Holiday Marketing 101

It’s nice to see that even the drug dealers among us can get into the holiday spirit.

Five Marietta, Ohio residents were arrested this week for
selling crack cocaine that was dyed green in honour of St. Patrick’s Day.

“I don’t know if they’re Irish or not,” Washington County Sheriff Larry R. Mincks said of the suspects. “They could be, I suppose. Or maybe they just wanted to celebrate the holiday.”

The sheriff says this isn’t the first time police have caught people with holiday themed drugs. A few years earlier, some red crack was confiscated during the Christmas season.

You Will Be Receiving A Female Black Lab And Her Name Is…

Do you know what today is? Believe it or not, today is the first anniversary of the day that Trixie came into my life. I know I wrote a journal entry for the day, but so much was going on that I couldn’t capture the amount of detail that I wanted to. So now that a year has gone by, I’ll try again.

I think I was able to convey the apprehension I was feeling when I wrote that morning. It was my new start, but would I be able to do it right this time? I had told myself I could, but now that it came down to it, could I?

All morning the instructors were teasing us. They knew how badly we wanted our dogs, so they kept saying later and later times when they would come. Of course we knew the truth, because the schedule said so, so we knew they were just yanking our chains, har har. They kept joking that they hadn’t taught them certain commands, so we were in trouble, that they weren’t in the kennels, that they forgot them somewhere, just to play with us. Those jerks!

I can’t even remember what lunch was that day. I did write it down, but you can tell that wasn’t the first thing on my mind. I remember how Frank was late and we were all so ancy.

At the very last second before I got her, I thought the dumbest things. What if it had a name of one of my relatives? What if, fluke of flukes, they named it Steve? A dog named Steve would be weird, but you never know. Or worse, what if it had a hideous name and I had to walk around for 8 or 9 years calling it something truly stupid? Then another part of me slapped myself and said stop being such an enormous tool. Whatever its name is, it will be great and you’ll love it because it’s your guide dog.

Finally, they started giving us the names. I couldn’t believe mine came first! The way they’re written down on that entry is how they were given. “carin,” they said. “You will be receiving a female blakc lab and her name is Trixie. T r i x i e.”

As soon as mine was spoken, all the air in the room suddenly felt thicker in my lungs. It was hard to breathe, and harder to concentrate enough to write down the other puppies’ names. Trixie! Trixie is my guide dog.

I had to grin, because both dogs I’d had did have a connection to friends of mine. Some people had nicknamed Barb Babs, and Jen had a cat named Trixie. So Trixie is it. I thought to myself, that’s a pretty cute name. I can deal with Trixie.

I can’t really remember much after the names were stated. I think they told us all to go back to our rooms and they would come and get us and take us individually to either the music room or the library to meet our dogs. They wanted us to meet our dogs in a separate place than our bedroom so we could meet the dog privately without our room-mate being there, I guess in case we might cry or something.

So, I went back to the room in a complete fog. I think I picked up the phone and called at least Steve and Barb. I don’t think I called my parents because they wouldn’t have been home to hear the news. But whoever I called, I don’t think I made much sense and there was a lot of sputtering and stammering and talk of how hard I was shaking and how I couldn’t breathe. Maybe Steve can fill in the gaps in my foggy memory.

After what seemed like an eternity, but I don’t think it was as long as I waited for Babs, they came for…autumn! Doh! I had to wait longer. I’m pretty sure Autumn came back to the room with a very waggly-tailed Beauty first. I waited, and I waited, and I saw how well beauty sat and heeled, and I prayed I would have the same luck.

Then they came for me! The journey to the music room was a very short one because I was moving so fast. As I passed the nurse at lightning speed, she said, “So Carin, you’re off to get your chihuahua, eh? Didn’t they tell you you’re getting a chihuahua?” Har har, hadn’t I heard that one before. Everyone joked I was going to get a chihuahua or a shih tzu, or on the other end of the spectrum, a great dane that I could ride. A St. Bernard was also a popular choice of saddle up and ride type dog.

I walked into the music room and sat down on one of the couches, so excited. I had my leash with me, and over came Trixie on another leash. You know what’s sad? I can’t even remember which instructor gave her to me. I just remember her saying “This is trixie.” She described her height, weight, birthday, and a few other details like the texture of her fur and how it got curly in spots. We then put my leash on her, and Trixie lay down in front of me and showed me her belly!

