - and also took a picture.

New Regulator for my bike

One of my other accomplishments this past week was the conversion / installation of a new voltage regulator / rectifier on my bike. Ever since I put in a new battery last year I've had strange electrical problems which I had, until recently attributed to the battery - which seemed to be the obvious cause as they started appearing when it was installed. As it turns out however, the battery was fine and the problem was actually with a poorly designed regulator on the bike. Instead of simply replacing it with another unit which would also eventually fail, I picked up one from a Yamaha touring bike on E-Bay for $15 and re-wired the connector on my bike to accomodate it. Saved me over two hundred dollars, or more if I'd had someone else replace the part. The new unit works flawlessly and I can't tell you how happy I am to be back on two wheels again! Hopefully I never again have to push-start a sport bike! hahaha

The new regulator mounted

Rusty finds a friend

The other day I pulled into a parking lot and, spotting another van similar in year and color to Rusty, drove up beside it and parked. The two had a lot to talk about and as they were catching up I jumped out and took a picture of the new found friends. It was pretty cute. Rusty was happy to have made a new friend.

More nice smelling little purple flowers

June 21, 2007 - 5:31 PM
Brandy

This has not been a good month for family pets... On Tuesday this week Brandy, Bo's dad's dog, also passed away. I don't know exactly how old he was but I know he was up there as well. He's lived there as long as I've known Bo. I share your loss guys.

If this first day of summer is any indication of the season, we are in for a treat this year! It is absolutely scorching outside, my outdoor thermometer reads 30.8 degrees! The drive home was true to form though, a semi truck broke down in the middle lane of northbound Deerfoot right atop the Calf Robe bridge. Needless to say, traffic was crawling up till that point, then flew up to Memorial and started to back up again. Is there no reprieve from this craziness??? This city is getting nuts!

Al and I went to Shotz bar beside the Whitehorn Safeway for lunch this afternoon. After working inside a cramped, smoldering ceiling, fixing the neon wiring behind the Parcel Pick-Up sign, we needed a cool place to relax. The waitress took our drink orders, we ordered our food and one after another she brought us refills on our pop. (Mine was a pop, Al's was an iced tea.) After four refills each, as we were cleaning up the crumbs from our plates the waitress came over and informed us that the refills weren't free. Wide eyed' and disgusted, we were immediately indignant to this little revelation - and I checked the menu at that point - nowhere does it even mention drinks or any sort of refill policy. Sneaky sneaky cheap stingy owners... We paid our bill to the penny and left. If Calgary bars are complaining about losing customers due to the new smoking bylaws, the last thing they should be doing is ticking off the customers they do have who might otherwise have never set foot inside their doors! Beware of Shotz - everything costs extra! I ordered a personal (7") pizza. Did you know that even the FIRST topping is charged EXTRA! The price of the pizza includes the bread, sauce, and cheese only. All toppings are above and beyond the price. Needless to say, I will not be eating there anymore. And yes, there may be some of you who have worked in the hospitality industry who would say, "Not tipping the waitress only hurts her - it doesn't hurt the establishment." To which I counter-argue that if enough people DON'T tip, she will then LEAVE the establishment and get another job somewhere else with a much better pay. And the establishment will have to raise their entry wage just to get applicants through the door. I know tipping is a courtesy, but it is not my job to pay the staff's wage directly when I go out to eat. I pay for the food, and usually if I get reasonable service - I will leave a tip. In this case, however, the meal already cost more than expected.

We watched the Return of the Pink Panther last night. Man I love that movie. Swine maid... or the part where he's trying to cross the moat... Swine moat... And the nose?!? If anyone ever wondered why I started saying Swine it's because of the Pink Panther movies. There you go - a little bit of information about why I am the way I am.

This morning I caught a big fly buzzing throughout my basement and locked him in the bathroom with my fly-eater. The verdict? I checked the bathroom when I got home from work today. Tune in tomorrow to find out what I discovered! :P

June 24, 2007 - 10:15 AM
The water levels are high this year...

