The Countertop Chronicles

Well, there is something fundamentally wrong with the road system in Virginia. Somewhere, someone, screwed up in a tremendous way, and frankly I doubt this state will ever be able to fix what is wrong. And no, simply throwing money at Northern Virginia isn’t the solution - in fact, the idiots at VDOT have shown time and again that more money only leads to more ill considered worthless projects.

No, things need to be peeled back - and the entire morass needs to be examined and perhaps, if possible, ripped up and started all over.

Case in point:

I was supposed to do three things on Saturday. I was going to head down to meet my trainer and work with the dog. Then, I was going to head over to Richmond to the Virginia Sportsman’s Show - I had free tickets compliments of the Roanoke Times. Then, we were gonna race back up to NoVA and shoot some skeet.

We had it timed out right, but then we hit the Virginia road system.

Dog Training
Told the trainer, I’d be there at 10:30 with my buddy. We were gonna work the dog a couple of hours in the field . . . shooting some birds over him and working on different retrieving scenarios. I left, for the hour and 45 minute drive, at 8:30. No traffic at all, till I got to I-95 - and then just sat. And crawled. Finally making it to Fredericksburg at 10:30 and not getting down to his place till noon. Where I got to spend all of 15 minutes with him because I was so damn late.

Sportsman Show
We then left, drove on I64 over to Richmond. No problems here, and the sportsman show was neat. Great, impressive, buck collection. Someone clearly has better property to hunt than I do. Saw lots of neat hunting gadgets, almost bought a couple of duck calls, and got to speak with some hunting guides. All in all, it would have been worthwhile, except I was so ticked off about not getting to train with the dog it just ruined the whole experience for me.

Skeet Shooting
We raced on out of the Sportsman Show by 2:00pm, with what should have been a 90 minute drive on a lazy Saturday afternoon to get to shoot skeet. Heh. By 3:30 we had traveled 30 miles and reached Fredericksburg, where I tried to hop on VA17 to save time - and went 3 miles in 1 hour - before bailing and hopping back on 95. In another hour we moved another 25 miles and I was able to hop on VA 234 to cut across over to Mannassas. By then, it was nearly 6 and having sat in a car for 8 hours already it was too late to do much skeet shooting - so we hopped on I66 - and sat for another hour, not getting home till 7:30.

Thanks Virginia, For Ruining My Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday
I made up for it Sunday.

Started the day looking at canoes. I think I found a great one - I’ll be testing it out tonight to see if I want to buy it. Its an Old Town Duck Hunter - about an 18 year old canoe - thats perfect for hunting as well as for trips down the river with the family.

From there, I threw my kayak in the Potomac at Pennyfield lock. It was a gorgeous ride.

I paddled up into the islands and explored them a bit, taking coordinates on my GPS and checking out how they had eroded since last duck season. Your not allowed to built permanent blinds on them, but we constructed a series of makeshift blinds with deadfalls, etc. last season that survived most of the winter. Unfortunatly, it doesn’t look like any survived the spring floods. Whats more, there was a fair bit of erosion going on, and some new channels opened up.

I ran into this guy right in front of one of our old blinds.

I also got out and did a bit of scouting in one of the areas I go deer hunting. The corn didn’t look so good, but they had a real healthy crop of beans. It should be a good season!

Well, I’d have to say as a one of the many carry permit holders who hasn’t committed a crime as a carry permit holder, and generally doesn’t try to hard to raise my google fu through weird google bombs utilizing terms like carry permit holders, I’m offended that their carry permit holders ranking isn’t even lower.

Hope you enjoyed them, I made some of my own.

Long story short, I was cleaning gutters on the roof of my soooper secret North Georgia Mountain hideaway when the ladder gave way from under me.

Next thing I know, I’m lying on the ground 12 feet down, after trying to break my back on the fence railing (thank god the ladder saved me).

Stuck me in an Ambulence in trauma (neck and back brace) and ran me a good 30 minutes into Chattanooga. Spent the evening and most of the morning with the good folks at Memorial Hospital.

Just released, with some wicked bruising and pulled back (still having trouble breathing) and a weeks supply of narcotics and muscle relaxers.

More later . . . .

Sure, gas is just hitting $4 a gallon here in Northern Virginia (actually, I filled up for $3.79 yesterday) but I’m not that worried. Even with an SUV. I suspect things will be tight this summer, as speculators run rampant (blame the press) but as with everything market related the laws of supply and demand will hold true again and you can bet that price will begin to creep down as American’s conserve less and can justify, economically, more efficient vehicles.

Me, I’m gonna keep driving my 1996 Grand Cherokee. One, its paid for. Two, it only has 110,000 miles on it. And three, I boosted its fuel efficiency 20% this week, going from a paltry 18.5 mpg to 24.5 mpg - or about $15 per fill up. Now thats real money (and will help buy me some eggs and milk)

How? Well, Glen linked to this story on Fuel Efficiency tips and I simply took the first it to heart. I set the on board display to show current mileage and knowing I got about 18.5 mpg with it generally tried to drive at a pace that stayed above that.

