Memorial Day weekend was certainly memorable.
The wife had most of the weekend off from being on call. This is a fairly rare occurrence, so we like to take advantage of them when they come. Instead of going somewhere, though, we did something at home that the wife almost never gets to do: we gardened. Here we have this lovely back yard just bristling with potential for lush greenery and the wife is always at the hospital and never gets to enjoy it. Oh, sure, I have my outdoor projects, like digging up the root-bound roof drainage pipes and burying new ones, trying to get a bunch of ferns I ordered to grow along my trail through the woods, and, of course, there's always my compost heap, but as far as flowery things go that's her domain. So on Saturday she planted plants and weeded weeds and shifted our bucket-based squash plants to sunnier climes. While she was doing that, I was busy tilling up the bare patches in the back yard with a new tiller stick thing and then sewing grass seed. It was tough work, too. And despite the fact that I was the only one of us to put on sun screen, twice, I'm the guy who got the blazing red sunburn while she's barely pink. After I had my grass seed down and mixed with the soil, we tried out a new sprinkler
Toward the end of the day, I was down the back trail checking on my ferns when I heard the wife screaming at what sounded like our cat and dog to "Leave it!" At first I thought she was screaming at the dog to leave the cat alone, but then I heard her name drop the cat in her commands. I hoped it was merely a frog the animals were menacing, but suspected otherwise. Sure enough, it was another baby bunny. When I came upon the scene, the little guy was hopping through the yard while the dog was curiously sniffing it and the cat was looking on proudly from the sidelines. I picked the bunny up and carried it to the deck where I put it in a large empty planter pot where we could have a look at it. On the way there, though, I could feel something long and soft across my palm, beneath the bunny. It felt like a tail might, but rabbit tails are short and puffy. After donning some thick gloves, I picked it up out of the flower pot and turned it over for examination, where we discovered that the damned cat had either nearly gnawed off one of its back feet or the bunny had broken it running away. So much for them being lucky.
You know this doesn't end well for the bunny, right?
Afterward, tired and filthy and saddened by having to dispatch yet another one of God's creatures due to the efforts of my damned cat, we went inside to have a shower in the new bathroom. I was in first and had just finished lathering up when the water disappeared. I didn't know what had happened, at first, but soon became fearful that our well had run dry. We've not had much rain for over a week and the ground outside had been looking pretty cracked. Further contributing was our own use of water to irrigate our plants, which might have bordered on the excessive considering that I'd watered the grass twice. This seemed to be the case. Fortunately, the wife found a gallon of distilled water in the garage with which I was able to de-sud myself.
The thing that makes this even more tragic is that we knew there was a chance we might run out of water some time or some day. Half of my neighborhood has water trouble throughout much of the year because their wells have run permanently dry due to underwater sources finding easier flow patterns elsewhere. We'd never had any problems ourselves, but our own next door neighbors had to have a new well drilled a few months back because of a sudden dry up.
Not knowing how long it would take for the well to return, we opted to head to Wally World for some bottled water. Once on the road, we decided to delay the trip in favor of hitting our favorite frozen custard stand before it closed down, after which we opted to pop over to the wife's clinic office to pick up something she'd left there on Friday. Before we could get there, though, we came upon a police traffic check point. A sign before we reached the checkpoint indicated they were checking for seat belts. However, once we were actually stopped, they asked to see our license, registration and proof of insurance. The insurance proof was actually what they were looking for, as they told us they didn't really need the license or registration if we had the IP. Naturally, my wife's car was equipped with two expired forms of proof of insurance, but not our current up to date proof. And, because of this, they asked us to pull over and for me to hand over my license so they could write us a ticket. The officer explained that provided we actually had insurance and could give them proof by June 12, we would be free and clear and they could tear up the ticket. We offered to just motor on over to the wife's office and print such proof out for them, but they said they couldn't take it on site. No, they could only take our proof between the hours of midnight and 8 a.m.
Yes, you read that correctly: we could come by between midnight and 8 a.m. to provide proof of insurance because these were the hours during which the particular ticket-issuing officer worked. He warned us that if we didn't get it to him by June 12, a warrant would be issued for me and things would become complicated from there on. Put me right off my red raspberry frozen custard, it did. We again asked if we could simply go and print out the proof and come back in five minutes, but were turned down. Then, we went to the wife's office, printed it out and then drove back through the check point with it just to see what they would do.
"You were just through here, right?" a different officer asked us.
"Yeah," I replied. "We've got our proof of insurance now."
"We can't take that here, sir."
The wife was concerned that I was pissed off at her for not having the proper insurance proof, thus subjecting myself to possible future arrest. I wasn't. Practically the only time I ever have valid proof of insurance in my car is when it's time to renew my license plate, at which point I notice my POI has expired and have to print a new one.
By the time we went to Wal-Mart, bought our water and returned home, the well water had returned a bit, though it was cloudy and suspicious-looking, so we've opted to drink the bottled water for the past couple of days.
Monday evening, the skies opened up and the rain fell and didn't really stop until yesterday afternoon. I think the well has probably been restored, but we'll think twice before doing any lawn watering.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Trek Review
(SPOILERS FOLLOW)
I enjoyed the new Star Trek film, though not as much as I thought I would. I used to be a pretty big fan of Trek. I loved Next Gen and DS9, but have largely hated all the TV spinoffs since them. I liked most of the original series cast movies, and the middle two Next Gen cast movies until Star Trek Nemesis succeeded in burning away any vestiges of personal investment I had in the characters, as well as any faith I had in the people running the film franchise.
Until a few weeks ago, I was pretty ambivalent about the new film, too. The early teaser trailers I saw for it didn't give me much hope; the 12 year old Kirk looking into the camera and declaring "I'm James Tiberius Kirk" came off as a forced and not especially well-acted moment and sounded warning bells in my head that were similar in tone to those than rang with all of Anakin Skywallker's dialogue in Phantom Menace--and, for that matter, the other two Wars prequels. I was pretty sure the new Trek movie would be nothing more than the realization of the Starfleet Academy concept that Paramount's been threatening to do for the last 20 years. I've never given a wet crap about how young Kirk, Spock and McCoy met in school, a storyline that would no doubt quickly degenerate into a series of ironic moments and yet more opportunities for the franchise to trample previously established continuity for the sake of convenience.
The inclusion of Nimoy in the new film, playing Old Cripsy Spock to Sylar's Young Fresh Spock, intrigued me, though, so I didn't write it off completely. The closer the release date became the more buzz from early screenings I heard--including from people whose opinion of geek matters I trust, such as Patton Oswalt--the more interested I became in it. To date, I've not seen a bad review of it, which was something I expected to see, considering the usual passionate nature of the Trekkie/Trekker crowd. All the reviews I read, however, noted how respectful it was of the original series, even as it updated the look and feel of the original for a new century. So for the past three weeks or so, I've really been stoked to see it.
I think my expectations may have been a lot higher going in than they should have been. Don't get me wrong, I had a blast watching it, but did so with a far more critical eye than I'd expected to have to employ.
Overall, my main criticism was some of the unnecessary silliness (two words: inflatable hands; two more words: Scottie's Oompaloompa) layered into the story for the sake of... I dunno, laughs, I guess. But actual well-crafted jokes would have served the story better than things like the two minute sequence of Bones repeatedly stabbing Kirk with a hypo, resulting eventually in said inflatable hands. (The only other reason I can think of for the inclusion of that scene was to give McCoy some semblance of medical work to do, because damn if he did any on camera for the rest of the movie.) Still, the film had far fewer silly sequences than one might expect from the screenwriters of Transformers and at least the "Starfleet Academy" scenes were largely skipped across.
The story also held a few too many convenient coincidences in its execution. Take the matter of how Kirk meets Old Cripsy Spock. I mean, leaving aside the matter of Kirk first being launched out of the Enterprise in an escape pod on the orders of Young Fresh Acting-Captain Spock--who illogically commands this be done in an effort to keep Kirk from questioning his decisions as well as being something of a Class-M Douchebag (what, they don't have a BRIG on yer fancy new ship?)--the fact that he lands on one of Vulcan's ice moons and it just happens to be the one Nero had stowed Cripsy Spock on in order to torture him by making him watch the destruction of his home planet (which I guess Nero must have timed out just right so that Cripsy's new ice-cave had a planet-side view of Vulcan and wasn't 180 degrees turned the wrong way) and Kirk lands pretty much in Cripsy Spock's back yard and then the two of them dash around the corner to a Starfleet Ice-Station Zebra which just happens to be run by Mr. Scott and his Oompaloompa, seems a bit much to ask audiences to suspend disbelief over. I'm of the opinion that there had to be a far smoother way to accomplish the plot points they wanted to touch on without resorting to heavy coincidences and the inclusion of Oompaloompas.
Acting wise, I really dug most of the performances. Chris Pine played a good, if still douchebaggy Kirk (had the Kirk punch, and everything). Sylar was good as Spock, though I still take issue with some of his scripted decision-making skills. Karl Urban was unrecognizable as Bones, at least as far as his usual look is concerned. Despite his Oompaloompa and some needless slapstick action sequences, Simon Pegg was perfect for Scotty, taking the role in a new direction while remaining true to its essence. And Anton Yelchin--an actor I didn't remember having seen in anything previous, yet still seemed real familiar until I looked him up later and found he was the little kid from Hearts in Atlantis--was a good choice for Chekov (though I'm still not sure why the character had SO MUCH to do).
Despite my complaints, I was pretty surprised and impressed by a lot of the film. It had the sac to stomp on some pretty major Trek staples and the even bigger sac to then not find a convenient way to return things to the status quo in the end, as Trek so often does. It also found a way to set off in its own direction that is not beholden to anything we've seen on Trek before. At first I was both impressed yet also annoyed by this, because it seemed to me that in so violently altering the history of the Trek universe, this film effectively shits all over every previous form of Star Trek, negating them to a large extent. I thought: So now when we're enjoying a rerun of Next Gen on SciFi, particularly one set on Vulcan, we're supposed to stop and think, "Heh, funny thing about it... this is now an imaginary story. Whee!" However, from what I've heard from J.J. Abrams in interviews, and how it can be interpreted from the film itself, the new shiny Trek universe presented in the film is something of an alternate universe unto itself--sort of like the Mirror Universe of Classic Trek and DS9 was an alternate reality that diverged from that of the established shows' at some point in its own past.
This brings me to a major complaint I and a number of my friends have had with a previous movie that I think could have been done correctly in this one: Kirk should have had a better death and Spock should have died again. Let me back up...
In the first Next Gen movie, Generations, Cap'n Kirk gets pulled into the future through the plot device of the big timey wimey wave (I can't be bothered with details such as its actual name, as I only saw it the one time due to it being so substandard a tale, IMLTHO) and then gets killed fighting Malcolm McDowell by being crushed by a bridge. To me, that has to go down as one of the lamest deaths of a heroic character of all time. Here you have Kirk, you're going to kill him off, why not let him go out like he should: battling Klingons? The movie already had some evil Klingons on hand which they were going to kill off anyway. Similarly, they were already going to destroy the Enterprise D. So why not let Kirk take over the battle-bridge of the lower section of the ship and go out fighting?
Similarly, in the new film I thought it would have been nice for audiences to be shown the ultimate fate of classic Spock, allowing him to yet again sacrifice himself for the greater good and go out piloting the Red Matter ship as it rams into Nero's big ass pointy ship, (which, by the way, looked more like a Shadow ship from Babylon 5 than the Shadow ships from Babylon 5 did). I mean, really, how many more years does Nimoy have on the earth that we needed to save him at the end? Sure, we wouldn't have had the nice moment at the end with Old Cripsy meeting Young Fresh, but was that scene absolutely necessary?
The major trade off, I guess, is that his living does give a bit of gravitas to his "Space, the final frontier..." voice over at the end. Then again, he gave exactly the same v/o after the first time he died.
In the end, I liked the new movie well enough as is and thought it was a valid new update to a classic set of characters.
I enjoyed the new Star Trek film, though not as much as I thought I would. I used to be a pretty big fan of Trek. I loved Next Gen and DS9, but have largely hated all the TV spinoffs since them. I liked most of the original series cast movies, and the middle two Next Gen cast movies until Star Trek Nemesis succeeded in burning away any vestiges of personal investment I had in the characters, as well as any faith I had in the people running the film franchise.
Until a few weeks ago, I was pretty ambivalent about the new film, too. The early teaser trailers I saw for it didn't give me much hope; the 12 year old Kirk looking into the camera and declaring "I'm James Tiberius Kirk" came off as a forced and not especially well-acted moment and sounded warning bells in my head that were similar in tone to those than rang with all of Anakin Skywallker's dialogue in Phantom Menace--and, for that matter, the other two Wars prequels. I was pretty sure the new Trek movie would be nothing more than the realization of the Starfleet Academy concept that Paramount's been threatening to do for the last 20 years. I've never given a wet crap about how young Kirk, Spock and McCoy met in school, a storyline that would no doubt quickly degenerate into a series of ironic moments and yet more opportunities for the franchise to trample previously established continuity for the sake of convenience.
The inclusion of Nimoy in the new film, playing Old Cripsy Spock to Sylar's Young Fresh Spock, intrigued me, though, so I didn't write it off completely. The closer the release date became the more buzz from early screenings I heard--including from people whose opinion of geek matters I trust, such as Patton Oswalt--the more interested I became in it. To date, I've not seen a bad review of it, which was something I expected to see, considering the usual passionate nature of the Trekkie/Trekker crowd. All the reviews I read, however, noted how respectful it was of the original series, even as it updated the look and feel of the original for a new century. So for the past three weeks or so, I've really been stoked to see it.
I think my expectations may have been a lot higher going in than they should have been. Don't get me wrong, I had a blast watching it, but did so with a far more critical eye than I'd expected to have to employ.
Overall, my main criticism was some of the unnecessary silliness (two words: inflatable hands; two more words: Scottie's Oompaloompa) layered into the story for the sake of... I dunno, laughs, I guess. But actual well-crafted jokes would have served the story better than things like the two minute sequence of Bones repeatedly stabbing Kirk with a hypo, resulting eventually in said inflatable hands. (The only other reason I can think of for the inclusion of that scene was to give McCoy some semblance of medical work to do, because damn if he did any on camera for the rest of the movie.) Still, the film had far fewer silly sequences than one might expect from the screenwriters of Transformers and at least the "Starfleet Academy" scenes were largely skipped across.
The story also held a few too many convenient coincidences in its execution. Take the matter of how Kirk meets Old Cripsy Spock. I mean, leaving aside the matter of Kirk first being launched out of the Enterprise in an escape pod on the orders of Young Fresh Acting-Captain Spock--who illogically commands this be done in an effort to keep Kirk from questioning his decisions as well as being something of a Class-M Douchebag (what, they don't have a BRIG on yer fancy new ship?)--the fact that he lands on one of Vulcan's ice moons and it just happens to be the one Nero had stowed Cripsy Spock on in order to torture him by making him watch the destruction of his home planet (which I guess Nero must have timed out just right so that Cripsy's new ice-cave had a planet-side view of Vulcan and wasn't 180 degrees turned the wrong way) and Kirk lands pretty much in Cripsy Spock's back yard and then the two of them dash around the corner to a Starfleet Ice-Station Zebra which just happens to be run by Mr. Scott and his Oompaloompa, seems a bit much to ask audiences to suspend disbelief over. I'm of the opinion that there had to be a far smoother way to accomplish the plot points they wanted to touch on without resorting to heavy coincidences and the inclusion of Oompaloompas.
Acting wise, I really dug most of the performances. Chris Pine played a good, if still douchebaggy Kirk (had the Kirk punch, and everything). Sylar was good as Spock, though I still take issue with some of his scripted decision-making skills. Karl Urban was unrecognizable as Bones, at least as far as his usual look is concerned. Despite his Oompaloompa and some needless slapstick action sequences, Simon Pegg was perfect for Scotty, taking the role in a new direction while remaining true to its essence. And Anton Yelchin--an actor I didn't remember having seen in anything previous, yet still seemed real familiar until I looked him up later and found he was the little kid from Hearts in Atlantis--was a good choice for Chekov (though I'm still not sure why the character had SO MUCH to do).
Despite my complaints, I was pretty surprised and impressed by a lot of the film. It had the sac to stomp on some pretty major Trek staples and the even bigger sac to then not find a convenient way to return things to the status quo in the end, as Trek so often does. It also found a way to set off in its own direction that is not beholden to anything we've seen on Trek before. At first I was both impressed yet also annoyed by this, because it seemed to me that in so violently altering the history of the Trek universe, this film effectively shits all over every previous form of Star Trek, negating them to a large extent. I thought: So now when we're enjoying a rerun of Next Gen on SciFi, particularly one set on Vulcan, we're supposed to stop and think, "Heh, funny thing about it... this is now an imaginary story. Whee!" However, from what I've heard from J.J. Abrams in interviews, and how it can be interpreted from the film itself, the new shiny Trek universe presented in the film is something of an alternate universe unto itself--sort of like the Mirror Universe of Classic Trek and DS9 was an alternate reality that diverged from that of the established shows' at some point in its own past.
This brings me to a major complaint I and a number of my friends have had with a previous movie that I think could have been done correctly in this one: Kirk should have had a better death and Spock should have died again. Let me back up...
In the first Next Gen movie, Generations, Cap'n Kirk gets pulled into the future through the plot device of the big timey wimey wave (I can't be bothered with details such as its actual name, as I only saw it the one time due to it being so substandard a tale, IMLTHO) and then gets killed fighting Malcolm McDowell by being crushed by a bridge. To me, that has to go down as one of the lamest deaths of a heroic character of all time. Here you have Kirk, you're going to kill him off, why not let him go out like he should: battling Klingons? The movie already had some evil Klingons on hand which they were going to kill off anyway. Similarly, they were already going to destroy the Enterprise D. So why not let Kirk take over the battle-bridge of the lower section of the ship and go out fighting?
Similarly, in the new film I thought it would have been nice for audiences to be shown the ultimate fate of classic Spock, allowing him to yet again sacrifice himself for the greater good and go out piloting the Red Matter ship as it rams into Nero's big ass pointy ship, (which, by the way, looked more like a Shadow ship from Babylon 5 than the Shadow ships from Babylon 5 did). I mean, really, how many more years does Nimoy have on the earth that we needed to save him at the end? Sure, we wouldn't have had the nice moment at the end with Old Cripsy meeting Young Fresh, but was that scene absolutely necessary?
The major trade off, I guess, is that his living does give a bit of gravitas to his "Space, the final frontier..." voice over at the end. Then again, he gave exactly the same v/o after the first time he died.
In the end, I liked the new movie well enough as is and thought it was a valid new update to a classic set of characters.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
How to Zap-A-Dog Yet Again, Pepe (a.k.a. "Even more Electrical Problems")
Monday night we went to see the new Trek film. I met the wife at the hospital and we drove to the movies from there in her car. On the way home, she lamented that she wished we didn't have to go back to pick up my car, cause that would add another ten minutes to the trip home.
"How bout I just take you to work in the morning and pick up my car then?" I offered. She accepted.
In the morning, we got ready to go and decided to pop by Biscuit World on the way. We decided to let Sadie ride along, because she's a big fan of Biscuit World ever since the day the lady at the drive-through line fed her six pieces of bacon. This act of generosity permanently marked the location on Sadie's internal map of great places to go. She piled in the back of the wife's car, the wife got in the front and I was about to climb in when I remembered I'd not turned off the wireless fence. I stepped back inside, flipped the switch and then went back to the garage where I was met with a series of painful yips and yipes coming from the car. The wife didn't know what was going on at first and thought perhaps the dog had found a bee in the car. I knew instantly, though, that it was Sadie's shock collar.
As she's been taught, Sadie dashed out of the car, no doubt thinking it had somehow become off limits despite its lack of warning flags, and began dancing wildly around the interior of the garage.
Now what I should have done was run back inside and switch the transmitter on again. What I did instead was rush into the garage and try to capture the dog to remove her collar. This was far easier in concept than execution, because the dog was jumping around, fearfully trying to get away from whatever was attacking her and looking at us both in confusion as to what wrong she'd done to deserve such a fate. Within a few seconds I had captured her, but couldn't find the clasp on the collar and managed to get shocked a couple of times in my search for it. Once I got it off, the thing continued to buzz until its 30 second time limit ran out.
My theory on why the collar had begun to shock her is that the wireless fence, when switched off, sends a signal to the collar to go into standby mode, not shocking the dog until such a time as the transmitter signal (or that of another transmitter) is detected. I further think that the metal of the car's frame may have interfered with that signal reaching the collar, so when the transmitter stopped the collar deduced that it was now outside of the boundary and began to shock the dog.
So, reissued memo to self: remember to take the damned collar OFF before going anywhere.
As for my Trek review...
"How bout I just take you to work in the morning and pick up my car then?" I offered. She accepted.
In the morning, we got ready to go and decided to pop by Biscuit World on the way. We decided to let Sadie ride along, because she's a big fan of Biscuit World ever since the day the lady at the drive-through line fed her six pieces of bacon. This act of generosity permanently marked the location on Sadie's internal map of great places to go. She piled in the back of the wife's car, the wife got in the front and I was about to climb in when I remembered I'd not turned off the wireless fence. I stepped back inside, flipped the switch and then went back to the garage where I was met with a series of painful yips and yipes coming from the car. The wife didn't know what was going on at first and thought perhaps the dog had found a bee in the car. I knew instantly, though, that it was Sadie's shock collar.
As she's been taught, Sadie dashed out of the car, no doubt thinking it had somehow become off limits despite its lack of warning flags, and began dancing wildly around the interior of the garage.
Now what I should have done was run back inside and switch the transmitter on again. What I did instead was rush into the garage and try to capture the dog to remove her collar. This was far easier in concept than execution, because the dog was jumping around, fearfully trying to get away from whatever was attacking her and looking at us both in confusion as to what wrong she'd done to deserve such a fate. Within a few seconds I had captured her, but couldn't find the clasp on the collar and managed to get shocked a couple of times in my search for it. Once I got it off, the thing continued to buzz until its 30 second time limit ran out.
My theory on why the collar had begun to shock her is that the wireless fence, when switched off, sends a signal to the collar to go into standby mode, not shocking the dog until such a time as the transmitter signal (or that of another transmitter) is detected. I further think that the metal of the car's frame may have interfered with that signal reaching the collar, so when the transmitter stopped the collar deduced that it was now outside of the boundary and began to shock the dog.
So, reissued memo to self: remember to take the damned collar OFF before going anywhere.
As for my Trek review...
Monday, May 18, 2009
More (Non Baffroom) Electrical Issues
Our television situation is kind of complicated. As I've detailed recently, we use Suddenlink for our internet and phone, but don't use them for our television cable access. Nothing against them in that regard, but we are still very much in bed with Dish Network, due to our love of their fantastic DVR. Having Dish means we still don't get most network TV channels, but we do get FOX and so about all we're missing out on these days are first run episodes of the Office, Scrubs and Lost. We're unwilling to wait for DVD releases when it comes to catching up with Lost, though, so we watch it online at ABC's site. It's kind of a pain, but it actually looks better than on our TV because my computer monitor is high def.
Friday night, we decided to watch us some Lost. And while we were finishing up an episode, the lights in the room began to flicker. In fact, they flickered so much at one point that the monitor went out. It had been raining on and off, but we'd not really heard any thunder, so I wasn't sure why this should be happening. Then, just at the climactic moment of the episode ("He's Our You") blam, the power went out entirely and stayed off. Or so we thought.
When the wife stood up to exit my office, she said, "Uh oh," and pointed down the hall. At the end of the hall we could see the plug in night light blazing away. It's not the kind with battery power. A quick exploration showed that while the office was very much off, much of the rest of the house still had power.
We deduced that the power outage had thrown a breaker or two, so we went to check the box and see what was up. However, despite flipping the master switch on and off and then the individual switches for the rooms without power, no power returned to them. We could think of no reason that this should be happening, as our idea of how electricity works is that you either have it, or you don't, or you have some sort of a serious electrical problem which we hoped did not stem from the amateur electrical work we'd done in the new bathroom over the past couple of weeks. Didn't seem likely, but what did we know?
"I guess we need to call the power company," I said. Both of us thought the power company was likely to tell us it was our problem, not theirs, but perhaps they would have an idea as to why it was happening. I called them. (And, by the way, despite being located in a room that had no power to it, my Suddenlink phone connection still worked due to the nifty battery backup in the modem.)
After getting through the hold queue and talking to a customer service rep, I was amazed when she didn't tell me the problem was my own. Back when I had Verizon, every time I phoned them about a problem, such as static on the line, they always heavily implied that the problem was somehow my fault and out of their control, and that if they sent someone out to check it and it turned out that the problem was not on their end they would charge me out the ass. (For the record: it was ALWAYS a problem on their end.) The power company rep did confirm that we'd already checked the breakers, but didn't call me crazy for asking if a having half our power was something they might be able to fix. She offered to send someone out to check it immediately. Then, as I was walking back toward the den to get a look out the front door to see if any of the street lights were out, I noticed that the living room lights were on again.
"Oh, the power's back," I told the rep. "No, wait, it's gone again," I said as it instantly flickered back off."
"Let me just send someone out to check it," she said.
Within 15 minutes, a truck was at the bottom of our drive and a man was shining spotlights at the power pole we share with our nearest neighbor. We went out into the darkness to watch as he climbed into his cherry picker and ascended to the pole. Presently the lights in our house began to flicker on and off, confirming for us that the problem had not been one of our home's immediate electrical system. Ten minutes later, we had both full power and relief restored to our lives.
Friday night, we decided to watch us some Lost. And while we were finishing up an episode, the lights in the room began to flicker. In fact, they flickered so much at one point that the monitor went out. It had been raining on and off, but we'd not really heard any thunder, so I wasn't sure why this should be happening. Then, just at the climactic moment of the episode ("He's Our You") blam, the power went out entirely and stayed off. Or so we thought.
When the wife stood up to exit my office, she said, "Uh oh," and pointed down the hall. At the end of the hall we could see the plug in night light blazing away. It's not the kind with battery power. A quick exploration showed that while the office was very much off, much of the rest of the house still had power.
We deduced that the power outage had thrown a breaker or two, so we went to check the box and see what was up. However, despite flipping the master switch on and off and then the individual switches for the rooms without power, no power returned to them. We could think of no reason that this should be happening, as our idea of how electricity works is that you either have it, or you don't, or you have some sort of a serious electrical problem which we hoped did not stem from the amateur electrical work we'd done in the new bathroom over the past couple of weeks. Didn't seem likely, but what did we know?
"I guess we need to call the power company," I said. Both of us thought the power company was likely to tell us it was our problem, not theirs, but perhaps they would have an idea as to why it was happening. I called them. (And, by the way, despite being located in a room that had no power to it, my Suddenlink phone connection still worked due to the nifty battery backup in the modem.)
After getting through the hold queue and talking to a customer service rep, I was amazed when she didn't tell me the problem was my own. Back when I had Verizon, every time I phoned them about a problem, such as static on the line, they always heavily implied that the problem was somehow my fault and out of their control, and that if they sent someone out to check it and it turned out that the problem was not on their end they would charge me out the ass. (For the record: it was ALWAYS a problem on their end.) The power company rep did confirm that we'd already checked the breakers, but didn't call me crazy for asking if a having half our power was something they might be able to fix. She offered to send someone out to check it immediately. Then, as I was walking back toward the den to get a look out the front door to see if any of the street lights were out, I noticed that the living room lights were on again.
"Oh, the power's back," I told the rep. "No, wait, it's gone again," I said as it instantly flickered back off."
"Let me just send someone out to check it," she said.
Within 15 minutes, a truck was at the bottom of our drive and a man was shining spotlights at the power pole we share with our nearest neighbor. We went out into the darkness to watch as he climbed into his cherry picker and ascended to the pole. Presently the lights in our house began to flicker on and off, confirming for us that the problem had not been one of our home's immediate electrical system. Ten minutes later, we had both full power and relief restored to our lives.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Oru Baffroom N Howss Adbvwnetru, 17 Again
On Monday morning, I phoned Suddenlink up again and was told a technician had already been assigned to me and would be coming by somewhere between 1p and 5p. At 3:30, he phoned and asked me what the problem seemed to be.
"Well, a big storm came through early Saturday and took out the modem," I said.
"What's it doing?" he asked.
"Nothing. It's dead," I said. "There are no lights on it whatsoever." I'd explained this to at least three other Suddenlink people and was kind of annoyed that none of them seemed to believe me and that they appeared to have not at least made note of my crazy claims for the guy in charge of fixing the problem.
"Is it plugged in?" he asked. Now, had he been there in person, I would have had to give him a long slow burn expression, but I imagine he does have to deal with people who are THAT dumb on occasion. I explained that, yes, it was plugged in and I had, as instructed by the Suddenlink tech help person I had phoned on Saturday, pressed the reset button a number of times to no avail. He said he would be out shortly and asked directions to the house.
Now here's the thing about directions to our house...
We moved to Borderland almost one year ago this month and no sooner had we moved into the house and had alerted all of our utilities, credit cards and magazine subscription-providers to our new address than the post office sent us a note saying that the address was changing to something completely different to comply with local emergency 911 service regulations. Essentially, the little four house cul-de-sac just off the much larger neighborhood main road became its own street. (And on that note, the street address changed from one that was plenty atmospheric to one that was well and truly bland; akin to if our address had formerly been on "Nightshade Lane" but then changed to "Dust Drive.") Still, we complied and alerted all our utilities and credit cards and magazine subscription-providers again. Trouble is, even after a year, no one BUT the post office can find us on a regular basis. It certainly doesn't help that there are still no "Dust Drive" road signs to actually help people find us should they make it up to our street, nor that the major databases uses by FedEx, UPS, Google Maps, etc. don't show us either. In fact, upon not being able to locate us recently, FedEx had contacted the local Emergency 911 to ask them the location of our street and were told that 911 didn't know either. Mmm, can you feel the love, devotion and security?
Because of all this, we've now become accustomed to giving directions to everyone and have simplified it by telling people that as soon as they turn onto Nightshade Lane they are to drive until they see houses on the right, the third of which is us.
"So, drive to the top of the hill and then the third house?" the technician said after I'd relayed the above directions. Never mind that my neighborhood is nothing but rolling hills and one could really argue where the "top of the hill" is, as opposed to all the other tops of the hills.
"No," I said. "Once you're on Nightshade, you drive until you see houses on the right and then we're the third one."
I then went outside and, after a few minutes, watched as he drove right past all four houses on the right and on up "the hill."
"Hey, you drove right past us," I said, after phoning him back at the number he'd phoned me from.
"I thought I was supposed to go to the top of the hill."
"No. We're the third house on the right."
Once the man had finally arrived in my driveway, he seemed to have a lot more on the ball than I'd initially given him credit for. He explained that our interruption in service was one of hundreds in the area and he and his brethren had been working nonstop. He took one look at the dark modem, pressed the reset button a couple of times, unplugged it a couple of times and saw that, just as I'd been telling Suddenlink for three days, it was dead.
"Aw, man," he said. "This is going to take four hours."
Whoa, I thought. Here I had expected it to be a simple switchout of equipment. Surely he didn't mean he'd have to be here for four hours? Turned out, this was not what he meant. Instead, he said it was possible that it would take four hours for the folks at Suddenlink central to get all the information from the old modem piped over to the new one. I could definitely live with that. He installed the new modem and phoned up his HQ to tell them to turn it on. He then said, "Do you have anywhere you have to be right now?"
"No," I said.
He then explained that if I didn't mind, he wanted to wait until 4p to see if SL HQ could get at least most of the connection reestablished by then. He said there was a chance it would take four hours but there was also a chance it would only take four minutes, it just depended on where I was in line. I said this was fine, then realized it was only 3:45, which meant we would probably have 15 minutes of waiting ahead of us during which I'd have to make small talk. To pass the time, I told him how our lack of internet had given us plenty of non-distracted time to put in our garage work bench and finish up some new bathroom renovations. That took all of thirty seconds, though, so I then described some of the problems in installing the new bathroom light. He commiserated with me on the difficulty of installing tile correctly and how renovations generally suck. Eventually, I realized I probably needed to shut up about the renovations, because sooner or later it wouldn't make any sense not to show them to him and that would mean leading him through our bedroom, which is still a total wreck.
At 3:59, both the internet and phone returned, just like we'd hoped and both worked.
I have to say that despite the delays in repairs, I am still quite happy with my Suddenlink service. As far as utility companies go, they've always been quite nice on the phone and on the rare occasion that I've had problems, such as some initial dropped calls with the phone service, they looked into it and fixed the problem. In fact, they've already offered me credit for the lost service due to the blowed up modem.
I still haven't seen Star Trek, though.
"Well, a big storm came through early Saturday and took out the modem," I said.
"What's it doing?" he asked.
"Nothing. It's dead," I said. "There are no lights on it whatsoever." I'd explained this to at least three other Suddenlink people and was kind of annoyed that none of them seemed to believe me and that they appeared to have not at least made note of my crazy claims for the guy in charge of fixing the problem.
"Is it plugged in?" he asked. Now, had he been there in person, I would have had to give him a long slow burn expression, but I imagine he does have to deal with people who are THAT dumb on occasion. I explained that, yes, it was plugged in and I had, as instructed by the Suddenlink tech help person I had phoned on Saturday, pressed the reset button a number of times to no avail. He said he would be out shortly and asked directions to the house.
Now here's the thing about directions to our house...
We moved to Borderland almost one year ago this month and no sooner had we moved into the house and had alerted all of our utilities, credit cards and magazine subscription-providers to our new address than the post office sent us a note saying that the address was changing to something completely different to comply with local emergency 911 service regulations. Essentially, the little four house cul-de-sac just off the much larger neighborhood main road became its own street. (And on that note, the street address changed from one that was plenty atmospheric to one that was well and truly bland; akin to if our address had formerly been on "Nightshade Lane" but then changed to "Dust Drive.") Still, we complied and alerted all our utilities and credit cards and magazine subscription-providers again. Trouble is, even after a year, no one BUT the post office can find us on a regular basis. It certainly doesn't help that there are still no "Dust Drive" road signs to actually help people find us should they make it up to our street, nor that the major databases uses by FedEx, UPS, Google Maps, etc. don't show us either. In fact, upon not being able to locate us recently, FedEx had contacted the local Emergency 911 to ask them the location of our street and were told that 911 didn't know either. Mmm, can you feel the love, devotion and security?
Because of all this, we've now become accustomed to giving directions to everyone and have simplified it by telling people that as soon as they turn onto Nightshade Lane they are to drive until they see houses on the right, the third of which is us.
"So, drive to the top of the hill and then the third house?" the technician said after I'd relayed the above directions. Never mind that my neighborhood is nothing but rolling hills and one could really argue where the "top of the hill" is, as opposed to all the other tops of the hills.
"No," I said. "Once you're on Nightshade, you drive until you see houses on the right and then we're the third one."
I then went outside and, after a few minutes, watched as he drove right past all four houses on the right and on up "the hill."
"Hey, you drove right past us," I said, after phoning him back at the number he'd phoned me from.
"I thought I was supposed to go to the top of the hill."
"No. We're the third house on the right."
Once the man had finally arrived in my driveway, he seemed to have a lot more on the ball than I'd initially given him credit for. He explained that our interruption in service was one of hundreds in the area and he and his brethren had been working nonstop. He took one look at the dark modem, pressed the reset button a couple of times, unplugged it a couple of times and saw that, just as I'd been telling Suddenlink for three days, it was dead.
"Aw, man," he said. "This is going to take four hours."
Whoa, I thought. Here I had expected it to be a simple switchout of equipment. Surely he didn't mean he'd have to be here for four hours? Turned out, this was not what he meant. Instead, he said it was possible that it would take four hours for the folks at Suddenlink central to get all the information from the old modem piped over to the new one. I could definitely live with that. He installed the new modem and phoned up his HQ to tell them to turn it on. He then said, "Do you have anywhere you have to be right now?"
"No," I said.
He then explained that if I didn't mind, he wanted to wait until 4p to see if SL HQ could get at least most of the connection reestablished by then. He said there was a chance it would take four hours but there was also a chance it would only take four minutes, it just depended on where I was in line. I said this was fine, then realized it was only 3:45, which meant we would probably have 15 minutes of waiting ahead of us during which I'd have to make small talk. To pass the time, I told him how our lack of internet had given us plenty of non-distracted time to put in our garage work bench and finish up some new bathroom renovations. That took all of thirty seconds, though, so I then described some of the problems in installing the new bathroom light. He commiserated with me on the difficulty of installing tile correctly and how renovations generally suck. Eventually, I realized I probably needed to shut up about the renovations, because sooner or later it wouldn't make any sense not to show them to him and that would mean leading him through our bedroom, which is still a total wreck.
At 3:59, both the internet and phone returned, just like we'd hoped and both worked.
I have to say that despite the delays in repairs, I am still quite happy with my Suddenlink service. As far as utility companies go, they've always been quite nice on the phone and on the rare occasion that I've had problems, such as some initial dropped calls with the phone service, they looked into it and fixed the problem. In fact, they've already offered me credit for the lost service due to the blowed up modem.
I still haven't seen Star Trek, though.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Oru Baffroom N Howss Adbvwnetru, Sweet 16
On Sunday morning, having heard nothing from Suddenlink despite being promised that we would, I gave them a call. They seemed surprised that we’d not been contacted, but pointed out that local offices probably had fewer technicians on the weekend and even fewer on mother’s day. They said they would put a dispatch order through to the local office and give them instructions to give me a call immediately about the situation. Going without internet was one thing; going without phone was another. (Never mind that I was calling them on a cell phone from my home, so it wasn’t like I was without communication ability.)
Early afternoon, we started on the new bathroom lamp.
We'd been in love with the new bathroom lamp from the moment we'd first seen it online. And, in person, it was just as impressive as we'd hoped. Our major theme in the new bathroom—beyond the muted green, white and earth tones color-scheme—is chrome and this light certainly qualifies in that department. It looks like three smoked glass flying saucers, each wrapped in a ribbon of chrome, suspended beneath two horizontal, deco-lookin’, curved chrome bars that are attached to a chrome wall-mount disc at the rear of the structure. It's a modern twist on classic design elements that we think tie in well with the antique-ish looking fixtures. (And, on that note, we even contacted Price Pfister about the fact that the sink faucet drain pull and the tub faucet drain pull, both from the same exact line of bathroom fixtures, DO NOT MATCH. They seemed surprised by this, but agreed to send us a replacement in the design we like for free. Yay Price Pfister!)
Naturally, as our lack of preparation had come to bite us when it came to the dimensions of the vanity, only after the light was in hand did it occur to us that it might not fit the space in which it was to be installed. Our new vanity is in the corner of the bathroom, and is more or less affixed to the wall with caulk and by the relatively immovable pipes beneath. We hadn’t measured the space before ordering the light, so it was very possible that the mid point of the light in relation to the side wall would be well to the left of the midpoint of the sink below it, throwing off our groove. Fortunately, things worked out well and it lined up almost perfectly, even leaving a little space between it and the wall. Unfortunately, we’d not counted on the fact that the three flying saucers hang well below the level that our crappy old single-bar light had previously, meaning the new lights would essentially hang in the face of whomever stood at the sink and would block off a great portion of any mirror installed there. We would have to raise the installation point with the wall, it seemed.
Again, though, the wires leading to the light were threaded down from the attic, so we knew we could raise it without much problem. We even went so far as to buy an electrical box in advance, which we thought we would need to anchor the light. Turned out, though, that there was a stud just to the left of the ideal installation point, which would have required the box be set in too far to the right for the light to actually fit in the space. Instead, we just cut a small roundish hole where we wanted the light to be installed, pulled a loop of the bound wires through it and, with
the breaker securely turned off, cut it there. Then we affixed the lamp’s mounting disc to the wall, connected the proper wires and fastened the lamp housing to the disc. Super sweet. A short time later and we had all three lamps aglowing in their new home and the whole thing looked fantastic and cast a very cool glow over our carefully chosen cool color scheme. (The picture at right does not do the light justice, as the glow cast by it is not really yellowish at all and does not depict the color of the paint well.)
Late in the afternoon, having heard nothing from Suddenlink, I gave them another call. Again they seemed mystified that I had not been contacted by the locals, as the lack of phone service was an issue that was supposed to be moved on within 24 hours and we were already pushing 36. They said they would bypass all their previous methods (email, I think) and put a call in directly to our local branch and give them the what for. Hopefully, they said, we would be contacted very quickly. However, if we’d not heard anything by 7p, they were likely not going to come and would get to us first thing on Monday. And, of course, we heard nothing, so I was again stifled in my hope to see either a matinee of Star Trek or even the 7p show. We had to make do with takeout and an evening watching Slumdog Millionaire.
I really liked the movie, but found it difficult to watch the depictions of poverty and exploitation while sitting my comfy home, eating an Outback cheeseburger and drinking a Sam Adams while still whining internally about our lack of phone service for two whole days and how I'd missed out on spending what has become a stupid amount of money on movie tickets to see Star Trek.
(2 B Continued...)
Early afternoon, we started on the new bathroom lamp.
We'd been in love with the new bathroom lamp from the moment we'd first seen it online. And, in person, it was just as impressive as we'd hoped. Our major theme in the new bathroom—beyond the muted green, white and earth tones color-scheme—is chrome and this light certainly qualifies in that department. It looks like three smoked glass flying saucers, each wrapped in a ribbon of chrome, suspended beneath two horizontal, deco-lookin’, curved chrome bars that are attached to a chrome wall-mount disc at the rear of the structure. It's a modern twist on classic design elements that we think tie in well with the antique-ish looking fixtures. (And, on that note, we even contacted Price Pfister about the fact that the sink faucet drain pull and the tub faucet drain pull, both from the same exact line of bathroom fixtures, DO NOT MATCH. They seemed surprised by this, but agreed to send us a replacement in the design we like for free. Yay Price Pfister!)
Naturally, as our lack of preparation had come to bite us when it came to the dimensions of the vanity, only after the light was in hand did it occur to us that it might not fit the space in which it was to be installed. Our new vanity is in the corner of the bathroom, and is more or less affixed to the wall with caulk and by the relatively immovable pipes beneath. We hadn’t measured the space before ordering the light, so it was very possible that the mid point of the light in relation to the side wall would be well to the left of the midpoint of the sink below it, throwing off our groove. Fortunately, things worked out well and it lined up almost perfectly, even leaving a little space between it and the wall. Unfortunately, we’d not counted on the fact that the three flying saucers hang well below the level that our crappy old single-bar light had previously, meaning the new lights would essentially hang in the face of whomever stood at the sink and would block off a great portion of any mirror installed there. We would have to raise the installation point with the wall, it seemed.
Again, though, the wires leading to the light were threaded down from the attic, so we knew we could raise it without much problem. We even went so far as to buy an electrical box in advance, which we thought we would need to anchor the light. Turned out, though, that there was a stud just to the left of the ideal installation point, which would have required the box be set in too far to the right for the light to actually fit in the space. Instead, we just cut a small roundish hole where we wanted the light to be installed, pulled a loop of the bound wires through it and, with
the breaker securely turned off, cut it there. Then we affixed the lamp’s mounting disc to the wall, connected the proper wires and fastened the lamp housing to the disc. Super sweet. A short time later and we had all three lamps aglowing in their new home and the whole thing looked fantastic and cast a very cool glow over our carefully chosen cool color scheme. (The picture at right does not do the light justice, as the glow cast by it is not really yellowish at all and does not depict the color of the paint well.)Late in the afternoon, having heard nothing from Suddenlink, I gave them another call. Again they seemed mystified that I had not been contacted by the locals, as the lack of phone service was an issue that was supposed to be moved on within 24 hours and we were already pushing 36. They said they would bypass all their previous methods (email, I think) and put a call in directly to our local branch and give them the what for. Hopefully, they said, we would be contacted very quickly. However, if we’d not heard anything by 7p, they were likely not going to come and would get to us first thing on Monday. And, of course, we heard nothing, so I was again stifled in my hope to see either a matinee of Star Trek or even the 7p show. We had to make do with takeout and an evening watching Slumdog Millionaire.
I really liked the movie, but found it difficult to watch the depictions of poverty and exploitation while sitting my comfy home, eating an Outback cheeseburger and drinking a Sam Adams while still whining internally about our lack of phone service for two whole days and how I'd missed out on spending what has become a stupid amount of money on movie tickets to see Star Trek.
(2 B Continued...)
Monday, May 11, 2009
Oru Baffroom N Howss Adbvwnetru Part 150
As you might have seen in the news, there’s been some nasty weather in my neck of the country over the past few days. It began on Friday night with what felt like some light rain that increased in heaviness as the night wore on. Somewhere in the wee hours of Saturday morning this turned into a thunderstorm, though the wife and I didn’t know it right away being as how we were asleep. Our first inkling that we were in a storm came when a bolt of lighting struck very close to our house, so close, in fact, that the very first thunderbolt we heard was of the deafening, pants-poopingly terrifying variety. I mean, imagine the two of us just snoozing away only to be awakened by what sounded like the end of the world. My wife later said that she thought a tree had hit the house, but noticed that nothing was shaking, whereas my first thought was “EARTHQUAKE!!!” before also realizing that nothing was shaking. Then the mighty burst began to recede and we could hear more thundery undertones to it (thundertones?) and our hearts began to beat once more.
Sadie dog was nowhere to be found in our bedroom, so we called to her and quickly she came dashing in from elsewhere in the house where she had, no doubt, been cowering in fear at what was probably her first major thunderclap like that. She climbed gratefully into bed with us and seemed pretty shaken, so we pet her and told her she was a good dog to calm her.
Of course, none of us were exactly sleepy after our scare, so we got up to make sure there were no flaming trees outside about to fall on the house and there were none.
The following morning, we decided to check the weather online and found that while the computer was fine, the Suddenlink cable modem, which also provides our telephone service, was completely off with no lights to be seen. A quick cell call to Suddenlink told us that they too could detect no signal from us and since telephone service is first priority with them they would send a tech out ASAP. We were told one should be in contact with us shortly. Great. There went my plans to go see Star Trek at a matinée.
With no internet or phones and with us being effectively trapped in the house, the wife and I began looking for projects. Oh, sure, we could fuss with the bathroom a little, but because our new over-the-sink light had not yet arrived, there wasn’t much we could do other than install some base-board we don’t have or put up the new bathroom door that we’ve been avoiding having to do, cause damn if we ever feel like doing the amount of precise measuring, drilling and chiseling that job will require. So the wife and I turned to the next major household project on our list, one which we’d planned to tackle immediately after the bathroom anyway—putting up some pegboard in the garage to hold all the new tools we’ve had to buy to put in this bathroom in the first place.
I’ve long wanted some pegboard in the garage, as the multiple plastic shelving units the house came with are full of tools and crap that take up valuable shelf-space that could be used to store other crap we’d rather not have in the house proper. My only problem is that I couldn’t decide the optimum location to put the pegboard. Nearly every wall had either plastic stack shelving or wooden bracket shelving in front of it or on it and there is a criminal lack of electrical outlets along the entire back wall. The wife, being a wise gal, suggested ditching all the shelving in one of the corners by the doors, mounting pegboard there and then combine the old bathroom vanity cabinet (which I’d been we’d saving for just such a use) and the old bathroom door (which I’d not considered using), to make a workbench. And almost without any hitches, this project worked like a dream. The old vanity, with the addition of some new 2x4 legs to increase its height, made for a perfect bench body and the old door made a great work surface, perfectly fitting into the space we wanted and made secure by the inclusion of some wooden supports on the unsupported end. With some prudent jigsawing, we also managed to fit in one of our old flat-pack bookshelves to hold power tools. Within mere hours we had a beautiful new workbench and pegboard area. I was frankly blown away by my wife’s genius idea and how simple it had been to turn one corner of the garage into a functional new area.
Then, as we were putting the finishing touches on the workbench and were rearranging the other garage crap (not to mention trying to find all the tools scattered throughout the house that now had a home on the pegboard), FedEx arrived with our new bathroom light. The wife wanted to install it immediately, but I talked her into waiting until after dinner, which we didn’t even get to until nearly 8 p.m. due to our finishing touches on the garage and the fact that at some point during the day one of the sensors on my remote controlled garage door opener stopped working meaning it would no longer raise and lower on command. We couldn’t find a break in the line or any evidence of a short, so we gave up for the day and left for supper. By then, I was pretty sure Suddenlink wasn’t going to show. And after we’d returned from dinner and set about installing the lamp, we quickly realized that it was a project that was not destined to go quite as smoothly.
(2BCONTINUED)
Sadie dog was nowhere to be found in our bedroom, so we called to her and quickly she came dashing in from elsewhere in the house where she had, no doubt, been cowering in fear at what was probably her first major thunderclap like that. She climbed gratefully into bed with us and seemed pretty shaken, so we pet her and told her she was a good dog to calm her.
