Sephy’s Platzish

Pretty much anyone who has a pet knows the significance of the Rainbow Bridge. I first heard about it around ten years ago when we received a piece of paper from our vet on the passing of the first dog I remember - a black lab, who was found at home by my brother having passed away after being to the vet the previous day.

Back in January, I asked about some strange behaviours that my dog was having involving licking her legs. The advice was to take her to the vet, but unfortunately we couldn’t afford to do it at that time, however, we did take her to our vet when, on the second day that I was working, she started limping heavily and favoring her right rear leg. It turned out that it was just a pulled muscle, but the doctor also took a look at the bump on her face. He made the independent determination that it was a cancerous - a melanoma.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure that this could be right because of the fact that he didn’t do any kind of analysis other than looking at it. However, he did give us some meds for her, and said that time was running out for her - nothing specific or anything, but sooner rather than later.

Now that we’re 4 months after the diagnosis, the growth on her face, which started out as a slight bump, has grown to something that has almost doubled the width of her face. On Friday, I noticed that there was some skin showing, but nothing major. However, Saturday comes around, and I notice that the skin has been broken. At that point, I think we had come to the determination that it was time to make a move.

The vet’s office is closed on weekends, so we have waited until today to make the call to the vet. At first we were going to have my brother come out to take her over to the vet, but in thinking about it, it is only fitting that since she is "my" dog (I even had my Senior pictures taken with her), I should be the one who does this, and to be the last one to take off her leash, and to take some last photos of her.

That’s something I’ve done a lot of these last couple of days - take photos of her. She’s been laying quietly on the floor, or on the couch, and mostly sleeping. If she’s up, she’ll be licking herself because (and this is my thought as to why) she’s trying to take away some of the excess saliva that she has in her mouth. However, it’s just been a lot of sleeping on her side the last day or so.

All that is left for us to do is make a call to the vet (which I know will be hard to do), and to have her set up with an appointment tomorrow for us to take her in for one last examination and probably then to be taken away and being given a proper and humane farewell, along with her crossing the Rainbow Bridge.

Lastly, here’s a photo of her from better times - the beginning of last year -

I haven’t mentioned it too often on here, but I am an owner of some interesting electronic equipment. No, not stuff like a 1950s-era Bakelite radio (though I know of one right around here!), or some kind of funky Japanese robot dog purchased from the Internets. The equipment I’m talking about is a police scanner.

Actually, this is something that I’ve been interested for a long time - even way back when we had a ten-channel scanner that had the channels for my county (though only two of them would work now I believe), along with the weather channel. If you wanted to program it, you would have had to purchase a crystal to receive a specific frequency. Wanted to listen to something else? Sorry, out of luck.

Normally, we’d only drag it out when we heard sirens or when there were storms in the area - one infamous tale that I’ve been told is from a snowstorm in the ’70s when one of the cops was driving around and had gotten off of the road, and then wound up at a church, and stopped to pray for a bit.

After a while though, the scanner has gone missing and I don’t know where it is, other than to say it’s probably somewhere in the house somewhere. To be honest, I didn’t bother with wanting to listen to the police or anything exciting until one day the railroad put up a box near the house and, if I was listening to the three-channel weather radio we had at the time, it would interfere with it whenever a train went through.

To make a long story short, I go off to college, come back home, the weather radio’s broken, and I have nothing better to do with my time (since I wasn’t working) than watch the trains. That leads me to Radio Shack and buying my first programmable scanner - the first night, I listened to ham radio, got some frequencies on the web, and then put them into the radio. I also listened to some interesting stuff like goings on at a local Burger King (not the window cos those are pretty weak signals) and the city buses.

I didn’t know it then, but I needed to have a different type of scanner to be able to track these conversations about unruly passengers, or to listen to other Sheriffs’ departments. So, after I started working, I invested some cash into getting a scanner capable of receiving these other areas. And that changed my ways of listening to the radio - now I was listening to the freeway patrols, getting to know a lot more than I needed and even being able to hear lane closures for motorcades when they happen.

It was also around this time that I was given an antenna - which I didn’t know anything about mounting, placement, or anything. For quite a while it sat, quite literally, in my bedroom with a cable extending from it to my scanner. I also had a couple of other antennas which allowed me to hear signals from a wide swath of the area, and even from the east coast. However, due to the confusion of what exactly I was listening to (I couldn’t get the tone information to figure out exactly what it was), I started to get interested in buying a new scanner.

