Bits N Pieces

SUMMARY: Stairs from Heck, Agility training, judging, deaf dogs or not, A Day prep, plus bonus photos.

Today's stairs from heck:

Added the 59 steps that are in a separate flight 2 blocks away. Also did the whole normal plan of 2 miles including 2 ascents of the 129+94 steps flight, for a total today of 505 steps.

Some days my legs get tired first; some days, my lungs. Today I was completely out of breath after the 59 plus 2 blocks plus 129 and had to take a breather before the last 94. The second time around, I did fine the entire way up the 129+94. Odd.

This is starting the 4th week of my goal to do this three times a week. Yay me!

Deaf dogs:

One thing about Deaf Tika is not hearing the pretzel bag crinkle. Today, she heard it from about 15 feet away, because she lifted her head and looked over her shoulder at me, but apparently also didn't hear it clearly enough because she then put her head back down.

Agility training:

The only little bit of training I've been doing with Boost is more to raise the value of taking jumps. So, when playing in the yard, I make her take jumps to chase the toy instead of choosing her own path. One interesting difference between Tika and Boost: If Tika turns suddenly and there's a jump abruptly in front of her, she takes it. Boost goes around it.

Judging:

Well, this is it coming up this weekend: My first-ever judging assignment, and it's a UKI event, of which I've only ever run in one. I have read up on the rules (will have to revisit them again, as there are differences from USDAA and from CPE), have designed my courses and they've been approved, have my hotel reservation-- about as ready as I'm going to be.

I said OK mostly because it's a small, friendly trial in which I can get my judging feet gently wet. And I'm judging only Sunday; another new local judge is doing Saturday. Could be interesting. I'll be judging 10 classes for a total of--73 runs! Like I said, small trial.

Photos--A Day prep:

I've been thinking about all the different photos I *could* take to contribute. Have been preparing for some so I don't have to take a lot of time tomorrow to take them. I emailed the site about the issues I mentioned the other day, and they responded quickly--also said that at the moment they've disabled editing one's profile in preparation for tomorrow's big uploading frenzy, at which point we WILL be able to edit our profile again. Huh. Well, we'll see what happens.

Bonus photos:

The photography club I joined last year has a contest once a month; you can enter in four different categories for a total of 3 photos. I don't enter every month, but here's what I've picked for this month. (I've previously posted versions of these, I believe.)

In "General B" (photography as an art form for the less experienced photographer), two photos; in "Nature" (the natural world, telling a story more important than photo quality, one photo. I don't have great hopes--the photos that people enter are really spectacular.  I spent well over an hour each on each of these photos doing gross and/or subtle edits, and I'm still not entirely satisfied. And one can hardly tell, after comparing to the originals! Oh, well, I really needed another addictive, time-consuming hobby.

"Mystical Pathway"

"After the Rose Is Gone":

"Brown Pelican Fishing"