Of course, none of us were exactly sleepy after our scare, so we got up to make sure there were no flaming trees outside about to fall on the house and there were none.
The following morning, we decided to check the weather online and found that while the computer was fine, the Suddenlink cable modem, which also provides our telephone service, was completely off with no lights to be seen. A quick cell call to Suddenlink told us that they too could detect no signal from us and since telephone service is first priority with them they would send a tech out ASAP. We were told one should be in contact with us shortly. Great. There went my plans to go see Star Trek at a matinée.
With no internet or phones and with us being effectively trapped in the house, the wife and I began looking for projects. Oh, sure, we could fuss with the bathroom a little, but because our new over-the-sink light had not yet arrived, there wasn’t much we could do other than install some base-board we don’t have or put up the new bathroom door that we’ve been avoiding having to do, cause damn if we ever feel like doing the amount of precise measuring, drilling and chiseling that job will require. So the wife and I turned to the next major household project on our list, one which we’d planned to tackle immediately after the bathroom anyway—putting up some pegboard in the garage to hold all the new tools we’ve had to buy to put in this bathroom in the first place.
I’ve long wanted some pegboard in the garage, as the multiple plastic shelving units the house came with are full of tools and crap that take up valuable shelf-space that could be used to store other crap we’d rather not have in the house proper. My only problem is that I couldn’t decide the optimum location to put the pegboard. Nearly every wall had either plastic stack shelving or wooden bracket shelving in front of it or on it and there is a criminal lack of electrical outlets along the entire back wall. The wife, being a wise gal, suggested ditching all the shelving in one of the corners by the doors, mounting pegboard there and then combine the old bathroom vanity cabinet (which I’d been we’d saving for just such a use) and the old bathroom door (which I’d not considered using), to make a workbench. And almost without any hitches, this project worked like a dream. The old vanity, with the addition of some new 2x4 legs to increase its height, made for a perfect bench body and the old door made a great work surface, perfectly fitting into the space we wanted and made secure by the inclusion of some wooden supports on the unsupported end. With some prudent jigsawing, we also managed to fit in one of our old flat-pack bookshelves to hold power tools. Within mere hours we had a beautiful new workbench and pegboard area. I was frankly blown away by my wife’s genius idea and how simple it had been to turn one corner of the garage into a functional new area.Then, as we were putting the finishing touches on the workbench and were rearranging the other garage crap (not to mention trying to find all the tools scattered throughout the house that now had a home on the pegboard), FedEx arrived with our new bathroom light. The wife wanted to install it immediately, but I talked her into waiting until after dinner, which we didn’t even get to until nearly 8 p.m. due to our finishing touches on the garage and the fact that at some point during the day one of the sensors on my remote controlled garage door opener stopped working meaning it would no longer raise and lower on command. We couldn’t find a break in the line or any evidence of a short, so we gave up for the day and left for supper. By then, I was pretty sure Suddenlink wasn’t going to show. And after we’d returned from dinner and set about installing the lamp, we quickly realized that it was a project that was not destined to go quite as smoothly.
(2BCONTINUED)
Friday, May 8, 2009
Don't-Actually-Zap-A-Dog-But-Threaten-To-Zap-A-Dog (Zap-A-Dog Week Part 4)
Back when we first got Sadie, she was tiny enough to fit beneath the back deck of our house, which is one of these low to the ground decks not designed for animal traffic beneath them. It used to drive me crazy that she would do this there because I could imagine all manner of venomous serpents living under there, ready to strike any unwise puppies who happened to like sniffing and thrashing through the leaves and muck. We tried to head this off by putting logs and large rocks along most of the lower bits of deck edging and full on foot-wide boards along the higher bits, but there was still one section beneath a part of the house that juts out over one of the flower beds that we could never seem to successfully wall off which she could still squeeze through.
Of course, when we returned from our July spent out of state, the dog realized with great frustration that she had grown so much in the intervening month that she couldn't fit under any of it, so we stopped worrying. And, some time during the winter, we even removed the boards from the higher section of the deck, thinking there was no way Sadie could squeeze under there.
We were wrong.
A few weeks back, I heard the crunching and scuffling of leaves from beneath the deck and realized that Sadie had indeed squeezed under there and was actively getting as filthy as she could manage. It wasn't really snaky weather, yet, so I wasn't too concerned, but wanted her out all the same, on principle. With the application of Pupperonis I was able to coax her over to the edge where she spent ten minutes teasing me and snatching bites until I was at last able to grab a paw and haul her out. Still, I failed to replace the boards, thinking this was somehow a one off.
A few days after installing the wireless fence, Sadie dashed back under the deck. It was rainy out and I didn't want to have to give her a damned bath from all the mud she would no doubt wallow in, so I very intelligently stood atop the deck and screamed at her through it to no avail. It then occurred to me that a timely scare might work wonders.
I stole away to the wireless fence transmitter in the laundry room and, after some consideration make certain I was not about to act too unethically, I quickly dialed the fence's field range from its highest setting of 8 down to 1 and then immediately back up to 8. In theory, this would reduce the wireless fence from a radius of 90 feet down to 5 feet and then back again. The key to my plan was that the sudden reduction would set off the warning alarm on Sadie's collar without actually shocking her, prompting her to take action.
Worked like a dream.
Almost as soon as I'd dialed the fence back up to 8, I heard a sudden THUNK as Sadie bonked her noggin on the underside of the deck in fright at the sudden BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPing coming from her collar. And, miliseconds later, she was topside and looking relieved at her collar's silence.
I told the wife what I'd done and we laughed and laughed and laughed. Then we put a baby gate over the space beneath the deck to block it until I can find some suitably large rocks. Now that I consider it, though, it would probably be just as effective if we just planted one of the wireless fence border flags there, instead.
Of course, when we returned from our July spent out of state, the dog realized with great frustration that she had grown so much in the intervening month that she couldn't fit under any of it, so we stopped worrying. And, some time during the winter, we even removed the boards from the higher section of the deck, thinking there was no way Sadie could squeeze under there.
We were wrong.
A few weeks back, I heard the crunching and scuffling of leaves from beneath the deck and realized that Sadie had indeed squeezed under there and was actively getting as filthy as she could manage. It wasn't really snaky weather, yet, so I wasn't too concerned, but wanted her out all the same, on principle. With the application of Pupperonis I was able to coax her over to the edge where she spent ten minutes teasing me and snatching bites until I was at last able to grab a paw and haul her out. Still, I failed to replace the boards, thinking this was somehow a one off.
A few days after installing the wireless fence, Sadie dashed back under the deck. It was rainy out and I didn't want to have to give her a damned bath from all the mud she would no doubt wallow in, so I very intelligently stood atop the deck and screamed at her through it to no avail. It then occurred to me that a timely scare might work wonders.
I stole away to the wireless fence transmitter in the laundry room and, after some consideration make certain I was not about to act too unethically, I quickly dialed the fence's field range from its highest setting of 8 down to 1 and then immediately back up to 8. In theory, this would reduce the wireless fence from a radius of 90 feet down to 5 feet and then back again. The key to my plan was that the sudden reduction would set off the warning alarm on Sadie's collar without actually shocking her, prompting her to take action.
Worked like a dream.
Almost as soon as I'd dialed the fence back up to 8, I heard a sudden THUNK as Sadie bonked her noggin on the underside of the deck in fright at the sudden BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPing coming from her collar. And, miliseconds later, she was topside and looking relieved at her collar's silence.
I told the wife what I'd done and we laughed and laughed and laughed. Then we put a baby gate over the space beneath the deck to block it until I can find some suitably large rocks. Now that I consider it, though, it would probably be just as effective if we just planted one of the wireless fence border flags there, instead.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Zapping-A-Dog Yet Again
I've discovered some more bits of advice for owners of the wireless fence: it's a good idea to remove the correction collar when taking your dog ANYWHERE outside of your yard regardless of whether or not you first remembered to turn off the transmitter--but especially if you didn't
Couple of examples...
My dog is fond of daily walks in my neighborhood, but there are a couple of different routes I can take her on depending on my mood. One is downhill for the first half, then back up, and the other is uphill for the first half, then back down. Since installing the wireless fence, we've only gone the downhill route, which passes by fewer houses than the uphill route. A couple days back, I took her out (making certain to turn off the transmitter first) and we went the uphill route. Everything was fine on our way up the hill, but upon our return trip, Sadie strayed too close to the property line of a neighbor who, it turns out, has the wired version of the invisible fence installed. Sadie stepped onto his driveway and crossed the wire he'd embedded in it, which put her in the warning zone of his yard. Her collar immediately began beeping, causing Sadie to freak out because she didn't know which way to run. I didn't realize what was happening, at first, because I had my earbuds in, but I could see the dog was distressed, made the proper deduction and unhooked her collar without shocking myself.
Example Two: Sadie LOVES to go on car rides. So while the weather is still fairly cool, I've been taking her on all my errands. One day, two weeks back, I decided my car had reached the saturation point of exterior filth and was in need of a scrubbing. I thought it would be fun to go through a car wash and see what Sadie thought of it. I paid the automated system and drove into the car wash, and it started up, at which point Sadie freaked out. She whined and growled and barked as the rag rollers began slapping against the windshield and roof. After a few seconds of this, though, she leaped from the back seat into the front and climbed into the front passenger floor, where she curled up, practically burying her head beneath her paws. She only stayed there for a few seconds, though, before jumping into the back seat again, where she worriedly growled at the massive creatures attacking the car, then jumped back in the front floor. This happened three or four times during the process, but we were sort of in it for the long haul at that point, so I could only pet her try and reassure her that it was okay and that she was a good dog. We think the front passenger floor is her place of refuge, because that's where she used to always ride when she was a small puppy and that's where we found her cowering one day this winter when we parked near the door of a Cracker Barrel and suspect she was startled by the other customers walking past the car or by someone trying to talk to her through the window.
