Fursts

A lot has happened since my last blog, so let’s take a minute to get up to speed. Last night, something weird happened to me. While at Fred Meyer, I think some teenage girls thought I was a creeper. I was walking along the back of the store and needed to get to the opposite end when 2 girls came out of an aisle ahead of me, took a glance at me, and started walking in front of me. One kept glancing back at me, presumably to see if I was still “following” them, and then would whisper to her friend. Finally, after about 5 aisles of this, the other girl stopped entirely and let me pass, leaving her friend to keep glancing back at me. She stopped soon after, and I kept on going. I’m sure they were relieved that a creepy guy like me was no longer behind them. It made me feel kinda strange. I came home and told Amber, and she said they probably found me attractive and wanted to see if the back of me was as good as the front. Probably not the case, but I happen to prefer Amber’s interpretation of the event to mine.

This last weekend, Amber and I were able to get away to Cannon Beach for some much needed time together. Harvard was there too. We brought him. We think that he really loves vacation at the beach, because he was a very happy puppy. He got to sleep on the bed with us (he doesn’t get to at home), play in the ocean, run in the sand, sleep a lot, and get lots of attention from strangers. If you recall from my blog many months ago, he got lots of attention from strangers at Cannon Beach last time we were there, and everyone asked if he was a Weimaraner. I don’t think people actually believed us when we told them he was a Great Dane because they had never seen a blue one. Well, this time to the beach, only a few people asked if he was a Weimaraner. More people knew he was a Dane… maybe because he is getting taller.

October 2010:

June 2011:

We have some funny stories from our beach trip, but maybe the funniest was Harvard’s potty time. He did not want to go in the designated pet areas that the hotel had. He preferred the beach… nature’s gigantic litter box. He seriously didn’t go unless he was on the beach. The first time he went was hilarious. We were playing in the shallow waves when he decided to squat. Mid BM, a sneaker wave came up on him and startled him, cutting his time off before he was ready. It was sort of like the first time you ever encountered an automatic flush toilet and it flushed before you were ready for it too. It’s a bit startling.

The rest of the weekend was filled with relaxing, coffee, Pig’n’Pancake, walks on the beach, HGTV, Pizza a feta, talking to strangers about Great Danes, antiques (of course I got an orange lamp), etc. Very fun, and very sad to be back to reality. I'm sure Harvard is sad to be back too, because he can't sleep in our bed like this...

Part of our new reality that I have failed to mention up to this point is that Amber got a new job a little over a month ago. She has a full time job in the testing center at LCC, and she loves it so far. It sounds like the people love having her there too, so it seems to be a good fit. We like to joke that she has a big girl job now (or grown up job).

Lastly, I’ll share with you a few “firsts.”

Harvard stole his first morsel of food off our table while we weren’t looking, and he ate his first bit of chocolate in the same event. Our family friend, Wendy, gave us some homemade peanut butter (the clear draw for Harv’s nose) bars topped with chocolate, and Harvard thought he needed one too. It was no big deal.

Harvard also jumped out of my car while I was driving recently. I had to take out the front seat of my Acura so that he would fit, and like any other dog, he likes his window down. We had been out and about and were just turning onto our street when he saw our house and bolted. Luckily, I wasn’t going very fast and he landed in stride and ran straight to the garage. It was no big deal.

Amber mowed the lawn for the first time ever! Actually, it very well could have been the first time she’s ever even touched a lawn mower. There were a few funny moments when she would ask a silly question about the mower, get extremely flustered when she would run over a rock, and it was especially funny when she couldn’t get the darn thing started for a while, only to realize that she wasn’t holding the handle that allows the mower to run. It was cute. She didn’t think so.

By the way, while she was mowing, I was working too. I wasn’t just watching her. :) Here she is surveying her work...

Car Conundrum and Dog Data

Amber and I have a problem. At some point in the womb, some of the wires in our brains got crossed, and yes, it happened to both of us. The problem is this: we both love little cars, and big dogs. Our favorite breeds of dogs are Great Danes (clearly), Mastiffs, Rottweilers, Huskies, Malamutes, Boston Terriers (not so big), Newfoundlands, etc. Our favorite breeds of cars are roughly the same size as the dogs we like. Amber has two dream cars: a new mini cooper, and an old mini cooper. My dream cars are old Volkswagens, and of course an old Honda Civic 1200. I think you are starting to see how these preferences could clash with one another.

