Well, That Was Exciting (or, Wedding Wackiness)

I’ve got a little story to tell. See, there was this wedding…

A few months before Midwest FurFest, moryssa asked if takaza and I would provide assistance at her and wolfbrotherjoe‘s wedding…which was five days after the convention. If it were anyone else, we problem would have politely declined, but Misti is a dear friend and we were flattered and pleased to provide any help we could. Plans were made, and we had a nice dinner with the bride and groom to discuss the details. Because the rehearsal dinner was unfortunately the day before the wedding (which is to say, Thanksgiving), we had to miss out on that. Neither Dan nor I felt 100% secure in our knowledge of how things were supposed to go, but we figured it would be pretty easy – get a quick briefing on who needed to be where and when, then make sure that happened.

The venue was outside of Madison, Wisconsin, in a lovely barn that had been refurbished for these types of events. The dinner was to be served in the nicely-decorated shop which adjoined the building. It was a great set-up, and perfect for the intimate (100-person) wedding they had in mind. The rough plan (as I recall) was that the “First Look” would be at 4 PM, followed by pictures, then the wedding would take place at 5 PM. This would be followed by a cocktail hour, then dinner, then dancing for the rest of the evening.

Dan and I drove up to Madison (with a side-trip by Prime Outlets Kenosha to pick up some last-minute accessories from Casual Male – yeah, an outlet mall on Black Friday. Oy!). We arrived at our hotel at around 1 PM, got dressed, and headed over to the barn at 2 PM. We were the first ones there, which gave us a chance to inspect the facilities and admire the setup and decorating that the wedding party had done the night before. The wedding party arrived bit by bit over the next hour and a half, and Dan mostly made sure everyone was happy and moving along while I chatted with friends.

The first sign things were a bit askew was when the bride asked where the DJ was. Theoretically, he should have arrived in Madison at 11 AM and been at the barn shortly after. There was no sign of him. At 3:50 PM, Dan pulled me aside and we agreed that I would make the 30 minute round trip back to our hotel to pick up my laptop (and our complete 40 GB MP3 library) just in case. I got back at 4:30 and there was still no DJ. It looked like it was going to be me. I got a very quick briefing from Misti: she handed me a flash drive with the music for the ceremony, what cues there would be, and off I went. I worked with Dave, one of the barn owners, to get my laptop hooked into the barn sound system, and we were off and running. Dan did a great job making sure the wedding party entered at the right times, and I hit most of the cues properly (side note: it’s really hard to even be a pretend DJ when the only music players on your laptop are iTunes and VLC). The important thing is that the music was right for the bride and groom, and the ceremony went off without a hitch.

Once the ceremony was over, I was helping to put away the folding chairs to clear the floor for dancing when I got the next bit of exciting news, which had come in right before the ceremony started: The caterers thought the wedding was on Saturday, not Friday.

Holy crap.

Here’s where I give huge props to Joe’s mother. She made the call that we would be serving pizzas, and that the caterer would pay for it. So be it! Fortunately, they had vegetable trays and various chips and dips available, so those went out. While everyone nibbled on those and chatted in the shop, we piped a slideshow of childhood pictures of Misti and Joe through my laptop a few times, then commenced to work with Dave to make his sound system do things it was never designed for. He produced a 16-channel mixer he hadn’t used much and Dan plugged my laptop and his iPad into it and got everything ready for the dance (through a bit of trial and error), then Dave went off to pick up 30 pizzas.

Dan and I went over to the shop and as soon as the pizzas arrived it was a mad rush to clear the appetizers off and get the pizzas out. Dan and I worked to get people up to serve themselves pizza in an orderly fashion, sending folks table by table (wedding party first, of course). When the first batch of 14 pizzas ran out, we cleared the table, asked everyone’s patience, and when Dave showed up with the other 16 pizzas we got those out as well. Dave’s wife Betsy was invaluable during all this, providing plates and helping move empty boxes and such.

Once it looked like everyone had had their fill of pizza, it was back to the barn and Dan started the dance music. He hit the requested songs (First Dance, Father/Daughter, Mother/Son) and the usual Bouquet Toss and Garter Toss, then he started creating playlists on the fly. I provided some suggestions on tempos and songs, trying to keep the flow going. I think we did a passable job, though if we had time to prepare it would have been a lot better 🙂 The laptop/iPad combination worked well, and he did a decent job of keeping people on the dance floor, which I’ll count as a win. We wrapped up at about 10:15 PM, helped with a bit of the cleanup, and headed back to the hotel.

In the end, I think we had a blast. It wasn’t what we had signed up for, but by the end of the evening, there was an infectious kind of “let’s put on a show!” feel that made things feel less uptight and everyone a lot more willing to enjoy themselves. I do worry a bit about the DJ, since no one was able to reach him and he is a mutual friend; if anyone has heard from him, please let me know. But at the end of the day, Joe was happy, Misti was happy, and the bride and groom’s families seemed happy. I think that counts as a win! As for Dan and me, anyone who knows us knows that this is the kind of insanity we thrive on, and I’m so glad that we were able to help out and make Misti and Joe’s special day not only memorable but enjoyable as well. Congratulations to you both! I’ll throw in an endorsement for Badger Farms as well – Dave and Betsy are incredibly nice folks. They were great to work with, and when things started to go pear-shaped, they jumped in and were a phenomenal help.

We slept in on Saturday morning, then took our time driving home. We picked up Buddy from Dan’s mom’s place and crashed once we got home. Our plans for today? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! And it’s glorious 🙂

Con Wrap-Up, And A (Hopeful) Return To Blogging

My, it’s been quiet here lately, hasn’t it?

Most of you probably know why. For the last eleven (!) years I have been a staff member for Midwest FurFest. After serving as chairman for the last two years, this year I moved into the position of Hotel Liaison while my husband takaza took over as chairman. Now, being Hotel Liaison is no picnic anyway, but this was our first year at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare and that introduced all kinds of new complexities – learning how to use the function space, establishing lines of communication, negotiating contracts and expenses, and a slew of other duties. Hotel Liaison is one of the few 12-months-a-year jobs with the convention (most department heads’ duties kick in maybe 4-6 months before the con) and in the final month before the convention I was easily spending 20-30 hours per week on convention-related tasks. Thus the lack of updating.

So. The convention happened. How did it go?

It. Was. Amazing. All of that planning and hard work was worth it. Everything came together extremely well, and when unforeseen hotel issues came up we were able to recover seamlessly and gracefully with no disruption visible to the convention attendees. As for the convention itself, it was a spectacular success. We set an attendance record for us (2,285) and all of the feedback I’ve seen has been almost uniformly positive. Our last year at the Westin was not a good one, and I think that adversely affected our attendance. This year really turned that around. In my experience, conventions can advertise all over, hand out flyers, sit at tables and promote the con, but what will really make you or break you is word of mouth. The word of mouth for MFF after this year is so strongly positive, I think we’re going to see a very strong year next year.

There is absolutely no way I can write a con report – it all went by too fast and there’s just too much. I do want to thank a few folks, though:

  • Mirko and Gir, my Hotel Liaison staff. You guys made the con enjoyable for me, and I hope you found the experience as rewarding as I did. I know you had little direction or idea of what you were getting into before the con started, but to be fair I had no clue either 🙂 Special thanks for Gir for stepping in on relatively short notice to help out!
  • Although I don’t know if she’ll ever read this, Jen Calderon, our Convention Services Manager at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare did an absolutely sterling job keeping the myriad details in order. She put up with my frequent emails, responded quickly and effectively to inquiries before the con and especially at the con, and showed truly remarkable patience and attention to detail. Every convention should be fortunate to have someone as talented as Jen to work with!
  • Perro, RB, and CharlesBear, who provided invaluable support, advice, and communication before and during the convention.
  • The many, many MFF staffers who were great to work with, and who made my job easier in the planning stages of the convention.
  • And especially Dan, my dear husband. He was Hotel Liaison before me, and was an invaluable source of information. We spent a lot of time figuring the fine line between providing advice and micromanagement, but once I put my ego away and listened to his very sound suggestions, we were both better off for it. I will continue to be grateful for his support, his knowledge, and his love.

(If I forgot to mention you specifically, I assure you that it isn’t because I hate you, it’s more that my brains are still a little scrambled 🙂

So that’s it. I wish I could say that I’ve got a bunch of downtime ahead. I have today off, at least, but after this I go back to work for a day, then we’re hosting Thanksgiving for friends at our place. We are providing coordination assistance for Misti and Joe’s wedding on Friday, but then I’ll have the weekend to collapse. Oh, and Dan’s birthday is December 1st – locals, keep an eye out for an announcement of a fun outing for that coming up! And now that the con is over, we can start making plans for Christmas, and Wuffmeet is right after that! Oh my, I need a nap…

Anyway, I do hope to return to update this journal a bit more often now that I have a little more available time. We’ll see how that goes!

Still Around

In case anyone is wondering, I am still around and still reading LiveJournal. Unfortunately, preparations for Midwest FurFest are eating all my creative energy and time, so I don’t foresee any substantial post (or maybe any posts at all) until after the con, which is in two weeks (ACK!). I still have a write-up of September’s trip to Montreal to post, and reminders of upcoming gatherings as well. Keep an eye out!

Top 10 List of the Things You May Not Know About Midwest Furfest: #8 – Swag for Sponsors!

Only two weeks left! In the meantime you can read about the TOP TEN THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT MIDWEST FURFEST.

Number 8 is the cool stuff that Shiny Sponsors and Sponsors will receive. As most of us know, every attendee gets a nifty souvenir con book, a copy of our acclaimed Restaurant and Services Guide, a Pocket Program, and a convention badge. Sponsors get all of this, as well as a complimentary Midwest FurFest 2010 T-shirt, a collectible cloisonne‚ pin, a special surprise gift, and the crowning touch, the Saturday Sponsor Brunch! This year we are back at a Hyatt Regency, and with this comes the return of the Hyatt’s famous Regency Brunch, featuring omelets made to order, smoked salmon, freshly-carved roast beef, French toast, and much more.