At first I didn’t know what to do. I was scared, because Trixie was slightly heavier than Babs, and I knew how hard Babs could pull. I was trying not to be too excited, since Trixie didn’t know me from anywhere, and I didn’t want to scare her. The instructor finally said “Are you happy with her?” Of course I said yes! I was happy. Scared of this new beginning, but happy! But I was paranoid even before we left the room. She started moving her head and I thought she was licking the floor, and I started to check if she had something. I didn’t open her mouth, I wasn’t ready for that yet, just checked where it was going. It turns out she was licking her own belly, but I was sure she was trying to eat. I remember the instructor saying “That’s good that you’re monitoring her head!” Well, after Babs, wouldn’t you?

The next few minutes are another fog for me. I left the music room, walked back to my room, and sat on the floor with Trixie. I petted her and talked to her…but she just kept staring into the hall! I forget why I didn’t shut my door. That would have been a way to remove some of that distraction. but I didn’t, and she would stare into the hall. She would stare and whine, whine and stare. I think I finally did shut the dor, but then she would just stare at it, it and Beauty, and whine some more. I was terrified she didn’t care about me at all. Well, why would she? I was just some random person. How would she know she was coming home with me? Plus, she’s such a curious dog that of course she had to have her eyes on everything.

After we had all had some bonding time with our new dogs, they came for us to take us out one by one to do heeling practice down the hall. They never did that in Ottawa. That seems to be a familiar refrain this week. I remember when they took Trixie and I out, there was no leash burn! Every time she’d get a little fast, we would stop, say “heel”, give a correction, and back she’d come. I remember being amazed at how good the collars were compared to my experience with Babs. This was a full training collar, where Babs’s collar was something called a Martingale collar I think. So half was chain and half was cloth. No wonder the corrections were no good!

I don’t have clear memories of the evening. I remember I fed her, and she ate slower than Babs who made it look like I was starving her by the speed at which she wolfed her food. She relieved and did it quickly, much quicker than Babs. There was much chattering on the phone. Did I send the big email yet? I don’t remember. Yes, yes I did. I did manage to write that down in the journal. I know I went to visit Amy, and Trixie threw herself at Dynamo. I know I walked to the nurse’s office for something for Autumn. What was it? I honestly don’t remember. I think that all happened the first night. And that was a year ago today.

Back when I bought the Musher’s Secret, I bought a special toy that I was going to present to her today. Well, I did, and in true Trixie fashion, she’s already mangled one end of it! Lord! At least it’s not completely destroyed, I’ve just learned a few things. She did enjoy it though, so I guess that’s all that matters.

Happy first anniversary together, Trixter. Although it’s not the first anniversary of us being a team, I still think dog day is a pretty special landmark. I hope we have many more of these.

The Babs Journal: Day 6 (May 14, 2005

I apologize for not being as animated the last two days in my writing. It looked more like a captain’s log than a journal. It’s just so hard to fit it all in and remember everything and all that.

Well, I’m not as tired as I thought I’d be today since I didn’t make it to bed until midnight. And woohoo, there were no doodoos on my floor. No doodoos or piddle puddles either. She was comfortable on her doggy bed, and when I came to the door, she sprang up like the attentive little woofer puppy that she is. then she went back to her bed. I love that about her. All I have to do to get her up is grab the leash or make like I will and she’s up and standing and waiting. When I hold the collar down, she does a little ballet dance around it and then puts her own head in it, shakes it a little, and voila, we’re attached and connected and ready to go.

That didn’t last long. Soon, she’d rather run from me than too me.

Wow Babs just scared the bejesus out of me. She made sounds like she was gonna puke all over the floor. But she didn’t. Phew. I’m still like a new mom with her baby. The slightest abnormal noise and I’m right there.

Anyway, this morning I got up all groggy at 6 in the morning. I have to lay real still if I don’t want her to get up yet. One conscious movement and she’s on me like white on rice.

Tie-downs, how I love thee.

It’s cold and rainy today eeewww. And we have to go out in the rain for a big ass stroll. But somehow that doesn’t bother me.

We did obstacle avoidance.

We should have been going through obstacles every day, not at the end of the first week, especially since there were only 12 or so days left.

That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. We ziggedy zagged through all the obstacles and I didn’t hit a damn thing. Oh I was so impressed with her…so much so that I took her in and groomed her. That was fun, as always.

She’s so good to me when she’s on the grooming table. I can walk across the room and she’ll just sit there. She was good to me in the lounge too…I washed the dishes from our doughnuts and my hot chocolate mug and she didn’t move a muscle, even with other dogs moving around.

