We just had one.
The TV news says it was a 5.8, centered near Chino, just a few miles from my home. As far as I can see, we have no damage to our house. I do have a lot of pictures on the walls to straighten. There was a small aftershock a few minutes later.
It was a first for our little puppy, Jazz, I looked for her right after the shake, and found her in my bathroom. She is totally confused, of course. Bogie and Lucy seem to have taken it in stride. They are begging for their lunch. I guess I should feed them, then straighten some pictures.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Bogie Is Home
Bogie came home from the hospital this afternoon. When the vet removed the sting ray chew from his esophagus, she also attempted to insert a catheter in his right leg. Unfortunately she nicked a vein in the attempt, so his leg has a bandage on it. They put one of those plastic cones on him to keep him from licking the leg or chewing on it. It looked really ugly, and limited his peripheral vision. So we exchanged it for a cloth one. Bogie will be looking like a clown for the next week or so.
We have trashed all of those "edible" chews. It was an upsetting and costly lesson to learn. At least he will be ok from now on.
Period of adjustment
Bonnie and I are so excited about our new family member, Jazz, that we decided to catch her puppyhood with a camcorder. So as Jazz, Lucy, and Bogie go through that period of adjustment to each other, I am trying to adust to making home videos with the new toy we just bought. This is my first attempt to capture their period of adjusment:
Jazz and Lucy are, of course, slowly warming up to each other. They are playing much more enthusiastically now, just a couple of days after I made the video. Bogie is accepting it all, or perhaps tolerating it--he's more than a little past the puppy play stage.
A Real Survivor
Bogie is almost 14 years old. Since the average life of a Shar pei is about 10 years, that is impressive.
But Bonnie and I wonder that he has made it this far. He has had at least 4 narrow escapes so far: One day we came home to find that he had swallowed a handful of Bonnies presription pills for high blood pressure. Vets at the emergency room induced vomiting, and he came out just fine. Then, he had an attack of "the bloat," in which his stomach virtually tied a knot in itself. Emergency surgery fixed that, and he again recovered just fine. Not too long ago he started to choke on a piece of rawhide chew--Bonnie's quick application of the Heimlich maneuver saved him. Today, he was chewing on a large piece of dried sting ray tail and, of course, tried to swallow it. The Heimlich did not work; we rushed him to the emergency vet, who extracted it. So Bogie survived again. We are, of course, relieved and thankful. Bogie survives to continue a long and happy existence.
Bonnie and I have learned our lesson, though. Chewing is the natural precoursor to swallowing. Swallowing is the natural consequence of chewing. You cannot count on a dog to reduce a piece of rawhide, or anything else to a digestable size before he tries to swallow it. So all of the 'edible' chew toys are now banished from our house. Other dog owners would be wise to follow the same course of action.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Welcome, Jazz!
The Poochie Williamson clan has a new Member. Her name is Jazz.
Jazz was born on May 18, 2008. On July 13, she left her home in Charlotte, NC, to join us in Yorba Linda. She is as loveable as she looks, and she is getting along well with the other members of the pack, Bogie and Lucy.
Bonnie and I are not getting quite as much sleep as we did before she came, and there are a few damp spots on our carpet. But we are really enjoying our new family member, and she seems to like us, too.
Jazz was born on May 18, 2008. On July 13, she left her home in Charlotte, NC, to join us in Yorba Linda. She is as loveable as she looks, and she is getting along well with the other members of the pack, Bogie and Lucy.
Bonnie and I are not getting quite as much sleep as we did before she came, and there are a few damp spots on our carpet. But we are really enjoying our new family member, and she seems to like us, too.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
On the Leading Edge
For most of our lives, Bonnie and I have been on the leading edge of changes in society. We got a waterbed when they were still considered "weird hippy things." We took La Maze classes when they were recommended by only a few OB/GYNs. We bought a VHS recorder shortly after they first came out. And while the "in crowd" was still extolling the virtues of white wines, I was sampling merlots.
