Tarantula Hikes

Years ago, when Mom was out visiting us in our old house, we went on one of our favorite walks up a hill to take in the view. Summertime and early fall hikes here are bone dry, along trails that cut through knee high grass, manzanita, and under lumps of valley oaks. On that walk with Mom, we came across a rather large, brown tarantula scurrying in the grass. I later found out that they're not uncommon out here. Still, I didn't realize they were like locusts but on a seven year cycle. They are apparently so populous and popular that the park service organizes tarantula hikes.

"A lot of people come just to see the tarantulas," said Dan Stefanisko, supervising ranger at the park. "Everyone knows when tarantula season is."

Personally, when you can hear the eight individual footsteps of a spider as it walks by you, I'm staying clear no matter how undeserved its bad reputation is.

Taking over SF

I spent most of last week at the OracleWorld conference in San Francisco, along with 41,000 other people. What a zoo. Aside from the entire Moscone Center that spreads across two city blocks, and every hotel conference room within a half mile, they also closed a major city street in the city and spread a tent across it. The entertainment one night was Elton John, down at the Cow Palace, apparently attended by more than 25,000 people. I didn't score a ticket to that! Anyway, the craziness is over, and I'll try to return to a more normal blogging rate.

RIP Oreo

Our first dog, Oreo -- the one who turned me in to the dog lover I am today -- died yesterday. She had been miserable for a long time, barely able to get up, and obviously in pain when she could walk around. We got her as a puppy, over my objections, but she managed to wrap me around her little paw quickly. When the vet saw Oreo and showed us her huge overbite, she recommended taking her back. It was too late by then. She ruled the doggie roost around here, through all the other puppies that came and went (and occasionally stayed). Very sad for all of us.

Internet Age Stoning

The NYTimes had an interesting follow-up on the Crazy Yalie that Kyla posted about earlier.

Mr. Vayner’s experience shows the not-so-friendly side of the social-networking phenomenon. While sites such as YouTube allow aspiring comedians or filmmakers to share their creations with millions of others, they also provide the ideal forum for embarrassing someone on a global scale. Materials can quickly make the rounds on blogs, via e-mail and through online hangouts like MySpace, becoming all but impossible to contain.

In spite of it seeming like a well-deserved lesson in humility for the guy, the brutality of an Internet age stoning really is frightening to behold. So I was feeling sorry for him until I read this part, which I suppose was predictable.

Mr. Vayner and his lawyer, Christian P. Stueben, said they were exploring legal options against the investment banks to which he sent the application.

I suspect there will be a number of legal cases that are going to establish some sort of legal precedents around what is and is not acceptable behavior in this realm. For example, what do you do when you find yourself on the Don't Date This Guy black list?

No Polo? No Worries!

Thought Kyla might enjoy this (via Dave Barry's Blog).

Clubs You Don't Want to Join

You know the old expression about not wanting to join any club that would let you in as a member? Well, there is another variation on it. For example, it was a great day in my life when I lost my Premier Club membership on United, because it meant I wasn't spending as much time on planes. That was a brief loss of membership, I regret to say. Today, she-who-studiously-ignored-my-birthday managed to save the mail from AARP inviting me to sign up. How do those bastards know I turned 50? Is there like some kind of reward system wherein they get fellow family members to rat me out or something? Give us a referral and you get this six month supply of Grecian Formula for free? Sigh. I admit I like the idea of retiring, just not the idea of being old enough to do it. It's only a matter of time before AARP shares the mailing list with the cemeteries in the area.

Dog Training

I guess everyone has their own agenda when it comes to dogs and the training they need. I have raised and trained several dogs and never quite felt the need to form an "emotional bond" with any of them. I started with a book by Richard A Wolters called Game Dog, it gave me some basic methods to start with then as I got into it I sort of developed my own sort of routine for working with them. I have really only trained one good pet/ house dog successfully Dino our flat coated retriever. She was a smart and willing dog,eager to please. After she passed away I got into training and hunting coon hounds. The training there is so much different its hard to even compare the 2, but one thing is a constant, THE DOG,I guess like people, some have it and some don't. The trick most good trainers have learned whether they want to admit or not is, don't waste your time on a dumb ass. Frony Royal is the home of the Dog Training center for customs and Homeland Security and their rejects can be found all over the county as great pets, but they couldn't make the grade as one of their successfull detection dogs. I gavc up coon hunting some time ago and only have 1 hound left, I just didn't have enough time to dedicate to training and hunting, at one time I had a great string of hounds and I found the time to work them. If I am a ever able to retire training hunting dogs is near the top af my list of things to do with my spare time.

More Dog Whispering

The Chronicle ran an article on the local Berkeley dog whisperer, Ian Dunbar, and his rivalry with the guy with the TV show I blogged about before, Cesar Millan. It seems that the tone of that NYTimes article was a reflection of a lot of dog training people:

Dr. Patricia McConnell, author of "For the Love of a Dog: Understanding Emotion in Your Best Friend" and the animal behaviorist on Animal Planet's "Petline," goes as far as to say that Millan has put dog training back 20 years. "Dunbar is a world authority," she says, "and he should be the one with the celebrity."

