Pippin
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Posts posted by Pippin
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LOVE the pawprints!
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The MemberMap is up and running
I like how it displays GTers when you float the cursor over the map. Especially entertaining in the North East, where there's a big concentration of us.
Looks like it might be a little off on its geography, though. 3DogNight says she's in SLC, but her map pin is northwest of Puget sound.
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COOL! One less distraction for me on Saturday!
Good luck, Jeff! And thanks for the anticipated improvements.
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((((((((((((((((((((((Heather))))))))))))))))))))))))))
I'm just now seeing this. I'm so sorry, my friend.
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I've known Profee for several years, thanks to RennFest, and I had the joy of spending Christmas with him (and Hunk & Jeany). He is, to me, the epitome of a greyhound gentleman. My world is a little emptier since Friday, but I know that he'll be waiting for his mom at the bridge - he loved Nan as much as she loved him.
Godspeed, sweet Prince. And if you see a little blue tuxedo iggie, let her know that her mommy still loves & misses her, too.
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firefox browser on XP - no problems here
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I got a call from the vet's office earlier this week. It seems that I've finally gotten the bill paid for your last month with me.
I'm sorry you had such a rough last month, little one... that's one of the few regrets I have about our time together. But Doc promised me that we didn't leave you hanging around longer than necessary.I'm glad you still visit me in my dreams - I miss you bunches. Now that I've paid the vet, I can start saving to bring you home. Those folks won't let me make payments, so I have to wait until I have all the $$ gathered up. Someday I'm gonna own a home again, and when I do, you'll be planted in the memory garden, with your own butterfly bush to lie under.
But you'll always be close to me in my heart. I was working on my Christmas letter earlier this week, and as part of my sharing with my friends about this past year, I had to share that you went to the Bridge. I was weeping on the plane as I wrote it, and it was as fresh as if it were just last week, instead of 3 months ago this Saturday.
I miss how you would look at me with your little cataract-covered eyes, trying so hard to see me and somehow managing to see me with your heart, and to communicate so very clearly how much you loved and trusted me.
I miss seeing you when I come home from a road-trip, and scooping you up out of your crate at Dee's, or off the chair in her kitchen, and how your whole body would shake with excitement while you sniffed every inch of me your nose could reach, making sure it was really me, and I really did come back for you.
I miss you every time I drop a piece of food on the floor - now that you're gone, I have to pick it up and throw it away, because you're not there to hoover it up for me.
You taught me so much, little one. I've never really been able to put it into words, but I know it's true. You adapted to the extreme changes in your life, the loss of your first love after 9 years, and yet you gave yourself unreservedly to me, trusting that I wouldn't abandon you like the other lady did. And I wouldn't. You wrapped your paws around my heart, and then you dug around until you'd made yourself a cozy little nest inside there.
That's where you live now, besides the Bridge. Safely nested in my heart. Home forever, in your forever home.
But I wish I could pick you up again, and kiss the top of your head, and watch you demolish a greenie.
Someday, my friend....
Until then, remember that I love you.
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"I Believe" (as sung by Diamond Rio)
Every now and then soft as breath upon my skin
I feel you come back again
And its like you havent been gone a moment from my side
Like the tears were never cried
Like the hands of time are holding you and me
And with all my heart Im sure were closer than we ever were
I dont have to hear or see, Ive got all the proof I need
There are more than angels watching over me
I believe, I believe
Chorus
That when you die your life goes on
It doesnt end here when youre gone
Every soul is filled with light
It never ends and if Im right
Our love can even reach across eternity
I believe, I believe
Forever, youre a part of me
Forever, in the heart of me
And Ill hold you even longer if I can
The people who dont see the most
Say that I believe in ghosts
And if that makes me crazy, then I am
cause I believe
There are more than angels watching over me
I believe, I believe
*********************
Run fast and free, sweet boy. Enjoy the reunion with your first momma, but dont' forget to send some lub and licks to your mama diane
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I am also using firefox and don't have that issue.