My watch decided to die…I really hope it’s just the battery. Arg. Hate that. I rely on that thing to keep on time.

Oh, we got our lottery numbers. I tried to scribble on my ticket my name…with what I thought was a pen. Bzzz, wrong, try again, dumbass. It was a *permanent*! marker. The cap fell off and I managed to get permanent marker all over my neck. It looked like i’D GONE VAMPIRE. We managed to get it off with alcohol. Thank god. That would have been super embarrassing. Instructor Tim’s funny. He goes, “lift your head. Hmmm, what happened to you, did your dog bite you? Are you bleeding black blood?
Are you a vampire?”

Oo I better booggy…get all soaked in the rain. Singin’ in the rain, singin’ in the rain. What a glorious feelin’ I’m happy again.

Ooo I’m tired. Bagged. Don’t quite know why.

That was so funny how that happened. I wasn’t tired for the first few days, and then it hit me like a brick on the Saturday all of a sudden. It was as if one second I was fine, and the next I was a zombi. That was not the way it went at GDB. Not exactly. I guess I was pretty good until the beginning of the next week.

I went out in the rain with my raincoat. We avoided obstacles, and my baby did flawlessly. Absolutely flawlessly. Then we sat in the van and talked…dried her off cause she was all wet. poor doggy. I dried her off and we all talked. Then Sharon got us all laughing histerically. We were talking about someone Sharon knows and I know of. So anyway she’s talking about how she had a baby and I’m like another one. and she’s llike yeah I guess, must have had to give the other one up. I’m like yeah she got around. and Margery says “Yeah, she should have learned to cross her legs. Cross ’em, or put a pillow in there or something!”

Keep in mind this is a 70-something-year-old woman saying this. We just died laughing. And we said that it was great that she was not easy to offend and said cool things. And she’s llike, “I’m glad I’m not a…” and we thought she said whore. But what she said actually was “bore.” So we’re doubled over again and she can’t figure out what we thought was so side-splittingly funny. And then when she does figure out why we’re in stitches for round 2, she just about dies. She started saying “b! B!” as if she was saying not whore, bore!

By the time instructor Tim comes back with other Tim, we’re all doubled over and tears are streaming down our faces. God damn I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.

I had a minor scare because I’m a big dork and spilled all my change. I’m diving for it, and then student Tim hears crunch crunch crunch. and he makes her spit out a dime. I felt so so bad. I managed to get all the rest of the change, and he says to instructor Tim, “I think Willow might have swallowed a coin.” Instructor Tim swears she wouldn’t have. She might have played with it, but spit it out. I got all my change picked up. I felt so bad…if I’d caused Willow to be sick, I would have felt so bad.

We get back and I become so absent minded. Babs goes nuts and tries to drag me to the building. She eats, or tries to, before I blow the whistle. Oo I was mad at her for that. I made her stop eating and wait until I whistled.

That’s one thing I wish GDB did. Love the whistle, especially when your dog gets away! It’s a wonderful recall technique. I was going to train Trix to whistle feed, but I lost the damn whistle! I liked it because we couldn’t hear it much, but Babs sure could.

But I was so tired I forgot to lift up her water dish before I put her food down, but I got to it before she drank it all. God I just feel so bagged. Instructor Tim went over my obedience stuff and finally took that bastard ticket that got me to get marker all over my neck. I hope to hell it’s a winning ticket. Ooo! 25 million. That’ll buy a lot of doggy toys.

So tomorrow is our first day of rest, and I get to give Babs her bone. Ooo! her bone! ooo! I’m tired. tired.

We’re thinking of giving Anka a travel mug cause she likes her coffee…oh yeah did I mention my watch breaking yet? that’s a royal pain. Instructor Tim’s taking it to see if it’s the battery. So tomorrow we rest. Then Monday we get some lectures on doggy stuff and then some walks dealing with obstacle-avoidance that may lead us into the street if they block the whole sidewalk. Apparently there’s a horrible thing they do to us where they drive a car at us and see what our dogs and we do. I’m scared of that one. But that’s not yet.

Oh and then Sue will stay with us and we can buy CGDB merchandise. I’m getting doggy boots. Yeah yeah yeah fork over the doggy boots!

I wonder what kind of a reception Babs would have given me about the boots. Probably not a very warm one.

And then we get our ID cards Tuesday morning…me and my dog both get in the picture! ooo! and don’t know anything after that. Tired, will see what Margery is up to, she needed some braille read. Oh we found some braille cards. Way cool. Tired…will see what she’s up to.

