New Title!

Pecan Valley DreamCatcher OAP NJP CGC

Mikey finished his Open Standard title with a perfect score of 100, first place and a run time of 48.69 seconds (SCT was 76 s)!! I was soooo proud of him! He's so fast, but still laser accurate at the same time. It was definitely one of those course runs where everything is so in sync, it feels like you and your dog are even breathing together!!! Such an awesome feeling! The course is below.

Unfortunately, we imploded for our Open Jumpers course. Everything started out well, but Mikey skipped a pole in the weaves, and my brain went. . . pffft. I was trying to remember if we could go back and retry the weaves in open while he finished the weaves, couldn't remember, and went on to the next jump. . . and then went off on a course of my own. . . and then realized I was off course and then my brain really started sizzling, so Mikey tried to fix things by adding extra jumps to the course. . . Oh well. Once we got back on course, we finished well, and we both had a good time regardless.

Now, Miss Holly. First, all those crossed fingers must have worked; her first official measure was exactly 11 inches! Yippee!!! Exactly the right height for her to run at 4 inches preferred. One more official measure and we're safe. Holly did pretty nicely for her first trial. She went around one jump, since I forgot to keep an eye on her for a second (duh! it takes less energy to go around, instead of over, even if the jump is only 4 inches, or so Holly says). And, Holly took a short detour right before the very last jump to go say high to a ring steward. Everything else was pretty darn good. Not bad for her first trial. Of course, trialing with Holly is icing on the cake, I'm glad we can share agility in any form.

My dad's dog Meg did very well. It was her birthday yesterday. She took tour of the ring (twice) during her Standard course, but wasn't wildly out of control. Then, in her Jumpers class, she took first place with a score of 95. Man, oh man! She is one FAST dog!

We had a great day, although I wish it could have been a little cooler. A trick I've learned, in case anyone is interested. My dad and I don't like crating 'inside' with everyone else. It's just so noisy, it's not relaxing for me, and I can't imagine the dogs find it very restful either. So we keep our dogs in the car at trials. Besides two crate fans for each dog, here's my little trick; garden shade cloth. It can be hard to find the right type of shade cloth; it's the mesh type that's a loose enough mesh to allow air to flow through, but still provide shade. Doubled up, you still get good air flow, and I roll all the windows down and close the cloth into the tops of the doors and let it hang over the windows. One long piece along the passenger side of the car, and separate pieces for the front and back windows on the driver's side (so I can get the dog's in and out; I also try to park to that the sun shines on the passenger side, and then I don't have to worry about putting anything on the driver's side). I open the hatch in the back, and use clips to hold a big piece that drapes over the hatch all the way to the ground. And of course I put my normal front windshield sun block in place. The temperature yesterday got up to upper 80's, but the interior of my car was still nice and cool!

We've enjoyed a nice lazy day today; back to reality tomorrow (I've got an interview with a company in St. Louis next week, and no. I haven't heard back from the company in Kansas City yet. I got an auto reply to my voice mail on Monday that my HR contact was out of town all last week; if I don't hear from her tomorrow, I will call again).

Next trial is the weekend of the 25th.

Holly and Mikey say 'Hi' and 'We had FUN!!!!'

Rain, Rain

So much for doing sprints this morning, it's really coming down, complete with thunder and lightening! Although I'm not saying 'Go away', since we haven't had a drop of rain since hurricane Ike several weeks ago, and this rain brings a cool front. The temps won't change much, but the humidity will drop!

I haven't heard anything back from the company in KC; I called and left a message with my HR contact with the company yesterday. I have no idea if it's a good sign or bad sign that they are 'late' in contacting me (the hiring manager told me the day I interviewed that I would hear from the HR contact by Wednesday or Thursday last week).

For the time being, I'm job hunting, studying weak areas in my programming, trying to deal with my medical insurance situation, and spending (lots of) time with Holly and Mikey.

Spending more time with Holly and Mikey is one (the only?) good thing about being laid off. A couple of weeks before hurricane Ike, I found out about a local nature preserve with a great hiking trail, and we've been going there for a morning hike every few days. Since the hurricane, the trail is a bit more primal than it was before. Which is actually kind of fun for all of us; crawling under downed trees, or, in my case, climbing over downed trees if possible, or beating a new trail around downed trees. The coastal mosquitoes seem to have finally died off around here, although there are still plenty of the local boogers. And, in anticipation of the agility trial season finally starting up, we've been going out together and running sprints every few days too. Physically, we're oh so ready. And Holly and Mikey have both been kicking butt in class, so I think mentally we're ready too.

