Posts from — January 2009

I don’t know that I did much more than allude to it, but Hooper hurt his knee a few weeks back, and we’ve been walking on eggshells ever since.

He wiped out chasing a ball in the ballfield, and when he came up he was holding his right hind leg up for several seconds. I started running over to him and he immediately began to “walk it off”, in a manner that would have impressed Mr. Tezak, my ninth grade gym teacher. Thinking I’d dodged a bullet, we kept playing but I could see that when he would run around he would “bunny hop” with his hind legs, favoring the injury. Brenda & I backed off of his usual 2 hours a day exercise regimen, but he did not really improve. You could see an oddness to his gait, and every once in a while he’d even be standing there holding his hind leg up like he had when he initially injured himself. So a couple of weeks ago I took Hoop in to see Dr. Adams, and she conducted a thorough exam. She detected some tenderness, and based on my explanation of what had happened at the park that day, as well as all the lameness since, she concluded that he MAY have ruptured his CCL, or cranial cruciate ligament. Kind of the canine version of the football player/ACL injury. Great.

Since soft tissue damage doesn’t show up well on an x-ray, Dr. Adams was hesitant to spend my money on radiographs, and instead sent us home with some anti-inflammatories and strict instructions to limit his activity to a couple of walks a day, no longer than five to ten minutes in length; enough to pee and poop, and not much else.

Now, the last two weeks have been hard enough, watching Hooper literally slump when, five minutes into our walk, instead of heading right toward the ballfield—where all the neighborhood dogs are frolicking—we head left back towards home. But on top of Hooper’s frustration, I have been rolling the idea of major knee surgery on my dog around in my head. Despite Dr. Adams not wanting to “go there yet”, I of course started doing research on Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy, and I was not pleased with what I was seeing. Sure, the four grand the surgery would cost would be a drag, but mostly I was concerned abut the idea that my dog, a week shy of his second birthday, could be cut up and never be the same dog again.

We ran out of anti-inflammatories on Monday, and I got an appointment today for Hoop’s follow-up exam. Dr. Adams is on vacation, but I got Hoop in to see Dr. McCormick, the owner of the whole hospital. As has been the case with every single doctor Brenda & I have dealt with at the Alpine Hospital for Animals, Dr. McCormick was very courteous, thorough, interactive and honest. With prompts and treats, we both got Hooper to submit to a full exam of his leg, knee, spine and hips. She brought in a model of the canine knee joint for explanations.

The final explanation: Hooper did not tear his CCL, and is not a candidate for surgery! The fact that I screwed up my ankle so badly last spring really helped me to understand what Hooper did do to himself. He probably pranged his knee pretty good, and that kind of tissue damage just takes a lot of time to mend. So now Hooper has been cleared to go for longer walks, but he’s supposed to remain on the leash.

Naturally, we went to the ballfield tonight so he could take a celebratory lap around with his pals. Naturally, again, he immediately rounded up Lanni, Mattie and Jocko and organized them into a chase group while he proceeded to blaze a few laps around the field at what appeared to be close to the speed of sound. Afterward, he wrestled with Mattie, flinging her over on her back more than once (did I mention that Mattie is a 100lb Mastiff?). But I could see two weeks of frustration escaping from his soul, like steam from a manhole cover. What was I supposed to do?

He seems none the worse for the wear, or the land speed record attempt. Right now he’s draped across his bed and just stretched, looked at me, and let out a heavy sigh. Life is good.

I read a recent post on Lifehacker this morning about resume writing (no, I’m not looking for a job, I just read Lifehacker religiously), and readers were encouraged to post their own tips and peeves in the comments. I thought I’d share my thoughts here. (Can you smell the rant coming from there?)

First of all, when did listing your undergraduate GPA on the resume become fashionable? I have discovered, much to my chagrin, that there is a huge emphasis on grade point average in the veterinary school application process, but these people are reviewing applicants for the job of student, essentially. Further, it costs the grad school money to wash people out, so I can see how past performance on test taking is going to be a primary yardstick for a vet school applicant. But when I read a resume from someone looking for a job as a lighting designer and they point out to me that they got a 3.7384 GPA getting their friggin’ undergraduate degree, it makes that person look like a brown nosing, whiny little pest, and I don’t need that shit. I realize that people fresh out of school need to dig deep for stuff to put on a resume, but babe, look elsewhere.