Thanks for all your hard work and your sacrifice of a decent internet connection at home for such a long time Jeff. You rock!!!
:bananaI just realized it's because I wasn't wearing my glasses, and had enlarged the font.
In my best Emily Litella voice.... "never mind"
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This is so minor I hate to mention it, lest I seem like I'm nitpicking, but....
using Firefox as my browser, when I'm inside a forum (but not a thread), in the top center where it says "Mark Forum Read," the text is longer than the box the text is in.
It's not a big deal, but I figure you'd like to know.
I'm just glad your headache is mostly over.
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If I'm ever in your neck of the woods, I'll buy you a beer
Congrats on being back up and running again.
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One more part of making it real....
I finally emailed my non-GT friends and let them know she was gone. Some of them had met her, others hadn't, but all knew about her, and knew how much I loved her.
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Holly
in Remembrance
Sweet Holly....
I'm glad you're reunited with your best friend Brett. But please take a moment to stop by your mom's and let her know you're doing ok. I know she misses you.
Run free, pretty girl...
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Burpdog pointed me towards an ebay site with urns at VERY reasonable prices, so I picked out her urn today. I'm not going to actually purchase it until I've figured out when I can afford the cremation. I'm hoping that will be relatively soon, because I'd like to bring her home. I'll be using a place that Dee recommends, and has used for years. It's as affordable as the places Doc knew about, and it's guaranteed individual cremation. I'm finding that matters to me.
*sigh* I hate that I have to spend time thinking about stuff like this. I hate that she's gone, even though I know she's better off.
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It was two weeks ago today, and just about this time, when I walked into the vet’s office with my little Jessie for one last visit.
I left the following Monday on a 10-day business trip, so this is the first weekend I’ve been back home since that sad day.
Last weekend, I dreamt that I was in a small house, visiting with friends. My little Jessie was sitting beside me on the sofa while we visited. Towards the end of the dream, one of my friends mentioned her, and I replied something along the lines of “Oh, this is my little dog, Jessie. But she’s not really here. She died last week, but I remember how she looked and how she felt, so I can have her with me whenever I want to.” My dream then faded into another dream, which meant it should have been forgotten, but as I was brushing my teeth the next morning, I remembered it. I’m glad I remembered it, because I fully believe its message was true.
As long as I remember my little girl, she’ll always be with me.
I’m house-sitting this weekend, for my dog-sitter (a wonderful lady who keeps my girls at the drop of a hat). So as I was driving in from the airport Thursday night, heading straight to my dog-sitter’s house, I started realizing that for the first time since she’s been my dog-sitter, there won’t be a little dog there, so happy to see me that she can’t stop quivering.
So I called one of my good friends and said “who am I gonna snuggle with tonight? My snuggler’s not here anymore.” She didn’t really have an answer for me (there’s not really an answer to a question like that). I got to the house, and let the dogs out to run in the backyard. But one of them wouldn’t run out.
Little Giorgio, an elderly italian greyhound, has appointed himself as my special friend this weekend. If I’m sitting in a chair, he wants to be on my lap. If it’s bedtime, he’s snuggled up beside me, keeping my back warm.
This intrigues me, because George was out in the van as we were helping Jessie to the Rainbow Bridge, and right about the time she was gone, he started barking. Doc suggested that maybe Jessie had stopped at the van to say goodbye to George. Usually, when I’m house-sitting, George hangs out in his little bed, covered up with his blanket, sleeping. This weekend, he’s the most sociable I’ve ever seen him. He’s not Jessie, but he helps.
Thanks, George.
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poor pup
poor family
poor vet
Run free, sweet pup - look for the big dobie with the awesome biscuits. He & his friends will keep you company until your family gets to join you.
Dear family - your pup knows you loved him. He'll be waiting for you at the bridge.
Dear vet - what a terrible experience for you. It's always hard to lose a patient.
