Unemployed

After twenty one years and four months (effective 1 October), I am now unemployed.  But this is the best type of unemployed because even though I no longer have any responsibilities or duties, I am still getting paid :-)  I don't start at UCCS until 15 Aug, so I have some free time on my hands.  Not sure what I'll do...maybe write that novel :-)

We had a small luncheon for my going away.  It's hard to have big events USAFA over the summer, as there aren't many people around.  Plus, I'm not one to really love the spotlight, so a nice casual event was perfect.  The highlight had to have been the greatest gift anyone has ever gotten Ashley.  My boss really puts some thought into these presents.  He's a closet Raider's fan, so he tried to figure a tie between the Oakland Raiders and the Auburn Tigers.  He immediately came up with Bo Jackson (as did Ashley when he was giving his little speech).  Thus, Col Butler got Ashley an Auburn football signed by Bo Jackson with a certificate of authenticity and everything.  I'm glad I didn't get her anything, as nothing could top this present.

Bode was able to come to the lunch.  Afterwards, he joined me for a "victory lap" around the Terrazzo--my last time on the USAFA campus without needing an escort.  Hard to believe over 25 years have passed since my first time officially on campus.  Scary.  Here are some pictures.  First up is Bode man--perhaps he'll be in the Class of 2028.

Next is Bode in front of one of the airplanes.

Finally, a picture of the Class of 1995 crest.  Good times.

Not sure what I will do tomorrow.  I have a final outprocessing appointment at 0900.  Afterwards, no responsibilities what-so-ever. :-)  Pleasant day to all.

Harley Recovering

It's been almost two weeks since Harley had her leg amputated.  I'm thrilled to say she's doing extremely well.  There were some initial bumps--learning to walk on three legs when you are used to four is probably pretty challenging.  We had to help her a bunch, but now, she's really moving around quite well.  First, some nice pictures of our girl.  The first one is of Harley eating, which she thoroughly loves now that we are giving her some wet dog food with her meals.

Next is a picture (a bit blurry I know) of Harley hanging out in front of our house.

And finally, Harley with her boy.

Bode is so happy that Harley is doing well.  And honestly, we don't know what's going to happen, but we do know we will love on her every day, appreciate this extra time with her, and hope for the best.

Some of you have expressed some skepticism regarding a dog's ability to get around on three legs. Here's Harley moving around and checking some things out.

And I think she gets around better than even the video shows--you should see her almost sprint when it's dinner time :-)

I only have two more days in the Air Force, and then I will be unemployed.  Anybody want to hang out or do something?  Pleasant day to all.

Houston

For the past week, Bode and Ashley have been in Houston, Texas.  They planned this trip in early May, and it was the perfect week for them to be gone.  As you know, Harley had her surgery last week, and she's been convalescing this week.  The first few days weren't very good--lots of whimpering and staggering around, so it was good that Bode wasn't here to see that because it would upset him.  I'm happy to say our girl is doing well, and is really getting along considering she's had three legs for only a week.  I'll post some pictures of her next time (I want to get some pictures of her and Bode).  For now, this post is strictly about Bode and Ashley's big trip to Houston.

So why Houston?  Ashley's cousin, Penny, and her husband, Milton, lived in Houston until ~2011.  They then moved to Pittsburgh, and were there for five years, and recently moved back this summer, building what they consider to be their dream retirement home.  The place did not disappoint, having everything from a swimming pool to built in slushy-machines at the outdoor bar, of which Bode averaged three a day.  I don't really have a day-by-day sequence of events.  I'm limited to the pictures Ashley sent me from her phone.  I do know they both had a great time, and it was awesome for the two of them to get to spend some time together.

I think the first night in Houston (or maybe it was the second), they went to dinner that also had a nice aquarium.  Here's Bode in front of some big fish.

They also went to a place called Top Golf.  Bode did a mini-golf camp earlier this summer, and his Grammy has taken him twice on the course.  Top Golf is a big driving range, and each ball has a GPS tracker, so you can know your distance and see if you hit the targets.  Here's Bode, addressing the ball, prior to smashing a long iron 200+ yards (well, maybe it wasn't that far...)

