What's a Canadian doing in North Carolina?
Monday, January 29, 2007
Oh, almost forgot
My dog has been possessed by some sort of demon. If anyone can tell me what type of demon, and how to get rid of it, I'd grately appreciate it! ;-)
¶ 8:41 PM 0 Comments
¶ 8:41 PM 0 Comments
Issues...
I've been having issues with Google and trying to log into my account for the past 2 days. For some reason even though I've got cookies enabled, it wouldn't let me log in. Right pain in the butt. But it seems to be fixed now. Til tomorrow :-p
Anyhoo...about the dog. First thing this morning when I arrived at work, I called the shelter to find out if anyone had called to claim the dog, the guy said "I dunno, we just got here half an hour ago, we haven't even looked at the drop off sheet yet!" ugh....so I let him know that I would put an ad in the paper, and I asked him how long they'd keep him. He said til Wednesday only, then if Burke County Friends doesn't want him, he'd be euthanised. I said I'm not going to let that happen! Nope, no way!
As I was on hold with Classifieds, I asked around if anyone could fit a dog into their family, and one of the ladies at work called her boyfriend's mother, who is apparently looking for a dog.
Then I went about my usual morning business. Back and forth from the front desk to the sales area, and back again. On one such trip, maybe about 10am I guess, when I got back to my desk, Glenda said "hey, this guy is looking for his dog!"
Turns out the dog was just here in town visiting for the weekend. The gentleman who came into the office to put an ad in the paper said it was his mother-in-law's dog, and she had come to visit and the dog had managed to get out the door without anyone seeing. They didn't notice for a while, when it was already too late. They looked all over, but couldn't find him,
and Mother was devestated.
I told him I'd found the dog wandering around Bi-Lo parking lot, and he said "wow, we live in Drexel, that's about 3 miles!" No wonder the poor guy was hungry!
I told the man that the dog was up at the shelter and I hoped he'd not been too traumatised by living the weekend in a cage all alone. He left without me getting his name or anything to check up on the poor dog later.
I do hope he is ok, and none the worse for wear. He's an old dog, and maybe not many years left in him, but he's a good dog, and I'd hate to hear that he'd been so scared by his experience that he's not the same.
Maybe the gentleman will call or stop by to let me know. He seemed very grateful that I had done what I did, even though it wasn't much.
My good deed for the week. :-) ¶ 7:54 PM 2 Comments
Anyhoo...about the dog. First thing this morning when I arrived at work, I called the shelter to find out if anyone had called to claim the dog, the guy said "I dunno, we just got here half an hour ago, we haven't even looked at the drop off sheet yet!" ugh....so I let him know that I would put an ad in the paper, and I asked him how long they'd keep him. He said til Wednesday only, then if Burke County Friends doesn't want him, he'd be euthanised. I said I'm not going to let that happen! Nope, no way!
As I was on hold with Classifieds, I asked around if anyone could fit a dog into their family, and one of the ladies at work called her boyfriend's mother, who is apparently looking for a dog.
Then I went about my usual morning business. Back and forth from the front desk to the sales area, and back again. On one such trip, maybe about 10am I guess, when I got back to my desk, Glenda said "hey, this guy is looking for his dog!"
Turns out the dog was just here in town visiting for the weekend. The gentleman who came into the office to put an ad in the paper said it was his mother-in-law's dog, and she had come to visit and the dog had managed to get out the door without anyone seeing. They didn't notice for a while, when it was already too late. They looked all over, but couldn't find him,
and Mother was devestated.
I told him I'd found the dog wandering around Bi-Lo parking lot, and he said "wow, we live in Drexel, that's about 3 miles!" No wonder the poor guy was hungry!
I told the man that the dog was up at the shelter and I hoped he'd not been too traumatised by living the weekend in a cage all alone. He left without me getting his name or anything to check up on the poor dog later.
I do hope he is ok, and none the worse for wear. He's an old dog, and maybe not many years left in him, but he's a good dog, and I'd hate to hear that he'd been so scared by his experience that he's not the same.
Maybe the gentleman will call or stop by to let me know. He seemed very grateful that I had done what I did, even though it wasn't much.
My good deed for the week. :-) ¶ 7:54 PM 2 Comments
Saturday, January 27, 2007
What would you do?
This evening I was at the grocery store and as I was leaving with my groceries, heard a couple of guys talking about a dog wandering around the parking lot. One of them said "he looks lost, I hope somebody didn't just drop him off, he's a good lookin' dog". I looked around and spotted him a couple of lanes away, looking nervous and jittery.
I got my groceries into my car, then carefully walked over to the dog, where he was now munching on some what looked like left-over Chinese food that someone had dumped on the pavement. It was right next to a big pick-up and I didn't want the little ol' guy to get hit. Of course, I say little because my own dogs are so big. This one was a full grown, fairly old chocolate lab. His chin is all white, so maybe middle aged, whatever that is in lab years.
