Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Filling the Post-Tour Void

Now that the Tour is over it's tough to know what to do all morning around here. Don't get me wrong, me and the Food Guy watched Sportscenter a couple of times this morning. But, it's always a sad couple of days when the Tour ends. So, me and the Food Guy spent most of the day getting packed for his trip to Utah. I helped the Food Guy figure out what he needed to bring, and I also supervised him as he got all of my stuff together. I made sure he packed me plenty of food and extra dog bones. Then, we settled in to watch some TV:

It was a pretty nice, relaxing day on the couch. Since the Food Guy decided that we should try to officially enjoy summer instead of working today, he went to the video store and rented us season two of the show Arrested Development. It's such a great show- even though there aren't any dogs on it. At least not yet. Maybe they got smart and introduce a dog character in season three. Who knows? I guess we'll have to rent the next season to find out. Either way, I'm not too worried about it. Anytime I can convince the Food Guy to take a little break from working and hang out on the couch, I'm happy. We had a pretty nice day of watching the Bluth family blunder around on the picture box. We also took a bunch of good walks on the trails behind our house. All in all, I have to say I like summer a lot.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Chillin with Sage

The Food Guy and I went back over to Sage's house so he and Sage's Food Guy (Bob) could do some more work on the porch today. The got some good work done and Sage and I mostly just chilled out and played tug of war with a cool rope toy that Sage has. It was lots of fun. I'm so tired from playing that I need a nap though. I figured I'd post that pic I promised y'all before I went took another nap. The Food Guy and I have to rest up to watch the last stage of the Tour tonight. Check out Sage-- he could be my dogcousin:

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Manual Labor Anyone?

The Food Guy and I have had a pretty nice week just chillin' out here in Athens. Food Guy got some good work done, and I got lots of couch time in. We've spent lots and lots of time watching The Tour on TV in the mornings. That was followed by some good walks on our trails before the Food Guy headed out for his ride each day. We've spent the last couple of days at the Food Guy's Major Professor's (Bob) house working on a porch. Well, the Food Guy and Bob worked while I hung out on the porch with the Bob's dog Sage. Sage is a cool old dog. He's a pretty good lookin' fella. I'll have to get the Food Guy to get a picture of us to post sometime. He looks like me only smaller and he has a white blaze on his doghead. Sage is really chill. He mostly sleeps but he plays with me a little bit and lets me play with all of his toys while he sleeps.

It's been a pretty fun time. I like watching the Food Guy work. He cracks me up. He smashes his thumb once in a while just to make me laugh. I think it's good for him to do a little manual labor sometimes. I think it helps him to remember why he likes writing and sitting around drinking coffee so much. Plus, I think it's good for the Food Guy and Bob to work on stuff outside of school. They seem to have a lot of fun talking about baseball instead of school stuff. You can't really get to know someone if all you ever talk about is academic stuff. We do have to let it slide that Bob is a Phillies fan, though.

Well, I'm tired out from playing with my new buddy Sage and watching the Food Guy work, so I'm going back to sleep. Besides, we have to get up early to watch the last stage of the Tour get started before we head over to Bob's to finish up the porch. Y'all have a good one.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Home again

Hi, everybody! I'm back. The Food Guy did an OK job with the blog while he was out West, but now I'm back. He's pretty tired from having so much fun out there. I was pretty happy to see the Food Guy when he picked me up last night. It was a little late though. He didn't get to Jen's until like midnight. I mean, I was all ready to settle in for a good night's sleep when he got there. I was pretty tired from having so much fun last week. The Food Guy and I rolled into Athens at 2:30 in the morning. I slept the whole way home, and I jumped right in bed when we got home.

Last week was a lot of fun though. I got to hang out with Jen, Zozo, and Sug. They're so much fun! I got to go for a couple of runs by the river at Sope Creek. I spent lots and lots of time playing in the yard, and I even found some new, fun ways to pass the time outside. I learned how to dig. Me and Zozo and Sug had lots of fun digging in the yard. We got caught the first time, but then Zozo taught me how to clean my paws off so I'd look innocent. She's such a smart doggie. She tries to hide how smart she is. She acts like she's just a lazy fuzzy bear, but she's really as smart as Sug-- and you know Sug can read books. That's pretty smart. I had so much fun with my ATL peeps that I almost forgot the Food Guy was gone. Jen let me sit on her lap as much as I wanted to, and she didn't get mad at me when I thought the sprinkler was a dog toy. I even made a new friend, Bella. She's a sweet doggie. She's drinks water like I do, which means that she drinks a lot of water and tries to get as much on the floor as she can. She also likes to play with lots of toys at once. We played and played and played and played. I think we made Sug tired from how much we ran around.

