Month: January 2006

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Katie Dog

Just got off the phone with C a little while ago. She took Katie to the vet today
Looks like she has cancer, or at least that’s the Vet’s gut feeling. Katie is our middle dog. She’s a Border Collie-Labrador Retriever mix. Truth be told probably the best dog we have.

She’s as old as Maggie, which would put her at 10 to 11 years old. She’s not a big dog, more like medium around 60-65lbs or so. Or I guess you could say she was. She’s gotten down right skinny and is now down to 45 lbs.

We didn’t notice it at first because we put all the dogs on a diet for Comet’s sake. He’s our Golden who is 13-14 years old. He’s been a good old dog, but not without his faults. His arthritis has kept him down and he had put on a lot of weight. The vet had us cut back on his food to take weight off him, so we cut back on all the dogs food. The loss of weight has made Comet a new dog. Katie however hadn’t stopped losing weight.

The last two weeks we really started noticing her having some problems. Problem standing, getting up, etc.

Except for the time when she was about one year old and ate some dental floss which required $800 worth of surgery hasn’t ever caused us any trouble.

She’s always been there. Quiet around the house except for when she wants in. She’s never made a mess, never torn anything up, and never barked at anyone.

She’s a herder and has always made it difficult to play catch with the other dogs. She gets in there and spoils the fun, trying to herd the other dogs. She’d bite at their ears and ankles and convince them they shouldn’t be doing it.
Katie is a special dog and will be missed. I’ve always joked about not liking her and threatened to give her away. She’s been thick at times, and sneaky about the electric fence. But all in all she’s been a very, very good dog.

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Today’s Deep Thought

Maybe in order to understand mankind we have to look at the word itself. MANKIND. Basically, it’s made up of two separate words: ‘mank’ and ‘ind.’ What do these word mean? It’s a mystery and that’s why so is mankind.

-Jack Handy

😉

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The Coaches Cup Report

Molly Competed today. Her second ever meet and her first “Big” meet.

She scored a 9.000 in her floor exercise and took 5th place overall (for her level and age group). We’re very, very proud over her.

Her bar warm up routines were rockin but during competition, the wheels came off. Shortly there after she moved to beam and took a nasty fall. During both events she kept her composure, jumped right back on the apparatus and didn’t miss a beat. You’d never know this was the second event of her life. Molly is a natural competitor and we are oh so proud. Not many kids would have handled the day she had today so well.

Scores aren’t everything but they are that by which we measure success and why we compete. Scores are all we have in that regard.
After working the Coaches Cup and watching today, the coaches at CGA are clearly second to none. They are very hands on. Every gymnast gets a hug after each event and feedback on how well they did, yet they are not overly coddling.

Molly was crushed after her bar routine and broke out into tears but not until after she had taken care of business and saluted the judges. Her coach was quick to point out that this is all for fun. Don’t worry about what happened or what will happen.

The scores mean nothing and in her world they shouldn’t mean a thing. They know what Molly is capable of and every Gymnast will have their day, good and bad.

Last meet Molly notched a 9 in vault and bars. Today she notched one in the floor exercise. It’s only a matter of time before she notches one on the beam and then puts it all together for a spectacular all-around score.

I know it, her coaches know it, and she knows it, that’s why she was crying. What happened today happens to everyone. She was just off her game.

We love you Molly, 9’s, 8’s, 7’s or 6’s.

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Working the Coach’s Cup.

This weekend is the big gymnastics meet, the Coach’s cup. Molly competes tomorrow. Claudine and I had the pleasure of working the event today. I said pleasure because it was kind of neat.

Molly is new to this so for us a lot of these experiences are new, though we can see they can and probably will get old rather quickly.

Web-Logging is a unique and wonderful thing. It allows us to share our experiences and thoughts with folks all over the world. It can be a powerful tool. Those who know me know I don’t really care all that much what people think. I have my opinions and they can often be strong. This post might be one of them.

We are very, very fortunate to have a gym as high caliber as Cincinnati Gymnastics in our area. We really really are. There are folks that have moved here from all over to attend CGA. There are folks that work for CGA who have moved here just so their daughters can have a chance to make the national team. The gym is that good.

There are two parts to the story though. There is CGA the for-profit business entity which employs the coaches and runs the facility, for which we pay a monthly fee for our gymnast to attend and there is the non-for profit parents club which pays for everything else (meet fees, leo’s and all kinds of other things). We have to pay this too but we also have to fund-raise a portion of this. To level the playing field and to ‘ensure’ you can’t buy success, all parents have to participate in certain activities. You earn points by fund raising and volunteering, etc. If you don’t earn your points you are penalized financially (go figure). So if you’re in the dough and don’t want to fund raise, guess what? Don’t do it you can buy your way out. I’m ok with this. The cost is about the same, and it does give those who can’t afford it an opportunity to fund raise. Just don’t spin it as ‘leveling the playing field’.

Continue reading “Working the Coach’s Cup.”

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Sex offender near the school, oh my.

OK, we saw a story about this on the evening news last night. Problem was we were watching a show we had recorded so the news was a day old.

Here’s the deal. There are laws that prohibit sex offenders and child molesters from living within certain distances from schools and I guess places where children might be. I’m fine with that. They have to register and all that stuff. I’m OK with that too.

But this poor guy, well he’s not a known ‘child molester’, he’s a convicted rapist, he did his time and he’s out. A crime either 15 or 20 years ago, I can’t remember. But let’s say for the sake of argument it was only 15 years ago.

He’s now been living where he’s been living for 4 years. Now we, or, uh, well not me, but the City of Cincinnati, or some local government near there went and built a new school in his back yard. A nice, big, brand new school. Now they are upset that he, a known “Sex Offender” lives too close to the school and they’ve gone to court to throw him out.

Now you’d think that in the course of picking a site they might do some research to figure out where these nasty people are and not build near them, or at least relocate them before hand.

I’m personally angered by by the way they are treating this individual. He’s paid his debt, and so far, according to the story, he’s played by the rules. Yet the city is so belligerent that they can take him out of his home of the last 5 years and force him to move without compensation. Or at least they are trying too. They feel ‘confident’ in their case.

This I think might be a good case for the ACLU though I usually think they are a bunch of nuts.

At the very least, the City needs to relocate this fella, including moving expenses, and some cash for his trouble and embarrassment. He didn’t ask for this, he was clearly minding his own business.

Here’s the article: Dilemma: Registered Sex Offender Near CPS School