Lately I've been going through audio books like there is no tomorrow. I enjoy each and every one of them - some more than others of course - but they are becoming a blur in my mind as a result. I've been listening to audio books on and off for probably 5 or 6 years now and I definitely can not recall all that I've listened to. I started thinking I need to make a list but I know myself well enough to know that I won't remember to keep up with said list. So, what to do?
Last night I had checked out my new favorite author's website (which is odd in and of itself as I don't often have favorite authors much less look them up) and then landed on her blog and then ended up on another blog about what books various authors were reading of which she was one. I started thinking that maybe I should write a little something on my blog about each of the books I listen to. That maybe if I did it here I'd keep up with it a little better - maybe. This would serve 3 purposes. 1) It would help me keep track of what I have been listening to. 2) It will let my friends Bev and Sal know what books I have and they can let me know which ones they definitely want to borrow (though I know the answer for Bev is "all" cause she, like me, will listen to most anything to help the long commute go by faster. 3) For everyone else besides those two who are bored enough to read my blog it may at times let them know about a good book out there. This DOES NOT mean I'll always be writing full fledged reviews... I know there is no way that is going to happen but I'm sure I'm likely to say a little something about the better ones I listen to - maybe! And if I don't, well #3 is less important than #1 and #2 anyway! :)
I think I'll write a separate post about the books I've been reading lately so I'll be able to tell at a glance what book(s) I'm talking about... more to come...
Friday, July 30, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Groovy rockin' it in toss n fetch
A video of Groovy playing toss n fetch tonight with Jack. He brought home a video camera from work so I wanted to try it out and what better subject?!?! :)
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
AKC Agility in Perry, GA
This past weekend was really fun - very tiring - but really fun!
Tali and I drove to Perry, GA (5 hours away) on Thursday evening for 3 days of AKC agility indoors, on dirt with AC. Can't beat that in July down here that's for sure! I had been to a trial at Perry once before a long time ago with Mickie but this was Tali's first trip there and it was my first trip "alone". Last time Sally and I carpooled and shared a room. This time I drove up on my own and stayed on my own (Jack stayed home to do schoolwork). I'm such a big girl! ;o) LOL It's been a while since I've been away on my own like that... back it the day it was nothing at all to drive 8 hours to Columbia, SC and live by myself but I guess we get more cautious as we get older?!? Dunno... All went well though and I'd definitely do it again.
As for the actual agility part - well that went awesome. Going into the weekend I needed 3 legs in Open Standard and 3 in Open Jumpers with Weaves. I did not expect to come home with agility titles. I thought that if we got lucky we'd get 2 legs in each but that we'd see how it went.
Friday and Saturday we ran jumpers first and standard 2nd. I don't really even remember those runs at this point. Bev has them on video and I'll get them at some point. What I do know is that we Q'd them all though none of them were "clean" Q's. We had weave issues on every run. I believe Friday JWW was a 10th pole pop, Friday in Standard was a pop mid poles - she was stressed from coming from the teeter and I suspected we wouldn't have clean weaves with a teeter to weave sequence. Saturday in JWW we had sniffing at pole 3 and the weaves were the 2nd obstacle and in Standard we AGAIN had teeter to weaves and she was stressed and went and sniffed in a corner as opposed to weaving resulting in a refusal. I have GOT TO get an aluminum teeter! Mine just does not compare in speed or noise. Mine is slow and creaky as opposed to fast and "bangy". (Is bangy a word?!?) The jumpers runs minus the weave were awesome... she was really drivey and faster than normal. It was a lot of fun. One of the standard runs (don't remember which) was a train wreck in terms of how it felt but we Q'd anyway! The other went well enough if I recall. Her increased speed definitely threw off my handling some... or more accurately required me to be more timely which I wasn't a lot of the time but we still managed.
Sunday we ran standard first and then jumpers. Sunday standard was a blast... we had a bit of a mess in the opening but the rest ran so smooth including perfect weave poles! That was a run I won't soon forget. A clean Q and a 2nd place not to mention her OA title! Woo hoo! Our only NQ of the weekend came Sunday afternoon in JWW after waiting around ALL day to run. That kinda sucked. Had I known we were going to NQ I'd have gone home many hours before! :) Tali popped at the 10th pole and I attempted to fix it at that pole and she went in between 11 and 12. We fixed it again but that was already 2 refusals so I knew we were done in terms of a Q. We had a missed jump a bit later and just kept on going on but overall the course was really fun to run and again - even on the last run of a 3 day weekend Tali was drivey and fast so I was still quite pleased.
Take aways from the weekend... 1) obviously we need more work on our weaves - she's pretty good at entries but we have a popping problem while in the poles - very often at 10. 2) I need a louder and faster teeter at home so she can get used to it and be confident during our trial runs with that obstacle. 3) Apparently I have "running" contacts now! LOL Not once did she stop all weekend but she also didn't miss at all. She stops at home 100% of the time. If her not stopping in a trial means she only goes to 90% accuracy... well I'm OK with that. Problem is that I have no way to know if letting her run in a trial setting is going to cause issues down the line. Being that she is almost 7 years old I think I'm going to lean towards letting it go and see what happens. We don't have visions of a MACH or nationals in AKC simply because we don't trial enough to have those visions. Frisbee takes priority... 4) She was faster than normal this weekend... I hope that sticks though it may have been a function of running in the AC when it was near 100 outside! We shall see!
