 The Undercoat War Posted on
3/30/2008 12:33 PM |
It's been a long time since I've lived with a dog in the house... and ever since Ksenia moved in and brought along little Asta, I've been wisely reminded of the work required to keep a shedding dog's hair in check.
Asta, who has lived her entire life in sunny LA, has always had a beautiful, thin coat that probably had minimal changes to the undercoat. After all, life in Redondo Beach was fairly easy and consistent. Warm during the day, cool in the evenings.
Fast forward to her new life in Seattle... all of a sudden, Asta's body is forced to deal with the concept of seasons. As a result, she's undoubtedly had the biggest undercoat of her life.
I could easily sworn a month ago, that Asta was about 20 pounds heavier than her normal self. Her undercoat was bulging and making her look much bigger than her "summer petite" look.
The downside to being a warm dog? For the dog... nothing. For the dog owner... well, she starts dropping hair everywhere. The stuff just floats up, gets into your nose, builds in corners, and just makes things look messy.
It's a full scale war now.
I'm resolved to fighting the battle with all the tools available. :)
That means vacuuming and the addition a really great brush specifically designed for the shedding problem. We just bought a Furminator and after 1 use, there is no doubt that we will now gain an upper hand in the ongoing battle.... it came recommended by 2 friends... and now I'm passing on the recommendation. The best price I could was on Amazon...
Here's to fewer dust bunnies!
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| Singlehanded sailing video ... taken with a kite Posted on
3/25/2008 11:30 AM |
I'm going to have to add this to my list of "don't forget to do this when you have your own sailboat" list.
In fact, this may be a good training aid for race practices. I'm curious to see how well this type of setup would work if you just tied it off to a leeward rail. The only potential danger to the system would occur when the boat slows down to the point the kite can no longer fly. Interesting, nonetheless.
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| New modem looks good so far... Posted on
3/5/2008 12:42 AM |
Sunday night, I switched out dsl modem. The new modem, a 2 Wire 2701, appears to be much more stable than the M1000. Nearly 3 days later and I haven't seen a single hiccup.
Overall, I don't particularly like the 2 Wire's interface. In order to make it more of an "advanced networking" modem, the ui has been considerably dumbed down. It seems that some rather simple steps to get "advanced" things done are gated by silly ui and bad design constraints (i.e. why can't I pick a static ip for a dmz zone passthrough instead of their preferred way of forcing the dmz host to setup dchp). Goofiness if you ask me... but hey, as long as the modem is up and running... and not locking up every day... I'm happier.
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| The worst DSL modem ... ever ... Posted on
2/29/2008 12:55 PM |
For months, I rented a DSL modem from Qwest. For the most part, it worked like a champ. It would occasionally lock up. However, that happened maybe once every 4-5 weeks. Not great, but it was tolerable.
I decided to stop renting and buy one.
The new modem is a serious piece of crap. It locks up every day. We have to proactively reboot the modem at least twice a day. Avoid Qwest’s M100 if at possible.
Later this weekend, I’m replacing the phone with a newer “advanced networking” dsl modem. Let’s hope this one works better...
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| The long road home Posted on
2/4/2008 9:07 AM |
Ksenia and I recently flew out to visit with my good friends Eric and Angie, who have been living in Barcelona for the past year. It was nice to see the city from the perspective from a localized point of view...
We had the opportunity to not only walk most of the downtown area, but E&A let us borrow some cards for bike rental service called Bicing. It's a new service in Barcelona that operates a set of bike stations throughout the core downtown area. The premise is pretty simple - with a subscription you have the right to use a bicycle for 2 hours, all you need to do is go to a bike station, swipe your card, the machine tells you what bike has been assigned to you, and off you go. The really neat thing is that this service is currently available to Barcelona residents only ... and since E&A live in BCN... K&I had a chance to roam about the city two-wheeled style!
The flight home was one of the toughest flights I've had in a long time. We were really tired and slept most of the trip over the Atlantic (8 hours), but after a 4 hour layover in JFK, the nearly 6 hour flight home was simply grueling. It felt like it was the longest flight EVER.
When we finally arrived, tired wouldn't even come close to describing us. Our initial plan was to take the bus home, but given our state of exhaustation, we opted for a taxi ride instead.
It was nice to come home, even if the house was incredibly cold. The thermometer read 45 degress. :)
We lit a fire, put some water on for tea (and some nice warming steam), filtered through the mail, and once the house was a bit warmer we hit sack... the Barcelona trip was incredibly fun and our bodies needed some rest.
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| What exactly did you buy? Posted on
12/4/2007 9:02 AM |
As I've mentioned in the past, the house buying experience lasted nearly 3 and half years. It wasn't a continuous experience... 4-5 months on... 2-3 months off... vacations and other activities often led to time off.
Often times during the "breaks", I would explore other living options.
When I finally bought a home, my good friend Richard instant messaged me ... his comments completely outline those other shopping ventures... :)
Richard says:
Congrats!
signing papers today says:
on my new MCP certification?
signing papers today says:
hehe
signing papers today says:
the house signing....
Richard says:
hehe.
Richard says:
no I'm assuming signing papers means you bought something!
Richard says:
wasn't sure if it was a house, a boat, or boathouse, or a houseboat.
signing papers today says:
haha
signing papers today says:
that is great sentence
Richard says:
:)
Richard says:
so it was a house.
Richard says:
congrats.
Nice.
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| Windy Pacific Northwest weather... Posted on
11/14/2007 8:20 AM |
I love Mt. Baker. It's the land of epic snow.
How does this snow report from Tuesday sound? That's some serious wind... can't wait for the serious snows to arrive. :)
Well, we clocked 94 mph winds as that storm blew through yesterday. We received a decent hit of snow with 15 inches now on the ground. However, the heavy precip moved just north of us so we missed out on the full 30 inches that was originally forecasted.
The next series of fronts are coming in a little warm on Wednesday night and Thursday with the freezing level expected to be around 7,000 feet. It cools off after Thursday and the FL drops back down to about 4,000 feet (elevation of Heather Meadows base area) on Thursday night to Friday morning with the possibility of 5 – 7 inches of snowfall.
Then Saturday and Sunday is where our real hope is with the FL dropping to 3,000 feet with 5-7 inches expected Saturday night and another 5-7 inches on Sunday.
So if we don’t loose too much snow with the warming trend mid this week, we may be in good shape early next week.
We’ll keep you posted. | |