Happy Halloween

Blending in

I'll have to be careful walking him near any woods or fields during deer season. The bright red harness should account for something. My daughter found a place that sells dog jackets with some big enough that they might fit him. I will try to choose a bright color for him.

When I first found him, I was describing his appearance. One vet said "fawn color" and I had not thought of that. (It is a common color for boxers). I was leaning more to a red cast to his coat. But, fawn color it is.

I still say he is more calf than anything. He is as big as a calf, he bounds around wildly like a calf hopped up on crystal meth (as if I've ever witnessed one of those!) and he grunts and snorts like a bull. (That I have witnessed).

I've never had a dog quite like this. Well, my house dogs have been limited to one little dandiedinmont terrier, (this photo is EXACTLY what my dog looked like - we found her in a strip mining area) and our old reliable Sable, so the energetic pups and this calf in the house have been quite an adjustment.

I did buy a dog pen yesterday and my brother picked it up for me. My daughter's boyfriend and his friend are going to assemble it for us today (maybe). That will help this winter when I can just shove the pups into the cage. The boxer will still need to be walked. My brother said he thinks he has extra pieces that I can add to the pen to make it larger. Well, that would be great!

Growing up we took in all the stray dogs. We just added them to our gang of "yard shitters" way down in the back of our house. We gave them a dog house and chained them to it. I do not recommend this behavior. Now that I am older I understand how inhumane this was. As I got older I became more attentive to how they were treated. We stopped taking in strays, and made sure the dogs we did have had fresh straw at the beginning of the winter. How they loved getting straw. They would drag some of it back out of their dog houses and move it around and spread it all around. It was comical. I also began to make sure that they had fresh water each day. My Mom never let us go without feeding them. When I was young and ran around a lot, I can still remember her anger if we neglected to come home and feed the dogs. We had a slop bucket in the kitchen where we dumped all extra food and I mixed it with their dog food. Yes, it smelled. And the soft, mushy food was lousy for their teeth.

When I moved to Virginia in 1986 I can remember sitting straight up in bed from a deep sleep and thinking "I forgot to feed the dogs!" That is how much fear my Mom put into us. We never wanted to disappoint her or make her angry. Of course I did a lot of that.

Anyway, the dogs eventually died out, and my Mom was left with a cat or two around the house. We had all moved out, but my niece stayed with her while my sister was incarcerated. We always seemed to have a cat around.

I guess perhaps my pet rescue was ingrained in me at a very early age. I have been programmed to rescue them.

I Let my Guard Down

I was sidetracked taking pictures of the burro. I was on the other side of the fence. I had hold of the boxer. I never let my dogs into the fenced area with the big horse, burro and two little miniature horses. I never have to worry about my older dog Sable. She is quiet and very slow.

I cringe as I type this. I was very foolish yesterday. I let my guard down and Sable snuck around behind and got into the fenced-in area. I was mortified! "Get out of there!" I yelled at her. She just looked at me and wagged her tail to the burro.

Always one to try to make friends, she had not one clue.

She has a very thick coat. She is a big dog.

Let me just say now that she is fine and safe. Because I am very upset over the 30 seconds of horror I went through while that burro pummeled her on her back with it's front legs. Sable just hunkered down and whimpered.

I was trying to get the burro to leave without letting go of the boxer. I was yelling at it. I was pleading with Sable to get over to me. She was confused. She tried but the burro would begin pummeling her again.

Finally I got her through the fence. I checked her over, she was walking okay and just acting normal like "What?"

I made a very serious mistake. That won't happen again. Sable will also be leashed each and every time we walk. I am sick and disgusted with myself. I am lucky this time that nothing serious happened.

Never let your guard down. You just never know.

Fire Eater

What a way to make a living!

Or, maybe it is just a week-end hobby for him.

I am such a DORK!

Yeah. So, I am going into my profile and adding as an interest the word "Boxers" thinking maybe I'll find some folks out there in blog land who also have a boxer or boxers and I can read what they do and how they handle theirs and what fun they are, blah, blah, blah.

I begin reading their profiles and interests. It was a couple of pages in that I was a bit confused. What is it with all the sΣx and p○rn profiles? I thought maybe they liked boxers as in fighters and began skipping all the profiles with a million words in their interests. I found very few that looked promising. A lot were now defunct. I think Blogger should begin deleting any profiles who have not had activity in at least 3 years or so. I don't know.

Pretty soon, after reading and glancing at profile pictures it dawned on me what the erotica bloggers were speaking of. Boxers! As in boxers and briefs underwear! That was their interest! Not the dog, not the fighter - but the underwear! Oh, okay. Well, I still didn't find many that pertains to the puppy dog.

I tried the Google option, but I more or less get professional boxer raisers, trainers and complete devoted folks. I am just a dog-lovin' dork who found myself with a boxer and would like to read about other folks who stumbled into this boxer world. I am not interested in breeding boxers, I am not interested in showing my boxer, I just want to read about other folks who laugh and enjoy their boxers. Sigh. I'll keep looking.

Some sunshine on a sunny Sunday

A couple of blocks away from me is a little bit of country. Next to a field of horses is an empty lot that winds back up into some woods. I walked up there today and took some pictures. It was pretty. I would say it was quiet but there was this one guy who ran his leaf blower for two hours straight. Two hours! It started long before I took the dogs for a walk and he was still running it when we left the wooded area. A noise that can really get on your nerves.

I rested all day Saturday. My nephew came to visit. My daughter and her boyfriend were here. My daughter's friend came over. The house was noisy and rocked with laughter.

Today we made it out to eat at a restaurant but I didn't have the energy to go grocery shopping. I will be able to drive tomorrow and will take my little green car that has not moved since Thursday the 15th and stock up on some much needed supplies.

Wait. Maybe not. I guess I will only get a few things since I am still not to do any heavy lifting.

I have another Tis the Se@son trip scheduled in November. I am going with some co-workers this time. Maybe I will leave the camera in my purse and actually look for something to purchase this time around.

I gave my surgery a good test this evening while watching AFV. Usually when I laugh hard I start coughing. That is where the stress happens. All is well. My doctor still wants me to take it easy so I had to turn my laughing down quite a bit.

My daughter's boyfriend's Mom has the Sw!ne flu. Well, she said that is what her doctor told her. She did have a lot more of an illness than her son did and more than my bug last week. I just read an article from our newspaper about H!N! and it stated that the one case confirmed in our county is in isolation at the hospital. And, I've read that the doctors are just telling their patients that it is probably H!N!.

Ack! Boxer is passing gas something awful, so I am on my way outside! Cough, cough!

Frosted Joy

One of my favorite displays at the Christmas Chalet

I woke up the other morning with a great idea. I cancelled all plans for this week-end and next week. I am treating my recovery more like a vacation than a time to rest and heal. Shame on me! My sisters and friends will have to understand.

My daughter drove me to the pet store today. I bought the largest dog jacket they had and I have to return it. It is still too small for my broad-chested boxer. It poured buckets of rain down today and I hated having him out in the cold without a jacket.

He was really funny. He bounced. He ran. Have you ever seen a boxer run? I'll have to record him running. He was just a joy today.

We watched "The Proposal" with S Bullock. You know how I think that all her characters are the same. This was no exception. Scrunched nose, ditsy and girl-next-door demeanor. I don't care if she was supposed to be the bitch from hell. She wasn't. I liked the movie, though. I loved her dancing chant the most.

It was nice to see Betty White in a movie.

Jumping the Season a bit

Three of my sisters and I plus one friend and two toddlers headed to Amish country Wednesday. I spent 12 hours away from home. I'm sure my doctor would think I was nuts, but I rested as often as I could. I was not driving (of course) so I rested during stops.

The kids were a handful. My stipulation was that we stop at Tis the Se@son in Berl!n. I like this place for many reasons. The first is color. My eyes get a virtual kaleidoscope of color when I visit this 3 story shopping chalet. 2nd reason is they allow you to take pictures. And, they smile when you ask. I ask each time I go - just in case they change their policy.

