Many, many thanks to all of you who contributed to our charity walk!

Linus and I walked the 1-mile Bay to Barkers walk today in Albany. We had a great time, and raised $250 to help homeless pets. The walk was a blast. Earl came to cheer us on (he’s still on crutches, so no walking for him for a few more months- uck), and we even met some fellow corgi owners during the walk.

As my computer is still broken (I’ve actually bit the bullet and decided to just get a new Mac in a few weeks once school starts), I am hogging Earl’s laptop right now to write a quick update while he takes a snooze. Here’s a quick Race Report:

We got a little lost on the way there, so were running late. We arrived and it was right to registration and the walk was starting right away!
Also, my phone was somehow set on “black and white” mode for a bit without me noticing… hope you don’t mind the lack of color:
OFF WE GO!

The walk went along the Bay and was a really gorgeous route. It was at Golden Gate Fields, which was a pretty cool park! Would be fun to come back and check it out solo. There were lots of people just enjoying the park not affiliated with the Humane Society walk. Runners, people walking dogs, hikers…

About a half mile in, lo and behold Linus met a new corgi friend. I swear, corgis flock to one another!

This little guy was Max. He is 2 years old. His momma and I walked together for the rest of the walk and chatted.

When we were done with the walk, they had lots of fun games and activities for Dogs and Humans. There were various stations set up where you could play games with your dogs. One of them was “nose hunting.” Basically, they would hide hot dogs under various boxes after the dog had a chance to get a good sniff in, and then gave him a “FIND IT” command and let him go to to work. Linus surprised me and displayed a really natural affinity for this! I never knew he was much of a scent hound. He found the hotdogs in three progressively harder set ups, all on his first try. The lady running the booth was so impressed she was trying to recruit him into a tracking class. I might try and look one up near us- seems like a fun, relatively low impact activity that he might really enjoy.

They also had a Rally setup where you could try out an obstacle course with your dog, although we skipped that one because it seemed a bit high-impact for our fragile woof. Linus, did, however, thoroughly enjoy playing “Bobbing for Hotdogs.” He hunted for a submerged hot dog bit a bunch of different depths of dog dishes. He loved it! He made it all the way to the deepest dish and got his whole head underwater to get the hotdog.

Finally, we did PAINTING!!!! This was super fun! Basically, you put your dog’s paws in the different colors of paint, and let him walk through a “canvas” poster to make a work of art. So cute

Linus wasn’t very excited about putting his paws in the paint (as soon as a sniff revealed the paint not to be edible, he wasn’t interested anymore), although with some treat utilization, we were able to create the following, which is now proudly hanging up on our fridge (so dorky, ha ha):

Check out those painted paws:

Some other dogs really got messy with the paint! A few of them we completely covered in paint head to toe. Some had it over their entire rear ends from sitting down in the paint trays. heh heh When we got home, I gave Linus a full bath and got most of the paint out, although one paw is still slightly pink.

Here’s Larry. He won the Dog/Owner Look-a-Like Contest. We’ll just say his owner… had hair like Larry. Hopefully she styled it specifically for the occasion

All in all, it was a wonderful event for a great cause. A very big, sincere thanks to our wonderful and generous donors who chipped in to sponsor our walk! The dogs and cats of the Berkeley Humane Society- as well as Linus and I- give you our deep gratitude and many tail wags of appreciation.

Cheers,
Courtney and Linus the Corgi

In a dances with corgis first, this post is being composed and sent entirely from my phone! …because- of course- my computer is broken (again) and is at hp being repaired under warranty (again)… for about the 13th time! Uck. The extended warranty expires Sept 12th…time to start saving up for a new laptop.

Anyways! Today linus and I found ourselves in the south bay between meetings with about 4 hours to kill. I brought homework and found a nice shady spot under a tree in a park to spread out in the blanket and get some studying done. However, why read boring egghead medical studies when you can get fast food and post photos of your dog eating it on your blog?? Priorities!

Actually, I didn’t even • know• in-n-out made things for dogs until i rolled through to grab a burger for myself and the nice lady taking our order suggested, “would your dog like a single plain patty for
himself?” Gee… Would he?! “people get them all the time for their dogs,” she added.
Well, then!
Hmm, something smells good all of a sudden!

Maybe its coming from in here?

I’ve been a good boy, ivebeenagoodboy, IM A GOOD BOY!

Gone in a single gulp

Oh Linus, we love you so much and you are such a spoiled woofer!

Someone is excited to be out for a walk on a bright sunny day!

We are walking further and further each day. His neuro surgeon is having us build up walk lengths, adding one minute per walk per day! This one in particular was rather tiring- I think buddy was feeling the altitude, and there are lots of hills in the ski house neighborhood.

