I start this missive off after a long and busy weekend, with a long week ahead of me (I am on call and we are starting a new pilot at work that should increase work three fold). It has been a rewarding weekend in many aspects, disappointing in others, but above all...GOD IS GOOD.
I got up as I normally do on Saturday and went out to place a few fliers in the neighborhood bordering the last known sighting of New Dog. I also did some geocache maintenance on two of my caches while I was out. It was a long time coming...one was missing and the other had a nasty log book that needed replacing.
As I was I did not spot New Dog, but to be honest, I did not expect to. I hope she is okay. I am sure she is hungry and prolly a little scared but I do have faith that we shall see her again. I sent e-mails out to friends, posted a note on the geocaching web forums, and even posted a note on Craigslist. We are trying. The only thing w are not doing is staying up and constantly driving the area looking for her. This is a big area with a lot large greenbelt that borders private property and the chances of finding her on our own (especially since we don't know where she is) is slim. But I know all things work towards the Glory of God, so I am going to keep praying.
While I was out I snagged one new geocache placed by my geobuddy Wayne. It was his first attempt and a geocache and he did a pretty good job. I suspect it will get muggled when the weather gets nicer but you never know...I have been fooled before.
After an hour or so of being out I came back to the house to get ready to go over to the church to help set up for our "Friends Day" celebration on Sunday. I helped set up some tables and chairs and actually fixed a couple of broken ones (with some help from a couple of other brothers) so we would have enough seating. I ended up leaving about 11:00 AM and came home to vacuum the house. I pulled a lot of New Dog's fur out of the carpet and that made me a little misty eyed, but it is all good. I pulled myself together and finished my task.
After vacuuming I washed a sink full of dishes and ate lunch. I had a little time left so I went to Home Depot and bought some winterized for the lawn. I got back and applied it to both ours and our neighbor's yard before going inside and getting another shower. We had a visitation/viewing at a funeral home in Dallas (on of all nights, Halloween) for a newer member of our church who succumbed to pancreatic cancer. He was younger than me, with a wife and two kids. I hurt for them.
After the viewing my wife and I went out to have a cup of coffee and chatted. We cam home, changed clothes and walked the dog before heading to bed.
The next morning we were going through our normal routine getting ready for church, with the addition of getting things for the "Friends Day" celebration and my wife getting ready early to go pick up a couple of single moms who have been attending church. Between the two of them, they have 10 kids and a van that seats seven or eight, so my wife goes to pick them up for church and Sunday School. The women are sisters and they both have said that the love our church has shown them has touched them deeply. Praise God!
Church went well. We had a lot of visitors and we were please at the way the day turned out. We stuck around long enough to eat, chat, minister and help clean up some before we left. We still had care group that night (I told you I was busy) and we still needed to walk the dog again. And of course I still needed to make my weekly call to mom.
After all was said and done, we were in bed by 11:00 PM and asleep shortly after. I woke up before the alarm (due to the time change) and waited until it went off before I started getting ready. I am not looking forward to this week at all but I know that I can manage because God never gives us more than we can handle. I sometimes wonder about that because I don't feel very strong sometimes, especially when things are mounting. Sometimes it seems we have so much to do and so little time to do it in, but then again I have to wonder how important some of the things we do really are.
Thanx for all the prayers for us and our New Dog. It means a lot. Keep praying and when I get some news I will make sure to post it.
Monday, November 02, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
Still Heartbroken
New dog is still missing. I went to the park this morning before I got ready for work to see if I could find her. I pulled into the parking lot and got out. It was still very dark at 5 AM so I had a flashlight with me. I spotted something reflecting 100 feet away. It was a pair of dog eyes. I called out to the dog as if it was New Dog but this dog barked. A lot. I was not so sure this was our dog but I kept calling. I called my wife (who had been up since 2 AM...she is so upset over this) and she ran over and immediately told me it was not our dog. I have pretty bad night vision so I was not sure.
After that I walked the park calling out for New Dog but I did not spot her anywhere. Some of the dog food we set out was eaten but we are not sure if it was New Dog or some other critter. It was mostly gone but some was left, which is a New Dog thing to do.
Right about lunch time my wife called me and told be that the rescue organization who had New Dog before we did sometimes has to tranq dogs when the are hard/impossible to catch. I gave my blessing on that and my wife agreed but she said she has a bad feeling we are not going to see New Dog ever again. I don't really think that is the case. What I think will happen is that we will never be able to catch her but see her all the time. One thing for sure is that if someone ever catches her, she will try to escape and since she has been spayed, she is not good for making puppies any more.
We have run into a lot of people who have spotted her but none who have been able to catch her. One man said his daughter, who is sort of a Doctor Doolittle with dogs, was unable get her to come very close. He said that has never happened before.
I am still pretty emotionally drained, which is making me tired and a touch depressed. I am on call next week so I will be on pins and needles for that...a nice addition to this issue.
And what really is amazing is that we have all kinds of other issues going on as well. Some with family, some with work...a lot with church. I feel so overwhelmed I am not sure I can take any more. I know that God never gives us more than we can handle so I am secure that I will make it but the pressure seems so intense.
I also need to go to the park after work and put up a few flyers there. Hopefully some one will see her.
Well, I plan on going over to the park tomorrow morning when it gets light to see if New Dog is there. I doubt that she will be...I think she has moved on to another neighborhood and finding her on our own will be pretty difficult. I still plan on putting up some flyers in nearby neighborhoods but the best chance is for the animal control to find her and hopefully they will call. My wife has dropped off a flyer to them both.
We are still praying for New Dog to come home. We miss her so much.
After that I walked the park calling out for New Dog but I did not spot her anywhere. Some of the dog food we set out was eaten but we are not sure if it was New Dog or some other critter. It was mostly gone but some was left, which is a New Dog thing to do.
