Well, we survived NADAC!
Tigs was the Trial Secretary for this trial. All the paperwork for this trial has been living in our ugly orange living room for the past three months.
Lucy was feeling off all weekend, we think it was from allergies, but she still ran in 10 of the 11 runs we had her signed up for. Saturday I did all the running, while Tigs focused on making sure all the record keeping was going well, and that there weren't any screw-ups with the program. The first run was novice tunnelers, which consisted of… you guessed it, tunnels. Lucy ran it very quickly (shock) and very accurately. She listened to all of my directions, and we finished in Elite time.

The second run was weavers, which was the first run of the day to include weave poles. There were 2 sets of 6 poles, and you had to do one set twice. We had a very good run, and attempted the weave poles a couple of times each. Weave pole boot camp definitely paid off as she valiantly attempted them, but never succeeded in completing them. Lucy did do the practice area weave poles right, though.

After that came chances and two regular runs. Again Lucy was great, and listened really well, but there was still trouble with the weave poles, so no qualifying scores.

The day finished with a jumpers course, which started great, but then I screwed it up. Around a curve I ended up on the wrong side of a jump, got in Lucy's way, and she knocked a bar. Two more bars ended up on the ground by the end of the run, but it was still a pretty good run, and not a horrible way to end the day.

Sunday Tigs ran Lucy and the first run was jumpers. It went pretty well and Lucy seemed to be enjoying herself. The second run was touch n' go, which again went pretty well, except that Lucy decided that she thought the A Frame looked weird and didn't take it. We aren't sure, but we think it may be the fact that unlike every other organization, NADAC's contacts don't have slats, so it looks and feels different.

The third and forth runs were both regular runs, and the weave poles continued to be an issue, as did the A Frame. Also, Lucy's frustration level kept going up and she was paying increasingly less attention to Tigs as the day progressed. By the second regular run Lucy wasn't listening at all and was just doing her own thing. So we scratched her from the last run.

Ok, last post on the D&D books for a while. Why? Because they are completely out of stock, and at this point are not scheduled to be back in stock and shipped to me until July 3rd. Yup, a month from now. All because I ordered the 3 books in the gift set with the nice slip cover. Had I ordered the books individually without the slip cover I would have had them probably on Monday. At this point though, looking at my calendar, the July 3rd ship date means I'll get the books (theoretically) just as I'm finishing up my summer class. So the timing works out kind of nicely for that. I'm disappointed, but this really gives me the time and incentive to focus on my accounting class.

Speaking of, tonight is the first test for the class. In preparation for that, I took my notes and the book to the library last night for some focused studying. I read the chapters, did some problems, checked the answers, and then reread the sections that I screwed up. And while I was there I also checked the library catalog to see if they had the new D&D books.

They didn't.

What? You thought I wouldn't look!!

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tigergladys pointed something important out to me the other night after reading my post. We already have the paint for the hallway. It's the same paint we've been using for the closets. So, I guess that answers the question of what's next!! :-)

Of course the next question is when that'll happen. Chances are it's going to be the weekend after next when there will be some real time to devote to it. Until then we'll prep the area; get it cleaned out, wash down the walls, and tape it up.

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This weekend is the NADAC agility trial, the one which Tigs is the secretary for. One of the events we are running Lucy in is a weavers course. Now, mind you, Lucy is only so-so with weave poles. Sometimes she gets it perfectly, most of the time she doesn't. But it's also a fairly advanced skill to learn, and we hadn't really been focusing on it. That is until Tigs thought about the fact that we are entered in a weavers course this weekend. Thus began "Weaving Boot Camp" week. Practising 3 or 4 times a day for about 5 minutes each (sometimes longer) is really paying off. We'll see how it goes this weekend.

1. What type of food do you most like to eat?
Mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy.

2. What type of food do you most like to cook?
I really enjoy making chili.

3. What ingredient could you not live without?
Salt. Ok, so it's not really an ingredient per se, but it's oh so necessary.

4. What do you never let in your kitchen?
Anchovies

5. What is your favorite drink?
Strawberry lemonaid

6. Other than the official start of spring on the calender, what really signifies the start of spring for you?
Seeing the first blush of that bright green you only see in the spring

7. How severe is your spring cleaning bug this year?
HAHAHAHAHA!

8. What one thing says "spring" to you more than any other?
The smell of everything coming alive after the winter.

9. What are your springtime traditions?
Open up all the windows in the house and get as much fresh air into the house as possible. Also go hiking!

10. When do you break out your spring and summer wardrobe? Do you follow the "no white before Easter" rule?
As soon as the temperature hits around 50 I start putting away the winter stuff.

11. If you became ruler of the world, what three things would you do first?
I would fix education, cut military spending and redirect it to humanitarian and scientific uses, and vastly increase the use and development of green energy

12. If you were a superhero, what would be your name and what powers would you have?
If I were a superhero I'd want to be a Green Lantern.

13. You can ask one question to someone who knows EVERYTHING. What is it?
What's the winning number to the next $10,000,000 (or more) lotto?

14. If you were invisible for a day, what would you do?
If invisible means being undetectable, then I would probably get cash, from a variety of sources.

15. If you saw a mythical/religious deity walking down the street, what would you do?
That really depends on which one it was! There are some gods you just don't want to get in the way of!

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This past weekend was the tracking trial for the dog club. This meant getting up at 5(ish) to drive up to the Maryland/Delaware boarder, and spend a lot of time cold and wet with a little bit of time spent watching dogs actually tracking. I brought my accounting books with me, but never even pulled them out. Saturday I was too tired, and Sunday it was too cold and wet (and I was still tired).

Saturday, after spending the morning at the trial we packed up, headed home for a change, and then pressed on to Frederic for First Saturday. This time however Gaer joined us! Lucy did pretty well considering how long a day she had.

Sunday we again spent the morning at the tracking trial, a cold, wet, muddy day. We then went home, took some hot showers (Lucy too) and then headed over to the house to do some more work. We managed to put in a couple of hours before heading back to the townhouse drained of all energy.

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Things are progressing at the house. It's almost ready for us to really start moving things in. At this point we've only brought over stuff we've needed, or stuff that can go straight to the basement. The next couple of weeks or so is going to be a bit of a pain as we transfer everything to the house, and then, invariably we'll need or want something that's at the other place.

I keep thinking about terrain, and building a table. I think when I finally do get to work on it that the trick to it, along with almost any other project, is to just devote myself to it from start to finish, just like I did with my original Amon Hen. 12 days start to finish on that one.

Actually my plan is to build another Amon Hen out of Hirst Arts blocks as one of my first projects. Seeing as I'll be using cast blocks (complete with texture) it should take significantly less time to finish it. Plus it works well on a grassy field.

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I need a home improvement icon...

In all the excitement of buying a house I neglected to write about the agility trial the weekend of 3/22.

The trial was held at CISC in Westminster MD and it was a Canine Performance Events (CPE) trial. It’s a group kind of like the American Kennel Club, but a bit more relaxed, and with some different agility games and rules.

Saturday dawned mostly gray and proceeded throughout the day with occasional snow showers, sleet, rain, and sun. We arrived at CISC a little before 7 am so that Lucy could be measured officially. The judge called everyone who needed to be measured over to the side and had us put the smaller dogs up on a table, at which point he would put a measuring wicket over their backs. It took a couple of seconds. It wasn’t long after that the games started.

The first game of the day was Jackpot which requires you to do a number of different types of equipment, and for each successful completion you gain points. There isn’t a set course in the beginning but when the whistle sounds you have to do the “gamble” which is a series of obstacles in order with the handler standing behind a line. You need to complete the gamble and earn a set number of points in order to qualify (Q). From the start line there was a tunnel and the dog walk. My plan was to get Lucy into the tunnel twice before I sent her to the walk. She had other ideas, and took the dog walk twice. I went with it, and kept running. When the whistle blew I sent Lucy for the gamble, making sure to keep behind the line. Because I was trying to work from a distance, she hesitated a little bit before the first obstacle (a tunnel) but once into it, the rest of the gamble went like a breeze, and Lucy finished perfectly by hitting the table.

