The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

New personal record

I finally got around to updating my biking stats (but not the Google Earth tracks—Garmin changed their XML format and I haven't written a converter yet). I discovered, to my surprise, that I got a new personal record on May 27th: 40 km in 1:22:15, which is an average speed of 29.2 km/h. This bested my previous record by 23 seconds. Cool.

Also, today's ride took me up to Cicada Central. Wow. I only had two collisions (and only one cicada fatality), but the sound was worth the trip.

On the other hand, the abysmal heat (33°C) was not.

Happy birthday, Parker!

Parker is officially[1] one year old today.

Then:

Now:

Here's to 15 more. No party, because nothing looks sadder than a dog in a birthday hat, but I will have a special treat for dinner tonight.

[1] The shelter said he was 11 weeks old on 1 September 2006, so 16 June 2006 is my best guess for his birthday. He's not telling how old he really is.

Sad park news

Fred, one of the dogs Parker knew from the morning group in the park, died from cancer last night. Fred was ornery towards other dogs but really sweet towards people. His owner reports Fred would have been 14 today.

Moral question about bugs

At what point in Parker's cat-like tormenting of a junebug should I take the insect away from him? Apparently they're not very tasty, and they seem to fight back.

I never thought I'd actually have these kinds of questions before I got the dog. Odd.

Not-so-bad butt

I forgot to mention how Parker is feeling. The antibiotics (only one of which had to be re-inserted in his food after he spat it out) seem to have done their job. Of course, on the way to visit his friends Sam and Hershey last night, he got to eat his dinner a second time. (Yeah, ew.)

Here's the problem: there is no effective way to keep him from eating rabbit poop. He will get another crypto infection; and he'll have to be on heartworm pills year-round to prevent hookworm. He's not likely to grow out of it, either. But at least now that it looks almost certainly like parasitic infections and not something with his own plumbing, I can start re-introducing him to non-prescription dog food next week, and I don't need to worry as much about him eating sticks.

Finally, I promise, really I do, to post about other topics over the weekend.

How far we've come

Today is the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Loving v. Virginia, which established that the 14th Amendment prevents states from prohibiting inter-racial marriages. So I found it mildly amusing when my real-estate agent told me another agent had asked her "who lives in [your] building." That question isn't Kosher for the same reasons Virginia's miscegenation laws weren't.