Yes, some of the decorations are redundant but it never ceases to surprise me with new trees, new color schemes and new arrangements.

When we arrived home, I had more energy than when we left. I spent thirty more minutes walking the boxer before I went inside and retired for the evening. The kids talked me into playing a little bit of P!ctionary with them. I told them to have mercy, I had laughed all day and I certainly was sore. My sides hurt from coughing and my cheeks hurt from laughing. There was no mercy. I finally quit and went to bed.

I have mentioned to many that I am getting a pink tutu for my boxer and am dressing him up for Halloween. My daughter wants to do bat outfits for the pups. I said "Well, we'll have to dress Sable up as well." They asked "As what?" I replied, "A barrel, of course!"

A Blow upon a Bruise

I managed to make it outside today to get some fresh air into my lungs walking the boxer out into the front yard. I saw the green floral van coming down the road. He turned into the neighbor's driveway across the street.

I thought to myself. Maybe it is Eileen's birthday. How fortunate that I am out here to see her get her flowers. He pulled up in front of MY house and hopped out. "Do you live here?"

"YES!"

"I've got something for you."

And he handed me the beautiful planter you see above. Co-workers are thinking of ME!

My boxer wanted to go with him. I think he wanted to take him.

Woot! Roses on Saturday and a planter today.

But, OH.... the agony! I was SO sick yesterday. I coughed all day and all night.

My sides hurt so bad from coughing.

There is nothing I can do. I take the medicine. It makes me sick to my stomach. I eat cold pop sickles. I was miserable. I had body aches all day and then "poof" they were gone around 8 p.m. The headache, too. But, the cough remains. Ugh.

When I go to cough today I wince. It is going to hurt. And hurt it does.

If my surgery is undone it is undone. This cough has a mindset of its own.

Many others are sick. I am not alone. Just bad timing with my surgery.

Restless

I am restless. I am irritable. How come I can't get enough of movies and documentaries on the week-ends between work weeks but when I am off work for 2 weeks I can't stand to sit in my chair another minute?! Ugh!

I am sick and tired of generic acetaminophen. I won't touch the generic Vicodin. It only makes me sicker. I am not in that much pain. It just sort of feels like I over did it while exercising.

I had this procedure done.

I have had a nagging cough all day. It is like a dry, hacking cough. The doctor told me to get cough drops and to make sure I take a cough suppressant if I get a cough afterwards. Well, it is not working. I am coughing and coughing. I had to turn the heat on because it got so cold. Now it is just dry.

I just hope I don't ruin everything and undo what was done to correct the problem.

Sisters are picking me up on Wednesday for a day out at Amish country. I felt well enough to fix a chicken and mashed potato dinner on Saturday. Yesterday I fixed chicken with pasta. Today I have heartburn galore. I have eaten toast but can't stomach much more.

I've done the dishes. I've washed all my clothes, sheets and towels. I know that I am supposed to rest and no strenuous activity, but I cannot just lie around.

My boxer got sick. He has very bad diarrhea. My daughter thinks it is because of my surgery. Others have been taking him outside. She said that maybe he is confused. She is the main person taking him, so he shouldn't be too upset.

I've had different sisters in here to check on me, but I don't think they fed him anything. They know how I feel about that.

Maybe it is just a bug.

I watched "Sunshine Cleaning." I thought it was very sad. I have not liked any movies that A Adams has been in, but I liked her in this one. I have not see "Julie and Julia" yet.

Moaning and groaning

Ugh. I must be getting old. This was a rough one. Anesthetic headache runs right up there with a migraine. In fact, I took migraine medicine and it didn't touch it. It has finally worn off. I really, really, really don't like Vicodin. It increases my headache ten-fold.

But, I am feeling pretty good now. Sticking to generic acetaminophen. Have not been allowed to take ibuprofen for a week. I will probably stick to acetaminophen for two weeks and go back to ibuprofen if I think I need to.

One will wreck your stomach and the other will wreck your liver. I guess I'll switch back and forth through the years. Pad those pharmaceuticals wallets.

