Viewing older entries

   AOL journals aren't set up as well as something like blogger. One of the things I find clumsy is the interface to view older entries, or what blogger calls archives. On blogger, and livejournal as well, I think, you simply click on a list of dates to view entries posted during those periods. On AOL journals, you have to click on the Older Entries link at the top of the page. You will be taken to a page that lists all of the entries made during the current month. In order to view even older entries, you must select another month from the drop down menu at the top right of that page. If you're not sure how long the journal has been operating, you could muddle around a bit trying to find the earliest entries. I only mention it because it didn't seem very intuitive to me. It took me a while to figure out exactly how it worked.

   August 6, 2005. Edited to add: Due to a software glitch in AOL's journals template, archived entries may not begin until after the bottom of the right sidebar. If you click through to an archived entry and you don't see anything, try scrolling down the page a bit. Or, if I was prolific that month, a lot.

I want to ride my bicycle.

   Matthew says he's going to learn to ride a bike. He's never learned before because he was the right age to start right at the beginning of that mini-wheeled scooter craze. He rode his scooter everywhere, and never wanted to learn how to ride a bicycle. Now, he's realizing that all his friends ride bikes and he doesn't. Also, he's getting to the age where he'll start being allowed to roam a bit farther without direct supervision. It's kinda hard to ride your bike over to your friend's house if you don't have one, and even if you did, you never learned how.

   To this end, his Nonno has set him up with a really cool stunt bike with flashy paint, and his mother has promised to buy him a new video game after he is successful. Of course, the teaching falls to me: the guy with little or no patience for things Matthew has trouble with that I found really easy. Matt's not the best at math. When I was his age, I had an almost innate mathematical sense. I have terrible trouble trying to explain math concepts to him that I think are plainly obvious, but he just doesn't get. Likewise, when I was five, I learned to ride a bike in about twenty minutes, and never looked back. I suspect Matt and I will be working on this for several weeks.

   I could be wrong. I've got my fingers crossed here, too.

Snips and snails

Of course, we have a cat with her nose seriously out of joint. I don't think she's come out of the basement for any more than twenty minutes at a time for the last three days. It's a puppy! She could lord it all over him if she wanted to. Stupid animal.

Next week will be an important test. Pat goes back to work on Monday, and I have several errands to run that I will not be able to take Shadow along on. He's going to have to spend time in his crate while the house is empty for the first time. I should be able to keep it down to a couple of hours at a time, and hopefully he'll be fine. In fact, I know he'll be fine. ::exudes confidence::

 

puppy dog tales

Well, we did it. We paid the OSPCA the $262.50. And another $250.00 or so on supplies.

And this makes it all worth it:

 

A new friend.

                               

Get this collar offa me!

 

Tuckered out.

Matthew named him Shadow. Which seems to make sense because he can usually be found attached to somebody's ankle. His first night was a challenge, as he didn't like being confined to his crate, but he seems to be getting used to it. Today he spent several one hour periods in it, and tonight he fell asleep fairly quickly. We'll see how long I can get him to go. Last night I had to take him out for a pee at 4:30am. He's a pretty smart dog, though, so I don't think it will take us too long to get him house trained.

I had my fingers crossed while I typed that.

The dog days of summer

Pat and I have been talking about getting a dog. Today, she was browsing the OSPCA website, and she came across this picture:

They have a litter of Border Collie/Australian Shepherd cross puppies available. So off we go, to the OSPCA headquarters to look at them; where we find that in order to "adopt" a poor animal from the shelter, we must fill out a three page questionaire, and schedule an appointment with a pet placement counselor, in order to determine our suitability to save an animal from possible future euthanasia. Not to mention the "nominal" "adoption fee" of $262.50 we'd be required to pay.

So I say, "hey. Why don't we just put the word out with everybody we know that we're lookin' for a puppy, and wait until we hear from a friend of a friend, that they have a friend who's sister's boyfriend's mother's dog had a litter of doberman/chihuahua crosses that need a good home?"

We have an appointment with the pet placement counsellor tomorrow at 12:30.

 

edited much later: I noticed I had spelled the word counsellor two different ways in this post, so I edited it to make them both the same (with only one L). It didn't seem to look right, so I edited it again to make them both the same (with two Ls). Still didn't look right, so I got out the dictionary. Turns out both ways are acceptable, so I've changed it back to the way I originally posted it.

Jay Pinkerton

   I mentioned that I thought this Jay Pinkerton guy was funny. And that was before I'd read this. If I'd been drinking Coke, it would have come out my nose.

Other blogs I read

Ruddy Inc. Somebody by the name of Peter Lynn signed up for some online info under the unlikely alias of Ruddy Ruddy, and here chronicles the avalance of interesting correspondence that ensued.

Pinkerton's weblog. Jay Pinkerton is a funny guy. That is all.

The adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century. In the About This Blog section, Mr. Joey DeVilla writes: Back in high school, after reading Space-Time and Beyond for the umpteenth time and drinking one too many zombies with my friend Henry Dziarmaga, we came up with the theory that in the infinite set of universes -- the multiverse -- there was one particular universe in [which] what happened to us right here was being watched as a TV show over there. We then made a solemn vow to live in such a way that we kept our ratings up. To this end, Mr. DeVilla decided that, henceforth, his trusty accordion would always accompany him in public. No word on if he's gotten laid yet.

Bombippy.com. This guy used to live across the street from me...

...

... I got nothin'.

RobotMonkeyBoy. My brother-in-law. Nice guy. Honest.

Muskoka Walking Vacation II

   Well, if all I did was walk, I'd probably be OK. But the weekend warrior syndrome kicked in, and somewhere between the tennis, the baseball, and the beach volleyball my knees checked into pain hotel, and they have yet to check back out. Between the elbow and the knees, I don't have enough bags of peas in the freezer.

Muskoka Walking Vacation

Wow, no updates in a month. That isn't very blogalicious of me. In my defence, I can only say that I've been really, really, really lazy.

We just returned from a vacation in Muskoka at our favourite resort: Bayview Wildwood. We go the same week every year, as do many other families, so we get to see lots of the same people year after year. It makes for a real friendly, family atmosphere.

More to come...