Cocoa, begging in the kitchen

it is with a heavy heart and tears in my eyes that i share that Katie and I have made the very difficult decision to put Cocoa down. Last January, she had been given a month – we have been blessed to have 11 since we were given that news. It has been a very up and down roller coaster of a ride with mostly highs throughout, but she has been pretty bad this last week. The kidney issues that she’s always had and been able to handle without showing any signs of problem, has really taken its hold on our four-legged family member. We can’t get her to eat even her favorite foods of waffles, doughnuts or even pizza (or if she will touch it she is unable to keep it down). She’s lost a lot of weight, can barely get up the stairs and can’t get in the bed (I’ve been picking her up so she is able to sleep next to me). We feel that this is the slump she won’t come out of and we want Joseph to remember the good times he has had with her and not have a lasting memory of her end. It has been very difficult watching Cocoa suffer as opposed to being her energetic, happy self.

I am very fortunate and thankful to have been able to take her out pheasant hunting for the Wisconsin opener this year – for the one final hunt. I will never forget the wonderful times we spent together in the field, her dirty looks when I missed (it has been known to happen) and the absolute joy you could see on her face as she bounded in the tall grass after upland game. She kept me company during those long road trips and would nudge my arm to get me to pet her as she sat in the navigation chair (passenger seat) of Sunshine and of course, I would comply.

Thank you to all who have kept our precious Cocoa and the family in your prayers – the myriad of notes from we still get today from KTIS’s prayer request even though Katie put that out there last January.

And to Cocoa, this has been a very difficult decision for us to make. We love you tons and I promise we’ll get some birds when we meet again.

Edit: Cocoa, being the awesome dog that she was, died silently in the back seat on the way to the vet. She was holding on for as long as possible, yet she still went on her own while Katie and I held her with tears in our eyes. So thank you Cocoa, for not making us make that decision. We love and miss you!

Dog, Monkey, Cow & Man

On the first day God created the dog. God said, “Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. I will give you a life span of twenty years.” The dog said, “That’s too long to be barking. Give me ten years and I’ll give you back the other ten.” So God agreed.

On the second day God created the monkey. God said, “Entertain people, do monkey tricks and make them laugh. I’ll give you a twenty-year life span.” The monkey said, “Monkey tricks for twenty years? I don’t think so. Dog gave you back ten, so that’s what I’ll do too, okay?” And God agreed.

On the third day God created the cow. “You must go to the field with the farmer all day long and suffer under the sun, have calves, and give milk to support the farmer. I will give you a life span of sixty years.” The cow said, “That’s kind of a tough life you want me to live for sixty years. Let me have twenty and I’ll give back the other forty.” And God agreed again.

On the fourth day God created man. God said, “Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. I’ll give you twenty years.” Man said, “What? Only twenty years? Tell you what, I’ll take my twenty, and the forty the cow gave back, and the ten the monkey gave back, and the ten the dog gave back, that makes eighty, okay?” Okay,” said God, “You’ve got a deal.”

That is why the first twenty years we eat, sleep, play, and enjoy ourselves; the next forty years we slave in the sun to support our family; the next ten years we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandchildren; and the last ten years we sit on the front porch and bark at everyone.

Life has now been explained to you.

Regardless, this past week we found Wisconsin politics in many regional and national news outlets. Now I do not classify myself as a Republican nor a Democrat, conservative or liberal. I’ve quickly realized that Wisconsin has always been a Democratically controlled state – very liberal – and that my leanings are not liberal. I’ve mentioned before, time and time again my disdain for government as we’ve known it recently. And for the first time in a long time, I see some common sense coming out of a government official (Governor Scott Walker).

I see a lot of the B as in B, S as in S facebook ads promoting support for the unions as “supporting the working families”, which I find very odd – seeing as how those union benefits do absolutely NOTHING to support my working family. In fact, those will actually HURT my family. I work for a non-profit organization and I love what I do. If I do not do my job and/or do it well, I do not expect to be rewarded. However, if I do my job and do it well, I do expect to be rewarded – and I would hope that I would be able to keep those rewards and do what I wish with those rewards.

I understand that some level of taxation is necessary, I’m not about to doubt that – I enjoy roads (could do without the idiots who don’t know how to drive on said roads when there’s a little bit of snow, but that’s for another conversation), the police and fire departments and I realize that there’s some administration costs for running these things. But why am I paying for my retirement, saving money, paying for my health care – in addition to paying, through taxation, for other people’s retirement (pension) and health care, when they’re not paying 1/4 of what I’m paying into my own. Not only that but pensions are pretty much gone in the private arena. My parents both lost their pensions a few years back through some sneaky corporation financial wizardry. They have to work longer to make up for those promised benefits. It sucks for them, but they will continue to work for their rewards. Why is a teacher’s pension or a governmental worker’s pension completely safe from cutting like my parent’s was? The teacher’s union has too much power. We can’t touch their precious funds. And sure it would suck for the teacher’s to lose some or all of that pension, but how much of that pension have they paid into?

