End of the World. Beginning of a new one. The Life of Amberwolf.

[The Stig]

One thing I've done which works surprisingly better than is intuitively expected is walking/running the dogs by clipping their leashes around the headtube of my ebike. i've taken up to 3 adult dogs with an A2B Metro. You actually get a mechanical advantage against the pull of the dog (the lower you tie the leashes the more the mechanical advantage).

Works kind of like a class 2 lever, where the load is the dog leash and the "effort" is your hands on the handlebars:

So its easy to hold the bike up even if they pull sideways, which they tend not to if your rolling. Anyway its worth a try.


I think what would be even better is make friends with ring the door of a neighbor with a dog in their yard and arrange a dog garden date. This would be 2 health bonuses for Tiny: socializing and running. And health bonuses for the owners: socializing.

 

[dogman dan]

When I first got Daisy, just about exactly a year ago, she was eating fussy a lot. She completely randomly refused to eat at least once a week. We also had some difficulty getting her out to run much, it was high summer, I was working and very sick, etc. No way she could walk on pavement after 10 am. So she got out only on weekends at dawn. She was very skittish about cars or anything funny when we did take her out, but not as bad as you describe.

Now a year later, she's fine. Always eats hearty, and though skittish about really loud stuff like a Harley or a huge truck, she doesn't startle as much when out. I got her trained eventually to run beside the bike good. Fortunately I only have to do the bike leash run for a half mile, then she goes off leash hunting rabbits in the desert.

So I think some of the stuff you are seeing may be a bit breed specific. Max was a fussy eater his whole life. He was less active because he had hip problems, and he fairly regularly would simply eat some of his dinner, and then stop. All his life, he was more afraid of a thunderstorm or sonic boom than the others.

The skittish or fearful dog is the hardest to rehab when you adopt them. In some ways, a mean dog is much easier. For them, you just go fully dominant and make them want to follow you. Skittish is harder, and much more subtle body language to speak to the dog is used.

When you go out, and she's startling at stuff, you have to do your very best to be completely un startled by it all yourself. Don't stop and try to comfort the dog, but instead be very calm and confident. Stand tall, keep your head high and your face unworried. She will see you keep your confidence, and begin to see it's all OK. If at all possible, keep moving rather than stop. As she gets moving, correct very gently if she wants to hang her head. Act like she's just silly for not holding her head high, and bring her nose back up when she cowers. So the corrections are not like a punishment, just touch her under her chin and bring her head up high. She can nose down to smell all she wants, smelling is just a normal dog thing. Just gently correct cowering with the head down. Same if she wants to walk looking back at something loud. Re direct her to head up, looking forward as she moves, or head down forward if she wants to head down and smell here way around. Main thing is get her moving forward, ignoring all but what's straight ahead.

It will go slow at first, because you have been so emotionally damaged and the dog knows it. But you will heal each other in time for sure. Don't worry if progress is slow this summer. As you heal, she will too. Give her lots of love, but try not to reward fearful behavior. When she cowers, go let her touch you, but you remain tall, confident, and calm. Having to be confident and calm for the dog will force you to be confident and calm, healing your emotions.

Running the dog will be great when you can get it done but if you can't walking the dog when you can is fine. She doesn't need the exhausting run as much as she would if she was an aggressive case full of anger needing to burn off. It's too hot now for much big activity outside, after the sun comes up.

 

[mdd0127]

Awesome advice from appropriately named Dogman!

 

[amberwolf]

That's good advice, which I've already been doing. She's lots better than two weeks ago, when this was started by the fireworks. She's still getting used to the idea of encountering people on the walks, but she doesn't bark at them though she does stare at them. I just keep her walking and she keeps her eyes on them until either she trips over something or has passed them far enough to stop worrying. She's beginning to want to chase the cats now, though, so I have to keep her walking past them, or stop and make her sit and distract her with something else (noises, etc).

She's also beginning to stay with me for sleeping at night, rather than getting up pretty soon after bedtime and going off to the front room for the tile. Temperature's not any different inside so it must be her getting comfortable with staying there.

