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Today is Hooper’s birthday, making Hooper one year old! In truth, we brought him home at six months of age, and he was picked up as a stray in Utah sometime before that, so unfortunately we really don’t know the exact circumstances or conditions of his conception, birth and early development. The vet guessed he was six months old, based on his teeth, when we took him in or his first checkup in early August. So we counted back from there and picked Groundhog Day as his “birthday”. In truth we’ll never know, and we don’t care. Just as we’ll never really know his genetic makeup. He’s Hooper the Dog, he’s ours, he’s one today, and we love him. So we took him out for a hike.

Hooper is a soccer wunderkind. Like all of his other traits/habits/skills, we discovered this over time.

Well, it’s official. I am fucking crazy.

Life goes on around here, the main story being the cat and dog, who continue to work through their issues. The gate remains, but Ellie is definitely interested in coming down and joining us. If only that damned dog wasn’t down here:

Sponsored link, seen in my Gmail inbox:

Now that my wife and I own a dog, we have the pleasure of walking him, and picking up his deuces. One day recently I was out walking Hooper on his pee track (the short circuit around the public walkways in front of my condo) and he dropped a deuce on me, unsuspectingly. I had no poop bag. lesson learned. But I can tell you this, I went back in the house, got a bag and hunted Hooper’s package down like the minefield clearers of Bosnia. Because I really have always hated people who leave their dog’s crap in ball fields and on lawns. I don’t want to be that guy. And so you can imagine my disgust last night when, as I roamed the ballfield alone, Hooper having long since given up on any and all formal training for the evening and scampering around at the other end of the park, I came across a pile. Now, this ballfield had a bunch of kids playing baseball in it just yesterday, it’s not like no one’s ever in here. I think it’s pretty damned lame to leave your dog’s crap in a public park, and I worry that one day Hooper’s gonna drop one on a neighbor’s lawn and I’m gonna get yelled at because of the assumption that I’d just leave it there. This fear is neatly summarized in a very entertaining tale at Rachel Lucas’ website, which my friend from work told me about. Thought I’d share. The gal’s got spunk.

Brenda & I went to see a play last night at the Denver Center. I’m embarrassed to admit this, but this is the first straight play I’ve seen since moving to Boulder; it was worth the wait.

Once again, rumblestrip.org has a new look. This time it’s based on the neoclassical theme by Chris Pearson. Very clean, and with a rotating masthead graphic (currently randomly selected from eleven images, more to come).

My preferred candidates are already out of the race or are still languishing under the boot of Big Media so no one even knows who they are (Dodd’s out? Dodd who?). I find myself wanting to comment on the race, and then again I like my blood pressure where it’s at currently. So I simply offer the lyrics of this song, written by Ian MacKaye, as we march on toward November hoping for the best and expecting the worst.

A while back I posted a tearful tribute, in song, to my dear departed TiVo. I still don’t know what happened to it, but it was an old Series 2 with the “40 Hour” capacity. She served her owners proud for almost four years, and I decided it would be cheaper and certainly faster to replace it with a new box rather than try to fix old blue. The “80 hour” Series 2 TiVos are now yesterday’s news, and apparently there was a big promotion through TiVo’s website recently so there was a glut of those babies available on eBay. After losing several auctions by a buck, I finally scored one for eighty bucks and the seller was nice enough to ship it to me via FedEx.

Say hello to Ellie:

I’m so distraught, I put it into song:

Any doubts about Hooper’s hiking abilities, including high altitude, cold/snow, distance, have been put to rest. Hooper is a wonder dog.

Well, my silly little piece on “green” email signatures is in the news again, this time in the L.A. Times. When I wrote that, it was cathartic because I was so frustrated by a particular co-worker and his sanctimonious ways, and his mindless insistence that we all preach to our clients this message that I felt went without saying. Who knew it would become the single most popular post on my website and the source for two newspaper articles on green email signatures (and a television interview that as far as I know landed on the cutting room floor)?

It’s been a while, again. First off, it’s Facebook’s fault. That’s right, I joined Facebook and I can’t seem to stop checking in every day to update my “status” message and see how many friends my friend Lauren has. But, that’s not the purpose of this post. Discussion on the insanely silly endeavor of Facebook will surely follow, maybe after Thanksgiving.

But I love NJ. Without it, we’d have absolutely no material. – Leslie Padilla (friend and fellow NJ expat) This gem needs to go on a friggin’ t-shirt. I feel very strongly about this.

My friend sent me this link today. Bacon salt. Absolutely fucking genius. It’s bacony salt! Salt that tastes like bacon! You got me pal? BACON SALT! IN ASSORTED VERSIONS!

DDC. Doggie Day Care. Hooper’s there right now. See for yourself right here; click the link for the webcams, and check out the action in play area two. It’s a full house today, and there are half a dozen black labs to boot, but you can still spot him; he’s the cutest one in the bunch.

So, the Baseball Prospectus says Red Sox in seven.

OK, I know it’s been a while. Here is what’s on my mind: