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I sad very sad to say that Jake, my best friend besides my wife, passed away today. Given that he was a dog, and lived only 13 years, I have to say that he was the best dog I have ever met. Sure I am biased, but truly he was special. I have had dogs before, and have been attached to them as companions, but none like Jake. Jake spent his life with teh desire to be with people.

I found Jake at a pet store, he was older than most of the dogs there but had a quality about him that none of the other dogs had. So when I stopped to look at him, he didn’t bark or jump around instead he looked at me with eyes that said so much that I had to get him out to interact with him. While he was curious about his surroundings in the place that you get to interact with the potential pets, he was more interested in me and what I was doing. Which of course was playing with him. We spent some time together, as much as you can spend at a pet store, but in that short time had already formed a bond. So I took him home. Not that it was the best thing for me, but I could not excuse the expectant look of hope in his eyes.

Puppies have an unique way of looking at the world everything so new and exciting. WHile most dogs loose some of that over time, Jake was always like a puppy. Not in the normal ways, but more in the way that he looked at you with that expression that conveys gratitude and love at the same time. Jake could always melt your heart with a look.

As he got older, he suffered many of the things that large dogs do. His rear legs got stiff and a constant pain was with him. He would push through the pain to go outside with whomever was going to feed the horses or work in the yard. You could take him to down to the mailbox, work in the front yard, or just sit on the porch and he was always close by. He just wanted to be with people.

I will miss him.

I received this from a co-worker and really enjoyed it.

Cookies by Douglas Adams (author: “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”)

This actually did happen to a real person, and the real person was me. I had gone to catch a train. This was April 1976, in Cambridge, U.K. I was a bit early for the train. I’d gotten the time of the train wrong.

I went to get myself a newspaper to do the crossword, and a cup of coffee and a packet of cookies. I went and sat at a table.

I want you to picture the scene. It’s very important that you get this very clear in your mind.

Here’s the table, newspaper, cup of coffee, packet of cookies. There’s a guy sitting opposite me, perfectly ordinary-looking guy wearing a business suit, carrying a briefcase.

It didn’t look like he was going to do anything weird. What he did was this: he suddenly leaned across, picked up the packet of cookies, tore it open, took one out, and ate it.

Now this, I have to say, is the sort of thing the British are very bad at dealing with. There’s nothing in our background, upbringing, or education that teaches you how to deal with someone who in broad daylight has just stolen your cookies.

You know what would happen if this had been South Central Los Angeles. There would have very quickly been gunfire, helicopters coming in, CNN, you know. . . But in the end, I did what any red-blooded Englishman would do: I ignored it. And I stared at the newspaper, took a sip of coffee, tried to do a clue in the newspaper, couldn’t do anything, and thought, what am I going to do?

In the end I thought, nothing for it, I’ll just have to go for it, and I tried very hard not to notice the fact that the packet was already mysteriously opened. I took out a cookie for myself. I thought, that settled him. But it hadn’t because a moment or two later he did it again. He took another cookie.

Having not mentioned it the first time, it was somehow even harder to raise the subject the second time around. “Excuse me, I couldn’t help but notice . . .” I mean, it doesn’t really work.

We went through the whole packet like this. When I say the whole packet, I mean there were only about eight cookies, but it felt like a lifetime. He took one, I took one, he took one, I took one. Finally, when we got to the end, he stood up and walked away.

Well, we exchanged meaningful looks, then he walked away, and I breathed a sigh of relief and sat back. A moment or two later the train was coming in, so I tossed back the rest of my coffee, stood up, picked up the newspaper, and underneath the newspaper were my cookies.

The thing I like particularly about this story is the sensation that somewhere in England there has been wandering around for the last quarter-century a perfectly ordinary guy who’s had the same exact story, only he doesn’t have the punch line.

(Excerpted from “The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time” by Douglas Adams)

I saw this and instantly thought of my youngest son.

Work takes me to some nice places, and some not so nice. It’s not the first time going to Kirkland, but is the first time I had there chance to move around in Seattle. So I took some pictures.

Since I used to work for the monorail in Las Vegas, I was interested in the Seattle monorail.I didn’t have time to take a ride, but will get back with my family so we can all enjoy it.

Week before last I had to go to Hawaii for work. Yes I know, tough gig. I didn’t see much since I worked 90% if the time, but had a great view from the hotel. As a side note, the day I got there they had the Hawaii five-0 party on the beach.
Since I didn’t get to do the tourist thing, I can’t say if I would recommend it as a destination.