One of those rare days

One of those rare days that I wouldn't mind having over and over.

First, brunch with a friend at Bistro Flor which was fabbo.

Then we went looked at three houses that were having open inspections.  We're not looking to buy just yet, just kind of practicing for when it gets real, maybe in a year or so.  Still it was fun.

Then, fantastic Thai massages at Vigorous Thai Massage.

On to a swim at the Fitzroy pool.

To our usual dog park, Darling Gardens, with perfect timing as Hamish's good friends Banjo, Tyra, and Grover were all just arriving.  Hamish is completely smitten with Banjo (a border collie).

Home, and pork chops on the grill with a nice Dal Zotto rosé in the backyard while we watched the lorikeets in the neighbor's tree, followed by "bat o'clock".  For music we dug back into our CD collection for four fantastic chill-out albums that we had neglected for a while.  Here's an sample song from each - each irreproachable, I would say.


Peace Like A River - Paul Simon - from "Paul Simon"


Into Temptation - Crowded House - from "Temple of Low Men"


Angeles - Elliott Smith - from "Either/Or"


Lover, You Should Have Come Over - Jeff Buckley - from "Grace"

Quite the dog park

An impressive dog park in our neighborhood.  Well, it's a dog park when there's no footy or cricket going on. 

(I know the last panorama wasn't really viewable - we'll see if this turns out any better.)

Donor

I'm also a blood donor now!  This was my third time.

Birthday

It was our friends' birthday party last weekend in the park.  Hamish met a friend who is a bit more purebred red heeler - I took a shot of them together just to compare.

Guerrilla garden

Just found this awesome guerrilla garden just blocks away from our house that I never knew was there.  It has compost and worm bins and everything.  Love it! 

Catch up, or not...

The problem with having an ongoing blog is that when you haven't posted in a while, it means you have a lot to post about, which makes putting it off that much easier. So to heck with it. If there's some big things I didn't post about -- like, say, a trip to Europe -- I'm just going to forget about them and move on.

I will at least mention that the book I contributed a chapter to -- Mindhacker: 60 Tips, Tricks, and Games to Take Your Mind to the Next Level -- is out. I think it's even better than the first one (Mind Performance Hacks (that I contributed a couple of chapters to)) and the reviews seem to bear that out.

Not to be outdone, a high school friend of mine has written a whole book, and the reviews have been phenomenal. I knew him when.

Oh, and somehow all the comments you all submitted recently were sitting there waiting for me to approve them for months but I never got email notification. So they're approved now, sorry.

Mid-summer here now but it's been a pretty cool season so far. Lots of fun parties and such, and trips to the park with Hamish. He's settled in and accepts us now as his pack, but is still pretty cheeky. But he has lots of dog friends at the park. His favorite game is chasing other dogs who are chasing a ball, and try to run ahead of them and cut them off. It's good because it means other dogs' owners exercise our dog for us.

Hamish

...is settled in fully.  He's really never uncomfortable in any situation we throw him into.  He's been into wrestling with other dogs lately and has lots of doggy friends.  This is his buddy Cody, who I think is lab + huskie.

Skyline

A panoramic shot I took from the top of the hill in Northcote while out for a jog.  Note the skyline in the background.

My office

We've let the blog languish for a while now, but it's too valuable as a reference for our past that it would a shame to let die...  I'll post some catch-up before long but in the meanwhile I'll get back to posting images.  Here's my office; my desk is right behind the B in building. 

Sandwich

I was lying in my lounge chair.  Marjorie came and laid on top of me.  And so Hamish decided he had to be on top.

New dog

Okay, cobwebs are forming here. Let's dust things off a bit. Even if no one even reads this anymore, it's still been an invaluable resource to refer back to over the years, so I really need to get back on it.

We took a trip to Europe, which was great, but I'll get back to that eventually. As for now, the big news is a new pup in our life!

His name is Hamish, and we got him via Pet Rescue, though they were calling him Roger at his foster home. We think he's painfully cute. He's smart and funny and has lots of personality, but is still rather laid back, especially compared to Laika. He's different in several other ways to Laika too. We're still trying to figure out all his quirks but we like him a whole lot.

We decided to sign him (and us) up for obedience classes, just to be sure we could take him out to cafes and such. We had the first class on Saturday (my birthday). The instructor was good, but strict. So far the biggest result is a lot of stress in our household -- it's hard to be strict and you can bet Hamish isn't a fan either. We're wondering whether we want to even pursue this route. I mean, the instructor was able to get instant results with Hamish (even when we couldn't) but will we still like the dog that he becomes? Or are we just being soft because we don't want to dole out punishment to our cute little doggy? The whole thing is just not a lot of fun.

Since the class yesterday we've been defying our instructor a bit. We've found we've gotten better results with a little bit of sugar anyway instead of the hard line approach. Or maybe that's just us being manipulated. The instructor did say that Hamish is smart and is going to be a handful to train.

Some more pictures!