Life updates

Gus
So I believe that Gus is fully recovered from his various "accidents" earlier this month. November was one hell of a ride for him and me both! I think he's gained back most of the weight he had lost when on his restricted diet. Just a few days ago we had a great time playing around in the snow.

Me
I am procrastinating way too much with my school work. I have a paper due on Monday and I haven't even brainstormed for it yet. Slacking slacking slacking. I've been doing a little better in keeping up with the reading, but I still don't have everything read (and probably won't) that I needed to for this semester. Oh well... maybe I'll catch up on it over the winter break.

Work is going decently. Most of my projects are finished, so I'm wasting away with very little to work on, so keep trying to find things to while away my time on. I know that I should be very thankful for this downtime, because when I am a real, live functioning academic librarian I will never be able to claim a lack of things to do. :-)

Random
Has anyone noticed the recent trend of females wearing boots with either shorts or skirts in our wintry months? I think I've seen more boots in the last 3 weeks than at any other point in my life. I have come up with some basic categories:

Boot
-Furry boot
-Fitted boot
-Slouch boot
-Tasseled boot
-Uggs

Lower body covering worn with boot
-Short shorts
-Short skirt
-Denim?
-Skort (those still exist?)
-Capri

Upper body covering worn with said boots
-University logo sweatshirt
-Other stupid sweatshirt
-Tanktop
-Camsiole
-Arctic-grade parka with rabbit trim
-Skater/snowboarder hoodie sweatshirt
-Thermal long-sleeve shirt

Optional accessories suitable for any above combination
-Schoolgirl socks
-Leg warmers
-Tights
-Opaque pantyhose (seriously..)
-Sweatpants (extra points for a "YUM!" emblazoned on the butt)

What are these young women thinking? They will take any one item from each category and mix at will. Where does it say this is alright? Can you imagine sweatpants tucked into black suede boots with stiletto heel and very furry upper trim, with a scandilously short denim skirt on top and a sparkly sequined camisole? Yes, I actually saw this! Why...why...why??

Oh yeah, the old pictures...

It completely didn't cross my mind to post the URL for my web albums that I was referring to in my prior e-mail:

http://picasaweb.google.com/michaeljbaird

Enjoy!!!

old pictures found

So today I finally started playing with the newer features that Google has packed into its Picasa software--one of which is uploading to a web album that can be shared publicly or just with friends. While doing this I ran across some pictures that I had taken when Kim and I took a spontaneous trip to the beach at Lincoln City to watch the sun set. I particularly liked this one:

Web 2.0? It's like pushing digital paper...

So I've been thinking a lot about technology and the cool things it does for us. All of the web 2.0 technologies allow us to track and interact with things in totally new ways, allowing for much easier and natural interactions via technology. However, I wonder at what price is this coming? These are things that most of us simply did not do previously, so we are giving up even more of our limited time to do more new things.

So if you keep a blog or two, contribute to a few wiki's, bookmark your favorite and even not-so-favorite sites using a service like del.icio.us, how is this adding up in hours per day? Per week? Per year? I know that I used to bookmark a LOT in my regular browser window, but did I ever use those bookmarks? Nope! There are only a few that were ever useful. Along this same vein, did I ever keep a diary or journal before? Nope. I've figured out that I now spend about 2-4 hours per week just maintaining my blogs, wikis, and social bookmarks. This doesn't even include the blogs and wikis of others that I read on a regular basis. Maybe another 2-4 hours per week?

So, 4-8 hours per week that wasn't there before. Is it worth it? Is my life more enriched? What am I not doing in order to do these things?

The answer? Homework!

saga: prematurely concluded

So on Monday I was playing with Gus and he had a bit of an accident. I threw his toy up into the air and he jumped to catch it, but came down on his right rear leg in an odd position and then crumpled on the floor, yelping and whining. I immediately freaked out, but after a few minutes he got up on his feet, while favoring the hurt leg and was walking around okay. About 10 minutes later he was putting weight on it, so I thought I'd go to work and then see how he was doing when i came home on my break. I came home and all appeared fine.

Tuesday morning, I get up and Gus is limping around, holding his rear right leg up while standing. Great, right? Soooo, I call the vet's office and see if they can get him in for a last minute appointment. We do a full exam with all sorts of pulling and prodding at his legs and hips. At first thought, the vet considered that the injury was the doggy equivalent of an ACL tear. Luckily, it wasn't. This would've been very very expensive to fix. They want to put him under anesthesia and take a bunch of x-rays to pinpoint the exact problem. Ok, fine.