She does get up to go use the potty tray at least once a night, though, so at least she isnt' holding stuff in so long now, thoguh she still doesn't drink anywhere near as much water as any other dog I've ever had. I keep her bowl full but it's a smallish one (large stainless steel mixing bowl, might hold 3/4 gallon or more). Any other dog would have that empty before a day was thru, but even if I didn't keep it full she'd take at least 2-3 days to empty it. (I used to have those big 2.5 - 3 gallon plastic buckets for the other dogs, and even though I had one in every room, they'd all be emptied out pretty far by the end of a day, from two about Tiny's size and two smaller ones that added up to another her size.)

 

[dogman dan]

Yeah, you know how to handle a dog AW. Sorry if that got a bit preachy. I'm so happy to hear you are doing better now that you have a place to stay of your own, where you can have a dog.

 

[amberwolf]

Better to preach to the choir than say nothing and let bad things happen unknowingly.

Despite the huge inconveniences of living down here in this apartment, and the many other stresses it places on me, I'm much happier because I have Tiny here than I would be in an ohterwise perfect situation without her.


As an aside, I found a hat with a little spotlight in it that says "Official Dog Walker" for a buck at Goodwill yesterday. :lol: The light is helpful when watching for broken glass and whatnot in her path at night, since not all the areas are well-enough lit to see that, though they're all pretty well lit for just seeing in general. (unfortunately like everywhere, there's people that prefer to litter and destroy things rather than keep their own home nice).

 

[marty]

Amberwolf,
If I was a dog, I would want to live with you :wink:

Happy you happy with new place and new dog.

I know that you don't want to ask the neighbors for wi-fi passwords. If you want to know anything about anything in any neighborhood talk to the children who play outside. They might know the wi-fi passwords. When I wanted to know who through the rocks at the windows? I ask the children. They told me who did it. Dad was more mad then I was. Dad paid for new glass and labor to install.

I have had good results with this:
Rosewill RNX-N300X IEEE
Wireless adapter for a desktop computer. Gets far away signals perfectly when laptops and a ipod did not work.

 

[amberwolf]

Thanks--but I only have the laptop with me and since even with such amplification a desktop will only pickup secured wifis partly because of buildings and metal fences blocking the unsecured ones and their low signal strength and the buildings they are inside of, a desktop isn't practical--I'd have to unhook it, it's monitor, power strip, etc, and find a very long extension cord to run to my place from wherever I can get a signal, since there's no outlets outside that I have any access to.

The laptop does just fine if I go to where I can pick it up, using the internal for some of them, and the external Rosewill with big antenna for most, so that would be kinda pointless to drag a desktop around instead.


So far the only kids I see in the area are all really little ones, mostly still in mama's arms, so I don't think asking htem anything is an option. The only other kids I saw were the 7-8 year old ones being talked to by some other residents for trespassing and trying to pry coins out of the laundromat machines, a week or so ago.



We finally had out first actual rainstorm last night, perhaps 20 minutes after I got home from work. It actually was beginning to sprinkle just as I got home, a few drops here and there, but stayed quiet long enough to take Tiny for a very short walk. Then the drizzle started, and I knew the high winds and thunder weren't far behind. So we went inside, and then after the first thunders came, and I could see she wasn't *totallY* freaked out about the noise, I took Tiny just outside the front door (with it closed behind us) to watch the rain run off the roof. She did try to walk thru the wall of water once, but didn't much like it so she just stood there looking around for a while, starting at the thunder but less each time, worse when people came outside and slammed their doors or yelled to each other over the winds than the thunder. So she's lots lots beter than she was a couple weeks ago.


Eventually she decided she wanted inside, so we went in and I opened the bedroom window to watch/listen to the storm instead. Lasted maybe an hour or so before it petered out to just a drizzle and some breezes.


I dunno how bad it rained at my house, but I guess all the stuff still outside there (lots of stuff too heavy for me to move by myself, and havent' been able to get enough of the right people together at the same time to move it into the sheds) is damaged now. Oh, well. It is what it is.


