Another Sunrise

Mack Park, Salem, MA
Friday, 11/21/08
Canon Powershot A700
f4.0 @ 1/1000sec
Slight color manipulation with Photoshop CS3

Gary's First Week.

It's a good thing that my job has desensitized me to exposure to bodily fluids. Gary had a couple of bouts of car-sickness of epic proportions earlier this week. The rubberized floor of my Element is THE best. Personally, I don't understand why ANY car has carpeted interiors. We're constantly bringing dirt, mud, snow, rain and everything else in to the car on the bottoms of our feet. Anyway, I digress...

Other than the vomit, my life has revolved around Gary's pee and poop, essentially trying to ensure that he does none of the above in the house. To his credit, he's been VERY good about doing his business outside. In fact, aside from one accident (which in retrospect, he was pacing around quite a bit), all his #1 and #2 have been in the yard. He really likes leaf-piles. He's still mostly petrified of just about everything, but I'm working on expanding his little world. In fact, Luna is teaching him how to hop up on our bed. I had nothing to do with that, but I did have my 2MP digital camera in the Blackberry to capture the violation. The phone/camera has come in handy to capture the puppy action as I don't have one of my other cameras in hand all the time. (I'm not that much of a dork). Well, almost.

In any event, our first week of having a new puppy is going well so far. If I could just get him to stop being SO AFRAID of everything...

Here's Gary!

We've been talking about getting a second dog for quite some time. Jean trolls the Web, mostly sites like "Great Dog Rescue New England," always finding the cutest pups. We've talked abotu different dogs, but she finally found one that spoke to her across the information super-highway. His name was Gary, and he was a mix-breed stray (about 6 months old) found in Tennessee. When we called, ironically enough, he was being fostered in the next town over. He's SUPER shy and submissive, but he's been making progress. Luna's been a great role model and so far (two days), it's great to have two dogs in the house again.
See more here.

Sunrise...

From a night scene to a day break scene. Actually, I took these sunrise pics before the night pics, but who's keeping track. I woke before dawn, was fairly motivated, took the DSLR down to the Salem Willows and let that shutter go wild. See more here.

Night Scene...

Jean and I are taking a photography class together... she's got the eye for composition, I just shoot lots of pictures and hope for the best. I'm going to be bringing my Canon Powershot A700 with me much more often... I took this one night while commuting home from work. See more here.

Eye Wash

Maybe I missed that day of ophthalmic emergency treatment, but apparently, in some places, an Eye Wash station consists of some mouthwash, some toilet paper and some maxi-pads.

Sabbatical?

Has it really been almost a month since my last entry? Yep, I guess it has. Well, time flies when you're working. Here's the skinny on some of the latest...

The lovable Luna has had an appetite for seat belts. She chewed through about three pairs in Jean's old car, and over time, I got to be an expert at changing them out. It would be amazing how much damage she could do in a minute... anyway, I bought the first couple through the Ford dealer--$$OUCH$$, but then I got smart and started buying them online through used parts dealers (that's a classier way of saying junk yard).

So, a couple of weeks ago, when Luna chewed through the seat belts in Jean's father's van, I figured that I'd be able to fix the situation without too much trouble. I was able to get the seat belts online with much trouble, and they arrived in about a week--a duration of time that had Jean's father driving around with his seat belts tied in knots. I was so confident in my skills, that I offered to install the new seat belts after work one day. Hah. My first obstacle was the fact that I'd have to remove the seats to get the interior molding out. Hmmmm... fun. Well, removing seats is only loosening some bolts. I can do that. Two seats, eight bolts.

Seven of the eight were cooperative, although not totally. I had to do some contortionist maneuvers to get a couple of them off, but they yielded to my ratchet wrench. And then there was one. The last nut was a collection of rust atoms loosely held together by moisture. With the first turn of the socket, I felt the nut go round, and I poured pure rust on to the ground. After much swearing, more contortionist moves, longer ratchet arms, and a smaller socket that was hammered on, victory was mine.

That "simple" project took almost 3hrs. Fun. And all the while, Luna watched with a smirk.