Our first trial is this coming weekend. Yippee! It will be Holly's first ever trial (Jumpers only) and Mikey only needs one leg to finish his open Standard title. We're only entered one day for this trial, since I was still working when I sent my entry; with my rheumatoid arthritis I just can't do two days and then turn around and work all week, the more days I trial, the more and longer I pay for it with bad joint pain (although I'm hoping that being in better shape this year, strength training and sprints, will help with that somewhat).

I have my Frio pictures ready to post, maybe this evening or tomorrow I will have time to post all of them (uh, I've got quite a few).

Holly and Mikey say 'Hi'.

Thud!

The sound my brain made by the end of the day yesterday. Ugh, what a long and gruelling day! Unfortunately, I don't think my interview went very well; they drilled me with questions and actual written exams, much of which were WAAAY over my head. At least now I have some new things to study and maybe I will be better prepared for my next interview. I should hear back from them by Wednesday or Thursday, so at least I won't have to wait very long to find out, one way or another. . .

Interview and Agility

Well, my interview in KC is tomorrow. It'll be a long day; my flight leaves Houston at 8:35 AM and my return flight gets back into Houston at 8:24 PM. When I get to Kansas City, around 10:30, I will first go have lunch with three people, and then after lunch I will interview with FIVE different people! Sounds lovely, doesn't it? NOT!

On the agility front. So far, all the local trials through mid-October I know of have been cancelled. In fact, this weekend should have been our first trial of the season, and Holly's first trial ever. Facility destroyed, facility being used as a staging area, multiple club board members with their home destroyed; these are all different reasons that I have heard that have caused the cancellation of different trials. Houston/Galveston is a bit of a depressing place to live right now.

On a more positive note, Leaps n' Bounds re-opened classes this week. They still have a lot of fences down (I feel sorry for the residents behind the LnB facility, they've got a front row view, from their kitchen, of all the classes) and of course, like everyone else here, they have huge piles of collected limbs and partial trees. But the rings are cleared and the equipment is whole! Holly, and especially Mikey, were soooooo thrilled to go to class this week. Mikey was on FIRE! I've never seen him run so fast, and it's not like he's slow to begin with! The course was a twisty, turny, challenging, but also fun, course. It's a real mental challenge for me to run two dogs with such different needs and strengths on the same course. We had an awesome time!

Except for the mosquitoes! Which should be a post by it's self! Millions and millions of coastal mosquitoes were blown in by Ike. They're a different kind of mosquito than what we normally have here; much, much bigger, and it actually hurts when they bite! You literally can't go outside without being swarmed, yuck!

Enough for now, I've got to finish getting ready for tomorrow and get to bed early; my alarm clock is set for 3:30!

Holly and Mikey say 'Hi'.

?

Geez, I couldn't come up with a title, at least not one that didn't involve any bad words.

I was laid-off on Monday. Actually, the entire science team was laid-off. And the company's group insurance plan will be cancelled on the 30th, meaning no COBRA will be available. I spent a good part of the day yesterday on the phone trying to find out about getting an individual insurance policy, but with every company, as soon as they found out I have an autoimmune disease, they said they either could not offer me a policy at all, or could only offer a policy that did NOT cover my rheumatoid arthritis. Texas does have a health insurance risk pool, which I may be able to get insurance through, but still, d'oh!!!

In many ways it was a relief to have been let go, since the company ran out of money months ago and we haven't received our paychecks on time since then. And, good news, I will be interviewing for a position in the greater Kansas City area next week (wish me luck!). And, as much as I am stressed and worried, and stressed and worried some more, you can't possibly live in the Houston/Galveston area right now and not have a sense of perspective. . .

And, I promise I will post pictures from our trip to the Frio soon!

The town of Gilchrist before hurricane Ike

And after

Bolivar peninsula, before and after hurricane Ike

Update

Hmmm, the police are walking around the building across the lawn from me, I wonder what is going on?

