Peaks In A Blanket.

Did you get the pun?  Awful isn't it?

By the way... just out of the picture to the left is Mountain House.

An Instant Classic?

Margaret's done it again!

Anyone who's received an email from me will recognize the quotation  from my signature line.  Our friend, MaryAnn in Southern California noticed it and had a great suggestion.  We should put it on a shirt.  And so we have, and they're now available at our CafePress storefront.  And not just shirts but hats and coffee mugs as well.

Gace de la Vigne was a French poet who may also be found under "de la Bigne", and lived either in the 14th or 15th century.  In other words, details about his biography are rather sketchy.  What is known, is that he wrote extensively about dogs, as any Google search will turn up.  He was, in fact, the first person to use the word "terrier".

I first heard of of him on Steve Bodio's Querencia blog way back in 2005, when he wrote the following:

By the way, Gace de la Vigne is also author of someting I want engraved on silver:

"De chiens, d'oyseaux, d'armes, d'amours,

Pour une joye, cent doulours.

("In hounds, hawks, arms, and love, for every joy a hundred sorrows") 

Until that point, I was changing the quote on my email signature on a regular basis.  Once I read this short, simple but powerful statement, I was certain I wouldn't change the quote again.  And I haven't.

Currently, we've "stocked" the store with Scottish Deerhound and Galgo Espanol (which could pass for longdog, staghound, and lurcher in a pinch) products.  We're hustling to get Greyhounds, Salukis, and Afghan hounds up.  Other breeds can be added if there is enough demand.

MaryAnn predicts this item will become a "classic".  We hope she's right.

Pack Practice

A shot from this morning.  Bad weather was forecast for overnight, but when I put Sandia and Fanny in the car and headed north, there wasn't a cloud in the sky. 

This is our "Pack" for next week's Pack Hunt.  Haven't decided yet whether we'll include Buffy just for fun. (Although she's pretty good at finding rabbits, so there's that to consider.)  Fanny, going on 9 years old, can still contribute in a big way.. it just takes her a week to recover.

We got up 4 rabbits in about an hour.  It was a good workout, which ended as the winds picked up, the rain started, and the temperatures dropped.

Other packs beware!

Great New Products!

I almost forgot to post this.

Last year, we had a great promotion that was very popular.  Art gallery style posters featuring your dog.  It was so popular, it got us through the New Mexico break without going broke and having to push the motor home back to the March events.

This year's "special" is a creative twist on our popular "I'd Rather Be Coursing" bumper stickers.  Instead  of a generic sighthound breed, you get your very own dog on the sticker.  And!  They're bigger than our regular stickers.. 4" x 12".

Many of you are already aware of this promo, as we "spammed" about 600 emails to our friends, customers, and others in our email address books.  If not, here's some cool samples, and a copy of the email that was sent.  These aren't available through CafePress.com, (but we've got a terrific new item we're adding there soon.  Stay tuned.), and you'll have to contact Margaret directly.

This special was supposed to end to end today, but since I forgot to promote it on the blog, we're going to extend it to the end of next week, February 14!   Remember that we have to have taken a picture of your dog at a trial or race to take part in this promotion!

Happy New Year to all!

 

First of all, we apologize if you have received duplicates of this message or if you prefer not to receive our occasional communications. To remove your name from our list simply reply and put 'Remove' in the subject line.

 

Dan & I are in Deming, New Mexico until the end of February for a little R&R with our dogs.   In the past several months many of you asked if we could personalize our  I'd Rather Be Coursing bumper sticker with your own dogs. Our answer then was that it is cost prohibitive to do so on a one at a time basis. But we thought it was a great idea...  if we could do a large batch at one time.

 

So the Personalized Bumper Sticker is our Winter Special. We'll take orders through Friday, February 6th. That gives you just over 2 weeks to pick your favorite photo. The attachment shows the choices for background color and text. The personalized stickers are 12" X 4" (larger than our generic stickers!). Here's the scoop on cost and choices:

 

         $19 for the 1st bumper sticker

$3.50 for duplicates

$3.00 for postage

 

We will invoice you through PayPal which can be paid online or by mailing us a check.

 

Info we need from you:

• Photo choice (check the photo # on our website) Please give me the event and date. A stretched or streamlined tuck will work best for the space available.
• Background color choice (yellow, blue, green, red, pink).
• Text choice (I'd Rather be Coursing/Love at First Sighthound/The Happiness of Pursuit).
• Dog's name (if you want it printed on the sticker).
• Rabbit preference (stretched, tucked or moving away).

You can also order our generic stickers for $5 - we have most breeds available.

 

Let us know if you have questions. We look forward to hearing from you.

 

Dan Gauss & Margaret Fairman

Shot On Site Photography

Empty Echoes in the Senate.

Sen. John McCain spent the last couple of days on his Senate soapbox, reminding us exactly what he is:

Loser.

And that's why you're still in the Senate, John.

Google "Chrome"

Seemingly rolled out with little fanfare- I happened to see a little blurb on a Google page- there's a new web browser in town. And it's excellent! Google Chrome.

