Chicken

Chicken by the Donut Shop Pond

Chicken by the Donut Shot
(have clip of Chicken on the Road,
but not crossing...)

Neighborhood Brown Squirrel crossing the road...
building looming in the East is new hotel for new waterpark...

Pic from last visit to Beach...weeks ago now!...:(

Maya back from Vet...very sedated...thought I'd lost dog tag, and didn't
know I had pic of its whereabouts until yesterday upload of pics
over last few weeks!

Vet wanted the Cone of Shame on...it was on for like ten
minutes...fortunately, Maya didn't chew or lick wounds for
the two week recovery...'you have an excitable dog!'...vet's
assistant told me after last visit to take out stitches...Maya did
most of them her own self...

Water Slide/Park construction...Wolf something...they're
a nationwide chain

Harbor now is landscaped with Palms and such now all the way
from Disney to GG Blvd....very nice to see...Bus Benches upscaled!

Bus Stop across the street, and where I've often eaten...
like for decades!

Morning rest stop...

View of the tourist motels from Pond Park...

I was in no man's land between the Life Guard Towers...Maya had left off from the beach flotsam and jetsam, and was starting in on chewing on my feet...at this point, I try to reach a pole, or the wood supports of the Towers, and clip the leash around these, and rescue myself...but I was stuck in the open stretch of sand...'no stop please' I commanded...begged...pleaded...but no use...Maya was jumping about now, as she does when in this mood, mouthing and nipping and trying to grab any loose shirt sleeves pant legs...and me...she's fine with a chomp, not so gentle...and her teeth so sharp, I'm often bloodied with small cuts...by then, the leash was tangled about me...so trapped and desperate, I gathered her in a bear hug, and dropped to the sand...bit like wrestling a crocodile...I'm agile enough I can escape her swinging nipping teeth...just...the mood will pass from her if she tires, I know, so was trying to outlast her...and finally was able to stand up...a couple walking on the beach applauded...always a bit embarrassed when this happens!...we haven't been back to the beach since, next day Maya went to vet for spay and dew claws, and I confined her to the porch room and backyard for two weeks--vets recommendation...I tried to keep her company in the porch room, but as she got back to being her normal self, that doesn't work out...she wants to play, and it's okay until the nipping and biting, and I retreat to the den room...but now, for the last week, I've gotten up at daybreak, and gotten the harness on her most days before she peps up...when she's sluggish in noon time heat, or from just waking up, I can get the harness on her...it's very tough to thread and snap when she begins wanting to tug of war with it...thought to leave it on her, but she works it off, and yesterday ate thru it...did that to another one I left within reach...everything within reach is her's!...she got bobcat framed pic off the wall, and destroyed it!...even the walls of the porch are being devoured...hmmph...but when all goes well, we've been going on the morning walks, mostly to the Donut Shop...the route is along West, a wide feeder street for the tracs, past the Pond Park, and the Pond to the Donut Shop...Maya is always at the end of her leash, picking things up...and I have to keep a look out, there's a lot of litter and trash along the route...and...and!...I made a discovery...Maya ate the old fiber fill sleeping bag I gave her to sleep on, and casting about for a replacement, I found my Mickey Mouse Sorcerer Blanket...and when laying it out for her on the porch, she wanted to play tug of war, and I could completely cover her with the blanket...and I thought, 'I'll carry a blanket with on the walks, and when the 'mood' comes over her, I can distract her with it'...and it works!...but not a blanket, just an old beach towel...I keep it around my neck, and when she goes for my feet, I drop it down...it's still tough, but better...this morning I put the new, the third!, harness on her okay, but just down the street, I saw it wasn't clipped right, one strap in front of her front leg, and I had to use the towel to lure her back to the house...hopeless to try and re-harness her...threw in the towel for this morning's walk!...she's out on the porch now banging about while I'm writing...I really can't ride in the car with her like I have been...she sit's on the passenger seat with a bungee restraint...she's getting too big...and too, I cant get her in the car...she's stubborn, and pulls away on the leash, sometime right out of the harness...I can lure her in with beggin bacons...she loves those!...but she's getting wise to those even...it's part of play to be stubborn, I understand...once in the car, she's fine, and happy to reach the beach or big parks...I bought a piano dolly from Home Depot...thought is to lure her into the carrier, put the carrier on the dolly, roll out to the white pick up truck, lift her and the carrier up into the covered truck bed...that'll work, but she'll be isolated from me in the back of the truck, and I don't want that...hmmm...that method will be a last resort...will keep trying to get her in Silver...:)...it's very nice now to be able to take her for walks...all the shots and vet things finished...and when funds recover, they took a big vet bill hit!, maybe some trips far and wide...

