Turning a New Blade

Rather than just blog at random, I have come to a decision that I could help myself, my club, and potentially our website by blogging about fencing. The nice thing is that the title for the blog doesn't need to be changed, only a few other things do, but anyway. Go checkout the website at hawaiifencing.org. And come fence with us!!

Today I was walking like I have been for the last few weeks for my noon break up and down the hill. This a really sticky affair as it is usually well near 80 for both humidity and temperature. I was stopped by someone from one of the other telescopes and he asked me when and where fencing met. I was wearing my Hawaii Island Fencing T-shirt so I wasn't too surprised. Hopefully we will see him Monday.

Last night I posted about 10 photos taken by Bill Harby of Imagery Ink of our fencing club fencing in the old Mountain View Gym, if you would like to look at the photos, they are at the website and are copyrighted. Bill used to fence with the club but has taken a long hiatus, but hopefully he will start lessons where he is now.

Some of these posts might get technical, but hopefully I will be able to add in some drawings and the like as we go along.

So I do have a blog...

Well it has certainly been a while. So long in fact that many things have changed, specifically I am living and working on the Big Island, Hawaii. Talk about a change. If I were to move to any place that was much more different from Wyoming it would have to have a foreign language. Oh yeah, I guess the locals have a pidgin dialect that is actually considered a creole which is one level below being a recognized language.

Anyway, I should really start writing again, although I write in several other places about many different things, hmmm... Well then I don't know. I will write sporadically, how about that? Maybe a bit more frequency than once every 10 months.

Ahhh! Run Away! It's School Again.

Okay, be calm and take a deep breath. If I finish then I will be done as it follows logically. I think that my job won't conflict. Hmm... what if I take one more class? It could destroy everything. Well, maybe not but it is close enough.

It is a great day to go back to school: Cool, cloudy and with intermittent rain. Perfecto. It looks as though the semester should go smoothly if I don't just sit here and waste all of my time describing my travails to my faithful readers. Maybe I could go into commentary about national politics and how I am glad that Gonzales is leaving his position at just the right time not to allow a recess appointment, whew. Although my political views may lean left at the moment I tend to just not like the people that somehow made it into office against everybody's better judgement. So I will stop complaining about that and complain about something else.

The school, UWyo, has some new construction projects that they started just in time to be extremely well placed to be in the way of most of campus. The projects have take over nearly an entire parking-lot's worth of spaces of around 100 to 150 spaces and made travel extremely hard unless you travel on the north or south edges of campus. One of the projects used to be the old honors house where I lived for two years and they tore down weeks ago. The other project is right in front of the union where the heaviest foot traffic usually occurs on a normal school day. The old Anthro building is being torn down for a new wing to the library. That's all and good except the part where thousands of students have to circum-navigate the huge site. Okay, need to go eat lunch and get more things done. Wish me luck with the Fencing Council at 3 o'clock, it should be politics as normal, which should never be in fencing period, never.

Um, so Summer?

It is nearly gone and what I did this summer was fun, and made money but I really needed to make more and have more fun. An interesting problem no doubt but now in the past.

I am finally moving into my own room. As Paul says I might suffer a bit from agoraphobia, not really. Actually I am currently suffering from how-much-junk-do-I-have-and-where-do-I-put-it-all-phobia. In other words, boxes that have been packed for the past few months are disgorging objects that I know I have but now need a place to store, in a box?

The nice thing about the apartment I am living in is it being on the third story. The third floor is the top floor, that means no people with drunken parties over our heads at 2 in the morning. Also another good thing is that my roommates are all reasonable people or if one isn't the other two can help convince them otherwise, hopefully. We also have a huge south-facing window! That means plants can thrive, and grow, and be green, and well grow green. We have four plants from the Honors House that was torn down this summer. A seven foot tall ficus, a huge monstera, a dumbcane of some sort and a huge rubber plant. I also have my jade plant, spider plant and a rhododendron of some type, if I spelled it correctly. One of my roommates has at least 5 other plants in the apartment currently and could bring more. Hmm... Jungles come to mind after listing all of those plants.

I also read recently about the numerous types of possible bonsai and ficus family had a few that could be grown into bonsai. So looking at our tree carefully I might mark some possible branches for pruning and then stick them in dirt and make them grow to be one small cool tree.

Of course there is school. I think I mentioned what went down, but that along with my complaints about all of UW's construction plans and how they are going about it will come later.

Remember children, look before you cross...

The street is a dangerous place for those on foot. Especially foor feet, black fur, and didn't look both ways. Enough with the intro though I want to get this down in a fresh state rather than trying to remember it some other time.