I really do like going on adventures, but I think the Food Guy and I are both pretty happy to have a little bit of time to chill here in Athens. I think we're gonna stay close to home for a little while. It is July, which means we need to be able to watch the Tour every day! But I'm sure we'll go on a big adventure pretty soon. I'll keep y'all posted!


Sunday, July 12, 2009

Last Day in Tahoe

Hey everybody, Yellow Dog told me to go ahead and write one more post since I'm still out West and he's too far away from the keyboard to get his paws on it. Today was the last day of the writing retreat in Tahoe. Angela and I got our work done in the morning so we decided to skip out before our presentation with some folks from Clemson to go parasailing. I've always wanted to try it, and I wasn't disappointed at all!

The view was amazing!





It was probably the windiest day of the whole trip, so it made a lot of sense to get out and do something that would be fun in the wind, right? Right. Much better than working ALL day long. We snuck out a few minutes before lunch feeling a lot like high-schoolers sneaking out of school to go drink some beer before the football game. Not that I would know anything about doing something like that. But, I've heard stories.


We got down into town quickly and hooked up with a boat to take us out. We got right up in the sky and enjoyed the beautiful day




The guides were great. It was pretty funny listening to the "trip talk" instead of giving it. I had to laugh at the jokes about only losing a couple of people a season. I've told a few of them myself to the poor souls that sat in my rafts to go down the Ocoee.


I was most impressed with how well these guys got the chute ready for us. They were right on top of the customer service skills. They would have made great ERA guides back in the gorge.

Well, this has been a great trip. I didn't sleep a whole lot while I was out here. I didn't want to miss a second of all the good stuff there was to do here out in Tahoe. I could get used to this weather. It was 45 or so in the mornings and never really got above 75 in the afternoon. I wish I had my bike out here. The riding would have been amazing. But, I would not have gotten any work done at all, which would have been bad since the folks at the National Writing Project were kind enough to fly us out here to work. I met some great people and I'm really looking forward to the conference in Philly this November.

I'm off to bed now. Can't wait to see the Yellow One tomorrow night. I'm sure he'll have some good stories about his week in the ATL.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Food Guy Guest Spot


Yellow Dog and I are switching things up a bit at the moment. YD decided to turn the keyboard over to his Food Guy for a couple of days since he couldn't make the trip out west with me. He said he trusted me to write an entry or two since he was staying home in GA this week. I dropped him off at Jen's on Wednesday morning to hang out with Zozo and Sug while I headed out to Tahoe for a writing conference. I have to admit that I think it was much harder on me than it was on him. I love that yellow buddy and leaving him for a week, well let's just say I felt like I was leaving my right arm at home. But, I know he's having a big time hanging with his ATL crew. Jen sent me this picture of him this morning. Looks like somebody has been having a good time with his buddies


I caught a flight out of ATL Wednesday morning. I've flown lots of times. I've even flown on quite a few planes made by the lowest bidder and flown by guys who were flying cargo planes instead of jets for a reason. That reason being that they didn't do as well in flight school as some other people. And, the flight from ATL to Phoenix was terrifying! One of the worst landings ever. That includes a crash landing in a Ch46 in the Cali desert a some years ago. Ughh. I was not looking forward to taking off again for the second leg of the trip. But, you gotta do what you gotta do. We made it to Tahoe Wednesday afternoon and it was worth it. This place is beautiful!

The views here are so different from back home.







I had to work for a while when I got in last night, but still managed to get up early enough to go for a great run on the Tahoe Rim Trail this morning before the first writing session.


It was a sweet run! The altitude change was a little more than I thought it would be, so I was sucking wind like you wouldn't believe for most of the run.

Hopefully it'll be a little easier tomorrow morning. If nothing else I'll feel like a champion the first few days back in Athens.

After the evening session, a bunch of folks and I headed down the trail for a hike. Oddly enough we managed to find our way to town to enjoy a beer by the river before we headed back up the trail. All in all, not a bad day of "work" using the term loosely.