Right about lunch time my wife called me and told be that the rescue organization who had New Dog before we did sometimes has to tranq dogs when the are hard/impossible to catch. I gave my blessing on that and my wife agreed but she said she has a bad feeling we are not going to see New Dog ever again. I don't really think that is the case. What I think will happen is that we will never be able to catch her but see her all the time. One thing for sure is that if someone ever catches her, she will try to escape and since she has been spayed, she is not good for making puppies any more.
We have run into a lot of people who have spotted her but none who have been able to catch her. One man said his daughter, who is sort of a Doctor Doolittle with dogs, was unable get her to come very close. He said that has never happened before.
I am still pretty emotionally drained, which is making me tired and a touch depressed. I am on call next week so I will be on pins and needles for that...a nice addition to this issue.
And what really is amazing is that we have all kinds of other issues going on as well. Some with family, some with work...a lot with church. I feel so overwhelmed I am not sure I can take any more. I know that God never gives us more than we can handle so I am secure that I will make it but the pressure seems so intense.
I also need to go to the park after work and put up a few flyers there. Hopefully some one will see her.
Well, I plan on going over to the park tomorrow morning when it gets light to see if New Dog is there. I doubt that she will be...I think she has moved on to another neighborhood and finding her on our own will be pretty difficult. I still plan on putting up some flyers in nearby neighborhoods but the best chance is for the animal control to find her and hopefully they will call. My wife has dropped off a flyer to them both.
We are still praying for New Dog to come home. We miss her so much.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Owner of a Broken Heart
That statement describes both me and my wife...New Dog escaped and has been missing for 48 hours.
Tuesday night after prayer, my wife and I went our separate ways. She had errands to run and I came home to take care of the dogs. My wife called and asked me to walk both dogs since she would not be home until late, so I agreed. Knowing that New Dog was not an easy dog to walk, I decided to walk The Golden first. I got the leash and poop bag and hooked up The Golden, I unlatched the door and opened it just a bit and New Dog ran out. She stopped in the yard for just a second then ran down the block. She stopped again and did her business and I almost got to her when she took off again. I saw her go down the street so I took The Golden back in side and ran after New Dog. I spotted her at the end of the block so I cut over to cut her off. She ducked into a yard and through an open gate. I circled around but lost sight of her. I called but I did not see her. I talked to a lady who lived near where New Dog cut through the open fence and she said she would be on the lookout for her. Later on I found out that lady actually went out on foot to help.
I went back to the house and got The Golden, hoping she would attract New Dog back to me. We went down the alley and cut through some trees into the pocket park and spotted New Dog. New dog spotted me and ran. That was the last that I saw her. My wife and I drove up and down the alleys of our neighborhood but never spotted her.
The next morning (Wednesda) I got up and went to the park to see if I could spot her. As I was heading towards the trees, something bigger than a Raccoon took off before I could get a look. It was still dark and I did not have my flashlight pointed in the direction of the noise. All I saw was a branch moving, but I heard whatever it was. You don't hear rabbits and most other small game is rather quiet. New Dog is lightning quick so I think it was her, but I cannot be sure.
I made up some fliers and put them up in the neighborhood. My wife called just about every agency she could think of as well as put the story on one of the missing pet web sites. Later that night we went out again but did not see her at all. We were beginning to lose hope.
On Thurdsay, I had to go into the office to work so my wife stayed home and manned the phones. About 1:30 or 2 PM, she got a call from the animal shelter saying that they spotted our dog on their grounds but were unable to catch her. The animal shelter is just a few blocks from our house and just across the street from the park where I spotted her. According to the shelter, New Dog had crossed the street from other park which is just across the street from the pocket park. Think of a large "+". This is the cross street area near our house. The upper left is the animal shelter, the upper right is the large park, and the lower right is the pocket park. (we would be just to the right of that). The lower left is a gas station that is pretty busy.
My wife arrives and animal control says the dog is in the field just north of the animal shelter. That is private property but the owner has been alerted so he is cool with my wife being there. My wife calls out to New Dog and she sees her! We know New Dog is alive and appears to be unharmed. The bad news is she still is avoiding my wife. My wife said it was not a run away of fear, but almost like a game of chase. New Dog crossed the field and ran behind a wooded area. My wife lost sight of her but animal control told her that New Dog follows the road and found the bridge to cross a creek that separated the field from a small subdivision. It was here that both animal control and my wife lost sight of the dog. After work I met my wife there and we looked as well as put up some signs. We were both hungry so we went to a local BBQ joint and "pigged" out, trying to regain some energy. We went to the big park across the street from the animal shelter with some of her food to try to see if we could get her attention. When we could not spot her, we left the food in areas where people might see her.
The animal shelter thinks that New Dog spent the night in the big park. I think that maybe she spent the night in the pocket park. I hope she finds the food we left her.
This will be the third night that she has been out. We know she was okay when my wife spotted her and that is a big relief. I hope we can get her back home soon. I miss the hairy beast.
Please pray that New Dog will stay safe even if we cannot catch her right away.
Tuesday night after prayer, my wife and I went our separate ways. She had errands to run and I came home to take care of the dogs. My wife called and asked me to walk both dogs since she would not be home until late, so I agreed. Knowing that New Dog was not an easy dog to walk, I decided to walk The Golden first. I got the leash and poop bag and hooked up The Golden, I unlatched the door and opened it just a bit and New Dog ran out. She stopped in the yard for just a second then ran down the block. She stopped again and did her business and I almost got to her when she took off again. I saw her go down the street so I took The Golden back in side and ran after New Dog. I spotted her at the end of the block so I cut over to cut her off. She ducked into a yard and through an open gate. I circled around but lost sight of her. I called but I did not see her. I talked to a lady who lived near where New Dog cut through the open fence and she said she would be on the lookout for her. Later on I found out that lady actually went out on foot to help.
