Monday, October 29, 2007

Pooch Parade

I went to the pooch parade on Saturday with Adam, Ed and Heather. It was kinda fun. There was a fair number of dogs (50-75 is my guess, maybe higher). Around half of these were in costumes. Most of these costumes did nothing for me, but I was looking at the dogs themselves more than the costumes. And I'd have to say that most of these dogs weren't attractive (this may be mainly due to my bias towards some breeds). There was a bulldog that I liked, a rhodesian ridgeback that Adam pointed out to me that I would have liked to see without its costume, and a weiner dog or two that were cool. But most of the dogs were ugly, shaggy/dirty, mutts, or just not my style.
And seeing these dogs helped me to appreciate the dog I had growing up (a rottweiler) and the dog my parents have now (a german shepherd). My rottweiler (brandi) was very pretty, and a great dog. And my parents dog (max), who is about 8 months old now, is a good looking dog that is going to look like the typical german shepherd.
I did see a few rottweilers at or around the pooch parade, and none of them were good looking. I don't recall seeing any dobermans or german shepherds. There was another big dog there that I got just a glance of, but I don't remember what breed it was.
There may have been a lot of good looking dogs show up after we'd left the parade. And a lot of people that have cool/good/neat/good looking dogs just didn't participate in the event. But it would have been nice to see better looking dogs there.
So next year all of the people that have the 'cool' dogs and the 'good looking' dogs need to bring them out to the parade.

Friday, October 05, 2007

Who am I? Who are you?

The other day my boss (who knows I like The Office) brought in some office supplies with Dwight Schrute on them that he got at Target and had them displayed on my desk when I came in. I thought it was cool and I plan on using them. But then he and one of the girls in our office were talking and then it comes up that they want to start calling me Mike Schrute. I laughed. I even said they could if they wanted to. But now I'm wondering what they see about me or my personality or something else that makes them see Dwight Schrute when they see me??? Maybe it's because I too am "faster than 90% of all snakes."
Is there something about me that is clearly Dwight? What about Jim? Or Michael? Or so on... What about you? Are you a Jim, or Dwight, or Angela, or Pam, or Kelly Kapoor?
You can be one of these people for any number of reasons-good or bad, exactly or vaguely. Or you can be more than one of these people, or parts of many of them.
So...connect people (old or current - friends, family, coworkers) to these characters. You can give reasons or explainations if you want to.
Michael Scott - Jim Halpert - Dwight Schrute - Pam Beesly - Angela - Andy Bernard - Karen Filapelli - Stanley - Kevin - Phyllis - Merideth - Toby - Ryan - Kelly Kapoor - Jan Levinson - Oscar - Roy (warehouse) - Darryl (warehouse) - Creed Bratton - Todd Packer - or someone else.
I will take a page from Lefty's three questions and leave my answers in the comment section (once I work out who is who).

two cars crash, and then...

last night i was coming back from a friends place after watching the office, and there was a car accident ahead of me. i was on ashlan heading towards clovis, just at the 168 freeway. a truck was turning to get onto the freeway and a car ran a red light and hit right into him. so i go through the light and pull over and get out to check on the people. both airbags had deployed and both vehicles were pretty messed up. nobody seemed hurt too bad, so i call 911 as people are getting out. so i tell the operator where the accident is and that nobody seems badly hurt. she asks me to see if anyone wants an ambulance. i figure that nobody does, but the guy in the truck that got hit says that he would like one. i'm just finishing up with 911 when a chp arrives, followed shortly by fresno pd. so they start going though their routine and one asks me what i saw and if i'd asked for an ambulance and so on. so they take down my information and statement and say i can go (just as the ambulance arrives). so i leave.
as i'm continuing home, i'm thinking over what happened and what i did and whether i did a good job or not. my conclusion is that i had just barely acheived average.
-I assumed people weren't hurt bad because they got out of their cars on their own.
-I didn't check to see if there was anyone else still in the cars (babies, dogs, dead people).
-I assumed an ambulance wasn't necessary, but someone wanted one.
-I felt bad for not talking to any of the people while waiting for the police (to comfort them or give them moral support).
-And I gave the police a fake name and number. not really.
but i figure i'll do better next time. then i got home, hopped in bed, and thanked God it wasn't me this time.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

The War on PBS

The War is a documentary of World War II by Ken Burns on PBS that I have been trying to watch. I know there have been at least 6 episodes so far and I've seen 3 or 4 of them. I think that they are done very, very well. Some of the photos and "video" they show are chilling and moving. It's like a history book come to life in a way none of my history books ever did. I'm not sure what night new episodes air, but I think you can see reruns of previous episodes other days.
I know Adam was looking forward to watching this documentary. I wonder if he has been? I would recomend it to anyone who likes history or would like to learn more about the war than what a high school text book would teach them.
On a separate note, there was also a documentary on baseball on PBS, but I don't know if it is still running, or if it was done by Ken Burns. Each episode covers a 10 year period, and I saw the 1890's, 1900's and 1910's. I thought they were great. I enjoy baseball history, and it was neat learning about all of these baseball pioneers that modern players are always put up against.
I thought of buying the box set of both of these documentaries, but they seem too pricy for me. For The War, they were offering different packages but they were all over $100 (like $180, $250 and $350). I didn't see or hear how much the Baseball box set was, but I assume it was similar.