So, I did - I purchased what has to be one of the best scanners out there - the Uniden BC780XLT - the only thing that it doesn’t do is digital, which isn’t that big of a concern yet here anyway. I also purchased a basic scanner that is useful to find new frequencies when it was on sale for $70 or so after Thanksgiving one year. This trifecta of scanners has been the set I’ve used most often, and here they are as a happy family on the day I bought the third one.

By that time, I had figured some things out about the antenna I received, the sordid details I’ll go into in another post, but I was picking up signals reliably from most of the southern third of the state, and even in to Illinois and Michigan. However, after that winter, I started to get involved in other things and the scanners took a back seat.

Sure, I’d bring one along if I was going on a long trip, but I had lost interest in doing the long listening sessions I’d have with it, just listening to hear what I could get in over the airwaves. The best one to me is still when I picked up Environment Canada’s weather radio from the area near Lake Erie or so. I even used a spreadsheet to log the frequencies and tones I’d get. The scanner got put away, and I kept myself busy in other ways.

However the storms over the last week, and the general start of the summer storm season has rekindled my interest in scanning. I think part of it is that when I had my little scanner at work the other week, people were very interested in it - more for the fact that it got the weather than anything else, but it set off a spark in me.

It’s done so much to rekindle that I’ve invested another $33 in a new antenna (and adapter) to replace the old one and now have it mounted outside on the same setup I’d used for the other one. Now, I can hear the trains well before they get here, thanks to similar boxes some 10+ rail miles away, hear almost all of the same agencies that I’d heard in the past, and in general, keep abreast of what is going on with the local radio scene once more.

As one fella I know on an Illinois scanning list says, Happy Scanning!

One of the things I’ve been grumpy about a lot is the way that severe weather warnings are presented on local TV. Do they need to be presented? Yes, because it is a public service to inform the viewing audience of where storms are and if you need to take cover from said storms. That’s something we all can agree on. However, there are good ways and there are bad ways to handle informing the public of severe weather.

Let’s look at a bad way first, shall we?

This picture comes from just a couple of weeks ago, on the Sunday before Memorial Day, when we had some (as you can see on the radar picture) storms in the area. They weren’t severe (at the time), and there was just a watch issued for the area.

However, the fine folks at channel 12 decided to do what they do every time there’s a watch issued for the area - squeeze the picture so that it’s completely unwatchable and essentially waste about 1/8th of the screen with their graphic telling you that you’re watching channel 12’s weather bar. Of course, not to be outdone by the weather department, you also have the convenient reminder that you’re WATCHING CHANNEL 12 in the lower right hand corner. By the way, the reason for the black bars is that this was taken from their digital feed, and if it were not for the watch bar, the show would have been in HD, and the 12 logo would have been about 1/4 the size.

By the way if you think that channel 12 are the only ones who do this kind of thing, here’s what channel 58’s bar looks like (note that this is from September 2006, during which time they were running a promotion and squeezing the picture even further than they had already with their weather bar!)

Channels 4 and 6 at least use a bit of sense (though how much sense is questionable because it just happens that they wind up wasting more space by doing this) and just shrink the picture so that the aspect ratio isn’t messed up; only the picture is smaller.

Now, let’s take a look at how this kind of thing should be pursued (or, at least how it was pursued by the local stations in the past). First off, I should commend channel 12 on their old way of doing this - they would just put up text at the bottom of the screen that read, for example, "T-STORM WARNING ___ COUNTY". It was simple, didn’t interfere too much with the picture, and was a perfect solution to a complex problem.

However, what really got me going on this was the fact that I was able to pick up stations from out of the area yesterday (ahh, the old days of TVDX, you might say, and that’s true, and this was my first time doing some digital DXing, which made it that much cooler ). Thanks to the weather, a lot of the stations had their warnings up and showing for you to see.

On every single occasion, no station had squeezed, squished, crunched, or even re-sized a picture to accommodate the warning information. All they did was put a simple overlay of the affected counties, and text telling you what warnings were out (along with the counties affected). In another instance, an ABC affiliate broke into their programming (game 2 of the NBA finals), but did something that I think would give Milwaukee TV bosses heart attacks (well, except for channel 6 back in 2007) - they kept the game on in the bottom left and had the meteorologist in the upper right!