Just taking it easy and trying to keep the critters off of me. I get two weeks off from work. But, I can't drive for the first week. :(

It better not be nice and sunny or I am getting my daughter to drive me out to the parks and woods to get some beautiful fall pictures. Come on sunshine!

My Barking Boxer

Is this annoying, or what?!

Somebody wanted attention. I left him too long on the cable. I guess he wanted to go for his walk, or he wanted me to pay more attention to him or something. The pups were being very patient, but they won't do anything for me. I am to the point where I am taking them out separately now, hoping they won't get distracted by each other and will do their business.

The boxer must be walked. He won't go to the bathroom in the yard. Well, not very often. This bark is very shrill and hurts my ears. I put him in the house when he does this. I leave him in for a minute or so and bring him back out. If he barks again, in he goes. I usually only have to put him in the house once and he quiets down.

I don't know what I am going to do this winter. I'll think of something, I suppose.

I have a list of movies that I have been wanting to write about.

First is "Paul Blart: Mall Cop"

Loved it. I waited much too long to see this one. I read the reviews and made the mistake of listening to what other people said about it being bad. I didn't think so. I like Kevin James.

Next, is "17 Again."

I waited on this one, also because of the bad reviews. The reviews were right. I did not like it. Somebody shoot me if I ever watch another movie with L Mann in it. Ack! One wonders if she would even be in the movies if her husband were not the director/producer of most of them.

"Obsessed"

Seriously? If you have seen "The Temp" and "Fatal Attraction" , then it is all deja vu with this movie. I was not impressed in the least. Especially not impressed with Bee-youncy flouncing around in four inch stilettos. Get real.

"Ghosts of Girlfriends Past"

Groan. This one was just sad. I didn't like it. I don't ever want to see it again. What the heck did A Archer have to do with the movie? Let's put a little cougar into the movie to bring it up to date? And, I seriously did not know that M Douglas was a leprechaun. He certainly looked like one. Either that or he is starting to shrink. The only actor I liked in this entire movie was L Chabert. Well, I take that back. I really liked R Forster in "Jackie Brown", so his character was okay. This movie was just about as annoying as my barking boxer.

"Rachael Getting Married"

I may have said something about this one in a previous post. I don't recall. Wait. I do recall. Yes, I did post about this one before. I really got tired of the prolonged music scenes.

"Separate Lies"

Strange British tale. I don't quite understand it. I didn't see the beginning. I have always enjoyed T Wilkinson, but E Watson just looks weird. I guess I mean I don't understand why he put up with her. Crikey! And she and her lover flaunted it right in his face. Have they no feelings or compassion for crying out loud? Is this how the British are? I don't think so.

Enough. I may have a lot more movies to post about in the next few weeks. I will be off on sick leave after Friday. Minor surgery and then I get to stay home for two whole weeks. Good grief.

Salacious B Crumb

He kind of reminds me of the Salacious B Crumb character in the Star Wars films. He has this sharp, annoying bark. He gets put in the house when he begins this barking. I have a video of it too, I might post later in the week.

Camouflage

A photo of two deer. Taken February 2007 at state park south of me. I closed my eyes and scrolled my mouse and picked a photo folder. The image I picked with my eyes opened. There are many deer to be seen around the valley this month. They seem to be everywhere.

One night while walking the boxer, there were some deer up on the hill eating apples. The boxer gets distracted very easily. When he sees something that distracts him he freezes and stares. He is like a statue. I have to drag him away. I mean, how much exercise are we getting when he freezes and stares every twenty feet or so? None, that's how much! Come one. If I have to walk you, let's at least make it worth my while!

As we walked closer to the deer, who by this time had slid back into the shadows to hide, they snorted and stomped their feet. Slade was just completely perplexed. What were they? What was that snorting noise? Yes, I had to drag him away. I am so glad I got him a harness instead of a collar. I don't feel like the harness hurts him. Especially with that broad chest.

Chong chews

Here is Chong chewing on some dead grass on my patio.

