Stan Taylor

Last week, I wrote about the stray Golden Retriever that came up to us on Christmas day.

Well, Katie took him to the vet today. As soon as he heard Rufus’ story, the vet guessed that Rufus had heartworms¹. Apparently, a lot of people abandon their dogs when they test positive for heartworms: either the owners think the dog is a goner, or they don’t want/can’t pay for treatment, which can be quite expensive. In either case, just dumping the dog is a poor choice (don’t get me started!).

A heartworm test was one of the reasons we took Rufus in to the vet. Sure enough, he tested positive. Fortunately, our country vet only charges $300² for treatment, and he thinks that little enough damage has been done to Rufus’ heart that he’ll have a full recovery.
¹ Heartworms are very common in this part of the country, and all dogs should be given preventive medicine.
² He said that other vets charge up to $1000.

The 13-year-old boy in me is amused.

[click on image for larger version]

This is the windmill in the greenbelt behind our house. Due to careful placement of the camera, you can’t see the suburban homes all around it. Also, if you look at the large size of the photo, you can see some palm-like plants that someone planted in the greenbelt. I tried to mostly hide them behind the windmill.
I’ve photographed this windmill on numerous occasions in the six years we’ve lived here. I took this photo on November 29, 2008. I’m really glad the developer left it when he turned this homestead into a subdivision (also glad he put a concrete plate over the old well near it).

At Enchanted Rock State Natural Area.

Our invisible dog rescue sign followed us to San Antonio on Christmas day. After dinner, we were standing in the driveway at Katie’s aunt’s house, watching Samuel play with his new RipStick, when the dog below walked up. I immediately put a note on Craigslist, and we brought him home. No collar, no microchip and no responses to the Craigslist note, so it looks like we’ll be finding a home for him.
UPDATE 3 Jan 2009: No luck in reuniting him with his people. In the meantime, we’ve fallen in love with him and, against our better judgment, we’ve decided to keep him. We’ve named him Rufus Ray McDufus III.

This is my kind of woman.
(via Consumerist)

Got to my office this morning, got my coffee, sat down at my desk and started going through my email. I happened to look down into my lap and noticed ugly brown stains in the crotch of my jeans. Since I don’t recall soiling myself, I’m pretty sure it’s cat barf*. Fortunately, it’s only visible if I’m sitting down with my legs spread somewhat, and you can see up between my legs. I get to go through the whole day worrying about this.
* Unfolded, clean laundry piled up on the couch last week, and the cat started sleeping in it. When I finally started folding laundry, I discovered cat barf on another item of clothing.

Since the election, I’ve been wondering what the fate is of Sen. Joe Lieberman after January 20, 2009. John Scalzi offers one possible scenario.

Google Flu Trends: “We’ve found that certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity. Google Flu Trends uses aggregated Google search data to estimate flu activity in your state up to two weeks faster than traditional systems.”
You can even download the raw data. This is so cool!
(via Jason Kottke)