And then there’s Shiny Sponsors. Last year’s Anniversary Sponsorships were quite popular, and we have decided to continue the tradition. Shiny Sponsors get everything that attendees and Sponsors receive, plus a Midwest FurFest 2010 polo shirt, a few tokens of our esteem (hint: they go well with this year’s convention theme!) and a cocktail hour in Ventana’s, at the very top of the Hyatt Regency O’Hare, on Friday evening. They’ll be able to enjoy the sunset over O’Hare Airport and admire the Chicago skyline while chatting with our Guests of Honor and their fellow Shiny Sponsors.

All levels of membership are still available! You can register online until Sunday, November 14, or you can register at the door. Attendee memberships are $40.00, Sponsorships are $120.00, and Shiny Sponsorships are $250.00. For more information and to register, see our website at http://www.furfest.org/registration

We’re going to take a break for the weekend, but next week we’ll continue out countdown of the Top Ten Things You Blah Blah Blah, Have a great weekend!

Alaskan Cruise Update – Deadline Soon!

Hello everyone!

This is a reminder that we are coming up on an important deadline for next year’s Alaskan cruise. After the end of October, our travel agent will not be able to guarantee that he will be able to hold the group reservation (which means if you book after that you may not get some of the group benefits). Additionally, the prices that we have previously quoted will likely be going up. As an example, I’m glad that we locked in out suite reservation when we did, since last week it went up $60.00 per person; it’s a safe bet that other rates will be increasing as well.

We have heard from the following folks that they have booked the cruise (and I apologize if I leave anyone off the list – my memory can be faulty on Monday mornings!) – Duncan, Takaza, Roho, Genet, Plonq, Atara, RB, Rusty, Rasslor, Brophey, Karwood, Sirius, Austin, Foxfeather, and Mbala. People who have expressed interest, but I’m not sure if they have booked yet: Linnaeus and Thomas. There’s plenty of room for anyone who would like to join us, too!

The general details: This is a seven-day cruise from Seward, Alaska to Vancouver, British Columbia on the Celebrity Millennium. The cruise departs Seward on Friday, May 27, 2011 and arrive Vancouver on Friday, June 3, 2011. This page has the basic information on the cruise: http://goo.gl/VFf1

Click here for the specifics, and how to book!

Falling Behind

Ever reach the point where you have to capture previous adventures before starting in on new adventures? Yeah, that’s kind of what it’s like here.

On the Friday before Labor Day, we packed up my car with our stuff, Buddy’s bed, and Buddy, and off we went. It was the Friday afternoon of a summer holiday weekend in Chicago, how bad could traffic be? It turns out that traffic was appalling. Horrible. Wretched. It took us three hours just to reach Indiana, and even that was only because of a detour through the middle of nowhere Illinois/Indiana and down through Lowell, IN to avoid the craziness of I-80/94.

Once we were past the worst of the traffic it was pretty much smooth sailing, except for the fact that for all that Buddy enjoys short rides in the car, long rides are an adventure in anxiety. We finally wound up dosing him with ace-pro, but that didn’t really make him sleep. He instead just lay between the front seats, head drooping, trembling slightly less than usual. Poor guy. Anyway, we got to Fordshepherd and Baja_Hyena‘s place in Columbus a little before 1 AM and crashed not long after. We arrived at the same time as Linnaeus, and r_bear had flown in earlier in the day.

Saturday morning came way too early. We chatted the morning away (accompanied by very tasty lattes from Baja) and then it was time for the big Labor Day bash. And a party it was, with lots of great folks, great food, and a whole lot of drink. The highlight was Kwik‘s monster slushie machine, which was loaded up with tasty strawberry daiquiris and a homemade frozen bloody Mary that really snuck up on you. A great party all in all, and we had a blast.

Sunday was a little more laid back. We made our annual trip to North Market where I picked up a few items for dinner, had lunch (mmm, banh mi), and then headed north on High St. up to Denise’s Ice Cream, which proved to be quite excellent. For dinner, Ford and I collaborated. He made roasted pork and creamed spinach, and I made potatoes roasted with duck fat. A great meal, and excellent company.

We went out for a tasty brunch on Monday, then it was time to hit the road. The drive back was uneventful, and we determined that while the ace-pro still didn’t knock Buddy out, he’s much happier when we’re moving and not stuck in stop-and-go traffic. We got home at around 7 PM and had time to relax before crashing for the night.

Not too much of note has happened since then. We enjoyed a lovely meal with Roho and Genet last Friday, helped Dan’s mom move on Saturday, and had a very productive Midwest FurFest staff meeting on Sunday. This week has been dragging by as we get ready to leave on Thursday afternoon for our big annual group trip: Montreal, Quebec!

We’re flying out from Milwaukee to Burlington, Vermont. We’re staying at a rental house that is part of the Fiddler Lake Resort property, which is far enough out of Montreal to be rural, but close enough for day-trips. We’ll have twelve people in total, which has introduced some interesting logistics, though nothing that we haven’t been able to handle. I’ve put together some fun itineraries, but I hope to take a laid-back approach . we have twelve people and four cars, so if someone wants to stay behind or strike off on their own, mazel tov! (as long as we’re not left with more people than will fit in cars) I’m hoping for a fun, relaxing trip. We’re flying home on Tuesday. It’s all too short a trip, but it’s what we had time and money for this year.

So much to do before leaving tomorrow afternoon! Yikes!

Where Have I Been and What Have I Been Doing?

I could bore you with the long drawn-out tale of how I was captured by pirates off the coast of Somalia, made friends with the captain and wound up entertaining Bedouins in a Yemeni oasis before I was able to escape to Belgium, where I subsisted on crackers, aged cheese, and fine Trappist ales before stowing away on a transatlantic cruise ship and talked my way into a ride back to Chicago in an art-car covered with Hello Kitty dolls, but that would be tedious and wholly fabricated.

Instead, let’s talk about what I’ve been doing the last few weeks.

The weekend of August 21st, I joined aureth, linnaeus, genet, and roho for what we termed the “Milwaukee Booze Tour”. We started out with the Sprecher Brewery tour. We’ve done it before, but this time we paid extra for the “Reserve Tasting”: 15 beers paired with 15 cheeses. Not much beer (a shot glass of each), but most of the pairings were good, and a few were excellent (the Scotch ale paired with a whisky-infused cheddar was stellar).

From there we grabbed a quick bite at a little dive Mexican joint, Conejito’s, then walked around Milwaukee Public Market and did a bit of shopping at The Spice House.

Then it was off to Great Lakes Distillery for a very interesting tour and tasting. The $6 cocktails before the tour were nice. The specifics of their distilling process were fascinating to me as a chemical engineer, and we had great fun sampling their various products. My personal verdicts: Their gin is wonderful, their vodka so-so, the maple-spiced rum kind of vile. The grappa was watery, the kirsch was…well, kirsch (the only think I know to do with kirsch is spike fondue with it). And their absinthes were overhyped. I’ll buy pastis and be happy.

I was only slightly tipsy after the tasting, but fortunately Genet was our designated driver. For dinner we went to Crawdaddy’s, which was apparently a really great place back in 2002. Alas, it’s 2010 and the place is well past its prime. Roho left a scathing review on Yelp, and I agree with every bit of it.

Last weekend I felt the urge to cook. Since I have a lot of cookbooks but don’t use them nearly enough, I decided to pull some recipes from there. We were joined by Aureth, Roho, and Genet, and I made a baby lettuce and arugula salad with peaches and almonds, and a summer vegetable gratin (with zucchini, summer squash, Japanese eggplant, and Roma tomatoes), both from Ad Hoc At Home.

For the entree, I made Anthony Bourdain’s pan-roasted pork chops with Sauce Charcruterie (a brown sauce made with onions, demi glace, mustard, and cornichons) from the Les Halles Cookbook. For dessert, Dan made a delicious fresh yellow watermelon sorbet that was amazing when mixed with Grey Goose vodka 🙂 The salad was pretty good, but the flavors didn’t quite meld. The gratin was amazing and I would absolutely make it again. The pork was OK, but I really liked the sauce more.

The big news this week is that we got shiny new phones, the Sprint Samsung Epic 4G. We’re still getting used to the quirks of Android, but after less than 24 hours I can still say that they are far superior to our Palm Pres. More on these as we’ve had time to play with them!

Quick Trip to Michigan!

Busy times, my friends!

On Friday we sped out from work, threw everything we’d packed into the car, and high-tailed it to Milwaukee to catch the Lake Express Ferry. We stopped for a quick bite at Subway and got to the dock right at 6 PM, just in time to be one of the last cars there for the 7 PM sailing. The ferry was just coming in through the breakwater, and takaza was able to get some nice photos of it approaching the dock.

Dan walked on with the other passengers while I drove the car onto the ferry (one person per vehicle), then I met up with him in the main passenger cabin. Think a whole bunch of airline-style seats (though not nearly as uncomfortable) with narrow tables between them and that’s what the main cabin is like. There was a “Premiere Class” cabin available as well, but at $15 per person for a 2.5 hour trip, it just didn’t seem worth it, and in hindsight that was a good choice. They showed a movie during the crossing (some horrible Miley Cyrus flick) that we ignored. Premiere class would have gotten us “Iron Man 2”, but we were OK without a movie.

