heipel

This Blog is About to Disappear.

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Sat, 01 May 2010 00:22:00 +0000

Sorry. I have not the technical knowhow to even understand the directions for migrating my blog to bogger's new system. In fact I don't even know what will happen to my files if I choose not to migrate.

So, in weeks or months or days, perhaps if you want to find me blogging, try googling my name and see what comes up.

Thanks for your following over the past little while.

Untrained dogs

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 16:25:00 +0000

No stranger to yelling matches in dog parks with people with untrained dogs that impinge upon my (read, Ruby's) space, this morning's episode produced at least the entertainment of hearing the single stupidest thing I've heard about dog behaviour and training -- see aren't I always looking for the positive? :)

So, Ruby is at heel, beautifully I might add, as we approach the open meadow where we play ball and is so because we're running late so there are lots of dogs about and I'm utterly disinterested in ever letting Ruby be part of the dog-park pack syndrome. (She gets tons of dog play with dogs we know and like, not that it's a requirement that dogs get to play with other dogs -- damn, my brother the dog trainer is rubbing off on me). I see two nearby great danes running, not in a playful way, toward us so I stop, which as she's trained to do makes Ruby sit down at heel.

The danes keep coming and I get in between one of them and Ruby but the other gets her, flips her over and then the two are on her, growling nastily and snapping at her (and biting her at least once). I realize my fist is clenched and I'm about to punch the larger of the danes in the head when the owner steps in, and doesn't control the danes, but chases one away and hauls the second off by the collar, ignoring, I noted, his only real tool, a pinch collar. In the shouting (mine) match that ensues I was told the "just a little bit of dog interaction in an off leash park" was Ruby's fault 'cause she acted submissively (she's not at all submission btw, although is totally without aggression) by sitting down when the danes ran toward her.

It got highly entertaining though when I told the guy to let the dane he was holding go and he did and then asked him to recall the dog. Of course he couldn't, didn't even try, and I kept repeating, coldly, "call your dog back and make him sit next to you" no matter what he said to me. HA! It made him so mad. It helped that Ruby did her part by sitting next to me where I'd asked her to stay. I apparently used swear words and was told not to curse (HA!) -- free of irony that he'd called me an asshole; I agreed saying I AM an asshole when it comes to confronting people who don't train their dogs -- so Ruby and I parted with the words, "Fucking dick wad."

At least I knew I was safe 'cause the guy couldn't sick his dogs (all combined 300 pounds of 'em) on me given they don't listen to him :)

This is not the first episode with theses danes (which are beautiful, btw) and next time, although it'll get me bitten almost certainly, I'll harness my anger so I'm putting my steel toed hiking boots to both of them if they so much as sniff Ruby's ass.

Peter Principle Invades GTA Chapter of Large Charity

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 04:46:00 +0000

Rather than talk about that headline, here are some dog photos instead. And yah, yah, I was throwing the ball AND taking the shots and thus the ass shots of the dog (versus some nice head on shots of Ruby's incredible ability to nab that ball on a bounce or to scoop it off the ground as it rolls and she flies past.

PS -- For those in need, the Peter Principle indicates the situation where an incompetent boob rises to the top of an organization as others promote or encourage the promotion to move the boob out, culminating in the major irony of said boob becoming THE boss.

Fire

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 21:56:00 +0000

Happened to have my camera in the car last weekend when downtown's sun filled sky was interrupted by a huge plume of black smoke. My reporter days behind me I had lunch first and then went to investigate.

Mexico -- some pics

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 02:18:00 +0000

Been home nearly a month.

Sorry for the lack of blogs. I do plan to change the frequency to just short of often from the sweet nearly nothing that I've adopted over the past year. For those (hello MS) worried about my well being due to my lack of blogs, I'm well; just too damn easy to play PS3 and slip into mindless slothful mode than blog.

Ruby's first snow (she was just three months old)

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:30:00 +0000

Meant to post this for Ruby's birthday wish but formatting problems played havoc... Hope it works now.

