The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Today's Daily Parker

Happy dog with tennis ball:

I'm starting a new project on Monday that will consume tons o' time. The good news is that Parker will be with me in the office probably four days a week. The bad news is that "Today's Daily Parker" will become "The Daily Parker Roundup" starting next week. In other words, The Daily Parker may not have daily Parker for a while. Somehow, I think we'll all survive.

Once, twice

I finally got around to Googling Markéta Irglová, who played "The Girl" in Once. It turns out, she's 19. As in, years old. As in, she's not old enough to drink legally in the U.S., and she has two albums out. And they're really good albums.

This is in the same category of realizing that when Mozart was my age, he'd been dead almost a year[1].

[1] Actually, Mozart was just shy of 36, so if I were him—utterly ridiculous, if you know me—I'd have died on 14 July 2006.

Once

I saw the movie Once almost a week ago, and I can't get it out of my head. Imagine a musical where the music makes sense in real life (i.e., when was the last time you saw a crowd spontaneously break into song? OK, how about a subway busker? Which one makes more sense?). And the music is really, really good.

Yesterday's Daily Parker

Parker had just about the longest day of his life yesterday when we drove up to Devil's Lake State Park, near Baraboo, Wis., for a 9 km hike. That's a lot for a dog of any size, not even counting that it involved a 150 m climb at one point. Fortunately there were stairs, courtesy of the Civilian Conservation Corps circa 1938:

He had, I think, the best walk ever. He met other dogs:

Found enough to drink along the way:

And discovered a hollow tree:

Finally we reached the top of the ridge to rest. He initially seemed nervous about the height but, with a few scritches behind the ear, relaxed:

Also, I'm happy to report, he had a restful car ride in both directions: