The Danger Dog Goes on Spring Break

We went to both our sets of parents over spring break. My parents have a dog too, Harley. Ranger and Harley spent some time getting to know each other.





They had somewhat of a rough relationship as Harley is older and bigger. Ranger kept wanting to play and Harley got annoyed.




That night Ranger got a good night's sleep.




We stayed there for 3 days. Then it was off to the in-laws where several family members were gathered. Ranger wanted to drive.



But we didn't think that that was such a good idea.


M's sister, Special K, brought her dog, Tucker. Ranger and Tucker had loads of fun.














I think that they were discussing how best to end world poverty.

Flower Bed

M just put some new flowers & plants in the flower bed out front.






And 3 rose bushes along the fence to the left of the house:

Snow in Texas



An interesting aspect of my trip to the BYU orchestra reunion in Utah 2 weeks ago was the weather. I left Thursday morning. By Thursday evening, the north Texas/dfw area looked like this:







It was in the mid 50's in Utah.

M didn't come to Utah with me because she teaches school and doesn't like to turn things over to a sub.

The ironic thing?

School got snowed out.

We have sod

We finally had much-needed sod installed in the backyard yesterday. Originally, we had opted not to chose that option when we had the house built thinking the price that the builder asked was exhorbitant. Instead, we seeded the backyard(the front yard sod was included in the price of the house) with rye hoping that it would grow quickly and that we we would have a nice carpet back there. In the spring we would follow up with bermuda.

The rye grew but much too thinly. We ended up with a lot of mud in the back whenever there was any moisture there. Of course, the mud tended to end up in the house, on the carpet.



So I finally tracked down Mow, Grow, & Sprinkle, the landscaping outfit that puts the sod down for HistoryMaker Homes in this area. After I left a ton of voice mails, a guy finally came over and gave me an estimate. It seemed like a reasonable price as it included installation. The guy said that they could do it on Friday. So I waited at home all day Friday and nobody showed. I left a few more voicemails and planned on finding another company to do it on Monday.

Then, Saturday at 7:30am, the doorbell rang. It was a guy with a flatbed full of sod. I had him put it over by the gate. He had no idea when the installation crew would be by.

The installation crew came by about 10:15. They no habla but they were all very good at what they did and had obviously done it quite a bit. They started off by leveling things off either by flattening the rises in soil or by filling in the depressions.



Then they started laying it down.






After it was down a couple of guys went over it with something resembling a giant rolling pin.



The final product.





The time from when the installation crew arrived until the completion of the project was about 2 hours. Not bad.

After they were done and had left, M, Ranger & I got into the car and went to a maple tree farm in Fort Worth called 'Metro Maples,' wanting a maple to provide some color in the yard. We ended up getting a Fire Dragon Shantung - a kind of chinese maple. We are looking forward to the red foliage.




Ranger promptly inagurated the new addition to the yard by chewing off a significant portion of bark from its trunk, which, as you can imagine, caused us no small amount of consternation. After all, we had just gone all the way out to Ft. Worth and bought a limited availability Fire Dragon Maple, and then come back, dug a hole, and then planted the thing. This is not an investment that I want chewed up. On Monday, we are getting some fencing to put around it.

Late Saturday night I set the sprinkler system to drench everything. Its important for the roots to get into the ground as soon as possible.

What a Terrible Disease



I've had this one myself. I barely survived.

There Once was a Man

I loved this when I first saw it on the Today Show 2 years ago. Harry Connick, Jr. is good but Kelli O'Hara is very strong.

BYU Orchestra Reunion 2008

This past weekend I attended a BYU orchestra reunion held in honor of Dr. Clyn Barrus. I enjoyed myself very much as I got to talk to a lot of people that I never thought that I would see again. It was nice to see a lot of old friends. There was a rehearsal Friday afternoon and an alumni dinner in the Skyroom Friday night. The dinner was a nice event(though the food was somewhat subpar) as it gave everyone a nice setting in which to chat and catch up. There was a powerpoint presentation of photos from past chamber tours and Dr. Barrus' widow shared some somber thoughts with us. All in all a very nice evening.

Saturday afternoon was 'Trafalga' time as alumni could take their families to something that all would be entertained by. Berk & I entertained ourselves with a round of 'speed golf,' which mostly consisted of exceedingly sloppy minature golf played at a much-too-high rate of speed. We amused ourselves thoroughly.

The reunion concluded Saturday night with a concert in which alumni joined with the current BYU chamber orchestra. On the program(at least the part that the alumni joined in on) was Appalachian Spring by Copland and The Emperor Waltzes by Strauss. There was a reception afterwards.

It was a wonderful experience.

And the Band Played Badly

WHY should real musicians — the ones who can actually play their instruments — have all the fun?

Puppy Class Graduation


Ranger recently graduated from puppy class at Petsmart. We took a few photos to commemorate this rather chaotic event.




The teacher

Ranger and another canine using diplomacy to resolve their differences of opinion.





Ranger actually looks like she's winning here.


Ranger's weight more than tripled during the 8 week class.

Weight loss revolution!

I have GOT to get me one of these!

More Ranger Snow pictures

Ranger in snow


The temperature dropped today and some snow started fallng.


Ranger, the Danger Dog, in rare Texas Snow.

Sweep the Leg


Quite possibly the coolest video ever made.

The Concert

The concert went ok. Rodeo -the finale of the concert- could have gone better but I think that it was still entertaining for the audience. I just wish that more people that I knew would have come. As it was, just my wife came. I really enjoy performing music but I just get to the point where it means so much more to have family and friends at the concert whom I can visit with afterwards.

My solos went well, I thought. That's good for my psyche given how much I was stressing over them.

Afterwards, M & I went out to Chili's with some friends in the orchestra and some of their acquaintances.