Before they can put him under I have to sign a form that basically says if he dies, it's not their fault. And, if he goes into cardiac arrest, do I want them to attempt resuscitation by extreme measures? I don't want to be a jerk, but I simply could not afford that type of medical care... $15,000 later....

So they put him under and do the x-rays and I pick him up and he's REALLY happy to see me. On the plus side, he got mad at one of the vet techs and expelled his anal glands all over her. Luckily, that was one service I didn't have to pay for. :-) They sent the radiographs off to a canine radiologist to be tested and everything looked peachy except for some fluid where his right leg is socketed to his hip and maybe a touch of osteoarthritis.

So, it looks like Gus is going to live. Hurray! In the meantime, he's on anti-inflammatory medication for a week and restricted to only leash-walking for at least 2 weeks.

How much was this lesson worth? $367 to the vet clinic. Seriously Gus, you're starting to dip into my NYC trip / Christmas slush fund. I may resent this.

saga: concluding?

[Apparently I left this in my draft folder, it should be dated 11/12/2006]

The drama appears to be settling down. For a few days anyway.

I took Gus to the vet on Friday morning and there was not a conclusive diagnosis, just that he had ingested something toxic and had severe reactions to it. Nothing showed in the blood panel, urinalysis, or stool sample. The vet said that if he had ingested a very small amount of mushroom (most types are all toxic for dogs) that it would be plenty to make him very sick, but still not show up. He's now on some good meds and is receiving special moist food for a week to get his digestive system back on track.

What was this worth? $167.50 to the vet clinic. Gus, you're glad I like you.

saga: continued

So I go home each day on my dinner break so I can hang out at my apartment and take Gus out to go potty. My main reason is to take Gus out to go potty. I usually take this break somewhere between 8-11 pm, it just depends on how busy we are and when I can break away from the desk.

Tonight I get home.. open the door .. and ... COW PATTIES ALL OVER MY LIVING ROOM!!! You might ask yourself, "how could cows get into Michael's apartment?" "Not very easily" should be the appropriate response, but I have a 140 lb. great dane named Gus that kind of looks like a cow and apparently his explosive diahhrea resembles cow droppings. There were SIX cow patties in my living room. Big. Really. Big. Ranging from six inches across to about twelve inches across. I almost cried.

Oh, and did I mention that it STUNK? Yep. It did. Poor Gus looked like he thought I was going to beat him with a sledgehammer. Poor guy, it's not his fault at all, he's just not feeling well. I can't figure out what the hell caused this mess, I didn't leave *anything* food-related out where he could get it, and I don't notice anything else missing...so I'm positive it wasn't something he had eaten.

And one more gem of information. One of the small patties landed where? INSIDE one of my new running shoes. I feel disgusting. My apartment is disgusting.

This made my dinner break of a normal one hour turn into two and a half hours. I went back to work, got home, let Gus outside and he darted toward a grassy area and kept squatting and walking for about 10 minutes. Then he comes inside and starts throwing up on everything and then dry heaving. GOOD LORD WHEN WILL IT END?!

In the meantime, my ear hurts and and my jaw hurts and I'm tired and I just want to go to bed.

This could qualify as one of the worst days ever.

the ear: revealed

So, have you ever wondered what happens when an earlobe gets infected? I'm so disgusting....

Sick sick sick

Apparently my dutiful storage of karma has backfired on me. Let's review:

Cons:
Last week I had one tooth extracted
Last Thursday my last wisdom tooth decided to make its debut
I've been on vicodin since Thursday because of that wisdom tooth
Yesterday I started getting a really bad sore throat
Today I called in sick to work because I'm completely miserable
There is practically a torrential storm raging outside my apartment

The pros?

I did get to stay home from work, Gus is much happier with me home, I am catching up on sleep, as well as STNG. Now I'm hungry and nothing in my apartment looks good.....

So the trip to the dentist was fairly successful. The procedure went super quick and the dentist was very happy with it. The Bio-Oss stuff is basically a bunch of little bitty bone shards from Swiss cows that apparently have some very special legal rights. Who knew?

Yesterday I had a bit of a scare because the super glue stuff that they put on top of the sutures was lifting up, and taking the sutures with them. I had a bit of a panic moment and scheduled an impromptu appointment today and as it turns out everything is just fine. As usual, I overreacted, but with this sort of thing I felt it was better to be safe about it.

Now I have a 6-9 month wait before the bio-oss treatment has completely done its job and my jaw is normal, then I'll visit the oral surgeon to get a little titanium bracket installed and then wait another 3-6 months for that to settle in before my new implant tooth is ready to be installed. Quite a process, huh? :-)

Until next time...