Went to her room and there was no braille on those tapes. I don’t know about Margery. I love her to death, but both Sharon and I notice she has trouble hearing and she gets lost a lot. The hearing thing is especially bad because she misunderstands instructions all the time. Poor Margery. Out of respect for her I can’t say anything to her about her hearing. If she was my age I’d ask her if she’d consider getting her hearing tested. But I can’t say that to her. That would be so disrespectful. And I think she’s a great person and all, don’t want to tick her off.

So we went to her room and then came out to the lounge and then I almost fell asleep there. Came back to room and crashed. I heard Babs having puppy dreams again. Those little barks are the greatest. That’s about it.

I Click, Therefore I Am

It seems the courts disagree, but the FBI’s new method of rounding up child porn suspects sounds an awful lot like entrapment to me.

The FBI has recently adopted a novel investigative technique: posting hyperlinks that purport to be illegal videos of minors having sex, and then raiding the homes of anyone willing to click on them.

Undercover FBI agents used this hyperlink-enticement technique, which directed Internet users to a clandestine government server, to stage armed raids of homes in Pennsylvania, New York, and Nevada last year. The supposed video files actually were gibberish and contained no illegal images.

A CNET News.com review of legal documents shows that courts have approved of this technique, even though it raises questions about entrapment, the problems of identifying who’s using an open wireless connection–and whether anyone who clicks on a FBI link that contains no child pornography should be automatically subject to a dawn raid by federal police.

It worries me that so far no judge has had the good sense to see all of the flaws in this plan. Just think, with this kind of trickery becoming a valid criminal busting technique, the possibilities are virtually endless. Click on a link giving information about so-called terrorist groups, you must be a terrorist. Click on an anti-government website, you’re either a terrorist or otherwise a threat to national security and need to be rendered post-haste. Click on what appears to be a torrent, you’re suddenly a thief, because everybody knows that that kind of technology is reserved specifically for dirty pirate scum who want nothing more than free music and movies.

What this is is an easy no work required method of arresting people dreamed up by folks too lazy or too stupid to be able to do any of the hard work that goes with the job. If the justice system has any sense at all and yes I’m aware that’s a mighty big if, they’ll put a stop to this. I can only hope that they’ll do so before the courts become hopelessly clogged with the wrongfully convicted.

Up, Up And Away In A Helium Balloon

Oh boy. Maybe the best thing that could happen to Lefkos Hajji would be to never find the $12000-ring intended for his fiance that he put in a helium balloon that was ripped from his hands by a gust of wind. If the accidental loss of a ring can make his wife to be so angry with him that she wants nothing to do with him, maybe he should run from her and forget about her.

But why put a ring in a helium balloon, the most susceptible to floating up, up and away, emphasis on away? Looks like they’re both a little stupid, but certainly not meant to be together.

Update On Holly

Remember a while ago, I mentioned Holly, and her need for an auditory brainstem implant? Well, she’s raffling off some artwork! So if you want a chance at a nice print, and want to help out too, go buy a ticket.

Note to blinks: When they wrote out the PayPal address, they wrote it out so it couldn’t be spammed, i.e. writing out the words at and dot and placing them in brackets, so if you copy and paste into PayPal, you’ll have to turn the words at and dot into their respective signs.

What’s really wacked out is I know the chick who is providing the print! Well, I met her 13 years ago at a camp. But she is an acquaintance of mine.

So go Holly, and go Dee-Ann! And everybody go buy a ticket!

The Babs Journal: Day 5 (May 13, 2005)

This will be a bit of a flurry…am writing at 10 o’clock…busy day. Let’s see. After the usual morning routine, which included a pretty hard bonk from Babs’s head, ouch, my nose still hurts, while she was trying to say hello, we went for breakfast. pretty uneventful I think, although today is a bit of a blurr. Went off to hang out for a bit and then headed for the van. Babs and Margery’s dog Amy really love each other. Babs always has her head right up against Amy’s butt when we’re riding together. And when I bring her in to busy or groom and Margery is there, she’ll go to see Margery and/or Amy. Sometimes the two of them try to have secret meetings in the van, wiggle closer and closer to each other, maybe they’re trying to whisper in dog language.

Went out in the morning and learned about what guide dogs do when they find a place where they absolutely must turn when they can’t go straight. Pretty cool. Got more used to catching her at sniffing. Once I thought she passed a curb, cause instructor Tim told me he’d try and make her miss the curbs, and we weren’t there yet! But he told me not to worry. And he’s a real devil. He purposely created diversions so I’d have to correct her.

