Crap Rolls Down Hill

Angus turd, if he were a Rottweiler 
As I have mentioned in previous posts, Kristie and I have taken to frequent walks up Mount Kaukau, a large foothill near our house.  There are several routes that you can take up the hill, but our most recent favorite is a route that takes us up a very steep path and leads up into the foothills that join up with Kaukau.

On virtually all of our walks, we try to take the dogs with us, and I've got to say that for a dog with legs that are about four inches long, Angus can really motor up that hill!  Angus is pure energy, wrapped up in black and white fur, so I guess it shouldn't surprise me that he can basically run the entire hill at full tilt. But as the title of this blog post indicates, this isn't about Angus' energy level, this blog post is about crap.

For a very small dog, in addition to his vast energy levels, Angus has the uncanny ability to crap out a brick!  He can pretty much crap out half his body weight in one sitting.  If Angus were a large dog, like a Mastiff or a Rottweiler, the only way to remove his crap would be with a bulldozer and those giant dump trucks you see in the Ft. McMurray oil sands.  Let's face it, Angus is pretty much 3/4 crap and 1/4 dog.  Actually it explains a lot about his personality.

So on this walk, up this very steep hill, Angus decided to dump a load, as he does.  And I am the type of dog owner that refuses to leave his crap on the trail.  I'm also very vigilant about the dog poop too.  Anyway, Angus does his stop, squat and bowel, and because we were on the steep incline, his crap starts rolling down the hill.  But it doesn't stay in one solid mass that I can catch; no what this crap decides to do (because crap obviously has free will), is break apart into smaller pieces and roll off into various directions similar to billiard balls after the break!  So I'm trying to stop these little turdlets from making it to the Mexican boarder using only one hand, covered in the insulating layer of a plastic poop bag.  Needless to say, some of the newly sentient pooplets didn't survive too long as I had to squish them in order to prevent them from rolling all the way down the hill.

So basically, this whole blog post was simply a lead up for me being able to say Roly Crap Batman!

One Of Those Days

This is actually going to be a fairly short post.

Today, at work, was one of those days!  You know the kind.  Nothing is working right, you try to get things done in a hurry, but you end up having to wait for issues you can't control.  And everything comes to a head at 3 minutes before you have to leave.

Sigh!

Up Hill Both Ways

As I've mentioned earlier, now that it is summer, Kristie and I are starting to walk into work together.  On Monday's, my day off, we will walk to Kristie's office together and then I will walk home on my own.  This Monday we decided to change it up a bit and try to run the 4.5 KM distance.

The run in wasn't bad at all and only took us about 30 minutes at a fairly relaxed pace.  The first part of the run is actually not too bad.  You start off with an 800 m incline that gets the blood pumping, and then it is down hill for 2 KM, then on the flat for about 1.5 KM and then another incline.  We didn't feel too bad after the run, so I decided to run home too.

The first part of the run home, as you are now on a decline, wasn't too hard at all.  But then, after gaining some confidence  you begin your ascent of the 2 KM hill.  The hill is interesting as it is almost like an exponential curve.  It starts off at quite a gradual incline, so you start thinking to yourself:

"Hey, this isn't so bad."

So you continue running, and slowly start to feel the effects of a hill climb, but it isn't so bad.  About three quarters of the way up the hill however, I started feeling the effects of the exponential curve and I started noticing my breath becoming more and more laboured, and I could feel my heart beating heavier and heavier.  I finally had to stop about four-fifths of the way up as my heart was pretty much trying to punch its way out of my chest.

I walked for about 5 or 6 pole lengths panting and sweating like Homer Simpson at a barbecue, was able to bring my heart back under control and then continued for the rest of the run.

Below is a graphical representation of how I felt on the run.


A Day In The Sun

Kristie and I ditched Wellington today to spend some time on the Kapiti Coast.  Wellington was going to be miserable all day, but Waikanae was gorgeous today with lots of sun, very little wind, and a giant beach to let the dogs run free!