I am sore! Stiff and sore this morning! Yesterday Blair and I took the Seadoo out to Pine Lake and did a little wakeboarding. It was windier than I would have liked, and although the water was pretty warm (21 degrees) the air you got out into was definitely into the chilly side. (16 degrees!) Still, we had a blast and I'm glad I was able to get out on the wakeboard so early in the year. On the way back, we came across this portion of the road you see above... Underwater! (That's not Pine Lake but rather one of the surrounding ponds that has developed in recent years and filled to it's brim this year, running across the road now into the opposing ditch.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEE!

On the way back from the lake we were going to stop and say hello, but a little black car parked in front of your new house said I might not be overly welcome and I was far too tired and sore to deal with [that] so we just continued on. I waved to your dad who was out on the front porch but I don't think he saw me. A big orange van towing a blue Seadoo can be easily missed I guess... :P hahaha But I did try to wish you a happy birthday [on the day.]

Cleaning and sorting... Two tasks that never seem to get done around here. Too many distractions. Too many diversions. Too many ... what was I writing about? I make my point. Perhaps today things will get done, but first I need to go hop in the hot tub to try and relax these sore muscles! Wakeboarding uses muscles and puts strains on parts of the body that you otherwise barely ever use! I am excited though, the year is off to a good start! And now that I'm not the only person who can drive my Seadoo, hopefully I can get more wakeboarding in this summer than ever before! Maybe my cousin Mark will come out with us one of these weekends too! (hint hint!)

Good Times

June 25, 2007 - 11:46 PM
Birthday Boy

He would have been 15 today

Happy Birthday, my dear, dear friend.

Couch Digger

Couch Digger

Another small world event... On the weekend Blair and I went to Pine Lake where we spent a good part of Saturday on the Seadoo. Allison was there and had with her a friend from Calgary. Naturally, I took them both for a ride on the Seadoo and much fun was had by all. With Allison to spot, Blair and I both got out on the wakeboard. The two girls wanted to try wakeboarding but with the wind making the water choppy and cooling down the air temperature, we figured this would not be the best weekend to try to learn the sport. Still, we had a lot of fun and the girls had a wonderful time. So I get into work this morning and Al says to me, "I hear you were Seadooing this weekend." "Yes, Blair and I went to the lake on Saturday." "I know," he says, "I heard all about it. In fact, Tina's daughter wouldn't stop talking about how much fun she had on the weekend." "Who??" "Stephanie is Tina's daughter." "Wow. Small world." Tina, for those of you going huh? is Al's girlfriend. If Al and Tina got married, Stephanie (Allison's friend) would be Al's step-daughter. I've known Al for 7 or 8 years. See the connections? What a truly small world it is in which we live. Everything and everyone is connected.

June 27, 2007 - 12:15 AM
One can never be too safe driving in THIS city!

Traffic is getting crazy in Calgary! Is anyone else as frustrated with it as I am? Deerfoot! What is up with that?!?! I'm just glad I don't have to travel far atop it's slow-moving surface. Insanity is everywhere!

Art from destruction

This little creation was formed by the dying (and therefore overheating) coils of a neon transformer liquifying and spewing out the tar that helps dissapate heat generated during normal operation. In most cases it just makes a mess but in this particular instance, it created something I felt worthy of a picture. It even looks artistic.

Tuning the modulator

I've been more than busy of late with various projects, some of my own creating and others given to me. In this particular image, I am dicyphering the binary code of a modulator's channel selector. If that doesn't make sense to you, it's because I didn't understand it at first either, but some things my Commodore 64 taught me 15 years ago came to mind and simplified the process greatly! It's funny how the mind works like that. The only bad experience is one from which nothing is learned.

June 28, 2007 - 1:20 AM
Precious Memories

I got a call this afternoon (two calls, actually - two different people phoned at different times) from Black's Photography to say that my many rolls of 110 and 126 film had been completed. I was ecstatic when I learned that they were able to get at least some prints from every roll I brought in, and couldn't wait to see what forgotten treasures they might contain. As it turned out, I wasn't disappointed. Above you see my Aunt Susan, my brother at about age 5, and my grandma. Truly, a precious memory.

