Don't Back Down

As you know, we had to put our dog Ray to sleep not long ago. While this actually went really well, there are times that we miss him, and we wanted a memorial of sorts. While he is in the backyard (not stuffed and mounted or anything, he's been cremated and buried, and we're waiting on a marker for the spot), and we can say hello, it's just not quite the same as having him inside with us all the time. So we went looking.

One of the things that we found interesting was the idea of a Laser Engraved Glass Ornament, from Everlife Memorials. I'll admit that at first, an ornament on the tree for your pet that's been gone seemed a little odd, but after thinking on it for a bit, the idea really grew on me. Plus, it's not terribly expensive (just $39.00, and if you look under the Special Offer link in the sidebar, you might find that you can get a discount (when I did, there was an extra 10% off, but it's not there right now). So we ordered one. It just arrived.

Read "Engraved Pet Ornaments from Everlife Memorials" »

Nearly eight years ago, on The Motley Fool, I wrote a message titled simply Goodbye, Old Friend. You can actually still find the original, though from time to time the folks at the Fool close up the boards, so you might not be able to access it. Because I was worried about that, I recreated it here on my site just over three years later, so that I'd always have a copy.

The gist of the story was that I had to make the decision on whether it was the right time to put our dog to sleep. I grew up with Ruf-ce-Tuf, but I hadn't lived with him for a number of years, so while it was a tough call, in retrospect it wasn't all that difficult. Recently, it was time to make that decision again with another friend - Ray. Some of you may remember Ray, as I've posted about him before, perhaps most memorably just over three years ago when he got a slick new haircut for the summer and looked like a puppy again. It was a good day. A really good day.

Read "My Last Moments With My Friend Ray" »

The day started off fairly abnormal - I was actually awakened by noises in the hall. That in itself isn't really unusual, as our kids typically make all sorts of noise. But normally, I'm up before they are, which means I make the noise and they have to deal with it. So I'm in the other room reading by the time they really get going. More importantly, however, they weren't home. It was just me, Denise, and the indoor dogs (and they were in the room with us). So noise in the hall is potentially a bad thing.

Read "An Early Sunday Morning Visitor" »

One of our dogs, Ray (who you may remember from a ways back) has this problem with ear infections. Just about ever since we've had him he has had them. Infection, not ears I mean. Of course he's had ears, but they've been infected. Many dogs with floppy ears will have infections simply because they tend to get warm inside, which is a perfect place for breeding all sorts of stuff. So we spent countless hours cleaning them out with cotton balls and an enormous amount of money on solutions at the vet trying to get them clean.

We went through the regular cleaner, we performed another test to see what the stuff in his ears was resistant to and we brought home the super-antibiotic so that we could knock it out. We tried multiple types at once (multiple types that were non-resistant, of course). But the infections would remain. We have now had Ray for about four years and ever since he's had ear problems. When I think that of all the time (not to mention money) we spent on them, I can't believe it. What I am glad about is that it seems that we've finally managed to find a solution.

Read "The Best Way to Keeping Dog's Ears Clean" »

It's not uncommon to find people screaming at the top of their lungs that credit cards are bad. Of course, if you use just about anything incorrectly it can be bad. Frankly, I don't have anything against credit cards - I think that they are great, provided you know how to use them. We have a handful of credit cards that we pay off each month, so in effect, we are using other people's money for the course of the month. And yes, I fully understand that we could get into a bind if we needed to pay some other bills first, and couldn't pay those cards off. But that's why we try and have money available to pay the bills. It's all about using your head.

That said, if you can't do that, then maybe they aren't for you at all, and that's okay as well. But what I don't get are the people who talk about credit cards being the worst thing to hit the planet since, well, evil, but they don't talk about things like ATM cards. I mean really. ATM cards - in fact, let's lump all debit cards or check cards or whatever you want to call them into the same bunch - can be just as bad, if not worse. Sure, there is the advantage that you can't spend more money than you have, but you can sure spend it just as quickly.

Read "Is All Plastic Bad, or Only Certain Kinds?" »

Many of you may know that a few years ago, when I married my wife, I not only became a husband, but I became a father at the same time, because my wife had two children from a prior marriage. For a long time I had told myself that I wasn't planning to date anyone who had been married because I didn't want to deal with the issues that may arise. I also didn't want to be with someone who had children for the same reasons. Naturally, the universe saw to it that I had both.

As I am adopted myself, I don't think that it matters at all that I am not the biological father of the children, and I am certainly glad that I had a chance to know them when they were younger (meaning before we were married), as that has made the transition all the easier. In fact, our youngest I have known since he was born, and our oldest I have known since he was perhaps one. It is as if they are my own. I'm sure it would be that way regardless, but it is just that much easier.