The day started with a nice long walk on the beach, where Angus and Walnut met up with some very friendly dogs.  Angus got to chase sand pipers and sea gulls to his hearts content.  After the walk, we drove into Otaki for some shopping.  I've been looking for some new socks, but as I am quite particular, I didn't get any.  I did find some that I liked, but they were Icebreaker and I didn't want to spend $20.00 for a single pair of socks.  I did pick up a tiny micro fibre towel that attaches to a pouch on a carabiner.  We have been doing some very strenuous hill walks lately, and it would be nice to have something I can wipe the sweat off with, and not have to carry around a huge towel.

After shopping in Otaki, we went back into Waikanae for some lunch.  We went to our favorite beach restaurant and had fi & chi.  We really like this place because the fish is nice and lightly battered, they make their own tar-tar sauce, and they always make fresh, thick cut chips.  As an added bonus, they have a large courtyard with picnic tables, where they allow patrons to bring their dogs.  So the pups got to partake in the fi & chi too.

Finally, on the way home, we stopped off in Lindale for some Kapati Ice Cream.  The line up was huge, and an old guy butt in front of us to be served, but it was such a nice day, I didn't kill him by stuffing ice cream cones in his nostrils.

All in all, a great day!




Shrinkage

As I may have mentioned before, on Mondays I don't work.  Actually, it is more accurate to say that on Mondays I do house work.  I only work a four day work week, so I catch up on housework on Monday.  But in an effort to stay fit, I will walk into work with Kristie and then walk home.  T'he whole trip takes about 90 minutes there and back.  The walk itself isn't that strenuous, I mean it isn't like running an ultra-marathon or anything like that, but there are some large hills and I do work up a sweat.  Actually, I work up quite a large sweat.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not some out of shape wiener who gets winded by tying his shoes, but it is in my genetic make up that I sweat while doing strenuous activities.  I could be sitting in a puddle just trying to figure out how to solve a Rubic's cube for goodness sake.  Speaking of which...those people who can solve a Rubic's cube in less than 20 seconds....knock it off OK!  I can't even peal the stickers off that fast.

Anyway, on today's walk, I arrived at home as normal and the first thing I wanted to do was to get out of my sweaty clothes.  I had on a pair of nylon sweat pants, a t-shirt and a wind breaker, and I was soaked!  You know what I mean?  That kind of sweat that makes a t-shirt stick to your body like Spiderman's symbiotic costume (only comic book geeks will get this)?   So after I peeled off my shirt, ditched my sweat pants and then pealed off my underwear, to my utter shock and horror, I noticed that I was suffering from the most alarming case of shrinkage that ever befell a human being!

It was awful!  Look, if a 3 month old baby were to see my affliction, he'd be like:
"Dude!  You know there are surgical options for that now."
Don't get me wrong, it isn't that I'm anything special to begin with, but this was just ridiculous!  You know those letters to Penthouse?  (Ya, neither do I.)  But in those letters you've got guys saying stuff like:
"I don't want to brag, but at 11 inches, I'm no slouch..."
Look, I'd totally LOVE to brag, but unfortunately, I can't!  So when I say I was suffering, you have to believe me!

But here is the point to this whole story.  I was exercising!  I was sweating!  The caloric burning work that I was doing, caused me to sweat!  My body, noticing that I was generating heat, decided to take matters in its own hands and activated its defense systems, turning on the sprinkler system.  It was saying:
"Dude!  Chill!"
Apparently though, the human body doesn't seem to coordinate its functions very well.  T'he left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, so to speak.  On one hand, you've got the body saying:
"Ok, we've noticed your getting quite warm...you're looking a little flush; we're just going to give you a spritzing of water to cool you down.  There, isn't that better?"
But on the other hand, you've got the nether regions, who apparently don't know the phone number to the brain, because they are like:

"HEY!!!  HEY!!!  It's bloody cold down here!  Turn up the frigging heat!!!"
"I don't think they can hear us...Every god damned Monday, its the same thing!!!"
"What are we going to do?"
"I can't take this shit anymore, I'm going inside!"
"Hey, what about me?  I can't fit with you guys in there; move over!"
"Forget it!  Just scrunch up as much as you can!"

