My first attempt at pottery

My wife did a lot of the work, but I actually spun it or whatever they call it.
She trimmed it and picked the glaze. I like it!

I don't know what to call it yet, maybe 'Mr Pots'... just kidding...

Bella Lyn Marie

Today I had to take (Isa)Bella to the Animal Shelter in Tawas.
The cancer came back on the side of her head.
She already had an operation for cancer on her tummy this Spring.
Poor Dog!
Everything appeared to be O.K. at the time but the vet said the cancer could be aggressive and it was.
It's not really operable, especially since she has an enlarged heart and a heart murmer.
We put her through BP medication to stabilize her breathing, but the cancer came suddenly and quickly.
She had a hard early life, growing up in a puppy mill in Texas.
My daughter was visiting relatives and decided to get a dog and picked her up there and brought her back with her to Michigan.

She had heartworm - which was successfully treated two year ago,

She stole out hearts and we got a chance to spoil her to make up for her early years.

She has been a constant companion for my wife, and she brightened everyone's day - unless you are a bad guy, cat, or squirrel in the neighbourhood! :)

So sad to see her go. 'Hers" will be missed. The world is a sadder and emptier place without 'Hers'. It's amazing the impact a little dog can make on those around her. Here are some more pictures. "Hello to Hers" we always said when she walked into the room.

Happy Father's day to all

I really need to post more. On the NSA cell phone data collection, Bruce Schneier sums it up best "Whistleblowing is the moral response to immoral activity by those in power. What's important here are government programs and methods, not data about individuals. I understand I am asking for people to engage in illegal and dangerous behavior. Do it carefully and do it safely, but -- and I am talking directly to you, person working on one of these secret and probably illegal programs -- do it." Meg texted me a 6:21 am to wish me a happy Father's day - how thoughtful! :) Well she has to work. It's 'the eldest's birthday too today. Must remember to call her. My happiest memories are when we lived in Pennsylvania. Of course, it was the 80s and we had money, everyone had money, life was good... Seriously, why no outcry about the price of gas/petrol? It's 4:15 a gallon here in upper Michigan and we hear about the US becoming a net exported of oil next year. The price of gas needs to be high to encourage environmentally friendly practices, e.g. CAFE, but anything over 3:50 hits the working poor most. Those who have to travel to their jobs. I am SO GLAD I can work from home. Been watching old 'ercule Poirot' programs on You Tube for the last week. Got a big gap on Sunday nights now that Game of Thrones has finished Season 3. Here's a fun picture I took of Bella sitting with my while I was working on my laptop... Better than cat videos any day.. I think she was brought up with cats actually, she stretches like a cat, and I saw here try to nose some snow over poop during the winter , like a cat in a littler box. what an odd dog.. She's my wife's comforter and protector (even from me!) but I love her too. She was living in a puppy mill in Texas when Megan found her, so she is a rescued dog, I guess. She had heart worm and we spent a lot getting here fixed up. she has no front teeth any more and has had some cancerous mammary growths removed.. between her and Michael we are broke... :)

February commeth with the Snow

It's been pretty dry this Winter so far, mostly warm, although some days/nights this January were 0, -2 F. Our hot water line froze one time... stupid thing, because we have a solid concrete foundation, the external water pipes go through the roof and the insulation is only 'blown; and somehow the pipe got uncovered - probably when we had a new water heater put in a year ago... Well, today, tonight's finally when we get our snow season, expected anything from 4-10 inches by tomorrow. I've been shovelling today - 4 times in fact - probably an inch or two each time. My wife's poor chihuaha is stressed out, not only does she not like the cold, but she doesn't have much to smell, except snow. I scrape a little spot in the grass so she doesn't have to plough through it. or swim, more like. I got a new phone for work. What a score! a Galaxy S3! Someone are procurement approval must have screwed up, because my boss sent out an email a couple of weeks later telling everyone they had to talk to him before ordering any new phones... but mine was probably 'robo approved' already -- score! Some things I haven't figured out yet - like how to sync with my car hands off. The voice to text demo is pretty humorous sometimes... My blood test message from the Doctor was translated so... Hi mister mccanan this is christina calling you from a corner health center I just wanted to let you know that we did receive your lamb order so it is in the computer ... so whenever you ... need to come in and get your lance on at least your orders here have a good day bye bye. I like the sound of 'get your lance on'... :) Maybe it was really a solicitation call... ha ha..

Christmas preparations

Got the house lights up without anyone falling off of the roof. always a plus. I'll post a picture if I can...going to be pretty dark we are not Domino Farms..just doing our little bit to cheer up the neighbourhood. Not many people with light this year. This is one way to gauge the local economy. Up here in N. Michigan it's probably waymore than 7.7 % unemployment. probably anywhere from 15-25%. I was reading in the local rag (Oscoda Press if you're interested) about a HS student, Patrick Maher who is trying to collect 1,000 peanut butter jars for poor students and their families. It also mention that 80% of the HS students are eligible for free or reduced cost lunches. Not a good statistic. But the GOP wants to cut these 'moochers'... argh... Coming as I do from the 'Welfare State' of the UK in the 60s with the Labor government with free health care and a national insurance and pension scheme, subsidized college education (free if you are poor but a good/smart student), it strange to listen to people complain about 'European Socialism' and 'Obama is a Socialist/Marxist' over here. They have no idea what they are talking about. I LOVE America and I love the country and it's institutions be we need to go back a little to the 'socialism' of FDR. If you don't care about your citizens, young, old, sick, poor you are not a civilized country, let alone a super power. IMHO...

School's Out , er BACK for the Fall.

School started. This year's my youngest's senior HS year. I'm in school myself, kind of. Taking a 'Suse Academy' class in work. 15 weeks of 6 hours+ a week to become a certified SUSE Linux SA and Professional. Spent the Summer taking my vacation for once while the weather was good, even went to the beach a couple of days. Not a lot else to talk about

We're having a heat wave! a tropical heat wave...

yeah, you know like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers... :) Nice weather. hight 80s/low 90s all week and dry. maybe too dry, the grass is dead. Weeds seems to be doing fine, thanks to the neighbour's cultivation of them. badda boom... So where is the summer going? RHEL class was good. A little too simple, maybe, but I still learned a lot and got to practice. I work from home, a long way from the nearest test center, so I don't know how I'm going to take the certification test. No sign of my son's PS3, so no movement on installing YDL (Yellow Dog Linux) on that. He's working at Kmart for the summer to get money to pay for car insurance. He wants to quite. He's lucky to have a job in this economy. "Youth is wasted on the wrong people!" (It's a Wonderful Life).. As for the Linux desktop... minor progress. I installed Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin) on a third partition, so now I have RHEL 6.3, Debian 'Squeeze' and Ubuntu "PP" to play with. Trying to connect them to the work network(s) (yes more than one VPN required.. :( is a GIANT PAIN... Supposedly, there are THOUSANDS of people out there using this stuff, but I don't see it. Depots are missing stuff, there are typos in scripts, instructions are wrong. VPNs don't work... arghhhh... This is my 'special talent', I conclude. Anywhere there is non working crap, I intuitively zero in on... It's scary.. Well, vacation runs out on Monday. I still have unbooked time off. Think I'll schedule another week in August. I have another class in SLES (SUSE Linux) coming up in September. It's a 6 hours a week for 5-6 months class.. Should be fun. same issues with testing however..