Needless to say, a large vehicle would be beneficial for transporting Harvard around. Even our Subaru finds him a bit cramped. We have been searching for a vehicle that addresses our love of small cars and need for a spacious cargo area, but only a few seem to be adequate. Our price range puts some restraints on the options as well. Maybe someday we will get a new vehicle though. Who knows?

Since we have been proud dog owners, Amber has been reading a lot about dogs. She has a book called Inside of a Dog that she is loving, we watch dogumentaries, and she likes to read any internet/magazine article that talks about dogs. We thought we would share a few interesting facts about dogs that we have learned over the last nine months, so sit back and get ready to appreciate the K9 even more…

-Dogs experience the world primarily through their noses. The amount of information they can derive from a quick butt-sniff is utterly miraculous.

-They also have the ability to re-scan a room of smells with their noses, as we do with our eyes. When we mere humanoids enter a room with a candle burning, we smell the candle initially, but soon the smell neutralizes to our noses and we no longer smell it. A dog, however, can smell the candle, smell the carpet, smell the people, and then a little later, smell the candle again. It’s sort of the same as us looking at a picture in a room, looking away, and then looking at it again. They see with their noses.

-Most dogs will act crazy after a bath because they are trying to rub themselves on everything to regain their scent.

-A dog’s tail is very important to their communication. When they are walking with their tail up, they are “getting their scent out” for the world to smell. When their tail is between their legs (as when they are scared), they are trying to hide their scent so that whatever they are scared of won’t recognize them later. It’s similar to humans hiding their faces from the paparazzi because they don’t want people to know it’s them.

-In many cases, dogs better understand communication from humans than any other animal, including chimps.

-People that say, “It’s just a dog,” and imply that it is like any other animal doesn’t understand that humans have been domesticating them for centuries, and dogs now rely on humans in a way that no wild animal does.

-There are more dogs than Christians in both Portland and Seattle. This does not, however, take into account the amount of dogs that are Christians.

-It has been established that people who own pets live longer, have less stress, and have fewer heart attacks.

-The typical dog costs an owner $13,350 over the span of its life. This is substantially less than the cost of a child.

I suppose that is enough information for you readers. I hope you enjoyed learning more about “man’s best friend.” In case you are wondering why dogs are considered man’s best friend, lets refer to what Allan Evald told me many moons ago. He said something to the effect of this: dogs are called “man’s best friend” because if you lock your dog and your wife in the trunk of your car for a few hours, only one of them will be happy to see you when you let them out.

*Things you may be wondering about Harvard... He is almost 10 months old. He got neutered today. He weighed 113 pounds before the surgery. He probably weighs slightly less now.

Wisdom

My 29^th birthday has now come and gone. I wear slippers all the time. I drink black coffee. I’m trying to eat healthier and (dare I say) more organic. I watch documentaries more often than movies. I’m old. Everyone keeps saying I'm almost 30, which is clearly true, but I don't care. It's just a number. I think Amber probably has a harder time with my age than I do. She thinks I'm old too.

Since I am so old and wise now, I feel it is necessary to share some of it with you:

The first thing was, I learned was to forgive myself. Then I told myself, “Go ahead and do whatever you want, it’s okay by me.”

Ok, so that was actually a Deep Thought from Jack Handy that was on one of my birthday cards (thank you Zac). I used to love deep thoughts, and my love has been rekindled recently. Just ask Shawnee McCown. I’m trying to light her fire, but I think her wood is wet.

My favorite birthday card came from my little nephew Dash. It was homemade and had stamps all over it. He colored in some of the stamps, but he was really eager to show me how many times he stamped “I love you” on the card. Probably the funniest part was when he was showing me the different stamps of “him and I” (which were a boy and a girl) and he pointed to the one pictured below and said, “That’s you and me in a bathtub.” Okay, little buddy. Clearly we are eating a giant slice of watermelon together, but I won’t correct you.

Speaking of watermelon, a juicer was given to me for my birthday (another indicator of my age) and I love it. Fresh juice is amazing. The only un-amazing part about the whole thing is the clean up. Tedious. In my shopping for fruits and veggies to juice, though, I came across a new discovery: dried cantaloupe. It’s delicious! So at least there is a LITTLE bit of wisdom that I shared with you.

It's the small things...

I would like to take a quick moment to talk about a few inventions that I love. These aren’t your typical inventions, however. It would be really easy to list things like light bulbs, cars, computers, microwaves, and things like that, but the inventions I want to discuss are of a smaller scale; things that I use often; things we probably take for granted.

