Life: Catching Up

It's been a long while since I last blogged about the things happening in my life. There have been ups and downs - mostly downs lately it seems. Thus, I haven't been particularly interested in being a downer, but I'll try to cover a few things at least in general here. If I find myself particularly talkative about any one subject I will expound on that in a separate blog.

Riding to work in the fall went relatively well with an average commute of 95 minutes each way. Some of the hills make it very challenging since I can't really ride the trike very well over the narrow dirt trail that is the less hilly option. The morning ride is particularly hard since I have a big hill to climb barely ten minutes into my ride. The trip home is downhill and then "flat" for a good while, so tackling the uphills is a lot easier.

I didn't ride over the winter. Two circumstances presented themselves that prevented it. The first was necessary repairs to the car that ate my tire budget. The second was the persistent snow and cold that was Calgary's winter this year. For all the years I've lived in Calgary I don't think I've ever experienced a winter quite like this one. So I'm relieved that I didn't spend money on tires and then didn't get any riding in. I did bring the trike inside and modify my cycle trainer for the 20" rear wheel, so I got some peddling in. Which bring me to the next thing that was a bummer over the winter.

My shoulder and back had been bothering me since 2009 when I partially dislocated a rib. It meant I had problems with some motions and lifting that were repetitive - mostly work and running. After a lot of massage and some physio that only brought temporary relief, I saw my family doctor in Edmonton the beginning of February and filed a progressive injury claim with the Workers Compensation Board. The claim was finally approve six weeks after seeing my GP, so now I am getting intensive physio treatment to help the rehab. Another 2 1/2 weeks of physio before I either get an extension on the treatment or released to do my own thing. I'm hoping things continue to go well on that front. I've been taking way too many muscle relaxants to be able to sleep at night, so I hope I can get off them and get back to running and cycling without worry about my back and shoulder.

The work situation has grown increasingly frustrating and disappointing since last fall. Needless to say this has been incredibly stressful and tiring. I've effectively committed myself to placing my health and well-being ahead of this situation with my reducing any "extra" work that doesn't apply directly to pickups, processing and disposal. A lot of this had to do with management, but there are immediate changes being made there. I'm certainly not holding my breath though.

I've been able to get in a steady scehedule of Flames of War games in since last fall. A friend and I have also been able to get back to work on a submission to Battlefront for a website PDF release. It will be nice to see that finished. I haven't got a lot more painting done, but it has progressed a bit. I also got a bunch of Paper Terrain sets for Christmas, so I have start work on those. Aerin found me some really good craft glue to put those together rather easier than my previos sets. Hopefully I can make more progress, but the return of spring means other demands will be made for my time.

I need to finish the baseboards this year. I will probably skip doing the stairs for one more year while I puzzle out how to finish them. A little landscaping will need to be done too, and I need to build a proper gate across the pad beside the garage to prevent pet escape and open the space a little. With the baseboards done I can also do a proper organization of the garage including making space for fireplace wood. The chimney sweep we had check the fireplace last summer was great about educating about all things fireplace, so this spring will see the arrival of a bunch of wood to cure over the summer for next fall and winter.

Ursa turned two years old last month! Has it been so long already? She continues to be the spoiled first child, so her trianing isn't what we'd like it some times. But we do love her to bits for all the joy she brings us. She did freak us out a bit last November, but you can check out Aerin's blog for those details. Here's the quick version: Xylitol (sugar substitute) and dogs do not mix. If she'd been a smaller dog she'd probably be dead. She's 120lbs/53.5kg now, and taller than both her parents. Did I mention we really love her? She's such a character.

I'm really looking forward to having a summer this year. Last year was pretty wet and coool. Much more camping and hiking are planned with some short backcountry trips to get Ursa introduced to the whole experience. We'll likely stick to the Kananaskis area mostly.

That's it for now. (I wish I could predict the same for snowfall, but it's not June yet.)

Life: Catching Up

As Aerin so helpfully pointed out, I haven't posted here in a long while. There wasn't much to say since it was a lot of busy time just doing the living life thing. However I guess I can update things with some more exciting news.

We bought a house in Deer Run. It's close to Fish Creek Provincial Park and the off-leash dog park. My commute will stretch from a 20 minute walk to under 60 minutes on mostly the LRT. Overall we are very happy with how things turned out with the price, location and the house.

The house itself is a four-level, front-bank split with a double detached garage. The garage needs some exterior finishing and new shingles, but we'll do the shingles this summer and then redo the exterior next year when we'd like to upgrade the windows and house exterior. The windows are original, and the house has metal siding right now. We need to replace the foundation parging, so this would all happen together. The eaves off the gables were not installed properly either, so that's a matter of bolting things back on. Replacement of the furnace and hot water heater is also future project, but for right now the exterior is our focus.

