Remembering Buck

October 9, 2010 Maurice 1 Comment

It was two years ago that Buck died. October 9th 2008. We sat around tonight, reminiscing about some of his crazy antics. He sure was a good dog! I miss him a lot still, but I can remember him without crying. My eyes still sting, and my heart aches, but I do remember him with such fondness, the grief is easier to deal with.

I remember I took Buck over to the Spanish Banks, a beach in Vancouver. With his webbed feet, he was a good swimmer. We were in the ocean, out about forty or fifty feet. He was right beside me, and we were swimming around, enjoying the sunshine.

There was a log floating there, and it was tossing gently in the waves. I noticed it, but Buck did not. It nudged him in the back, and his eyes went as big as saucers! He let out a yelp, and made a beeline for shore. I mean, he was swimming as fast as he could. Clearly, the log had spooked him! He probably thought it was a shark or something! haha I tried calling to him, but he simply kept moving, not stopping. As soon as his feet hit the ground he began bounding into the shore, leaping over the waves. Nothing was going to stop him!

When he got to the shore, he kept running. He was some spooked! I was laughing so hard, it was tough trying to keep up with him. I finally caught up to him after chasing him for most of the length of the beach… He would never go swimming again! He would enter the water, but the minute his feet left the ground, that was it. He would turn around immediately and get out.

He was a great dog.

I miss you Bo…

All About Max

Nice fall day

October 7, 2010 Maurice Leave a comment

It’s hard to believe how quickly the time has slipped away. I guess all the visits to the doctor has made the days all run together. It’s almost time to start putting up some Halloween decorations! Here’s a picture I took of a spider, using the macro mode with the Panasonic Lumix. He actually was a fairly good sized spider though!

We’ve been having some pretty nice weather lately, with some nice warm fall days. We went wandering around Bear Creak Park and we snapped this picture of Max posing with the topiary bears. Looking sharp eh?

We even saw a little bunny running around too. We had Max on a leash, or he would have been chasing him, that’s for sure!

Something About Us

Pacman

September 30, 2010 Maurice 2 Comments

Google celebrated Pac-Man’s 30th anniversary by showing the Pac-Man doodle on its front page for 48 hours. They made it available in a javascript, and now here it is!

Use the arrow keys to move the pac-man around and click the link twice to include a 2nd player (which uses the A,S,W,D keys to move around).

[pacman]

All About Max, Surrey Parks

Max IN the lake!

September 22, 2010 Maurice 1 Comment

Here is a little video we took with the new Panasonic camera. We were at Green Timbers park, and we’ve often gone to the little lake there. Max always charges the ducks in the water, but he has never actually put his foot in the water. As soon as he feels the damp, he chickens out.

Well, today was different! As you can see from the picture, he splashed a little into the water, so I started the camera, and this is what happened next! This Panasonic also has a much better audio capability than the old Olympus camera. It records in DOLBY sound, and you can definitely hear the difference.

All About Max

New camera shots

September 16, 2010 Maurice Leave a comment

We’ve picked up a new camera for our yearly Caribbean excursion, and we’re test driving it around town this week. After doing a lot of research we decided on the Panasonic Lumix TS2, which has a lot of features, along with an underwater mode.

We went up to Tynehead Regional park hoping to see some salmon in the streams, but no salmon have shown up yet. Not sure why – I thought they would be here by now.

It was a nice fall day, warm and a little humid. The picture of Pam and Max was in the offleash section of the park.

The camera has an interesting macro mode, allowing you to be within just a couple centimeters of item and still focus well. I want to experiment with that, so that hopefully our fish pictures will be better this year when we are in Aruba and Curacao.

There is a High Definition movie mode that is really amazing. I’m looking for a converter to get them on the web in high-def, but I haven’t found a good one yet. When I do, I’ll put a movie up. It really is a remarkable feature of the camera! The movies are truly amazing.

All About Max

New Look

September 4, 2010 Maurice 2 Comments

When we were in Calgary for my Dad’s 80th, my sister gave us a little present for Max.

Max had been staying with Anna-Maria, our wonderful dog sitter while we drove to Calgary. She had taken him for a walk and he kinda overdid it, so we haven’t taken him out for a couple days. We’ve let him recuperate at home, but yesterday he seemed ready and eager to get out and about.

We took him down to our “fave park of the minute,” Sunnyside Acres Urban Forest, and we took a spin around Chickadee Loop trail.

Doesn’t he look sharp in his new outfit? I think he was getting tired of the green scarf! haha It’s a cool kinda scarf – it has a plastic snap clasp like a lot of dog collars, so it’s even easier to “tie on.”

Max says “woof woof!” Which apparently translates to “Thanks eh? Makes me look sharp!”

Something About Us, Vacations

Coming through the Rockies

September 1, 2010 Maurice 1 Comment

We drove home from Calgary yesterday. The roads were very good, and we made very good time. The construction didn’t really affect things, even though there is a lot of roadwork going on just after Banff. As we approached Golden I noticed a herd of Bighorn Sheep and we quickly pulled over as soon as we could.

I was able to get a short movie of them. It’s a bit jerky, but fun nevertheless! Where you see them jump over the barrier, one of them ran across the road and up a steep slope. The traffic all stopped to let him go across.

At the end of the movie, you can see several of them looking across the highway. They were looking for the single guy who ran up the slope. They waited for him on the side they were on, looking quite concerned, until he came down the slope and scampered across the road to rejoin his mates! Quite sweet…