Another Kaukau Day

For the last month or so, Kristie and I have changed up our walking routine.  For quite a while, in addition to our morning runs and/or lunchtime walks, after work we would take the dogs for a walk in the Ngaio gorge.  But as mentioned earlier, we have changed our routine from the gorge to Mt. Kaukau.

The moniker of "Mount" is a bit of a misnomer as it is really just a foot hill, with an elevation of approximately 419 metres.  Still, depending on the route you take, the climb can be quite taxing.  The main route has 525 stairs interspersed on the trail and takes about an half hour at a good pace.  The new route that we just tried yesterday and today has very few stairs as it is more of a natural path, but is quite steep at various points.

Either one will give you a good workout and a great view of Wellington and the surrounding area.

Angus vs Chicken

Angus vs Chicken
Both Walnut and Angus have an abundance of toys: stuffed toys, latex toys, balls, etc. (Does anyone else think that the description of their toys sound dirty?)

For the most part, Walnut loves the balls (again...sounds dirty), whereas Angus loves the stuffed animal toys.

Here's a picture of Angus with one of his many favourites, the Chicken.

Twitter Experiment

I've never been a big user of twitter, as I have found that it doesn't have much benefit to people like me, you know people who are of no interest to anyone but themselves.  I've found that for the most part, Twitter is nothing but shouting into the void; sure you're making noise, but no one is actually listening.

So today I thought of an experiment to try to increase my Twitter followers.  I have created a representational hard copy of what the Twitter website looks like (see below).  From now on, any time I post a twitter post, I'm also going to hand write the same post.  I will take this hard copy and post it on many of the bulletin boards that are around town, for instance the bulletin boards you'd see in a grocery store.
Twitter Hard Copy
I think it would be interesting to see if the hard copy will generate more followers than simply posting via twitter and waiting to see who listens.

To what end?

To be honest, I have no idea.  It is just an experiment.  It isn't like I will actually be generating any more content that will be interesting.  I'm still going to be me; posting pictures, walking the dogs, eating, sleeping and pooping.  Nothing else is going to change.

Targeted Ads My Butt!

Being constantly connected to the internet via social networks, google searches, chrome operating system, augmented reality, always on GPS enabled phones and cameras, etc. was suppose to usher in an era of targeted advertising that was suppose to change the way that consumers would interact with corporations.

The idea was that all of these constantly connected devices would be able to take all of these signals and create a detailed portfolio of your habits and needs, and then would be able to target ads, through the interwebs or your smart phone, specifically for you.  For the company who is advertising, there are two benefits to this kind of advertising:

  1. The company who is advertising would pay less money, as the adverts would only be displayed to certain individuals.
  2. The company who is advertising would have a much greater chance of the viewer clicking on the advert as it is specifically targeted to their needs.

For the consumer, the benefits are obvious, you would only see ads that actually may hold interest for you.  This is not what is happening however.

As an example, a couple of days ago, the battery on my Vespa bit the dust, and I had mentioned it on both Facebook and Google Plus.  Now, the idea of targeted advertising is that I should see display ads in Facebook/Google Plus for things like motorcycle batteries, Vespa dealerships, motorcycle/scooter service centres, etc.  But what do I see instead?  Belly fat adds, my 55 year old mom looks 35, enrol at Crap Online University (or CU), congratulations - you're the 1,000,000 site visitor, click here so we can steal your information...

Evidently the only advertisers on the web, are the same people who send me spam via email.  Oh, and by the way...I'm still waiting for my penis enlarger that I ordered last year!!!