It has been one week since we brought Jessie into our home. I’d say she is 90% house broken. We’re taking her out side about every 30 minutes and she has clearly made the connection: this is where you pee. Best news? Our 3 1/2 year old Golden, Riley, is enjoying her new pal.
And bedtime is the best.
We brought Jessie home today and we are once again a two-dog-family. It feels good.
She quickly found her way to Riley’s toy basket and checked out the precious green rope.
She peed on the floor a few times but that’s part of having a new puppy. But that first poop? Outside!
Riley was a little uncertain about having another dog in the house but within the first hour or so she was trying desperately to show Jessie how to play “chase.”
A full day and as regular readers (hah!) know, dogs have couch privileges in our house.
The virtual reality thing (as I understand it) hold no appeal for me. But I would be willing to strap on some goggles for a drones-eye-view of some interesting place. This is already a thing, yes?
My friend George recently got his hands on the DJI Avata, a pricey ($1388) little drone you fly with goggles and a joystick.
Reminiscent of William Gibson’s simstim. “…recorded sensoriums, like racing a black Fokker ground-effect plane across the Arizona mesa tops; diving the Truk Island preserves.”
For many years we’ve had an Invisible Fence surrounding our yard (and a bit more). We managed to cut that wire while digging the new well. Today Edward came out to repair the fence so it was a good time to reposition a little to avoid similar issues in the future. Edward’s trenching gizmo made quick work of it.
Today is my 74th birthday. I’ve never been one for big celebrations. I struggle to see anything special about the day. A cultural thing, perhaps… like Valentine’s Day or Memorial Day. I thought I’d be wiser by this time, depending on how one defines wisdom.
When I think about the future these days, it tends to be in years rather than decades. Mortality and death are no longer abstractions. For the last dozen years I’ve viewed god and the universe through the lens of Buddhism and zen. I’ve concluded the self and free will are illusions. In short, this is It. William Gibson said it nicely in All Tomorrow’s Parties:
PS: The clip below was floating around, unattached, in the media library and this seemed like a good place to park it.
My buddy George has been playing with drones for about eight years. (You can see some of his amazing video here, here and here.) In 2015 he got his drone snagged in a very tall tree while shooting some video of our place. So I was a little surprised when he agreed to come back and shoot some video of our recently expanded homestead.
As you might imagine, the technology has gotten a lot better in the last half dozen years and George has gotten even better at flying the things. The video below runs right at 2:30.
This was shot from an altitude of about 400 feet so the drone was just a black dot but the quality of the video was even better than what I’m streaming here.
I love trees. I love being surrounded by them. And I’ve tromped around our acreage over the years so I know there’s a bunch of them. But it took this birds eye view to give me a real sense of just how many trees surround us.