We got some snacks from the snack bar (overpriced and meh, as expected, but not egregiously so) and passed the time taking pictures of the receding Wisconsin coastline, hanging out on the very windy deck (we were traveling at 40+ mph, so that generates quite a wind), and generally goofing around on our iPod (me)/iPad (Dan). (Full album of photos here)

We left Milwaukee just ahead of a line of nasty storms, and they never really impacted us on the trip. I’d guess the seas were never over about 1-2 feet – enough rocking that you want to keep a grip on a railing as you walk around the deck. As the sun set, we passed within maybe a half-mile of a huge ship that was carrying perhaps coal or iron ore to Indiana. I thought it odd that in the vast expanse of Lake Michigan we would come that close to another ship – just an accident of navigation, I suppose. When we arrived at Muskegon, Michigan, we first passed through a narrow passage into Lake Muskegon. It was a warm and humid night, but the wind made being on deck comfortable, and watching the various small boats approach the ferry with cries of “hello!” and escorting us into Muskegon was charming and a perfect cap to an enjoyable trip.

Was the ferry trip worth the nearly-$300 for a one-way crossing with two people and one car? I would have to say yes. I’d say it’s worth $100 alone to avoid the hassle of late-summer Friday afternoon Chicago/Northern Indiana traffic. Throw in another $100 apiece for a novel and fun experience, and it all works out. I’m not sure we’d do it again (the sailing schedule is somewhat difficult, and Muskegon is inconventient to anywhere we want to go in Michigan), but I’m glad to took the trip.

Once back on shore, we drove about 50 minutes to Grand Rapids and spent the night at a Springhill Suites. The next morning, we continued on down to Ypsilanti, where we met up with Nik, Gir, and Dusk (the latter visiting from Virginia). A tasty lunch followed, then an FCN staff meeting. They’ve got an awesome convention planned for this year, and I think everyone is going to like their theme and awesome guests of honor. After the meeting, we ordered pizza and Chinese, and hung out and chatted with the excellent Michigan folks. It was a real pleasure to talk with Keet and Raeth some more, and it’s always good to chat with Eddi, Cadyr, Ed Hyena, and the rest of the FCN staff.

We crashed for the night at a Courtyard in Ann Arbor (10 minutes away) and then had a lovely brunch on Sunday with Gir and Dusk at Zingerman’s Roadhouse (mmm, eggs Benedict). Then it was a six+ hour drive home, where we picked up Buddy from Dan’s mom’s, stopped by the grocery store, and collapsed back at home. So, not a lot of time in Michigan, but we had fun. I think next time we may try Amtrak, which would also be a fun trip (and much more affordable!).

Catching Up, Part 2

So, what else has been going on lately? Since I’m lazy, I’ll use bullet points.

  • On Friday we helped rustitobuck celebrate his birthday at a dinner that linnaeus put together. We ate at Claimjumper and the food wasn’t too bad. I’m pleased to say that it is possible to get moderate (i.e. sane) sized portions at Claimjumper if you order carefully.
  • We spent the weekend relaxing a bit and finally cleaning up the clutter from the picnic the prior weekend. On Sunday night we had dinner with roho and genet at a fabulous little Indian restaurant that just opened up within a few miles of us. I’m so glad to have expanded opportunities for food around here (and takaza loves their chicken tikka masla, so it’s a win for everyone!).
  • I’ve started using the MyPlate food and fitness diary over at Livestrong (which came recommended by the ever-useful Cool Tools blog). It’s an awesome free utility that lets you get all of your data in one place and even download it to a local spreadsheet. It’s interesting how just the act of tracking what you eat makes you more aware of your diet. I’m not “dieting” per se, just trying to eat better. This is an excellent tool for this.
  • We’ve got travel coming up! In September we’re going to be visiting Montreal. I’m having a lot of fun finding out about the area and making notes of possible places to visit, though as I’ve found on past trips while it’s nice to know some possibilities ahead of time, it’s even more fun to surrender to serendipity when it comes along. If we go to some of these places, great! If not, that’s OK too. We’ve got a group of 12 people coming from all over the country, and coordinating everyone is a bit of trick. We’re still working on who will cook what meals that we eat at the rental house, and putting the finishing touches on some reservations, but otherwise we’re just about good to go.
  • Speaking of vacation planning, the big trip for us right now is the Alaskan cruise that we’re planning for next May. I am pleasantly surprised to see that we definitely have thirteen people signed up, and at least four more who have expressed interest. The beauty of a trip like this is that it’s easily expandable. So hey, if you ever wanted to cruise from Anchorage, Alaska to Vancouver, British Columbus, with visits to Seward, Juneau, Skagway, Ketchikan, and Seattle, we’d love to have you along for this trip! You can find more information over here.
  • In just a few minutes I’m off to meet with the representative of our home builder. It’s almost been a year since we moved in and our one-year home warranty is about to expire, so they’re going to come in for one last pass to take care of any maintenance issues, nail pops, etc. Dan and I went over the walls carefully last night (and poor Dan slipped on the stairs doing so – he’s OK, just a bit sore) and our walls are currently covered with an array of post-it notes marking any defects. Next up will be scheduling their guy to come in and repair all of them.

That’s all for now!

Recap-o-rama: The 2nd Annual Midwest FurFest Summer Picnic

Whoa, am I falling behind!

The most notable event recently was the second annual Midwest FurFest Summer Picnic, which took place on the weekend before last. We welcomed Gir, Nik, Cadyr, and Eddi over at our place that Friday night and did some prep work for the picnic (including Genet making five gallons of simple syrup for the sno-kones!). We packed it in on the early side, then it was up relatively early on Saturday. Picnic prep went quickly, though we were late leaving the house.

The picnic was amazing. We had over 150 RSVP’s, though the actual turnout was probably more like 135 or so. It was a beastly hot day, in the 90’s and humid. We set up two grills, one for Midwest FurFest and one for Furry Connection North. In the time leading up to dinner I was in charge of making appetizers, which I did with copious help from Linnaeus, Aureth, Genet, Roho, and Cadyr. Appetizers included grilled pineapple with cumin, quesadillas, grilled plums, grilled baby bok choy in a light peanut sauce, and grilled jalapeno peppers, stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon. This was supplemented by an inspired addition on Dan’s part: he rented a sno-kone machine, which was perfect for the day. We went through about 80 pounds of ice, providing sno-kones for everyone (even bacon and peanut butter flavors!).

The main event came down to Furry Connection North’s Guacamole Bacon Bomb Burgers (secret ingredient: chopped bacon and scallions mixed into the burger!) versus Midwest FurFest’s Killer Bacon Cheeseburger (secret ingredient: 7-year-old aged cheddar cheese!). They were part of a delicious dinner buffet that included green salad, steakhouse potato salad, baked beans, and several trays of tasty dessert pastries. We had more than enough food (as always), but everyone seemed very happy with dinner and no one walked away hungry. I’m pleased and proud to say that Dan’s bacon cheeseburgers won the day, though Gir’s burgers were mighty tasty. Perhaps a rematch is in order?

The only downside is that the heat of the day and the hot grills took their toll – Gir, Dan, and Genet all had to take breaks because of the heat, and honestly early on I felt a little dizzy myself. Fortunately with lots of water and some time in an air-conditioned car, everyone bounced back and was able to return to the fray. Overall it was an excellent event, and I think that we succeeded in our goal to maintain awareness of Midwest FurFest during the summer months, recruit new volunteers, and increase community goodwill toward the convention. Certainly a worthwhile event!

Speaking for me personally, I’m wondering if the picnic isn’t getting a bit too big for us to be doing all the cooking (or any of the cooking, really). I’ve got some ideas for next year, but if we’re back to grilling for crowds again, I wouldn’t be too upset about that.

More about recent events in another post…

Alaskan Cruise 2011 Is a GO!

So, after much dithering back and forth over which cruise line, itinerary, and embarkation/debarkation ports, we have narrowed it down and made our decision! We will be sailing on the Celebrity Millennium on an eight-day, seven night cruise. We will fly into Anchorage, Alaska on Thursday, May 26, 2011. The next day we will take a train to Seward, Alaska, where we will board the Millennium. The ship will visit Hubbard Glacier, Juneau, Skagway, Icy Strait Point, Ketchikan, and the Inside Passage before arriving in Vancouver, British Columbia on Friday, June 3. We will follow the cruise with a brief weekend in Seattle, Washington, before flying home on Sunday, June 5.

Interested? Here are the details and cost estimates.

Drive-In Theater! This Saturday!

So, what do you get when you have a couple of movies that score better than 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, a drive-in movie theater, and excellent weather? Sounds to me like a fun trip to the McHenry Outdoor Theater! This weekend, they are showing Despicable Me followed by Toy Story 3. This coming Saturday night will be partly cloudy with a low of 62 degrees, and we are definitely going! We would enjoy the company of friends 🙂

We will be gathering at our house, then making the 10-minute drive over to the Outdoor at around 6:45 PM. The movie starts “at dusk or as soon as it is dark enough” (dusk on Saturday will be 9 PM). Tickets are $7.00 each. We will be bringing some tasty food (to be determined), as well as a cooler full of Beverages (adult and otherwise) – you are welcome to bring your own or partake of ours! Be sure to bring a folding chair, though we’ll have some to lend out. Insect repellant is a good idea, too. The theater also has a decent concession stand for burgers & such.

Interested in joining us? Let me know here or by IM!

A Perfect Fourth of July Holiday

Right, there was a holiday weekend back there. We were still dragging from Anthrocon going into the weekend, so keeping things laid-back was definitely on the menu. On Friday night, roho and genet stopped by and we made fajitas, then just hung out. Saturday was a lovely day of relaxing, then Roho, Genet, and linnaeus came over and we made steaks Argentinean style. OMG SO GOOD! This is a method described in the latest issue of Cook’s Illustrated: you coat the steaks lightly with a salt/cornstarch mixture, then place then in the freezer for 30 minutes. You build a hotter-than-heck charcoal fire and put a couple of wood chunks around the perimeter. Then you season the steaks with pepper and put them on the grill, 2-3 minutes per side, flipping twice. They came off perfectly rare/medium-rare. Oh, wow! Those were excellent – a nicely browned crust and suffused with hickory smoke. So good.