The wheel didn't disintegrate yet, on CrazyBike2, after it's first 20 miles or so after the rebuild with the new Sapim spokes from Grin Tech, but it is only a matter of time, since I cannot tension them properly and have to get a whole new set of nipples because the ones on there now are no longer turnable with a wrench, as the flats are stripped out. I may be able to keep retightening them with pliers for a while, but most likely will just have to give up on using the rear hub at all until a more suitable (thinner, more stretchable/tensionable) set of spokes and nipples (and probably rim) can be obtained at a reasonable price, along with a proper nipple wrench.



I've been on parttime work since shortly after the fire, but have to return to fulltime starting week after next, or lose my status as a fulltime employee. So I'll be working about twice the hours starting then. Hopefully Tiny will be OK with it. (hopefully I will be too; I haven't had any incidents since I got Tiny here with me, so I'm guessing it'll be alright).

 

[mdd0127]

I'm glad Tiny is settling in!

I wouldn't worry too much about the rain damaging anything that isn't paper. It dries out so fast around here that nothing really sinks in. The roof on the shed where I've been storing some of my stuff blew off a few weeks ago and it rained every afternoon so I figured most of my stuff was ruined, which was actually some kind of strange relief to me, meaning that I could finally throw a bunch of it away. Well, I was wrong, after we replaced the roof, everything dried out and is fine.

About your spokes... I have a theory that you might be over torquing them. I first thought this when I saw the breaks at the bends but didn't say anything because I figure you've built enough wheels by now to know, but with the nipples stripping and the wrench stripping, I'm pretty sure that you're overdoing it. When you tighten a spoke too far, you take up all of it's stretch. When something that's already stretched to its limits hits a bump, it has no option other than to fail. This happens frequently happens when mechanics over tighten wheel studs and head bolts. On spokes, you want them to have some tension on them, but not super tight. This will allow the wheel to conform to the bumps a bit more before breaking. It also does mean that you might have to tighten them up once a month or so but it's quick and easy if there's no major damage. I have never had a spoke failure on my bikes and I ride really fast, up and down mountains, with giant rocks and ruts everywhere. In fact, I rarely have to even true the wheels!

As an example, in the last Baja race, both bikes started with very expensive wheels built by a well regarded builder. When assembling the bikes, I noticed that the spokes were REALLY tight. The wheels were second hand so who knows who tensioned the spokes but I thought they were too tight. After a few stages, the rims on both bikes were so smashed up, they looked like stop signs, so we put the spare wheels on. I also backed the tension off the spokes on both wheels on the honda and the rear wheel on the yamaha. I ran out of time to get to the front wheel on the Yamaha. At the end of the next day, which was a way tougher/rockier section of the course, the wheels on the honda were in pretty good shape. The rear wheel on the yamaha was in pretty good shape.... but, the front wheel on the yamaha started throwing broken spokes out of it twenty miles before the end of the stage and the rider had to ride it in on the back wheel. When he let off the throttle to slow down at the end of the stage, the front wheel came down and exploded! We're still waiting to see the video but it was epic in person. I have a feeling that if I'd loosened the spokes on that wheel too, the bike would have finished the stage with the front wheel intact.

Just throwing it out there in case it's a possibility. :wink:

 

[Sancho's Horse]

Beautiful pics of Tiny! Man, I was a little worried there for a while. I hope you don't mind...I was going to send a book...actually it is a children's book?...I gave a copy to a girl one time, and she told me that it saved her life. Which...come on, but it is the thought, right? Anyways... I found a version on youtube of it. It is called The Red Tree by Shaun Tan. Amazing pics IMO. I hope you don't mind me posting it, but here it is...
[youtube]PrmMFFpKxgw[/youtube]
I actually really like the video, even as an adult. It is out of print, and the $124-900 they show listed for new copies has me a bit worried...because my kids may need it someday.

So...I hope the video is enough? But you are lucky to know what your Red Tree is...and Tiny seems pretty awesome. So, glad to see that something is working out for you right now.

