A young boy cheers on England with a pint at the recent Wales v. England match at Twickenham.
Romping
Snoozin’
Chimborazo over Riobamba
Another crappy day
Wednesday night was boring. The dogs and I watched some television (including another Rockies’ loss) and went to bed about 11:45 PM. A typical weekday night. All was well.
I awoke to the sound of my truck’s alarm sounding. I grabbed my glasses and my phone and headed outside. My neighbor Kevin from across the street was already outside too, headed towards my truck. “They were fast!”
I was the victim of a “smash ‘n’ grab” — my vehicle had been staked out and then in the dark of the early morning the thieves pulled along side my truck, smashed the window and made quick work of prying the dash apart and pulling my sat/nav head unit out. Kevin said he heard the alarm and saw a car speeding off down the street but didn’t get a description or plate number.
I called the police and since it was after-the-fact it took a while for an officer to arrive. The officer took my information and gave me the all-important report number that the insurance company will want. I was wide awake at this point and laid on the couch for a few hours trying to doze off. Even late-night programming could’t knock me out. I finally went under around 6 AM but quickly woke up so I could start cleaning.
The safety glass is great if you’re in the truck in an accident but it’s a bitch to clean up. There was shattered glass everywhere on the street, in the front seats and the back, in the cup holders, in the bits of the gear shifter, and almost everywhere else. I cleaned up the large pieces and cleaned off the driver’s seat so I could drive over to the car wash and vacuum out the remaining glass.
My insurance company did dispatch a glass service company to replace the window today. I have to visit the drive-in claim center early Friday morning with my receipts for the stereo to get my estimate for repair work and replacement of the sat-nav. Hey, at least it will be Friday of a three-day weekend, right?
Side-swiped by a shop-vac. Really.
An idiot side-swiped my truck as it was parked on the street in front of my house. He had a shop-vac in the bed piled on top of tree limbs and the vac slid off the side of the truck, swinging by its A/C cord. Whacked my driver-side door hard enough to set off the alarm. The result is just a few scratches but they’re down through the clear coat layer so they need to be repaired and repainted.
Back from hell
Okay, it was really just a week in Oklahoma but it was as hot as hell. It’s been far too long since I lived there and I am not used to high humidity and 100+ degree temperatures.
The purpose of the trip was to visit family. I worked during the days, safely sequestered inside the air-conditioned house. The dogs only ventured outside for five-minute periods to pee before deciding to head back in the house. They slept a lot last week.
In the evenings we did family things such as dinner at Ponca City’s finest chinese-style buffet restaurant [note: it was awesome to hear the chinese staff say things like “Follow me to your table y’all.”]; watching television; and swimming in the pool.
Fabi loves swimming in the pool and would repeatedly jump in and splash whomever was looking too dry. At one point she slipped a bit and hit her rear on the side of the pool, spraining the muscle that holds up her tail. It’s better already but it certainly didn’t stop her from jumping in the pool again and again.
Lucy, on the other hand, was not interested in swimming. She’ll dive into an ice-cold mountain river and fight the current but my guess is the very warm water (92 degrees in the evenings) and the chlorine smell convinced her it was more fun just to stand at he edge of the steps and attack Fabi every time she climbed out of the water.
As we fueled up before heading back yesterday morning, even though the dogs were riding in the back seat of the truck cab (air-conditioned since it was too hot for them in the back under the topper), I realized that heading north through Kansas would let the morning sun shine directly in the passenger-side windows and effectively reduce the amount of usable space in half. The dogs get too hot with the sun shining on them, so I decided to take the southern route back home to Denver. We drove west from Ponca City through northern Oklahoma to the panhandle. The temperature hovered around 100 degrees until we were near Guymon where a rain shower cooled things down into the lower 80’s. As we entered northeast New Mexico we caught up with some monsoon thunderstorms that lowered the temperature into the 50’s at altitude. It was a great trip home.
Bath time
They get a bath twice a year, whether they need it or not. Today however they needed it.
Camping near Fairplay
A very dirty dog
Break time in the limber pine grove
Mission accomplished
Furry Scurry 2011
The dogs and I participated in the Furry Scurry today… it’s a 2-mile charity walk for the Denver Dumb Friends’ League. I was concerned about Lucy’s stamina since we were only taking walks for the week prior to the event, but she was a trooper. She even walked without her boot. Was she tired after the walk? Hell yes.
Tired doggie