Some kind of woodland creature...

We always suspected, but now we know the truth: Trooper is not a dog - he is a rabbit. Trooper-rabbit.

Early morning walk

While Trooper's paw was healing from his injury, John and I felt so bad for him that we let him do whatever he wanted, including sleeping on the bed, getting up on the couch, giving him lots of treats. This has, of course, backfired. Trooper is feeling better already, only two days later, and he now thinks that he is entitled to all of those things, all the time. He jumps on the bed, pulls on the leash, whines endlessly when he can't get what he wants - we've created a monster!

This photo is from our walk this morning in College Woods. It looks so different in there when there's snow on the ground. There were tracks from cross-country skiers - we need to get some skis! But we missed the ski-swap this year AGAIN :( I've been told it took place way back in October.

Operation

Two days ago Trooper broke a toenail on his right front paw. He ended up having to go into doggie surgery yesterday morning. They sedated him and amputated the whole nail - it seems harsh, but they had to do it because it was split all the way up to the base. We don't really know how he did it, but he was running around like a maniac in the snow, and it could have caught on something like the icy crust or a branch that was buried. Well, he's back to his old self again, except that he's extra hyper because we can't let him go outside much to burn off his energy, in case he irritates his paw. I'll try to post a picture of him with his cast on - it was hilarious - a little blue cast.

I'm tired

I think that grad school is slowly killing me. I need to get out! I need to know what it's like to be outside in the daytime, to sleep in past 7am, to stare at a computer screen for less than 14 hours every day. What is that life like? I don't even remember... That's why I need to get graduated and move on out of here.

Right, sorry for all the complaining. But I am sick of trying to wade through 27 gigabytes of acoustic data, only to realise that I didn't calibrate the sound levels for changes in the pre-amp gain settings. Now I have to go back and write it all down by hand, and apply it to the data after the fact... Oh well. Such is life, eh?

Well, I think I'll try posting a video. This on cheers me up, it's starring Trooper, mainly. It was after we'd just played scrabble, and I lost (235 - 240). I have a bad habit of gambling on words that I have never heard of but suspected they might make their way into the scrabble dictionary.

Christmas Plans

Our plans are set, the flights are booked, we've told our families when we're arriving - we're going to both Fredericton, New Brunswick and Durham, North Carolina. I am beyond excited - I cannot wait! Two weeks of family time for the holidays. Trooper dog is coming to Fredericton with us, but we're putting him in boarding while we are in North Carolina - maybe next time we'll attempt to get him on a plane, but for now he'll have to make do at the Barking Dog. It's a very nice place with heated floors and fancy food and daily playtimes with the staff and baths and daycare where they play with other dogs. I doubt he's going to cry himself to sleep at night missing us... The Barking Dog is also where we take him for his obedience classes.

I have planned our vacation so that we are in Fredericton on a Saturday for the Farmer's Market - a crucial requirement for me. I need those veggie samosas and german sausages and breads and the delicious almond chocolate triangles...If you don't know what I'm talking about you can check out this link: Boyce Farmer's Market

Trooper

This is our puppy, the day I brought him out to Fort Foster to help with fieldwork. We spent the day out on the end of the pier with periodic breaks to go for walks on the beach or in the park or trails. When he wasn't sniffing at the people wandering out onto the pier, he spent the afternoon lying out in the warm october sun on a blanket that I'd brought along for him.

Durham Landing

Another photo from a morning walk with Trooper. This is overlooking Durham landing from the walking bridge.

Doe Farm, by the Lamprey River

I worry too much about this dog - does he look sick to you? Me neither. He looks a little bit crazy actually. He doesn't usually do this, but he had a little spaz attack for no apparent reason.

Morning walk

Trooper likes to wake me up SUPER early in the morning by chewing a chew toy really close to my head. This is loud and impossible to sleep through. If I open my eyes, or otherwise appear to respond, he licks my face. If I take the toy away, he starts to chew on the comforter or the edge of a pillow. But once I'm up, it's definitely worth it to see the sun coming up over Oyster River.

Fieldwork and Trooper

The past week and a half have been pretty crazy. We started testing the pinger positioning last week at Fox Point in Newington. It's a gorgeous spot, and it was nice to work there. On Saturday, Trooper came over to CCOM to help me test the RTK GPS. His job was supervisor, but he spent most of the time chewing on his kong toy.

We finally got the RTK working, it took quite a lot of running around, downloading drivers, picking up forgotten tribrachs and trying to get the laptop to stay alive long enough to set up the receiver. ( we ended up having to use a car battery and an inverter - it worked very well)

The actual survey at Fox Point was very hectic, with the R/V Coastal Surveyor driving back and forth in front of the pier, and Tom measuring sound speed profiles continuously over nearly two hours. Below is a photo of the GPS antenna with the Coastal Surveyor in the background. It was a beautiful day and it only rained a little bit.

Trooper

We were so sad to give up Cayo, but now we've finally found the perfect pup for us. Elisa told us that we should check out labs4rescue.com. She used to foster dogs from there, and said they were a great organization. They are rescue group that takes labs from high-kill shelters in the south and finds good homes for them. We found one called Leo the Lover on their website. His description said that he was friendly to everyone and just loved people, other dogs, and children. We got them to cat-test him - he'd never seen a cat before. He was scared of them!

We ended up changing his name to Trooper - this was a name that Jakob came up with. It's actually Storm Trooper. If you want to see more pictures of Trooper, he's up on my picasa site, the link is at the left side of this page.