Happy Birthday, Ruby!

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 17:46:00 +0000

Ruby turned two years of age today. We celebrated as we do every morning with me in more layers of clothing than an onion has and her refusing to get cold.

And to think it seems like just yesterday I had a life before I had a dog :)

[Photo taken with my BlackBerry -- the touch screen version being the worst bit of technology I've ever owned..]

Happy 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 21:41:00 +0000

Merry Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 04:22:00 +0000

Dang, I suck with photoshop!

That aside, the best of the season from me, Who Who is Now Landed and Ruby the Portuguese Snow Dog.

Judoka

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:08:00 +0000

A friend, and a sensei, was visiting with his wife from the southern part of the province for a Judo tournament at the university. He had three judoka with him competing. I always thought judo was a bunch of grappling with hands full of robe, but watching more closely today to try to anticipate throws in order to capture them with the camera, it became clear that judo is not simply technical attempts to kick the butt of your opponent's centre of balance, but profoundly beautiful in that technicality and its bow (forgive the term here) to strict formality and manners.

more Judoka

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:03:00 +0000

more Remembrance Day 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:46:00 +0000

Remembrance Day 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:29:00 +0000

In the photos here, included is a shot of double Memorial Cross recipients -- Kitty Elliot who lost her husband, brother and cousin in WWII, and Rebeka Bulger who lost her husband to the violence in Afghanistan in July. Insanity 65 years ago, insanity four months ago. Bulger's brothers looked so much alike and surely like their fallen sibling and I looked into the face of the 87 year old woman and tried to see the face of her brother so long gone.

Included too, a shot of an old vet fallen from his chair, later quietly carried from the hall he appeared okay, perhaps simply exhausted from a march on legs too distant from their last formal drill.

I wound up in the press pool taking photographs this morning so I felt a bit "distant" from the ceremony, somehow -- nothing more cynical than a reporter, except perhaps the camera guys.

The image of the young boy saluting so earnestly was the trigger for my tears today, however. Children. In uniforms. But as a friend said looking at the enlisted men and women today, they are all children, really....

Lest we Forget

11h 11/11/2009 Edmonton

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:05:00 +0000

Within days of arriving in New Zealand in the mid '80s, I hitched a ride with a man who stopped to offer a ride, he said, because I looked like a Scot, with my beard and plaid tam upon my head. Himself a Scot transplanted to New Zealand some decades earlier his face noticeably went to remembrance, when he learned I was Canadian.

As he drove he told me of being a kid during the second world war, the rationing, the fear, the doing without. Then surely I disappeared in the car and he held out the hand not on the wheel and stared at his palm as if on its horizontal plane it held something and he told of an apple, red and travel weary in consistency, but an apple still. An apple given him at school, to all the kids at school, a gift from the orchards of Canada.

"Thank you," he said, tears in his eyes.

We drove in silence until coming down a long steep hill a small village came into view and he asked if he might buy me a beer. Again, "thanks," as we downed the beer in a quick couple of pulls, and back to the car to continue on our way.

Lest we forget.

Happy Halloween

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 01:52:00 +0000

A giant pumpkin balloon.

Dog Park Balloons

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 05:21:00 +0000

Turns out one of the city's largest dog parks is the launch site of hot air balloons.

Dress Rehersal

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:07:00 +0000

Took He Who Is Now Landed to MEC today to buy him insulated pull over pants and gloves for the winter.

Edmonton has been having a remarkably warm fall; some days 15 or more degrees above average. My memory going back to my days in Brandon and Red Deer I picked up a few goodies of my own so as to avoid freezing my ass on the long dog walks in the frozen days to (soon) come.

Vatican II (not) [For PJ]

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 02:01:00 +0000

As you may know, God lives in Alberta.

You'll note this bumper sticker is actually not on a bumper, but on the door of this truck; its twin is stuck identically on the other door. Fearing that taking this photo might insult the owner of the truck (or at least initiate a conversation I had no energy to avoid) I did not stick around to capture photos of the misplaced bumper stickers affixed to the tailgate and canopy that suggested Lucifer hisself was gonna whip my ass without some help and that my meeting Lucifer was going to have a lot to do with my pro life stance...