So, you may ask, what did warnings look like in the "olden days" of TV (i.e. anywhere but Milwaukee yesterday). Well, I could show you a picture I took of one station that is literally stuck in the early 90s with just showing a storm cloud in the lower left — which is what they used to do on local TV; sometimes with an S or a T to tell you what kind of warning it was. However, as it so happens, I have an old picture from channel 4, from a taped airing of "Days of Our Lives" circa I have no idea - maybe late 90s or early 2000s.

Look! A full-screen picture (though it wouldn’t be in HD because none of the major stations have the technology yet, but you’ve got the feeling it’s coming) with a simple overlay. Can anyone tell me why the TV stations can’t make such a simple step backward that would, in the end, be a huge step forward?

Oh, and by the way, I must also give kudos to the PBS broadcaster in the area - channels 10 & 36 - because they can do an HD overlay, and the size of it is very comfortable - it looks like a postage stamp on an envelope. When viewed on a 42-inch screen, I bet it’s the perfect size.

What I’m curious about is if Milwaukee is the only TV market that does this stupidity. I have this inkling that we are. That should be a lesson to them, but I don’t think they care to listen…

Right. I’ve been procrastinating long enough I think

I’m not going to have my lunch until I get this done, so here goes the pictures from the last couple of weeks, up to and including the day that the pedometer went astray.

Also, I’m going to be doing some experimentation with Windows Live Writer to post this - so you’ll see some interesting features with the pictures, like borders and drop shadows, etc.

Sunday, 18th May

I am not at all sure what kind of tree this is - I think it could be a trillium, but in any case, I love the colours that it has with its flowers.

Distance - 3273 steps, 2.61km

Monday, 19th May

An interesting moment in the life of the car I drive - a series of 4 matching digits - only happens every 1111 miles, you know. ;)  Here, we have 103,333 miles up on the digital odometer.

Distance - 1736 steps, 1.38km

Tuesday, 20th May

No photo from today. Well, I could post the one picture that was white, but that’d just be wasting space.

Distance - 1506 steps, 1.20km

Wednesday, 21st May

Here are some more of those awesome trees, which I get to see on a regular basis. To be honest, I’d never even noticed them so much as I have this year - maybe that’s a side result of me being more independent.

Distance - 2311 steps, 1.84km

Thursday, 22nd May

With the holiday weekend that was coming up, unfortunately, the market caused the prices of fuel to go to an all-time high. The irony is that I saw a sign at a station later on that showed the highest example price at $3.50/gallon. Sadly, I don’t think that’s coming back anytime soon.

Distance - 2759 steps, 2.20km

Friday, 23rd May

Another in the continuing series of early-morning posts, this time taken at around 6.30am. As you can see, now that we’re approaching June, the sun is really shining earlier and earlier.

Distance - 3349 steps, 2.67km

Saturday, 24th May

First off, this interesting little animal. It might be a raccoon, possum, or something else. All I know is that it isn’t a horse, and isn’t a bird.

And, yet again, I have a picture of these trees. Can you tell I’m fascinated by them? It might just be that the colours don’t show up like this until the fall - and then they’re kinda muted…

Distance - 5556 steps, 4.44km

Sunday, 25th May

No photo, and not really any serious walking done, as it was a hectic day with having commitments all around the place to deal with.

Monday, 26th May

With it being Memorial (formerly Decoration) Day, a lot of people went to the cemetery to remember those who they may have lost while fighting for our country in whichever war or conflict they were sent to. Something that I had not seen before is the line of flags along the entryway into the cemetery.

Of course, after seeing that sight, we came to this one - of some kind of strange brew dog being offered for sale. Apparently a "Labradoodle" is a mix between a Labrador Retriever and a Poodle. Though I’m not sure, I’ll say that right now.

Distance - 4690 steps, 3.75km

Tuesday, 27th May

Among the things you should never drive along a highway - a bobcat. Fair enough that it’s probably the shortest route, but I hope that they did make their way to wherever they were going safely. Needless to say, I didn’t stick around to see if he did or not.

Distance - 5432 steps, 4.34km

Wednesday, 28th May

My friends the deer were back - and this time I got a good shot of them. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that I can always edit the photo to make it more contrasted so that they actually show up.

Distance - 1421 steps, 1.13km

Thursday, 29th May

An interesting scene here, and I wasn’t using the macro. This is, as it might seem, the steering wheel and the centre console of the car. One thing that you can’t see is the CD player (which had no CDs in it at the time). Other than that, the walking was done with the lawnmower and moving wood back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth.