But one bandwagon that I did not jump on until this week was that of the users of cell phones. My problem was not an aversion to technology, but rather one of simple economics. As long as I was paying $30.00+ per month for a land line to my home, I saw no value in signing a contract to pay an additional $30.00 a month for a cell phone.
I counted up the situations in one year in which I might need to make a call when no land line was available. There were maybe two or three--once when on the way to a retail store, and unable to locate it, once when I was at the grocery store and forgot one of the items Bonnie wanted me to buy, once when I was stuck in traffic, and would be way late getting home. It hardly seemed worth $360.00 per year.
Besides that, many folks who already have cell phones really anger me. They take a call while dining in a restaurant. They check their messages in a movie theater. They gab on the phone while shopping for groceries (I am sure there is nothing so urgent that it could not wait until they get home). And, most aggravating of all, the yak into the little boxes while driving down the freeway at 40 mph, instead of the posted 55 mph. I do not want to become one of those crass inconsiderate jerks.
This week, though, I finally decided to get a cell phone. The main reason is that the "pay as you go" plans make more economic sense. I bought a Trac Phone and one year (400 minutes) of cell time. The whole package ends up costing about $10.00 a month--less if I subtract the cost of the phone. Not only that, if I have not used the 400 minutes when I renew next year, the excess rolls over. The benefits I get for the $10.00 a month seem worth the cost. First, the phone will be there in the 3 or 4 situations that I expect I will need it for. Second, since I will turn it on virtually all of the time I am away from home, Bonnie knows she will be able to reach me if an emergency arises. Now that the telephone companies are phasing out pay telephones, the cell phone becomes almost a necessity.
So far, the Trac Phone experience has exceeded my expectations. When I activated the phone and added the minutes from the card, I received 510 minutes instead of 400. Although I signed up on June 3, the renewal date is August 3, of next year, so I get 14 months instead of 12. That's hard to beat. In the 4 days I have had the phone, I have not used any minutes yet.
Some may say that 20 cents a minute is not a bargain rate. However, these are emergency minutes; they are worth more to me. Moreover, the big companies advertise 10 cents a minute, but they add a $1.00 surcharge for each day that you access the service. That means one five-minute call can cost 30 cents a minute. With the Trac phone there are no "roaming" charges, and long distance calls within the continental US and to some foreign locations are charged at the same rate as local calls. So for the usage I expect, the Trac Phone is a good buy.
Talking about the economics, have you noticed that most cell phone calls are "double-billed?" When you make a call from land line to land line, only the originator is charged for the call. But when a cell phone is the receiver, both originator and receiver are billed for the minutes. In the long run, it would seem the telephone companies would like us all to use cell phones, and eliminate land lines completely.
So I have arrived in the 21st century with respect to telephone service. But I am not giving you my cell phone number. I only want to receive those urgent calls from immediate family and very close friends. Everyone else should just call my land line number. If I am not there, leave a message on my machine. But don't look for my number in the telephone book; it's unlisted. Most of the time, I view the telephone as an intrusion.
But one bandwagon that I did not jump on until this week was that of the users of cell phones. My problem was not an aversion to technology, but rather one of simple economics. As long as I was paying $30.00+ per month for a land line to my home, I saw no value in signing a contract to pay an additional $30.00 a month for a cell phone.
I counted up the situations in one year in which I might need to make a call when no land line was available. There were maybe two or three--once when on the way to a retail store, and unable to locate it, once when I was at the grocery store and forgot one of the items Bonnie wanted me to buy, once when I was stuck in traffic, and would be way late getting home. It hardly seemed worth $360.00 per year.
Besides that, many folks who already have cell phones really anger me. They take a call while dining in a restaurant. They check their messages in a movie theater. They gab on the phone while shopping for groceries (I am sure there is nothing so urgent that it could not wait until they get home). And, most aggravating of all, the yak into the little boxes while driving down the freeway at 40 mph, instead of the posted 55 mph. I do not want to become one of those crass inconsiderate jerks.
