MY LITTLE KINDLE

I want to know how they came up with the name: "Kindle".

Ever since the Kindle and other e-readers began hitting the market, I have wanted one. Given the opportunity I am a voracious reader.
I have a very slight "gadget" fixation. For example after over-dosing one weekend on "Survivor-Man", I sent John out to buy me waterproof matches. Not exactly on the same level as a Kindle, but something I will never use (I hope). He didn't believe they existed. He hunted Cabela's for them and could not find them. He finally found a stack of them at Target. He kept wanting to know WHY I wanted them and I have no explanation. The idea appealed to me. I will carry a box in the car. The rest I will probably lose in the amazing clutter. (I watch "Hoarders" with a great deal of trepidation, looking furtively around my room.....)

Anyway I got a Kindle. I got the newest one which allows me to download books without the computer. From anywhere.
This is my Kindle at rest,all closed up and quiet. I get (supposedly) 30 hours of battery time.
After I bought the Kindle I bought the cover which was very expensive and added a lot of weight to the Kindle itself, which is quite light.
The cover has a built in light which is surprisingly good. Means I can read in a car or motel when others want the lights out. Or ask; can I turn the pages a little quieter, please because he is trying to sleep.
Push a button and the page turns, silently.

However not reaching for the page to turn it is like driving a stick-shift for ten years and then buying an automatic, which I have also done. It takes a long time not to hit the clutch and reach for the stick. Old habits die hard.

There are a ton of things you can do with the new Kindle that I do not do. You can move emai around and you can read PDF files-- a lot of books at other sites besides Amazon are in PDF form. You can substitute your own photos for the pictures that indicate the Kindle is "asleep":

This is Ralph Ellison. I kind of like their own photos and besides to put mine in I have to start downloading hacker programs to it and I know I will run into trouble. Right now all I want is to read.
I can bookmark a page so that the next time I start the Kindle it automatically goes to where I left off reading. It comes with the Oxford English Dictionary so that AS I read I can highlight a word and look up the meaning without leaving the page I am on.
I may also highlight passages, altho I have not learned how to move them to a file yet.

It holds 3500 books. The light is surprisingly effective, for something so small. It runs off the Kindle battery so there are no bulbs to replace please don't ask I have no clue. Like the telephones, the radio, the tv and the computer, it is all magic to me. In case you are trying to read the tiny print this particular book is WAR by Sebastian Junger, who also wrote THE PERFECT STORM.

Well anyway that's my Kindle. I have heard all the arguments against them: "I like to HOLD my books!" well, so do I but there are times when it is better to have this.
Disadvantage big time: no page numbers and no color photos. Everything is in greyscale but I bet very soon it won't be.
Disadvantage Big Time: The reading stock, as vast as it is, is limited. I have spent days looking for Graham Greene's THE COMEDIANS and it is not available for the Kindle. Lots of brand new books are not Kindle-friendly.You just have to wait, or buy them or check them out from the library.

I think as the e-reader craze continues,-- and I have no doubt that it will-- more publishers will relent.

I have been excrutiantingly careful with my Kindle. I never leave it out and unattended. One Basset crunch and one of them-- the Kindle or dog, would be be on death row. It has that leather cover and that irresistable crunch....

And last, I did a lot of research, picked the Kindle because: 1. So did PC WORLD magazine which is my bible for things electronic, and 2. Amazon has more books available than the others.

Right now they are not compatible with each other, but they will be, eventually.

I do not own stock in Kindle and have not been paid for this blatantly positive review.

THE DAY WITH DAD

Over the weekend I was gone during the day working the Art Fair. Saturday it rained like crazy and for awhile it pushed people into the Gallery which was good, but after a bit the patrons kind of gave up. Sunday was better weather but a less profitable day.

Anyway the dogs and Dad were home all day together. Sometimes John has an interesting perspective on the dogs and this was one of those times, so I thought I would share his viewpoint:

Ummmmm....salad

Llewis's favorite spot in the whole world, between DadPerson's legs. Looking at the world, totally safe. It makes it hard for DP to walk sometimes, but Llewis is a special boy and gets special treatment.

I am not sure how John engineered this shot

Conley and Nigel and Llewis peering over the backs of his contentious housemates.

Betcha a dog biscuit that Conley started it and it is not serious...not yet. Conley and Nigel tend to start out playing and end up trying to take charge of the entire household. Usually they end up in their crates, but this is clearly play.