Distance - 8213 steps, 6.57km

Friday, 30th May

This has got to be one of the best scenes I get to see from time to time. Right across from the cows is a school. Unfortunately, because of that school (and the fact I was heading down to volunteer at 8AM instead of getting there at 7 — I was on my own), all the parents were coming to drop their kids off there.

Can I just say that they are some of the dumbest fucking drivers out there. They were letting people into the line, sitting for ages waiting to turn into the school, and just generally being complete fuckwits. Thankfully, I just went off onto the gravel shoulder carefully and drove around them and moved on with my life

Now, when I got home, I put the pedometer on the kitchen table, and then one thing led to another, and the last time it was seen was apparently somewhere in the kitchen…I haven’t been able to find it since, so I think I might need to shell out another $5 or so to buy another new one.

The good news, though, is that I do find more creative ways to lose things (what, with airport bathrooms, and kitchens, etc. )

Saturday, 31st May

Ah, again, we have another of my favourite trees - the brown one in the field of green. I know it’s probably half dead, but I still love the contrast it provides to the scene. By the way, the water that you can see down there has expanded and is now about 5 rows up into the adjacent field…

In other news, I’ve been having a bit of a blue spell, not that big, but I do know it’s time for me to have a visit with my therapist - which I’ve scheduled for next Wednesday (which also happens to be the same day that I have an appointment with my doctor over there, so a bonus for saving time and gas ). Aside from me having a bit of a blue patch, things are going well - I’ve taken some time to enjoy a movie (which I’ll talk about sometime in the near future), also I’m liking my job still, and I was told last night that I am doing a good job - my only response was that I won’t change a thing.

Also, and I have to mention this because I’m proud of it - another compliment I got was that I am sounding a lot more confident in my voice. When I think about it, that is true because I don’t have that hesitation I used to have when talking to someone. That not only goes when I’m talking on the phone, but also whenever I’m talking to anyone in public. I have a certain comfort now when I’m talking to someone that I don’t generally have to worry about what I’m saying (just so long as I don’t go off of my rocker )

Right, let’s get into it, hey?

Sunday, 11th May

Horses and turkeys…a bit of a strange combination, but when you think that you can see everything from dogs to horses to squirrels and even some chickens, so it really isn’t that odd to see a combination from time to time.

Distance - 1826 steps, 1.46km

Monday, 12th May

Well, this is an interesting bit of decoration in the grille of this truck, hey? Not too sure what the truckie is thinking with it, but it’s not something you see every day.

Distance - 1825 steps, 1.46km

Tuesday, 13th May

A bit of a lesson for y’all here, even if it is outdated (the current state excise tax is approximately 1 cent higher, if I remember correctly), this is the outline of how taxes are distributed in the $4.00 per gallon we’re paying for our fuel. Of course, here, the state excise tax goes to fund the state’s deficits and not road building, but that’s government for you…

Distance - 2646 steps, 2.11km

Wednesday, 14th May

For some reason, this opening in the tree line along the horse paddock-cum-lake is intriguing to me. Also, I love how everything is greening up, as it is here in the forest -

Distance - After Walk: 5291 steps, 4.23km; end of day: 6581 steps, 5.26km

Thursday, 15th May

So, why am I posting a photo of a camera? Why is the camera in a car? Well, it’s for something that I’m trying out with recording a bit of a video on my commute (and to try to get video of the deer I see at night). What I’m going to do with it is a bit of a mystery, but I’ll do something with it.

Distance - 2580 steps, 2.06km

Friday, 16th May

I had to travel to the city to do some business, and came across this site (after noticing the sign that said “Bridge Out” - they’re repairing a road that desperately needs it, and that means backups which are horrendous along with someone deciding that paving a path for walking is more important than paving a path for driving……

Distance - 6012 steps, 4.80km

Saturday, 17th May

Here I am coming up with solutions again - here’s using a wire rack designed for apparently a condiment rack to store the grill brush in. It’s simple and works like a charm.

Distance - 3818 steps, 3.05km

In other news… I spent a bit of time on Saturday afternoon taking in some good music from a local jazz band to which I had some connections performing their annual end-of-performance-year gig. Ok, I’ll fess up, it was a school band I was in, and I heard the advertisement for the event.

Also, and this was the reason for the trip to the city on Friday, I took the last steps to cutting my ties with my old bank by, ahem, fixing an error I brought upon myself when I bought some gas on my old card when I didn’t quite have enough cash on hand to do it…uhhh, oops :blush: . In any case, by the end of the week, the account should be closed up completely and I’ll be free from their poor location choices (and no, that wasn’t the only reason that I left them ).