Why I despise most pet owners

Other appropriate titles could have been "#1 reason for moving into a new condo" and out of the community we were in, or "irresponsibility". But the punchline remains the same. On my way out the door this morning, I needed to take Betsy out because both Amanda and I had long days ahead of us and we were in a hurry. Keeping in mind that this is about 5.30 am, picture it still dark outside as I put on my shoes, turn the corner, stand there and walk back inside after Betsy has finished peeing and refuses to do any serious business because she's nervous whenever there's another dog around.

Ten steps, max, but 10% of those landed me into a pile of dog poop, literally. I came back inside, let Betsy loose, proceeded to get her fed before we left. I had checked my shoes before walking across the carpet because I almost never even leave my shoes on, but they were dry and I didn't see the brown spot smoothed into the sole of my left shoe. Needless to say, I quickly discovered my error (and later also found out that Betsy had happened into the same pile) when brown footprints rapidly appeared out of nowhere. It would figure, right when we're in a hurry, early in the morning, when I least want it, and when I'm leaving Amanda for the week, I dump this on her too. I felt horrible and rushed to clean my shoe off as Amanda set to the hard task of cleaning up the carpet.

Resolve works wonders, for those of you who have never tried the product. It has gotten me out of trouble with my former clean-freak roommate when I tracked mud through the house, removed chocolate from our new apartment and even now taken both urine and dog dirt out of the carpet. Try it, it's fantastic. But it doesn't make the job any more fun and also didn't relieve the anger that I felt at this point towards my fellow community members.

In case you haven't heard, we got a notice demanding we get rid of some dead flowers in a basket beside our door, when the neighbor beside us left garbage out on his back porch so long the varmint tore into it (and it was all over the grass when we got the flower notice). Then just yesterday, our other neighbors pulled some hooligans on their move-out, parking their truck and trailer right up on the law and walkway so they wouldn't have to walk the extra 30 ft every trip to the road. So it's already ridiculous in our neighborhood but the worst thing is pet ownership.

I don't care if you're too rich, too prissy, too grossed out, too engrossed in your texting, too distracted to remember you own a dog, too hungry to bother going out with your dog, too cheap to even buy trash bags, or too stupid to really believe you'll come back and pick it up later. Nobody likes stepping in dog feces and if I could figure out whose dogs were leaving it, I would wrap it in a Christmas box and leave it on their porch. Even though none of you will ever read this, I despise you for whatever excuse you use to justify in the back of your head any exceptions to the social code of clean-up that might (and don't) apply to you.

And this is my number one reason why I despise pet owners. Did you know that nearly 8 million cats and dogs are in need of adoption every year? This number alone signifies the true root of this problem. Everyone wants an animal, a pet, whether it be a turtle or a chicken, cat or dog. But as soon as push comes to shove, very few people think through their actions and instead the pet finds itself in a situation where nobody cares for it. This lack of care and follow-through can be as simple a leaving it crated up all day or neglecting to provide it food and water. If you can't care for an animal in a way in which provides it a reasonable quality of life, then don't get the animal in the first place. And lack of follow-through for animal care extends to simple responsibilities such as cleaning up after pet messes in a community. Your pet defecates, the same as a human. If you can't teach it to use the toilet like your kids, then change its dang diaper like your babies'.

Home Shopping

With news that our rent is going up, combined with severe frustrations regarding our complex managers, or non-managers, Amanda and I have begun exploring the whole new world of home buying. In less than a week, I have learned many new things and seen tons of houses both on my own and at home with Amanda, and we've crossed half of the county looking at them.

If I had to summarize our house search so far, I would say that there is definitely some evidence that this is a good time to buy a house. Interest rates are low, we have decent job security, we can get good deals, and lots of people are trying to mobilize their long-sunk assets. Of course, it's also very nerve-racking to even think about the huge commitment that sinking our money into a place really represents. I've spent my whole life thus far keeping my money as mobile as possible and the realization that our money is frozen into one possession for such a long time is pretty intimidating.

And then, of course, there is also the true cost of mortgages. The amount of cash paid down has so much larger of an impact on the amount you really pay for a house over time, even compared with what I learned in my farm management classes. Interest amounts are huge even at their low percentages and as hard as it is to think 10 years forward, the concept of a 30 year mortgage is that much more difficult. Wow, what a big thing it is to go house shopping. If this is such a big commitment, I can't even imagine children right now. One thing at a time...