This week, though, I finally decided to get a cell phone. The main reason is that the "pay as you go" plans make more economic sense. I bought a Trac Phone and one year (400 minutes) of cell time. The whole package ends up costing about $10.00 a month--less if I subtract the cost of the phone. Not only that, if I have not used the 400 minutes when I renew next year, the excess rolls over. The benefits I get for the $10.00 a month seem worth the cost. First, the phone will be there in the 3 or 4 situations that I expect I will need it for. Second, since I will turn it on virtually all of the time I am away from home, Bonnie knows she will be able to reach me if an emergency arises. Now that the telephone companies are phasing out pay telephones, the cell phone becomes almost a necessity.
So far, the Trac Phone experience has exceeded my expectations. When I activated the phone and added the minutes from the card, I received 510 minutes instead of 400. Although I signed up on June 3, the renewal date is August 3, of next year, so I get 14 months instead of 12. That's hard to beat. In the 4 days I have had the phone, I have not used any minutes yet.
Some may say that 20 cents a minute is not a bargain rate. However, these are emergency minutes; they are worth more to me. Moreover, the big companies advertise 10 cents a minute, but they add a $1.00 surcharge for each day that you access the service. That means one five-minute call can cost 30 cents a minute. With the Trac phone there are no "roaming" charges, and long distance calls within the continental US and to some foreign locations are charged at the same rate as local calls. So for the usage I expect, the Trac Phone is a good buy.
Talking about the economics, have you noticed that most cell phone calls are "double-billed?" When you make a call from land line to land line, only the originator is charged for the call. But when a cell phone is the receiver, both originator and receiver are billed for the minutes. In the long run, it would seem the telephone companies would like us all to use cell phones, and eliminate land lines completely.
So I have arrived in the 21st century with respect to telephone service. But I am not giving you my cell phone number. I only want to receive those urgent calls from immediate family and very close friends. Everyone else should just call my land line number. If I am not there, leave a message on my machine. But don't look for my number in the telephone book; it's unlisted. Most of the time, I view the telephone as an intrusion.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Get Ready To Call Me Grampa
Bonnie and I received some wonderful news today. Our younger daughter, Heather, told us that she and Josh are expecting a baby in early December.
We were preparing to drive to San Bernardino to celebrate some family birthdays (mine, Bonnies, her dad's, and Josh's). Bonnie's was in February, and I was sick; mine was in March, and Bonnie was sick, Josh and Bonnie's dad have theirs in June. Our other daughter, Amber, her husband, Ron and Bonnie's dad met us at the restaurant. Heather and Josh drove to our place so the four of us could go the rest of the way in one car. Heather presented Bonnie a pair of booties with LA Lakers logos on them as she made the announcement.
The booties have the logo because Bonnie is an avid Lakers fan. In fact, she is watching a Lakers/Spurs playoff game as I write.
Bonnie is thrilled, of course, and I am excited, too, about the prospect of becoming grandparents. Watch for some pictures in December!
We were preparing to drive to San Bernardino to celebrate some family birthdays (mine, Bonnies, her dad's, and Josh's). Bonnie's was in February, and I was sick; mine was in March, and Bonnie was sick, Josh and Bonnie's dad have theirs in June. Our other daughter, Amber, her husband, Ron and Bonnie's dad met us at the restaurant. Heather and Josh drove to our place so the four of us could go the rest of the way in one car. Heather presented Bonnie a pair of booties with LA Lakers logos on them as she made the announcement.
The booties have the logo because Bonnie is an avid Lakers fan. In fact, she is watching a Lakers/Spurs playoff game as I write.
Bonnie is thrilled, of course, and I am excited, too, about the prospect of becoming grandparents. Watch for some pictures in December!
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