The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Cassie had a good day

What a lucky dog. For her Gotcha Day, after she got a ride in the car to the grocery store (always fun!), she got some grilled chicken from my salad and some belly rubs. She had no idea that I got a lot of grilled chicken, but that's for later.

We then walked 5 km to Horner Park DFA, where she got half an hour of off-leash time:

Another 5 km walk took us to Spiteful Brewing, where she found a 15-centimeter bully stick that some other dog had apparently lost:

Altogether she got almost 3 hours of walks, the previously-mentioned grilled chicken for dinner, lots of pats, belly rubs, and new friends at the dog park and at Spiteful. She is now passed out on the couch, dreaming of unexpected bully sticks.

Easy connection in Charlotte

My flight from Munich landed at Charlotte about 40 minutes early, and I got through customs and back through TSA in 34 minutes. Sweet!

And now I'm watching the plane that will take me to Chicago pull into my gate. Sweet!

Really, I just want to hug my dog and get 10 hours of sleep tonight. I have a feeling one of those things will happen and the other won't.

Vrooooom

Since I learned how to drive a car, I've wanted to pick up a BMW in Munich. The European Delivery program allowed Americans to buy a made-to-order car at their local dealer, pick it up in Munich, drive it around Europe for up to 6 months, drop it off at an Atlantic port (Antwerp, I think), and drive it home from your local dealer about 12 weeks after that. Because of tax incentives from the German government and other factors, the purchase price of the car and delivery to your local dealer cost almost exactly what it would cost without picking it up here.

Sadly, it appears that program has ended, in part because of the pandemic, but also because BMW now builds most of its North American cars in North America. You can always go to Spartanburg, S.C., I suppose, but that isn't quite the same thing.

If I ever get a huge bonus or win the lottery, I'd buy a BMW anyway; specifically, the 330eX, their 4-wheel-drive plug-in hybrid. I'm sure my Prius Prime gets much better efficiency (and costs about half what the 330eX would), but having owned two BMWs before, I can assure you a BMW is much more fun to drive.

So with no way to buy a BMW this weekend, I at least got to the source:

And continuing a theme of this weekend, I got there on a fast, quiet, modern subway train:

Unrelated to anything transportation-related, I have an update on Cassie and her friend Butters from the latter's humans. Both girls like food:

And they both like naps:

Now that I've had a quick lunch of Schweinswurst, Käse, Oliven, und ein Shoko-croissant, I am going to take a walk through the Isarvorstadt neighborhood just to my southwest.

Updates, on dogs, trains, and walks, as conditions warrant.

Just have to pack

The weather forecast for Munich doesn't look horrible, but doesn't look all that great either, at least until Saturday. So I'll probably do more indoorsy things Thursday and Friday, though I have tentatively decided to visit Dachau on Thursday, rain or not. You know, to start my trip in such a way that nothing else could possibly be worse.

Meanwhile, I've added these to yesterday's crop of stories to read at the airport:

Finally, don't skip your dog's walks. They're very important to her health.

Houseguest leaving today

Dogs adapt very quickly to new environments when they're comfortable, as Cassie and Butters have done these past few days. Butters has appropriated both of Cassie's beds just as Cassie appropriated my couches:

My lungs have also gotten mostly back to normal, meaning I don't need any more Delsym, meaning no more mild cognitive side-effects. In other words, my upcoming week could be completely back to normal. Hosting Butters has been fun; 16 days of bronchitis have not.

Rockin' Friday night at IDTWHQ

I'm still not 100% over this horrible bout of bronchitis that started more than two weeks ago, so I spent one more evening chilling on the couch drinking lots of water. But these two cuties seemed perfectly happy with that plan:

They did get about an hour and 25 minutes of walkies yesterday, some at Cassie's speed, and some at Butters'. Beagles will keep up with the pack when goaded, but Butters prefers a more thorough investigation of all the smells in the immediate vicinity.

It seems the bronchitis has mostly run its course, too. For the first time in over a week, I got through the night without a coughing fit. One more good night and I might actually have normal cognition by tomorrow. A guy can hope, anyway.

Unmoved, and unmoving

Butters Poochface has decided that her humans have abandoned her, so she's keeping me close. Despite the warm sun on the downstairs porch, where Cassie has sprawled, Butters has camped in my office where she can watch me literally bang my head on my desk trying to work out a thorny design problem:

Earlier today, the famously stubborn hound discovered that Cassie alone can tow her reluctant butt down the sidewalk even without human intervention. After a few seconds of this Butters decided (realized?) that forming up to Cassie's left would provide a much more enjoyable walking experience.

We didn't get up to yesterday's official 15°C today, but the 12°C and sun feels pretty good. I've even got my office window open a bit.

Waiting for the build before walking two dogs

Another sprint has ended. My hope for a boring release has hit two snags: first, it looks like one of the test artifacts in the production environment that our build pipeline depends on has disappeared (easily fixed); and second, my doctor's treatment for this icky bronchitis I've had the past two weeks works great at the (temporary) expense of normal cognition. (Probably the cough syrup.)

Plus, Cassie and I have a houseguest:

But like my head, the rest of the world keeps spinning:

And now, my production test pipeline has concluded successfully, so I will indeed have a boring release.

That was a very long trip

My five-and-a-half-hour-delayed flight got to Seattle in the usual amount of time, but the door-to-door duration—my house to my friend's house—set a new record for domestic travel: 15 hours and 20 minutes. That's the longest travel duration for any flying trip since I had a long connection going from Chicago to London two years ago and longer than any domestic trip I can recall.

But at the end of the voyage, Hazel was very glad to see me:

My friend has an all-day meeting that neither of us is particularly happy about, but I have her car and a comfortable seat at a quiet coffee shop in the Belltown area of downtown Seattle:

I said hi to this guy, too:

I haven't yet figured out what to do with the next couple of hours. I've never seen the top of this thing, though:

There's a non-zero chance I might do a Brews & Choos review after lunch, too. Stay tuned.