Sunday was another day of lazing about in the morning, then chanur2000 came over and he and takaza went to work reconciling Anthrocon’s finances. As they did this, I caught a ride from Roho & Genet down to justincheetah and calapurr‘s for their “Red White and Gin” party. It was an awesome party – great food, tasty drinks, shameful performances on Rock Band, and the evening was capped off by watching the town’s fireworks from their back deck. Awesome. I was also quite pleased that the gazpacho I made seemed to go over well. Since a couple of folks asked for it, here’s the recipe

LAFF July Softball/MFF Summer Picnic 2010!

Now that we’re all mostly recovered from Anthrocon…

The July LAFF Softball Game and Midwest FurFest Summer Picnic are just a two weeks away on Saturday, July 17. All of the fun will be at Prairie Springs Park in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin (just north of the IL/WI border).

Practice for softball starts at noon, and the game starts at 2 PM sharp. The Midwest FurFest Summer Picnic will start at approximately 6 PM, right after the final softball game.

What’s on the menu for the picnic, you ask? Hamburgers, this year. But not just any burgers – these will be the product of a cookoff between Midwest FurFest and Furry Connection North! Takaza (the chairman of Midwest FurFest) and his team of cooks are taking on Gir Tygrin (chairman of Furry Connection North) and his crew in a good old-fashioned grill-off with the results decided by YOU! (A limited number of chicken breasts will also be available for those who prefer not to eat red meat – please let us know in advance if you want chicken, please!)

Dinner will be accompanied by various salads and desserts. We’ll have water and Gatorade available throughout the day as well. Additionally, both grill teams will be making fun grilled appetizer all day long for players and fans to snack on. Best of all, it’s all FREE courtesy of your hometown furry convention, Midwest FurFest! We have ulterior motives, of course 🙂 Midwest FurFest exists because of volunteers, and new volunteers and staff are always needed to keep the convention thriving. If you have any questions about the convention, if you’re interested in volunteering, or you just want to learn how it all comes together, feel free to ask any of the folks with a Midwest FurFest nametag and they’ll be happy to help you out.

Now here’s the important bit: RSVPS ARE DUE BY NOON ON WEDNESDAY, JULY 14! If you don’t get your RSVP in by then, we can’t guarantee we’ll have food for you! (though we will try to accommodate everyone we can). How do you RSVP for the softball game and/or the picnic? Do you comment on this post? NO! However, you can send an email to steviemaxwell *at* gmail *dot* com with the subject line of “July RSVP” or comment on this post. (Please state if you’ll be attending the game and/or the picnic when you RSVP, and remember that an RSVP stating that you “might” be there is not an RSVP because we “might” have food for you…or we might not 🙂 In the event of bad weather, an announcement will be made to the LAFF list and LJ communities regarding the status of the picnic on the morning of the game.

Anthrocon – Done.

So Anthrocon came and went last weekend.

I won’t be writing a full report because, honestly, it would be pretty boring. Also, Friday-Sunday would be repetitive: “Went to work in Artists Alley. Worked for 12-14 hours. Grabbed dinner. Went to bed.” And I want to stress, I’m not saying that working 12-14 hours every day was a badge of honor. Actually, it was pretty stupid. I didn’t have enough staff (as usual). I didn’t feel comfortable leaving the Alley during the day, even though I had excellent support from Rooth, my second in command. And I didn’t have the energy to really go anyplace else by the end of the weekend. All of that aside, though, the Alley was a huge success, processing over $63,000 for the artists over the course of the weekend (up from $55,000 last year).

Anyway, I do want to put together some bullet points about the convention:

  • Rooth is amazing. He put up with my stressing out, continued to be a quick study when it comes to all things technological, and was in general an excellent friend. I leave Artists Alley in his hands knowing it will not only continue to succeed, it will improve year after year. And the going-away gift of a 30-minute professional massage on Sunday was exactly what I needed.
  • The Artists Alley and Con Store staff: Baja, Delphi, Drittauge, Ford, Geemo, Shy Matsi, Stevie, Wag!, Anita (Giza’s Mom), and Gimpy Dave. You are the reason that Artists Alley and Con Store ran as well as it did, and I cannot begin to thank you enough. The work schedule was tough this year, and I know many people wound up working more hours than they would have liked. I am sure Rooth will make sure that doesn’t happen again next year. I am beyond gratified that so many of you plan to come back next year. I consider it a privilege to count you all as friends.
  • Dinner at The Sharp Edge was a mixed bag – Excellent friends, decent food, abominable service. In hindsight, I wish we’d chosen to go to Sonoma Grille on Sunday night instead, but the company more than made up for it.
  • Roho and Genet, and their roommates Tarin and Nyuni were great – even though they were not staff, they volunteered to help out with the Artists Alley lottery. More importantly, not only did Roho and Genet help carry some of our stuff to and from the con, they provided me with a much-needed oasis of sanity (and excellent beer) in their room. Thanks, guys!
  • And then there’s Takaza. It goes without saying that he was helpful and supportive, but this was on top of his own insanity running the Finance office. He was sweet enough to make sure I ate lunch each day and to look in on me during the day. All of this while working until 3:00 AM each night (and he still has a couple of days worth of work to do to get everything reconciled before July 15th).

After nine years of working Artists Alley, I leave Anthrocon with the same feeling I had when I turned over Registration at Midwest FurFest: It was a fascinating and enjoyable logistical problem that I would like to think that I and my team solved, and left things in a far better state than they were when I came in. It is definitely something I am done with, though, and have no desire to ever do again.

As I have mentioned, we will not be at Anthrocon next year. Instead, we will be celebrating the tenth anniversary of our commitment ceremony with a cruise to Alaska (want to join us? Here’s more information). Since I only have so much vacation, something has to give – that thing being Anthrocon. After next year? Hard to say. We’ve been talking about a trip to Europe, you see 🙂

And so Anthrocon is in the books for us. Now we can look ahead to the Midwest FurFest Summer Picnic in just a few weeks, a trip to Ann Arbor in August, and of course our trip to Montreal in September. Oh, and some convention or another in November. That will come with time, though…

And Now, The Downhill Slide

And welcome to Anthrocon OMG last minute countdown for takaza and me. I need to remember to check in for our flights just before leaving work today. We drop off Buddy at Dan’s mom’s place tonight, and finish up our last bit of packing after that. Tomorrow, we both work a half-day, then it’s off to Milwaukee for our 4 PM flight. We get into Pittsburgh at 6:30 PM, and should be at the Westin by 8 PM.

As for the rest of my time at Anthrocon, since everyone else is detailing their schedule:
Thursday
7 AM – 9 AM – Breakfast someplace. Maybe Deluca’s, or someplace on The Strip?
9 AM – 6 PM – Setup Artists Alley and Con Store in Hall B. Bored? Stop by! I can always use the help 🙂
6 PM – 9:30 PM – Dinner plans are hazy. I’m not sure what we’re doing, but we’ll figure it out along the way.
9:30 PM – 10:30 PM – Staff meeting

Friday – Sunday
These days are all pretty much the same. Get up early, work in Hall B until around 8 PM. Take short breaks. Hope I can find time for food.
Each night I hope to get together with friends and relax. I won’t be looking for big social functions, but nice, small, quiet gatherings.

Monday
After an uncomfortably late meeting, we’ll be flying out at 2:30 PM. I hope we make our flight.

It’s a good thing I took next Tuesday off to recuperate…oh wait, I didn’t because I don’t have enough vacation time. Crap. Ah well…

The Stanley Cup Comes to Chicago Pride!

This is a very cool bit of news. Thanks to the work of invncble, his hockey team, and the Chicago Gay Hockey Association, the Stanley Cup will be a part of the Chicago Pride Parade this weekend! Michael Sneed reports this in the today’s edition of the Chicago Sun Times.

The Stanley Cup . . .
Is the ultimate game of testosterone going to dispatch a Blackhawk with the Stanley Cup in tow to the Gay Pride Parade this weekend?
You betcha!

Sneed has learned Blackhawks President John McDonough is rerouting the Stanley Cup from the NHL draft in L.A. to the parade Sunday . . . and Blackhawk defenseman Brent Sopel has volunteered to represent the team.

“I am honored to do it,” said Sopel, who will be accompanied by wife, Kelly, and his four kids, Jacob, 12, Lyla, 8, Jayla, 6, and Paul, 20, whom they adopted three years ago after Paul’s parents died within six months of each other.
The rest of the article is here…

Where’s Your Head At?

Yep, we’re down to the pre-convention head-in-a-fog period where I post even less than I usually do. We’re trying to keep things moderately low-key as we lead up to Anthrocon, which is just seven days away (for us, anyway). That doesn’t mean we’re sitting in darkened rooms all by ourselves, though…

On Friday after work takaza and I had a bit of shopping to do in McHenry, then wandered around a bit through Bull Valley (my gosh, that’s a beautiful area!) before winding up in Woodstock. We had dinner at La Petite Creperie. We eschewed crepes for their more formal dinner menu which was…something of a mixed bag. I felt strongly enough that I wrote up a review on Yelp, giving them 2 out of 5 stars. We’d go back, but only for the crepes.

Saturday we worked around the house a bit, then drove up to Antioch to visit with roho and genet and linnaeus. It was a pleasant evening, nice and laid back (though clearly we hadn’t had enough mind-altering substances to fully appreciate “Sita Sings the Blues” 🙂 On Sunday was spent working on Anthrocon stuff and generally just puttering around the house. Not a bad thing at all!

This brings me to the specter hanging over our heads right now – Anthrocon. It was with a bit of astonishment that I realized last week that I’ve been working in the Artists Alley at Anthrocon for the last nine years, and been in charge of it for the last seven years. Dan started in the Alley with me, then graduated to write the at-convention newsletter, then to create and run the Finance Office. Nine years is a long time, and we have both reached the point where we are burned out and it just isn’t fun anymore. It’s an insane amount of work to run these departments, and I know that at least for me serving as chairman of Midwest FurFest was easy compared to the time spent preparing for and running Artists Alley.