I do not go outside without all of them (except Sable) on a leash. It is too risky. They love to run, but I have a road in the front yard and neighbors who have that wonderful knack of coming out of their house the exact instant I take my dogs out. It always seems to work out that way. Of course all my dogs run over to them to say hello and it takes me 15 minutes to drag them all back over into my yard. The boxer was really good for a while at listening to me. Now he is going through a phase where he pretends that he does not hear me. Sable all but ignores me.

My daughter told me she woke up this morning with no pain. Finally. She did okay at the festival, better with ibuprofen than with generic Vicodin. She did go sit in the car towards the end with her boyfriend because she had a headache and was cold.

Things were not the same at the festival. The food was not nearly as good as I recall. The crafts are redundant. The campers decorations are also redundant. Except for the bubble fogger. That was pretty neat. Even the pie was bland. My sisters and one brother were as great as ever, though. That more than makes up for the lack of excitement of the festival. I didn't walk up the hill to see the old cars. I ran out of steam.

Smoke Bubbles

They came from a bubble-maker on top of the camper. When they popped, a puff of smoke escaped. Some were wet to the touch, some were dry. They fascinated us for a good five minutes. I never did catch a photo of one dissipating into smoke. It wasn't from lack of trying.

They came from this machine.

Headed to the festival

This photo is from 2 years ago

It is not going to be as warm this year. My brother has already e-mailed us to say that sales are way down this year. Lousy, cold and rainy weather. Today looks to be the best day. They have sunshine and a beautiful classic car show going on. The car show takes up an entire side of a gentle sloping hill and that will cut the parking almost in half. It will probably be chaos.

Two problems. My daughter is having a bad day. The dentist told her the third day would be the worst. Drat! I have a dry, hacking cough that is giving me a super headache. I've taken medication, but the front of my face is still sore. Sinus.

She is sleeping and we will know soon if the generic vicodin is going to work today. I suggested to switching to ibuprofen because I don't believe the generic vicodin will help with swelling. If her swelling goes down the pain will dissipate. We will be cutting it close, though. She has to wait until the generic vicodin is out of her system before she can take the ibuprofin and by that time we will be on our way to the festival.

I watched "Rachel Getting Married." It was recommended to me by my NetFlix choices. I hated it. There was way too much music and dancing that just filled up time. It just seemed wasted. There was so much more dialogue that pertained to the story at hand that could have been incorporated into the movie than this wedding music. My family is very close so I don't really understand the parts where they were verbally abusive to one another and then were hugging and crying the next day. In one scene it gets to be physically abusive and then nobody acts like anything at all happened.

If it ever came to physical blows between a sibling and myself it would behoove us all to stay away from one another for years. Years! Angry words would have us not speaking to each other for months, maybe years, also.

I was raised to respect my siblings (and other peoples') feelings. If I didn't want something said to me, I didn't say it to another human. I try to be considerate in all ways. They did a good job of making the main character self-centered. The similarities between this character and my one sister are amazing. She keeps making everything about her.

Spoiler Alert!:

I don't get the part where she wrecks the car and curls up and just goes to sleep. She isn't drunk or high. She is distraught over the fight she had with her mother, but still. Let's just let the rest of the family worry and wonder where I am while I sleep in the car all night wrecked into this patch of woods until some joggers find me and call the cops.

The tow truck conveniently gets her home right before the wedding so that she can still be a part of it. Maybe everybody thought the black eye was from the wreck. Did her sister and father just sleep during the night not caring if she were dead or alive, or did they stay up all night pacing and wondering? They all looked pretty rested to me.

And where in the hell did all those people come from that helped with the wedding? Was there a school nearby that just has all these hippies waiting around for something to do? They come out to the house, clean, fix food, play music and decorate? Who were they? They may have mentioned something about it and I missed it. There is also an option to watch the movie with commentaries, maybe that would explain some of the questions.

I will never know, because I am not watching it again.

Quiet day and evening

Cheech stares off into the distance

After the wind blew through and dried up all the rain, the evening sits quiet around here. There is a mower running in the distance and a dog barking in a nearby yard. My dogs ears are perked up. I have the windows and doors open to let in fresh air. We can use all we can get.