I went back to the house and got The Golden, hoping she would attract New Dog back to me. We went down the alley and cut through some trees into the pocket park and spotted New Dog. New dog spotted me and ran. That was the last that I saw her. My wife and I drove up and down the alleys of our neighborhood but never spotted her.
The next morning (Wednesda) I got up and went to the park to see if I could spot her. As I was heading towards the trees, something bigger than a Raccoon took off before I could get a look. It was still dark and I did not have my flashlight pointed in the direction of the noise. All I saw was a branch moving, but I heard whatever it was. You don't hear rabbits and most other small game is rather quiet. New Dog is lightning quick so I think it was her, but I cannot be sure.
I made up some fliers and put them up in the neighborhood. My wife called just about every agency she could think of as well as put the story on one of the missing pet web sites. Later that night we went out again but did not see her at all. We were beginning to lose hope.
On Thurdsay, I had to go into the office to work so my wife stayed home and manned the phones. About 1:30 or 2 PM, she got a call from the animal shelter saying that they spotted our dog on their grounds but were unable to catch her. The animal shelter is just a few blocks from our house and just across the street from the park where I spotted her. According to the shelter, New Dog had crossed the street from other park which is just across the street from the pocket park. Think of a large "+". This is the cross street area near our house. The upper left is the animal shelter, the upper right is the large park, and the lower right is the pocket park. (we would be just to the right of that). The lower left is a gas station that is pretty busy.
My wife arrives and animal control says the dog is in the field just north of the animal shelter. That is private property but the owner has been alerted so he is cool with my wife being there. My wife calls out to New Dog and she sees her! We know New Dog is alive and appears to be unharmed. The bad news is she still is avoiding my wife. My wife said it was not a run away of fear, but almost like a game of chase. New Dog crossed the field and ran behind a wooded area. My wife lost sight of her but animal control told her that New Dog follows the road and found the bridge to cross a creek that separated the field from a small subdivision. It was here that both animal control and my wife lost sight of the dog. After work I met my wife there and we looked as well as put up some signs. We were both hungry so we went to a local BBQ joint and "pigged" out, trying to regain some energy. We went to the big park across the street from the animal shelter with some of her food to try to see if we could get her attention. When we could not spot her, we left the food in areas where people might see her.
The animal shelter thinks that New Dog spent the night in the big park. I think that maybe she spent the night in the pocket park. I hope she finds the food we left her.
This will be the third night that she has been out. We know she was okay when my wife spotted her and that is a big relief. I hope we can get her back home soon. I miss the hairy beast.
Please pray that New Dog will stay safe even if we cannot catch her right away.
Friday, October 16, 2009
What Have We Gotten Ourselves Into
If you know us, you know we love dogs. We had Little Man (one of his many nicknames) for five years or so before we got The Golden. The two lived with us for 10 years before we had to let Little Man go. While we took great care of him, he had advanced renal failure. That, plus his severe allergies made him miserable.
We then were down to just one dog, The Golden for nine months or so until yesterday. While we had been talking about it for a few weeks, yesterday my wife adopted a dog from the humane society. It is a three year old Golden that was used in a puppy mill. She is adorable but she is very skittish. She tries to hide every time she gets the chance but she does not tremble nor does she cower when we pet her. So far we all like her, including our other dog, whom I simply call "The Golden". The Golden tolerates the new dog, mostly because New Dog does not challenge The Golden for Alpha-hood. But also she senses that New Dog is broken. Her spirit is just not there.
She needs a lot of work to get her to a point where she can function normally in a household. She reminds me of a character I read about in a fantasy novel, "The Guardians of the Flame". In that series of books, a warrior takes it upon himself to liberate every slave he finds. One, a dwarf whom was a slave to a very cruel man and has had his spirit completely broken, takes years to return to a "normal" life but even then he still slips into "broken mode" around those who freed him.
New Dog is like this dwarf in that she is broken and it will take a long time (if ever) to get her acting like a dog again. How people can treat animals this way is just something I do not understand.
Anyhooo, pray for us. I have a short fuse and it takes daily prayer just to keep it at the level it is now. Adding this to the mix is only going to test my mettle even more. God can do anything and I need him to help me be loving around this poor broken critter.
Just one thing to add. Even though my wife adopted this dog and she is more of a dog lover than I am, New Dog licked my hand and not my wife's. Maybe I am not such a bad guy after all.
Keep us in prayer. Pictures to follow. Sometime.
We then were down to just one dog, The Golden for nine months or so until yesterday. While we had been talking about it for a few weeks, yesterday my wife adopted a dog from the humane society. It is a three year old Golden that was used in a puppy mill. She is adorable but she is very skittish. She tries to hide every time she gets the chance but she does not tremble nor does she cower when we pet her. So far we all like her, including our other dog, whom I simply call "The Golden". The Golden tolerates the new dog, mostly because New Dog does not challenge The Golden for Alpha-hood. But also she senses that New Dog is broken. Her spirit is just not there.
She needs a lot of work to get her to a point where she can function normally in a household. She reminds me of a character I read about in a fantasy novel, "The Guardians of the Flame". In that series of books, a warrior takes it upon himself to liberate every slave he finds. One, a dwarf whom was a slave to a very cruel man and has had his spirit completely broken, takes years to return to a "normal" life but even then he still slips into "broken mode" around those who freed him.
New Dog is like this dwarf in that she is broken and it will take a long time (if ever) to get her acting like a dog again. How people can treat animals this way is just something I do not understand.
Anyhooo, pray for us. I have a short fuse and it takes daily prayer just to keep it at the level it is now. Adding this to the mix is only going to test my mettle even more. God can do anything and I need him to help me be loving around this poor broken critter.
