Wandering Around At UC Davis Veterinary School

SUMMARY: Wordless Wednesday

>>  Visit the Wordless Wednesday site; lots of blogs. <<

Salmagundi

SUMMARY: View and invasives, shoes, chairs, ribbons, peeps, oh my.

I forgot to mention yesterday (really?! with all that text I didn't mention something?!) that, although USDAA is now too cheap to supply team or grand prix Qualifying and placement ribbons, medals, or pins any more, Haute Dawgs did provide some. May I present our extra-long, extra-large ribbons for: Performance Team 2nd Place, Performance Grand Prix 4th Place, and Perf. Tournament Master Platinum:

[break]

I hate shopping for shoes; it's hard to find something that looks like I want to wear them, and when I do, they usually don't fit. I was happy, as I reported two weeks ago, when I was able to quickly find a new pair of agility shoes very quickly in the third store I went into.

However, my normal everyday shoes were also a disaster--actually the uppers were fine, but the manufacturer I've been wearing for several years has greatly cheapened the shoes and both, although fairly new, had holes in the soles already. I dropped in to REI with my agility/movies friend (Sparkle's Human Mom) after seeing Hunger Games last week, and while I browsed for everyday shoes, she scoured the discount rack and found a pair of agility shoes that looked pretty good. She tried them on, thought they were OK, but thought they'd fit me better (she wears a  slightly larger size). So, while waiting for the Shoe Person to bring me my shoes, I tried them on. Wow! They were instantly comfortable, and so LIGHT! I felt barefoot yet more stable and secure! How could I resist half price on a perfect pair of shoes? And so they came home with me.

I switched between the pairs this weekend, and all went well with both. Happy agility camper--er, runner.

[break]
I also hate shopping for office chairs. My first real office chair I happened on by accident after shopping and shopping--it was on clearance at some random store, but 7 or 8 years ago its hydraulic lift stopped lifting, so I was left sitting about 10 inches above the floor and raising my hands over my head to get to the keyboard. I looked and looked for one I liked, finally found a decent one at one of those resellers of used office furniture. But its arms started wiggling fairly quickly and required constant tightening, then one of the bolts broke, then another one stripped out about a year ago, then the last one's hole stripped out, and I was left with an armless chair as reported earlier. In agility, as Jim Basic says, "armless is harmless," but in office chairs, especially with my back and knees, I need those arms.

I lucked out--in March, Office Depot was having a mongo chair sale, all of them at great discounts. I went on over and looked at about 3 dozen chairs. Exactly one was even close to what I wanted, and it actually felt pretty good. Would've liked it upholstered rather than just mesh, but comfortable, supportive,  fully adjustable, and available without spending weeks at dozens of stores were high on my list of key features, so I ordered one and it arrived last week. Some assembly was required, and although I bruised my hand, torqued my thumb, and got a blood blister on my palm trying to "press the casters into the holes at the end of each leg," for the most part it went smoothly.

Anyone need a perfectly good office chair with no arms? Or think they can figure out how to attach the arms? It's yours. (See link to previous post for photo.)
[break]
About a week ago: A stunning crystal-clear day after wind and a little rain, looking west at Mount Hamilton (if you click this photo to see a larger version, you can just make out the observatory); the field is still mostly green:

This morning, looking south across the same field--guess the mustard and oxalis have decided that it's finally really spring. They make even the neighbor's beautiful purple lilacs fizzle. The yellow fields are something else to see, but they are highly invasive nonnatives that crowd out native plants. Oh, and it's been warmish with no rain for several days, so although these hills are much closer than Mount Ham, you can tell the difference in the air quality.

[break]
Wait--how long have these peeps been on this shelf anyway?

More Miscellany

SUMMARY: Shoes, class, serpentines, spring, flowers, wind...

Because most of our class this week is off in Reno for the AKC Nationals, there were only three of us in attendance. So I ran both Merle Girls every run. And we got more runs in, or at least more detailed work on each of the runs, because there were only 4 dogs instead of 7 or 8 or so.

You know some people say, "I don't know which dog I'll be running" when referring to a single dog? Like I used to with Remington--the fast, eager dog, or the turned off dog? Well, my dogs I think don't know what handler they're going to get. Sometimes I poop out in class just running the normal number of runs with the equivalent of only one dog. Sometimes I can run both dogs a whole lot more and still feel like I'm moving and [relatively] agile. That's how I felt tonight. I dunno why. It can vary not only from week to week, but day to day.

Boost still can't do straight-on serpentines, even though we worked on them some this week. We talked in class a little bit about starting from square one, which was a good review. Now I have 6 days in which to fix it before the 4-dayer. Heh. Well, we'll work on it.

Tika started fast and excited, but slowed down fairly quickly, and, yes, is not doing some things that in the old days I could always count on her to do. And then, poof!, just like that, she's running and then she's sniffing the ground with a little displacement/stress action going on. Ah, well, learning to handle "which dog do I have" with Tika is such a change from her normal consistent self through most of her agility career.

I wore my brand-new, actually *shiny* shoes in class tonight.

You think it was time?

I dunno, those Ditas and an identical pair lasted me collectively at least 10 years. That was large amounts of money well spent. If this new 40-buck pair from Big 5 lasts me half as long, I'll be happy.

Meanwhile, speaking of shopping, you really should never let me into the garden center when spring's around the corner. I'm just sayin'.

Although, whoa, I'm rethinking how to decorate my dog's crates in MUTTMVR. This looks pretty good!

But spring is fickle this time of year--March is trying hard to circumvent those old saws and go OUT like a lion:

And speaking of lions--it's not every auto body shop (getting estimates on fixing MUTT MVR's owie) whose lobby contains two life-sized lion guardians.

Roar.

Random Things Around Town

SUMMARY: A lazy blogging day.

If you're like me and love--I mean really LOOOOVVVVVE sprinkles on your ice cream, would you be happy paying $1.37 an ounce in 1.25-ounce bottles as found in pretty much any grocery store around? Sometimes even more than that? How can stores justify charging that much for those tiny bottles? I think you're mostly paying for the plastic, because there are about 2 servings of sprinkles in those little guys.

Or would you go to Smart and Final, buy a mongo 17-ounce jar that'll last you a month or two, and pay a mere 35 cents an ounce? Can you say ice-cream ecstasy?!

[break]

You've seen those ubiquitous, low-paid workers waving signs around streetside to draw your attention to a store or business, right? As I pulled up to the stoplight the other day, I thought there was something odd about this particular person holding up the sign--not a lot of waving going on. REALLY cheap labor.

[break]

Ever since a big wind storm a few weeks back, coming home from agility class in the hills, this dragon's head has been lying in my headlights on the far side of the T intersection. I wonder what happened to the rest of his body?

[break]

I'm thinking that I need a new office chair. It's just my disarming personality, I guess.

[break]

There's a street in Palo Alto that's blocked in the middle from through traffic, and they planted trees in the barrier. Apparently someone decorates them differently every month. Update March 27: "Anonymous" reader found this link that explains it. On the weekly 5-mile walk with the Sierra Club Wednesday night, we were a bit awed by the vibrant spring decor.

A little bird is ready for spring.

Fellow Sierra Clubber camouflaged by the lights. It really brightened up our night, so to speak.