I installed it yesterday, and so far it's performed flawlessly.  Every control is simple and intuitive.  I think there's a "help" button somewhere, but I haven't needed it.  There's very little garbage on the toolbar, which gives you a bigger screen area for content.  (See the screenshot of this blog page, above.)

And speaking of content, the web pages open at broadband speeds.. and I'm using EDGE/GPRS, which is only about twice as fast as dialup.  

It has a nice memory feature, that keeps track of the number of times I go to a website, and all the most - visited are shown on the front page when you open the browser..  so I better keep some variety in the porn surfing!

I tried Firefox some time ago.  It was OK, but there were some issues that irritated me.  I think it was a problem that had to do with .pdf files.  Haven't opened any .pdf's with Chrome yet, so I probably shouldn't speak too soon.

Give it a try.  It's free.   From download to your monitor only takes about 5-7 minutes; which is amazing in itself.

And now tonight's entertainment, which is in no way relevant to the subject, other than it has the word "chrome" in the title.  Take it, Melissa....

Mr. Happy Tooth No More.

I brush every day; use one of those Oral B spinning, vibrating brushes. Floss nearly as often, and use an anti plaque pre- rinse, and a Listerine clone after. I don't drink sugared soft drinks, and I avoid fruit juices. I visit my dentist every... uh. Hmm. Yeah, I visit a dentist every
20 years or so....?

Okay, so I have a scheduling problem. It's associated with a recurring financial problem.. I can't afford to go t0 the dentist. No big, I thought, having only one emergency since my last root canal, sometime in the early Nineties.

Well... last month, while parked in Texas, watching TV and eating popcorn, I noticed.. my tongue noticed.. a big hole in the middle of a molar that wasn't there before the second handful of popcorn. This was a cause for concern. But not enough for emergency concern. There was some pain, but not the kind you associate with exposed angry nerve endings... more just uncomfortable. I figured I could just chew on the left side until we got to our Wintering spot in New Mexico. Which just happens to be 30 miles north of La Paloma, Mexico. Home to several English-speaking dentists, optometrists, pharmacists, etc.

I made the appointment with Dr. Oscar Daniel Perez at American Dental Care, located just a block and a half from the border, behind the famous Pink Store, (where we would have an excellent lunch afterwards, and use our free Margaritas coupons).

Border crossing from New Mexico into Paloma is, we'll say, informal. Park the car at the Duty Free shop in the US, and just walk on in to Mexico. (Returning would take only slightly longer).

For reasons I still don't quite understand, Margaret requires a dose of antibiotics prior to dental work, so we went first to one of the many pharmacies on the main drag. It may be of some interest to dog owners, that we picked up a 50-count package of Cephalexin, 500mg, for all of $4 and change, US. Just about any drug that's not a narcotic is available over the counter at great prices. The prices in Mexico would continue to amaze us, after our visit to the dentist.

When we arrived at the office, there were only a handful of people in the waiting room; all Yanquis like us, and either full time RVers like us, or dwellers of the borderlands region. It's easy to see what Dr. Perez's target demographic is.

Margaret was just getting her teeth cleaned. I was getting my teeth cleaned and, I thought, getting my filling repaired. That's when everything started to go south... figuratively speaking.

Dr. Perez looked at the tooth and what remained of the filling, and found evidence of decay around the gum line. He advised that it would be better to get a crown, than repair the filling, because I would just be paying for work on the same tooth twice. That made sense to me.

Then Dr. Perez's partner (and wife), Dr. Karla Marmolejo, commenced to cleaning my teeth. She promptly hit a nerve in the wrong side of my mouth, swabbed on some topical pain killer and went to work again, then stopped. She had a long conversation with Oscar in Spanish and he then took over.

This is where the real bad news starts. He told me there was a line of brown material over most of the gum line, top and bottom. He thought at first it was tarter, except it wouldn't come off. It's tooth decay. He's not sure why it's so prevalent, hazarding a guess about minerals in water, but whatever the reason, it's there. It will need extensive filling.

The good news is... or part of the good news is, it's not an emergency situation, (except for the original crown thing). I can get it done in stages, and since we'll be living here it won't cause a scheduling issue. I'm getting the crown done in two weeks, before we pull out of Deming for the last big road trip with the Express. The rest will be done over the next year, after we've moved into the Mountain House.

He wrote out an estimate. That's the second part of the good news. To see what all this would cost in the US, click on the amounts:

Bridge. 4 teeth... $600

Extractions. 2 $50 each

Porcelain Crown. 1 $150

Fillings. 12 (yeah, TWELVE) $50 each

So there you have a brief report on my very first visit to Mexico. I'll be saving a lot of money, and tequila is unbelievably cheap at the Duty Free.

And speaking of Duty Free.. this one came as quite a shock to someone who's used to the Duty Free shops on the way to Canada. Here, you park your car in the lot, go into Duty Free, buy your $12 Cabo Wabo, walk into Mexico, cross the street, walk back into the US, get in your car and go home. Get drunk.

We're going to like living here.