My bigger issue is with people who list worldwide travel destinations under the “Other Skills/Interests” sections that these resumes always seem to have. Listing other skills and interests isn’t inherently bad; doing so can make you seem well-rounded, provide a peek at the rest-of-you and not just the worker bee, and can provide conversation starters for the interviewer. But I’m thinking more like “cycling, photography, playing guitar, travel”. Travel, not where you traveled. Travel is mind expanding, educational, humbling. You tell me you enjoy traveling, I’m gonna assume you are an open minded person who, unlike half this nation, sees that there is a world beyond the USA that should be explored. But you tell me you went to all these exotic places as a sidebar on your resume, well, I’m gonna assume you’re a giant dick. Here’s why:

First off, if you traveled the world and scored a 3.7384 GPA all during your undergrad career, there’s a strong possibility that you are a spoiled rich brat who doesn’t know what work is to begin with—not a good quality for a job applicant. But you also open yourself to the possibility of making yourself look like a fucking idiot who gained nothing from the travel experience. For example, when you list Chili (sic) as one of your globe trekking destinations, I’m assuming you learned absolutely nothing from your trip except how to find a McDonald’s in a foreign land. (Hey, anyone know if they have Chili’s in Chile?) By the way, the fucking idiot who wrote that he’d been to “Chili” on the real-live resume that he handed to me, in a real-live interview, for a real-live job—and who continued to prove my point here throughout the interview—did not get an offer. Fucking idiot.

Oh, and if you’re gonna have an “Other Skills/Interests” section, don’t let that be what makes your resume bleed to yet another page, and don’t list just “Music” as an interest. “Playing guitar” I will accept, but “Music”? Come on man, show some heart. It’s like putting “Food” down there. Might as well put “Air” and “Masturbating” in your skills and interests section, while you’re at it. “Family” and “Friends” are two other curious entries often seen in this section; are those skills, interests, what? Or are you just trying to tell me you’re not the next Son of Sam?

So. Drop the GPA bullshit and let potential vet students worry about that one, use that Skills/Interests section cautiously, and don’t be a giant dick, kids. I’m reading. And judging.

The cynic in me has taken a day off. Watching Obama’s rig rolling to the Capitol has me in tears, for real. This is awesome.

A wildfire is raging in the foothills just north of Boulder; it started this afternoon, and really high winds and lots of open (and dry) land have provided the perfect ingredients for disaster.

Already, several homes have been destroyed, and people are evacuating all over the place. This was the view from my front door when Hooper & I got home from our walk:

This is a view looking northwest; you can see the main line of the fire, and the trail of little fires left in its wake. At that time, the fire line is probably six miles from my house as the crow flies, but it’s a LOT closer to the edge of town than that! People I know have voluntarily evacuated their homes, and one of my co-workers is a Boulder County firefighter so I’m thinking of them tonight. Last time I looked out the window, the fire had died down quite a bit (as had the wind), so hopefully the firefighters will be able to get a handle on things, but they have a long night ahead of them.

The Maneki Neko, or “beckoning cat”, is a traditional Japanese good luck charm, commonly seen in storefronts, placed there to attract business. During the migration process of taking my files from my old computer to my new one, I just took my trusty little Maneki Neko and placed it down in the corner of my desktop and it made me smile.

A guy named Jeremy Hedley had a blog called Antipixel many moons ago, and I stumbled on a post of his which had a nice picture of a Maneki Neko statue that he photographed with his daughter on New Year’s Day, six years ago, and turned into a Mac OS X icon, and attached to a .txt file with some great info on the origins of the Maneki Neko:

Maneki Neko (Beckoning Cat)

There are a few legends about the origin of the maneki neko, but the generally accepted one holds that the cat belonged to the priest of Goutokuji (Goutoku Temple) in Setagaya Ward in what is now western Tokyo sometime at the beginning of the Edo period.

The priest of the temple loved his cat and, despite his poverty, shared his food with it as he would with any friend. One day Ii Naotaka, lord of the Hikone district (near Kyoto), was on a hunting trip near the temple when he was caught in a severe storm. He took refuge under a tree in front of the temple but the storm showed no sign of letting up. Ii noticed the cat standing at the temple gate beckoning to him. It seemed to be telling him to come inside. He followed the cat and as he reached the safety of the gate the tree was struck by lightning and destroyed.

Realizing that the cat had saved his life, Ii became friends with the priest and a patron of the temple, saving it from ruin. It’s said that when the cat died the priest buried it in an area he set aside in the temple’s cemetary. Goutokuji is a short ride from where I write this, and I’ve been there many times, although I’ve yet to find the cat’s grave….