Why is it that a governmental office cannot fix what is broken? When my wife and I look at our finances, and see that we’re bringing in a certain amount and what we’re spending is more than that, we have to make a decision: stop spending so much, make more money or add debt. The third option is one we both HATE to do and is the very last thing we want. The second would be lovely, however, we’re only able to control so much of that. We both work hard to do what we can. The easiest thing to do is to stop spending so much – which I think we do fairly well. We’ve cut a lot of frivolous things out of our lives and some not so frivolous things. I haven’t played football in a couple years because it just costs too much in terms of moneys and time (I haven’t officially signed my retirement papers yet, I’m just taking a hiatus). The Wisconsin government is, FINALLY, trying to do the same thing. They see the need to cut spending and the unions are blocking them from fixing what is broken because it means some people need to work harder or longer. Well, boo f’n hoo. Times are tough. If taxes get raised, people and companies are going to leave the state and the tax revenue is going to decrease. You want more money for the government to do its thing? Make it more affordable to live and work here. Let businesses profit and expand and hire more employees. Let me spend my money in a manner that I wish to boost the economy – by purchasing products that are fairly priced and perform as promised.

Maybe this means I fall into the category of a conservative… if that’s the case, then so be it. I’m still not going to fall victim to party games (unless it’s Pictionary, Balderdash, Euchre or some other fun one) or party politics. Imma speak my mind and do what I think and feel is right for me and my family. If you have a problem with that – you can go f yourself.

vet says she might have a month left.

this has hit the wife and i very hard. Cocoa was/is a wedding present from a friend of mine. he was going back to school and couldn’t take his pup with him, we had been contemplating getting a pup – so we met at a one exit town off of I94 about half way between the both of us… i still remember watching Katie walking Cocoa on the leash in the ditch while he and i talked about what she knew as far as commands and everything else. we got her home and that night, she went into heat. we were told shortly afterwards that she had kidney disease and that she, most likely wouldn’t live past five years. well, we did what we could – took her to a couple different vets before we found a hippie sort of vet (Magnusson Veterinary Service in Hudson, WI) who found us some herbal supplements and drops and pills and powders that were going to help Cocoa’s kidneys. all of the visits, i never really understood the machine that they had but Katie believed in them and that was good enough for me. Cocoa was always relaxed when we went there – of course, when she saw the kitty she got excited – but she never did not want to be there.

Cocoa has been a great addition to our family. she’s been great with Joseph and the other kids at the in-home day care. when they got to be too much for her, she didn’t bite – just tried to get away into her kennel or asked to go upstairs and take a snooze. very patient and very loving, i have always joked that we should’ve named her Shadow, as she was never far away – especially when we were cooking or packing for a trip. her favorite times were playing fetch and the day after or the day of a fresh snowfall… specially, the big snow storms where the drifts were as tall as she was. she would pounce, prance and run all around, chasing us as we played and pushed Joseph around in the sled.

i’m nowhere near being considered a dog-trainer, but Cocoa was able to overcome my shortcomings as a master. she had a great nose in the field and listened better than i could’ve ever hoped. didn’t take me long to figure out to trust her nose over my thoughts on where the birds were. when it came to ducks, she could care less, but pheasants, grouse, quail… upland birds, that was her game. my biggest regret is that i didn’t get her out in the field more often – she loved being in the fields, jumping around. roosters or not, we had fun and i wish there was more left of the season to take her out a couple more times…

we’ve got a month left with her, maybe more, maybe less… and we’re going to cherish every day. it’s very difficult right now, i can’t imagine what it’ll be like when she gets to jump through the snow drifts in the sky. it’s been over 10 years since my first (and last) dog passed away. i still wear his chain to this day. man’s best friend… they truly are.

Update:
Today, March 4th, 2011 – Cocoa is still with us and really shows no signs of slowing down. she still gets disappointed when we put the ball away. God has blessed us with an amazing creature.