The first order of business after possession is changing locks, and then it's out with all the carpeting. We're getting a cash deal with someone Aerin knows, so we should be able to redo everything with laminate that's currently carpeted. Renovated bathrooms and the kitchen are on the future projects list, but the structureal stuff is of most immediate concern. After the initial bit of busy work it's on to moving. By the end of June we will be in our very own house.

I am doing more strength training and cardio on the recumbent bike at the gym. I can wake up in the morning and not feel soreness or stiffness in my back once I get moving around. This will continue for another month before I start into the running again. I've had some stiff shoulder/neck spots due to being a little stressed over the whole house thing, but that is slowly working out too. Lots of long walks with Ursa have done well to help keep Aerin and I active.

And speaking of Ursa, SHE'S HUGE! I knew we were getting a big dog when we got her, but she is officially way past the breed standard for a female Black Russian Terrier. She stands about 29.5"/75cm at the shoulder (standard max. 28"/72cm as I recall), has a big, black nose (the breeder even says so), has a chest of 35" (and growing), and some darned long legs. We haven't had Ursa on a scale in almost two months now, but the last time she was weighed the scales tipped just over 100lbs/45kg. One of her brother's already has 10kg on her. Basically we couldn't show her if we wanted to since she's bigger than standard. Another BRT we know named Sasha is a good year and half older than Ursa, and last we heard he wasn't even 100lbs.

We love our puppy a lot. It's great fun seeing peoples reaction to her when we go for walks along the river. "Fantastic", "beautiful" and "great" are some of the many positive adjectives people use to describe Ursa. We still haven't met anyone that has guessed her breed right the first time, but we don't keep her trimmed in the usual BRT cut either. "Big" or "huge" are also commonly mentioned in conversations with other people about Ursa, but she's just our dog. We can't help it other dogs look so little. No doubt we'll have a whole new group of admirers and people in awe of Ursa's wonderful puppy-ness once we've moved.

The Flames of War Escalation League I've been running at The Sentry Box has been quite successful this year. Lots of new players and many battles fought on Sundays for the last five months almost. I plan to try another league in the fall that I am trying to decide the details, but it will be set in the Late War period.

Some other players and I have also started up a historical game club with our focus being Flames of War. We will branch out a little, but for now it's just FoW. We are currently planning to run a big D-Day battle that covers Juno Beach from Courselles-sur-Mer to Bernier-sur-Mer. I have my work cut out for me building terrain over the next month. Trench lines, barbed wire obstacles, an enfilade bunker and some tank tobruks are all waiting for my attention.

I had thought I'd gotten my American Armored Rifle company finished just about, but then I realized I'd completely forgotten about the damned transportation. So now I have to finish those too. Except I have now hit a bit of a snag with applying decals because the gloss varnish is beading on the basecoat to form a bunch of ripples and ridges. So now I plan to take a little 600 grit wet sanding paper to things to try and even out the surface before going back to finish the decals. I have a detailing left after that, but otherwise things are pretty well complete. Then it's on to my next army - Soviets. Then it's back to Americans and Soviets in alternation to finish off some of the other platoon options for switching out or expanding things.

I will try to do some more catching up later this week or next.

Life: Me and My Dog

So I woke up after New Year's Eve and discovered the month is almost a two-thirds gone... I don't what it is exactly that causes it, but I find this feeling of blur unsettling.

Aerin has gone off to Montreal to help a friend undergoing surgery. That leaves me and Ursa to hang out. We started doing some serious grooming work before Aerin left on Sunday to take care of some issues with Ursa's coat getting so long. Being somewhat less experienced with dogs I didn't foresee issues with Ursa's visibility jacket causing matting between her front legs. Unfortunately Ursa has been slightly uncooperative with the process of detangling the matted hair, so it's going to take concentrated bit of effort to get things sorted out there. If it was spring and the weather going to stay mostly warm I would be tempted to trim it short, but there's still two months of wintery weather left at a minimum.

We also ordered, or will be ordering, some new kit for Ursa. Our "little" girl is now 28.5"/72cm at the top of her shoulder. This puts her well past the breed standard of 27"/69cm. And she's not done growing yet! Hopefully she does move growing sideways to fill out her shoulders, chest and hips. So a new crate for unsupervised times, and an actual space she can den, that fits her better is on the way. The thing is enormous at almost 6'/1.83m long plus much taller and wider. Hopefully she'll be able to stretch out a lot more since she's a little crowded even laying corner to corner in the current crate.

