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Brenda turned forty yesterday (happy birthday again, Brenda!), and you know what that means, ROAD TRIP!

Six hours, that’s what it takes to tire him out. Like, I mean, really tire him out. Hooper spent six hours at Camp Bow-Wow today, his first experience with this so-called doggie day care deal. What a friggin’ hoot.

Best dog picture ever, for now:

All he wanted to do was to bring happiness and teething relief to a little puppy someplace. Endorsed by the American Kennel Club, this little bear toy came into our home courtesy of my sister Christina. While I thanked her for the gift, I predicted a short stay in the house.

From “Advanced Global Illumination”, first edition:

Hooper has been hanging around the joint for a month now. He’s changed our lives.

My co-worker sent this to me today, along with a note that I should be proud she thought of me when she read this. And I am. I guess you can take the kid outta New Jersey, but you can’t take the Jersey outta the kid.

Thanks to Bike Hugger, I’ve been tipped off to a new cruiser-ish bike from Masi called the Speciale Soulville. It’s a classic-lined everyday bike with a Shimano Nexis seven-speed internal hub, just like the Bianchi Milano I bought for Brenda. But unlike the Milano, this bad boy sports steel construction, cork hand grips, some very cool looking fenders, and Faliero Masi’s John Hancock right on the top tube. Imagine cruising in style around town on a Masi!

Boulder Municipal Airport (KBDU) had an open house today. Not an airshow per se, but there were a couple of cool airplanes parked on the ramp (including a very rare two-seat Supermarine Spitfire trainer) for inspection. I took Hooper to the airport for our very first “father-son” type outing. It was great. At one point, a flight of three AT-6 “Texan” aircraft flew overhead, and my friend Michael got a shot of Hooper and I enjoying the show.

Hooper has been in our house, and our lives, for one week now. I have a week’s worth of memories, that include racing to a peeing dog; picking up poop – both outside and inside; checking under Hoop’s belly for evidence of a pee stream in the black of night; begging him to walk as he stares at me on the sidewalk; begging him to stop nipping me in the midst of one of his freak-out sessions; petting and stroking his beautiful coat; sniffing: me him, and he me as well as various piles of poo and god knows what else outside; stressing about his play skills with the two month-old puppy around the corner; stressing about his hips; stressing about how much room he has to play in our living room; joy over being a part of teaching him his first command, “sit”; the ADD feeling of trying to read seven (yes, seven) dog training/care books at once; the despair of listening to him whine; the pride in his farts.

Announcement: Friends and family members, who may be thinking of buying a DVD copy or one-sheet for the 1978 film “Hooper”, thinking it would be a great gag gift for us, don’t do it. Because I already did.

Kinda makes me want to get him a cape and name him Underdog.

ANNOUNCEMENT:

We brought him home today. He was manic for an hour and I thought we’d made a huge mistake, but he calmed down and he’s sleeping in his crate in the bedroom right now. I’m downstairs typing this because I don’t want to wake anyone.

After our heartbreaking experience at the shelter on Sunday, I woke up Monday to an email from my friend Elissa who works at the Humane Society; Emma’s ashes were ready to be picked up. So yesterday after work I headed back to the shelter, to pick up what was left of Emma in a little cardboard box. I instantly felt guilty about having been there the day before, to look for new animals while Emma still hadn’t been returned to us.

Emma is gone, and there isn’t a damned thing we can do about it. I miss her; there are a hundred things a day that remind me she’s gone: the ingrained look-down before I take a step, for fear of stepping on her; the look to the bathroom to make sure she’s there, before I close the closet door; the corner of the wall rubbed raw from her little chin. The howling emptiness of the spaces where her litter box was, and where her food and water bowls were.

Here’s a nice easy way to save some energy, set your web browser’s default home page to www.blackle.com. This website is merely a portal to the Google search engine – the search results are the same exact ones you’d get of you had searched from Google’s home page – but the page background is all black. Since it takes less energy to display a black screen on a monitor than a white one, the general idea is that the thousands upon thousands of people that hit Google daily will save a trickle of electricity every time they visit Google this way. The reality is that this only holds true for the older CRT computer monitors; those using LCD monitors or laptops are not saving any energy with Blackle. However, the wihte-on-black color scheme is easier on the eyes, and all those using CRTs can feel that smug pride that all the Prius owners radiate, while surfing the web for your porn. So, check it out either way!

I have so, so many things to say about Emma, but for now I just wanted to share all the photos we’ve been looking at the past couple weeks. I’ve scanned a bunch of photos from the pre-digital years, and compiled a few other ditties from Emma’s “modern era”. I’ve uploaded them all to my Flickr site and created a photo album – or “set”, in Flickr parlance – for you to enjoy.

She was loved, she was our child; she will be missed.

Vino cracks, loses a half hour in the hills; his Tour is over. Next day, Vino takes a stage win in convincing fashion, thrills the fans.