Just one thing to add. Even though my wife adopted this dog and she is more of a dog lover than I am, New Dog licked my hand and not my wife's. Maybe I am not such a bad guy after all.
Keep us in prayer. Pictures to follow. Sometime.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
End Of Summer Adventures
My wife and I returned last Sunday from a week in sunny Florida. This was the trip that we had to postpone due to my wife's surgery in April. It had been a while since we were in Florida that late in the year but overall I think it was a pretty good time to go. It was far from crowded and most of the restaurants were still open to tourists like ourselves.
We started off our trip on Friday. We drove to Meridian, MS to spend the night in a newly opened Drury Inn. If you have not stayed in one, don't laugh at the name. They are a mid tier franchise that is pet friendly. That is one of the primary reasons we keep going back.
When we arrived, it was raining. Texas had been soggy for a couple of weeks and we were hoping to move out of the rainy area for a while. Well, I guess we brought some of the rain with us so we did not go out that night. I had hoped to do a little geocaching then but that was not in the cards. I had to wait until the next morning (not really having enough time do do any "serious" caching since we had to check out at 11:00 AM and it was not light out until 7:30 AM, and we still needed to eat, get cleaned up and pack up the van) to do my caching and while it was not an expedition like I am used to, I did manage to get several before we left.
We hit the road around 10:30 or so and made pretty good time to the beach house in Cape San Blas. We had used this house last year and mostly liked it. A couple of downers were no Internet or mobile phone service and some maintenance issues (broken patio door and the overall cleanliness of the place) but those were mostly fixed this year. The owner now has wireless broadband and he fixed the broken patio door handle. The house in places was still not as clean as we would like, but overall it was better than last time.
One of the first things we noticed when we pulled in was a lot of standing water by the main road (SR-30E) and at the end of the cul de sac on which the house resides. The boardwalk was cut off from the homes by a large (make that huge) and deep pool of standing water. There were two sump pumps running 24x7 to pump the water out of the low spots but they had been running for over a week and the water never seemed to go down. We later learned that the last named storm that came through the area dumped a ton of water and it had yet to dissipate.
We got out of the van and were immediately attacked by swarms of mosquitoes. We were not pleased and wondered if our vacation was going to be ruined. Flooding, mosquitoes, and a long drive to pretty much any food, store or attraction did not sit well with us. My wife was visibly upset.
We were both tired and after we unpacked and made a well meaning, but futile attempt at getting to the beach, we turned in for hopefully a good night's sleep.
We awoke the next morning and I took our dog out to do her thing (after I slathered all natural bug juice on me). I walked over to the next cul de sac via the secondary boardwalk and noticed that it was flooded as well. I also noticed that the empty lot next to that cul de sac had not been improved upon since we were here 18 months ago. A local informed me that the developers went bankrupt and the bank has been looking for buyers for a long time. Not only did they go bankrupt, but the developers also had most of the tress cut down (some were not even theirs, but other property owners) removing a natural wind break that contributed to the damage from the last storm. The boardwalk that the developers were supposed to build that allowed access to the beach was never built so with this new flooding, everyone suffered with no quick way to the beach.
After speaking to a couple of locals and getting the low down on things (including the location of public access that was not flooded just about a mile away) I went back in the house to grab some breakfast. I filled my wife in on my findings and after breakfast we headed down to the public access.
We we arrived (with our dog), we noticed the park area was flooded as well...actually pretty bad. I have some pics I can post when I get more time. We were beginning to think that the locals were wrong about the access here but then I spotted a path leading to another part of the park and some additional parking and that area was 90% clear. We headed over and found that we could get to the beach from this location. Problem solved. While not ideal, it would work for a week.
Now that we had a way to the beach, we used that every morning and every evening to take 2-3 mile walks each time. Our dog (an older Golden Retriever mix) joined us about half the time. We would have taken her more but the walks were hard on her and the sand burrs were plentiful.
Each day my wife and I would pick a direction and drive to some small town to eat lunch and see the sights. The old coast has a lot of them to chose from and we decided to go to the closest ones on this trip. Things did not always go as planned but we did have a pretty good time and I was able to do some geocaching on our outings.
Our outings included trips to Apalachicola (known as Apalach to the locals), Port St. Joe, Wewahitchka (known as Wewa to the locals), St. George Island (known as SGI to the locals), and Carrabelle. Out of the six trips to little towns, we ended up eating in Apalach four times. The food there is really good. Wewa did not have much and neither did Carrabelle. SGI may have had some places that were okay but on that day we had decided to eat in Apalach so we did not look. Overall we had seafood for lunch each day and we cooked dinner that evening at home. It helped on the budget to do that.
By the time we left the beach to return home to Texas, the water had gone down enough that we could walk to the boardwalk from the rental but the water on the other side of the dunes was still forming a swamp so we could not take that route in concern for snakes.
Our trip back to Texas was uneventful. The rain followed us to MS again so that evening was a soggy mess. I did manage to get out the next morning to geocache a little, but I only got three. Once we hit the road it was smooth sailing all the way back to Dallas.
I took some pics, many which are on my Facebook page and a few I may post here. We enjoyed the stay despite the fact that the ground was soggy and flooded in places. It was not the best vacation, but it was not bad. Like all vacations, it went by too quickly but at least when I went back to work I was not on call. That pleasure comes next week.
We started off our trip on Friday. We drove to Meridian, MS to spend the night in a newly opened Drury Inn. If you have not stayed in one, don't laugh at the name. They are a mid tier franchise that is pet friendly. That is one of the primary reasons we keep going back.