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In the weeks since the server went down, I have only twice experienced the slowness that others seem to experience regularly. *shrug* I don't know what's special about me, but that's been my experience.
Jeff - I know that you you and the mods are doing all you can to make this process as pain-free as possible. Thanks for all your hard work.
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run free, sweet pups....
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Mary, I remember when you brought her home, your delight in your littlest one, the sense of contentment and commitment you had for her. You were exactly right for each other.
I'm glad she got to gobble hamburger and bacon -- she got the pleasure of eating delicious things, even if they wouldn't stay down.
I'm glad you got to be with her.
I'm very sorry you had to let her go. Sending sincere condolences and many many hugs.
Thank you for this comment.
All I could see was that she couldn't keep it down. You helped me realize that she WAS enjoying it, when she was eating. -
here's the official rememberance post. I'm gonna go hide now.
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I won't spend my days
waiting for an angel to descend.
Searching for a rainbow with an end
Now that I've found you,
I'll call off the search.
And I won't spend my life
gazing at the stars up in the sky
Wondering if love will pass me by
Now that I've found you,
I'll call off the search.
Out on my own
I would never have known
This world that I see today
And I've got a feeling
it won't fade away.
And I won't end my days
wishing that love would come along
'Cause you are in my life
where you belong
Now that I've found you,
I'll call off the search.
-Mike Batt-
I was looking for a lapdog; she was looking for a lap. We found each other, so call off the search. Her little stubby body held an over-sized heart. Her opaque eyes shone with love for her human. She was the perfect size for a lapdog, and knew
exactly how to keep my back warm at night.
The turbo-tail never stopped, and the retractable tongue didn't fully retract anymore, but these added to her charm. A
companionable nuisance at first, her annoyances quickly became endearments.
I'm sitting here thinking about her, and the memories are flooding in...
That restless first night in April 2004, when she didn't really know who I was or where she was. She jumped over a babygate
that night, surprising me with her agility and her grace.
The struggle to get her weight down while continuing the maintenance dosage of prednisone for her "liver abnormality."
Her sheer enjoyment of almost any food. If it was edible, she was pretty much all over it. I learned early on to push in the
chairs around the kitchen table. I didn't have to do that with my big dog, and one day after lunch I looked up and saw her
front paws on the table, her back feet on my chair. She was polishing off the rest of my lunch, that I had intended to have
for dinner.
After she learned not to eat from the table, she would lie in wait while I ate, her cloudy eyes alert for any dropped crumbs. I never had to vacuum under my table after she moved in. As her eyes deteriorated, her nose took over, sniffing out every bit of dropped food.
She was not a young dog when she joined my family 2 1/2 years ago. She had spent 9 years devoted to a little old lady in Alabama, but the new husband didn't appreciate the value of an IG's love, so she needed a new home. I needed a lapdog and a companion for my greyhound, so it seemed like a good match.
And once we got past the adjustment period, it was.
Well, except for the time she wasn't looking, and jumped off the sofa onto the sleeping greyhound. (oops)
There's a reason someone coined the expression "Let sleeping dogs lie." We did a "peace of mind" visit to the vet after that
incident. I think that was our first peace of mind visit. There were many more after that.
Not only was she an older dog when she moved in with me, but she came with her own set of health issues. A "liver
abnormality" that required prednisone to control it, cataracts (that are exacerbated by the pred), and a heart murmur. She
got enalapril every day for that. The adoption lady was afraid no one would want an elderly dog with health issues, but my
only concern was whether I could afford her meds. Thank goodness for the Costco pharmacy. I was unemployed, so she came to me as a "permanent foster." She would live with me, but the adoption group would pay the vet bills. Then I got a job. To celebrate her "gotcha day," I adopted her.
My vet told me the "liver abnormality" was hepatitis, and the pred dose was probably too high. We jiggered the dosage until
we found one she could live with. Then one day she wouldn't eat. I got her into see Doc the next day, and we discovered a
severely abcessed canine tooth. She wouldn't eat cause it hurt too much. She lost 5 teeth in that dental, including the
abcessed canine, and was back to her sassy self again. That was last summer.
