Things I Know I Know

The local hospital is starting a pet therapy program so I have spent the last couple of days filling out forms and authorizing background checks and having my picture taken and generally getting the process in motion so Billie and I can volunteer. Billie will have to pass a TDI (Therapy Dog International) test which she is certainly capable of doing, and she already passed about three-quarters of it getting her CGC (Canine Good Citizen) so it should be doable. The most difficult part of the test will be when she has to pass up food on the floor. She is a tad food-obsessed.

Today when I went over there to get an ID picture taken and fill out some more forms (and is every hospital ever impossible to find your way around in?), I talked to exactly four people and two of them (neither of whom knew what I was there to volunteer for) told me about their dogs that were dying/had just died from cancer. Weird.

Also, I can now post comments and they appear but the Movable Type back end claims there are no comments ever anywhere...I'm guessing I will have to work on this this weekend.

Posted by debco at 10:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So now Movable Type is saying all comments everywhere are gone. Except it's, at least temporarily, showing the one Sarah posted yesterday. And the spam is, of course, everywhere (not where anyone but me sees it, but still).

And, yeah, I have been thinking of moving to Live Journal lately....

Posted by debco at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Guy: It's cold!

Me: That's why god invented long underwear.

Guy: Long underwear! I would rather wear snow pants. [note that we are inside at this time]

Me: I would rather wear long underwear and snow pants and be warm.

Guy: Hmmmm.....

Posted by debco at 03:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, it says there are comments for this post and this one. And I've gotten the email notices for them so I have, indeed, actually seen the comments, but they are not on the comnents list in the movable type back end and they are not there when I click on the link to go to comments on the blog.

They're like invisible comments.

Posted by debco at 02:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So, it snowed again last night and most of this morning. I'd guess we got six to eight inches of new snow.

Billie and I went tracking over at the cross country fields [insert rant here about people who drive on snow as if there isn't any snow. Also people who think they know how to drive on snow but don't], which was a lot more work for me than for her.

We took some things out to the new dog building. Billie played with a boxer and a miniature pinscher. Playing with the boxer always ends better than playing with the miniature pinscher.

Then I came home and idly waited until they plowed my street [insert rant here about how idiotically they plow the streets here] but gave up about 2:00 at which point the plow came and plowed the street about a dozen times and I decided not to plow the end of my driveway after all because who cares but me and I have four-wheel drive.

The End.

Posted by debco at 02:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Because you know you want to see it....

Posted by debco at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So, I get up this morning and it's snowed...

...which wasn't a big surprise because it was snowing last night. But anyway, I have breakfast and figure out where my boots are and go outside to shovel (and don't think about that other house, that's on the corner).

And as I'm just getting started, ny neighbor from across the street who I haven't met before comes over and says, 'You know, I have nothing to do and I would love to snow blow your sidewalk and your driveway.'

And who am I to argue with that.

So, I finish shoveling the back walk and sweep the front and back steps and let the dogs out and in. Then, I come back inside and take off boots and snow pants and have second breakfast. And I am sitting on the couch definitely not thinking about the fact that I own two houses and, really, I should do something about that other one (did I mention it's on a corner?), when one of the people I work with calls and says, "I was just driving around with my snow blower and wondered if you needed any sidewalks cleared.' (no really that's pretty much what he said).

So now all my sidewalks are done!!! Yay, me!

Also, check out the candy version of the Battle for Helm's Deep. Things like this give me a deep abiding fath in humanity....

Posted by debco at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

...but really I have no news (seriously)

--I still own two houses
--I've gotten two rejections since the first of the year and have three stories in the mail
--Twice in my writing career I've been told that my story was very similar to another story I've never read.
--Billie's tracking certification, of which I have two certificates remaining, runs out the *day* before the next tracking test I could conceivably enter so I will have to re-certify her (this would, of course, be moot if she'd passed at one of the two tests we got into last year)
--I am currently working on two short stories (a relatively small number, but if I finish them it will be a triumph of something)
--I realized this morning that 'Two is Not a Pattern' probably has something to do with statistics (also not-vampires) so it's a good thing I was a statistics analyst once upon a time.

And two may not be a pattern, but apparently it's a theme....

Posted by debco at 08:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So, I started the year with two dogs and I finished the year with the same two dogs! Yay me!

Really that was the best part of 2006, but also:

--Magic in a Certain Slant of Light was reprinted in two year's best anthos

--I bought a fabbo new house (I've only bought two houses in my life and as of right now I still own both of them--yeah, this isn't as great as the buying a new house part, but I expect it will change in 2007)

--I did not manage a short story a month but I did finish (counts up on fingers) six stories which is a lot for me. And three of them are even polished enough to put in the mail.

--I met a lot of terrific writers from Iowa City and spent far more time than I ever imagined in the Jewel of the Prairie. Also chocolate milkshakes.

--I finished off 2006 by going tracking in the (not quite freezing) rain through dense underbrush. But I was wearing my awesome new jacket which was excellent although now I need new rain pants so I can have a complete SYSTEM and weather can never touch me again!!!

Also other stuff I'm not thinking of at the moment.

Posted by debco at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

1. A county extension agent
(sure there was what's his name on Green Acres. But it was Green Acres, for god sake. It was thirty years ago and, you know, Green Acres).

2. Non-bucolic farmers
As in farmers who act like farmers who've been to four years of college might act (also not desperate farmers sadly losing their entire life and livelihood to a heartless banker in three days).

3. Professional women who are older than twelve.
I watched two disks worth of Bones before I had to give up because it's made fairly clear in the pilot that the main female character is a PhD expert who is probably not yet 30. And I was willing to suspend my disbelief because I like a good forensic bone story as much as the next person until the episode where she said that she understood about working with dead children because she was at Waco. Waco was in 1993, dude! You were, what? 15? Yeah, I don't think so. Someday I will probably talk about the other things that bugged me about that show (surprisingly not the science because for some odd reason I just let that go--well, okay not really because I hate the part of science where the main characters know every single thing in their field and never look at a book, read a journal or consult with other experts. Yeah, that's believable.)

4. People older than 35 who have been on teh intranets.
I was watching NCIS(yeah, I have netflix and a crime show jones) and Mark Harmon's character was all massively multiplayer-whahhh? And then the Naval Captain was all--hey I know whtat that is cuz I have kids and you don't--hahaha. And then Ducky who would totally be interested in World of Warcraft if someone just showed him how these damn devil machines work ,said--oh you crazy kids and your wacky inventions. Luckily they have a young kicky Goth girl who knows not just forensics and is a genius--genius!--in the lab, but she is young (twelve year old professional) so she totally knows how to use computers and hack her way right up to the top of the MMORPG--cuz she is the youngster. And those young people they so get the typing and the interacting and shit.

Posted by debco at 12:01 PM | Permalink