We also did some physical therapy walking on snow… basically it’s really good for his paws to be walking on various surfaces- sand, pebbles, dirt, woodchips, pavement, water, snow, what have you… the variety spices it up and gives his neurons new textures to learn and send to his brain. He’s still feeling pretty disconnected- walks with a DISTINCT wobble and always seems on the verge of toppling over. He’s feeling better, though. At one this weekend, he took an enormous LEAP off the couch- really sent himself sailing- he looked like Superman or the corgi doing the corgi flop. Earl and I were both like, “NOOOOoooooOOOOO” in slow motion while he did it- I was sitting right next to him and reached over to stop him but it was too late.

Fortunately, as far as we can tell, the Leap of Death didn’t seem to do any permanent damage… and technically at this point we are almost exactly four months out from his surgery, which means he can add in “high impact” activities. However, I don’t think we’ll EVER be letting him jump on and off beds and couches or even do stairs himself anymore. Just too high risk. This one time was a fluke and we are lucky and happy that nothing bad came from it.

Btw- the above pic was taken on the camera of my new droid phone. You like? So far I am pretty happy with it! Just got it on Monday.

Our drive to Tahoe last night was quite the trip.

Chronological breakdown:

6:00pm: post school/work, meet at gym, get in a quick workout
7:30pm: Home, showered, load car
8:00pm: pick up Papalote burritos (in retrospect a bad idea, fantastically hard to eat while driving) and hit the road
8:15pm: driving across the Bay Bridge, officially out of the city
10:30pm: even though we don’t really need it, stop to top off the Jeep with gas and also pick up one diet coke to split and a small package of Reeses Pieces. THANK GOODNESS BECAUSE LITTLE DID WE KNOW WHAT WAS COMING….
10:45pm: Linus gets upgraded from traveling in the kennel in back of the Jeep to sitting on Earl’s lap in the front seat
11:00pm: downed power lines north of Placerville have us pulling off the freeway and stopping in a line of cars off the exit. We chill here for about an hour
11:10pm: Search smartphone gps for backroad routes. There are no backroad routes.
11:30pm: Dog gets dinner. Dog gets walked in blizzard like conditions along side of road
12:00pm: Downed power lines cleared, line of cars heads back on the road- driving towards Kyburtz, traffic goes slowly due to massive back logs, avalanches and accidents
1:00am: Avalanche takes out 18 wheeler, traffic stops near Polluck Pines
2:00am: Dead stopped traffic in a line of cars. Everyone turns out their headlights and “sleeps” in their cars
2:30am: Dog is like “I don’t really know what’s going on, but at least I am getting to sit in your lap and get petted all this time.”
3:00am: We move about 300 yards
3:30am: still dead stopped, due to accidents and avalanches. NOTE: at this time we are ONLY 18 MILES FROM OUR SKI HOUSE IN MEYERS!!! ARRRRGGGHH
3:45am: Dog becomes highly valued commodity for his lap warming properties in freezing cold car as we sit parked in the blizzard.
4:00am: woken from dead sleep in car to plow zooming by. Traffic hasn’t moved but man we are cold, starving and worn out. We thank ourselves for buying that diet coke and reeces.
4:30am: Get into fight about whether to wait it out or turn around and go find and check into a fleabag motel. The stubborn one of us is like “I’M NOT TURNING THIS CAR AROUND! We’ll lose our place in line! Greene’s don’t back track!”
5:00am: Rational one wins. Decide to turn around and find a place to pull off the road and snooze. Find a nice side road pull off where we can spy if and when the traffic moves.
7:00am: Cars start moving!!! PRAISE THE LORD.
7:30am: Drive last 18 miles into South Lake. Go straight to Red Hut where we both order pancakes and coffee.
7:40am: Realize that at least four other groups eating at Red Hut were also all stuck in traffic all night on 50! We all bond over the craziness. One poor couple left San Francisco at 3:30pm, only to head up 80, have that be closed, turn around and try 50 and get stuck in the same shitshow we were in…
8:30am: Powder day at Heavenly! Hit up and early chair and make tracks on The Face…. worth the crazy drive? Hmm…
4:00pm: skied all day with a bunch of friends and we are WIPED! Head back to the cabin to sleep for 12 hours straight.
7:30pm: log into email to post this writeup and find this message from our friend:
“FYI, anyone driving up or considering it- all roads to sLT are closed
as of now and things are pretty gnarly out there. Extreme discretion
advised- talking collapsing trees, avalanches onto the road, etc.”

… now he tells us! Haha… turns out he sent that at 7:00pm last night- too bad I didn’t see it then, we could have avoided the whole debacle!

A few photos:
On the ski lift:

All that for… this? The level of snow at the ski house:

Can you spot the corgi?