The Three Basseteers from an angle more fitting than the ones I usually get.Nigel in the lead, Brudder Llewis stumping along on the right and Conley, wondering what the hell is going on kind of hanging back-- an uncharacteristic moment. He may have been doing something illegal back there. I came home the day these were taken to find all three digging energetically at a huge hole in the middle of the back yard. John said they'd been arguing all day over whose turn it was to dig...

Conley, now taking over the #1 spot in the camera field, as he thinks befits an up and coming Hound....

Nigel posing in his best muscle-hound style. Wish he'd tuck those elbows in because I love his head. I like his tail too, it is thick and very ouchy when he slams it into your shins.

    THE END OF THE PHOTO SESSION, AND THE BEGINNING OF THE RAIN

                                  all photos by DadPerson

DOG PRIVILEGES

Last night (tonight altho now it is 3 in the morning so maybe it was last night) I put the boys to bed right at 9. They were all wound up and driving me crazy. I was trying to finish up cleaning some jewelry and re-pricing it for the Art Fair tomorrow (today) and they wanted to play-- mostly with my little plastic bags, my scissors, my tags, my feet---

Everyone got a drink, went out, came in, got in his appropriate crate, got a biscuit and I locked the cell block down. Cooper went off to John's room. I tried to finish what I was doing.

Conley curled up and if not sleeping was quiet.

Nigel went through his usual pre-sleep prep: digging in the crate pad, moving it here and there, banging into the sides of the crate, scraping his nails on the metal beneath the crate pad. Yawning. Shifting. Licking. Yawning. Then doing the whole thing again two or three times until I want to crack him over the head with a mallet. Usually I end up yelling ENOUGH!! and he settles.

Llewis is my boy who simply gets into his crate, wobbles about for a moment and goes to sleep.

Except for last night. He began whining. I inquired as to what was bothering him but he just looked at me and wagged his tail. When I looked away he began whining. None of the dogs is  as pathetic as Llewis when it comes to pathos. With his off-center back and hunchy-ness, his rogue leg stuck out at funny angles and his sincere, "help-me" face (fake, about 50% of the time) he makes suckers of us all. BUT. But. The last time he did this it wasn't fake, and he was full of gas and possibly starting to bloat.

So I put down my things and opened the crate and out bounced one of the happiest dogs in the world. What on earth? I am not a novice at interpreting dog-ese. I asked if he wanted out. No. A decisive no. He headed, wiggling, wagging, barking happily (having attracted the undivided attention of the others now) to the kitchen. Do you want a treat? YES YES OH YES I AM STARVING YES PLEASE A TREAT OH THAT WOULD BE SO PERFECT A LITTLE BITE BEFORE BED PLEASE YES YOU MUST HAVE SKIPPED ME!!

uh hunh.

right, I did, I just bet I did.

Nevertheless I hand out treats again. Back in the crate he goes.

We go through the whole routine again as I once again start polishing, removing old tags and writing new ones. Conley quiet: Nigel rattle-bang.

Llewis whining. Wait, what??? Yes, Llewis is whining, new pitch, new level of angst.

I get up and open the crate. Boing boing boing. I give him a Gas-X just in case. I wander into the bedroom and discuss this with John who says oh just leave him out, and with Llewis this is a viable option since he is physically incapable of counter-cruising and a number of other highly bassety  forms of trouble.

I go through the litany again, or start: Do you want out?

OH YESS YESS YESS! OUT WOULD BE WONDERFUL!  YOU MUST NOT HAVE LET US OUT BEFORE BED AND I DRANK WATER AND PLEASE, YES I NEED TO GO OUT!!

So out he went. Expecting a quick pee and re-entry I wait by the door. And wait. And wait. It is dark. There is a mirror outside on the post by the door so that I can look and see if the dogs are  coming in. No Llewis. I am in my jammies and barefeet. I get the flashlight and wander out into the night, looking for my lost child.

Far out in the yard is Llewis, holding a toy, wagging his tail.

COME AND GET ME.

Awwwww, come on buddy, I gotta finish this stuff and it is almost ten o'clock.

Besides, I am barefoot and while the yard has been cleaned twice today you guys have eaten three times. And it's dark.

YOU WANNA TREAT?