Guildies

I woke up at like 3am and got to thinking how I could play checkers in World of Warcraft...in Stormwind Park, if it was still around, I think Deathwing obliterated it, there could be some of those permanent park picnic tables with checkerboards painted on them where park goers sit and play checkers or chess...'that's not what the makers of the game want you to do, DavidDavid, play an outside game inside their game!'...'s so, I'd say, but from the veryvery first moment I played the game, I saw in the avatar toons, and how they moved in the environment, and spoke, and chatted, and could see one another, the means to do, well, everything that's done in the day to day...especially learning and education....being a teacher in a school is cool, and how cool it would be to be an avatar toon teacher teaching avatar toon students...and in wow, or wherever...a school, like a checkerboard, where avatars could meet and learn...the game already is a school, each quest is like a lesson, somewhat a hark back to that terrible learn on your own algebra book given to me as a freshman in highschool, a product of JFK seeing the need for engineers and such for the navy...the rascals made me do push ups in the seventh grade too!...so, so, I wake up and 'am thinking on this and google on my iphone, 'wow school class room'...and it came back with a website, wowinschool...and here's a youtube:  google search: wow in school youtube...(can't get ulr to work)...the speaker is typically wow frenetic, but it is  an exciting thing, and idea...and myself, while I play the game, a lot, for much fun, I always have this kinda second track going on in my head about how the game will work out in the world of education....sunny hot all day yesterday...oh...the specific thought I was having was if one of my guildies knows another language, and if they would be willing to hold little language learning sessions, maybe in a shady spot in Elywin Forest, where a small gathering of avatar students could sit and learn...or maybe just share poems...:)...oh!...as it happens, awhile back I chose the battletag, checkerboard....my 'nom de guerre'...:)...and I can't leave off this without the link that comes up google searching: wow poetry and world of warcraft poetry

Looking On

Rolling past the Donut Shop Pond on return from PetsMart (begg'n' bits and 2 chew toys), I sighted Goslings and Mama and Papa Canada Geese on the Ballfield Grass...a bookend to yesteryear's sighting!...did a u and got a pic...first Maya pic is at Mile Square..I was waiting for Vermillion Fly Catcher, and Maya looking on at Softball Practice...gotta get her a leather softball!...second pic is Maya looking on while I was sighting Mama Hawk watching her Noisy Calling  Fledgeling, which I couldn't see for the Branches and Leaves...this is in Irvine Park where the Old Growth Trees are magnificent...overcast mornings clearing warm to hot day after day a kinda typical socal May/June...Maya is a week into recovering from dewclaw removal and spay...I haven't been able to put the cone over her head, but so far so good...vet took the bandages off her paws yesterday, and next week the stitches come out, I think, maybe they biodegrade...counseled me about the cone, but it's just not possible...she's not licking or biting the wounds, and I keep an eye out...confined to the Backyard and Porch, Maya, and I, miss the Evening walkabouts!

gear

Note: following is a post to a youtube comment section below a youtube clip titled 'why is wow dying' (wow is the video game 'world of warcraft')...I write comments up here and there, and cancel the posts most always, but on occasion one slips through my self editing!...much of this will make no sense to anyone unfamiliar with the game, and oddly, the game is the most charming when just starting out and 'much of this' unknown...:)...in real life, unlike in the game, xp can't be turned off!

