Puppies Running Out On the Salt Flats

#488

New Yorker Caption Contest #482

What My Garden Looks Like Now

These are a bunch of pictures I took today.

This is an Amaranthus called 'Love Lies Bleeding.'

I grow them every year.  They're annuals. Everything you see is the volunteers I let through.

They've spread everywhere. I let some through, but I pull up most as weeds.

My blackberries are starting to ripen.  

This is one of the real success stories of my garden. They're so sweet and prolific.

I've got a patch of sunflowers that may be as much as ten feet tall.

They're volunteers from last year crop which were specialty seeds that were red rather than yellow. This year, most were yellow with only a few nice and red like this one.

This is my second year growing onions.  I had no idea they were so interesting and beautiful.  I treat them like ornamental flowers, but they're really just regular yellow onions.

I've got an artichoke coming up.

 And this is just a pretty picture.

Mario Savio

I was watching a really great PBS documentary on the year 1964, and the part about the Berkley Free Speech movement with inspiring.  I had to grab this clip of Mario Savio speaking.

Who brings a gun to a balloon fight? #480

Is The Supreme Court Crazy? (Or did they just blow your mind?)

I was watching Seinfeld and this Kramer bit seemed entirely appropriate for today's Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality.

Cyrus & Lucille (Cherry Kisses)

Caught Cyrus and Lucille kissing today, then Lucille nipping at cherries. Aren't my puppy doggies so great?

Neither Confirm Nor Deny

I got this one too quick.  What's gonna happen is I'm going to come up with a much better one later, and then it will be too late.

World Party at The Urban Lounge

     I didn't even know they were coming to town. My buddy Curtis calls me up with an extra ticket. Seriously, I was in my pajamas.  The first hurdle really was to just wrap my head around the idea of being spontaneous enough to jump in the shower and pull myself together. The next hurdle was more of a crisis. I couldn't find my glasses when I got out of the shower! I was just sure my puppy doggies had gotten to them. I looked and looked, but I couldn't find them.  This shouldn't be too surprising since I couldn't see much at all.  Especially out in the dark. I worried that they had taken them out there into the backyard. That's where I often find my comb, and infuriatingly often, my socks. 

     But I was blind!   I couldn't so much as find my slippers, but I at least had just barely had the sense to get some pants on, (no shirt though) when an even bigger disaster occurred. I guess I was in a bit of a frantic panic, and I just left the gate open for a few seconds too long....  It was long enough because just like that, my puppy doggies had both ran out into the dark toward a MODERATELY BUSY STREET! They made it across, and bare-chested, bare-footed I ran across as well. I relied on Cyrus's strong sense of loyalty to get him to come to me fairly quickly. But not without help from a guy passing by, who had to temporarily be my eyes for me. I crouched and held Cyrus as I watched the blur of several cars of traffic moving quickly off where I guessed Lucille to be. I braced myself for the worst as they passed.

     But then the traffic passed, and I breathed a sigh of relief.  Holding big old Cyrus as I crossed back over to where another neighbor (out walking her dog) was helping out by hanging out while Lucille made friends with her dog. Lucille's always been a lot more tricky when it comes to coming to my beckon, but tonight she did ultimately come to my gentle cajoling. I lugged the two of them back indoors and proceeded to look for my glasses. I'm so glad I held my temper with them because what had actually happened was that I had put them on top of the toilet tank, and they had just fallen off the back. So I finished pulling myself together and shot off to the World Party show. True story.

     When I got there it was perfectly intimate. my buddy was standing there on the front row with plenty of room in front, so I joined him and had an unbelievably great time. I love World Party. Here's as big a video as they'll let me upload. (Watch for Curtis on the left.) Sorry to make you read all that, but here's the payoff.  

#478 Dismal Attitude

Had A Good Day Today.

I finally took Cyrus & Lucille out to the desert for the first time. I got way out there, but not quite beyond the gun-nuts. (Had to listen to them shooting most of the day.) I found an empty ravine and let 'em loose. It was the first time in their lives they'd been off-lease outside of my home and/or back-yard.

They ran and ran! I was right, they really needed to stretch their legs.

Lucille found some petroglyphs.

After a day of rock-hounding I became very comfortable with letting them roam. They never got out of earshot, and they always came faithfully when I called.  I'm beyond ecstatic that this is the case. The "Come!" command is vital. They'd come up the side of the mountain and rest with me desert style. Ain't they beautiful?

And as a bonus, I came home with a nice load of ornamental stone that I'll be using on the wall I'm building out front.

#477

Anyone Wanna See A Puppy Video?

My son's dog, Pheonix came to visit for the weekend.  He's the heavier beagle.

#476

It's not great, but I couldn't think of anything else.

#475

#472

Cyrus, Lucille & Linux on my New Floor (With Toys)

Yawning Contests

I've been trying to catch Cyrus & Lucille on film when they have their yawning contests. This was about as good as I could get. Cyrus doesn't do much here, but Lucille briefly gives a pretty good performance.

Here's a still of it.  Crazy photo, huh?

I got the term 'Yawning Contests' from a nature documentary I was watching recently where it was a description of what hippos will do.  I couldn't help noticing that it was something Cyrus & Lucille do too.  Like this.

 (Hope Nick Garbutt doesn't mind the free advertising for his photo.)

