Tucker

Tucker seems to be settling in just fine.

Did some googling on his racing name. His isn't as unique as Gertie's but I did turn up one racing program where both of them raced at Gulf Greyhound Park on the same day, but not against each other. Gert was third place in her race and Tucker was second in his. Alice said she turned up some info that showed Gert was racing in a higher classification than Tucker and that Gert won more. Also turned up some results from when Tucker was racing in Ireland where he was born.

The first afternoon and evening home, you could tell he was on sensory overload. A house full of stuff is just a lot more visually rich than a kennel and the track. He did a lot of pacing around looking at everything. He didn't poke or climb or jump, just had to walk around and eyeball the whole place.

As it was with Gertie when she first came home, the stairs are a mystery. When we go up them it must seem like a magical disappearing act to him. I did take him by the collar and walk him upstairs for a bath on Monday afternoon. He took this first trip up better than Gertie did her first one but he hasn't shown any sign of wanting to repeat the experience on his own.

Tucker also seems less interested in the cat than Gertie was at first. Hopefully it will stay that way. With Gert we had a good month of high tension when the two were in the same room.

Everything else is going fine, just more of a "production" than before. Mealtimes, walks, etc., all just a bit more complex.

Took the two of them to the vet on Tuesday morning. Plan was for Gert to get some needed annual stuff done and leave her for a teeth cleaning. Combined with a first checkup for Tucker. Turns out Gert was a bit off on some tests, kidney and pancreas showing some high readings and blood pressure high. Rather than throw in anesthesia to complicate things she ended up coming home.

I discovered from this trip that we're going to seriously have to think about a vehicle with more interior room. Two big leggy greyhounds just don't fit well in the jumpseat space of the pickup. And they don't fit a whole lot better in the back seat of the four-door Accord. I've been thinking about a small SUV anyway, Honda Pilot or Ford Escape sort of sized. Something where I'm still sitting up a bit, not looking at bumpers when in traffic. But something that gets better than the 15 mpg I get in my F-150 pickup. And now, something that will hold the dog pack.

Partial closet rebuild

I've taken this week off, Thursday and Friday are holidays so I'm using three vacation days.

I spent most of the day Monday with a couple of hours yesterday and today to partially rework the master bedroom closet. The closet is big but it isn't rectangular, it's kind of "z" shaped. Rectangular box but with two big corners boxed out. Wire shelves, which are fine, were installed by the builder. Like they always seem to do, the shelves were run around the corners. Corners like that end up wasting space since the corner really isn't usable.

I took out the shelves that ran down one side and around an inside corner. The originals were poorly installed so that the shelf they form tilted in a way that things stored on it tended to slide off. I replaced the original single set with a double set, upper and lower rods for hanging stuff. I installed some 1x3 to form a back plate so the shelves could be better anchored. And used the 16-inch deep shelf type for better storage space. Not to mention hanging them so that they're level or a bit tilted back so storage boxes won't be jumping off any more.

It was a good little project. Right around $150 in material and what was about 7 feet of usable closet rod is now replaced with 16 feet.

Bet you can't stop at one...

Greyhounds are like potato chips, can't have just one.

Alice has wanted a second greyhound almost since the day we brought Gertie home. I finally relented Saturday afternoon. And once my mind was set, I was ready to get on with it. So Sunday afternoon we got a call from the adoption agency at the track and bundled Gertie to find her a friend.

We came home with Tucker (racing name Dark Ocean). Tucker is a 72 pound male. Black and white in a "tuxedo" pattern.

After only a couple of days, all seems to be going well. Tucker is still a bit on sensory overload with everything but despite that is pretty calm. Pictures later.

Brazil recap

The Sao Paulo experience was pretty much miserable. As I told one of my coworkers via email, sometimes it's just work no matter what continent you're on. The picture is the view out my hotel window, obviously, that's my hotel reflected in the building across the street. Lovely day... no, not really.

The dead laptop caused me several problems through the week, files I should have had with me were all back on my backup in Houston. Accessible via the network but slow. And setup of the student machines that should have been done before I arrived had not been done.

With one exception the students in my class were all locals. So when the class day was done, they hit the trains and cars and headed for their normal lives. And, as usual, the office wasn't in a district that was very interesting after hours and the hotel where I stayed was picked to be convenient to the office. And the weather was unseasonably miserable, 50s and raining in the evening. And Sao Paulo isn't the safest place to walk around by yourself in the evening.