After jackpot was Standard, which is the basic form of agility including just about everything in a set order. It wasn’t a particularly difficult course, but I screwed up how I handled her, and we ended up not qualifying (NQ).

Next was Wildcard. This is like standard, except there are a couple of spots where you have a choice on which obstacles you want to take, and once you commit to a certain set of choices you have to stick with it. Since Lucy loves the A Frame, I knew we would have to do that, rather then try to run past it. This run went pretty much as planned, and Lucy took the A Frame like a champ! Q!!

Snooker followed Wildcard. This game requires you to take a jump prior to taking any other obstacle, and then taking another jump (not the same one) and then another obstacle, and then a third jump, and another obstacle(it can be the same obstacle each time), and then doing a series in order, ending with a table. You accumulate points for each obstacle, but if you take a wrong obstacle or take an obstacle without taking a jump first you’re done. Things went pretty well on this one, until Lucy took a wrong obstacle and we got whistled off. NQ.

Jumpers was the last game of the day, and with the issues that Lucy has been having in class with knocking down bars I wasn’t expecting anything great. Now, maybe I should have been more encouraged, as by this point in the day she had only knocked down a single bar, but seeing as the entire course was jumps (with a couple of tunnels) and no contacts (Lucy’s favorite type) I just wanted to go out and have fun. And so we did, and amazingly ended the day with a Q!!

You’ll notice that I ran all the runs on Saturday. This is because the unique architecture of CISC lends itself to very poor lighting. The entire ceiling is covered with nets to protect the lights above, but this causes the light to be very diffused and greenish. There are only a couple of spots where any natural light can come in, and seeing as the weather was rather crappy there wasn’t much light to be had. This all resulted in Tigs getting a headache.

The other fun event of the day was the fact that in total Lucy peed 32 times on Saturday. Now we know that Lucy can pee with sometimes annoying frequency, but I don’t think she’s ever peed that much before. We were a little concerned, but thought that maybe it was the stress of the day, and we’d keep an eye on it.

Sunday was a little brighter then Saturday, and a little warmer too. Since Tigs didn’t get to do any of the runs on Saturday, she opted to run all of Sunday. I must admit, part of me wanted to do it, but fair is fair. Plus my knee was bothering me a little, and a day of watching agility sounded great.

The first run of the day was Jumpers, and Lucy was a little bit of a snot. NQ

Then came another Standard run. Lucy decided that she'd done enough jumps in Jumpers and decided to skip a bunch. Needless to say it was a NQ

Next up was colors, which is like standard, except there are 2 courses (with overlap) and you have to pick 1 and stick to it. Now this was a tough course, as it was laid out jump, jump, turn away from the A Frame toward something that didn’t interest Lucy as much. As you can guess, Lucy went toward the A Frame not once, but twice. The first time she even got a couple of paws on it. However Tigs got Lucy to come back to her both times, and completed the course and got a Q!!

Following Colors was Full House. This is a game similar to Jackpot, but without the gamble. In it you have a set amount of time in which to accumulate points until a buzzer sounds, at which point you have 5 seconds to get your dog to put at least 1 paw on the table to stop the clock. Any time over the 5 seconds is subtracted from your score. There are also requirements that you have to do at least x number of jumps, y number of circles, etc. At the beginning of the course was the dog walk, which Lucy flew across, and Tigs kept pace and then over a jump, and back to the walk, then through a couple of tunnels, over the A Frame, another jump, and then to the table. It was fun to watch! Q!!

All that running was putting a similar strain on Tigs’ knees as it had on mine, so she offered the final run of the day to me. The game was again snooker but this time the layout of the run was significantly more difficult. I spent some time planning my strategy for this one, knowing that it would be the most difficult simply because Lucy would want to go and do stuff as she came to it. The plan worked out, practically perfectly! Lucy listened, and I kept her in tight with me right up till the end so she wouldn’t go flying over any jumps that she wasn’t supposed to. The only thing that she didn’t do was a final tire jump at the very end, however we had already accumulated more then enough points for a Q so we kept right on past it and finished at the table. Q!!

All totaled we got 6 Q’s, and earned 3 level 1 titles in Strategy Games, Handler Games, and Fun Games!!