Don’t get me wrong – I’ve enjoyed my time managing Artists Alley. I have gotten to work with some really wonderful people, and as I wrap up my final year on Anthrocon staff I leave knowing that the Alley is in excellent hands. rooth, my second-in-command is taking over the position from me, and I have every confidence he will do an excellent job. We haven’t always agreed on philosophical matters, but that’s a good thing – it’s good to challenge and understand why we do what we do. He’s got a great head for logistics, and between us I think that we’ve created a pretty awesome purchasing system in the Alley. And I know he has a ton of new ideas that will be implemented over the next few years that will make the Alley even better.

As for us? We’ll be giving Anthrocon a miss next year, I’m afraid. We’re planning on a cruise to Alaska to celebrate the 10th anniversary of our commitment ceremony; I only have two weeks of vacation, and the cruise is going to consume a large chunk of that. We’ll still be active with Furry Connection North and Midwest FurFest, though, and the many and various smaller events throughout the year!

Good Food and Good Beer

Not too much to talk about here, thus the radio silence.

On Saturday I had the pleasure of having brunch with genet and linnaeus (takaza and roho were both under the weather) at Longman & Eagle in Logan Square. This qualified as being OMG SO GOOD, as I had two duck eggs sunny side up over a hash of Yukon gold potatoes and duck confit. They also do some very interested bourbon flights; I suspect we will be returning to investigate!

Afterward we walked a ways down Milwaukee Ave., checking out the neighborhood. We found Bucket o’ Blood, a newly-opened speculative-fiction used book store, and stumbled across Revolution Brewing an awesome brewpub. I had the Mad Cow Milk Stout, which was quite tasty. We were also viciously attacked by a plate of chocolate chunk bread pudding, and forced to defend ourselves!

On Saturday we had lunch with Roho and Genet at The Brat Stop in Kenosha, and I was amused by the lingering spirits of .38 Special, REO Speedwagon, and Cheap Trick (even though they’re not dead yet). Afterward we did our weekly shopping at Woodman’s, which wasn’t nearly as insanely crowded as we expected.

Monday we got together after work with Linnaeus, Roho, and Genet to check out the Pub Quiz at Emmett’s Ale House in Palatine. We learned some important things: 1. They start at 7:30. Get there early to get a table! 2. No more than four people per table. 3. It’s $7 per person, and if you’re in the room you’re paying – no just following along. 4. It’s seven rounds, and takes about two hours.

Unfortunately, five people is exactly the wrong number of people to have in that situation, so rather than split up, we said t’hell with it and enjoyed a lovely dinner (with a little beer) on the patio instead. So…who’s interested in doing the pub quiz this Monday? We need at least one more and up to three more people. After listening in to the questions, I think it’s something we could do well in 🙂

Today has been spent dealing with a lot of Anthrocon craziness, but also making some advance plans for New Year’s Eve – keep an eye out for more about that!

Memorial Day 2010-palooza!

I need a vacation from my vacation!

It all started so long ago…Friday, I think it was. That night, what was going to be a small pre-party get-together swelled to 11 people getting together for “tapas” (as in “we only serve a bunch of appetizers, so let’s call it tapas”) at Rugan’s in Antioch. The company was excellent, the beer tasty, the food OK, the service disastrous, and the sound level inexcusable. We had a good time anyway.

On Saturday things got rolling early as folks started to arrive for our big Memorial Day Party. The cast of characters from the previous night, plus, um, a lot of other people – I think we had 25 people in our place at dinner time. I smoked a bunch of chickens in the smoker, Dan grilled up some bacon cheeseburgers, and everyone had a great time. Little-known fact: “Mai Tai” is Polynesian for “express train to drunkville” 🙂 Everyone brought an amazing array of food and drinks and we had a fantastic dinner.

On Sunday morning we made the requisite pilgrimage to Las Vegas Restaurant for their tasty brunch, then retired back to our place for chatting, relaxing, and gaming. As the day wore on we broke out the leftovers (of which there were copious quantities) and Dan got to try out a couple more drink recipes. Drunken Malarkey was played, where we learned that Bill Hep may or may not have been a hep cat, toothpaste magically regenerates itself, and popping movie theater popcorn has been outsourced to China.

Monday brought breakfast fail, as I somehow failed to comprehend that bagels, lox, and cream cheese requires bagels and cream cheese. Um, whoops. Thanks to Mirko, at least, for importing salmon from Seattle! We recovered, though, and headed out en masse to take over Whirlyball in Vernon Hills! We had 23 people in all there, including 11 fursuiters. The Whirlyball marketing guys loved us, taking pictures and video of the fursuit Whirlyball sessions (our picture gallery is here). We played for two hours, and I think everyone had a pretty darned good time!

Afterward, we adjourned back to our place for lunch with a few folks, then saw our last guests off at 4 PM. Dan went to bed not long after that, and I took a nap myself, then enjoyed a quiet evening, just me and Buddy.

As always, this was a terrific weekend, and I want to thank all of the great folks who were able to join us at some time over the course of the weekend: Aerofox, Aiden Dingo, Aureth, Bacon, Baja, Basil, Croc, Delmir, Drake, Eddi, Ford, Genet, Gir, GrayWolf, Hartree, Hegdish, Jenne, Linnaeus, Mirko, Nik, Perro, Quasi, RB, Rex, Roho, Rusty, Stevie, Street, Ted, Theome, Tozier, Vish, and Woody (I think I may have missed a few – if so, I apologize!). As tired as we were at the end of it, I know I felt it was all worth it, and we’re already thinking ahead to New Year’s Eve and other fun events in the future!

This Dog Is Dragging

Oh man, am I tired. takaza wasn’t feeling well this morning and got up at about 3:30 AM. I woke up and while waiting for him to come back to bed I got to thinking and stressing and…well, so much for getting back to sleep. Mind you, it’s not his fault – a normal person would have gone right back to sleep. Me, I’m just neurotic that way. I don’t function well on five hours of sleep, unfortunately. (Dan did come back to bed and get a bit more sleep, which made me feel better.)

We’re getting ready for company this weekend, and a fun party and some other cool stuff. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone, but as usual I’ve succeeded in working myself up into a ball of stress in the process of getting everything ready. I’ll be fine tomorrow, I’m sure, but I have a list of stuff I need to get done tonight that’s really bugging me.

In non-holiday-weekend news, Buddy is still wearing The Cone of Shame for most of the day, though we do take it off in the evenings when we’re around to keep an eye on him. He gets his stitches out on Saturday morning, which is good. He didn’t try to lick the healing area last night, so I’m taking that as a very good sign. The vet let us know that the lump that was removed was “most likely” benign and his prognosis is excellent. We’ve got just a couple more antibiotic pills to give him, then hopefully his digestive tract will get back to normal, too. He’ll be a happy and friendly pup come this weekend, I’m sure!

Anthrocon is just a few weeks away and I am sure that if I took a close look at what remains to be done for that I’d be terrified. I am putting all that way until after Memorial Day weekend, though. In the meantime, soon it will be time to party!

Buddy Does Not Like The Cone Of Shame

Yesterday, Buddy had to go to the vet. For one thing, it was time for a good teeth cleaning (something for which he was clearly overdue). Also, he had been licking at a bump on his left front elbow for the last week. It clearly wasn’t painful, just annoying. I had pointed out the bump earlier to the vet, and he said when it got bigger or started to cause irritation, bring Buddy in. Looks like the time had come.

Buddy was a little woozy when we picked him up last night, and clearly not happy to be wearing a Victorian collar (aka The Cone of Shame). The vet said his teeth were healthy and no extractions were necessary. He removed the cyst from his elbow and had sent it off for biopsy, and put in three stitches. At our request he injected Buddy with a microchip for tracking, and even trimmed his claws (unasked!). He sent us off with a pain relieving syrup (meloxicam), an antibiotic (clindamycin), and an anti-anxiety med (acepromazine) for when Buddy gets too freaked out by thunderstorms.

Buddy was pretty wobbly last night, but is doing much better this morning. Navigating with the Cone of Shame is a continuing challenge – his spatial awareness is way off, and he almost fell down the stairs a few times. He has finally been able to get comfortable with it while sleeping, it seems. I think he was in a bit of pain this morning, as he couldn’t get comfortable and kept lying down, then getting up again. It looks like the pain killer has hit him surprisingly hard, though, as I’m watching him fall asleep on his bed right now. Theoretically, he has to wear the Cone for the next ten days, with his stitches coming out on Saturday. We’re hoping maybe we can take it off sooner than that, but we’ll take things day by day.

Meat and Booze – How Can You Go Wrong?

I need another weekend to recover from my weekend!

We started the fun off on Friday night. Roho and genet carpooled with us down to Downer’s Grove for dinner. We had some time to kill, so we stopped by Binny’s Beverage Depot to look around and ran into linnaeus! While there we were entertained by a gentleman who was offering samples of various spirits that he distributes, including Vana Tallinn, an Estonian liqueur. We were a little so-so at first, but then he had some cocktails available to sample showing how good it was for mixing. In fact, it was fantastic for mixing, especially the Canton Cannon: Vana Tallinn, vodka, fresh ginger, and just a touch of Sriracha hot sauce. It was delicious! Between us, our group bought three bottles of Vana Tallinn. Now that’s a good salesman!

Dinner was a nice little shindig put together by Rayven and Nihaler at Chama Gaucha. I have to say that this is one of the better iterations of the Brazilian Steakhouse type of restaurants – excellent service, really good-quality meats, and a decent price. I was impressed that once Dan told them he was allergic to garlic, not only did the waiters only offer him non-garlic-containing meats, they made a special skewer of chicken breasts just for him. This place is definitely worth going back to. When we got home I had to head off to bed, but Dan stayed up until kellicjtiger and uberhill arrived at about 1:30 AM.