OH YESS YESS A TREAT WOULD BE EXCELLENT!!

and so he gets another treat, he is allowed to sleep out of his crate, and now at last he seems happy, curled on the couch while the others stomp and mutter in their crates.

Every now and again, everyone needs something special.

THE PERILOUS BLOG

I apparently need a disclaimer at the beginning of my blog, instead of warning about adult content I should warn that the opinions expressed in my blog are my opinions only and that if the reader doesn't like what I have to say they are free to change the channel, turn off the set, go elsewhere, read something less highly charged.
Apparently I offended someone with something I wrote some time ago. And one good soul saw it and made sure the person I had written about saw it, so she could be offended instead of living the rest of her life not even knowing the blog was out there, so thanks a bunch to the person who did that.
If you are reading this and don't understand what I am talking about, that's ok.
If you're reading it and are very aware of what I am referring to, know that I have a fair idea of who showed what to whom.

I have deleted all the rest of my blogs lest anyone go through them looking for annoying content.

I guess in this politically correct, right-leaning, terrified country in which we currently live, I should be careful to write only about those things that don't offend anyone. This is going to be hard to do, so be prepared to find a lot of really boring blogs from now on.

NIGHTIME STUFF

This is one of those nights when I wake up thinking it is 4 in the morning and it is 12:15. Then I wake up and decide the dogs probably want out and instead of being 5 in the morning it is 1:30. Tough-- I wake them up and send them out. After all, I'm up. The rest of the time when THEY are up I have to get up so why shouldn't the reverse be true?

My skin feels as if it is stretched as tightly as it can possibly go on my legs. I turn on the light and look for body lotion. When I was in Iowa I made some. (Yes! Really I did, with Susie.) I locate a bottle and slather it on to the point that I am practically sliding off the chair. But I can bend my knees without it feeling as tho the skin will split.

Tomorrow-- today I have to go to the store.
I have to decide if I want to put beads out for sale during the art fair. Oh I am so tired of those beads...There are still thousands.

Ok I am going to try to go back to sleep now. Bwaahahahahahahahahaah.
Sleep tight.
I would say "dont let the bedbugs bite" but that is not idle comment it once was.....

SQUIRREL WATCH

The dogs have set up a Squirrel Watch system. There is/was one more squirrel in the nest above the summerhouse, if they are dumb enough to stay there now that Nigel has effectively whittled their numbers down.

This is the corner of the summerhouse or what is left of the summerhouse that the squirrels keep falling out of, or trying to climb out of. You cannot see the wire I wrapped around the drainpipe very well. Years ago I did that when we had real babies that fell out, and tried to climb back up the pipe before the dogs got them,and could not.

Catching an adult squirrel is one thing, but catching and killing the babies is something else again. I figured they at least deserved a chance. My mistake.

This is Nigel at his "Post". He is sitting beneath the drainpipe. He is waiting for the Dog Gods to drop a squirrel out of that hole into his waiting jaws. Yesterday, when this was taken and when we could  hear the squirrel scrambling around up there, Nigel sat like this for about 45 minutes. For awhile, Llewis sat to his left at the other entrance to the nest, but he got bored and left. Conley was doing re-con. Nigel was on a Mission: the others really were not.

Conley is helping. He is peering into the summerhouse because once a squirrel got trapped in there by the dogs. He can probably hear the squirrel overhead, but doesn't have the experience at squirreling that Nigel does. He looked in that window and then would go to his right and try to look in the window down there. There is no glass- only screens that wind and probably animals have torn.

Unfortunately part of that stuff where he is going to land is a wild rose, with very nasty thorns. Conley seems to have just remembered that and is now wondering how the hell to get down without landing on it. (I lifted him down.) All this time the squirrel was running back and forth up there. He had finally realised that there was a pack of bloodthirsty wolves at his door and they were not hunting toads.  Nigel was sitting in the same spot, in the same position, waiting like a giant, tri-colored cat.

Cooper's role was that of sentry, I guess. Or maybe a member of a peace-keeping organization. One with teeth. I do not think even Cooper would try to take a squirrel from Nigel. Time wore on and the squirrel finally quit running back and forth. After about 45 minutes, all the dogs had given up. Even Nigel came in. Every time he goes outside he instantly checks that spot, sniffs all around the summerhouse to make sure he has not missed anything. He checks the top of the fence as he goes out the door. Sooner or later....

....Sooner or later....