Daughter is still dizzy and unsteady after getting all four wisdom teeth removed yesterday. The two little boy pups that were fixed are as energetic as ever. It is as if nothing happened to them at all. Talk about bouncing back.

Tomorrow I will meet my sisters at the fall festival. It is supposed to be sunny and cool. Not sure if my daughter will be able to make the trip or not. I do not think I will put myself through the misery of taking the boxer. Even though he is beautiful and gets many comments, I think I will have a better time without him.

Fishing and Phishing/Malware and Virus

This stock photo is an example of how unstable the Internet can be

We are standing on a shaky pier, looking out into the murky depths of an unforeseeable future in the vast unknown.

So, I have been fishing. This particular virus is known to run over port 3127. I know. Many of you are probably asking "What the heck is a port?" To see a list of ports, you can go here. To see a description of what ports are, you can go here. I don't recommend it for the weak of heart. If you work with computers you quickly come to realize another old saying. The more I know, the more I realize what I "don't" know.

The more I researched this particular virus, I came to discover that it is designed to look for port 3127 on a machine. If that port is in use by another application, it then attempts to use port 3128. So on and so forth until port 3198.

I did not have the time to monitor all these ports, so I selected about ten and placed the monitor list on. The amount of log files that came back was seriously overwhelming. I took the monitors off and reported the findings and hoped that what I had found were indeed "false positives."

Which brings me to malware. There is a lot of malware out and about on the web. I use three programs to scan for it on my computers. Malwarebytes, Ad-aware, and Spybot Search & Destroy. I know there are others, and I have used them. I do notice that from time to time I have to remove and re-install Ad-aware. Ad-aware and Spybot tend to conflict with one another, but I do my best to keep my machines covered. Keep in mind that I use the free versions of these products. I know I stated earlier that you get what you pay for, I do pay for anti-virus protection. Malware is a different entity.

Let me take a moment to warn you about installing free software. Many times the free software has made a deal with Yahoo or Google and will try to slide a "toolbar" into the installation. Read each window before clicking the Next button. I recommend that you remove the check mark from the toolbars (or anything else they might be trying to sneak past you) unless you know specifically what the toolbar is and what it does. I don't like them.

Another interesting fact is that because there are so many different anti-virus applications, and they all tend to be in competition with one another, they usually cannot agree on a name of any particular virus. One product may call a certain virus mydoom, while another calls it Novarg. Then there are various versions of the virus. The first one may be named mydoom, the second wave may be titled mydoom.b, third mydoom.c and so on and so forth.

Then there is the generic groups. Where an application will group many different kinds of malware into one generic pile. One example is the Mal/Generic-A virus. For all the different types of threats that fall into this category, you can go here.

This particular virus has been accused of being a false positive. This indicates that an anti-virus program has tagged a file that looks suspicious and claims that it is a virus or malware. Other anti-virus packages state that the file in question is indeed "NOT" suspicious and that the other program has what is relatively known as a false alarm. See here.

Regardless, all of this can boggle the mind of an average computer user. You may say "How in the hell are we supposed to keep up with all of this malarkey?" The short answer. You can't. I can't. I have problems with my computer from time to time. My best tool is Google search. I read ten hits or more on each problem I have. Are other folks having the same problem? If so, how did they fix it?

Anyway, in conclusion - it is a mess out there. We do the best we can. I always compare it to driving. Traffic on the Internet gets congested. We can run over a chuck hole or a nail at any time and get a flat tire. As careful as we are, there will always be risk. And, remember. There is always that little window where a new virus is created and can wreak havoc before the anti-virus companies have time to create a fix for it. Especially with the speed of the data these days. It can almost take the fun out of it for us. Hopefully, things will get better. Things will get safer. Products will improve.

Notice: The author of the blog does not profess to know it all. The thoughts and words in this post are what I currently understand at this point and time in my life. It may not be completely accurate and I might even disagree with it in the future. I do the best I can to understand and absorb and then attempt to explain the subject with how I perceive it. Do not take my belief as gospel, but ask or research many different views on the subject at hand to come to your own conclusions.

It is an October sunrise

Just not this year's October. It is from 2006.

My head hurts.