I was walking along a street in Laramie just trying to focus, or let other focuses go when a black dog came up behind me. I didn't think of it much as it ran by me and I looked back for an owner. I didn't see anyone but they might have been ahead of me. I was going to the park that happened to be on the other side of the street. Now a sort of clarification, the road curved a little bit so I was crossing from the corner of one block, the inside of the curve to the sidewalk on the other side. I was crossing and got about three quarters of the way across when I thought about what the dog might do, this of course being about the time I heard a car. The dog started crossing as the car came about the curve. At first I thought the dog had enough clearance but that wasn't the case, the headlights lit up the dog's side and a horendous crunch ensued. The dog cried and moved toward the sidewalk I was standing on. He was favoring a leg the way he was limping but I couldn't see very clearly. As he came up onto the sidewalk I grabbed his collar and he pushed his head against my leg and stopped whining.

I was really happy to see tht the driver of the caar had stopped and came back to see what happened. That action right there, just coming back to take responsibility, I can do that and I know many other people can too, though I have seen a lot of people just keep going. A guy that had been riding his bike came over too to see what was happening, the people who owned the house we were in front of came out as well offering to call the police and the vet so that this could be taken care of correctly. I was really glad that these people came out or back to help rather than just turning a blind eye. O fcourse the first thing they asked me as they all appraoched was if it was my dog. No, of course not, but there were no tags except for the s-hook that is supposed to hold a tag.

The lady from the house brought out one of her dog's many blankets to help cover the dog. Once covered by the blanket the dog wanted to lie down and so I made sure that the leg he was favoring didn't twist wierdly as he lay down. A little whining and he was lying down with a blanket to keep shock from settling in. I just squatted there petting the dog and talking to him to get a response every so often sort of like how they train you to deal with human shock victims, except he was much quieter once he settled into a position. Now we waited for the police to come because there were no animal patrol people out and about during the night.

Before the blanket was put over him the three of us, the bicyclist, the driver, and I assessed the damage to be a dislocated left hip because he couldn't quite pull it up if it had been an injury lower down the leg. He wasn't bleeding as far as we could see however later on we found out that he had a little bit of an abrasion on the ribcage. Now interestingly he had been hit on the right side, the side of the abrasion, but the dislocated hip was on his left side. This doesn't really make sense until you think that the dislocation probably came about because the far leg, or the left leg probably went underneath the body and was pulled from the socket. The right leg had just been reconfirmed by the collision and it stayed intact, however if the car had been higher clearance or a truck the dog probably would have been dead.

The police came, a young officer that pulled up and got out. Rather than just turning around after seeing that it was just a dog he said that he would help get it into the truck that the guy whose house this was in front of provided. Unfortunately for the kid that had hit the dog the police officer gave him the usual accident information please... license, what he saw, how to get a hold of him. Probably all very unecessary but still good procedure. The officer did a check that I know but forgot about, shining a light into the dog's eyes to see if they react to the light, they did, a good sign that the dog wasn't in shock.

The officer and I had gloves on and so we lifted near the head while the bicyclist got the rear-end. We got him into the truck. The bicyclist and I rode in the back of the truck out to the vet's. We had a conversation out there, when we got there we unloaded the dog and the vet got him up on a table. The dog, anyone could tell was in pain, but stood on the table patiently as the vet took a look at him. The dog it seems will be fine and if no one claims him it seems that the bicyclist may keep an eye on him if not adopt him.

I got a ride back and now know a few more of the Laramie residents, really nice people here, a lot willing to help a dog. And what a dog: after getting hit, settling down right away, not biting those trying to help him even under so much pain. Even though it was not a nice experience it was a good one. Although it doesn't have to happen again, remember: look both ways, all of you.

Taking Tiny Break

I really have to buckle down, but right now I just sit here and wait for half a second ........ okay. Well maybe I will say that Wyoming weather has landed us with some serious precipitation. This morning was nice and clear, and warm which meant that nearly no one had a jacket for this afternoon's very long rain, almost like being back in Japan except a bit colder. The birds were even singing this morning: Chickadees, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Robins, and a few others with not as nice songs. It's really starting to feel like spring in Wyoming, just a couple more snowstorms and we will be in summer. Anyway got to go.

Two more weeks

Just posting for no apparent reason. I just thought that I would have some time. Wrong! Now with deadlines piling up I can see the end but it is through a tunnel built of a whole ton of crap to finish, it could easily collapse in other words. I will be careful though, maybe I will even finish.