 

[amberwolf]

I don't know that particular one, and the bandwidth on this connection ATM is too low to view the vid, but a story that saved me when I lost so many people thru death or desertion and Lady my most favoritest dog ever at that time (Hachi and Nana together take that spot now) is Haibane Renmei. Look it up--it's only 13 episodes, about 7.5 hours to watch. Some is a bit slow, but it all has it's place in the story. Almost anyone that has had losses will understand it, and for some, it is quite a catharsis. There is even a whole forum dedicated to discussion of it, called OHBB, which has been a second home on the internet to me since I found it shortly after watching the show.

 

[amberwolf]

About your spokes... I have a theory that you might be over torquing them. I first thought this when I saw the breaks at the bends but didn't say anything because I figure you've built enough wheels by now to know, but with the nipples stripping and the wrench stripping, I'm pretty sure that you're overdoing it.

In this case, I don't think so, because the spokes arent' even really tight. On the previous wheel and the factory build of this one, they broke becuase they were loose enough to start falling out.

As I have no way of measuring actual spoke tension, I can't really say for sure, though.


Normally, a spoke isn't tight if it just goes "plonk" with no tone at all when tapped with a metal tool. Even a short spoke should still have some sort of sound if it has any tension on it, though my experience with this short a spoke is limited to defective factory builds so far, and my own first build with spokes this thick and short.


The problem with stripping the nippples is that the wrench didn't fit right to start with--none of it's slots are actualy the right size for ANY nipples of ANY gauge, so it slips around all of them. Since it doesnt' sit on the flats and apply torque there, but rather at the corners, the soft brass of the spoke nipples deforms and is no longer turnable by the wrench. Also, the metal of the wrench is pretty soft, becuase it is deforming and wearing even just using on these nickelplated brass nipples. It is not that easy to file with the set that I have here, but these are just litle harborfreight files, and I don't expect much from them.

So...once the nipples were deformed from the slipping wrench, even before they were even remotely tight (meaning, I could still wiggle the spoke around at the elbow/flange joint if I pulled/pushed at it!), they couldn't be turned normally even with the new slot I cut and filed in the wrench.


Again, it's possible I could be overtightneing them, but I really doubt it.



Gotta go now, as it is beginning to sprinkle, and the laptop isn't waterproof. Temperature is finally nice, though, down around 80F!

 

[amberwolf]

been raining off and on all day; took Tiny out for walkies in sprinkles with thunder and while she gets startled she's not totally terrified, and did her business. She has more problems with car doors slamming, or tires running over plastic cups.

Or the cats, who are upset about the rain and sometimes take it out on passersby, with yowls or hisses, and the one nemesis of Tiny that tries to come after her till I make a show at it.


I'm hoping hte rain will stay let up for my work commute, but given that it's almost an hour long it's unlikely it will stay dry that long. Heavy downpours every half hour - 45 minutes with sprinkles or otherwise in between have been more common than hour-plus breaks (one of which i'm taking advantage of to use DD wifi from under the tree).

 

[mdd0127]

Being short spokes with a large hub and small rim is probably harder on them too because there is less spoke length to elongate and spread the load. It also bugs me when the spoke can't make a straight shot to the hub and requires additional bending near the nipple. It can't be good. A long time ago, I saw some nipples that had balls at the end (that sounds dirty lol) and if you drilled out the rim properly, they would allow for a straight shot at the hub. Also, if the area between the head of the spoke and the bend is longer than the hub flange thickness, tension on the spoke will attempt to force the bend apart and towards the hub flange, either unbending it or breaking it. In this case, some washers on the bend side might help distribute the load. Just throwing ideas out there wishing you many trouble free miles!

 

[dogman dan]

More than anything else, I think it's just a big load on that radial spoked wheel, combined with the typical heat cracked pavement in the SW.

It's a big part of why when I build my frankenbike, I wanted it to have rear suspension. Those heat cracks are murder on rims. Suspension gives at least some give before spokes get fully loaded.