I walked up to him and crouched down and he kinda jumped, but he realised I wouldn't hurt him I guess, and he followed me over to my car. I dialed my cell phone to try and call James, but as we all know, he's half deaf, and was in the basement on his computer so didn't hear the phone. ugh...need to get a phone in the basement...anyway, so I called the animal control, whose number I have on my speed dial list on my cell phone. Why? Because there are so many dang strays wandering around this town! They're closed on weekends, so they have the no-kill shelter number on their answering machine. I called them, and they don't come and pick up strays, so she gave me the number for public safety. I called them, and there were 2 cruisers there within a minute and a half!
Luckily I had some Scooby Snacks in my car and this little ol' guy seemed rather hungry. He may have just wandered off from home, but he seemed confused and lost and really really hungry. Or he may just have bad manners which is why he nearly took my fingers off when I offered the biscuits. ;-)
For whatever reason, when the two male officers approached him, he growled and tried to run away. I had a hold of his collar though, and he happily followed me to the open door of the cruiser and hopped in. I felt so bad when I started to walk away to my car, his face was so sad like "hey, aren't you coming with me?" *sigh*
I gave the officer my phone numbers and told them to call me if no one claims this guy. I'd have brought him directly home if I thought George and Bruno wouldn't beat him up, but if we bring another dog home, they'd have to be acclimated to each other on neutral ground first. He's little, and old, he may not be able to defend himself well enough against these two beasts!
Hopefully he just wandered off and someone is out there looking for him. But for tonight and tomorrow night, he's at the animal control shelter, waiting for the Monday shift (they have weekend shifts to care for the animals, just no administrators to take lost dog reports or post found dog notices.)
In the meantime, when I get to work on Monday I'll put an ad in the paper (I get free classified ads) that I've found him and he's at the shelter. If no one claims him, I guess I will have to help find him a home. I feel kinda responsible. But I just couldn't leave him out there wandering around lonely and hungry, to possibly be killed by a car or shot at (which is fairly common around here).
What would you do? ¶ 8:28 PM 4 Comments
I got my groceries into my car, then carefully walked over to the dog, where he was now munching on some what looked like left-over Chinese food that someone had dumped on the pavement. It was right next to a big pick-up and I didn't want the little ol' guy to get hit. Of course, I say little because my own dogs are so big. This one was a full grown, fairly old chocolate lab. His chin is all white, so maybe middle aged, whatever that is in lab years.
I walked up to him and crouched down and he kinda jumped, but he realised I wouldn't hurt him I guess, and he followed me over to my car. I dialed my cell phone to try and call James, but as we all know, he's half deaf, and was in the basement on his computer so didn't hear the phone. ugh...need to get a phone in the basement...anyway, so I called the animal control, whose number I have on my speed dial list on my cell phone. Why? Because there are so many dang strays wandering around this town! They're closed on weekends, so they have the no-kill shelter number on their answering machine. I called them, and they don't come and pick up strays, so she gave me the number for public safety. I called them, and there were 2 cruisers there within a minute and a half!
Luckily I had some Scooby Snacks in my car and this little ol' guy seemed rather hungry. He may have just wandered off from home, but he seemed confused and lost and really really hungry. Or he may just have bad manners which is why he nearly took my fingers off when I offered the biscuits. ;-)
For whatever reason, when the two male officers approached him, he growled and tried to run away. I had a hold of his collar though, and he happily followed me to the open door of the cruiser and hopped in. I felt so bad when I started to walk away to my car, his face was so sad like "hey, aren't you coming with me?" *sigh*
I gave the officer my phone numbers and told them to call me if no one claims this guy. I'd have brought him directly home if I thought George and Bruno wouldn't beat him up, but if we bring another dog home, they'd have to be acclimated to each other on neutral ground first. He's little, and old, he may not be able to defend himself well enough against these two beasts!
Hopefully he just wandered off and someone is out there looking for him. But for tonight and tomorrow night, he's at the animal control shelter, waiting for the Monday shift (they have weekend shifts to care for the animals, just no administrators to take lost dog reports or post found dog notices.)
In the meantime, when I get to work on Monday I'll put an ad in the paper (I get free classified ads) that I've found him and he's at the shelter. If no one claims him, I guess I will have to help find him a home. I feel kinda responsible. But I just couldn't leave him out there wandering around lonely and hungry, to possibly be killed by a car or shot at (which is fairly common around here).
What would you do? ¶ 8:28 PM 4 Comments
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Google's coming to town!
Ok, besides the fact that it would seem Google has taken over BlogSpot (I just noticed that now!) Google has announced they are opening up a facility nearby in Lenoir, North Carolina!