The woman across from my parents who's house flooded during the storm came back from where ever she evacuated to yesterday, and I spent the day helping her boyfriend move furniture and rip up carpet (since there were no other men for most of the day, and I am strong, even with my RA). My working washer and dryer were put to use morning until bedtime, and I have one more load going this morning. Mostly clothes, but also one load of stuffed toys that were soaked, but very important to her little girls. She has lost a lot, but we also managed to salvage a lot. My experience as a mold investigator years ago came in very handy yesterday. Unfortunately, she leases the house from a couple that lives in Singapore, so some of the clean up has to wait until she hears from their insurance company.

This morning I'm off to my parents house to help them clean up the debris in their front and back yard.

I did manage to get in touch with the accounting officer at my work yesterday. Cell phones still aren't working for the most part. I got her husband at home in the morning, and then talked to her in the late afternoon. A group went in yesterday to consolidate our specimens into a single freezer to conserve on gas in the generator, since gas is still hard to find and there are long, long lines at the very few places that have gas. In any case, I told her I would wait for a call from someone to know when I should report back to work. We agreed that until the power is back, there's nothing anyone can do. I'm frustrated that no plan was in place for a crisis like this. I've tried the home phone number for the guy that works for me (the woman that had worked for me resigned two weeks ago), but never got an answer; so many people don't have old fashioned lands lines any more.

I also got to one of the open grocery stores around here yesterday. You wait in a line outside, and they let you in after two shoppers have come out. The stores are on generator power, so it's pretty dark inside. No dairy, no meats, no bread, no frozen foods, and only a handful of produce (a few melons, strawberries, and potatoes, which luckily everyone was walking past, so I was able to get some fresh). Since going on a grain-free, 'paleo' diet, fresh veggies are the mainstay of my diet - canned veggies now.

So, that's the scoop for now. We're all showing signs of stress, including all the dogs. Maybe after the first push of getting things done, we'll have a bit of a breather before going back to work. Holly and Mikey missed their morning walk yesterday when I got the call that the woman with the flooded house was back. I'm going to make sure they get their walk every morning from here out, if possible, since I think exercise/normal routine should help their stress levels.

Holly and Mikey say 'Hi'.

Power is Back

At my place only. Based on what I've heard on the radio the past couple of days, I'm one of four in the southeast Texas area to have power.

I came back to my place late Saturday afternoon (I've been taking 'notes' on my laptop the past couple of days, which I will post eventually). My complex came through the storm pretty well, and all of the windows in my apartment are intact, yay! My parents place survived the storm well too, although some of their neighbors didn't do as well; one house across from my parents, a single mom with two kids, in particular, filled with water early Saturday morning.

The power went out at my parents at 6 am Saturday during the height of the storm, and they are still without power. I was amazed when mine came back, since we've been hearing on the radio that Montgomery county would be without power for up to three weeks, because a couple of power stations where destroyed, plus all of the downed trees on lines, plus downed poles.

I'm currently freezing jugs, large tupperware containers, and trays of ice in my freezer for my parents and their neighbors, although I don't suppose many of them still have perishables. I know I hauled the entire contents of my freezer, and all the perishables in my frig (except veggies), out to the dumpster yesterday because everything was barely cool to the touch. On the other hand, my mom has a nicer frig than I do, and some of the stuff in her freezer is still frozen, so maybe that's the case with some of her neighbors.

My dad is coming to get the ice I am making and with the items left in their freezer, plus all of my mom's and my Enbrel (our injectable rheumatoid arthritis drug that has to stay refrigerated). Thank goodness my power came back on before we lost the Enbrel, since it costs a fortune for a one month supply, and we don't know when we will be able to buy more either.

And then I'm off to go help somewhere, since I am one of the privileged few to have power to come home to; oh, and since I've never heard from anyone in my company, I guess I should call someone to find out what is up with work.

I'll keep in touch as I can. Bottom line is me, my parents, and all of our dogs are fine, which is more than many people in southeast Texas can say. Keep this region in your prayers. . .

We Still Have Power

Yay! It's 1:10 in the morning and we still have power here. The wind gusts are getting ferocious, and we've had some light to moderate rain. The edge of the eye wall is almost to Galveston. And boy! is it a huge eye! We're keeping our fingers crossed that this isn't going to be quite as bad as we had feared. We still have to get through the worst of the winds that are near the eye wall, and honestly, I can't remember what time the eye is supposed to get here. We're all getting soooo tired and sleepy. . .