That combination pretty well left me feeling like doing nothing in the evenings. So I stayed at the hotel, did email on a laptop borrowed from the office IT guy, and ate in the hotel restaurant. Which was about like most hotel restaurants. Tolerable but not exactly a fine dining experience.

The trip home was uneventful. Got to the airport about 7pm too tired to do anything on the way. Platinum status got me access to one of the lounges while waiting for the flight. Flight out of Sao Paulo at 11pm Friday, nonstop to Houston, arrived 5am Saturday. No empty seat next to me this trip. Got enough sleep on the flight to have a pretty normal Saturday.

Laptop DOA ... and the hotel room is miserable again

Well, I guess I just proved that I don't really need my laptop. After arriving I booted up to check email and watch some episodes of Heroes to kill a rainy afternoon. Later in the evening I booted it up to review the material for class and ... dead dead dead.

Boot, blue screen, boot blue screen, rinse, lather, repeat.

After several attempts at safe mode and other variations I set it to not automatically restart after a failure. The message I get is "Unmountable boot drive". This happens after it has booted, let me choose the OS (there is only one, nothing fancy on the thing) and has started loading the Windows kernel.

Up until this trip I've been totally obsessive about:

• Backing up all my stuff to an external drive connected to a desktop machine at the office, and
• Making a copy of everything I need for class onto the small external drive I carry with me.

This trip I did the first but not the second. So the class got started a little late as I had to copy a few dozen megabytes worth of PowerPoint slides from the machine back in Houston to a commandeered machine from the class.

The IT guy down here had a spare laptop of the same antique vintage as mine. So I spent my lunch break transferring things to that. At least I can do email and watch movies.

Oh, and once again I've been given a hotel room that sucks. The hotel is 22 floors and I'm on the lowest one. First room was on the same floor, by the elevators, I asked to change. After making me wait a couple of hours because no rooms were clean, I got moved to a corner room. I think the room by the elevators was quieter. It's a little windy out and every little gust roars around the corner of the building as if there's a hurricane in progress. Plus we're right on the flight path for the local airport. And there's an eight lane busy street right outside. Kind of makes me long for the nice quiet cave of a room I had in Beijing.

Yeah, I know, I'm whining. Most people would love to have the problem of being in Sao Paulo in the spring time. But I'm just ... tired and ready to be home. So this week is all about endurance.

On the positive side, once I got class going it's all good. Fifteen students, mostly locals, all bright and interested. One I had met before, one I know only by email.

Ninth week out of the country

I'm heading out tonight for Sao Paulo. This will be my ninth week out of the country, or eleventh if you count two weeks in Canada. Also gets me to my fifth continent this year and will get me to platinum elite on Continental.

Although it's been mostly a blast visiting all these places, I'm tired now. I didn't book this trip to give me any extra time on the ground in Brasil. I arrive mid-day on Sunday, about a 9 hour flight with a four hour time change. The flight is direct so no extra time wasted passing through extra airports. I will be teaching Monday to Friday and booked my return flight for 11pm on Friday.

I'm ready to be home for a while.

I've discovered that I cannot pack without a packing list. On the trip to Vancouver a couple of weeks ago I decided I didn't need no steenkeeng list and just started in packing. There are really only three things that can't be replaced easily: my laptop (because of the contents, not the machine itself), my passport, and my Ambien prescription. Especially just now when I'm heading for my 6th time zone in as many weeks, my sleeping patterns are totally wrecked. So I use Ambien to jump start myself into the new timezone.

Well, packing for the Vancouver trip I first planned to work from home on the Monday that I traveled. Then discovered that I had forgotten a vital bit of equipment at the office. Then I changed plans, packed and went to the office intending to go directly from the office to the airport. While at the office I realized I had forgotten to pack the Ambien so ... back home. And finally to the airport. All for the want of using my packing list.

Home, please

End of the company conference. This evening those of us who chose not to take a red-eye home and arrive at 5am went out for drinks and dinner. It was a good group, good conversation over some nice Pinot Noir and Italian food at Don Francesco's on Burard Street in downtown Vancouver.

Back to the hotel early. Alarm set for 4:30am to get a 5:15am cab to the airport. The new arrangement requires U.S. citizens to have passports to travel to Canada by air. But we'll clear customs in Canada, not back at home. Which makes for an early ... early! departure to be thru the bureaucracy prior to a 7:45am flight.