As the summer faded into fall, I realized she was losing her hearing, and her eyesight. It seemed an unfair blow to a little
dog that had already dealt with so much, but we worked around it. She slept more, and would often be sleeping soundly when I arrived home from work, because she didn't hear me come in. She would walk down the hallway like those robot toys that bounce off the walls, adjusting their path each time they hit an obstacle. We joked about getting her a bicycle helmet with curb-feelers on it so she would know when she was getting close to a wall.
This summer, it seems that every month brought some type of concern. She wouldn't eat for a day or so, and then would be back to normal. On August 8, I dropped her off for her routine dental, at 8am. Doc called me at 915. Her bloodwork didn't look good - kidney values were up, which is a side-effect of the enalapril. I'd never worried about her kidneys - my concern had always been the liver, because of the hepatitis. We postponed the dental, and put her on a kidney diet. I went out of town on a business trip.
My dog-sitter called me Wed night after I'd left. Jessie hadn't eaten for 2 days, and didn't want to come out of her crate.
"Take her to Doc," I said. "Drop her off in the morning when you take Angie for her dental."
She did. Doc called me that next evening. UTI. Fixable.
Strong anti-biotics and life will be good again, we hoped. But she was apathetic about food still, and it took her over a week to get back to anything like her usual self.
I was still on the road, and found myself dreaming about my dogs. In my dreams they were loose, and I could find the 2 big girls, but not Jessie.
One night as I was falling asleep, I saw her in my mind. She was standing next to a hedge at the edge of a busy street. There was a gap in the hedge, and on the other side it was green grass and blue skies and sunshine. On my side of the hedge it was speeding cars, drizzling rain, and grey shadows. She looked around at me, and looked through the gap, trying to decide which one to choose.
"It's ok, honey," I whispered through my tears. "It's ok if you want to go on. I can't come with you right now, but I'll be along later. I promise."
She just sat there, staring through the gap in the hedge. That was the night before doc diagnosed the UTI.
After the UTI was cleared up, I dreamt again that she was missing. I wasn't looking for her this time - in my dream I was accepting that she wasn't there. This dream confused me, because she was better. Or at least, the UTI was cleared up. That meant she was better, to me.
She wasn't better.
Doc called me last Thurs evening, and I pulled off the highway to talk to her, so I could give her my full attention. Jessie had been in for follow-up bloodwork, and it didn't look good. The UTI cleared up, but the bloodwork didn't. The kidney values had declined in the last month, and she had lost 2 pounds since Aug 8.
Doc said she was on a slow decline, and it wouldn't improve. It would just get worse. She had told me last week that renal failure is NOT peaceful. That euthanasia is a generous decision. I asked her Thursday "what's our next step?" She said "let her go."
Earlier this summer, on one of my many "peace of mind" visits with Jessie, Doc & I made an agreement. She would tell me when she thought it was time to let Jessie go, and when she told me that, I would let her go, whether I was in town or not. I wasn't going to make Jessie wait until I was back home if she needed to go sooner.
I was 400 miles from home when Doc called me, figuring to get home either very late that night, or sometime mid-morning Friday. Doc had a 40 minute spot open Saturday afternoon.We booked it. That would give me some alone time with my sweetie, and a chance to pamper her overnight, and to say goodbye to her and whisper into her deaf ears how much I love her, and how much she's meant to me.
I picked her up Friday when I got into town, and kept her with me with me the rest of the day. I blew off my Friday night commitment, and we hung out together, watching tv and eating popcorn. She wolfed down some raw hamburger, eating like she'd not seen food in days. A couple hours later, she regurgitated undigested hamburger meat. Saturday morning, I took her out to breakfast. Some strangers at the next table collected their bacon and offered it to her. She ate it with obvious
enjoyment. A couple hours later, I found undigested bacon on my livingroom floor. If I had any doubts about Doc's call on
the timing, these incidents cleared it up.