When we arrived, it was raining. Texas had been soggy for a couple of weeks and we were hoping to move out of the rainy area for a while. Well, I guess we brought some of the rain with us so we did not go out that night. I had hoped to do a little geocaching then but that was not in the cards. I had to wait until the next morning (not really having enough time do do any "serious" caching since we had to check out at 11:00 AM and it was not light out until 7:30 AM, and we still needed to eat, get cleaned up and pack up the van) to do my caching and while it was not an expedition like I am used to, I did manage to get several before we left.
We hit the road around 10:30 or so and made pretty good time to the beach house in Cape San Blas. We had used this house last year and mostly liked it. A couple of downers were no Internet or mobile phone service and some maintenance issues (broken patio door and the overall cleanliness of the place) but those were mostly fixed this year. The owner now has wireless broadband and he fixed the broken patio door handle. The house in places was still not as clean as we would like, but overall it was better than last time.
One of the first things we noticed when we pulled in was a lot of standing water by the main road (SR-30E) and at the end of the cul de sac on which the house resides. The boardwalk was cut off from the homes by a large (make that huge) and deep pool of standing water. There were two sump pumps running 24x7 to pump the water out of the low spots but they had been running for over a week and the water never seemed to go down. We later learned that the last named storm that came through the area dumped a ton of water and it had yet to dissipate.
We got out of the van and were immediately attacked by swarms of mosquitoes. We were not pleased and wondered if our vacation was going to be ruined. Flooding, mosquitoes, and a long drive to pretty much any food, store or attraction did not sit well with us. My wife was visibly upset.
We were both tired and after we unpacked and made a well meaning, but futile attempt at getting to the beach, we turned in for hopefully a good night's sleep.
We awoke the next morning and I took our dog out to do her thing (after I slathered all natural bug juice on me). I walked over to the next cul de sac via the secondary boardwalk and noticed that it was flooded as well. I also noticed that the empty lot next to that cul de sac had not been improved upon since we were here 18 months ago. A local informed me that the developers went bankrupt and the bank has been looking for buyers for a long time. Not only did they go bankrupt, but the developers also had most of the tress cut down (some were not even theirs, but other property owners) removing a natural wind break that contributed to the damage from the last storm. The boardwalk that the developers were supposed to build that allowed access to the beach was never built so with this new flooding, everyone suffered with no quick way to the beach.
After speaking to a couple of locals and getting the low down on things (including the location of public access that was not flooded just about a mile away) I went back in the house to grab some breakfast. I filled my wife in on my findings and after breakfast we headed down to the public access.
We we arrived (with our dog), we noticed the park area was flooded as well...actually pretty bad. I have some pics I can post when I get more time. We were beginning to think that the locals were wrong about the access here but then I spotted a path leading to another part of the park and some additional parking and that area was 90% clear. We headed over and found that we could get to the beach from this location. Problem solved. While not ideal, it would work for a week.
Now that we had a way to the beach, we used that every morning and every evening to take 2-3 mile walks each time. Our dog (an older Golden Retriever mix) joined us about half the time. We would have taken her more but the walks were hard on her and the sand burrs were plentiful.
Each day my wife and I would pick a direction and drive to some small town to eat lunch and see the sights. The old coast has a lot of them to chose from and we decided to go to the closest ones on this trip. Things did not always go as planned but we did have a pretty good time and I was able to do some geocaching on our outings.
Our outings included trips to Apalachicola (known as Apalach to the locals), Port St. Joe, Wewahitchka (known as Wewa to the locals), St. George Island (known as SGI to the locals), and Carrabelle. Out of the six trips to little towns, we ended up eating in Apalach four times. The food there is really good. Wewa did not have much and neither did Carrabelle. SGI may have had some places that were okay but on that day we had decided to eat in Apalach so we did not look. Overall we had seafood for lunch each day and we cooked dinner that evening at home. It helped on the budget to do that.
By the time we left the beach to return home to Texas, the water had gone down enough that we could walk to the boardwalk from the rental but the water on the other side of the dunes was still forming a swamp so we could not take that route in concern for snakes.
Our trip back to Texas was uneventful. The rain followed us to MS again so that evening was a soggy mess. I did manage to get out the next morning to geocache a little, but I only got three. Once we hit the road it was smooth sailing all the way back to Dallas.
I took some pics, many which are on my Facebook page and a few I may post here. We enjoyed the stay despite the fact that the ground was soggy and flooded in places. It was not the best vacation, but it was not bad. Like all vacations, it went by too quickly but at least when I went back to work I was not on call. That pleasure comes next week.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Sadly, I Have Slacked Off, Yet Again.
I am not sure why I have so much trouble updating this blog on a regular basis. I normally have enough time to read news, browse Facebook, read my mail, work, be a decent husband, and keep my commitments to our church but sadly I let this blog go untouched for weeks at a time. No excuses. I am slacking off.
Time does not stand still just because my blog goes idle for extended lengths of time. My life rolls on and things continue to change all around me. I am not sure where to begin but I guess I can start with an update on the hobby I am passionate about, Geocaching. If you have been here before you know all about what Geocaching is so I will not bore you with the details. For those who are new, skip on over to www.geocaching.com and read a bit. You may find yourself a new hobby!
About a month or so ago I received an e-mail from a new geocacher having trouble with one of my harder caches. Being new, I was trying to be helpful but not give anything away. Long story short, he eventually found the 2 stage multi I own and we became friends. He and I have been out caching a couple of times and once more with one of his friends from church who was interested. Wayne (my new geocaching friend) is a Christian and has good values. His wife and mine share the same first name and we both are in the same basic age group (although he is a tad older than I am). But oddly enough, if we did not share the bond of Christ, I doubt that I would have befriended him (I can tell you right now this blog is going to rabbit trail quite a bit...I can see it coming! If you cannot stand blogs that do that, I am sorry but I have to tell this as I remember it).