Mountain Dog

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 02:29:00 +0000

Over the long weekend, Ruby and I joined B&F and the kids for a few days of camping. We went to Rock Lake, about 4 hours from Edmonton -- including 32 km on a gravel road (which accounts for nearly an hour of the trip).

Ruby spent a lot of time in a mountain river -- the name of which escapes me at the moment -- so cold that it numbed my feet quite literally to no feeling in less than a minute or two. She didn't seem to notice. She did get swept down stream by the current once and pulled under sweepers (trees fallen into the river). I thought she was a goner but she popped up in the middle of the branches and managed to get her front legs over the branches of one tree. F was pulling clothing off to go rescue her but as he moved down stream on shore she pulled herself laterally along the trunk (hilarious if I'd not been so worried) of the tree and then launched herself back into the river and swam to him. She and I then gave up the fly fishing (e.g. walking up river for a few kilometres crisscrossing the river as the terrain or depth and current might warrant).

Ruby is also a dog that despises being warm -- to the point she'll reject cuddling and gave up wanting on the bed as once she got there she found it too warm -- but the final night the temperature dropped to near zero and I finally as she was clearly actually cold opened my sleeping bag, dragged her inside where she sprawled out her full length against me and stayed put!

He Who is Now Landed was grandly sad he had to work and thus miss tent sleeping and living without a flush toilet or running water for a few days :)

Duan Wu Jie

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:04:00 +0000

Dragon boat dragon heads during duanwu jie races on the North Saskatchewan River.

Joe, our neighbour

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 04:54:00 +0000

We live next door to Saint Joseph's Basilica in Edmonton. I grabbed this shot handheld at night and love the noise produced by the extremely high ISO setting, as well as how the auto, white balance "read" the large sodium lights.

But if it's your life?

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 04:51:00 +0000

Yah, yah...

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 22:28:00 +0000

Yah, yah, more pics of the dog.

In case you haven't noticed for the past 1.5 plus years Ruby has consumed my free time. Reference the 2.5 hour walk we went on this morning and the 3.5 hour walk yesterday morning -- the hour less today due to getting better instructions for finding a bridge across the river that did not include following the perimeter of a park which follows a near circuitous route!

As you can see from these shots, Ruby seems to be hating Edmonton. Pics taken on my cellphone.

He Who Is Now Landed got a job! First resume delivered. An interview and then the job. He's already worked a shift. Full kitchen duties with a steep learning curve -- Italian restaurant.

Hello Edmonton

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 03:07:00 +0000

The Stink of a River Dog, or, How Bad Customer Service Proved Advantageous (to the customer!)

noreply@blogger.com (Heipel) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 17:38:00 +0000

Glacier fed, the North Saskatchewan River's water ranks excellent for quality. Before it reaches the city; after which the quality drops some 24%.

By the time the river reaches Edmonton, it no longer looks like its mother is ice. Not exactly a muddy river it does leave a dog that plays in it grimy and a bit green smelling, certainly.

Ruby the Portuguese Annoying Dog loves the river and has in the past couple of weekends started to actually swim, rather than wade, in the big flow. Unlike some breeds of dogs that simply smell like dog (I think labs, for example) Ruby, when she smells bad, smells like whatever it is that's left her filthy. As a puppy it was the shit and piss infused sand of the idiotic fenced dog parks of Toronto (before the move to the open park in Rich,er,Rosedale. Once it was the smell of the bloated (and very dead) possum she rolled in (after eating an about 15 foot rope of entrails she'd pulled from the carcass -- as an aside within an aside, that was the final straw of her zero recall which kept her on the leash for months and lead to the miracle training tool, the e-collar).