Grandpa in a cowboy hat

My dear grandpa, showing off a bit of humour as I can not recall a single incident whereby he would wear a cowboy hat such as this. Obviously, the fact that he was wearing one in the picture amused him as you can see a hint of a smirk on his face. He always found pleasure in the most subtle of humour.

Yours truly in grade 7

Yours truly in grade 7 where I was attending North Calgary Christian Academy, or NCCA as the abbreviations might be. I had hair!

NCCA kids at recess

From left to right, as best I can recall: Rob Easu, Melissa Acheson, Dana Lattery, Marshall Bergman, Jamie Pilling, Kirsten Olhauser (?), and Brandy D'Arnot. This image brought back a lot of memories - we are so little! But as long ago as it's film was exposed to the light and shadows that embedded upon it's surface, I still remember that day like it was yesterday. It is interesting to note and thus I must point out, that of the people in the picture I've remained friends with and stayed in contact with over the years, seeing them again [here] looks funny because they are so little and I've seen them grow up since. But for the others who have vanished into the ether, this is how I still remember them because I haven't had any recent memories to compare this to.

There are more pictures to come, I have a lot more to scan. Quite a number of the images are not noteworthy either for content or degredation over the years, but there are a few more treasures to be added to this collection.

June 30, 2007 - 11:38 PM
When you were young...

Little Blair

It's pictures like these that really instill a sense of nostalgia in me. They point back at a time when life was simple. Cares were few and trivial, your parents had everything under control and you trusted them explicitly - never imagining for a moment that they might not know how do deal with any possible situation. If only life could be so again.

Little Blair with his Bears

The thought of perpetual change has been on my mind this evening. Sean brought his new Cocker Spaniel over this evening, a cute little puppy they've named Hooper. Sean was very quick to point out that Hooper will never replace Brandy, his purpose is to try to fix the gap that Brandy left in his absense. The little fellow is so cuddly. Apparently his mother was killed by a horse four days after he was born, so [the kids] raised him with a bottle and as such, he is very used to being around humans. Outside I watched him frolick in our tall grass (still need to get a mower... ahem) - and when he licked my face it stirred a sleeping memory of they way BJ smelled when he was just a puppy. It must be the food they eat at that age or something, because I don't think I've smelled it ever since. It's kind of the way babies have that smell. If you've ever been around an infant, you know exactly what I mean. There's that new baby smell, but in all liklihood it's probably something in the food, the pampers, or the tiny clothes. It made me want a puppy, but with my living arrangements now it just wouldn't work. I am not home enough to justify taking on the responsibility of a dog. Birds are great because they really require very little maintenance. And I know I could spend more time with them, and on the weekends I try, but if I have to go out of town overnight, a full bowl of seed and water will get them through and they're not in the least bit pouty upon my return. And the flytrap... It practically feeds itself! Some day I will get a dog. I'd never buy one though, I'd get one from the SPCA, one that nobody else wanted. There's just something about an unwanted dog that really reams on the ol' heartstrings. Mainly because I can't imagine a dog that someone wouldn't want! It makes me sad to think that such people are indeed out there.

A collection of all our stuffed animals, posing

Some of the other pictures I've scanned so far. Above is a collection of all the stuffed animals my brother and I had when we were about that age. I actually have most of these animals in the garage right now, as they were salvaged from the attic rummage.

Blair nice and warm in his winter snow suit

My little brother, all dressed up and ready to go play in the snow.

BJ resting in the shade of our orange Dodge Omni

My dear friend resting in the shade of our bright orange Dodge Omni. This car actually said "Omni" in big, bright, unmistakable letters across both sides.

BJ getting petted

I don't know how many of these sort of pictures I've taken lately where I'm petting BJ with one hand and snapping a picture with the other, but apparently it's a trend that was not started recently! He's probably only a couple of years old here, if even that.

My puppy at the back corner of the house

Those cars really put this picture in it's time

These cars really set this picture (and the entire roll of film) in it's time. Those cars you see, a Buick Skylark and a Ford Grenada seemed pretty modern to us at the time. One even had air conditioning! Everything changes.


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