Jump ahead to yesterday. I have an errand, I have a dog that wants to go, I let her in the car, back out of the garage and head down the driveway like normal. Just past the warning flags, Sadie wedged herself atop the arm rest between the two front seats, right in my way.
"Get in the back," I told her. She didn't budge. "Get in the back!" I said, pushing her with my elbow. She remained. "Get in the damned back!!" I shouted. This time, she leaped between the seats and hopped into the front passenger floor, where she spun around facing me, then sat down in her best straight-backed "LOOK, I'M BEING A GOOD DOG" pose and appeared very very concerned. Only then did I notice the beepbeepbeepbeepbeep coming from her collar and realized I'd forgotten to turn off the transmitter.
I stopped the car, pulled the collar off of her and then spent a minute apologizing, saying things like "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Pa did not mean to shock a dog!" while she did the I'm a Good Dog dance all over the front seat.
Couple of examples...
My dog is fond of daily walks in my neighborhood, but there are a couple of different routes I can take her on depending on my mood. One is downhill for the first half, then back up, and the other is uphill for the first half, then back down. Since installing the wireless fence, we've only gone the downhill route, which passes by fewer houses than the uphill route. A couple days back, I took her out (making certain to turn off the transmitter first) and we went the uphill route. Everything was fine on our way up the hill, but upon our return trip, Sadie strayed too close to the property line of a neighbor who, it turns out, has the wired version of the invisible fence installed. Sadie stepped onto his driveway and crossed the wire he'd embedded in it, which put her in the warning zone of his yard. Her collar immediately began beeping, causing Sadie to freak out because she didn't know which way to run. I didn't realize what was happening, at first, because I had my earbuds in, but I could see the dog was distressed, made the proper deduction and unhooked her collar without shocking myself.
Example Two: Sadie LOVES to go on car rides. So while the weather is still fairly cool, I've been taking her on all my errands. One day, two weeks back, I decided my car had reached the saturation point of exterior filth and was in need of a scrubbing. I thought it would be fun to go through a car wash and see what Sadie thought of it. I paid the automated system and drove into the car wash, and it started up, at which point Sadie freaked out. She whined and growled and barked as the rag rollers began slapping against the windshield and roof. After a few seconds of this, though, she leaped from the back seat into the front and climbed into the front passenger floor, where she curled up, practically burying her head beneath her paws. She only stayed there for a few seconds, though, before jumping into the back seat again, where she worriedly growled at the massive creatures attacking the car, then jumped back in the front floor. This happened three or four times during the process, but we were sort of in it for the long haul at that point, so I could only pet her try and reassure her that it was okay and that she was a good dog. We think the front passenger floor is her place of refuge, because that's where she used to always ride when she was a small puppy and that's where we found her cowering one day this winter when we parked near the door of a Cracker Barrel and suspect she was startled by the other customers walking past the car or by someone trying to talk to her through the window.
Jump ahead to yesterday. I have an errand, I have a dog that wants to go, I let her in the car, back out of the garage and head down the driveway like normal. Just past the warning flags, Sadie wedged herself atop the arm rest between the two front seats, right in my way.
"Get in the back," I told her. She didn't budge. "Get in the back!" I said, pushing her with my elbow. She remained. "Get in the damned back!!" I shouted. This time, she leaped between the seats and hopped into the front passenger floor, where she spun around facing me, then sat down in her best straight-backed "LOOK, I'M BEING A GOOD DOG" pose and appeared very very concerned. Only then did I notice the beepbeepbeepbeepbeep coming from her collar and realized I'd forgotten to turn off the transmitter.
I stopped the car, pulled the collar off of her and then spent a minute apologizing, saying things like "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Pa did not mean to shock a dog!" while she did the I'm a Good Dog dance all over the front seat.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Zap-Another-Dog
The instructions for our dog-zapper fence indicated that the collar's default setting was at level 1, which only emits a warning beep. It suggested that the collar's correction level be set to level 2 for training, instead of level 4 which provided the maximum voltage. I mentioned this to the wife as we were initially exploring our box of wireless fence. I also read her the part that suggested that level 4 might be necessary for overly energetic dogs and how I thought Sadie might qualify. And while I saw the wife messing with the collar later, I didn't think she'd changed the levels at all.
On the first evening of owning the system, I turned it on and set it for the maximum boundary area (#8) and went outside to trace the safe zone by walking until the collar beeped and then planting a flag along the perimeter. The system actually sets up a shockless warning zone at the outer edge of the safe area where the collar will simply beep. If you stray further than that, the collar will continue beeping and give a warning shock and will continue administering shocks until the collar returns to the safe zone or 30 seconds passes, after which it shuts down. I couldn't tell, of course, if the collar was actually giving off any shocks, just from the beeping, so I stepped across the boundary beyond the warning zone and touched it. It gave off a very strong shock--powerful enough that I jerked my hand away. That would definitely get a dog's attention, but if that was level 2, I'd hate to see level 4.
What I didn't know was that the collar was actually set on level 4. It's not the sort of thing you can tell by looking at it, because changing the levels is done by pressing a single button until the proper number of flashes occur on the collar's LED light, alerting you to the current level. Evidently, the wife had adjusted it to 4 or it was simply set there when we bought it.
Still unaware of the level, I soon saw just how much the dog's attention was captured by level 4 when I allowed her to step across the boundary for a test shock. At first, she just heard the warning beep, telling her she was in the warning area. I told her to come back and, as usual, she ignored me and kept going until the shock kicked in. She yelped, nearly flipped in the air and then practically fell over trying to get away from whatever had clearly just stung her on the neck.
I felt awful. I took her in the house and gave her a Pupperoni and told her she was a good dog. I then sat down with the collar, was horrified when it flashed four times when I tested the setting. I changed it to level 2 and tested that on myself, too. It was still uncomfortable, but far less powerful than level 4.
The wife and I had to do some reconfiguring of the safe-zone to fully encompass our back yard and partially cover the upper part of the front. This basically involved moving the transmitter from the garage to the laundry room. After that we planted flags around it, noticing how our safe zone flags seemed to match up nicely with the ones remaining from the previous owners--which might mean they had the same system. The only problem area seemed to be at the driveway, where there was something of a dead zone that refused to beep. In fact, the wife walked most of the way down the driveway before the collar kicked in. We thought this might be a problem.
Now, while it was certainly not a fun experience for Sadie to be shocked at level 4, it might have been a good thing in the long run. It only took two real training sessions from us and she pretty much knew to stay away from the flags. I don't think she was even shocked a second time, as she had learned to associate the beep from her collar with "get the hell out" and would run back toward the house whenever she heard it.
After her second training session, I thought she seemed pretty clear on the whole stay away from the flag system, so I decided to do an early road test and see how things went. I unclipped her leash and let her free. For about half an hour, Sadie stayed with me in the back yard and played and chased the water stream from the hose while I was trying to water the grass seed I'd planted. Then, just as I was ready to head back inside, she looked over toward the neighbor's house, did the "I'm not on my line" math and bolted. I walked to the edge of the house to see how this played. Sadie made it all the way in front of the next door neighbor's house before the collar began shocking her, at which point she gave a sudden jerk, stopped and looked back in my direction.
"Come on back, Sadie," I called. She then turned and ran as fast as she could back to our yard, then came up to me and did the "Am I a good dog?" dance.
"That's the way it's gonna be," I told her.
We've now had a week of solid use for the wireless fence and we still like it a lot. Sadie does, too, cause now she can go pretty much where she wants and has a lot of space to run and play. She still tests the system now and again. For instance, being a smart dog, she's discovered the dead-zone in the driveway and has dashed through it a few times. She can usually make it nearly to the bottom of the driveway before the collar kicks in. This gives her an extra long run back up the hill to get in the safe zone, assuring her a couple of shocks in the process.
We've also discovered that instinct overpowers pain, as she willingly ran through the barrier in pursuit of some deer. She got 30 seconds of shocks with that one, but kept right on chasing her adversary until the collar shut down. She returned to the yard, soon enough, and the collar kicked back on. I suppose if we have too many such incidents we'll have to raise her level to 3.
Finally, we don't think we'll have to buy a battery backup for the system after all. I think PetSafe has made some improvements over the one our vet told us about, because we've unplugged the transmitter to move it while Sadie was wearing the collar and there were no accompanying beeps or shocks.
If any of you were on the fence about buying such a product, it certainly has my household's endorsement. It's pricey to be sure, but far cheaper than installing an actual fence around a half-acre.
On the first evening of owning the system, I turned it on and set it for the maximum boundary area (#8) and went outside to trace the safe zone by walking until the collar beeped and then planting a flag along the perimeter. The system actually sets up a shockless warning zone at the outer edge of the safe area where the collar will simply beep. If you stray further than that, the collar will continue beeping and give a warning shock and will continue administering shocks until the collar returns to the safe zone or 30 seconds passes, after which it shuts down. I couldn't tell, of course, if the collar was actually giving off any shocks, just from the beeping, so I stepped across the boundary beyond the warning zone and touched it. It gave off a very strong shock--powerful enough that I jerked my hand away. That would definitely get a dog's attention, but if that was level 2, I'd hate to see level 4.
What I didn't know was that the collar was actually set on level 4. It's not the sort of thing you can tell by looking at it, because changing the levels is done by pressing a single button until the proper number of flashes occur on the collar's LED light, alerting you to the current level. Evidently, the wife had adjusted it to 4 or it was simply set there when we bought it.
Still unaware of the level, I soon saw just how much the dog's attention was captured by level 4 when I allowed her to step across the boundary for a test shock. At first, she just heard the warning beep, telling her she was in the warning area. I told her to come back and, as usual, she ignored me and kept going until the shock kicked in. She yelped, nearly flipped in the air and then practically fell over trying to get away from whatever had clearly just stung her on the neck.
I felt awful. I took her in the house and gave her a Pupperoni and told her she was a good dog. I then sat down with the collar, was horrified when it flashed four times when I tested the setting. I changed it to level 2 and tested that on myself, too. It was still uncomfortable, but far less powerful than level 4.
