life as a dog…

People generally fall into one of those categories. You are either a dog person or a cat person. You either hate them or love them. I always considered myself more of a cat person, but I’ve been lucky enough to be able to get along with almost any animal. When I lived in Ashburn, my roommate had a beagle that came from the rescue group. This beagle did NOT like men. Scared to death of them. The first time he met me and a friend of mine, he peed while in the arms of the roommate. I’d say that’s pretty scared. That was before I moved in.

When I moved in, I went to work on Bruno. At first, he would hide under the bed, and I would lay down and hold out my hand. Let him sniff it. If he pulled away, I’d get up and go away. Eventually, he let me scratch his head. Slowly, very slowly, he let me pet him. At some point, his fear began to wane. By the time I moved out, he was sleeping in my bed next to me. I managed to get him to fear men less. The funny thing is that I had Harley by the time I moved out. Bruno would sleep next to me, and (in retaliation?) Harley would go into my roommate’s bed to sleep.

A coworker of mine has a Chihuahua. The thing will bark at anybody who comes in. It took about 20 minutes for me to get her to warm up. Now, she’ll jump up in my lap and expect attention. A neighbor here has a cat. He’ll come up to me and sit in my lap. There was a pit bull living nearby when I was in Gainesville. No problem. I could walk up to it and pet it and it would lie down for attention.

I have zero fear when it comes to animals I come across. They say that animals can tell if you have any fear. Maybe there’s something to that…because I’ll easily walk up to any animal and coax it nearer to me. Zero fear and patience is what it takes.

So I guess I’m not a cat person…I’m not a dog person. I’d fall into the “animal” person group.

This was a long week. It started in San Francisco, came back to Virginia and ended in New York (Long Island to be exact). And, to add to the dichotomy that is east coast v. west coast, I went from the liberal bastion of San Francisco to King’s Point to videotape President Bush. High… then low. It’s Wednesday…my work week is already at 45 hours. Friday can’t come soon enough.

I’m going to do a slight change in this blog. Instead of quick little snippets every few days, I’m going to try and write a little more. Sure, I’ll still have the quick snippets if I get new pictures up. But, I might as well write a little more in depth. I’ve done it a few times, though not enough to really mean much. I’m guessing, of course, that this means I’ll be posting a little less often (as if I’ve been posting nonstop anyway). So there it is…a slight change.

Got my San Francisco pictures up. I can’t believe how many I actually took. Filled up a 2GB AND a 1GB card.

I know I’m not alone when I say I hate advertising. But some of the commercials I’ve seen here are absolutely hysterical. Of course, that also means they are international ads – there were quite a few that would NEVER be shown here in the states.

Example? OK, there was one that everyone rolling on the floor. It starts off with a shot of sperm shooting through a tube (obvious enough). It keeps going and suddenly the one sperm stops…it moves around like it looks like it’s lost. And then the tag comes up… Oslo Gay Pride Festival! Funny as hell…and no chance of ever being shown in the US (even on the “best of” shows).