Here’s the top 4 tips I followed:

1. Track Your Mileage in Real Time
2. Only Brake When You Have to
3. Always Stay Alert on the Road
4. Drive Like You’re on a Bike

It wasn’t too hard. A couple of things - I never went over 60 miles per hour (that seemed to be the magic threshold where mileage really dropped off. Thats ok, 60 is plenty fast where I was driving. I suspect on the highway, if I got up to cruising speeds, it would handle it too). I also slowed down slowly, trying to conserve momentum, and when I was at a traffic light, I accelerated slowly. Thats it. I didn’t even resort to the old standby of putting the car in neutral to coast down big hills.

I’ll try that next week.

The oldest turned 6 today. I can’t believe how fast they grow. He’s officially not a little boy anymore. Makes me want to cry.

Cool gifts include a Beta fighting fish, which he immediatly named “King of all Fish”. And that’s the only way we are allowed to refer to him.

Also got a zip wire. (Yeah!!!!) And a Nintendo DS and the Complete Lego Star Wars saga game. Too cool!!

In other news, I learned he shared a birthday with Adolf Hitler. Didn’t know that till today. Put that together with the fact that our youngest shares a name with the author of the Turner Diaries and the conspiracy artists are gonna have a field day.

We finished our meeting in the city of blues around 4:30 yesterday and settled in at Hooters downtown for some conference tournament excitment.

When we arrived, ran into colleuges who skipped out early. At noon.

They had set a goal, they were going to drink every last BLUE aluminum bottle of Bud Light there.

At 5, when we showed up, they had a pile of 80 empties stacked up. By 7, the mission was completed - the entire supply of commemorative bottles was consumed by our guys. 6 cases.. And the night was young. I’ve got no idea what the final tab was, but they were there till closing - at 1 am. They spent a total of 13 hours drinking. Had to be some kind of record

Me?? I headed off across the street to Mike Shanahan’s, a sports themed steakhouse to watch UNC - Duke.

Duke lost. Yeah!!!

We had fat steaks, and copious amounts of booze. Total tab, for 10, was $965. Which wasn’t too bad, I didn’t think, considering all we drank there.

Steaks, which were thick and well marbled ran $35-45. Service was generally adequate, with on glaring exception,, though I thought my steak was overcooked. I ordered it blue rare, and it was light pink.

Sides at $7 left something to be desired. Wild rice dish was small but well seasoned. Asparagus were a little soft for me, and served only with butter. I would have expected some cream sauce option at least.

Creme Brule was fantastic, but desert was marred by the fact that our coffee came about 10 minutes after we finished desert. Considering the profit center that the desert course is to a restaurant, and the lasting flavor it leaves, this was simply unacceptable. And while the restaurant was jam packed busy when we arrived, by the time we got to desert we were one of the few tables left.

Got back to the hotel, and ended up whyling the night away drinking Rye whiskey with depressed Creighton fans.

iN S. lOUIS.

wITH cREIGHTON FRANS.

DRINKING al ot.

at a duelling piano bar.

Total midwest experience. who njnew they ahad so many hottie slutts?
Wow.

Go Creighton.

in other news, we acutioned off a shotgun - it went for a lot. Guy from Tennessee bought it. Just as i fuugoired.

also, im in the wall street hournal today

good deal.

Self, you need to meet the guy who moved in a couple of houses down a across the street with the white Honda mini van and VCDL bumper stickers on his car.

at and ungodly hour for San Fran.

Took Washington Flyer for the first time to the airport. Its very efficient. They pocked me up in a nice luxury SUV and drop me off right at the terminal for $37 (including the tip). Considering convenience and that it costs $20 a day to park, its a great no hassle deal.

Flying Virgin. Cool. Richard b ranson is a rock star. Entire experience is enjoyable, from quick check in, small well designed boarding pass (picture coming soon) to the lack of terrorists at check in

More, including pics, later

Sitting here, in the arm chair. A 1 year old asleep on my left leg and a 9 week old puppy asleep on my right.

December 24, 1999 - February 9, 2008

RIP Beaux. Your a good buddy. Chase a squirrel in that big field in the sky for me. We’ll miss you.

Well, I can’t embedd it. Here’s a link

My politically correct, but totally disobedient, dog is in bad shape.

We were gone this weekend, in Jersey, and when we came back he was acting pretty funny - very depressed, not his usual jovial disobedient self. Kicker was when I threw him a peanut butter doggie biscuit and he let it fall to the ground.

Wife just called. She took him to the vet today cause she was so worried and it looks like he ingested rat poison. He had stayed with my sister in law, and we think he may have gotten into either rat poison in her basement or ate a rat that had been poisoned. Vet doesn’t know for sure, but they’re doing blood work and he’s in the hospital with major internal bleeding right now.

Hope you pull through buddy. I love ya.

update

Back from the vets. He has a lot of internal bleeding. They gave him an injection of something to help coagulate his blood and will re-examine him in the morning and probably operate, depending on what they find Please, keep your rat poison away from pets and small children.