yes..Draenor could have been a new leveling from 1 zone, and not just an echo of vanilla, but just like it, with the newer better art and such...mistake has been extending expansions that make previous expansions obsolete...now with boa gear one just races through everything, and in Draenor the gear is so easy to get that the quest leveling hasn't the  challenge it once had...quests pvp pve are all different but have gotten all mushed together into one mantra..gear for raiding...'what's your ilvl?'....when I first discovered pvp bgs, I was ridiculed mercilessly for not having 'looms' on...I didn't know what they were...I started playing a year or so before mop, and lament that I'll never be able to do the early expansions like they were, and that everyone who did them is nostalgic for...I like the bgs, and think to just use gear from the quests and dungeons to make like an ilvl 65 'twink' with the gems and enchants and all, but I wouldn't be able to stand against those with looms...I studied a hunter twink at this level: transmogs, the standard looms, but with enchants, the other gear gemmed and enchanted...but it was a leveling random bg, and we lost, though the hunter did very well, and I scratched my head, "dude, you're gonna lose all that if your xp is  on"...

oh..actually the hunter was in eighties I guess, and indeed is leveling, as I looked them up again for the post, and they're  now 92-- a well crafted toon!...have look, but be quick!...Buddylight

Carrots

I kept watering the Weed Patch up until just a couple days ago, and in those couple days since, the Weeds have wilted, along with the few struggling Carrots...picked the Carrots, munched the two largest, the resultance of an extravagant effort!...an effort pleasantly diverted by Maya, but success!...too, the White Truck passed its smog test this afternoon, and funds haven't taken the hit I expected!... so, so, tomorrowmorrow, I'll try to get back to work on the Old House, and the Garden, though not after another travail, going to the vet to have Maya spayed...seems a shame, and seems the right thing to do...hmmph...but Bunny, my Australian Shepard (see pic on mast), wasn't spayed for the eight years or so I had her, and when she was in heat it was trouble...and I didn't breed her...I'm not a dog breeder, and the breeding of dogs best left in the hands of professionals...but the thought here is that dog breeding isn't in the hands of professionals, and the 'too many unwanted dogs' refrain is why the County, the Vets the neighbors, say, spay or neuter your dog...dogs are prolific, and no wild world for them to make a balance...sympathies to anyone, including myself, deciding on spaying and neutering...

Vermilion Flycatcher

yesterday evening

this evening update pic...V. has stick, thought it was bug...

same place both evenings

(updated pics after text)  It was one of those sightings when I left the big lens camera behind, and regretted it!....I'd walked aways with Maya on the dirt jogging path at Mile Square Park, and for a rest, took a seat on a park bench, and looked over at the golf course...the sun was setting behind me, the colors all warmed, and while contemplating the absence of golfers on the golf course, Very Red Little Bird perched on the barb wire atop the chain link fence...'Oh!'...I had the D10 with, so got Vermilion Flycatcher snapshot--a new bird for me!...this yesterday evening...cloudy morning, clearing sunny wispy clouds warm clear evening...day after day weather has been same...and every evening I roll out with Maya to a Park or the Beach...if I don't, she lets me know...and I'm still her chew toy, which makes the walks problematic....and the back of my hands beat up like old folks' in the home...skin gets like tissue with age and tears easy...Beach is the worst...Maya leaves off with the beach wrack, the life guard tower, the fire rings, and finds me...at Irvine Park there is so much to attract her attention, that 'no problem'...one Evening, she looked to be anxious to pee or poo while in Silver, and I pulled onto a side street in the Industrial Park along Harbor...these parks were built with landscaping, and I remember at the time it seemed ostentatious...I mean, most factory districts look like heck...but now with time, all the Pines are grown, and the grass lawns well maintained, and, it's really nice!...with no traffic in the after hours, it's really quiet...and even has a kind of mood, almost forest like...Maya liked it fine, and played with the Pine Cones...and didn't need to pee or poo...but a place to keep in mind for pull overs!...Town is thriving...many improvements in progress along Harbor Blvd....have in mind to do posts taken along the way on Maya walks, but right now a bit much to walk with her on busy City Streets!...oh...here's link to bird sightings listed about Town...time for  Maya's walk...try Mile Square again, this time with the long lens!...success!...same bench, same time...see below pics...Vermilion oblidged, and not surprised, knowing how regular an  evening routine Black Phoebe had at Cottonwood Bend...too, Black Phoebe is often out front of the House each Evening, though to think of it, not so much of late...Flycatchers have set routines I gather...