One more of Linus in the snow- he had fun prancing around! I like letting him play in fresh powder because I feel like it’s nice and supportive of his back, and let’s him sort of “romp” which we don’t usually let him do because it’s too high impact:

Here’s a photo of us on top of Sonora Peak, where we hiked and spent this past weekend:

L-R: myself, E, and our friends Mattius and Andrea. I’m really psyched this photo came out- it was so windy up there, and we had the camera on a timer, balancing on a rock. We were worried it was going to blow away!

Isn’t it a gorgeous view from up there? A few more photos of the hike:
A little over halfway up:

me hiking- the first two miles were up, up and up. We mostly walked in the snow- it was about 60* and sunny. Walking in the snow kinda got us all excited for ski season!

Interesting gnarled tree stump:

All these photos taken with Andrea’s camera, as mine still has no battery charger (working on that….).
Linus made the trip as well, however he sat out the hike as he TORE HIS ACL a few weeks ago! He’ll be having surgery tomorrow- I will keep you posted on how it goes. Here’s to a speedy recovery for the little guy.

Living the Good Life

Squeak balls + beach = fun

OMGSQUEAKBALL MUST POUNCE!!

I find it very cute how he “plays” with the ball all by himself. He actually rolls it away with his nose and then will pounce on it!

We enjoyed ze sunshine! In fact… I even got a *teensy* bit of a burn, which faded into a nice tan today.

Recently we had a birthday around these parts.

There was strawberry rhubarb pie to be eaten!

And wishes to be made

birthday cards with corgis on them!! (from e’s mom… lol!)

I made breakfast in bed which consisted of baked eggs with Irish bangers from this chowhound recipe

We went to the computer history museum in Mountainview, where E contemplated some logarithms.

This is the calculating machine designed by Charles Babbage in 1845. It is one of two in the world- on lend to the museum from one of the first executives at microsoft.

Watch the hand-cranked machine in action- extremely beautiful. Truly a work of art.

The world’s first computer mouse! A block of wood with a button

This is one of the first computers in existence, from the 1950s. Check out the “monitor” (giant thing on right) and the “printer” (typewriter!) in the middle:

Here’s the first computer game ever invented. Looks fun

There was an entire section on computer chess, where I could have happily hung around for a few days. You could play other people at the museum, various versions of chess computer games, and people over the internet.

After the museum, we went to “Weird Stuff” which is a computer part supply warehouse. It’s basically a museum in and of itself. Aisles and aisles of old computer parts!

Mid day pizza refueling

And then we went scotch tasting. I treated Earl to “whatever bottle of scotch he desired” in the store. Thankfully, he did not chose one of these two (yiesh!):

I don’t know if you can see it, but I love how the label on those bottles underneath the 8k price tag reads “Everyday Low Prices.” heh.

We whiled away the afternoon and into the evening sipping coffee and reading at a cafe (one of E’s very favorite activities) and then caught a late dinner at The Mountain House, which was romantic and wonderful. We had a candlelit corner table overlooking the redwoods- it was so gorgeous!

A few from Lake Tahoe.

Linus by the lake:

We were done with skiing for the day and checking out Tahoe City. It was cool how you could run around by the water!

Check out Earl’s beard:

Someone was a Good Boy and got a “cookie” at the upscale pet shop in Truckee (he also got a new dog bed!)

There was some drool happening

Finally!!

We skied with our friend Dom for a few days at Squaw (myself in yellow, Andrea in the middle and Dom in red)

Dom splits his time between Truckee and SF, and knows Squaw really well. He led us down this pretty scary slope called “The Attic.” Being… not on my best ski game this year, I was just happy I made it down!

Near the top of Granite Chief, our friends Andrea and Mattius who live down the street from us near UCSF. Mattius was REALLY FAST on his snowboard. We played Chinese downhill to high camp and he creamed everyone by about … 20 seconds! His strategy was to go straight and not turn. They must breed ‘em fast in the Alps. Then again, this is the same guy who got ticketed for speeding on the autobahn, so…

And finally, here is Linus running in the snow just south of Carson Pass. We were stopped by CalTrans waiting for the pass to open that morning, so decided to have a romp!

Oh, and just so she doesn’t feel left out, here’s a little video I shot of Lucy chilling in her box:

On this gorgeous and sunny California spring morning, my friend Amy and I met at the base of Mt. Diablo to do a 7 mile hike.  It was such a fun day!  Strenuous hike but not horribly so.  We gained about 2500 in elevation (where we started, at the Park Headquarters, is already about 2k up) total.  I was huffing but Amy, as you can see in the video, handled it like a champ.

I busted out my new flip video camera (I found it during spring cleaning yesterday) that I had won at my company Christmas Party last December.  Hope you enjoy my very first video creation!

ps- there is some surprise bonus footage at the end shot by Earl when he was testing out the camera

and are contemplating never coming back