 

[amberwolf]

Washers are part of what I added to the wheel, but they're not really the right size to do what I wanted. Take a look at the CrazyBike2 thread's last page(s?) and you'll see what I have done so far. I added them partly to fill the thickness up and partly to fill the hole size, because you can pass the whole spoke head thru most of the holes in that Crapalyte HS motor flange.

(actually it's not really a bad motor per-se, just a lot of poor design and manufacturing choices, like many of the ebike products we end up having to use).

What I would love to do is make some new flanges with the right thickness and correct size/shape spoke holes, and bolt them to the outside of the existing flanges thru the existing spoke holes. But this would make the spokes even shorter, even though the "stance" would be wider by a little, which by itself might make the wheel a little stronger against side loading, assuming the spokes are tensioned correctly, even with a radial lacing.

Presently the lacing is radial on brake side and 1x on drive side, with a bend in the spoke itself before the threaded area, as an idea from Justin to see if it helps with the lacing and stress on nipple threads with that kind of angle to the rim.

I'm looking at those Zero rims Ypedal is selling, thinking that if I can use these spokes with those rims I'd love to try them out on there, with a new set of nipples and the correct real (park tool?) spoke wrench, along with nipple washers and flange washers.


But I think what I would really like to do, if I had the facilities for it, is to finish my other frame and make the middrive in it like I'd planned to, with the rear suspension. Unfortunately it'll probably be late this year, maybe early next year, before I will be able to do that, and right now is kinda when I really need it, because of the much longer work commute over worse roads.




On the topic of Tiny, she had another oopsie on the bed when I was at work yesterday, right in the middle, and based on the pattern it looks like she actually squatted there and did it, which is odd, because she's been using her potty tray for that sort of thing just fine when I'm not there to take her out. So I'm washing all the sheets/blankets, and I cleaned the plastic mattress cover really well and then resprayed it with simplegreen in hopes this is enough to remove the smell so she won't go there again. If I have to I'll pick up some of hte puppy deterrent spray from work, but I'm hoping it's a one off becuase of leftover smell from her actual accident early on.

Other than that, she's doing better every day, and is full of waggles whenever I come home (even if I just went to take out the trash). She's also getting more confident in being outside, which has a downside in that she thinks the cats are invaders and she wants to chase them off, so I have to say "leave it" a lot, which works most of the time.

She's relaly good about 'leave it", so that for instance there is a set of 4 ribs somebody was eating that they dropped on the ground near our walkies path, and the first time we went past I said "leave it' and she took a couple of tugs my way to enforce it before she'd move on. Second time just took the "leave it", and she looked back but didn't move toward them. Afte rthat she just looks at them as we go by and doesn't head toward them at all. Same thing with a number of other things I don't want her near or getting into, like the big holes and trenches dug up for sprinkler repair/installation. So she knows what is and isn't allowed after i've told her, and does a pretty good job of obeying that.

She's also learning more slowly about "stay in the shade", when we're walking in daylight. Some of the pavement is really hot and I sitll don't have pawtectors big enough for her (the largest size i could get won't go over her front feet; they're actually bigger paws than Nana even though Nana was taller). So Tiny is learning the hard way about hot asphalt, when she tries to walk outside the shaded areas I try to keep her in, when she insists it's time to go out after it gets hot.

 

[amberwolf]

Not enough bandwidth to upload the pics (times out) but they got the fence and doublegates up for the doggie park area at my apartment complex, started yesterday and finished this morning. Paint is still tacky on the gates but was able to open the latches without damaging it, and so Tiny was "their first customer". I was not expecting htem to get this done for months, based on what I've seen of other work in progress, and the very few dogs presently at the complex, but I and Tiny are very happy that it is done. (or at least, it's enclosed now, might not yet be truly complete).

She was too distracted by all the other noises at the time to really take advantage of it, but she did enjoy being able to run about without the leash for a little bit. She decided after about 10 minutes that she wanted to go home cuz of noises, pawing at the ground at the corner closest to the old path home.

She *is* disturbed by her old walkies path now being blocked by the park area, as it basically blocks the corner area of the L that we used to walk down and back before heading around the rest of the eastern part of the complex and back home. But she'll get used to it being this way, and she'll really love being able to run around outside off-leash.