On one of the days, Milton took everyone out on Lake Conroe for some boating and tubing.  The next three pictures are from this event.  First is Bode sitting with Callie, Penny and Milton's youngest daughter (she's 15 and will be learning to drive soon).

Next is a picture of Bode driving the boat.  I don't think he was tall enough to reach the pedals, so Milton had to cover the throttle.

The highlight of the boat-trip had to have been the tubing.  Ashley said Milton really liked to push the throttle, which made for some big bumps on the water.

Bode averaged a few hours a day in the pool.  The kid had it rough--not sure how he'll adjust to school once it starts again in a month.

After seeing these pictures, I concluded that next summer, we all are going back :-)  Ashley and Bode fly home today--it'll be nice to see them again, and I'm sure Bode is excited to see Harley.  I'll post an update on her in a few days.  Pleasant day to all.

Tripawd Part II

For those of you with whom I wasn't providing text updates, the story of the amputation of Harley's leg is a bit of a saga.  In my last post, I stated Harley would be having her leg amputated on Monday morning.  I dropped her off at the vet, and headed to work.  About two hours later, the vet called.  While starting to anesthetize Harley, the vet noticed she really wasn't doing too well.  They did some blood work and found Harley to be very anemic.  He couldn't risk the surgery because in such a state, Harley would have issues clotting and also would not be able to fight infections.  Thus, the surgery was called off.  When I picked her up, I asked what we could do.  He gave us some injections for Harley in an effort to raise her red-blood cell count.  The tumor in Harley's leg could be affecting her bone marrow, which would then reduce her ability to produce red blood cells.  Thus, getting her well wasn't nearly as simple as giving her some iron pills.  In fact, when I asked the doc straight up if he thought we'd get her to a point we could risk surgery, he was nice enough to tell me, "No."  Thus, Monday was very somber.  We didn't really tell Bode the grim news.  We did tell him she needed more "stuff" in her blood, and that we were going to try to give her medicine to make this happen.  He was quite shaken up--we had told him the surgery would remove the very painful limb and that even though amputation would be painful, it would be nothing compared to the constant pain of a tumor.  Bode cried a lot Monday night, saying, "I wanted my doggy to be free of pain."  We didn't feel right about compounding this and telling him she didn't have long to live, as even though the tumor wouldn't kill her right away, the pain would be unbearable and euthanasia would have to occur.

So Monday wasn't a great night in the McGuirk home.  At some point, and I'll embellish a bit here for the sake of story-telling and say I was watching the Tour de France, when I thought, "Can we do some blood doping to increase Harley's red-blood cell count?"  It works for athletes--take their blood, store it, let the body replenish the blood, and then reinject either the blood or the red-blood cells.  I called the doc in the morning just to see if my idea had merit.  He said he couldn't do that at his facility, and he also thought Harley might not be able to handle giving a lot of blood.  Plus, it would still be a few weeks before she could have the surgery, which would be a painful fortnight.  But he recommended I call some internal medicine vets to see what they thought.  I spent some time on the phone, calling different clinics.  One of them said, "Yes, we do blood transfusions here, but we get our blood from the North Powers Animal ER--why don't you try them?"  So I called, talked to the techs and docs, and they said to bring her in.  I spent about three hours with Harley with the doc on Tuesday.  They checked her out, got her records from Harley's regular vet, and finally said, "Yes, we can do a transfusion tonight and the surgery tomorrow."  Yes!  But still there was a lot that could happen, so we weren't overly optimistic.  We admitted her to the hospital Tuesday night, and Bode was very relieved--"She's getting the surgery, right?"  And, like before, we didn't tell him about all the risks.  Wednesday morning, I talked with the vet, and the transfusion went fine.  Then the amputation surgery started around 3:00 in the afternoon.  At 5:30, my cell phone rang, and we were all nervous wrecks.  I answered, and it seemed like forever before the person on the phone said, "Harley did great in the surgery, and is now recovering."  Awesome news, but I wanted to tell her the first word should be either "good" or "bad" and to dispense with the formalities.  This morning, I talked with the vet again, who said we could pick Harley up in the afternoon.  We got her, loaded her into the car, and brought her home.