Candles – I love things that smell good, and the ambiance that they provide is a plus as well. In my opinion, most candles don’t smell very good, but when you find good ones, they are awesome. Amber and I have different views on candles, however. I prefer to light them only when people are coming over to the house. That way, hopefully, people will walk in and think, “Wow, it smells good in here. I can’t even tell they have a ginormous dog living in the house.” Amber, on the other hand, wants candles lit any time she is home because they (and I quote) make her “soul feel good.” Probably to a fault, I try to keep things good for as long as possible. That means that I won’t want a candle lit because it will “waste” it if we are just using it for us. I know it’s a stupid way to view things, and I promise I’m getting better about it. Sometimes when I come home and Amber is sitting in the house with no candles lit, I will make a big fuss about how her soul is and then I’ll go light a candle.

WD40 – This little spray has numerous uses and, as stated above, I love things that smell good. I like how it smells. I have considered wearing it as a cologne, but I came to the conclusion that I would probably only attract men, so I vetoed that decision. I have used this stuff for a number of things though, from fixing squeaks to removing duct tape residue. Most people probably don’t know that the WD stands for “water displacement” and the 40 indicates the 40^th attempt by the creator to come up with a formula for the water displacing spray.

Delay Pedals – As a guitar player, my playing ability, style, and taste all changed when I got my first Electro-Harmonix Memory Man delay pedal. A whole new world was opened to me… much like when Aladdin and Jasmine went on their first magic carpet ride… with Steppenwolf. Anyway, the way I see it, Pink Floyd was the first band to make using delay popular, and then U2 took it to a whole new level. The Edge really made delay commercial and changed the way guitar was played. That’s how I see it at least. I might be wrong. I have owned a number of different delay pedals. Let’s see… 1…2…3…4…5…6…7…8…9…10…11… at least 11 different pedals. I currently own 3 and have my eye on another one. Gotta sell something first though.

Oven Mitts – Ok, this one is a little more obvious, I suppose. Everyone needs something to protect their hands from 350-degree metal cookie sheets and things like that… unless, of course, your name is Allan Evald (my father-in-law). He is a master welder and his hands can handle extreme heat. Whenever I am doing something in the Evald kitchen that requires handling hot stuff, I just have “Ol’ welder hands” come and do it for me. The Ove Glove is actually an attempt to recreate the hands of Allan. Amber did not inherit this trait.

So those are a few things that make my life better. Speaking of making my life better, I went to Seaside with my brother Andy, Kaed and Dash for Andy’s birthday a couple days ago. We stayed overnight and had a good time. Lots of swimming, snacking and snickering. I love those guys.

Harvard Hates...

Since my last blog, I have written 3 new blogs. Amber told me the first one was too depressing, so I didn't post it. In the second one, I tried to recreate a hilarious conversation that Amber and I had, but I could do it no justice, so it also never made it online. I don't even remember what the third one was about, but I'm sure there was a good reason not to share it with my 3-5 readers.

As for this fourth blog, it won't be much of a blog at all. I did make some videos of our dog though, so you can watch those if you want to kill some time. By the way, all the footage was taken on Amber's iPod, so the quality isn't good. Here they are...

In this one, Harv meets my new vacuum. I love both the vacuum and the dog.

This video is just some highlights from his puppyhood.

Missing Murdok

There has been a lot going on since my last blog, but that goes without saying since the last one was a couple months ago. Sorry for the hiatus. I’m sure the 3 of you that read this have really been lacking during this time. I must confess that I have attempted to write one, but every time I do, I just write about Harvard. I figured that not everyone is as much of a dog person as I am and you probably don’t want to hear about him all the time, so I just haven’t written anything. I will give you this update on him though:

He’s growing and his baby teeth are falling out. He also graduated from puppy class.

There. That was quick. So instead of boring you with all the little stories about Harvard, I have decided to talk about a different dog. The one and only…

Murdok

We had to say goodbye to our good buddy this morning, and it was tough. My parents think he had a stroke, and he hasn’t been able to get up from his pillow for the last few days. It was time, but it was still really sad. However, instead of making this blog a downer, I have decided to share some pictures and stories about the little guy that always make me smile.

Story #1: When Murd lived down at Andy’s house on 23^rd, he would occasionally dig his way out of the back yard and go exploring. On one particular day, he followed a guy all the way down to Home Depot AND BACK! That’s around 40 blocks of walking round trip.

Story #2: After Andy added Buster to the family, the boys would get out much more frequently. One night Andy received a call from the principal of R.A. Long saying that the dogs had wandered into the school dance (another long walk). The principal said they weren’t causing any trouble and asked if Andy would wait a little bit before coming to get them. Apparently some students would walk up to the entrance, see the dogs, and turn around and leave. They thought the boys were drug-sniffing dogs! Buster and Murdok were causing students to leave that the administration didn’t want there anyway. What good dogs.