In the end, she's a dog and could care less if she smells to high heaven. Without an outside hose, washing a dog is a nightmare, and given I'm cheap the $12 do it yourself wash at Menagerie Pets in Toronto means Ruby has been formally bathed in her 19 months so few times I can recall all of the baths.

Then there's brushing. To start at the end, she has now come to tolerate being brushed, although only if she's allowed to attack and chew the brushes periodically during the exercise. It would be much better, of course, if it, the brushing, wasn't a once a week exercise when nascent matting has had a chance to take hold somewhat.

Add to this shoddy dog hygeneship the feeding of raw meat to a long haired dog (see her muzzle hair length in the last post's photo) and there is at least one glimmer of good dog care here -- I wash my dog's face twice a day. Coddling, you think? Imagine small chunks of ground, raw meat on your couch, having been deposited there when they fell from a dog's beard.

In the last blog's photo you'll also notice what appear to be Princess Leia like masses on either side of her muzzle -- those would be impenetrable mats composed of tangled and loose, but not lost, hair, burs, and raw meat remnants of meals past.

These had to go as they had taken on a smell of their own, riding tandem with the river stink Ruby now wears like a badge.

So I booked a grooming session for Petsmart -- it's cheap, they don't know a thing about PWD haircuts, but hey I just wanted the nice bath and blow dry, the clipped nails (something I've never done, as so much nail wearing down exercise does Ruby get that I'm able to rely on the twice or three times a year grooming nail clipping), even the brushed teeth add on option. I called the store, booked the appointment AND when I suggested I'd have to call my Toronto vet to get the latest Rabies vaccination confirmation was told:

"Oh no, that's not necessary. Has your dog been groomed at a Petsmart before?"

Yes, says me who is then delighted to know the Edmonton location will simply call the Toronto location and there's no need to bug the vet, worry about faxes, etc.

Arrive we do at Petsmart (me with some positive anticipation as I'm looking forward to having a dog whose face doesn't look and smell like the head of a dumpster diving indigent) and are greeted with:

"Oh, how would we get the Toronto phone number for the store???" As the two groomers blather on about the number not being on a list, and the farthest east they have is a store in Saskatoon's number, and, strangely, that the Toronto number wouldn't be in the phone book, I called information on my cell and provide the rocket scientists with the number.

Response:

"Your dog's vaccination certificate has expired."

I explain I have Ruby's rabies tag in the car, but that won't do. Clearly I conclude there's a broad ring of people who share such time stamped dog tags in order to get their dogs' groomed without getting rabies vaccinations... Sigh.

We leave. Then it occurs to me I had Ruby vaccinated before I left for Edmonton and they would have required her new certificate (which I remembered then the Toronto store calling the vet to get as much at the last grooming in Toronto). I call Petsmart in Toronto and remind them of this. Oh, they finally say, "yes, yes, here it is. We were looking at an old record."

By then we've left the groomers and in fact I'm in West Edmonton Mall (Ruby and He Who is Now Landed waiting in the car in the parking lot) picking up the large, large purchase of clothing I'd made at Harry Rosen a couple weeks previous and had left behind for alterations; those now completed.

So, Ruby doesn't get groomed. I take her for a walk this morning and then, at friends', as they're on holiday, pick three quarts of raspberries along the fence line. There Ruby adds some sort of tiny burs in great number to her entire snout and much of one ear, for good measure.

Could this story be any longer?

I shampooed Ruby at the raspberry picking house (they have a hose and a lawn and everything!) and then came home and groomed Ruby's face myself!

Looks grand and I saved myself $100 or so. I decided that when it comes time to groom her generally I'm going to do that myself too -- 'cause if I can get her to sit relatively still while I use scissors and combs/brushes around her mouth and eyes, the rest will be easy with electric clippers. He Who is Now Landed might not be too happy that it'll be the clippers he shaves his head with.

If I do say so myself Ruby looks fab even if her muzzle does look a wee bit asymmetrical. This shot really shows her red highlights, as well (there are red Porties out there). A shame the benefits of the shampooing will last only as long as her evening romp in the river.