New Chapter

Well, it's been a while since I've used this blog, but since I'm stuck at home for the next two weeks with a SEVERELY sprained ankle(bad enough for it to be in an air cast) I might as well make some notes on the first few days for my new dogs (lady's) life with us.

So, some background on Lady to start. She is a black lab/beagle mix possibly. She's about 30 pounds and full of energy. She has three traits that make us think she is part something other then lab. 1. she is small for a lab. 2. she has a soft bay in her bark/cry. 3. she can stand straight up on her back legs. We don't when she was born but we assume she is about 1 year old. I meet her about 6-7 months ago when I noticed she was one of those dogs that didn't go home from the kennel in the normal 1 or 2 weeks. Most of the rest of the Kennelwood staff really did pickup that she hadn't gone anywhere tell about her fourth month in the kennel. I really began to bond with her around her fifth month in the kennel when it was pretty clear that she wasn't going  home. About that time we had to put are last dog down, Blacktail was 15 years old and even though her spirit was strong her body couldn't keep up. A week after Blacktail had passed I began asking my boss and the general manger of the Page Kennelwood (Amy) if there was a way to adopt Lady and give her a good loving home. In short after many phone calls between lady's ex-dad and Amy, letter of eviction from the kennel, Me asking about her everyday for two and a half weeks, and calls between Amy and the corporate headquarters I finally got to bring her home yesterday afternoon.

So yesterday was an exciting day for both my family, myself, and Lady. My mom meet Lady for the first time yesterday. Lady didn't, hasn't totally adjusted to her yet. She had no real experience in the car so that was her first big excitement. Next it was coming into an house. I was glad to see that she figured out stairs pretty fast. For the first few hours lady stayed near the back door in the kitchen while I made dinner (yes I can cook when I want to). Eventually she relaxed enough to explore the living room and the many soft surfaces with in it. I have never seen a dog so excited to have a soft surface to rub on. So far the sofa is her favorite place although she likes her dog bed also.  She was very intimidated by my mom boy friend Lonnie though and they just didn't quite make friends yesterday. Last night was her first night in a crate. She needs to be crated until we can trust her not to destroy the house while were gone or asleep. We learned that she needed a night light to sleep with, my moms room was to dark for her. who knew?

This morning started early because my mom had to be in St. Charles at 6:15 am to be ready for a hell class at 6:30am to start. Lady can be an energizer bunny in the morning I swear I spent 5-6 hours just trying to proof the upstairs against her and she up to this moment still is finding things and bring them to me and watching me put them back and try to block the place where she got them from. Also during this time Lady has also become comfortable walking around the bird. To be fair my green wing macaw, Cassey, can be intimidating even if your a 200 pound human.  Lady also discovered my snake, Zoey, but hasn't done much but watch her.  Lady doesn't hold still, if you sit maybe she will sit, but if you are moving about the room you bet she wants to she what your doing. Well, she did finally take a nap this afternoon from about 12:30 tell 3pm, but after that she was right back at it. Okay enough for now I need some dinner so I'll write some more tomorrow.

The Summer Blues

Well, I know is been a while scents I last updated my blog, but that's because nothing exciting really happen right now for me. My summer includes fill out an application a day for a job, house work both inside and outside depending on how hot it is, and taking care of my aging dog. I can't really complain about the house work or dog though. I am kind of mooching off my mom, now that dad has stopped sending my child support check. I feel bad that I don't have work,an income of money, to help pay for the house or car bills. She says not to worry about, but I do anyway. So if she says "jump", I ask, "how high". It's the only way I don't feel total useless.

I can really only stand filling out one application a day, if you've applied to anything lately, you understand. The paper work is extensive and although you can some time do it online by coping and pasting most of the time its either hand written or filled out by hand on the computer in whatever program or site the company uses. It's not like your filling you contact information over and past experience, it much more. You fill out your contact information, your social security, the Equal opportunity employment form, your current/past work, your community service, your references, and then you fill out a 5-10 page survey about your personality and how you handle situations. In short it goes on forever. It also doesn't help that live in STL right now, when phizer just let go of a bunch of scientist. So any lab position I might have gotten is now taken by someone that been in the feild, longer then I've been able work.

oh well, I'll just keep trying.

Graduation, Camping, Wolf Sanctuary Internship

Yeah, I finally did it. I graduated College. I now am the proud owner of a peice of paper that says I'm smart and deserve some respect. It only took 4 hours of torture called a graduation ceremony, 4 years of book work, some gross lab skills, many new freinds, and a new view of the world from the other side of the state through the eyes of others. I'm not going to miss test, papers, and constantly get sick, but I'm going to miss my freinds, my random adventures, and my freedoms.