Woo Hoo! I checked their website for job listings, but nothing yet. They have to build it first I think, so it may be a while. But I emailed them just to check to find out when :whistle: ;-)
A tech job at Google would be sooooooooooooo much betterer than I'm doing now at the paper. Money aside, I'd be dealing with a computer farm, and not irate subscribers who haven't received their paper since Christmas, and not Sales reps who have forgotten the definition of "deadline".
I had such a day today, to top off several weeks of such days, I made no bones about the fact that Google will be hiring soon. :-p And a lot of them know my background is with computers.
Can you imagine? Most folks around here aren't used to making much more than minimum wage. Apparently the "average wage" at Google is over $48K per year, plus benefits. Honestly, that's more than twice what I make now. But still less than what I was making at my last job at JDE in Toronto. Near the end there I didn't much like the job anymore, but the $50+K per year and 4 weeks vacation almost made up for it. ;-)
Well, we'll see how quickly Google gets built. I may go completely round the bend by then and end up in Broughton. (the local loony bin).
House isn't on tonight. Stoopid state of the union address. bleah. ¶ 9:07 PM 2 Comments
Woo Hoo! I checked their website for job listings, but nothing yet. They have to build it first I think, so it may be a while. But I emailed them just to check to find out when :whistle: ;-)
A tech job at Google would be sooooooooooooo much betterer than I'm doing now at the paper. Money aside, I'd be dealing with a computer farm, and not irate subscribers who haven't received their paper since Christmas, and not Sales reps who have forgotten the definition of "deadline".
I had such a day today, to top off several weeks of such days, I made no bones about the fact that Google will be hiring soon. :-p And a lot of them know my background is with computers.
Can you imagine? Most folks around here aren't used to making much more than minimum wage. Apparently the "average wage" at Google is over $48K per year, plus benefits. Honestly, that's more than twice what I make now. But still less than what I was making at my last job at JDE in Toronto. Near the end there I didn't much like the job anymore, but the $50+K per year and 4 weeks vacation almost made up for it. ;-)
Well, we'll see how quickly Google gets built. I may go completely round the bend by then and end up in Broughton. (the local loony bin).
House isn't on tonight. Stoopid state of the union address. bleah. ¶ 9:07 PM 2 Comments
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Update
Well, we decided to move suddenly one day. Or rather, James did. He called me at work one day and said "I'm moving stuff over to the other house, it will now be our primary residence". So, here we are now. And we were without internet access here until the other day, as it took an entire month for the local cable company to hook us up :-p They suck.
Anyhoo...for those who didn't get caught up in the mass email that I sent out earlier this week, James also recently decided totally *against* starting up his own Domino's franchise. So, no move to Hendersonville either. The former being just fine and dandy with me, I wasn't too keen on it to begin with, but I really would like to move out of this hick town with nothing to do! Which of course is still an option, but we'd have to find jobs first in order to do that. bleah.
So I'm still at the Morganton News Herald only now I'm working at the front desk as co-receptionist/data entry. I don't much like it, but we need the medical insurance so I'm kinda stuck for the time being. I was recently diagnosed with Grave's Disease which is an auto-immune that knocks the thyroid totally out of whack. I'm taking 20mg of methimizole per day to try and get that all back into order. According to the endocrinologist I saw, he said Graves' mostly goes into complete remission after a couple years of treatment, and usually doesn't come back for most patients, so I guess that's an ok diagnosis. Left untreated however, it could have killed me eventually, so its lucky that Burke Primary Care does Thyroid levels in the routine blood work at yearly check-ups!
It is freezing rain today here, we had hoped for snow, but no luck. Again. Should be fun at work tomorrow. NOT.
We are currently considering a trip to Ireland perhaps this year sometime. If we can find the money, what with James being an unemployed bum at the moment. I thing what would really kill us is the airfare, otherwise the trip could be done "on the cheap" as they say. We'll see.
And congratulations go out to friend Becky and her husband Jerry on the birth of their first child Emma.
More congratulations to Cousin Dee and her boyfriend John as they are expecting a baby in the summer. Her first, (at age 41!) and his 3rd. He has 2 girls from a previous relationship. Both girls are in their teens, and are excited about a baby sister or brother. If its a boy, Dee says John wants to name it Junior. Yuck! There are quite enough John's in the world John! Be original! Sheesh! ;-)
Our smelly fur-kids are going for baths on Tuesday. Thank the Gods! They were supposed to go the other day, but it was freezing rain and yucky and George had broken one of her claws completely off when she tripped UP the basement stairs, and I figured she's not going to want to spend the afternoon standing in soapy water. But my goodness they stink! Its been a while since they had a bath. Like before Halloween. Yuck!