She still has a long way to go--about 24 hours ago, she had a leg hacked off, and I'm telling myself this more than I tell you because I need to temper my expectations.  We're helping her move around as she gets used to her new body and recovers from the surgery.  She ate her dinner, and is resting with a big cone on her head to prevent her from licking.  She did have a little bathroom accident in the house, but that's why we have our own sophisticated carpet cleaning machines (and we've now learned the lesson to keep Harley off the carpet :-)

I will post more as she improves.  It took Auburn a couple weeks before she was moving around the house, and we expect it'll be the same, if not longer, for Harley.  One day at a time is what we're focusing on.  And I've probably blabbed long enough--you just want to see her, yet?  Below is a picture of Harley dog sans the white cone (which went back on right after I snapped the picture).

Thanks to everyone who offered to help during this time.  Ashley and Bode head to Houston on Saturday, so it'll just be Harley, Joey, and me.  While this will be more work for me, it might be better for Harley to just have some time to herself to figure things out.  Here's hoping :-)

The Garden

It's the middle of summer, and harvesting has begun.  This is my first year doing potatoes, and they are doing great, as are the peas.

I've also probably picked close to 50 strawberries.  They aren't huge ones, but they are very sweet when you eat them--nothing like strawberries right off the vine.  I've also picked some broccoli, carrots, and lettuce.  Everything is still in the growing phase.  I took some pictures, and I'm very pleased with how things are going.  First is a shot of the whole garden.

 Lots of green in there, which is wonderful.  Below are the tomato plants and potatoes.  I've had a couple tomato plants die, and I'm not sure why.  One is growing beautifully, so I'm befuddled.

 Next is a picture of the beans, which are going crazy.  Some nice bean-buds are forming, so in another four weeks, we'll be eating fresh green beans.

 I grew more potatoes in this spot, as I didn't think the soil was very good and I heard potatoes will grow just about everywhere, which turns out to be true.  You can also see my carrots, lettuce, broccoli, and onions.

 In the upper right are the raspberry plants.  These things have gone crazy this year--we planed two little plants last year, and now they are taking over.  Note also my owl, which does wonders with birds.  Finally, you can see some honey-dew melon and cucumber vines in the foreground.

 What is a garden without corn.  I started all these stalks inside in April.  Each has one or two corn cobs growing on them, and we still have ~50 days of growing until it gets cold again.  I'm thinking we'll be eating corn in late August.

 Pumpkins just go crazy--all those huge leaves in the below picture are from a pumpkin vine.  The aggravating thing is for all that greenery, there isn't a single pumpkin growing yet.

I didn't take a picture of my trees, but my apple tree has six apples growing.  I'll be curious if the apples taste like apples :-)

Ok, now for some bad news.  Harley has been limping on and off for the past few months.  We took her to the vet in mid-May, and he gave her some steroids to see if that helped.  Well, she's been limping again, and this time, the vet x-rayed her knee.  She has a tumor on her knee bone...which is bad.  The only treatment is amputation, so she will be having her back-left leg removed.  It's also a possibility (probably even money) the tumors have spread, which means she might only have six months to live.  Of course, if they haven't she could live another five years (fingers crossed).  If you have any input with the Big Dog upstairs, we'd appreciate some positive thoughts for our pup :-)  I'll post some pictures and an update on Tuesday.

July 4th

We spent a few days up in Breckenridge over the holiday weekend.  Breck's a tourist town, which means it gets very crowded during these times.  Fortunately, we live a few miles out of town, so even though the town is packed, it feels like we are roughing it.  We didn't spend much time in Breckenridge because of the crowds, but we did go down for lunch on Sunday, and stopped for some neat photos on the river walk.

   

We did some work around the house, and also spent some time just sitting and looking at the mountains.  In a 48-hour period, we went from paddle-boarding on the Gulf of Mexico to hanging out at 10,000 feet above sea level.  Nothing like shocking the lungs at our age.