Things were understandably a little slow to get started the next morning. We finally got out of the house and met up with Roho and Genet for brunch at Las Vegas Restaurant. We walked around downtown a bit afterward, then succumbed to the siren call of Antioch Packing House, our favorite local butcher (OMG MEAT!). Steaks were purchased, and then a bit more booze and grocery shopping followed (and once again it was proven that Garden Fresh Market is an evil place for those who make impulse purchases). That evening, we were joined by Linnaeus and a had great night of food, conversation, laughter, and boozamahol followed (we, um, killed about 80% of the 1-liter bottle of Vana Tallinn). It was really a whole lot of fun!

Sunday brought the Midwest FurFest staff meeting. The meeting was nice and short (as they typically are this time of year), but we had an extremely useful tour of the innards of the hotel afterward from one of the convention services managers. A small group of us went to Potbelly Sandwiches for dinner afterward, then we headed home. The evening was nicely low-key after such a raucous weekend, with Kellic and Charles working on some Geek Partnership Society work and us rotting our brains with the Survivor finale (which we watched in high-speed: 2 hours of TV in about 20 minutes, woo!).

This week we’re going to be doing a bit of housecleaning and getting ready for Memorial Day fun (more info on that coming very soon!). We need to take Buddy to the vet tomorrow to have his teeth cleaned and a bump removed from his leg that he has licked to the point that something needs to be done about it – it doesn’t seem to hurt him, it’s just an annoyance, I suspect. We’ll make sure that the vet microchips him too, since it doesn’t appear to have been done before. Given that they’ll have to put Buddy under to do the first two items, I’m sure he’ll be a bit of a mess when we pick him up tomorrow night. Fun times for doggie parents!

Smokin’ Up A Storm!

So, life has been interesting at work, though it’s not much I can comment on in a public journal entry. The good news is, I have a job, it’s not in danger of going away any time soon (as far as I know), and I’m keeping busy. Let’s leave it at that.

So last week takaza and I spent a little more time doing some housecleaning and dealing with some of the spring cleaning we had so artfully avoided the weekend before. This was because we were welcoming company. Plonq and Atara rolled in mid-afternoon on Saturday as part of their epic drive from Winnipeg to Ohio. We put together a nice dinner for them, inviting roho, genet, aureth, and jenwolf (alas, linnaeus‘s car blew up and he had to spend the day dealing with that and couldn’t make it). Genet made a tasty Asian slaw and banana pudding, and Aureth made a delicious (if sloppy) cherry pie. Dan made some killer macaroni and cheese with bacon.

For my part, I smoked a bunch of chickens in the smoker. Two of them I soaked overnight in a bourbon/honey brine, and two of them in a soy/ginger brine. Once I got the smoker up to a proper temperature, they smoked beautifully with some apple wood I had leftover from last year. Just perfect! The bourbon/honey brine was definitely the lesser of the two – some definite sweetness, but no real bourbon flavor. Everyone agreed that the soy/ginger was the real winner. We whiled away the night chatting and drinking some of Aureth’s excellent homebrew, but unfortunately I conked out earlier than I would have liked.

On Sunday, Atara and Plonq spent the day with Atara’s sister in Chicago, so Dan and I just hung around the house and relaxed most of the day. Roho and Genet came over in the evening and we watched the season finale to The Amazing Race (still not happy with how it ended, but it could have been much worse). We reheated the leftovers from the previous night, and I whipped up a simple Alabama white BBQ sauce that was absolutely divine with the smoked chicken. Atara and Plonq got home part way through the show and we spent the balance of the evening chatting and poking at our laptops – companionable geekery 🙂

On Monday morning we bid farewell to our Canadian guests as they continued their trip eastward. Looking ahead to the coming weekend, we have more company coming, as well as the Midwest FurFest staff meeting. This should be a fun one – it’s an in-person meeting at the Hyatt O’Hare in the middle of Anime Central, a 12,000-person anime convention. If anyone is at ACen and wants to stop by to say hi, we’ll be in the Hartsfield Room at the Hyatt from 2 PM until around 4 PM!

FCLR, and So Tired

Oh man, am I exhausted. It was an extremely full weekend. takaza was hosting the Furry Convention Leadership Roundtable, and I was helping. We had folks come in from all over the country, representing Anthrocon, Furry Connection North, Rainfurrest, IndyFurCon, the Dorsai Irregulars, and of course Midwest FurFest. We spent a solid 11 hours on Saturday talking over a host of different topics, talking about what worked, what didn’t, and how things can be improved. We finished off the day with a rousing discussion of Convention Horror Stories, which was a real hoot. (Note: If you weren’t invited, don’t be upset. To prevent the discussion from being too biased toward any one organization, there was a limit of three representatives, plus S.O.’s, per convention.)

The event was held at the Hampton Inn and Suites in Lincolnshire, IL, and it turned out to be the perfect hotel. Nice, big rooms, affordable rates, and just the right amount of function space. Next time I hope we’ll actually be able to check out the hot tub and pool. Since it’s in the middle of a ton of dining options, that makes it even more attractive. Finally, the staff was extremely accommodating and helpful.

After we had unpacked the car and picked up Buddy from Dan’s mom’s place, Dan pretty much went right to bed at about 6 PM. I stayed up until 10, but clearly I should have gone to bed earlier. I’ll be dragging for the rest of the day, and I may need to take a nap when I get home from work. Ugh.

Spring Cleaning Weekend! Well, Almost…

We had plans, you see.

Spring Cleaning! Lots to do! A three-page list of tasks from the garage to the upstairs office to the back patio, we were going to be a whirlwind!

Well, yeah. Anyway. Not so much. But you know what? It was a pretty good weekend anyway.

We wound up eating out all three nights, which was unexpected. Friday night was dinner at The Lake House with aureth, jenwolf, roho and genet to celebrate Aureth’s birthday. This was our third time at The Lake House, and each time the service and food quality has gone downhill. While the company was great and we had a fun time, I don’t see a huge need to return to that restaurant. There’s too many other good places in the area still to try. (Like Rugan’s, which has a “beer fraternity”!).

Saturday was gray and wet outside, and neither takaza nor I felt particularly motivated. We did give Buddy a bath, which is always amusing. Once he knows that it’s bath time, he’ll tuck his tail between his legs and walk slowly into the bathroom and climb into the bathtub on his own, then look at you with this expression of, “Can we please just get this over with?” Anyway, with him clean we took the opportunity to wash his bedding as well, but then pretty much ran out of get-up-and-go. Instead we opted for a bit of retail therapy. We needed someplace to put all of our DVD’s and (small) collection of video games, so we decided we needed to go to Ikea and pick up a couple of Benno DVD towers.

We called Roho and Genet to see if they wanted to join us; Roho was tuckered out, but Genet was up for it! One trip to Ikea later we had the towers, as well as a few other things (yeah, that’s the way they work). We then went over to Five Guys Burgers and Fries for dinner, the first time we had visited one. The verdict: great fries (yeah, Dan ordered the large size – big mistake), and pretty darned tasty burgers. A little pricey, but I expect we’ll be going back.

Sunday we made a small dent in some of the work to do, sorting through a few of the boxes in the office. Side note: we have a clash of family cultures in our house. We always have had an attic where we had a dozen or more boxes of stuff sitting around. We’d look at it every five years or so, shrug, and back into storage it would go. Dan’s family didn’t have the stash of boxes and doesn’t see my predilection for not minding all these boxes stashed in a closet. So we’re compromising: Sort through the boxes, get rid of what isn’t needed, sort the rest into clear plastic bins, and get some order into the place. Well, that was the idea, and we’ll still finish it at some point. On Sunday, though, we did a little work then decided to take a break. Then it was time to head out for dinner!

Dinner this night was at The Sequoit Creek Lodge a mostly-bar-but-also-a-restaurant in Antioch. There we met up with Roho, Genet, and chebutykin, on her way home from Ebertfest in Champaign (and recovering from drinking gin and Squirt with mirkowuff). We had a fun time, and were surprised at the end of the meal when Aureth and Jenne dropped by, having seen tweets of where we were eating. It was a nice reminder of how fun Cheb is to hang out with, and why we really must persuade her to visit for Memorial Day 🙂

This week is a lot more sane than the last. A high-speed project was created, written up, executed, and the final report signed off late Friday of last week, and I’m still recovering a bit from that. We’ve got plans for the weekend (more on that later) that will keep us hopping as well. Hope everyone has a great week!

They Like Us! They Really Like Us!

I just came across this profile of The Neo-Futurists in Gozamos (“A Spotlight on Chicago Community and Culture”). As you may or may not remember, The Neo-Futurists produce the long-running play “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind”, which appeared at Midwest FurFest last year. There’s a great quote from Kurt Chiang, who was part of the ensemble for that performance:
What has been your favorite Neo-Futurist moment? I really enjoyed performing TML at the 10th annual Midwestern Furfest last summer. Those people were so kind and welcoming to us in their very specialized culture/geekdom (and I use “geek” in the a complimentary sense). They also dug the choatic dynamic of the show right away, which is rare for people who see the show for the first time.

(Summer, winter…whichever. At least they had a good time!)

Letting It Go

Or: Things you think about while walking the dog, Part 26

I could be angry and annoyed at the dog for waking me up 45 minutes before the alarm was supposed to go off, but would that make any difference? No, not really.

I could be stressed about the paperwork that needs to be done at work and the mad scramble that is sure to come over the next few days, but will that make any difference or get the work done faster? No, not really.

I could worry about commitments to upcoming conventions and all of the work that needs to be done between now and then, but will that make any difference, get the work done faster, or make me feel any better? No, not really.