Right after graduation I left for the feild trip part of my Biology Feild Trip class. This was a great way to force me not to think so much about leaving Rockhurst and focus on what I doing, physical labor does that, well if you don't want to get hurt. We camped at the Roaring River State Park for a night, proved that we were handicaped, got to see a fish hatchery, then we went to Lamberts in Springfeild, MO, that was a experience, we camped and stayed in a cabin a few days at The Lake of the Ozarks State Park, played hackysack, saw the lake, played card games, frisbee, and catch, we found a couple boob tree's, lizards, and turtles, visited Ha Ha Tonka State Park, survived Chad surprise, ate honey and peanut butter sandwhichs, and floated down a river . It was great fun though and I was able to escape the reality of life untell the last night of the trip. At least I got to say goodbye of my teachers, inculding one that was very special to me.

Right after getting home I started an internship at the Wild Canid Center. It was a miss advertisement on the internship, it was as much an animal care internship as it was a maintance internship. Along with getting to feed, water, and clean wolf poop, I also got to cut grass, srcub tubs, pull weeds, skin rats, play in posion ivy, pull vines off a fence, clear a path through the woods, and strip the plastic of steel cable. It wasn't all bad, I did get to see the new born puppies, help in the capture of one of the wolves, see Aferican wild dogs devor deer legs and bones, and educated the public on box turtles and then set one free.

I miss it all, I miss school, I miss my freinds, I miss my teachers, I miss the morning howls of the wolves, the stars camping, and yes even the alarms going off in the middle of the night.

Barbara Wynne Award / Snake Names

Okay, I really exicted becuase today at the Festival of Student Achivements I was chosen to receive the Barbara Wynne Award for Outstanding Biology Student. Its really awsome and a great honor. Only one person per year in the last three years has won this award, and this yearI and my freind Tiffany both won it. Along with getting my name ingraved on plague, a nice certificate, and a awsome card I also got a couple books. One is on animals of the world, it covers alot but misses out on birds. The second book, I'm most excited about, is on wolves. I'm thinking it may inspire me to get out my drawing pad and try drawing some wolf images.

If that wasn't enough, last night I looked up names for the snakes, I've been tracking with Dr. Walker. I suggested some names to her and she's already adopted them all for the snakes. So the boy snake transmiting at 515 is now Blaze, the girl snake transmitting at 105 is now Maya, and the girl transmitting at 482 is now Brook. Its kinda cool to know I got to name 3 timber rattlesnakes. Above is a picture of Maya and what we hope is her snake den in the background, it would be awsome if she did give birth considering these snakes are endanged in Kansas. Just don't tell the land owers near the park. Personally, I think I would be cool to have radio taged snakes in my backyard, as long as I had a reciver, but most people don't think that way.

A Poem to Inspire All

How To Train Your Dragon

Tuesday the 23rd I got a chance to see a special preview of Dreamworks "How To Train Your Dragon" it was great. Yeah its geared toward a little younger crowd so it is a cartoon and it is PG rated. For any one that picked up the candlewickpress's "Dragonolgy" which is a picture book on dragons you should see this movie. I won't spoil the story for you but its a classic. At my special preview they had an art school there made art work from the students, and three class project paper macia dragons. They did a pertty good job on them for 5-10 year olds. I didn't get to see the movie in 3D but I think some of the flight scences and battle scences will look really good in 3D. If you can handle the motion of it. I Highly recomend this movie.

Science Olympid and the Return of Kim

I've told you about the event SKB well the other big event that Rockhurst holds in the spring is the Science Olympid. Unlike SKB which is a game show like event, Sceince Olympid (SO) is a bunch of individual events that get scored and totaled and the school that does the best in the most events wins over all. Although in every event 1-5 place gets an medal or ribbion. This year like every other year SO was held not at Rockhurst but at Penn Valley Community College. I did the same I had been doing with SKB I was the Adminstrative Assistent, and like with this years SKB I was on my own becuase my boss was still out recoving from minor brian surgery. The issues with holding SO at Penn Valley is that none of our staff know anything about Penn Valley and the one person on the committe for SO works there and pertty does the site setup on his own, this makes it hard when things go wrong. As with any complex setup something always goes wrong, most the time we its something simple, but with SO it was rooms, people, and the lack of us being able to help or fix the issues becuase we didn't know the campus or security. But as long as the students have a good time its worth the hassel. And they did so I guess I shouldn't complain about it to much.

Some good news though, my boss Kim got to come back the monday right after SO. She still has some issues with her speach but she is back to being active and she doesn't look so sickly. Which is good becuase she has 2 childern and house hold to run. Plus, I need to get more focused on what I'm going to do after graduation. She was missed by most of the staff, but she feels that when she was gone they have opposed some news rules that she will have to adapt to, but then they may not last since she is back.