You see, I have another friend, Allen, who is a geocacher and also a fellow Christian and we are much more alike when it comes to geocaching. Both Allen and I like the harder, more challenging caches. Long, strenuous hikes, river crossings, dangerous tree climbs...we live for those things. The one area where Allen and I majorly differ in our geocaching style is that he loves puzzle caches and for the most part, puzzle caches annoy the crap out of me. But I digress.
Wayne is just the opposite. Wayne is more into urban caching where the only real exercise you get is walking from your car to GZ of the cache. While he and I have gone and walked a few times (3 miles or less), he made it clear that he is not partial to those kinds of geocacaches. Nonetheless, we still have gone out and cached together (once his style and twice mine although the one of his turned out to have a 1 mile hike involved). Why? Do I love the sport so much that I overlook mine and Wayne's differences? Maybe but I want to cover that a bit later.
Our first time out together, we went to Oak Point Nature Preserve in Plano to hike the new section they just recently opened up. One of the newer cachers (NatureNed) hid several that I was just itching to try to find. The trek would cover about 3 miles on a warm August day. Wayne did not have any of the waypoints loaded in his GPSr, so he tried using his iPhone to cache. He was not overly successful but he did manage to spot the caches shortly after I did. However he made it clear that he was tired and hot and needed to get something to drink. I understood. Wayne, while close to my age, is 50 and not in the best of shape. What he lacks in stamina, he does however make up with a lot of heart.
The next time that we went out, I told Wayne that we would do some easier stuff. So since there were several new caches along a paved hiking/biking trail in our little city, I suggested that we get those. The total walk was about two miles but Wayne was not really into the actual hike. He suggested we go back a drive to the caches but I convinced him to trek on. He made it and we again stopped for cold drinks before parting ways.
I was beginning to think he and I were not really going to click but the following week Wayne called me up and invited me to his church's men's breakfast. I thought it would be a great thing to meet more Christian men so I agreed. After breakfast, Wayne stated that one of the guys who was at the breakfast was interested in Geocaching and wanted to tag along with us if we went out. I told Wayne I was game and we decided to cache in West Richardson since that was one area I had not been in yet. Scott joined Wayne and I on a short two hour caching run that netted him five geocaches. By the time we found his last one, he was getting good at spotting them. It turns out that he and the rest of his family have been bitten by the geocaching bug and are now hooked. Welcome to the insanity, Scott!
Scott had an appointment that he could not miss so we drove him back to his car and Wayne and I took off to grab a few more caches. I was getting dangerously close to a milestone of 1500 finds and I wanted it to be memorable. I had picked out one and we drove around picking up caches until we grabbed 1499, then we headed off to get number 1500.
Number 1500 turned out to be a bit of hike for Wayne (.5 mile up and .5 back...1 mile round trip) in warm weather, but he made it okay. Actually if not for him I may not have been able to get this cache as he had one very important tool that made retrieval much easier. After getting number 1500 (a 4.5/4.5 out of 5/5 hide) I dropped him off and went on my way. Now to hop on that rabbit trail.
While I like geocaching (okay, I LOVE geocaching), I doubt I would spend my timing doing it with someone I did not like UNLESS there was a greater bond. In this case Wayne and I are very different. While he is not a fan of puzzle caches (like me) he has no desire to hike or take longer walks to grab caches...something I like to do. Instead, we pair up because the bible commands us to love each other. If I were not a Christian, I would not want to be around Wayne because we are very different. However scripture tends to command us to do things that are against our nature: Love our enemies, for meant to love their wives and for wives to respect their husbands, turn away from the lure of the flesh, etc. So with that in mind, I put aside my desires and focus more on others. When Wayne wants to geocache, I ask him where he wants to go and what he is looking for in a cache. And the same goes for Wayne. While he is far from in shape, he pushed on because he was respecting me.
That is what Christianity is all about...relationships. God commands us to have peaceful relationships with others just as we have one with him.
By the way, number 1500 cache "Mollydawg's Retrieval Nightmare" was a collaborative effort. I had some things Wayne needed, he had a few things I needed, and we both worked to retrieve the cache which is well worth the difficulty level (but I feel the terrain is over rated...it really should be no more than a 3 in my opinion). He felt a degree of satisfaction knowing he was part of the process to get a 4.5/4/5 cache he (nor I) would have ever gotten alone.
Time does not stand still just because my blog goes idle for extended lengths of time. My life rolls on and things continue to change all around me. I am not sure where to begin but I guess I can start with an update on the hobby I am passionate about, Geocaching. If you have been here before you know all about what Geocaching is so I will not bore you with the details. For those who are new, skip on over to www.geocaching.com and read a bit. You may find yourself a new hobby!
About a month or so ago I received an e-mail from a new geocacher having trouble with one of my harder caches. Being new, I was trying to be helpful but not give anything away. Long story short, he eventually found the 2 stage multi I own and we became friends. He and I have been out caching a couple of times and once more with one of his friends from church who was interested. Wayne (my new geocaching friend) is a Christian and has good values. His wife and mine share the same first name and we both are in the same basic age group (although he is a tad older than I am). But oddly enough, if we did not share the bond of Christ, I doubt that I would have befriended him (I can tell you right now this blog is going to rabbit trail quite a bit...I can see it coming! If you cannot stand blogs that do that, I am sorry but I have to tell this as I remember it).
You see, I have another friend, Allen, who is a geocacher and also a fellow Christian and we are much more alike when it comes to geocaching. Both Allen and I like the harder, more challenging caches. Long, strenuous hikes, river crossings, dangerous tree climbs...we live for those things. The one area where Allen and I majorly differ in our geocaching style is that he loves puzzle caches and for the most part, puzzle caches annoy the crap out of me. But I digress.