She's a very lucky dog - she's been deeply loved by several people in her life. Her first momma loved her for 9 years, and
her vacation-mom and I have loved her for the last 2 1/2. Eleven years of love for a sweet little dog. It's never enough,
but it's a damn sight more than some pups get.
She's seeing clearly now, and hearing the birds singing around her. The sky is blue where she is, and the grass is green. A
brilliantly vivid rainbow is arching across her sky, and a doberman named Burpdog is looking out for her, showing her the
sights in her new home.
I'll see her again someday. The God who loves me created my little girl just as surely as He created me, and He doesn't
forsake his creations. Until then, I have my pictures of her, and my memories. I'd rather have my little girl, snuggling up
against me at night, whining and scratching at me in the morning for her breakfast.
There will probably be more lapdogs in my life, at some point, but there will never be another Jessie.
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It hurts too much to try and detail the last month of my little one's life... the worries, concerns, and hopes that were ended when Doc called me last Thurs night and said "it's time." My little one was in the early stages of renal failure, and I was about to have 3 weeks on the road, so if we waited I might not be around to say goodbye.
So today we had one last vet visit. Dee was there, and my little girl was as surrounded with love as it's possible to be. All 3 of us (dee, me and the vet) were petting her and loving on her at the end, telling her how good she was.
I've known this was coming since she didn't get her dental on 8/8 due to her kidney values being bad. And I know it's the right thing to do, and the right time to do it (she was barely eating, and not keeping down most of what she ate), but that doens't really make it any easier.
We were perfect for each other. I needed a lapdog, and she needed a lap. Once we found what we needed, we called off the search.
I won't spend my days
waiting for an angel to descend.
Searching for a rainbow with an end
Now that I've found you,
I'll call off the search.
And I won't spend my life
gazing at the stars up in the sky
Wondering if love will pass me by
Now that I've found you,
I'll call off the search.
Out on my own
I would never have known
This world that I see today
And I've got a feeling
it won't fade away.
And I won't end my days
wishing that love would come along
'Cause you are in my life
where you belong
Now that I've found you,
I'll call off the search.
-Mike Batt-
Jessie in May 2004, 2 weeks after moving in with me:
early July 2006:
You can see clearly now, little one. And hear the birds sing and the crickets chirp.
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not good news at all!!The short story is that we sold our IP space to our largest customer if he agreed to hold our servers for us until we could migrate them to our new location. After he sent us a hefty bill for collocation, that we agreed to pay, then he turned them off saying he needed the space for his own servers now.
This fiasco has temporarily placed me out of business.
So this means I need to find another colocation host for Greytalk. Who, What, When.. I don't know yet, but it will take a bit of time.
get ahold of WebErika in Georgia -- she does something with web stuff, but I'm not sure what. She might be able to host for you, or point you towards a colo site, if she can't do it.
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Any chance of a different data center in your future?
Yes, but cost is an issue. Colocation services can get very expensive. Upwards of $400 per month. Currently we pay around $130 and that includes our OS license. Moving would be a real pain, more downtime, shipping and setup fees, as well as the OS licensing issues. It could be done, and will be if we need to, but I’d prefer to see if our current datacenter can square things away. Ideally the best solution would be to host out of my home, but I will most likely be moving within a year, so that will cause a good deal of downtime too. Not to mention the increased cost for a business connection in the home, the increased noise, and increased electric bills, the high initial cost of a commercial firewall. The list can go on and on lol
Gotcha. This one's ususally pretty reliable - I wonder what's going on out there to raise these issues, espeically so close together.
I appreciate your having a plan for when they're down. I miss this place when I can't get to it.
:banana
More Server Woes, And A Donation Request
in Announcements and News
Posted
How did our server get used? Where was the security breach?
Just curious....