Story #3 (Mom told me this story today): On Murdok’s first 4^th of July, he stayed up at his grandparents house. My dad was out of town and Andy thought Murd would freak out because of all the fireworks, so my mom said she would take him for the night. Mom prepared a little bed for Murd on the floor of her room, and they went to bed. Around 3 in the morning, my mom woke up and found a little spooning buddy cuddled up against her back in bed with her (a big no-no), and when she rolled over, he lifted his head up and looked at her with a look of, “What’s the big deal, Grandma?”

Story #4: This story still cracks me up to think about. I was still living at my parent’s place and Matt Tallbut came up to hang out. When anyone would drive in to the driveway, the boys would come to the driver’s door to see who it is, and this day was no exception. Matt got out, bent down to give them a scratch, and one of the dogs immediately jumped up and whacked him right in the sweets. Matt then shut his door and made his getaway. Attempting to get away from the boys, Matt went running for our garage and the other dog took out his legs, sending him tumbling to the gravel. This was easily one of the funniest things I had ever seen, and probably still is. Imagine the whole scene…

These are just a few stories that come to mind, but I’m sure Andy and my parents could add a lot more. Considering Murdok was a white boxer, he outlasted all expectations and overcame the odds. It’s amazing that he lived to almost be 10 years old when you think about all that he lived through. He jumped out of the back of Andy’s truck while he was driving down Mt. Brynion AND got run over by the back tire, he took down a pit bull with the help of his brother Buster, he had a softball-sized tumor removed from his side that was cancerous, and he sniffed a little too close to the rear end of a porcupine and he lived through it all. He had the heart of a champion. Murdok was an awesome dog, and he will surely be missed.

Haystack Harvard

This last weekend, Amber and I went down to Cannon Beach for the marriage retreat that our church puts on every year. Since Cannon Beach is so pet-friendly, we decided we would take Harvard with us to see how he liked vacations, the beach, etc. The trip definitely had its ups and downs, but overall it was a lot of fun.

After taking Harvard over to meet his great-grandmother Florence on Thursday, we headed down to the beach. He was perfect in the back seat of our car, and even did the normal dog thing and stuck his head out the window.

When we reached Warrenton, the three of us were all getting pretty hungry so we stopped at a Dairy Queen. As I took the little guy into the grass to do his business, I found a wad of cash. A whole eight dollars! Almost free dinner! Not a bad way to start the trip.

When we got to the hotel, they were very excited to accommodate Harvard. They brought him a treat, which he loved, and showed us the pet area where he was to do his thing. After he did his business in the grass, I grabbed a plastic bag and began the cleanup. As I threw the bag into the trash, the ring on my right hand slipped off and fell to its demise into the pet poo can. I opened the lid, looked in, and decided it wasn’t worth it. It was a $5 ring, had no sentimental value, and didn’t warrant the dirty recovery job. Now if it had been my wedding ring… yuck.

Harv loved our hotel room. Long and carpeted, he was able to do his sprint exercises. I have to say, the first night was a little difficult with him. He was super hyper (maybe from the puppy crack treat) and was just not being a very good dog. I even said to Amber that I was worried he would be a bad dog when he got big… really big. Well, apparently he heard me, because he was a saint the rest of the weekend. I think he found Jesus. Naturally, I baptized him with the hose when we got home (he loves the hose).

We took Harvard onto the beach for about 15 minutes, and he was a little unsure of it. Wind, sand, and waves were all somewhat troubling to him, but he did okay. I took my camera to take some pictures of him, but alas, the battery was dead. All I got was this picture with my phone:

When Amber and I adopted our Great Dane puppy, we knew he would be a topic of conversation; what we didn’t realize was how many people would want to meet him. As stated before, Cannon Beach is very pet friendly, so we took him down to the main street for some lunch. As we ate outside of Pizza a Feta, everyone who walked by wanted to meet him and know what kind of dog he was. Upon finding out he was a Dane, they were tickled to pieces. Apparently the blue color is puzzling to people, and they often think he is a Weimaraner or an oddly colored chocolate Lab.

It was a fun little work vacation with our little family, and we of course are very proud of our little buddy. He even learned a new game at the beach: hide and seek. When he finds us, he gives us big hugs. It’s very cute. By the way, he has officially doubled in size since we got him. Harvard is now 12 weeks old and just over 30 pounds.

I leave you with a picture of Harvard laughing hysterically in the back of our car...