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CatholicTV.com

Friday, July 31, 2009

CatholicTV.com: Catholic video on the internet. I haven't watched any so I can't tell you anything about it. Have fun.

wedding

Saturday, July 25, 2009

We were at a wedding this afternoon. Very nice folks. We certainly wish them the best. We knew the bride since she was just a little toddler. Or maybe I should say we knew the family since she was just a little toddler. I don't think I have my mind wrapped around this thing known as the "passing of time" yet. Kids growing up and getting married. hmm.

splash

Since I was rather late getting up and we had a function this afternoon, there wasn't much time this morning to do much. So I let doggie play. I put down the kiddie pool, which actually is a plastic sandbox shaped like a turtle. I put water in it and let doggie splash around. He loved it. Several times he was in there aggressively "digging," making lots of noise and fantastic splashes. I had to refill the pool several times since his splashes would almost empty the kiddie pool. He had such fun all by himself. Maybe next time I'll attempt photos.

celebrating moon landing

Friday evening we were at a celebration for the 40th anniversary of the first landing on the moon. We had two toddlers and two teenagers. The kids didn't enjoy the presentation, but they enjoyed all the fun afterwards. There were free moon pies for all (ha ha). It was late when we got back and everyone was whipped. I didn't wake up this morning until 9:30 a.m.

muzzle review

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

This is the Jafco muzzle. It is plastic with rubber straps--meaning that there will be no qualms about getting it wet. It comes in white, black, and clear.

The fastening hardware is smooth inside and out. The plastic is glassy smooth on the inside and bead-blasted for a matte finish on the outside. The felt nosepad is fastened in two places. I don't know felt weights but would estimate this to be medium to heavy felt. Photo 3 is to give you an idea of the thickness of the plastic; a nickel is there for reference. Photo 3 also shows that the holes are beveled - this makes cleaning easier.

Photo 4 shows the size 4S on our Labrador Retriever. It's been adjusted so that it doesn't smush his nose. Also, he is able to open his mouth, can pant and drink. However, I might try a larger diameter muzzle next time so that he can open his mouth more.

When dogs drink, their tongue roll under, so I wonder if that seam on the inside might bother him. He has given the muzzle a pretty good work-out since these photos were taken. The muzzle is a bit scuffed up now and there is mud and grass trapped in the seams, but that isn't a problem to me. He can't get out of the muzzle himself, but it is pretty easy to pull that neck strap right over his head and pop that muzzle off. That isn't a feature; just letting you know that it can happen.

He can now accompany me when I work outside. With the muzzle on, he can no longer run off with my tools (or otherwise hurt himself by putting them in his mouth). However, I discovered that I can't paint with him outside. The other night I was painting and he went around me to get to the can of paint and started to drink the paint. Did I already say that he can drink with the muzzle on? Other possible mishaps include him getting into wet paint or knocking over the paint can.

I like the idea of the clear one, but it's softer material than the white or black one. I thought I needed tough plastic for this dog, so I got the white. I thought the white would be cooler (temperature-wise) than the black. Also, I can see better if anything odd is happening in that muzzle. I might get the clear one for use in the car. He had chewed off a piece of something the last time he was in the car. A softer one would be less likely to scuff up the car or scratch the glass windows.

Leerburg has the largest selection of sizes and also offers all three colors.

Yes I would recommend this muzzle to prevent the dog from eating things he shouldn't. Of, course, the best thing is to train the dog away from the undesired behavior. But if you're like me and can't seem to accomplish that, the muzzle is better than not doing anything at all. All muzzled dogs should be supervised since they won't be able to use their number one defense mechanism. I'm not sure about using one of these to prevent them chewing on post-surgery stitches. Seems like they can still use the hard edges of the plastic to scratch at the stitches.

kudos to NASA

Monday, July 20, 2009

Wow. Really amazing when I stop to take it in: NASA got people to the moon and back, not once but several times. And that was way back then. Forty years ago to be exact. Recent photos show shadows of the lunar landers that were left on the moon. More information on NASA's celebration of the 40th anniversary are found on their website. Somewhere there was a list of fun facts but I can't find it now. One of the facts was that the moon was so hard that they were barely able to get flag but a few inches into the surface and then had to be careful not to knock it over. Also the lander legs didn't compress as much as it should and Neil had to take a jump to get onto the moon surface. It's pretty amazing that they were able to get live video from the spacecraft and from the moon back to earth. And all those buttons and switches! In any case the complexities of the whole affair is mind-boggling.

ready for church

Sunday, July 19, 2009

All showered up and ready for church. I'm up for one of my volunteer gigs this morning. That means that I'll be at my parish. Sometimes we visit other parishes when we can (which we did last week). Gumby attends a different parish than I and sometimes I'm expected there. Happy Sunday to all.

blurbs

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Busy. Hence not here.

Sick cat, but cat ok now. Cat now shares my bathroom; might be a permanent arrangement. Gumby wants me to go get second covered litter box. There is one in there but it's small and uncovered.

Dog gets muzzle; two words: Jafco, Leerburg. I hope to eventually give a review of the muzzle.

Putting a VHS tape video onto DVD: complicated, exasperating. First it was cabling: composite video (RCA connectors) to S-Video on the computer card. Running around store to store for 3 hours yielded nothing. Mail-ordered the adapters. Then it was getting the computer to recognize the S-video input and having the software to capture the video. Then finding out the recorded format is not DVD format ... so need converting software. I finally got it done but I don't exactly know how.