A trip on the other side

Everything in life is all just an interpretation of what you see, feel or remember. I always make fun of Amanda for the crazy dreams that she has at night and how random her mind's reconstruction of her day is. Well, I thought I'd share an experience of my own from last night. Keep in mind that yesterday morning I finally did a mass memory dump onto 10 pages of biochemistry exam, vomiting all of my knowledge onto the paper in a hope that it will self-assemble into the correct answers like a micelle.

Amanda and I struggle to decide each night if we'll leave the dog out or in, based on whether or not there's things for her to eat while we're asleep, or how she was the night before or whether we want to actually get a good night's sleep. Last night we decided to leave Betsy out and it was the beginning to a crazy night.

I passed into a feverish state of anxiety release around 11.00 pm by my own guess. MSU was losing by 20+ points and I didn't have the heart to watch our seniors leave the court like that. What felt like an hour later, Amanda was yelling at the dog and waking me up. More sleep. What felt like every 5 minutes for the next hour, I struggled through biochemical pathways on a blackboard in front of a ghoulish-looking professor. Every time I got something wrong, this professor would punch me, abusing me for my neglect to the little details, even as simple as a misplaced hydrogen or misspelling of the acyl-succinyl complex, which was his fault as I remember (true story - he typo'd it on our final).

I finally came to to find Amanda yelling at me to wake up and punching me. Welcome to reality! I was even more confused why she was so angry with me and spent the rest of the night confused in my sleep as to why she was so mad at me. But apparently I had put the dog away earlier per her request and Betsy was out and running around; Amanda was worried we had apartment intruders. Imagine my confusion this morning when I asked Amanda why she was yelling at me and hitting me so much to find out that I'd been walking around and putting the dog away. And I thought it was just about my biochemistry. I'm so glad to be done with that.

Silent Spring

Yes, I realize Rachel Carson one-upped me on a book title, but I was looking at the archives of my blog and realized just how little I've posted this month. Wish I could tell you I've been building up anticipation for a good post, but frankly, I've either lacked the inspiration or the time - mostly time. But final exams are done and I'm ready to progress into the next few weeks, getting ready for DC and a final class or two this quarter.

If I'd have posted a week ago, this would've been another post including my apparent guardian angel. Because last Wednesday (Ash Wednesday), I was at the rec center playing ball and running up the court on the heels of a guy. Frankly, we were down 40 plus points, so I'm not sure why I tried so hard, but I did. I clipped his foot, rolled my ankle and felt all of my muscle build-up in my ankle the last two years just rip away. This is where my wife tells me I'm clumsy, and the nice lady at the rec center (who it turns out doesn't have blond hair) gets me some ice. Yep, it's all gone.

In case you don't know, I do have a bit of the clumsy in me. It was a clumsy accident that started all of this when I fell into a tractor rut warming up for a church-league softball game. I played through the day, even gimping in for a run, but basically couldn't walk for about 2 months afterwards. The doctor happily told me I hadn't broken my ankle, but forever I will wish I had. He filled out a business card length list, longer than a Brazilian grad student's list degrees, of abbreviations for ligaments which he said I literally snapped in half. So I'm back to the beginning, but recovering quickly. I think I'll be able to walk the court and do some simple hook-shot moves by next week with the help of new shoes and some braces.

But that's been my life for the past week or so. Limping around the house, getting either laughed at or tenderly cared for by my wife and dragged around on the leash by an unsympathetic dog. Needless to say, my determination to stop swearing for Lent has been less than fully successful - but I occasionally remember to hold my tongue rather than lash out or mutter under my breath, and for that, cheers to a quieter spring season. It's harder than you think, especially if you follow Spartan basketball.

eMusic

I just wanted to rant on here for a few short paragraphs about how frustrating eMusic is, as a site, as a company and as a stingy program. Don't buy a subscription to them because it isn't worth your time. I only was using it because I got free downloads with my Sansa player that Amanda gave me for Christmas. I just wanted some new music to study to tomorrow...