I could remember these facts and have a happier, less stressful day. That, I can try to do.

Spring Has Sprung, The Grass Is Riz…

Spring continues apace! Last weekend we had considered doing some Spring Cleaning, but after thinking about it, takaza and I decided the weekend was better spent doing very little 🙂

Friday night after work, we decided that we really wanted to see How To Tame Your Dragon again, this time in 3-D. We bought tickets at Gold Class Cinemas in South Barrington, and we were joined by roho, genet, justincheetah, and calapurr. Yes, the tickets were a bit expensive at $17.50 apiece, but considering we were originally looking at the IMAX in Lincolnshire ($17/ticket), it was a very good deal indeed. Gold Class is a “premium theater”, one of the more over-the-top examples. There are (I think) ten auditoriums, the small ones having 22 seats and the large ones having 44 seats. And what seats! Comfy electric recliners with lots of space all around, and pillows and blankets provided on request.

We decided to try the whole deal and ordered dinner and drinks before the movie, to be delivered during the movie. Dan ordered the Wagyu beef burger duo (which unfortunately turned out to be served with mustard – not to his liking at all). I had the Cuban pork sandwich, which was delicious. Also, they have a fantastic drink called a ginger collins (Hendricks gin, Canton ginger liqueur, fresh strawberries, Pama pomegranate liqueur, sweet and sour mix, and ginger). SO GOOD. The prices were sky-high, though, and although the food was good, we could have had an amazing dinner at a fine steakhouse for what we paid. We won’t be doing dinner there again. Fortunately, there’s a Cooper’s Hawk Restaurant and Winery right in front of the theater, so I can see a nice combination of dinner and a movie right there.

Oh, and the movie? Really great, even the second time. The 3-D did add to the experience, so I’m glad we saw it that way. We’ll be buying the DVD for sure.

On Saturday, we did nothing. And it was good.

Sunday, I got a little more motivated. I took Buddy for a walk at a local forest preserve, then did some shopping at Garden Fresh, our local grocery store. Why do I love this store so much? They cover the basics, but also have a wide variety of ethnic foods. It’s a wonderful mix of foods and cultures, and I was amused when I stopped by a sample table and had to help a Korean woman explain to a Middle Eastern woman what was in the kim chee dumplings (tasty, too!). Roho and Genet joined us for a dinner of bacon cheeseburgers, grilled asparagus with rosemary, lemon, and goat cheese, and a dessert of grilled pineapple. Somewhere in there we attended the online Midwest FurFest staff meeting and watched an episode of Glee, too.

This week is going by pretty much as usual. One bright spot is that with a nice influx of reimbursements from various sources we’ve paid our credit card off. Looking ahead to this weekend, the Spring Cleaning will kick in in earnest. After that, our weekends are claimed through the beginning of June. Yikes!

A Call For Help At Anthrocon!

We’ve got a bit of a crisis in the Anthrocon Artists Alley/Con Store and we need YOUR help! Through no fault of their own, we have lost three experienced and hard-working staffers this year, creating a huge hole in our staffing. I need your help! I need folks who don’t mind giving up 4-5 hours of their day each day during the convention, between 9 AM until 6 PM. You would be running a cash register and helping to staff either the Artists Alley or the Con Store. The duties are well-documented and easy to learn.

What do you get in exchange? Well, that’s the good part. You’ll get FREE admission to Anthrocon, easy registration (bypass the huge lines!), a free T-Shirt, and a free delicious dinner on Sunday night. Additionally, you’ll get to work with some really fun and amazing people and enjoy a great feeling of accomplishment when the convention is over.

I need at least three people, and four or five would be even better. If you know someone who might be interested, send them my way as well! If this sounds like something you might enjoy, you can comment on this post or e-mail me directly at alley-2010@anthrocon.org. Thanks!

-Duncan

Big Plans for 2011!

It doesn’t seem so long ago…

November 18, 2001. We were at the Sheraton Arlington Park, just wrapping up the second Midwest FurFest. We gathered with our family and friends in a ballroom there, and before one and all, takaza and I pledged our love for one another in a celebration of our commited relationship. It was a magical night, and one that we will never forget.

The tenth anniversary of that event is coming up, and we have decided that we want to celebrate in style. And just like before, we would love to do it with those who are dear to us. Dan and I would like to invite all of our friends to join us on a fabulous cruise to Alaska! Things are very much in the formative stages, but the one thing that we’ve learned is that booking a year out is a Very Good Idea. Even better, booking early allows you to make down payments on your ticket, which suddenly makes this a viable option.

Here’s what we’re looking at: Cruising from either Seattle or Vancouver on an 6- or 7-night cruise through the Inside Passage of Alaska in July of 2011. Depending on what accommodations you select, the cruise will be between $1,000 – $2,250 per person (the former for in interior stateroom, the latter for a suite with a balcony). There will also be the cost of plane fare to/from the embarkation city, whichever it will be. And while this may sound like a lot of money, if you pay it in installments over 12 months, that may make the cost much more attainable.

Once we get an idea of how many people we might be talking about and what the group might be looking for in terms of shipboard activities, shore excursions, and accommodations, we’ll talk to a travel agent and get the best possible deal that we can.

So…who’s in?

Thunderstorms, Conventions, and Really Good Fajitas

We had some impressive thunderstorms roll through last night. While Buddy had been pretty much unaffected by storms that had come through earlier in the day, something about storms in the middle of the night freaked him out. He wound up crawling up on the bed between me and takaza and shivering and panting for a while, until he calmed down. Unfortunately he kept shifting around and waking me up, so I was a meanie and evicted him from the bed (hey, I had to get up and go to work in the morning, he didn’t). He was OK, though – he curled up into a ball right next to the bed on the floor and seemed to weather the rest of the night without incident.

As for what else is going on, this is a short week for us since we’re taking off Friday (and the following Monday) to attend Furry Connection North. Dan has been helping with their publications (as have I, in small places) and although we were supposed to help perro move on Saturday, we instead wound up spending most of the day at home as Dan put the finishing touches on the Restaurant Guide. It worked out OK, though, since that allowed us to pick up my car from the dealership (60,000 mile service + new brakes) and do some shopping at Woodman’s in Kenosha for exotic Wisconsin sodas.

On Sunday we invited roho and genet over for a low-key dinner and to watch The Amazing Race. Dinner was marinated skirt steak grilled and made into fajitas. The ripe avocados that we added to the fajitas were excellent and really propelled them over the top. We’ll be making those again!

Looking ahead to the coming week, we have stuff to take care of tonight in preparation for the convention (cleaning my car’s interior, for example, including getting the nose prints off the windows 🙂 Tomorrow night we’ll drop Buddy off at Dan’s mom’s place, where she is going to watch Buddy and Roho & Genet’s Samoyed, Brianna. This will be in addition to her 8-week old Rottweiler puppy, Bailey, and Bud the three-legged cat. I think she’s going to have her hands full! But it should all work out.

We leave for the outskirts of Detroit right after work on Thursday. We’re expecting to roll into the convention hotel at around 10:30 PM or so, and will likely collapse not long afterward. It should be a busy convention for me since I will be working in Operations. Dan will be busy as well, working in a behind-the-scenes role similar to what his mom did at Midwest FurFest. We’ve also got a party and a dinner planned for the convention; those should be a blast as well.

Come on Thursday, get here soon! I’m ready to hit the road…

A Weekend of Cooking, Partying, and…Training?

On Saturday, aureth and jenwolf were hosting a party over at their place. I thought I’d try to make a couple of new dishes to bring: Spicy Baked Plantain Chips and Salsa Verde. The plantain chips did not turn out well – a bit leathery, unfortunately. They were close to burning, but could have used a bit more time in the oven to crisp up. The salsa verde was… well, it wasn’t up to my standards. Way too salty, and the four Serrano chiles in the recipe made it mighty damn hot! This was a good reminder that I really need to only make tried-and-true recipes for these sorts of things.

mirkowuff arrived Saturday afternoon with his malamute, Chase. Buddy seems to be feeling better (though his appetite still isn’t up to snuff – possibly due to the continued antibiotics) and so greeted Chase with a wagging tail…and then spent the next hour trying to mount him. Oy. At this point I have to assume it’s a dominance thing. Chase let him know it wasn’t appreciated, and eventually they got things sorted out, but it was certainly comical to watch. We were a little late to the party because Mirko wanted to watch some basketball thing or something with his alma mater. He spent the rest of the evening squee-ing about the game 🙂

The party was a lot of fun. Jim’s brown ale was excellent, and the company was wonderful. I wish that we could have stayed later, but we had to get up stupidly-early the next day, so we grabbed hartree and Mirko and headed back to our place.

On Sunday morning, Hartree and Mirko and I left before 8 AM (well, left the first time – we had to double back because I forgot my ticket. Doh!) for the Illinois Rail Museum Snowflake Special CTA Tour. This was a 9-hour tour of the Chicago elevated train system. We were joined by dexcat, rustitobuck, and linnaeus. The tour went from Rosemont (right next to the Hyatt Regency O’Hare!) to downtown, out to UIC, down the South Side to 61st Street, then north to Evanston, with numerous stops and detours along the way. I have to say I was very much impressed by the IRM’s organization, and the quality of the tour was very good as well, with near-continuous narration provided by a pair of very knowledgeable fellows. I took over 180 pictures, and I’ll post some of those soon.

We had lunch in The Loop, stopping at the Qdoba on Randolph. We were unexpectedly joined by a rather loquacious train fan who was maybe 10 years old. He talked a blue streak, and while he knew his stuff, it was amusing to listen to him rattle on about the wisdom of the Circle Line while his parent nodded wearily beside him with that look of, “Oh thank God, he’s talking to someone else for a change.” After lunch we had time for a quick stop at Intelligentsia Coffee, then it was back on the train. All in all, I have to say that it was about seven hours of an interesting tour – the last two hours really dragged and it was a bit of a relief when we pulled back into Rosemont. takaza, roho, and genet met us there (with Chase, who went home with Mirko from there). The rest of us went down for dinner at Smoque, which was excellent, as usual.

