Hiatus.

Posting has been light lately. No particular reason, other than we've been cursed over the last couple of weeks with poor internet signals, which is the case today. We're at the Escapees Racoon Valley RV park north of Knoxville. We'll continue on our way to the deerhound specialty on Sunday. That will be a week-long event, and if anything earth shattering happens we'll be able to post on it, from our location on the southern edge of the Great Smoky Mountains. (Earth shattering to be defined by how well Randir does in the show ring in veterans!)

Might as well show the schedule for the next couple of weeks. Following the specialty, (and a trip to Wheeling to have Rally's hock repaired), we will be at...

May 5-6 OKIGO AKC trial Fairborn, OH
May 12-13 MGA ASFA trial Gibralter, MI
May 20 Silken Windhound Purina Farms
May 26-28 INBC AKC trials Shawnee, OK
June 2-3 ASFA II Farmington, MN
June 5-8 SCOA specialty Lexington, KY
June 16-17 Open weekend
June 23-24 LCLC ASFA trial Youngstown, NY
June 30 July 1 MGA ASFA trial Metamora, MI
July 7-8 BGCC ASFA trial Columbia, KY
July 21-22 Open weekend
July 27-29 Ridgeback Rodeo Conneautville, PA

Updates to follow...

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 1922-2007

The passing of an American literary icon. And iconoclast. Time to dig out the old books from storage. And get a Vonnegut film festival together from Netflix; don't think I've ever seen Mother Night.

Of all places, the best memorial I've read today, is by that dancing, globetrotting, madcap blogger, Matt Harding, (from Where the Hell is Matt? fame). Powerful stuff. And true. (but I'm still not removing the semicolon in the first paragraph!)

If you're Sirius radio subscribers, (or want to try it out online free for three days), you can catch a rebroadcast on Sunday evening, of today's "Vin Scelsa's Idiot's Delight" show, which was, in turn, a replaying of his 1996 interview with Vonnegut Jr. on his WNEW broadcast radio show. Well worth looking up.. I think it's on at either 7 or 8 PM Eastern time, Sunday April 15.

Galgos Revisited

With the end of the Galgo poll, I suppose you want to know the answer: The top image is Tuxedo. The bottom image is Queenie. Queenie is a Loomis, Nebraska staghound. Congratulations to those two-thirds of respondents who figured that out.

Comments- and A New Poll

Maybe you noticed I let a couple of weeks go without any posts. I was simmering... a little pissed, even. I try to make this blog informative, and to an even greater extent: entertaining. Other than a couple of comments that I actively solicited, I got no feedback on my April Fools Day post.

I realized part of the problem was that comments on this blog are moderated.. and you have to create an identity (even if it's "anonymous"). Maybe more work than you're willing to put in to it. (Or maybe you really believe "Bubba's" ancestors were created by Georgia hillbillies!)

So, I'm thinking of unmoderating the comments section. I originally did it because I got spam comments. I've created a new poll.. over on the sidebar. If the numbers support it, I'll remove the hard parts...

WTF??

April 3, 2007 Interstate 45 near Huntsville, TX. (Where they do the needle thing... I hear the Texas legislature is considering the death penalty for jaywalkers. And down the line, they may want to also kill people who wear stripes with plaid, or polyester.) The wildflowers were blooming, the weather was downright hot.. and humid. The sun was shining. Ahhh Spring!!

April 5, 2007 Weidmann Park, Valley Center, KS. Hmmmm.

April 11, 2007 Kellogg RV Park, Kellogg, IA. There's a disturbing pattern developing here. Can you see it? Remember that cute little lamb picture from March 31... that was supposed to signify "March goes out like a lamb". Apparently, that lamb had another agenda, because once he went silently into the barn, he apparently transformed himself into Hannibal Lector!

This has already been a record-breaking Fall/Winter/Spring for us, weatherwise... this latest bunch of white precipitation will just assure that the record is never broken. So there is a plus-side, I guess: It will never be this bad again.

Right.

All About Bubba.

The "Bubba Poll" is now closed. For those waiting breathlessly for the answer... It's Georgia. That's right, Georgia. And not the one over there in the old Soviet Union.. the one in the American South. Bubba is an
Appalachian Corn Hound;or rather he's descended from the Corn Hounds, which were first created in the North Georgia mountains at the turn of the last century by mountain men who needed sturdy guard animals to protect their "corn likker" stills. Borrowing heavily from the French Great Pyrenees, for size, American Pitbulls for tenacity, and an occasional greyhound for speed in pursuing the hated "Revenoors" out of the mountains, these ingenius mountain dwellers produced a hound whose only vice was a taste for fine French wines and cognacs. Alas, this was to lead to the ultimate demise of the breed, even though it guaranteed that they would stay out of the moonshine. Because of their expensive tastes, these poor hill folk were unable to afford to keep this handsome dog. Additionally, the Corn Hound was able to somehow maintain beautiful strong, white teeth throughout their lifespans, which led to poor self-esteem among the very people that created them.

The entire population was, therefore, shipped off to Texas during the Great Depression, where the somewhat-wealthy Sheep Barons were able employ them in their current capacity, as sheep guarding dogs. So that's Bubba's story.. so rare, you won't even find it in Wikipedia!

And not only that, but... what?
What's that?
What's today's date, you say?

Why.. It's April Fool's Day.

And Bubba's an Akbash. From Turkey.
Congratulations to all who got it right. Texas, Todd?? ;)

Mission Accomplished.

Unlike other big lies you've heard, using the above statement.. I actually made it down to LaMarque, Texas last night to shoot some real racing at the Gulf Greyhound Park. I mentioned in a previous post that a reader had asked if I would take some pictures of his dogs if I was ever in the area. We were... and I did. And won a couple of bucks in the process! But not on the race pictured below...

...that's "PDX Carnage" in the number 4 blanket; one of the dogs I was there to shoot. Unfortunately, Carnage wasn't anywhere near the front when I snapped this, but I think it's pretty indicative of the intensity of the sport nevertheless. The reader's other dog, "PDX Blackie", won it's race.

I also met up with our friend, Kelly, who had a dog, "C Ya Tag Heuer",

running in a later race. Kelly was invaluable in helping spot the dogs I had to shoot... and, she bought me a Shiner Bock. Way to go Kelly! Lots of images available for viewing at the Shot On Site website.

Kelly, and her friend, Tammy, also reminded me numerous times as I left, to "drive safe" on my 100+ mile trip back to the campground. Ha! Little do they know...

...about my history of driving in Houston. I wonder if I should tell the story here.. hmmmm.. it involves my brother, Mark, and his Toyota, my cousin and her husband, a football game, and most importantly, psychotropic mushrooms, big draft beers, and, yeccch!, Andre Cold Duck, (did I mention the UCLA Song Girls?). What do y'all think? Want to hear the story?

Images ©2007 Shot On Site