Once you get on the site, it takes all of your info just to even look at the site (including credit card) and then you start roaming the site to look up music, only to find that the subscription they offer would only give you downloads for an album at a time, selling you music you don't want and burning your credits faster. I can't imagine they have a lot of customers and it's a good thing nobody is wasting their time trying to search on this site. The site is a huge CF of links (only half of which work) and sound clips that don't accurately portray music (which I know because I had already heard the songs). None of the search parameters find what you're looking for and you end up as angry as me. Don't do that to yourself... And have a good final exam week.

Labels

Some labels come easy, some come a little harder. For example, I struggled with what to call this post because everything that sorted through my mind seemed either inappropriate or a bad conglomeration like our trip to the German buffet on Sunday. Truth be told, this post is about Marijuana and Salvia, the old and the new, the legal and illegal, and how a class discussion about omega 3 fatty acids earned me a label by accident - one that you hope not to get during your time in grad school - as the pot kid.

So I'm taking this nutrition class and as we reach the end of the quarter and all the main topics have been discussed, we've had the opportunity to talk to the boom in omega enhanced food products which even extends to the pet industry. As we ran down a list of sources of omega 3 fatty acids, I was shocked to see salvia pop up on the list. For those of you who've forgotten about salvia's "recent" publicity appearance, I've included the link.

Coming from Michigan, I'm pretty sure there's not a drug or substance that goes undiscussed, so I was pretty familiar with this one to the point that I knew people who wouldn't touch this stuff no matter what, even though it's legal, because it supposedly really messes you up like a bad trip. Of course, not all herbs are bad for you, but this is one really potent herbal supplement with some polar opposite effects on the body.

Of course, I raised my hand without stopping to consider the social consequences and asked the professor if that was the stuff that you could get high off of, "like pot"? His response to a shocked and silent class, "Well, it wasn't around in the 60's". He then went on a diversion into a guy named Jim Stafford, recommending we need to watch his song "Wildwood Weed". So I Googled it and include the embed here for you. Based on the clip, I'm pretty sure there was one person in class who appreciated the reality of my comment.

Zoos and Extinction (duplicate post)

Today's class-led lecture on zoos and species conservation was reminiscent of my undergraduate philosophy class and the day that I argued unknowingly with zoology management masters students on the inappropriateness and inadequacy of zoos in today's society. Before I even go into a discussion of what I saw in class this morning, I should state that I am not anti-zoo. From a very early age I made frequent trips to the zoo with Mom, Dad and/or Grandma. I can remember looking down on a rainy day as rhinoceros played and splashed mud on me and the old kangaroo walk where we could get into the pen with them. So I got nostalgic and pulled up some old Youtubes for you from back in the day. Notice how much more hair everyone has then...





You want to talk about a man with a vision and an excitement for animals, it's Jack Hanna.

Of course, for the Columbus Zoo, the days of simple concrete and glass pens with animals "enriched" by a bouncy ball are long gone. The Columbus Zoo is fortunate today to be the top zoo in the country and if you visit it, you'll easily understand why. With excellent attention to detail, exhibits has been remodeled to more closely represent natural habitat and give animals more space whilst still offering a good view of most animals to the average zoo-goer. This is a fantastic educational opportunity and I credit zoos with instilling my first love of animals and my parents for encouraging this from an early age. Once on a farm, this love grew into a career passion which I will carry with me to the end.



It is important, though, to also remember that not all zoos are as fortunate with funding and opportunities as the Columbus Zoo. The Potter Park Zoo, for example, in Lansing, Michigan, is a great example of the old-style zoo with limited enclosures and simplistic environments housing many old animals. This to me seemed like the retirement home of animals and to some it might seem like the animals are forgotten in this place. But if you talk to the zookeepers, you'll find that they are doing their best with the resources and staff available to provide very good care and high levels of scientifically accepted enrichment forms in order to stimulate these animals and better their everyday lives.

Zoo proponents often argue that the primary function of a zoo is to promote conservation through reproduction management of species and education of the general public. This is a function many zoos perform more than ever now as zoos try to transition from a public entertainment enterprise to a more globally responsible institution. And I will be the first to admit that aside from National Geographic, and Jane Goodall, the zoo is the next on a list of influences on me from a young age about the impact of humans on the planet (followed by Bill Peet). But in today's age, how does the zoo help conserve species? Saving a species in a zoo doesn't mean that we can re-release it later. If the habitat is destroyed, then what's the point?