Wayne is just the opposite. Wayne is more into urban caching where the only real exercise you get is walking from your car to GZ of the cache. While he and I have gone and walked a few times (3 miles or less), he made it clear that he is not partial to those kinds of geocacaches. Nonetheless, we still have gone out and cached together (once his style and twice mine although the one of his turned out to have a 1 mile hike involved). Why? Do I love the sport so much that I overlook mine and Wayne's differences? Maybe but I want to cover that a bit later.
Our first time out together, we went to Oak Point Nature Preserve in Plano to hike the new section they just recently opened up. One of the newer cachers (NatureNed) hid several that I was just itching to try to find. The trek would cover about 3 miles on a warm August day. Wayne did not have any of the waypoints loaded in his GPSr, so he tried using his iPhone to cache. He was not overly successful but he did manage to spot the caches shortly after I did. However he made it clear that he was tired and hot and needed to get something to drink. I understood. Wayne, while close to my age, is 50 and not in the best of shape. What he lacks in stamina, he does however make up with a lot of heart.
The next time that we went out, I told Wayne that we would do some easier stuff. So since there were several new caches along a paved hiking/biking trail in our little city, I suggested that we get those. The total walk was about two miles but Wayne was not really into the actual hike. He suggested we go back a drive to the caches but I convinced him to trek on. He made it and we again stopped for cold drinks before parting ways.
I was beginning to think he and I were not really going to click but the following week Wayne called me up and invited me to his church's men's breakfast. I thought it would be a great thing to meet more Christian men so I agreed. After breakfast, Wayne stated that one of the guys who was at the breakfast was interested in Geocaching and wanted to tag along with us if we went out. I told Wayne I was game and we decided to cache in West Richardson since that was one area I had not been in yet. Scott joined Wayne and I on a short two hour caching run that netted him five geocaches. By the time we found his last one, he was getting good at spotting them. It turns out that he and the rest of his family have been bitten by the geocaching bug and are now hooked. Welcome to the insanity, Scott!
Scott had an appointment that he could not miss so we drove him back to his car and Wayne and I took off to grab a few more caches. I was getting dangerously close to a milestone of 1500 finds and I wanted it to be memorable. I had picked out one and we drove around picking up caches until we grabbed 1499, then we headed off to get number 1500.
Number 1500 turned out to be a bit of hike for Wayne (.5 mile up and .5 back...1 mile round trip) in warm weather, but he made it okay. Actually if not for him I may not have been able to get this cache as he had one very important tool that made retrieval much easier. After getting number 1500 (a 4.5/4.5 out of 5/5 hide) I dropped him off and went on my way. Now to hop on that rabbit trail.
While I like geocaching (okay, I LOVE geocaching), I doubt I would spend my timing doing it with someone I did not like UNLESS there was a greater bond. In this case Wayne and I are very different. While he is not a fan of puzzle caches (like me) he has no desire to hike or take longer walks to grab caches...something I like to do. Instead, we pair up because the bible commands us to love each other. If I were not a Christian, I would not want to be around Wayne because we are very different. However scripture tends to command us to do things that are against our nature: Love our enemies, for meant to love their wives and for wives to respect their husbands, turn away from the lure of the flesh, etc. So with that in mind, I put aside my desires and focus more on others. When Wayne wants to geocache, I ask him where he wants to go and what he is looking for in a cache. And the same goes for Wayne. While he is far from in shape, he pushed on because he was respecting me.
That is what Christianity is all about...relationships. God commands us to have peaceful relationships with others just as we have one with him.
By the way, number 1500 cache "Mollydawg's Retrieval Nightmare" was a collaborative effort. I had some things Wayne needed, he had a few things I needed, and we both worked to retrieve the cache which is well worth the difficulty level (but I feel the terrain is over rated...it really should be no more than a 3 in my opinion). He felt a degree of satisfaction knowing he was part of the process to get a 4.5/4/5 cache he (nor I) would have ever gotten alone.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Okay, I Just Need To Vent
Or "went" as one of my Swedish co-workers would say.
Sometimes IT can be fun, like when we get new technology to play with, but much of the time it can be a real downer. It is often a thankless job trying to make an often fickle OS play nice with the network. But we do it because thanks to Bill Gates, we have steady (well, as steady as it can be nowadays...) employment.
Sometimes we get an IT request that is so absurd, you are tempted to think it is a joke. Today, that happened. This is a true story. But before I can tell it, I have to give you a little background info, first.
The company I work for has many customers. The group I work with supports just one customer, one of the largest in their industry. This company has made a habit of buying up smaller companies that has technology it wants. Once purchased, the employees are absorbed or laid off. The assimilated employees usually go through culture shock as they try to grasp the way the parent company does business. You see, since they were smaller companies, they had their own IT department, local and on site, that did everything that was requested of them. As a matter of fact out of the three companies my customer has acquired in the past three years, two of them had IT departments two to five times larger than the industry standard. Needless to say, the mgmt of those companies were used to a little more "personal" support than what is normally offered. In other words, they are spoiled.
Now that they are part of the parent company, their local IT is mostly gone. The mgmt of these smaller companies now have to call the help desk like all the other employees. This is where my story begins.