 

[amberwolf]

We're using the doggie park everytime we go walkies, letting her off leash there for at least a few minutes each time, and today she finally decided to actually run around full-tilt a few times, before she got too hot and had to stop. Unfortuantley I didnt' have the camera ready so I got no video/pics. But it was a lot of fun to watch her having fun doing it.

Last night she saw a dog thru the east complex fence (the 23rd ave fire dept access gate, actually) and wanted to go "play", acutally sort of barking once, but with a bit of physical encouragement patting the top of her butt and lifting her chin, I actually got her to sit until htey were gone past the buildings out of view. The dog almost made me cry because he looked so much like Hachi he could've been her brother that I gave away along with the rest of the litter back then. Didn't have time to talk to the owner more than just saying hi, as he was having some trouble keeping his dog from running over to the fence.

I am pretty sure they would have fought if they coudl've got together, but not totally certain of it, based on her reaction that I still have to interpret via experience of previous dogs, as I don't yet know her well enough to tell for sure. It was a reaction diferent from how she wants to go eat the cats, but still didn't seem as friendly as other dogs I've had that wanted to just meet each other. It's really hard to judge stuff like this.


I'm getting pretty tired of the laundry rooms at the apartment complex almost always having full coin boxes on the machines (or some other problem but they are new machines and they sound like they're just full, when a coin does manage to actually go in). I've tried them randomly at different times and differnet days, and I can sometimes get one or two of them to take one load (they're pretty small washers, so that means not much will fit), but the rest either take no coins or they take only a few before refusing to accept the rest, and thus won't wash or give my money back, meaning if I didn't have a lot of quarters with me I can't even finish the wash with the machines that *do* work.

Even then, most of the time I only get one load in even a working machine. So it is highly impractical to use the machines at the complex for my washing.

The complex can't do anything aobut the machines or problem, as they are all owned/operated/serviced by MacGray, who can't tell me anything about the schedule they collect the coins on so that I could be sure to wash right after they do it. All they can do is send me a check (which takes at least a couple weeks) for anything I lose in them, and send someone out "within a few days" to service the machines, if I call them to tell them of the problem.

They said they'd send me an email when the service is complete, but so far it's been a week or so since the first time I called and no email (not in spam box either), so their "few days" must be on a different time scale than the rest of us, or else they simply don't bother following thru with communications as promised.

So I'm thinking I should have Bill help me move the washing machine from my house to the apartment, put in the tiled living room, and then rig up a way to connect it's fill/drain hoses to the kitchen sink. Otherwise my only practical option for washing clothes is to get my trailer from Bill's place, bolt the smaller cage-kennel/crate that's at my house to it, and use that to haul my clothes and washing stuff to a laundromat and do it all at once there. I really don't relish spending up to several hours at a laundromat miles from the apartment, so moving the machine is looking like my best option right now.

If I do it, I'll need to get an adapter (or set of them) that goes from the teeny tiny threaded connection for the faucet filter on the sink to the "garden hose" sized threads on the inlet hoses for the washer, and use a Y-adapter to merge the hot and cold hoses into one, then a hose from that to the adapter long enough to go around the fridge to the sink, from the front room. Then I'll need to make a drain hose large enough to clamp to the drain hose on the washer, and long enogh to reach the sink.


Not much else to report, except that my day of repairs/mods to CrazyBIke2 that was to happen yesterday basically went completely askew, and I still have a little headache from getting overheated/exhausted/sonically-assaulted yesterday, even nearly a whole day later. There's more info on that in the CB2 thread.


Everything else here seems to be going well enough.

 

[The Stig]

youll have to snap some video of her running high speed next time!

 

[amberwolf]

I'm hoping I can.

But it will have to be with the bigger android "phone" (that I can't use as an actual phone yet), cuz I seem to have misplaced my actual phone. I haven't seen it since very early yesterday (when i used it right after an early walk with Tiny), but I didn't go anywhere except on those walkies with Tiny. I really hope it turns up, soon.