Someone in class made the comment that preventing human destruction of a species is a good thing, but to allow a species to eliminate another is "natural". What is the difference between one being natural and the other not? I refer you to a previous George Carlin video about "saving the planet" which I won't link here today. But on the topic of extinction in the end, what's most amazing to me is that today we were going through recent extinctions. These recent extinctions were the animals on the endangered species list back when I was in elementary school. And just like that, they're gone. Wrong or right, artificial or natural, it just is sad to me to have to say that a species is gone from the world forever, in our time now.

Mass Media... (duplicate post)

... is the sole difference between agricultural corporations/commodity groups and the HSUS. Of course, many people have realized this already as concerned "agvocacy" groups and individuals scramble to educate people on the appropriate and effective use of social media outlets to spread the truth about animal care on America's farms today. And don't get me wrong, this is very important and will lead to better communication on the part of farmers in the future, but this doesn't solve the problem of now. It doesn't help get out the word to counter the lies which spread like weeds on MiracleGro.

Back in the winter (and yes, it's March and 50F outside so I can say that today), Feedstuffs ran a series of articles written by a reporter who got on farm after the chicken footage was released. His articles served as a powerful expose to the creative artwork that went into fabricating the "footage" used to accuse the farm of animal neglect and abuse. Like so many other videos that HSUS, PETA and Mercy for Animals are using to build up their tsunami of uninformed, but extremely concerned consumers, the release turned out to be framed. And after the media hype about the video release had passed and it was found to be posed, who was left to report the truth?

One reporter, as previously mentioned, did a real good job of covering facts and telling the truth and for that he ought to be commended. The same is true for the Smithfield video release back in December, and if you have any interest in reading facts about what happened, follow the link to read some true reporting. The unfortunate thing is that in the end, how far will this article really get? The media has lost the thread on this story long ago. Heck, look how long Egypt stayed on the news and how quickly they trailed off again, eclipsed by some new and unknown TV airtime and advertisement opportunity. Read this if you care about the truth, and then share it. If you want more people to read and to know, you'll have to share it yourself, face-to-face, or wallpost-to-wallpost, or however word gets passed along these days.

Dutch and D-town

I recently changed my blog site over to Dutch as a primary language. There was a time when I pretty proficiently read formal Dutch, made pretty solid attempts at Dutch email, frequented a Dutch 'hyves' (social networking site) account and even floundered around with some pronunciation. Well, truth be told, I feel like I'm always getting stupider in my logical attempt to short-circuit needless work and effort. Somewhere along the way, I found out that Yahoo Babel did a pretty bang-up job of translating things so I stopped using a dictionary and stopped using my head. I'm not sure how much switching this back over has really done for me yet, but it's nice to use my head a little every day to renew those old mental connections formed between strange excessive usage of misplaced vowels and the common meanings that over 16 million people successfully associate them with.

Of course, that's really just a prelude to the other topic on my mind this morning. With the Final Four in Detroit in 2009, the great town economically and emotionally rallied around the home boys, my very own MSU Spartans. And while I'll be the first to admit that it's not always a great place to be, there are some really nice things about Detroit that commonly get neglected by those who jump on the hating wagon, like Glenn Beck so mistakenly did.

And here's what people had to say about Glenn Beck:



Two very good friends of mine live in Detroit. Young professionals, they embody the hope that accompanies the town and the potential that it has to capture the old, progressive vibe it used to have. Just like Chrysler mentions in their ad, this is a town that bounces back and not just like a brief rebound. We're talking about the oldest city in the Midwest, the French fort when Ohio was just a bunch of trees (similar to the UP now). Regardless of circumstances or even mismanagement by government officials (something Michigan is all too familiar with), this town finds a way to keep on, and you have to love that about it. If you walk the streets like Amanda and I did back in September, you can feel a town that is trying to bounce back once again. Nobody said it was easy, but they're doing it or at least trying.




And this is Hockeytown, the city with the best team on ice, this side of the great pond. Don't every forget it. There's nothing quite like playoff season in a crowded, dirty bar, watching the Wings duke it out.