Happy Thanksgiving

Hello. Want to let you see the boys playing in the backyard. I'm speaking on this video and it's pretty quiet - I didn't want to distract the dogs. In case you aren't my family (and if not, welcome to my blog), I'm talking my family in San Francisco. Wish we could be there!

Elections, Environment, Television, and Puppies

Hello. Welcome to my blog. In case you're new, I've been keeping it for over a year now. For a little while I included some of my candle business stuff in here, too, but I've separated that out now. So it's all about me and my dribble. If you want to stay on top of my dribble, please subscribe. Otherwise I'll probably only send you an update by email twice a year. (That might be enough for you, I don't know.) Of course, you could use RSS to stay on top of my blog, but only .2 percent of the world seems to know how to use RSS, so I'll just recommend the subscription method.

This picture of Ben and me was taken to hopefully get us a few gigs as a duo in 2008. Here is a link to our MySpace site. We are the Balmain Bugs.

Here's my MySpace site.

It's been awhile since my last WendEmail. In fact, I'm not sure when I sent the last one. Nothing new to report, really, but here are a few topics I thought I'd talk about....

Elections
Not the 2008 "Clusterf**k to the White House" elections (I do record and watch The Daily Show), this Saturday, Australia goes to the polls in a federal election. No president here, just a Prime Minister. You don't really vote for a Prime Minister, you vote for a federal minister in your district and then the elected ministers in the majority party ("the winners") select a leader. That person is then the Prime Minister. Then the minority party selects "shadow" ministers to disagree with everything that the "winners" say and government returns to its normal course of inaction and bureaucracy. Call me a pessimist.

I can't vote. I'm still only an American. I tried to become an Aussie, too, but the government moves slowly. Too slowly to get me in on time. Ho hum. I'll just wait. No hurry now....

Environment
Still yet to see Emmy Award and Nobel Peace Prize winning, An Inconvienient Truth, I just wanted to say that I am doing a few small things to help. I live in a moderate climate. I can and do (although it is uncomfortable sometimes) live without air conditioning. I drive a small, fuel-efficient car. And I don't replace it every few years - don't need to. I live near the shops and I walk there lots. I don't drive to the post office, I walk. I turn off lights. I recycle as much as I can. I don't water the lawn (and if I needed to, I'd replace it with natural landscaping).

I still think we're in trouble. I think our lifestyles will change the world significantly in my lifetime. The small efforts on my part won't do much to stop it. We need a global answer.

Solar.

My dad pointed out this article to me. Please do take a minute to read it once you're done with my dribble. Solar's Day in the Sun.

Why is it so hard?

Television
Well, if you've not read my diatribe about quitting TV, here it is. More importantly, what a difference it's made. I seriously didn't think I watched that much, but OH MY GOD, I watched LOTS of TV. I went through withdrawals! When did I watch? In the morning when I was having coffee, at lunch, and then starting at 7:30 or so and going until 10:30 or later almost every night. Let's see that's 1+1+3=5x5=25 hours minimum per week that I was watching TV. (I'm pretty sure I've been more than "conservative" in those numbers, so it was actually MORE than that.)

My guitar practice has increased. My customer service calls have increased. My exercise time has increased. My reading time has increased. I'm writing this to you -my writing time has increased.

Puppies
Though plural above, we only have one. His name is Copper. He and Mogy are brothers and they are very happy dogs. Very happy. I'll do a video this afternoon to let you see how happy they are. They play well.

Copper sits, stays, and comes (most of the time). He has been for 2 short walks so far and did well at both. He sleeps really well at night (inside, of course), and once he wakes up in the morning, he and Mogy play/sleep alone outside. One of us just has to shuffle to the door to let them out. Then we fall back into bed.

He has doubled in weight in 4 weeks. Now 12 weeks old. He'll eventually be the same size as Mogy - though perhaps a little lighter.

Here's a link to some pictures of them until I get the video up.

That's all for now. I'm feeling like writing a lot lately though, so please do check back here to see what I might have been up to. No writer's strike for me.

What's up with you? Write soon. Love....

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

Copper got a bath today. I gave it to him in the bathtub. What a good boy. He just let me do everything I needed to do and then (yippee) he dried pretty quickly.

It's a rainy and cold spring day though, and I think he's a bit cold; that's probably why he is cuddling up to Mogy. They are right next to me. Sleeping away just like this picture shows (you can click on the image to see a larger one if you want). I played with the exposure a bit and gave it a whimsical frame. Mogy's not that yellow....

I hurt my back in the process. Sore on the left side. I've tried a few yoga postures to stretch it out, but it's pretty sore.

Well, that's about it. The only other thing worth mentioning here is that I had an absolutely beautiful day yesterday. Great friends, a really funny movie (Death at a Funeral - highly recommended), a beautiful lunch at the Sydney Rowing Club, and then drinks and dinner in our backyard. It was relaxing. A great way to spend a Sunday.