In other news, the last several nights have seen me having different bad dreams than the usual: The first I recall was a two-parter; where the first segment had a friend of mine I don't see often come into a room in a sheriff's outfit, and act all strange, then suddenly pull two guns out and hold up me and another person (who was just suddenly there, dunno who they were supposed to be). Right after that it faded out and into another one where I could feel something like a glass thermometer banging into my front top teeth (but I only have those on the right side, so the dream didn't even account for that), then I could see the hand holding the little glass tube which didn't look like a thermometer, but rather more like a blunt toothpick of glass, then following the arm up there was a tall athletic woman of medium-toned coppery skin and hair that has been in other strange dreams before over much of my life, in a beige "detective" trenchcoat and hat, saying "your contract is almost over, time to renew", while continuing to bang the glass thing against my teeth with one hand, holding my head with the other.

I woke with a start from that, to find myself all sweaty despite the very cold room (the AC here apparently has no actual thermostat, despite looking like one it is only a (backwards) switch, so it gets down to 65F or colder if you leave it on long enough), with Tiny off snoring in the corner of the tile floor.


Another night it was just lots of random unknown people calling me or following me, harrassing me about stuff I couldn't understand or hear properly, not even sure it was in English (or any language).


Similar dreams to the latter have happened most nights the last few days. Many I don't remember any details at all, only that they felt similar to others, and I wake up all sweaty and frightened.


I suspect it is my brain's reaction to the anxiety I am probably unconciously feeling at my (starting today) return to "normal" hours at work, as I can't think of anything else that changed enough to stress me like this--finding the thefts and vandalism at my house on Saturday was *after* the dreams started, so...they might be a contributor but they aren't the root cause.


Either way, I'd rather have these than the nightmares about the dogs in the house fire, but having no nightmares or bad dreams would be a lot better.

 

[amberwolf]

No video yet, but she's adapting better every day. Need to get video of her being excited when we're ready to go out for walkies, or when I first get home (two different kinds of excited, and reactions).


She still doesn't really know what to do with toys and such, for the most part, though I still find them moved around when I leave for work and come back, so she must be doing *something* with them. But if I take them out to the doggie park with her, she's totally uninterested in them, even after she gets bored with the sniffing out of cat pee and such. She just heads over to the north exit gate and noses it, to tell me it's time to continue the walkies around the complex, and that's that. After that, she will just wander slowly around the park area, sniffing a little or looking around at noises, but uninterested in doing anything else.

Maybe when it gets a lot cooler than now....

 

[amberwolf]

I went by the house today on the way home from work, since it was still (just barely) light enough outside to see fairly well, to see how much more looting might've been done.

But I didn't end up even getting off the bike to go into the yard and check, because I could clearly see the back room is torn down now, with the chimney/fireplace now freestanding, and a bare slab. It was gutwrenching in a way that even seeing the interior of the house stripped to bare frame was not, though I don't know why. So I couldn't take any more than that, and I just rode off and went to the apartment for Tiny hugz (which she is all too happy to help with).


I didn't bother to try to take pics cuz all I had with me is the crappy phone-camera with no flash, and it wouldnt' have captured anything you could see well enough to be worth posting. Since I get off work in early afternoon tomorrow (I start at 8am, which means leaving the apt by around 645am to be sure I am at work on time), I will be able to take pics even with that phone-camera that you should be able to clearly see, though it will be too hot at that time to stick around very long.


I do not yet know if it is torn down to make way for a rebuilt version, or if it is permanently gone, as no one was there when I stopped by, and I didn't feel like trying to call the landlord and find out--I dind't want to hear the news if it was bad....and I assume that it is going to be just that.


Anyway, I wasn't having a great day to start with, so that just kinda nailed it for me.



Getting home to Tiny helped a whole lot though, and I feel way better than I did all day long after leaving her. But poor Tiny appears to have tried to get past the "folding screen" (like you'd use to change clothes behind, made of carved wood, saved from my mom's old bedroom stuff that didn't burn) that I put in front of hte front room window so she wouldn't be tempted to look outside and feel the need to protect the place by barking, etc, and the domino effect of things falling over knocked down the stack of empty moving boxes at the other end of the window on top of her potty tray, so she couldn't use it for at least part of the day, and she ended up using the tile floor next to it. But at least she did it as close as she could; and of course she's not in trouble for any of it--it's just what dogs do.



