Happy Birthday Other One!!

I was going to call my girlfriend at 3 am when my dog woke me up trying to crawl unnoticed onto the bed (nice try Tatonks, but you're 82.5 pounds). Lucky for her I fell back asleep. I thought it would be hillarious to call and sing happy birthday. And it's an hour later her time. And she's an early riser anyway. Guess I'll just have to hope the volcano stops blowing up so her birthday present flys south soon.

Doggin It

Smokey was gone for 10 days, which I found made me really boring. He's back now, so I am motivated to blog again because I can borrow his digital camera and share pictures!


I have been spending most of my 'free' time working my dog for avalanche rescue and helping other people train and test for avalanche rescue certification. I never seem to take pictures of training Tatonka, but I do take pictures of other people's dogs. Above is a dog I train with sometimes, at the end of her timed problem. She doesn't know the problem is over, she's still working. Good work ethic that girl has.

She's gorgeous, for a pointy earred dog. A black shepard.

We are testing in a local favorite hiking/skiing area close to town. You need a 4WD vehicle to get there. Trust me, I drove Tucumcari up there and slid backwards a few feet from the parking lot. It wasn't pretty, but no one got hurt. We marked off an area and tracked up a slope on some varying terrain. I was here again a week or so after this to get buried in a snow cave and work Tatonka at the same caves. It was fun even though my radio battery died while I was buried.

Here is a woman I work with frequently. She is working to certify her dog in avalanche. He's already certified in wilderness. With any luck I might be doing the same thing next year. One hurdle at a time.

Unfortunately her dog got hurt yesterday and has some stitches in his paw, so she had to postpone last night's and future tests. Bummer.

I think she's mightly brave to do her testing with her skis on. I think I might never move beyond snowshoe ability (and affordability).

Iditarod Frenzy

Two weekwends ago Smokey and I went downtown to watch the Iditarod kick off. The same streets that were blocked off for Fur Rondy were blocked off and there were trucks surrounded by dogs lining them.

Special, big, fancy trucks. With famous mushers names custom painted on the sides.

And famous mushers with their sleds behind their trucks. Several mushers had riders for the ceremonial start. Martin looked to have a nice ride set up. He has a chair with serious cushions for his rider. We almost got a picture of me with him, but the camera batteries died. Murphy's Law still works below freezing.

This is the crowd inside the fencing. It takes a ton of people to make this race go. There are lots of dog handlers for each team and all kinds of special extra people at the downtown start who get pictures taken. Official start banner spans the road next to our famous bright yellow building.

As we walked along, drinking free coffee and cocoa and wishing I had my cell phone so I could call my Mom and let her hear the hubub and announcer's voice, we came upon this parking garage line with masses of people.

Hmmm.... the view from the street looks like this......I bet it's better up there.

Wow, look at that, it is better up there. And we aren't even that close to the top or the corner.

Go team, go! This is number 14, off to Willow for the re-start of the race. Good luck! We could only stay to watch the first 15 teams start as I had to go do some avalanche training with Tatonka. It was really fun to be at the start of the race. I think I'll go again next year.

Finger Chronicles

When we last talked about my broken finger, it looked mostly like this. The cast was signed, duct tape was applied to alleviate the rubbing on my finger and all was mostly well.

Four days into cast life I went in for a second round of xrays. My finger moved. Not just moved, but also rotated. I was scheduled for surgery the next morning. I now have a plate and five screws in the little space between two knuckles. The xrays are awesome, but don't photograph well, so you'll have to come visit to see them. I spent a week or so with my bandaged hand in a sling above my heart, dubbing myself the one mittened bandit. Not that I did anything bandit like, just that it sounded cool.

And then I met my hand therapist. She freed me from the bandages and molded this plastic to my hand. It was really cool. I got to pick the colors. She even let me have my middle finger back.

And so now my hand looks like this. The splint goes halfway up my arm. But I get to take it off and do fun hand and wrist exercises three times a day. And I get to go see the hand therapist again today. It's rumored that she will make the brace shorter. I'm way more interested in her getting my knuckle to bend, but I'll take what I can get.

Selling Ice to Eskimos

I have no complaints about my job this week. I usually complain about how boring the projects I work on are, but not this week. This week I helped us win a project to sell ice to Eskimos. No, I'm not kidding. This is an awesome brake in what has otherwise been a slow recovery time.

Bear has been the most active household member of late. She watched Smokey put together the wooden motorcycle she is posing next to. And by help I mean chase pieces he dropped on the floor.

Smokey has probably displayed the second highest energy level during recovery. I think he is about to fall asleep and lose the laptop to the floor. I am amused that it looks like he is growing fishing poles out of the back of his head. Perhaps we've been watching too much tv.

And then there's the dogs. When they aren't at the dogpark this is what they like to do to make me feel guilty about not having a yard:

'I am so bored I can't even be bothered to chew on this bone.'

Please note that Percy is the bigger pill here. By laying in her kennel I feel like she's trying to tell me how she may as well be in dog jail.

Fun with Fur...Rondy

Last weekend we decided to take a gander at all the hype that is fur rondy. Our first sighting was this.....a dog team giving rides to a line of kids in a park downtown.

Followed by this.....

And this, a full sprint team racing on closed off streets in downtown A-town.

There was also this, a small carnival with rides, going full force in the dumping snow.

Remember that snow I dug my first dog snow cave in? Here it is as it's intended pupose, snow sculptures! This is one of my fearless co-workers with their traditional family snow sculpture.

Here is another co-worker with his group's creation, a sea dinosaur.

Look carefully here for the head of the dinosaur......

Here's a hint at the origins of the rondy.....fur trading/selling/buying.

I have no idea how racing decorated outhouses ties in to all this, but I'm sure it's real logical.

Here's a dog truck along the race route. Note the sprint sled on top.

It's the same team Smokey and I saw last March in Tok on our move north. They stayed at the same hotel as us on Easter. I feel almost famous. Or maybe like a groupie.