Monthly Archives: December 2008

We got back yesterday from the Annual Oceandoggy Christmas Family Blitz. Each December we turn our back on the beach, brave the elements and horrendous holiday traffic, and trundle north. And it was, as usual, a ton of fun, packed chock full of Herculean bouts of eating and drinking.

I LOVE my life.

We went to Miss Carol’s parents (that would be my in-laws) on Friday. 9 of 12 kids were home for the holidays which meant there were, by Miss Carol’s count, 38 of us in the kitchen at one point, what with nephews and nieces. Seemed like a lot more to me. But, hey.

After harvesting all the fun we could there, we moved on to my youngest sister’s house on Saturday where all of oceandoggy’s family had hunkered for the day, eating and drinking like it was something newly discovered.

Leaving blearily fucked up early the next morning I failed to take a turn that I seem to almost always want to fail to make and ended up in the mountains far, far from home and adding hours to our drive home.

yea, me.

We got home, the dogs died, and we sat. Panting.

From us and ours to you and yours.

Oceandoggy hopes that your Christmas is all puppy dreams and warm firelight.  

Or, if fires and dogs don’t float your boat, then whatever makes your toes curl with pleasure and blankets you with happiness.

Have the Merriest Christmas ever.

Look Ma, I have a header now. Nice header.

Secondly, I’ve added a link to the Volvo Ocean Race. I know most people consider sailboat racing about as interesting as their aunt’s meatloaf, but for some reason or another it just appeals to me. And not just because I sail. Or used to. Or did at one time. 

I think it appeals to me on some purely adventurous, romantic, level. It is both elegant and dangerous. One of the very first websites (they weren’t called blogs back then) that I visited on a regular basis some 15 years ago followed the Around Alone sailors on their single-handed race around the planet.

At that time the race was called the BOC Challenge and for the first time each of the captains checked in daily via e-mail to the website so that you could follow what they were enduring real-time. It was Armchair Adventure. So check it out- you too may get hooked. 

Another thing I did is activate the wordpress snow on my blog. I know it’s really nerdy but for some reason it just makes me laugh every time I see it. Stupid Snow. In fact, just thinking about it makes me laugh.

And lastly, I have finally posted a doggy treat and some doggy diarrhea is on it’s way.

The fun never ends.

Daily, twicet, I walk the boys.

Ours is not an evening stroll, nor a gentle  morning constitutional.

Instead, it’s a twice daily wrestling match between me and 150 lbs. of lively Lab puppiedom. It’s fun in a going-to-the-dentist kinda way. Sometimes I wonder if Tug hears his name as a command.

But we do it, a mile each morning and every night, no matter the weather ’cause it’s the highlight of their day.

And their want melts me.

Hey, tomorrow, Miss Carol’s gonna be out of town so I’m making my Sausage and Beans. I’ll finally have a post for doggy treats. 

I can almost hear the thundering clicky-clack of excited typing.

There is a delicious melancholy to rain and fog.

Even though I prefer nice sunny  warm days chock full of bikini babes and beer I have to admit there is something eerily embracing about rainy and foggy. It’s like Mother Nature is muzzled.

So you would tend to think I was one happy camper today. But nope. I still bitched and moaned walking the dogs, cursing the rain and Cutter and Tug’s simple headed straightforwardness. And their need to urinate EVERYWHERE.

But then I got home and got dried out and relented.

As threatened last week I’ve changed everything. Wanting to look and feel like a big blogger I yearned for additional pages to soak up my suppurative creative dribbles. And I wanted a blogroll to return favors to others.

I’m pretty sure they’ll appreciate the additional reader.

So on Saturday I planted myself in my Me Only Chair in my Me Only Room, took a deep breath, and started the process. An hour later I had previewed most, if not all, of the WordPress themes, selected one, and pulled the trigger. 

Feeling pretty full of myself as Master Of The Internet I leaned back basking in the glory that is me, admiring my new look, cuddling my new baby blog, reveling in it’s freshiness.

But as I scrolled through I realized that all was not happy in happyville. The photos had not re-sized, new pages meant new work, and a blogroll doesn’t happen by itself.

Sonsabitches.

I ended up spending most of Saturday and a goodly part of Sunday working on me to make me presentable. And I’m close. I know the black page is a turn-off to some. It was to me. In the past, whenever I came across a black page blog I was always like, ooh you’re too cool for words. Get a grip, dude.

But ya know what? I really like my new black look. Call me Mr. Lame.

So check it out. The new blogroll has links to people way smarter and creative and better looking than me and the new pages will soon be oozing with new and better stuff, I’m pretty sure.

Soon baby.

If everything goes according to plan and I stay sober enough and WordPress doesn’t keep changing things so that I can’t find them things I’m wantin’ to change the way I want, well then, oceandoggy .com will have a nice, new facelift come Monday.

Or maybe Tuesday.

I’ve felt the need to morph into something different for awhile so’s that I can add things like a blogroll and return favors to others. 

Besides.

Maybe, just maybe, I can try and look a tad more like I know something about what I’m doing here.

HOHOHOHEHEHEHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! Now THAT’S a good’un.

Anyway, that’s the plan. Mumble in your sleep for me and hope for the best.

If for no other reason than relief from the hideous photograph of my previous post I need to post something. Anything.

How about a seagull instead?

Speaking of seagulls, I’ve had this rant churning within for awhile. We, and I mean we as a people, a group, love seagulls. LOVE THEM. We take pictures of them, we paint paintings of them, we write about them, we feed them on the beach like retards with nothing better to do with bread. Some kinda way they seem to scream the free spiritness or beachiness of the beach.

Are you with me here so far?

So then you go to the dump. And swirling about, wafting on thermals, perched on mounds of garbage are, well, seagulls. Lots of ’em. Same bird, but nobody’s setting an easel and painting a picture of them or writing poems about dump-gulls. Sullen and pissed off, they eat trash all day.

Sometimes I feel like they got the shit end of the stick.

Or maybe bad directions.