Read "The Joy of a Child" »

As we were on the way to the lake today, we noticed something next to the road - a turtle! Those of you who have been reading for a while probably realize that we're a bit sappy when it comes to animals in need (we already have four stray dogs), and seeing a turtle along the side of the road trying to decide whether to cross or not, well, it just hits us right in the breadbox. So naturally I made my wife pull over and turn around so we could check him out.

The poor little guy was just sitting there, with his legs all tucked up under the shell, his head barely poking out. I'm not sure if he was just intimidated by all the cars passing by or if he had been hit by someone already - but being that he was on the stripe next to the road, I figured that I needed to at least move him off to the side. Since the kids were in the van, I thought that the least I could do was show them, so I took him so they could see. Luckily, he wasn't too big. The last turtle we saw near the road was a monster - when I tried to move him, I almost lost a hand.

Read "Fluffy Lucky Ogee Wilson Everett, or The Eastern Box Turtle" »

After we purchased our first GPS, we quickly set out to try to find our first cache. It turns out that the Geocaching web site has quite a few listed in the Charlotte area. It's not a terrible surprise, really, but it's always nice to find something happening here. It's not like Charlotte is a small town, exactly, but we always seem to be just on the outside of things.

I'm sure that there are some places that have thousands of Geocaches in their area, and that's okay, but we were pleasantly surprised to find that there are 850 of them within 50 miles of our zip code (which is within the Charlotte city limits). This is something that could go either way. Someplace like New York City, which has millions of people, may not have many caches, because it may not have as much wilderness - though there are certainly interesting places to hid things all over the city. And a remote place with lots of wilderness may not have the people. So maybe Charlotte is just in the sweet spot.

Read "Finding Our First Geocaches" »

On July 14th, 1789, seven prisoners (yes, just seven!) were freed from the French prison called The Bastille. I'm sure it was La Bastille or Le Bastille or something - I'm not trying to offend anyone here. Anyway, this event marked the beginning of the French Revolution, and the prison was a symbol of the power of Louis XVI, so each year on this day, the French celebrate the day, much as Americans celebrate July 4th.

In Charlotte, the French-American Chamber of Commerce puts on a festival celebrating this event. Previously - or at least last year - this event was held in the Wachovia Plaza uptown, which is certainly a nice place, but you have to wonder what happened, as this year's event (the 7th, from what I can find, it moved to a small enclosed space in the North Davidson Arts District. Not a good choice.

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When I was a kid, my dad worked in the airline industry, which meant that we were able to fly for free with some frequency - in reality it meant that at least once a year we flew back to the East Coast (where I now live) to visit family. It also meant that I was one of the early birds when it came to having a frequent flyer number. I think the first was probably in the Delta Sky Miles program. This was so long ago that I actually have a place on my statement where I have miles from the original program that won't expire (not a lot of miles, but miles nonetheless).

These days, it seems like everyone has an affiliation program of some sort. Airlines have had them for years (probably decades), and car rental companies have them, though they usually just award airline miles. Hotels give you airline miles or points towards free stays (some even give you both). One of the more recent entrants into this arena is for frequent movie goers. Some of you might realize that I watch movies, so this holds some interest to me, even if I don't always go to the movies to see them. So which is better - AMC's MovieWatcher or Regal's Crown Club? Let's try to find out!

Read "AMC MovieWatcher versus Regal Crown Club" »

According to the Simple English Wikipedia, Asperger Syndrome is a term that is used when a person has a hard time talking with other people in the usual way. Doctors see Asperger syndrome as a mild form of autism. It is sometimes called "high-functioning autism". This means somebody with autism who looks like they do not have autism, but their brains still works differently than that of other people. Doctors often make mistakes about whether someone has Asperger syndrome, and they often believe by mistake that the person has schizophrenia, ADHD, Tourette syndrome, or mental retardation instead.

What does this have to do with anything? We have frequently been told to have our youngest son should be treated for ADHD, and we don't really subscribe to the idea. So we went looking for some alternate explanations. One of the best descriptions we came upon was Asperger Syndrome.

Read "Asperger Syndrome" »

In something of an unlikely series of events, there were actually a couple of events happening on the same weekend that we wanted to try out. So after the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest Regional Qualifier, we headed to the Charlotte Dragonboat Festival. Unfortunately, by the time we finally got through at the qualifier, it was getting on a bit in the afternoon.

There were multiple problems with this. First and foremost, it gets hotter towards that part of the day. Naturally, we were thinking that boats have to have water, so we were going to be okay. Not necessarily a good idea, because (of course) we weren't on the boats. Perhaps we should have been. Second, the capacity planning coordinator should have been shot.

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