• Bones: this is one of those rare shows that the wife and i will watch together. we both enjoy it quite a bit.
• The League: a new sitcom (2nd season just finished up) about fantasy football… love it!
• The Office: yep, still catch this show
• 30 Rock: i giggled the first couple times i watched it… continue to watch
• It’s Always Sunny in Phliadelphia: i was shunned at work for never hearing of this show… i will not allow that to happen again
• Community: relatively new show, it followed The Office and 30Rock, and i happened to catch it one evening. clever. and Chevy Chase as a non-trad is a hilarious bonus!
• Weeds: i’m not even sure where i heard about Weeds… but started watching it and i keep checking for more
• Better Off Ted: this and AD are short-lived sitcoms… but they were funny, intelligent funny and that’s probably where they lost the public
• Arrested Development: see Better Off Ted description

And there you have my list of Brograms for the current time being. for a guy who claims to not watch too much TV, i guess there are quite a few shows on this list – i just don’t watch them on the TV

i know i’ve failed to properly budget and have found myself in a world of debt that i’d rather not be in (i think we’re better off than many these days, but i’d rather not have any debt). and we are aware that some of our decisions haven’t been the greatest (the purchase of our home couldn’t have come at a worse time, for example). but we’re dealing with our financial issues… we’re paying off our debts, we’re not buying new TVs or cars or much of anything. just last night i sewed a hole in a pair of jeans – hoping that i won’t need to buy a new pair anytime soon. we’re trying to be more frugal with our money. we don’t frequent expensive eateries nor have we ‘gone out’ in quite a while. i would love to build my perma-house right now and get out of the townhome, but we’re making things work.

after watching this video and listening to some talk radio… why can’t the government, who works for us, stay within its own means? it truly makes me sick – i work for my money, i live in a town home that is smaller than i’d like, i drive a car to save on gas (rather than taking “Sunshine” for a stroll to work), we pay more than the minimum amount on payments – because we don’t want to have that debt over our heads forever… who wants to live like that?

i could discuss so many different areas of government that i think should not be a governmental department, and where spending by the government is just, by definition, retarded. i do hope that the changes in office from November make some serious impact on the way shyt gets done in DC, i really, really do.

i’ve got some additional pages in mind and hopefully will be able to get those created soon. until then, enjoy what i’ve got up there now – at least all three of my main pages have some sort of content and not just a filler video or flickr feed

Insanity Update: i’m not sure when i’ll be able to get back into insanity – i’m out of town next week too. i’ll get er dun when i can and i’ll let you know. send me a kick in the shorts and get me motivated again, i’d sure appreciate it.

the holiday break for me was nice and relaxing. i went up to the cabin to get some fishing in – pretty low key weekend. j and the wife stayed back and so did cocoa. i got a bunch of fishing in (caught a lot of largemouth bass and small pikes, but not the crappies and walleyes we were looking for). and even slept in a couple days

it’s good to be back though; i missed being away from the family – even though it was just a couple days.

inspirational quote of the day:
“Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.”
– Henry David Thoreau

with that being said, i will not be able to get the insanity workouts in – i will be plenty active, so i’m fine with that portion of the agenda. the big question is: “what do i do when i come back?” where do i start back up with the insanity workouts? i’ll be back Tuesday night, so Wednesday AM, do i go back and re-suck at the last Wednesday workout? i think that’s what i’ll do. like i told Julie a couple days back, i don’t know what Shaun T would suggest, but this is what i’m doing. i’ll be gone various 3-4 day stints in June, so i’m not sure how this will affect my insanity workouts other than that it will. gotta stay flexible like a Romanian gymnast.

so until then, enjoy the beautiful weather (if you’re in the midwest), get outside, wet a line and most importantly, thank a serviceman/woman for giving us a reason to celebrate this weekend!

since i don’t have the Insanity workout to write about today, i figured i’d write about something different – Hardly Worth the Effort. discussing the last 10% of a project (which we’ve been working on for the last few months at work with a project). the oft-mentioned project management cliche 90% of the development time is spent on the last 10% of the project holds true to our OMR project at PF/QF.

this blog post by Seth Godin really hits home with a bunch of things going on with me. i’m digging Seth’s short and quick, deep thought provoking posts – a good morning read.

inspirational thought of the day:
“The journey is the reward.”
- Chinese Proverb

keep your eyes on the goal, but don’t forget to enjoy the journey!

From the company that brought you P90x, Beachbody, I will try the Insanity workouts. This morning i kicked it off with the fit test, and well, the one thing i can say is improvement should be fairly easy

My Results:

Switch Kicks: 50×2: 100
Power Jacks: 42
Power Knees: 69
Power Jumps: 18
Globe Jumps: 6 1/2
Suicide Jumps (burpees): 11
Push-Up Jacks: 23
Low Plank Oblique: 18×2: 36

i’ve mentioned before, that i can’t workout in my own living room… and that still holds true, so i’ve decided to utilize the fitness center for my Insanity workouts. the plan is to get up early and ‘Dig Deep’ – head over to the fitness center and get the workout in. I took the measurements and photos this morning (i’ll spare you with those details at this point).  the nutritional changes will be tough to follow, but we’ll do our best. and we’ll track progress as we move forward. Fit test again in two weeks…

Insanity – day 1: complete!