The wife and I had to do some reconfiguring of the safe-zone to fully encompass our back yard and partially cover the upper part of the front. This basically involved moving the transmitter from the garage to the laundry room. After that we planted flags around it, noticing how our safe zone flags seemed to match up nicely with the ones remaining from the previous owners--which might mean they had the same system. The only problem area seemed to be at the driveway, where there was something of a dead zone that refused to beep. In fact, the wife walked most of the way down the driveway before the collar kicked in. We thought this might be a problem.
Now, while it was certainly not a fun experience for Sadie to be shocked at level 4, it might have been a good thing in the long run. It only took two real training sessions from us and she pretty much knew to stay away from the flags. I don't think she was even shocked a second time, as she had learned to associate the beep from her collar with "get the hell out" and would run back toward the house whenever she heard it.
After her second training session, I thought she seemed pretty clear on the whole stay away from the flag system, so I decided to do an early road test and see how things went. I unclipped her leash and let her free. For about half an hour, Sadie stayed with me in the back yard and played and chased the water stream from the hose while I was trying to water the grass seed I'd planted. Then, just as I was ready to head back inside, she looked over toward the neighbor's house, did the "I'm not on my line" math and bolted. I walked to the edge of the house to see how this played. Sadie made it all the way in front of the next door neighbor's house before the collar began shocking her, at which point she gave a sudden jerk, stopped and looked back in my direction.
"Come on back, Sadie," I called. She then turned and ran as fast as she could back to our yard, then came up to me and did the "Am I a good dog?" dance.
"That's the way it's gonna be," I told her.
We've now had a week of solid use for the wireless fence and we still like it a lot. Sadie does, too, cause now she can go pretty much where she wants and has a lot of space to run and play. She still tests the system now and again. For instance, being a smart dog, she's discovered the dead-zone in the driveway and has dashed through it a few times. She can usually make it nearly to the bottom of the driveway before the collar kicks in. This gives her an extra long run back up the hill to get in the safe zone, assuring her a couple of shocks in the process.
We've also discovered that instinct overpowers pain, as she willingly ran through the barrier in pursuit of some deer. She got 30 seconds of shocks with that one, but kept right on chasing her adversary until the collar shut down. She returned to the yard, soon enough, and the collar kicked back on. I suppose if we have too many such incidents we'll have to raise her level to 3.
Finally, we don't think we'll have to buy a battery backup for the system after all. I think PetSafe has made some improvements over the one our vet told us about, because we've unplugged the transmitter to move it while Sadie was wearing the collar and there were no accompanying beeps or shocks.
If any of you were on the fence about buying such a product, it certainly has my household's endorsement. It's pricey to be sure, but far cheaper than installing an actual fence around a half-acre.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Zap-A-Dog
Over the past year, our dog Sadie has grown from a timid puppy, afraid to leave our sight, into a large dog more than eager to flee the confines of our yard and dash about the countryside chasing all manner of creatures--usually her arch-enemies the local deer. It's not such a bad thing, as our neighborhood is kind of out in the woods without a lot of heavy traffic. However, her escapes do cause us some concern that she might do things to annoy the neighbors, chiefly going to the house of the attorney next door and chasing his dogs up and down their fence line with all three barking furiously (though still playfully). We've really wanted some manner in which we could keep her in our yard, beyond our usual tactic of tying her to her pull line or keeping her on a leash.
Fencing would work, but we don't really want a fence, nor do we want to do the work to put one in. We also looked at invisible fencing, which many of our other neighbors have, but that too requires a good deal of work, not to mention expense. We knew that the previous owners of the house had something like that at one time, because we found their little marker flags all over the yard when we moved in, but we've never found any sign of the wire that usually accompanies them. Then there was the matter of whether or not an invisible fence would even work on Sadie. The wife has had some experience with invisible fence systems and St. Bernards in the past. She once wired up the entire back pasture of her grandmother's house in order to let her former St. Bernard, Honeybee, run free. Once the system was hooked up and the collar placed on the dog's neck, Honeybee stepped across the wire line, twitched at the shock, looked annoyed and then bounded away. It never worked. We would hate to burn money and calories on setting up such a fence only to have it fail to work on our St. Bernard mix.
Then, on one of our near daily visits to Lowes, I saw a product that I hadn't before known to exist: a wireless invisible fence. This product purported to be a radio transmitter that would establish a half an acre area in which a dog could run free, but which if the dog attempted to leave would cause the accompanying collar to give off a warning beep and then a shock. The kit cost three times as much as a wire-based fencing system, but the more we thought about it the more we were of the opinion that it would be worth paying that much more if we didn't have to hassle with burying damned wires. Furthermore, the system was portable, which would make keeping Sadie in line at the in-laws house a much easier prospect.
During our last visit to my in-laws house, we took nigh on the entire animal population of our house, with Sadie and Avie sharing space in the car. My sister-in-law and her family also visited that same weekend and brought their two dogs and cat. This, too, was great, as Sadie doesn't get to play with other dogs much and she loves it, so we were prepped for a dog party. What complicated matters, however, is that it poured rain almost the entire weekend and my in-laws were in the very earliest stages of resodding their yard. In other words, Dog Fest `09 became Mud-Dog Fest `09. My sister-in-law's two dogs are very well-behaved creatures and stuck around the house. Sadie, however, likes to roam and frequently ventured out into the neighborhood and toward the nearby highway, whenever she was set free to run with her cousins (or whenever one of the wife's cousins dropped by and thoughtfully let her out of the house). By the end of the weekend my white dog was red with mud and no amount of bathing seemed to help. And, a mere two hours before we were scheduled to hit the road back to WV, Sadie found something dead and spent a good ten minutes rolling in it. This made our drive back a miserable affair.
So you can see that the thought of a wireless fence system that could help prevent some of the above was an attractive one. But, again, would it work?
While we stood there considering the purchase, a guy who was standing nearby piped up, saying, "Hey, if you're thinking about buying one of those, I just wanted to let you know something," he began. We over and noticed that the man happened to be our trusted and much-liked veterinarian. He went on to tell us that the wireless fence was a very good product, but if we lived in an area prone to power outages we should be cautious because if the power went out it would shock the dog. He said his parents used the same system, but had also purchased battery backups so their dogs would not be harmed. We thanked him for his advice and bought the wireless fence immediately.
The instructions for the system suggested that it would take a good two weeks of thrice-daily training sessions in order to make an average dog understand where it could and couldn't go in the yard. I'm proud to say that ours had it down within a period of 12 hours and 2.5 training sessions. She's a very smart cookie, but part of it might stem from a poorly planned .5 of a training session I started with.
(TO BE CONTINUED...)
Fencing would work, but we don't really want a fence, nor do we want to do the work to put one in. We also looked at invisible fencing, which many of our other neighbors have, but that too requires a good deal of work, not to mention expense. We knew that the previous owners of the house had something like that at one time, because we found their little marker flags all over the yard when we moved in, but we've never found any sign of the wire that usually accompanies them. Then there was the matter of whether or not an invisible fence would even work on Sadie. The wife has had some experience with invisible fence systems and St. Bernards in the past. She once wired up the entire back pasture of her grandmother's house in order to let her former St. Bernard, Honeybee, run free. Once the system was hooked up and the collar placed on the dog's neck, Honeybee stepped across the wire line, twitched at the shock, looked annoyed and then bounded away. It never worked. We would hate to burn money and calories on setting up such a fence only to have it fail to work on our St. Bernard mix.
Then, on one of our near daily visits to Lowes, I saw a product that I hadn't before known to exist: a wireless invisible fence. This product purported to be a radio transmitter that would establish a half an acre area in which a dog could run free, but which if the dog attempted to leave would cause the accompanying collar to give off a warning beep and then a shock. The kit cost three times as much as a wire-based fencing system, but the more we thought about it the more we were of the opinion that it would be worth paying that much more if we didn't have to hassle with burying damned wires. Furthermore, the system was portable, which would make keeping Sadie in line at the in-laws house a much easier prospect.
During our last visit to my in-laws house, we took nigh on the entire animal population of our house, with Sadie and Avie sharing space in the car. My sister-in-law and her family also visited that same weekend and brought their two dogs and cat. This, too, was great, as Sadie doesn't get to play with other dogs much and she loves it, so we were prepped for a dog party. What complicated matters, however, is that it poured rain almost the entire weekend and my in-laws were in the very earliest stages of resodding their yard. In other words, Dog Fest `09 became Mud-Dog Fest `09. My sister-in-law's two dogs are very well-behaved creatures and stuck around the house. Sadie, however, likes to roam and frequently ventured out into the neighborhood and toward the nearby highway, whenever she was set free to run with her cousins (or whenever one of the wife's cousins dropped by and thoughtfully let her out of the house). By the end of the weekend my white dog was red with mud and no amount of bathing seemed to help. And, a mere two hours before we were scheduled to hit the road back to WV, Sadie found something dead and spent a good ten minutes rolling in it. This made our drive back a miserable affair.
So you can see that the thought of a wireless fence system that could help prevent some of the above was an attractive one. But, again, would it work?
While we stood there considering the purchase, a guy who was standing nearby piped up, saying, "Hey, if you're thinking about buying one of those, I just wanted to let you know something," he began. We over and noticed that the man happened to be our trusted and much-liked veterinarian. He went on to tell us that the wireless fence was a very good product, but if we lived in an area prone to power outages we should be cautious because if the power went out it would shock the dog. He said his parents used the same system, but had also purchased battery backups so their dogs would not be harmed. We thanked him for his advice and bought the wireless fence immediately.
The instructions for the system suggested that it would take a good two weeks of thrice-daily training sessions in order to make an average dog understand where it could and couldn't go in the yard. I'm proud to say that ours had it down within a period of 12 hours and 2.5 training sessions. She's a very smart cookie, but part of it might stem from a poorly planned .5 of a training session I started with.
(TO BE CONTINUED...)
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