Oh, I asked him about her lump on her chest and a little crusty spot on her head, and he said he’d talk to the vet about it because that all went away. That worries me. She’d better not have any veterinary problems *already*! Oh well I’m probably just worrying too much.

Note to past self: She does have problems. You weren’t worrying too much. Wasn’t that a wonderful way to enter into guide dog life?

Then we came back and went for lunch, god damn I’m hungry at every meal! It was good. We met another one of the instructors, Sarah. She seemed nice. Then after lunch I let Babs rest for a bit and then I brought her in and groomed her and did some of the obedience, but I get confused by it so will get Tim to go over it with me. He said he would.

That was also dumb. At the Ottawa school, we were encouraged to do our obedience alone in aquiet place. Um, the point of obedience is that they’ll do it anywhere. So shouldn’t we do it in places with lots of distractions? We hardly ever did obedience in front of instructors unless we were asking for help, we never did it with them on aregular basis to make sure we were doing it right!

Then we went out to the van, and the driver’s name was Mike Jordan. Ha ha ha that’s funny. He’s a nice guy. So we get in the van and drive out and do more walking. Did streets where you cross, but if you go straight you’ll head into someone’s driveway…so you have to go left or right. But you have to make the dog go straight across the street because you don’t want her going kittie corner on any street.

Something funny happened while I was waiting to go out today. I was sitting in the van waiting for instructor Tim to come back with Margery…and this kid went past the van and said, hey mom, look! and his mom said, yes, a guide dog! My first guide dog comment! Ooo!

For a while, you will hate those. It’s a spotlight like no other, and you had no idea. None. Zip. Well, you had a teeny tiny fraction of an idea.

I don’t know how instructor Tim does 8 walks a day…and that’s just with a small class. Imagine 8 students? How would one do 16 walks a day? Holy crap. We found out he plays hockey in the winter. He’s one fit dude. He’s been doing this for 15 years I guess.

Then some great fun happened between Tim and Sharon. I guess on the way back from their jaunts, the dogs got in the van and started to play, leashes got loose, and well, abra cadabra, Tim got Charity and Sharon got Willow. They took them home, fed them, busied them, the whole deal, but noticed that the dogs would not listen at all! And then Willow mooed at Sharon, or made that moaning sound like a toy cow in one of those toy farms…and she said, “what? Charity doesn’t moo!” So, embarrassed, the two wondered what to do. So Tim walked up to Anka and said, “What colour is my dog?” She laughed and said, “black!” Um, that’s not Willow’s colour. That’s Charity. So they make the reunions and all is well, but wow that was funny and Anka laughed about it all through supper. He kept saying, “what colour is my dog?” And she’d say, “green!” and laugh some more. She’s so cute.

I managed to get them all to agree to get instructor Tim something at the end of the class, and managed to get student Tim to agree that we should get Anka something, just gotta get Sharon. Then instructor Tim said tomorrow he’s bringing us Timmy Ho’s for breakfast! That’s cool! And he gave us our lottery tickets. Oh tomorrow should be way interesting. In the morning, we’re doing an obstacle course, and then in the afternoon, we’re all going out, hopefully to a coffee shop and doing some kind of walk. Should be great gobs of fun.

Let’s see what else. Talked on the phone a bit, and then came here. Got lots of responses from my mass email that I sent to a bunch of people to say that she’s here, without having them endure the days and days of googoo gaga. That’s about it for now. Should finish battling with this beast while my snoring mooing dog sleeps beside me. She’d probably like to be back on her comfy bed again soon.

note: had to take dog to bed because she decided to play a lively game of let’s tell mom I don’t want to sit here anymore and watch you send emails. So she’s waiting…please Babs, don’t poop on my room floor, please? please? I already called Anka in, well instructor Tim ended up coming in because I thought I smelled something funny and wanted to make sure it wasn’t dog doodoo. it wasn’t, thankfully enough. Plese don’t doodoo on my floor? I really will be back soon!

Um, that was cream of dumb to leave her alone so soon, especially when you had no tie-down! . So dumb. You were lucky she didn’t crap on the floor.

I guess The Story Isn’t So Ridiculous After All

Well, it looks like the story the other day about the safe texting street was a bit of a stretch. I guess the street hasn’t been officially made safe for all bumbling idiots. A research company found out a lot of people collide with stuff on that street, so set up the padding as a stunt to get attention and arouse debate. Then they took it all down. Well, they got their wish, that’s for sure. Newspapers around the world thought the padding was a permanent fixture.