Chinese water torture, excrement everywhere, Eagles escape again

So by the time Friday rolled around I was totally over my training class, I couldn’t take it anymore.  By that time I had gotten what I needed out of the class, a basic understanding of how IP6 functions and is different than IPV4.  Unfortunately for me the class dealt with high end router/switch technologies that I have no use for in my current job environment.  Hell, a lot of the acronyms I never even heard of before.

Even with 5 days dedicated to the class, there was entirely TOO much content jammed in there.  It was ridiculous.  Even if the instructor did nothing but read each slide non-stop I don’t think we would have gotten through everything.

The instructor didn’t help the situation either.  Don’t get me wrong, this guy was a Cisco GENIUS but he was not so brilliant in time management.  Earlier in the week he was very sloppy with making sure class started on time, breaks were observed and lunch hour was actually only an hour.  Plus he didn’t set any finite time on the labs we did which was dumb.  Instead of saying “you have 40 minutes for this lab” it would be open ended which resulted in hours being wasted.

I was so glad when I clicked the TERMINATE button for the video conference for the final time.  It was a long week in the virtual classroom.

So I had a race to time Saturday morning.  I was out of the house early, right around 5AM.  I got Nicki to take a dump before I left so I figured I would be in the clear till I got back around 10.  Sadie didn’t dump beforehand but traditionally she is fine when it comes to not dropping deuces unless outside.

Well when I got back to the house I was hit in the face with the lovely stench of dog shit.  In front of the guest bathroom was a large pile of what looked to be Sadie shit.  In the master bathroom on one of the mats was a small runny puddle of Nicki shit.  I was not pleased.

I pointed out each pile to the offending canine and used my stern voice to let them it was NOT ok.  I then got to the pleasant duty of doody clean up, before even starting on all of the post race work that I needed to do.

Nicki’s shitting in particular is the most perplexing.  It was a tiny amount of crap, certainly she didn’t do it because she could no longer hold it.  Like I mentioned, she went before I left.  Part of this is our problem.  We have conditioned Nicki to associate taking a shit with getting treats her entire life.  Now it’s like she feels the need to HAVE to eject something from her anus nearly every time she is outside because she wants the reward.

This could all be stress related because of the uncertainty of bouncing between two living arrangements/time schedules.  Nicki is much more schedule/environment dependent than Sadie is, who can roll with just about anything.

On top of the shitting I have been treated to multiple episodes of vomiting.  Twice overnight Nicki has thrown up and Sadie has barfed more than that as the result of her insistence to ingest grass when I am not looking.  Every pile of vomit she produces always has grass mixed in with it.

Saturday night I went out and saw Lawless.  It was surprisingly good although were some cringe worthy moments with graphic violence.  I’d give it a solid A-.

On Sunday morning I was thinking about doing the DD bike ride.  Instead I decided to go to the swamp early with the girls to beat the heat.  We were in the empty parking lot before 9AM.

The first thing we saw were two deer in the parking lot. It made me think we might see a lot of wildlife this time around.  I had not been to the swamp since June.  I figured the summer rains would have brought the water levels back to their max, bringing in more wildlife.

As we walked the boardwalk we came across an older gentleman who wore a volunteer shirt.  He was towing a wagon that had wood and cordless power tools.  He was replacing rotted boards.  I talked to him a bit and told him I saw a few boards he already replaced, it looked like he did good work.

When we entered the main trail I was surprised by a couple things.  First the water levels weren’t as high as I would have expected them to be in mid-September.  Second, the grass on the trail looked like it hadn’t been mowed all summer long.

At some spots the grass was almost knee high.  Not only was the grass high, it was wet from the early hour of day.  In no time my feet were drenched.

I was a bit worried about how Nicki would do on the walk because of her recent mobility issues.  I was happy to see that she kept pace for  most of the walk.

Unfortunately we did not see much wildlife at all during the hike, outside of the deer in the parking lot, the only other animals we saw were two baby gators sunning themselves.

Repeatedly during the walk I had to scold Sadie for trying to munch on the high grass.  I don’t know what her deal is with her grass craving.  You would think she is part bovine.

By the time we got back to the van the temps had started to crank up.  I was glad we got there early.  Although Nicki did well during the hike, later in the day I could tell she was feeling the side effects.  When she would get up after napping she looked very stiff.

So I took in the Eagles game, basically assuming they would get smashed by the Ravens who looked great in their opener while the Eagles fumbled and bumbled their way to a narrow one point win against the stinky Browns.

Well with the way the game started it seemed my assumption was right on.  I couldn’t believe that Vick ended the Eagles opening drive with ANOTHER interception, this time in the end zone.  The Eagles turned the ball over THREE MORE times on top of that, an embarrassingly bad stat.  I think in the first two games they have turned the ball over 9 times.

However in the end they managed to grind out another come from behind, grind it out win, this time against a much better opponent. The Birds actually set some sort of record as being only the 5th team in NFL history to start a season 2-0 after committing this many turnovers.  A dubious title but I’ll take it.

Last year these were the type of games that the Eagles would consistently find a way to lose in the end.  The fact that this year they are finding a way to win instead gives me more hope that the team could actually perform up to their talent level this time around.

On a side note, the replacement NFL officials are an absolute joke.  I mean they are embarrassingly bad.  There were some horrible call and non-calls on both sides of the ball on Sunday.  This has not been the exception, the entire time the replacement refs have been in place week in and week out they have sucked, plain and simple.  The NFL needs to fix this.  If important games late in the year start getting decided by these bumbling boobs there is going to be hell to pay.