Ursa's a pretty smart girl, and we really need some toys that will keep her mentally engaged. It's one reason we don't feed her out of the bowl at home anymore. (What we'll do while backcountry has yet to be worked out.) The plan is to get some wooden toys designed by Nina Ottonson for her to play with. This lady has at least one BRT herself, so it's not a stretch to know that Ursa should be just fine with them.

I sound like some proud parent taking about their kids' accomplishments, don't I?

I've committed myself to making a batch of chili while Aerin is away. I was thinking I'd make it tonight, but now I think that will be on the Saturday menu when I have the chance to supervise it a little more closely while it simmers for the morning and afternoon. I only really make mac & cheese these days when I need something quick and easy to fill things in while Aerin isn't around, so last night I did some with zuccini and red pepper. Tonight is bison burgers and not sure what else. I forgot to get a yam while grocery shopping to do some fries.

In between eating, sleeping, cooking, cleaning and Ursa are my attempts to get more miniatures done. I have started to base coat a bunch of minis I had assembled and primed with the new Battlefront base coat colours. It's a heck of a lot easier than using the air brush for time and consistent colour. It's obvious that a bunch of my America vehicles I'd already painted are a little too green and not enough brown, but I'm not going to stress about it. I also have an US armoured rifle platoon good to go pretty much. I will keep pumping out the US guys for now. I will start to touch up the base coat on all my Soviet tanks so I can start the detailing on those. I have a whole bunch of Soviet infantry to do too, but not nearly so much as if I had to paint an infantry company.

Some gaming to do too. I hope to play a little Flames of War before Aerin's return, and I will start a Napoleon's Last Battle campaign game that might take a few weeks to get done. The Flames of War is to playtest some new stuff a friend and I are working on. The Napoleon's Last Battle campaign is a follow-up to the course on Waterloo I did last fall.

Aerin and I will be celebrating our third anniversary the beginning of February. Since it falls on the Thursday we're planning to celebrate on the weekend with a trip out to Banff for dinner at the Bison Bistro. I have yet to decide what to get Aerin for a present, but no doubt I will decide soon.

I'll leave an update on how things are going with running for another time.

Life: Ursa in Winter

Oh yes, Ursa loves the snow. I don't think I've ever seen a dog more happy for snow than this dog. Aerin mentioned the strong arguement for nature over nuture in this case since Ursa was immediately excited about going out in the snow and just loving the chance to play in it. I will second that arguement since she was all energy and spunk on our walk Friday evening in the snow storm.

Again on Saturday evening when we went to Nose Hill Park to snowshoe she was having lots of fun playing in the snow. In the really deep spots I was breaking trail, not Ursa. On a few occasions I would try to step forward only to find Ursa standing on the tail of my snowshoe. It was also her first time out in her Ruffwear booties. The hair between her toes means time spent in the snow usually ends with ice balls forcing her toes apart. She certainly didn't like them when we put them on her the first time. She was doing ballerina imitations walking on her toes since she didn't quite understand she could put her foot flat if she puts her weight on them normally. Ursa has started to get used to them, but we need a smaller size for her back feet. In the mean time there isn't a trail of snow and ice across the floor mostly.

Saturday was our run around day to avoid having to be out in the cold on Sunday, so we also got Ursa a jacket for visibility and to shed some snow while out playing. A new UFO light from MEC on the purpose built loop on the jacket completes the early Xmas presents for our puppy.

The ice that forms around Ursa's mouth from her breath and snuffling around in the snow is pretty cute. Except it melts awfully fast to get a good picture of by the time we humans get in the door and undressed from enough cold weather gear to capture it in its full glory.

Life: Ursa @ Home

Time flies when you're having fun - or running after a three and a half month old puppy. Thankfully things have started to settle into a routine.

I won't post the photos of Ursa here, but you can check out the Flickr Photostream here. I have more photos to go through and upload. Of course, there will be many more photos to come. Ursa is kind of hard to photograph well sometimes with all that puppy energy.

The time spent in on the flight was obviously one thing Ursa didn't like all that much. She wasn't at all happy the first couple of night about being back in a kennel or in the dark by herself. Eventually it worked out that I slept in the living room where I was visible from the kennel, and also that there was a little more light coming into the house from the street lights. She's still not always willing to go into her kennel when we need to leave her home alone for a few hours, or even just to keep her out from under foot or safe while unobserved. But she is slowly adjusting.

Our Solstice party was a hit by all accounts. I have no doubt that we will make this an annual event. We had lots of kabobs to grill, so between manning the grill and keeping an eye on Ursa I had my hands plenty full. Thankfully the Blackie temperament put in a stellar show as she was quit calm and at ease despite all the people and activity. She had little reaction to the kids running around or the noisy conversation.

