The Jed Sled is Dead

We took our husky/shepherd cross for some high-speed trials down on the river Monday night (Blizzard warning in effect, let's go out and play !)
As you can see from the video- Sophie kinda runs out of gas after pulling 2 of us half a mile at breakneck speed . Still she was game to do it many, many times... just a slosh of water and a face full of snow, and she's eager to go again ! It's very surprising how much exercise you get doing this...i can't imagine PULLING the thing...

Unfortunately, the bad workmanship and poor materials of the Jed Sled 1.0 caused a complete systems failure on the final leg home.
Watch for JedSled 1.1 this weekend !!

Proof of Concept

We ran around for more than an hour and Uncle Jed's Sled is still intact !
I thought i was channeling my dad as i was building it... but lo.. it LIVES !!
The shot that's missing is Alana riding...me kicking and holding on for dear life, and Lori at the end of the block calling Sophie... we were going so fast I couldn't kick, and had to just stand up and ride... that pup is only 6 months old, and Alana will be an adult pronto- AMAZING the load Sophie's hauling ... but now that we're back inside... Sophie is out cold. I think we finally figured out how to tucker her out...(I lasted about 15 minutes.. then CRASH)

Still moving...

Big shout-outs to Gen and Sharon and Lori (Junie, Danny, Sophie, Lily, Chloe, Dil, Furby, Hannah, Mogwai, Mist, and Max) for the help with my move from Garfield to Jessie. It's been especially hard since i have been assembling "Uncle Jed's DogSled", and I can hardly wait to test 'er out. Sophie is excited, and so am I. She proved that she LOVES to pull with a Krazy Karpet... UJ's DS actually might have less friction than the KK... though it will probably break in a million pieces on the first bump...

Major Motion Picture

We have been shooting pre-interviews for weeks, and now it's time to do the real thing. The Asthma training video will feature real people this time. Sorry that the amount of equipment that we're using is kind of intimidating.

Moving day- redux

Thanks to all who helped out on moving day... and curses to the weather people for the -34 with 30Km wind.

Back to the Frozen North

Our little friend Leo livened up the action at YWG by going backward through the security gate... poor Patty... then he took off for the street...

So what else is new ?

Looking back at the posts from the ship, I've been awfully self-absorbed.
Behold, most of the travelling gang.


On Saturday, the ship people suspected that we still had money left, so they put us ashore on their private beach in the Bahamas. A spirited volleyball game broke out, and many cocktails were consumed. PLUS just one more camera crapped out on me.

Self diagnosis - Somewhat suspicious

I also heard today that they’ve had 1000 cases of Dengue fever in Puerto rico. I might have to check the symptoms… Tony and I have been too sick, for too long for it to just be sunstroke.. There’s hand sanitizer everywhere on the ship- gangway, restaurants, poolside…I was always somewhat suspicious of this…


I woke up at 5AM, after sleeping about 20 hours.. I still had to wait for a machine in the launderette.

More Virgins

Thursday AM saw us land in Tortola- British Virgin Islands. I went ashore, just to say I did, and had some minor adventures. First stop- soup. I tried to find the Chinese restaurant that advertised on the street but no luck. I had a dream about consommé soup. I ended up at a restaurant catering to locals and ordered “Peas soup” When it came, the waitress said “You don’t mind that it has a pig’s tail in it ?”
I kinda skimmed the broth off, (Somehow, the pig’s tail was somewhat unappetizing.
Another hour of walking aimlessly, and I realized that I was getting even more sun… ack. Back to the ship.

The Undersea World of Tony Cousteau

Great snorkeling right off the beach, and Tony jumped in with the enthusiasm born of the new. We both got too much sun, and learned what they mean when they say “Sick as a Dog” We’re staying REALLY close to the “head” in our “stateroom”.

Frenchie's Restaurant

I had lunch at a rusty truck, and waited an hour for a patty, rice and beans. AWESOME when it came, though. I really suspected that Frenchie was playing with me.





...food poisoning ? No way man.

Bring on the Virgins

Next stop- US Virgin Islands.
What an amazing island-wide traffic jam. As we left the port for the beach, we passed at least 3 miles of bumper to bumper traffic sitting still in the single lane road. MILES inland and they're waiting for a traffic light down by the pier.

Mussel Beach

Anyhoo, on the beach, we had one of the locals fill us up with mussels. Right from the sea, with a squirt of lemon. Very luxurious.

To the BEACH !

Enroute, Ramon and co. made TWO stops to pick up some local rum. The stuff really works.

Much later on the beach, I managed to kill both of my cameras in one go…apparently submersion is contraindicated. Damn gravity.







The charger for my Nikon is dead.. and the Fuji camera, also. Hopefully I can either get the photo crew on the boat to charge my battery, or barring that, I’ll buy a charger when I’m ashore today in St. Thomas US Virgin Islands. Until I charge the battery, I won't know if the camera itself is a writeoff.

UPDATE: Borrowed a camera.. no cable..ack. Spare battery for nikon has a contact broken off... what's going on here ? Witchcraft ?
LATER UPDATE- No chargers available for the esoteric &^*#&^^*&^#$ battery.

Dominican Republic

Tuesday AM saw a beautiful day, with land on the horizon. Republica Dominicana was “discovered” by Columbus. He called the bay where we anchored “The Gulf of Arrows” because the local inhabitants sent him packing.
This is the first year that cruise ships are stopping in Samana, so there isn’t a deep water dock yet…we had to go ashore on a tender. We got lucky and got to ride in one of these cool lifeboats. If it was full to its 110 person capacity, it would be pretty snug, I suspect. Though- any old lifeboat in a storm, I suppose.
We wandered a bit then the Chief Negotiator found us a promoter on his day off who then pitched a price to a driver and we were off to the beach. I'm definitely going to have to check out the Google earth view of the trip, cuz I got rum in my eye.

YMCA

As with so much of life, it’s the ones who participate, who have the best time. This is Tony’s first cruise (mine too) and he jumped in with both feet. The gang roused me to rush up to the Spinnaker Lounge, where Allan and Tony had been drafted to play “The Village People” in the entertainment extravaganza. I think the pix speak for themselves. (Though they don't seem to be uploading.. maybe satellite bandwidth limitations....

Norwegian Dawn

The ship is HUGE. And it’s just one of many plying these waters. Three ships departed at the same time, and spent a few hours jockeying for position. We had a Carnival ship following us this morning… they overtook us by mid afternoon…maybe we need to make some of our fatties walk the plank. (If this is the last post, you’ll know why.)

Miami Florida

We stayed in a Red Roof Inn in Miami on the way out to the cruise ship. It was REALLY close to the airport. Kind of a good news/bad news deal.