Year End New Puppy

Turned on the TV this morning to see the weather forecast. 5 car commercials in a row with reindeer, Christmas trees, ribbons and smiling children. One spooky one with a Lincoln owner following a wood burning train. Ford must have a hell of a filming budget. VW is larger.

All in all, the German automaker paid over $6 billion in advertising. That's truly an astounding number, especially when you put it into perspective. With that kind of money, you could buy approximately 2,300 Bugatti Chirons -- 1,800 more than what has ever been produced. The next biggest spender was General Motors; they spent a measly $5.7 billion. Collectively, more money was spent on advertising by auto manufactures than ever before.

Turned the TV off and tried the internet for news. SF Gate is always interesting , Maybe there is a rush to died before the end of the year.

My former shipmate was a mix of German Shepard and Akita. We found her in a cardboard box in front of a Staters Brothers in Phelan which is the high desert. We always stopped there to pick up supplies when we went motorcycling in the desert.

DeDe at marina in San Pedro

We named her DeDe for desert dog.

She loved to run on the beach.

At low tide there is a sand bar inside the breakwater at Dana Point across from Baby Beach where several dogs would meet to party.

DeDe running with Buddy

Today is Wednesday mid week between Christmas and New Years and the seventh day for my new puppy. The details are vague but my daughter met someone at a wedding reception that ran a dog clinic.

The next thing I see are text messages of puppies dressed for Christmas.

Then a picture of the real trouble maker.

Monster on left

Toy reindeer

Last Thursday I was supposed to meet my daughter at the dog clinic here in San Pedro but in route I stopped to buy gasoline for my Nissan. I seldom drive, it was raining, the wipers were on plus the headlights and defroster after stopping for a few dollars of gas the engine refused to restart because the battery was low. Well my phone was charged so I texted my daughter and she met me next to the gas station where I had pushed my car.

Out like a light

My grandson was holding the puppy who was crying. It was pouring. raining puppies and cats. We rode back to the marina and my sailboat where I got another battery. We left the puppy with Arlo my grandson and we headed back up to switch batteries.

First car trip to park

Christmas day was a planned adventure to take the puppy for a car trip without any carrier. Plans didn't work out as the mutt wanted to drive and refused to ride shotgun.

Since Sunday he has had three rides in the car and has been to two different parks.

His new name is still being debated. I am so used to calling my old dog butthead or Dede Butt I may just stick with that. The puppy came from SNP/LA.

My son came over to the boat to visit the new puppy. He also brought a new dog bed which was really needed because Butt Head had chewed up most of his makeshift bed.




This was recorded and edited my Dylan. He wants to name the pup "Trails"
While the pup took a nap Dylan and I went out paddling on stand-ups. Later down the line the dog will also be included in family paddling but not now.

Dylan has always been a good at sports: motorcycles, bicycles, surfing, and snowboarding. My learning curve isn't ready for snowboarding but I still can ski. Here his Dylan on Christmas day boarding at Bear.

Dry Docked

My boat just spent Sunday sitting high and dry waiting to have her bottom groomed so instead of sailing the bounding main with my Russian sailor buddy I visited another sailing buddy in Dana Point that also possess the intelligence to be a proud Ericson owner. Her boat sits next to a Catalina, (having owned two of them) which makes her jewel shine brighter in comparison. After I bought my first sailboat someone informed me after the purchase not before that Catalina's were the Chevrolet of sailboats. The trip to Dana had a two fold purpose, one to visit my sailing buddy and the other was to go surfing.

In the morning the VW was loaded with all the stuff that I some how need to function. When I was a teenager we went to the beach in Santa Monica almost everyday and all we took was one towel to lay on and dry off with nothing else. So after loading what looked like a garage sale in the van I drove to the beach with the dog. Going to the beach is one of the hers favorite past time. She gets to hang out with all of her surfing friends, getting leftovers if someone is grilling and petting from strangers. After arriving and disembarking I discovered than someone had forgot to put the wetsuit in the van. Now as captain of a VW van one would think that the crew would pay more attention to important details but they apparently don't. I called my son at home and requested backup if he was gong to the beach but he had gone the day before and he just told me to "trunk it." That suggestion was declined as the surf was not big enough to warrant freezing my ass off. So our crew sat around bull shitting at the picnic tables.

One fellow who had just got out of the water informed me that he had been in for four hours without a wetsuit. This encouragement fell on deaf ears as I lacked the insulation or padding as he did. Most surfers that I talk to don't discuss much outside of surfing but our group fell in to a decent discussion of "what's wrong in the world today." I brought up some of the recent remarks my Robert Gates about how we can't help the people in Burma unless they allow us as the United States respects the sovereignty of other nations. As I was speaking my peace I referred to Dr. Gates as our Secretary of State and former Directory of the CIA. Later after rethinking my remarks I remembered that Gates is Secretary of Defense. Now I actually know a little about Burma and I would not drink beer or tea with Than Shwie but I do understand his reluctance to welcome aboard our Navy's warships. Here is a fellow who ran the CIA saying trust me, whose boss, the President is also the son of a former CIA Director. I just recently read Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi and she recalls the time spent there during the war between Iraq and Iran. I remember there was a war but really didn't recall much but with the Internet one can get so much information that was never available before. There are now realms of reading disclosures about the CIA if one cares to look them up and another tool available today that was not available when Iraq and Iran battled for eight years is Google. When I discover a foreign word or phrase when reading I Google with my IPhone instead of turning to the dictionary. What you can find is simply mind blowing.

Well in preparation today I will hangup my wetsuit in the van before setting out which will allow me to forget something else. In the month of May I have forgotten a pair of sox's, an inter tubes, numerous tools, clothing, phone, sun glasses (still at the boat), creams and lotions, you name it, I will forget.