The following weekend it was off to Dinosaur Provincial Park. The drive out was uneventful, and the highway was downright deserted for a Friday evening when compared to the QEII heading to Edmonton. Ursa got to meet many other people and a few dogs during our trip. Everyone was curious about her breed, amazed at how calm she was, and awed by the fact that she was only three months old at the time. Ursa also managed to collect all sorts of dust, grass and tree fuzz in her coat over the weekend. She was downright dirty, and it wasn't all going away without a bath later that week.

Canada Day we headed to Cypress Hills in southeast Alberta before coming back to Medicine Hat for a family reunion with my Dad's side of the family. Again Ursa was a star as people wondered about her breed, amazed at her size and age, and surprised by her temperament. This made for a family reunion somewhat short on visiting because of puppy supervision, but she did well again with the crowd and the kids.

In between the trips have been lots of walks and play. It's downright hilarious to see Ursa's ears flapping away as she runs along beside me sometimes for a block or two. This and her happiness at ear scratches have garned her the affectionate title of "Floppy Earred Monster". Also on the funny side is her penchance for hiccups and snoring.

House training is going well for both Ursa and her owners. No significant accidents to report as of late, but vigilance is still required. We try to take her out every few hours, after meals and after letting her out from the kennel. We are also getting better at reading the signs for the need to make a trip outside. Progress is also being made to train Ursa to relieve herself on command. This will be especially helpful for traveling.

Progress is also being made in other areas. Except for being a puppy and having some lack of focus therein, Ursa does amazingly well when walked on a leash. She will often want to stop to smell or taste things, but can usually be coaxed into moving without to much delay. Ursa will usually 'sit' nicely if you have her attention, but 'down' seems to elude her even when attempting to lure her with treats. 'Stay' is again hit-and-miss dependent on her attention and energy.

Aerin and I both swear you can notice Ursa slowly getting bigger as the day's pass - or even in an afternoon sometimes. Such is the Wway of the Puppy.

Life: Puppy Arriving!

It's been a long while since I posted anything here. The weeks have passed, and we are finally going to the airport to pickup Ursa. Something happened -- we're not sure what -- to delay her departure from last week to this week, but she is currently crossing the Atlantic and soon to go "feet dry" over Canadian soil somewhere out east.

So tonight it's off to the cargo company to pickup paperwork. Then it's a trip to the Canada Customs office in the Arrivals Terminal at the airport. And then finally it's back to the cargo company to actually pickup Ursa. We're taking her some food and water for after the flight, and no doubt she'll be ready to stretch her legs for a bit before we load up in the car again to head home.

The remainder of the evening will be spent introducing Ursa to her new home - the backyard, the rooms she'll be allowed to roam, and her crates. It'll be an interesting night to see how she does in the unfamiliar surroundings. Luckily I'm taking the rest of the week off to help Ursa get settled.

We're having our Solstice BBQ (yes, we know we're early) this weekend, so that'll be the first real introduction to a lot of people. It isn't a large affair, so I think Ursa will do just fine with some close supervision of her and the small children.

More later this week. Of course, pictures of Ursa too.

Life: Puppy & Stuff

I would seem odd to mention our interest in getting a trailer for traveling in a post about Ursa, but it does have a connection.

Our major consideration is how do we travel with a large dog. A Kia Spectra5 isn't the biggest car in the world. So we thought about getting a car top carrier. I have a number of issues with this. Security and aerodymanic profile are my two big ones. I'm not sold on how you would keep things secured. Since we car camp we're pretty much stuck with reloading the car with a lot of our gear just to go somewhere other than the campsite. Any large enough to carry what we need would make the car significantly top heavy and high profile. This is on top of the relatively low cargo capacity of the axles when fully loaded. We'd likely still need space in the car, and then there's the matter of fitting Ursa in there too.

Thus, we come to the trailer option. While more expensive up front I think we do better for space and cargo capacity for the reduction in fuel efficiency. There is also the plus that the trailer we're considering is all aluminum construction. It will hold up pretty well over the long haul so long as we continue with vehicles that have a trailer hitch. We do need a trailer hitch for the car, but that is a relatively minor thing overall. A car top carrier may or may not work down the road, and, frankly, the construction is nothing by comparison to the trailer. I'm sure that Meg and Geoff could also get some use out of it too.

As for Ursa's arrival we have a tentative date of June 2 with departure on June 1. Exact times and cost are to be determined. This means we can hold off on a few final decisions (trailer, dog stuff) for another week. We will make the trip to Edmonton to volunteer at the Blackfoot Ultra without having to worry about Ursa. Our first official trip with Ursa will come in June when we go camping at Dinosaur Provincial Park.