And here we are at a new week. I have some errands to run after work, then I’ll grill up dinner while Dan works on the FCN con book. It sounds like we’re going to go see “How To Train Your Dragon” tomorrow night at one of my favorite local theaters, so we’re off to a great start to the week!

One Sick Doggy

(Yes, this is more of me being an obsessive new parent over our dog. If that’s not your thing move on to the next post on your Friends Page 🙂

It’s been something of a roller coaster these last two days. You see, Buddy got sick.

I took Buddy to the vet on Wednesday for his distemper booster shot. No problems, and the vet also gave me a follow-up round of Panocur for the whipworm problem, just to make sure everything is taken care of, as well as a 6-month supply of flea/tick/mosquito medicine. $186, yowch. When we got home, I made the mistake of letting Buddy out of the car without a leash, thinking he’d head straight over to the door into the house. No, instead he led me on a chase across half of the neighborhood, never letting me get closer than 10-15 feet. I finally tackled him and brought him home. The unfortunate result of this is that unless we can get him more training, Buddy cannot go anywhere off the leash, not even the dog park (after all, if he doesn’t come when called, we’ll wind up chasing him around when it’s time to leave).

That night because my back was still messed up from putting together our new grill I took a muscle relaxer and went to bed early. Dan woke me up – sometime, no idea when since I was in a bit of a haze – to tell me that Buddy had thrown up twice and wasn’t doing well. I acknowledged him and quickly fell back asleep.

On Thursday morning when the alarm went off, Buddy was right there by my side, poking me with his nose and shivering like all get-out. I filled his water bowl, and he promptly drank the entire contents – with predictable results. At least I got him outside before he vomited. I tried giving him a little water at a time and had similar results (again, getting him outside just in time!). That was it – time to go to the vet. My back was still pretty lousy anyway, so between the two problems I felt OK about calling off for the day.

When we were finally seen by the vet, he wasn’t quite sure what the problem was. Buddy was running a 103.4 degree F fever (normal is around 101), which explains the shivering. The vet didn’t think it was due to the distemper booster since Buddy hadn’t shown any reaction to the initial shot, but wouldn’t rule that out either. He took the general approach: treat the symptoms, and hit it with a broad-spectrum antibiotic. In addition to giving Buddy a shot of epinephrine and a steroid, he gave me a prescription of Flagyl (an antibiotic good against anaerobic bacteria and protozoa) and told me to dose Buddy morning and night with one teaspoon of Pepto Bismol (administered via syringe) and 25 mg of Benadryl. (And that was another $85, though at least he didn’t charge for an office visit.)

I took Buddy home, and the poor guy was obviously miserable. I gave him the pills and the Pepto (he’s OK about the pills, but clearly didn’t enjoy either those or the Pepto) and waited for those to take effect. He was reluctant to lie down, probably because of breathing issues or just not feeling well, but as the Benadryl kicked in this caused a problem. He would stand with his head down, staring at nothing, and start to sway. Eventually one of his legs would give out and he would stagger a bit, then begin again. After about 20 minutes of this, and when he almost staggered into the TV stand and nearly whacked his head, I led him over to his bed and slowly pulled his feet out from under him until he was laying down. I could see his thought processes were something like “But I don’t want to lie down, I…OK I guess I’ll just lie here for a whilezzzzzzzz”.

By evening his fever was gone, but he was obviously still dopey from the antihistamine. He generally dozed the night away, though he ate the half-can of food we put down for him during the night. This morning, after an epically-long pee (which is good – much better than throwing the water back up!) he slowly started to show a little more appetite. The vet wants us to keep the pills going through tonight, but I think that by tomorrow he’ll be back to normal (though he’s very sleepy now!).

While I would never draw a direct parallel between owning a dog and having a child, I can say that I have a deeper appreciation for those with kids, and what they go through when their child is ill. It’s nerve-wracking, exasperating, and stressful. I have to say it was very much worth it for me when I came downstairs this morning to see Buddy looking at me hopefully and hear his wagging tail thumping on the sofa.

Company, Meetings, and Dog Stuff

Well, that was a fun-but-busy weekend!

On Friday takaza and I finished up the last bit of housecleaning from the week in preparation for guests. I went ahead and bought a gas grill and propane tank, too. We’re not getting rid of the charcoal grill, I assure you! I love that smoker too much. No, this is for weeknight cooking, when we don’t want to fool with getting a proper charcoal fire going but would like something grilled and quick. I still believe that the flavor and cooking qualities of charcoal are superior, but when we had a gas grill in North Carolina we used it at least 3 nights per week. Now…I just need to put the fool thing together 🙂

fordshepherd and baja_hyena drove in on Friday night (arriving late enough that I had already gone to bed!), and r_bear flew in on Saturday. We decided on a late lunch at one of my favorite places that we hadn’t been to in ages, The Firkin. Their beer selection has always been top-notch, but we had found their food so-so. The beer was still excellent, but the big surprise was that the food was fantastic as well! We had a really enjoyable meal. We finished off the rest of the evening hanging out at our place and chatting (and, um, imbibing just a bit).

Sunday brought the Midwest FurFest staff meeting. It was quick and relatively painless, and after the meeting I was able to give some tours to folks who needed to see what was where. We had an early dinner at Red Bar in the Hyatt, and while the food wasn’t bad the prices were, um, hotel-like. In spite of that, I suspect I’ll be eating more than one meal there during the convention. Ford and Baja hit the road after the meeting, but RB and graywolf769 came back to our place and we hung out and chatted for a while. After Gray left for the ride back to Indiana, we watched a bit of TV and went to bed.

Dog-wise, we hit a great milestone this weekend. We tried giving Buddy the run of the house when we went to lunch on Saturday and again when we were at the staff meeting on Sunday. In both cases he behaved himself perfectly! As far as I’m concerned the crate is a thing of the past for him (thanks for the loan, roho and genet!). He seemed so much happier when I went home to walk him at lunch today, so I think we’re making the right decision. Health-wise, his digestive system seems to be working much better and he’s slowly gaining weight back into a more healthy range. We’re going to need to buy him a new harness because the medium-sized one is quickly becoming too tight! He was also a perfect gentleman all weekend with our guests, snuggling right up to them 🙂

So, now the new work week has started. There’s nothing crazy going on at work, thank heavens. I’ve got an appointment with my optician this afternoon, then I’ll probably go to work putting Boxee on an old server we have (not sure if I’ll put Windows or Ubuntu on there for the OS – we’ll see what happens). The new gas grill needs to be put together too – Dan may do that today or I’ll do it tomorrow. Generally speaking, though, it should be a pretty low-stress week.

(Oh, and if you’re waiting to reserve a suite for Midwest FurFest, watch this space! And , and Twitter, and our website, and our forums…)

The State of the Dog

So, we’re one week into dog ownership. How has it been?

Overall, I have to say that we are very happy dog owners. We have established a daily routine with Buddy and he seems to have adapted to it pretty well. Between takaza and me, we’re walking him through the neighborhood about 3-4 miles each day. The only downside is that on weekends he has to go out at around 6 AM. It’s a good thing I don’t mind waking up early on weekends!

We took him to the vet last week for a full check-up. The vet agreed that Buddy is around 8 and 9 years old, based on his teeth. He is unfortunately afflicted with all the things that go with older dogs: bad teeth, bad hips, and bad eyes (early signs of cataracts). The bad teeth probably explains why he rejects all hard food. He tested negative for heartworm, but did test positive for whipworm, which is apparently pretty unusual. Fortunately, a short round of anti-parasitic meds should clear that up. The vet also gave us a painkiller for his hips (Previcox, a Cox II inhibitor); that seems to make a difference.

Buddy has only had one accident in the house, and it really got me to thinking. At his foster home he was used to being let out immediately after being fed. We had hoped to break him of that habit, but when we didn’t let him out right after eating he simply couldn’t wait and peed on the carpet. I don’t fault him one bit for that (OK, I wasn’t happy, but it cleaned up fine), and realized that part of the familiarization process is as much him training us as us training him. I think it’s amazing and gratifying that we have had so few issues with him, and it makes me very glad that we decided to adopt him.

I did a little doggie shopping yesterday, using a PetSmart gift card that Dan got through credit card rewards. We picked up a new dog bed (nice and floofy), some more dog food, and some chewy treats that contain glucosamine and chondroitin. He loves the treats, and seemed very happy with his bed as well.

We spent the weekend hanging out with roho and genet, and their pretty-but-brainless Samoyed, Brianna. I should point out that both Buddy and Brianna are fixed, but that sure didn’t stop buddy from trying to mount Brianna every chance he got. Fortunately, Brianna had no problem demonstrating her lack of interest (with a snarl and a snap) and eventually he settled down.

On Saturday we watched a few shows off the DVR and made country-fried steak, mashed potatoes, and sauteed escarole. On Sunday we were joined by Linnaeus, and we celebrate Pi Day with homemade pizza (pies), chocolate cream pie, and key lime pie. Linnaeus also brought over an awesome toy for Buddy: a raccoon (of course) made of the same canvas used for fire hoses. Buddy loved it!

And here we are back at work today. Dan and I are making lists of stuff we need to do before company arrives this coming weekend. I’m catching up on some MFF work, and hopefully some stuff for Anthrocon as well.

I’ll leave you with a thought I had as I walked Buddy back after today’s lunchtime walk. I’ve joked with friends about not wanting a cat because I didn’t want a box of crap in the house. Instead, I’m walking through the neighborhood with a bag of crap in my pocket. Oh, that’s MUCH better. All of you cat owners, feel free to tell me to shut up 🙂