If that's not enough, we have the theory that Millan's popularity is a backlash against PC-ness:

Jean Donaldson, director of dog training at the SFSPCA and author of "Culture Clash," a book about the human-dog relationship, views the history of dog training in pre- and post-Dunbar eras. "Ian is the man," she says. "He revolutionized the field." She, too, thinks Millan is tapping into something deeper in the current culture -- and his machismo is only part of it. "It's a backlash against political correctness," she says. "People are angry and life is frustrating and [when] someone tells them it's all about dominating something smaller and weaker? They'll go for that."

Quite the little dog fight.

DaraDeath in Action

My quest to install Dara's new game of choice, Titan Quest, on the iMac has finally been fulfilled. The problem is that Titan Quest only runs on Windows. So, I ended up having to install Windows on our new Intel processor iMac. You can boot the machine to Microsoft Windows or the Apple OS X. Maybe it wasn't as exciting as slaying evil centaurs and rescuing poor peasants, which Dara is seen doing above, but it was way too exciting for me.

Kyla and Paige's New apartment

Sorry these took so long but here are some pictures of Kyla and Paige's new apartment. They became very handy with an allen wrench and screwdriver, putting together all their new furniture. And now they are living the life of being young, single and hip in DC.

Another Birthday

I suppose if I remember the blog's birthday and forget Dara's I'm really in trouble. After all, I've been warned. Two years, over 600 postings. When I'm out at Keith's at Thanksgiving we may have to retreat to separate rooms and blog if we're going to communicate. Keep posting!

Mac Attack

After much teeth gnashing, I decided to give the iMac a shot for our new home computer. I did some price comparison using Dell and Apple's web site, and they came out almost identical. I was surprised. Unfortunately, I still need Windows for various things, and I'm not really able to retire the old computer. So in the end we'll spend more on this one simply because I have to buy new software (like MS Office for the Mac). I'll probably be boring you even more now as I discover the joys and frustrations of a whole new computer and operating system after being a PC head ever since the very first IBM model. So far it's been painless, as I'm typing this from a Firefox web browser connected to our wireless network.

Urban Legends Reference Pages: World's Ugliest Dog

Urban Legends Reference Pages: World's Ugliest Dog D'Or is a beautifull dog and anyone should love looking at his picture. Now here is a dog picture no one wants to see. We saw this competition on TV and had to watch.

Crazy Yalie

Ok, so there's probably more than one person out there who qualifies as a crazy Yalie, but this kid tops it. And I've actually met the guy, he briefly came out for the polo team my sophmore year, but didn't stick with it (thank goodness). I just couldn't resist passing this on.

D'Or's Haircut

When the dog hair tumbleweeds start taking over the house, we get the dogs trimmed. This time we also trimmed D'Or, who usually just has the scruffy look, adaptable to a doggy mohawk or other styling. Now I realize that pictures of your dog are not interesting to most people, but Dara apparently promised Kyla that we'd post the picture.

Bid Long and Prosper

Star Trek fans never give up. A recent Christies auction brought in $132,000 for the original model of the Enterprise. And in true form, some of the bidders showed up in costume.

A bidder who came dressed as Picard bought actor Ron Perlman's vinyl jumpsuit from "Star Trek: Nemesis" for $6,000.

"It's with Picard then,"the auctioneer said during bidding, adding, "A sentence I never thought I'd say."

At least in an online auction you can wear your Star Trek uniform in the privacy of your own home.

Re; 50

Happy birthday Steve! sorry to have missed such a milestone I guess my record for remembering birthdays is pretty poor. Some of our readership would call you a spring chicken but I am only 51 so to me you are another aging relic in our family tree. Besides having to check the ..over 50.. box on any inquiry into yourself its not that bad. I actualy started thinking about it on my 49th birthday, I made a solumn pledge to myself when I turn 50 I will be in the best shape of my life. So I started one exersise program after another, Mt. bike, running, walking, basketball evry evening,various other ways of exercising. I know it was beneficial and it never hurts to stay in shape but somewhere along the way I realized I am never going to be in the best shape of my life. So I turned 50 feeling good about the shape I was in anyway, even though I know I wasn't going to run a marathon or ride on the supercross circuit. I have spent a considerable amount of time reversing that since then and I know I won't be able to wait till 60 to make another solumn pledge to myself. I think this year I will just try to get as physicaly fit as our mother. That could wind up being another one of those lofty goals I won't reach.

Turning 50

"What do you want for your birthday, Steve?" I have asked that 30 times in the last 30 years and have always gotten the same response. "Nothing, just ignore it." Of course I never really believed him and would go all out. Not too crazy, if I had ever given him a party or a surprise party, I'm pretty sure I would have been in major trouble. But hey, when you think a guy is special you gotta treat him special once a year. So for his 50 birthday yesterday I gave the man what he has always wanted, nothing, totally ignored it. Didn't really work of course because his kids and family kept reminding him but I tried. Hardest present I've ever given. If he gives me the same thing for my birthday, he's dead. FYI, dear.