Whats eerie about this is that EPA has been working to ban the over the counter sale of 2nd Generation anti-coagulant rodenticides and classify them as a restricted use pesticide. The agency’s goal is to stop exactly what happened here, “the mis use of these products by housewives and suburban women” (thats an actual quote from the staffer in charge). They’ve been at this for almost 9 years but haven’t succeeded yet - in large measure because of my efforts (I don’t oppose their goal, just their approach). (see update below)

Its going to be long night and I need to do some sole searching.

UPDATE 1:55 pm January 24

Well, he’s doing slightly better. He’s got a very high white blood cell level and an enlarge spleen. They were talking about removing the spleen, but think he is too weak for surgery right now. They finally got him to eat a little bit and have him on IV and hope to give him some oral antibiotics to stem whatever infection is causing the elevated white blood levels.

Dr. said he’s doing slightly better (he finally wagged his tail) but isn’t really moving around and they are going to keep him there for continued monitoring.

oh, and to make matters worse, it looks like our hot water heater - which is a relatively new 15 months old - went kaput. So know hot water and no showers. Ugh.

UPDATE 5:45 pm January 24

Talked to the vet. Blood test has come back negative for the rat poison. They now think (are 99% sure) that he’s contracted something from a tick bite. Which is scary. He picked one up while we were in Georgia over Christmas, right at the scruff of his neck, we didn’t discover it for a couple of weeks until we got back. He was a big one. Anyway, the staff at the hospital are all in agreement that it looks like a tick borne infection/disease now. They still have him on IV, but said he’s showing continuing progress. The hope is that he’s ready to go home and recover tomorrow as he’s a bit stressed out being in the hospital. Of course, thats the hope. If he’s not ready to go home tomorrow we are going to have to make a very difficult decision.

UPDATE Jan 25 3:50 pm

Thanks for your continued concern.

We’ve had a very interesting morning, which had taken us through the complete range of human emotions. We spoke to the vet about 7:40 this morning at which point he said two things, they didn’t think this was a tick born illness (test came back negative) and that Beaux had taken a turn for the worse.

Initially, his red blood cells were at 22. Yesterday, they had gone up to 27, which was a hopeful sign, but this morning they had dropped down to 17 and the vet thought Beaux was near death.

However, for some reason, he decided to try another test - this time, he came back positive for an auto immune deficiency.The new theory is that his body is attacking itself. They don’t know why this occurs in dogs, but lucky they can treat it in some cases. So, they have started him on a regiment of steroids. If he was going to come through this, we should have known this afternoon.

Of course, even doing that didn’t return him to the fun loving pup he once was, and so this afternoon, the doctor called us with the sad news his development wasn’t progressing. My mother in law, who he loves, wanted to go by to see him and as soon as he saw her he perked up, though we don’t know how successful this treatment will be. So know, my wife is heading over there and is going to spend the night with him.

Me, being the cruel hearted person I am, first broached the fact that we don’t have infinite resources last night. You would have thought my wife caught me in bed with her sworn enemy. By this morning though, she was coming around to the fact that Beaux was not living the happy life we would want for him, and came around to what I thought was the inevitable.

We will have to make a decision sometime tonight or tomorrow, depending on if this new course of action takes effect.

UPDATE 5:55 pm January 27

Took him home from the vet hospital yesterday afternoon around 4:00 pm. They thought there was a chance of continued improvement, but didn’t think there was anything else they could do at the hospital. We were hopeful that being at the home would cheer him up and help him recover. At the same time, I also called our normal vet,, Juan Villar, who is a good friend but doesn’t work out of a full service hospital. He showed up shortly after we got home and reviewed the records and has been working with us.

At one point last night, we were seconds away from making the fateful decision, and in fact I think had already made it, when all of a sudden this strong willed and loving dog lifted his head and walked across the room. We checked his guns, which were ghost white at that point, and they had a touch of color. As a result, we’ve decided to take it minute by minute.

He’s on a rigorous regime of medicine, and seems to improve and then deteriorate. He vomited a number of times last night, but I suspect we gave him too much to eat We’ve cut his food intake down to a 1/4 of a hot dog every hour and a swedish meatball when he needs to take his medicine. He’s also eating a little bit of bread.

Today he seemed even better. When Dr. Villar showed up this morning, he jumped up and ran down the hall to great him. My inlaws stopped by, and he stood in the window for 30 seconds barking, before having to rest again.

He’s sleeping right now, snoring heavily, at my feet.

That was the weight around noon today on my bathroom scale. Naked. Before I stepped into the shower, after a morning of duck hunting (3 shots, 1 mallard hen - we saw some birds out, they just were not coming down by us).

I suspect there was something wrong with my scale, cause I know I didn’t lose 10 pounds in just 14 days by simply cutting my intake in half (and not really increasing my excercise). I calibrated it, setting it at the empty weight to zero. However, I’m doubtful thats correct. I’m going to recheck that weight tomorrow morning.

100%ALCOHOLIC