On Independence Day, we decided to hike up the Continental Divide.  We've done this hike before, and it's not too difficult, but it is challenging for an eight-year old.  We also brought Joey for the trip (we didn't bring Harley, and I'll address why next post).  Here's a cute shot of a boy and his dog at the start of the hike.

The hike went well.  We brought plenty of Gatorade and water, and even remembered to bring a bowl for Joey.   At one point, we even had to go through our version of the ice falls (I watched the movie Everest the other night).

At this point, we are above tree line.  We trudged on and eventually made it to the top.  Ashley's phone said we were at 12,217 feet above sea level.

The hike was wonderful, as was the time up in Breckenridge.  I left early in order to get home so I could go to work on the 5th.  I wish I had stayed, because two huge moose decide to walk right in front of our house.

   

   

   

Bode was impressed with their size, while Joey was going bonkers trying to get out of the house.

Overall, the 4th of July was pretty tame.  The hike wore us out, and we all ended up going to bed just as fireworks were starting.  It's just wonderful being back at work :-)  Pleasant week to all.

Fort Walton Beach

We spent close to a week in Fort Walton Beach the last week of June.  We had a wonderful time at Ashley's parent's house.  The worst thing about the trip was I forgot my camera--can you believe that?  Of all things to forgot.  Thus, I had to rely on Ashley taking pictures with her phone, which is simply hand-wringing awful for a photog such as myself :-)  Therefore, there's no real rhyme or reason of what pictures we have and don't have--sometimes we remembered to take a picture and sometimes we didn't.  Thus, you'll have to allow my silky words to paint the images for you.  We were lucky enough to time our trip to partially coincide with an FWB visit by Dave, Teddy, and Charlie.  We decided to spend the day together and go out to lunch...to Waffle House (yes, really).  Here's a cute shot of Teddy and Bode at the Fort Walton WH.

After lunch, we headed out to the Gulfarium, which had dolphin shows and a sea-lion show, and all sorts of marine animals.  It also has a good place to take pictures, and we managed to corral the three Rankin-side cousins for a nice picture.

I'm not sure what Charlie is doing--looks like he's getting ready for a trip to Muscle Beach.  Bode and I also took a nice picture at the same spot.

Sadly, we went to the Gulfarium on Sunday...and the next phone pictures are sometime on Thursday, which makes me wonder what Ashley was doing those three days (I was sitting in the sun and paddle-boarding in the Bay--it was soooo warm and humid. I was a pig in slop :-)  Well I guess that answers that.  On Thursday, we went out to The Track and met up with Brantley and Dave Cook and their two boys, Mac and Hudson.  There were go-karts and bumper boats and other pseudo-carnival rides.  Here's a shot of Bode and me getting ready to race Daytona.

We also took the obligatory photos with Brantley...

and Dave...

and the boys (the fourth boy is a friend of Mac's who was spending the day with the Cook's).

It was great to see the Cook's again, and if anyone is heading to the Fort Walton Beach-Destin area and needs a place to stay, Brantley and Dave manage a large number of short-term rental properties :-)

JoAnne and Frank's neighbors let us swim in their pool and ride their wave-runners, which was simply awesome.  They let us do this the last time we were down there, but I think they upgraded the wave-runners.  These were much more powerful--and even had a speedometer.  I got up to 53 miles an hour, which doesn't sound fast, but when you are bouncing over waves and lack any type of suspension it's quite scary...and a literal pain in the rump.  Again, no pictures, other than this cute one of Bode and me in the pool.

We had an incredibly relaxing time in Florida.  Ashley and I worked out, I ran over the Brooks Bridge, which is probably my favorite run in the world, and we paddle-boarded in the bay.  As Ashley put it, "I sure could get used to this."  We even did some house hunting (yes, really).  We did find the PERFECT home...but it's a little pricey.  Google 225 Beachview Drive in Fort Walton Beach if you want to see where we will be two seconds after we win the Powerball :-)  When we got back to Florida, we didn't spend much time in Colorado Springs, as it was the 4th of July weekend, so we headed up to Breck--stay tuned!

Pleasant week to all.