Small statues of maneki neko are very commonly placed in shop windows in the hope of attracting patronage. These days there are many variations (black cats, calico cats, &c.) but the original Goutokuji cat is the simple white specimen you see in this icon.

The icon was made from a photograph I took of the maneki neko statue my daughter bought at Goutokuji in the early hours of New Year’s day, 2003. I hope it brings you all the luck you need.

Jeremy Hedley
Tokyo, Japan

Six years on, this little icon has sat on the desktop of two different computers now (I slide the icon down to the bottom of my screen so the filename is hidden below the bottom edge of the screen; the kitty looks like she’s just “sitting there”). It is about to take up station on a third computer, and after six years I’d say it’s brought me some good luck, as promised. Sure, my computers have brought me untold headaches (including a few in the last few days), but in general, my computer life, and my real life for that matter, have been good. And I think that’s what this time of year is all about, is reflecting on things, and making adjustments to what parts of life ain’t working. As I start 2009, I am getting ready to take another Biology class and a Calculus class too, step up to some new work challenges, try and ride my bike and rock climb through the winter and emerge in the spring thaw actually in shape for once, eat better, drink less, and of course, get “organized”. That last piece is currently ongoing as I start anew with a new computer, a new user account and a new directory of files from the last 15 years of my life. So, so far, so good. I can’t believe the last five days I’ve had off have basically transpired already, but so be it. Tomorrow I go back to work, a new year, a new corporate owner, a new semester, a few goals and a few projects to complete.

Happy New Year, everyone.

awright, I got my iPhone talking to my new user account. All I did was tell the “Applications” tab to sync with my iPhone, and it copied the apps to my new iTunes install. Then I did the “wipe”, letting iTunes blow out my iPhone’s music library. At this point, my contacts and iPhone apps are synchronous with the iTunes install on my new laptop’s new user account. I spent an hour or so copying the music from my old user account to my new one, and after all that things aren’t perfect, but they are good. My old files from my old user account are on my new laptop, and after a little terminal action I changed the permissions on those files so I can move them freely about to my new user account’s directory structure. This I will do over the next three years.

Meanwhile, Hooper’s right rear leg is a little gimpy, half my music is not showing up in my iTunes library even tho it’s taking up space in the iTunes directory, and the Outside Magazine article about Lance Armstrong is the biggest piece crap I’ve ever seen. Folks, Lance is a doper, was a doper, and is dressed like the asshole in Napoleon Dynamite at the prom for his photo shoot in this article. And the hack writer for the Outside article just completely missed the point about all of pro cycling and especially the importance of American pro cycling. For now I don’t want to get into it, but for now also, Christopher Keyes (author of this crappy Outsice Magazine article) is a fucking asshole, and a moron to boot. He seems to think that American pro cycling started and ended with Lance Armstrong, and nothing could be further from the truth. God Dammit! I was so ready to renew my subscription to this rag, too…

Let’s talk later.

now my Time Capsule is not recognized by my new user account on my new machine. Soooooo glad I tried using the “easy” migration fucking “wizard” to make all this fucking bullshit easy.

GOD DAMMIT.

Will hit this in the morning after a night’s rest. I’m sure I can solve this in the way I want, which is to continue to build a new user account on the new machine, from scratch. God dammit.

I fucking hate this shit. New computer, started setting up, got my iTunes all dialed in, then realized my goddamned motherfucking iPhone is really not interested in syncing with my new setup. Apparently, I was supposed to use the Apple Migration Assistant. That utility is fairly impressive, but now my Mail.app is busted, and I have a crapload of duplicated bytes in the form of redundant applications and all kinds of extra shit. The whole point of the new computer was to start fresh, and now I have one halfway setup user account on the new computer (that does not want to speak to my iPhone), and all the binary turdlets from my old computer copied over, with a broke-ass malfunctioning Mail.app. It’s bittersweet, because while I’m sure I can fix the Mail.app thing eventually, there just seems to be a lot of other weirdness and I can clearly see that loads of files I never need again have migrated over. I’d really like to just keep getting my new user account set up on this new MacBook, and get my iPhone to divorce itself from my old laptop. Now that everything from my old computer is now copied to my new one, I guess I can just tell the phone to start fresh; the applications should all be on the copy of the data from my old machine, right? Most of my applications have been re-installed on the new computer already, and like I said I basically have a copy of my entire old computer on here for now, so I should be able to pull over all the missing bits I need. I should do it, right? Start fresh with the iPhone?

Good lord, why is it so hard to start fresh every once in a while?