We had a great Christmas here, I got lots of new music CDs, and a ZUNE MP3/Video player. So next time I'm travelling by air, I won't have to lug around my portable CD player and CDs. YAY! Woo Hoo! I got James a CD player stereo for his pick-up, it sounds pretty good.
Oh, and last weekend we made our annual pilgrimage to Asheville to see Enter the Haggis in concert at the Grey Eagle. They're now playing larger venues because the pubs just won't fit all their fans anymore. We got there early enough for close seats :-) They're still great, and we bought their latest CD Soapbox Heroes, as well as their PBS special DVD Live at Lanigan's Ball.
And hopefully by summertime I will have my Bowflex body! We got new exercise equipment all set up in the basement, with a Bowflex and another weight machine of namebrand I can't remember at the moment. James somehow cracked his sternum the other day, so can't do anything for a few weeks, and with my Grave' disease my muscles are always sore, but I worked on the Bowflex a bit yesterday, and its a pretty good workout. I'm stiff and sore today, but should be ok to do 15 to 20 minutes tomorrow after work, depending what type of day it turns into. If the past 2 weeks are any indication however, I'll be completely knackered when I get home and will just want to crawl into bed. I swear, you'd think you need to be a brain surgeon to deliver newspapers around here :-p
Well, I think that's about it. Drop a line so I know you're still alive! ¶ 2:38 PM 5 Comments
Anyhoo...for those who didn't get caught up in the mass email that I sent out earlier this week, James also recently decided totally *against* starting up his own Domino's franchise. So, no move to Hendersonville either. The former being just fine and dandy with me, I wasn't too keen on it to begin with, but I really would like to move out of this hick town with nothing to do! Which of course is still an option, but we'd have to find jobs first in order to do that. bleah.
So I'm still at the Morganton News Herald only now I'm working at the front desk as co-receptionist/data entry. I don't much like it, but we need the medical insurance so I'm kinda stuck for the time being. I was recently diagnosed with Grave's Disease which is an auto-immune that knocks the thyroid totally out of whack. I'm taking 20mg of methimizole per day to try and get that all back into order. According to the endocrinologist I saw, he said Graves' mostly goes into complete remission after a couple years of treatment, and usually doesn't come back for most patients, so I guess that's an ok diagnosis. Left untreated however, it could have killed me eventually, so its lucky that Burke Primary Care does Thyroid levels in the routine blood work at yearly check-ups!
It is freezing rain today here, we had hoped for snow, but no luck. Again. Should be fun at work tomorrow. NOT.
We are currently considering a trip to Ireland perhaps this year sometime. If we can find the money, what with James being an unemployed bum at the moment. I thing what would really kill us is the airfare, otherwise the trip could be done "on the cheap" as they say. We'll see.
And congratulations go out to friend Becky and her husband Jerry on the birth of their first child Emma.
More congratulations to Cousin Dee and her boyfriend John as they are expecting a baby in the summer. Her first, (at age 41!) and his 3rd. He has 2 girls from a previous relationship. Both girls are in their teens, and are excited about a baby sister or brother. If its a boy, Dee says John wants to name it Junior. Yuck! There are quite enough John's in the world John! Be original! Sheesh! ;-)
Our smelly fur-kids are going for baths on Tuesday. Thank the Gods! They were supposed to go the other day, but it was freezing rain and yucky and George had broken one of her claws completely off when she tripped UP the basement stairs, and I figured she's not going to want to spend the afternoon standing in soapy water. But my goodness they stink! Its been a while since they had a bath. Like before Halloween. Yuck!
We had a great Christmas here, I got lots of new music CDs, and a ZUNE MP3/Video player. So next time I'm travelling by air, I won't have to lug around my portable CD player and CDs. YAY! Woo Hoo! I got James a CD player stereo for his pick-up, it sounds pretty good.
Oh, and last weekend we made our annual pilgrimage to Asheville to see Enter the Haggis in concert at the Grey Eagle. They're now playing larger venues because the pubs just won't fit all their fans anymore. We got there early enough for close seats :-) They're still great, and we bought their latest CD Soapbox Heroes, as well as their PBS special DVD Live at Lanigan's Ball.
And hopefully by summertime I will have my Bowflex body! We got new exercise equipment all set up in the basement, with a Bowflex and another weight machine of namebrand I can't remember at the moment. James somehow cracked his sternum the other day, so can't do anything for a few weeks, and with my Grave' disease my muscles are always sore, but I worked on the Bowflex a bit yesterday, and its a pretty good workout. I'm stiff and sore today, but should be ok to do 15 to 20 minutes tomorrow after work, depending what type of day it turns into. If the past 2 weeks are any indication however, I'll be completely knackered when I get home and will just want to crawl into bed. I swear, you'd think you need to be a brain surgeon to deliver newspapers around here :-p
Well, I think that's about it. Drop a line so I know you're still alive! ¶ 2:38 PM 5 Comments