Something that bothers me a lot right now at the apartment complex, though: I came home day before yesterday at around 1040pm to find that the front (car entrance) gate is jammed wide open, with it's drive mechanism chain all tangled up, and the motor still humming/shutting off/humming/shutting off/etc. So I left a call in with the "24 hour maintenance" option in the office phone number's after-hours message service. It's still exactly the same all day yesterday, and when I did Tiny's walkies this morning, and when I left midday for work, and when I came home tonight. Seems like it'd be more of a priority to fix, but apparently not.


And last night on Tiny's walkies, I found the always-padlocked fire-department gate on the other end of the complex had it's padlock cut (a pretty hefty Master combination padlock, mind you, with a U-part as thick as my finger!), and was wide open as well. I pulled it shut, since there's no reason for it to be like that, and put it's little "latch" bar down into the hole in the concrete so it can't swing open on it's own. I brought the lock pieces to the office door (they're closed that late at night) and left them there with a note about how and where I found them.

Tonight on Tiny's walkies I found hte FD gate is wide open again, and there's a "recycler" (to be generous) on a bicycle digging thru the trash bin (there's a LOT of recyclable stuff being tossed as they remodel the apartments) at that end of hte complex. Back by the gate itself was a junky-looking pickup truck with a pile of stuff in back and at least two people in it, which left rapidly thru the gate as I approached, perhaps because I am wearing a hat with a light on it and a flashlight in my hand, with a pretty big dog on a leash heading in their direction (so maybe I looked like a security guard). I shut the gate as I passed it, and put hte rod down in the hole again, too. I don't expect it to stay shut very long.


When i get back to the complex after work tomorrow, I'll stop by the office to see what the plans ot fix the gates are, because part of the reason I picked this place was it's nighttime "security" of having these gates, and they don't do much good without a lock on the FD gate, and the working mechanism on the main gate. I'd also like to find out if they know who broke the gates, since they do have video surveillance of at least some of the complex.

 

[amberwolf]

I stopped by the house and took the pics (the chimney was taken down too, before I got there, but no one was around so I couldn't ask about anything). It does appear that more stuff has been looted, but I am nto sure all fo what might be gone, just that there is definitely stuff that was there last time I looked tha tis not there now. none of the sheds have been broken into yet, at least. Unfortunately I can't yet upload the pics, as I have misplaced the cable to connect the phone/camera to the computer. I'm sure it's still around the apartment somewhere, but evne though I have very little there I must be skipping the one place it's actually at. If not, I'll just find another; they're commonly at Goodwill and some dollar stores for a buck or so.


I do have hopes that they're going to rebuild the back room, since they have just boarded up the utility room door and the gaping hole that was the doorway between kitchen and back room, instead of installing a permanent door in either one as they'd talked about when this all first came up. Might jsut be that they don't have that stuff to install yet, but I would think that if it was going to be permanent they'd've ordered those doors and doorframes and whatnot to install them all *before* tearing down the back room, so that A) they could do it in the relative cool and shade of the house interior, and B) they'd not have to go to the expense of purchasing and isntalling the temporary boards over the doorways.


So....here's to hoping.

 

[nicobie]

Progress is always good.

At the risk of sounding trite... You can't make a omelette without breaking an egg.

Happy days ahead AW.

 

[amberwolf]

True....


More Tiny pics, then the pics of the house with the back room torn off, including the tree they crushed in the process (it might survive) and then some pics of the front of the house with the stucco all patched up and the new windows and front door installed. Then there's one last pic of the cut-to-the-ground lantana and some of the (eucalyptus?) trees I'd been growing as complete shade/screen for my bedroom that burned, which are now growing back a little. I wish I knew whether they were going to leave them alone now or destroy them again, before the house is all done.