So all in all we ended up with her Open Standard title and 2 legs towards her Open Jumpers title. Considering Ruckus is still (and always will be in Open) and it took Mickie months to get out of Open, getting through Open standard in just 4 days of trialing is a pretty good improvement! LOL We'll be in Exc A forever though if I don't get those poles fixed. I busted out the treat and train this week... we'll see how that works and go from there! She likes it - that's for sure.
Here are some photos from the weekend. A HUGE thanks to Sarah for being willing to grab my camera and take these photos. Since I take photos at several of the trials we attend I don't get a chance to get any of Tali and the trials I've been to lately where there has been a photographer has resulted in just OK pics and certainly not worth the high prices they are selling them for.
Tali and I drove to Perry, GA (5 hours away) on Thursday evening for 3 days of AKC agility indoors, on dirt with AC. Can't beat that in July down here that's for sure! I had been to a trial at Perry once before a long time ago with Mickie but this was Tali's first trip there and it was my first trip "alone". Last time Sally and I carpooled and shared a room. This time I drove up on my own and stayed on my own (Jack stayed home to do schoolwork). I'm such a big girl! ;o) LOL It's been a while since I've been away on my own like that... back it the day it was nothing at all to drive 8 hours to Columbia, SC and live by myself but I guess we get more cautious as we get older?!? Dunno... All went well though and I'd definitely do it again.
As for the actual agility part - well that went awesome. Going into the weekend I needed 3 legs in Open Standard and 3 in Open Jumpers with Weaves. I did not expect to come home with agility titles. I thought that if we got lucky we'd get 2 legs in each but that we'd see how it went.
Friday and Saturday we ran jumpers first and standard 2nd. I don't really even remember those runs at this point. Bev has them on video and I'll get them at some point. What I do know is that we Q'd them all though none of them were "clean" Q's. We had weave issues on every run. I believe Friday JWW was a 10th pole pop, Friday in Standard was a pop mid poles - she was stressed from coming from the teeter and I suspected we wouldn't have clean weaves with a teeter to weave sequence. Saturday in JWW we had sniffing at pole 3 and the weaves were the 2nd obstacle and in Standard we AGAIN had teeter to weaves and she was stressed and went and sniffed in a corner as opposed to weaving resulting in a refusal. I have GOT TO get an aluminum teeter! Mine just does not compare in speed or noise. Mine is slow and creaky as opposed to fast and "bangy". (Is bangy a word?!?) The jumpers runs minus the weave were awesome... she was really drivey and faster than normal. It was a lot of fun. One of the standard runs (don't remember which) was a train wreck in terms of how it felt but we Q'd anyway! The other went well enough if I recall. Her increased speed definitely threw off my handling some... or more accurately required me to be more timely which I wasn't a lot of the time but we still managed.
Sunday we ran standard first and then jumpers. Sunday standard was a blast... we had a bit of a mess in the opening but the rest ran so smooth including perfect weave poles! That was a run I won't soon forget. A clean Q and a 2nd place not to mention her OA title! Woo hoo! Our only NQ of the weekend came Sunday afternoon in JWW after waiting around ALL day to run. That kinda sucked. Had I known we were going to NQ I'd have gone home many hours before! :) Tali popped at the 10th pole and I attempted to fix it at that pole and she went in between 11 and 12. We fixed it again but that was already 2 refusals so I knew we were done in terms of a Q. We had a missed jump a bit later and just kept on going on but overall the course was really fun to run and again - even on the last run of a 3 day weekend Tali was drivey and fast so I was still quite pleased.
Take aways from the weekend... 1) obviously we need more work on our weaves - she's pretty good at entries but we have a popping problem while in the poles - very often at 10. 2) I need a louder and faster teeter at home so she can get used to it and be confident during our trial runs with that obstacle. 3) Apparently I have "running" contacts now! LOL Not once did she stop all weekend but she also didn't miss at all. She stops at home 100% of the time. If her not stopping in a trial means she only goes to 90% accuracy... well I'm OK with that. Problem is that I have no way to know if letting her run in a trial setting is going to cause issues down the line. Being that she is almost 7 years old I think I'm going to lean towards letting it go and see what happens. We don't have visions of a MACH or nationals in AKC simply because we don't trial enough to have those visions. Frisbee takes priority... 4) She was faster than normal this weekend... I hope that sticks though it may have been a function of running in the AC when it was near 100 outside! We shall see!
So all in all we ended up with her Open Standard title and 2 legs towards her Open Jumpers title. Considering Ruckus is still (and always will be in Open) and it took Mickie months to get out of Open, getting through Open standard in just 4 days of trialing is a pretty good improvement! LOL We'll be in Exc A forever though if I don't get those poles fixed. I busted out the treat and train this week... we'll see how that works and go from there! She likes it - that's for sure.
Here are some photos from the weekend. A HUGE thanks to Sarah for being willing to grab my camera and take these photos. Since I take photos at several of the trials we attend I don't get a chance to get any of Tali and the trials I've been to lately where there has been a photographer has resulted in just OK pics and certainly not worth the high prices they are selling them for.
Our running dogwalk ;)
Monday, July 5, 2010
DACOF 2010
We had a great time at DACOF 2010! Team Victorious Secret of Good-Dog Sports finished 4th! Everyone did a great job and contributed to the outcome! Tali ran great - we had no teeter issues (hooray) but a few popped weaves at the 10th and 11th poles. She ran clean in terms of no off courses (except one caused by the popped weave pole) so that was great. Already looking forward to DACOF next year! Up next is AKC agility in Perry next weekend! Hopefully we'll get a few Q's but more importantly we'll be sure and have fun!
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