New Yorker Caption Contest #470

He's Available For Stud

I got this one in less than a minute, but I caught myself giggling hysterically and I realized that I couldn't possibly think of a better one, so I submitted it immediately.

Cyrus & Lucille Make Out with their Teeth!

My Two New Puppies are a Hoot!

Cyrus & Lucille sure do enjoy one another.  It sounds pretty vicious at times, but I've decided to stop trying to police them so much. Neither has injured the other yet. Toward the end of the video, they're falling head over heals.

Caption Contest #467

I knew right off that this would be a fun image to work with.  My first thoughts were...

"Terms of his insurance policy."

and then,

"What do you mean?  Your father's not unapproachable."

But I knew there was something better here and although it's a bit oblique, I think I nailed this one.

The actual quote is as follows.

"He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither."

               -Benjamin Franklin-

A Couple More Pet Videos

My cat Linux decided to test the puppies' limits by ploping down right between them, and I was lucky enough to have the camera handy.  (If you play Sims 4 you'll recognize the sounds in the background coming from my computer. Somehow it matches.)

Then this one.  Tell me if this doesn't just pull at your heart-strings.

New Yorker Caption Contest #466

Cyrus & Lucille Wrestling

They go at it like this all day long.  I'm worried someone's going to lose an eye.

#465 This is where we do our part for the 'trickle-down' economy.

They won't take it, but I really like what I came up with for this one.

  Recommended listening: "Trickle-Down" by Bruce Cockburn.

Can You Believe Those Coats?

Meet Cyrus's New Friend Lucille

That's Lucille there on the right. Her birthday was Dec. 7th, (a date to live in infamy) and she's a purebred Basenji. Cyrus really needed a friend that could meet him teeth to teeth.

Cyrus's Favorite Toy

You can tell I'm a bachelor by the fact that I let Cyrus play with the toilet brush on the best chair in the house.

Cyrus Chewing

My new puppy is all teeth!

Cyrus and Linux Battling

I can't believe how patient my cat, Linux, is with my new puppy, Cyrus.

#464

My last caption started with "I told you" as well.

#463

Feeding My New Puppy Cyrus with a Spoon

Go ahead, be appalled. I know that some of you are going to be appalled.

But I've already got myself a new puppy.

This is Cyrus. He's about 2 months old. His mother was a beautiful Basenji (where he got his coat.) and his father was a Border Collie. Of course, I did some research on the two breeds, and I found both to be pretty much exactly what I was looking for.  I like that he's playful and energetic. He's extremely loving, but he's still at the stage where he's all teeth.  My cat (Linux) is trying hard to adjust.

My best friend just died.

Words cannot begin to express how much Dudley meant to me. He was a good boy. He was my best friend.

Sundance 2015

I wanna do a quick review of the five films I saw at Sundance this year. The first one I saw was

Cop Car

This was one of, if not my very favorite this year. Here's a premise that follows through and pays off. Very suspenseful. The slow pacing works well. At times, I was super anxious and on the edge of my seat. I read someone somewhere say it had a kind of Coen Bros. type of violent tone, and I agree.

Next I saw

How To Change The World 

It was very interesting to see how Greenpeace got started. I was struck by how the 'Save The Whales' phenomenon was so directly a result of one man (Robert Hunter) with a passion, and the small crew that were drawn to him. No one was thinking about whales before Greenpeace. Not really. There's great dramatic footage.  A harpoon is shot right over their heads in their first major encounter.  The most powerful moment for me, however, was when Robert Hunter and Paul Watson foreshadow the most powerful activist image of my lifetime when they both stand on the ice in front of a large ship thereby blocking it's path from the seal slaughter.

The third film I saw was 

Last Days In The Desert

This was the film I was most excited about, and the biggest disappointment. It was suppose to be about Christ getting tempted by Satan as he completed his fast, but what we got was made entirely out of whole cloth, and there were very few biblical references at all. I was hoping it would be a philosophical interpretation like Jesus Christ Superstar, but this film tries to create its own parable (about parenting) with characters never mentioned in the Bible. It fails pretty flatly. Any message anyone might have gleaned could easily have come from any old self-help book.  In the end, there's a completely gratuitous scene of Christ on the cross that has absolutely nothing to do with the preceding story.  Yeah, it was a flop.

Next was 

Finders Keepers

I spent much of this film with my jaw dropped. This clearly gets filed under 'stranger than fiction.' The odds of the two main characters of this documentary both having such weird back-stories, and then to be connected in such a bizarre way, are astronomical. You can't help but laugh, however, you also can't deny the tragic undercurrent. Perhaps the biggest success of this film (other than nailing it on the subject matter) is how it walks the tightrope between tragedy and comedy so well. It's so surreal when the man with the receipt (Shannon Whisnant) starts calling it, "his leg."

Finally 

Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead

This documentary about National Lampoon was a last minute addition for me, and I'm so glad I did it. It was great. John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Harold Ramis, and so many more are connected to the National Lampoon family tree. It was an unprecedented era in American comedy. There were other surprising connections as well. John Hughes was a part of it as well as a couple of the Simpsons writers. If you're looking for a good 'party' documentary, this is the one.  

#462 Was Tough

...but I'm happy with what I finally came up with.

DAMN!  Another typo! They don't give you any way of correcting them either.

Here's #461

Caption Contest #460

Obscure #459

New Yorker Caption Contest #458