A mid level manager from one of the acquired companies calls one of his local people for help. The local guy, not having any permissions to support IT like he used to can't really do much for the manager and tells him he will have to call the help desk. The manager goes ballistic. He wants to speak to a support person *NOW* and not the help desk. The local IT guy calls the account manager and tells him he needs help. Trying to make a good impression, the account manager passes the info on to my team (the wrong group to send it to since we only deal major high severity issues) and my colleague, being the good natured guy he is, calls the mid level manager. No answer. It turns out that he is traveling and is not in the office. Now worries, my colleague calls his mobile phone. Voice mail. He tries two more times and leaves messages. A couple of hours go by and my colleague gets a call from the local IT guy. My colleague and the local IT guy chat for a while and come to find out that the mid level manager has not called the help desk at all and does not have a ticket for his request. My colleague informs the local IT (remember, the local IT guy does not work for us...he works for our customer and does not have any admin permissions to their network) he needs to open a ticket to the laptop support team and they will contact the mid level manager directly. So instead of the actual customer opening the ticket, the local IT guy opens it for him with absolutely NO usable information in the ticket. No error message, nothing. There is not even a good description of the problem. Then we get the bombshell when we read the worklog of the ticket:
Ticket says, "Do not call him directly. You will have to have tech support call me (local IT guy) and give me the number they will be calling from. I will then forward this info to the customer so he can screen the calls.". It is also noted in the ticket that the mid-level manager is not to be contacted by anyone who is not the tech who can solve the case...he does not want his time wasted.
Our customer has purchased what is known as "VIP support". It is very special, dedicated support for the CEO, VP, and high level executives. Basically it gives them a local IT guy on call 24x7. At one time, local sites would submit people to be on the VIP list and since the pricing is per VIP, a large list became rather expensive, so our customer trimmed that list back to just a little over a hundred names (mind you they have well over 50,000 employees). Most upper management is excluded from that list so there is no chance a mid-level manager would be on it. But that is what this guy is expecting.
Now don't get me wrong. I don't want to see anyone go without support, but our customer has purchased a certain level of support and processes to match and that does not include anyone who thinks they are too good to talk to a help desk person the right to demand their own personal IT staff. Heck, I work in IT and I have to call the help desk when I have issues I cannot solve or do not have permissions to solve. Would I be happier with calling a Unix or Windows admin or the network guys directly? Sure I would, but I know I have to follow the rules. So does Mister mid-level manager.
I told my boss he is darn lucky my good natured colleague got the call and not me. I would have just told the guy (as politely as possible) that we had a help desk and he should learn to use it.
Okay, I feel better. On to the next bit of insanity that is called "my job".
Sometimes IT can be fun, like when we get new technology to play with, but much of the time it can be a real downer. It is often a thankless job trying to make an often fickle OS play nice with the network. But we do it because thanks to Bill Gates, we have steady (well, as steady as it can be nowadays...) employment.
Sometimes we get an IT request that is so absurd, you are tempted to think it is a joke. Today, that happened. This is a true story. But before I can tell it, I have to give you a little background info, first.
The company I work for has many customers. The group I work with supports just one customer, one of the largest in their industry. This company has made a habit of buying up smaller companies that has technology it wants. Once purchased, the employees are absorbed or laid off. The assimilated employees usually go through culture shock as they try to grasp the way the parent company does business. You see, since they were smaller companies, they had their own IT department, local and on site, that did everything that was requested of them. As a matter of fact out of the three companies my customer has acquired in the past three years, two of them had IT departments two to five times larger than the industry standard. Needless to say, the mgmt of those companies were used to a little more "personal" support than what is normally offered. In other words, they are spoiled.
Now that they are part of the parent company, their local IT is mostly gone. The mgmt of these smaller companies now have to call the help desk like all the other employees. This is where my story begins.
A mid level manager from one of the acquired companies calls one of his local people for help. The local guy, not having any permissions to support IT like he used to can't really do much for the manager and tells him he will have to call the help desk. The manager goes ballistic. He wants to speak to a support person *NOW* and not the help desk. The local IT guy calls the account manager and tells him he needs help. Trying to make a good impression, the account manager passes the info on to my team (the wrong group to send it to since we only deal major high severity issues) and my colleague, being the good natured guy he is, calls the mid level manager. No answer. It turns out that he is traveling and is not in the office. Now worries, my colleague calls his mobile phone. Voice mail. He tries two more times and leaves messages. A couple of hours go by and my colleague gets a call from the local IT guy. My colleague and the local IT guy chat for a while and come to find out that the mid level manager has not called the help desk at all and does not have a ticket for his request. My colleague informs the local IT (remember, the local IT guy does not work for us...he works for our customer and does not have any admin permissions to their network) he needs to open a ticket to the laptop support team and they will contact the mid level manager directly. So instead of the actual customer opening the ticket, the local IT guy opens it for him with absolutely NO usable information in the ticket. No error message, nothing. There is not even a good description of the problem. Then we get the bombshell when we read the worklog of the ticket:
Ticket says, "Do not call him directly. You will have to have tech support call me (local IT guy) and give me the number they will be calling from. I will then forward this info to the customer so he can screen the calls.". It is also noted in the ticket that the mid-level manager is not to be contacted by anyone who is not the tech who can solve the case...he does not want his time wasted.
Our customer has purchased what is known as "VIP support". It is very special, dedicated support for the CEO, VP, and high level executives. Basically it gives them a local IT guy on call 24x7. At one time, local sites would submit people to be on the VIP list and since the pricing is per VIP, a large list became rather expensive, so our customer trimmed that list back to just a little over a hundred names (mind you they have well over 50,000 employees). Most upper management is excluded from that list so there is no chance a mid-level manager would be on it. But that is what this guy is expecting.
Now don't get me wrong. I don't want to see anyone go without support, but our customer has purchased a certain level of support and processes to match and that does not include anyone who thinks they are too good to talk to a help desk person the right to demand their own personal IT staff. Heck, I work in IT and I have to call the help desk when I have issues I cannot solve or do not have permissions to solve. Would I be happier with calling a Unix or Windows admin or the network guys directly? Sure I would, but I know I have to follow the rules. So does Mister mid-level manager.
I told my boss he is darn lucky my good natured colleague got the call and not me. I would have just told the guy (as politely as possible) that we had a help desk and he should learn to use it.
Okay, I feel better. On to the next bit of insanity that is called "my job".
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