It's a pit bull morning

Mojo just loves to snuggle in the morning. He often lays on the floor and looks up at my daughter with a forlorn look, then rolls on his back and waits for her to snuggle up with him. They'll lay there and watch TV (yes, Mojo watches TV) for quite some time. He makes a great
pillow.

My daughter loves irony and often refers to him as her "killer pit bull". She's a pit bull evangelist and will give you an earful if you spout off anything resembling a disparaging remark about pitbulls, particularly remarks that perpetuate the bad myths about them. She'll jump on you if you hit her with the "locking jaw" myth - she'll tell you, "taxonomically speaking, there's no difference between a pit bull jaw and the jaw of any other dog."

Sheesh.

Man, that's a big tongue

This is my pit bull, Mojo, intently watching me to see when I'm going
to swing his flirt pole again. This was taken after a good 10 minutes
of play so he's good and tired, already.

Mojo, first thing in the morning & a LONG rant about pit bulls

Here's my pit bull, Mojo, first thing in the morning. I couldn't sleep that night so I went downstairs to my office and crashed on the futon. Strangely, the change sometimes helps me sleep. Anyway, I brought Mojo with me to keep my feet warm. It's cold in there next to the window. I'm actually under the covers, too, on the left side (with long pajamas on so I don't get scratched by accident). Being that dogs natural body temp runs several degrees higher than ours, they make great bed warmers. He's such a snuggler that he couldn't be happier under the covers.

Previously, I owned Akitas. Great dogs, but, definitely not snugglers. My Akita, Kyo, was happy if he could see where I was, but, had zero interest in actually sitting down next to me and touching me. He would lay on the floor of the living room while I watched TV, about 2 feet away from me. If I left the room, he'd wake up, wait 5 minutes, then find me, lay down so he had a line of sight to where I went, then go back to sleep. Mojo, on the other hand, likes to get as
close to you as he possibly can.

His behavior is consistent with what our local animal control officer told us about pit bulls. A side effect of the selective breeding of pit bulls for fighting made them *highly* people oriented. Apparently, when pit bulls were openly fought in the ring, you had to be able to reach into the ring and pull out your dog without being bitten. My mom always taught me to never ever intervene if our dog got into a fight because even our own dog might bite us in all the excitement. Pit bulls that showed aggression toward the handler, on the other hand, were culled. Over time, this created a strong fighter with a highly people oriented personality. The animal control guy told us that it's actually against their nature to be human- aggressive. They want to please you so much, though, that they can be their own worst enemy. If you're a dumbass that gets a pit bull because you think it makes you look tough, and then teach him to be human-aggressive, he'll do it to please you. He (the animal control guy) said you really have to abuse a pit bull to make then want to bite you. I'd have had a hard time believing that before Mojo, but, it's true. He really loves people on a deep level. You can feel it when you're around him.

I left his ears uncropped because I prefer that look. Akitas have naturally pointy ears, which I like on an Akita, but pit bulls have normally floppy ears, so, I left them alone. I know a guy with a beautiful pit bull and he had his dog's ears cropped. When I met him, he looked at Mojo and said he wishes he had left the ears alone. He said that the cropped look makes him look mean which puts people off, and a lot of people fear pit bulls already from all the bad press they've gotten. I can understand that.

The truth is, pit bulls make fantastic family dogs. Are they for everyone-NO. They are powerful, highly energetic and they require a firm, (but not mean) consistent hand to propely bring them up. Do your homework before you adopt a pit bull, or any other dog for that matter. As long as you know what you're getting into, and you're prepared for it, you'll me rewarded with a companion like no other.

Check out http://www.badrap.org

This site has a wealth of information about pit bulls, and it goes a long way toward sifting through all the misinformation about pit bulls - and there is a *lot* of that out there. Pit bulls are not natural born people-killers. They don't have special locking jaws. That's utter crap. They have very strong jaws, yes, but structurally, they are identical to all other dogs. Pit bulls cannot fly. Ok, I made that one up, but, my point is that people seem to want to believe everying they hear about pit bulls no matter how crazy it is.

iPhone panorama

Here's a panorama I created using PanoLab on the iPhone. I took about 6 shots with the idea that at some point, I'd dump them into photoshop and make a panorama. Anyway, they came out with a program that runs on the iPhone (PanoLab) that does the stitching right on the phone and I used it. It doesn't do nearly as good a job as photoshop (for obvious reasons), but, still-the entire panorama was shot and edited on the iPhone. A little level adjusting would go a long way toward making this app better. Hopefully, the developer will add that feature.

Replacing Nintendo DS Lite Screen

I'm in the process of replacing the top screen on my daughter's Nintendo DS Lite. There are many little screws and several sizes of each. To keep them straight for easy reassembly, I had a brainstorm.

I took a sheet of laminating paper, flipped it sticky side up, then taped a piece of white paper under it. Then, drew a (very) rough picture of where each screw goes. Now, if I sneeze again, I won't lose track of where they all belong. I wish I thought of that when I took the first one apart - the donor DS I got the screen from.

Pumpkins - Day 5

Here are the giberellic acid treated pumpkins as of this morning. This is day 5 since they were planted. Compare the picture to the one from yesterday. The amount of growth I'm seeing here is far far from normal. I've grown pumpkins before and this is *not* how it usually goes.

If I wanted to really compare how they grow using the gibberellic acid compared to regular, "unassisted" growth, I'd have planted some in a different pot as a control group. I thought about it for a little while and decided it would be boring to have to babysit an underpriveleged plant.

Anyway, they've outgrown their "nursery", and I'm moving them outside to their new home in the garden today.

Pumpkins 4 days after planting

This is insane. The growth seems to be accelerating. As soon as the sun comes up, they lean over towards it, and grow-the Biggies on the end added more than 2" since yesterday. Crazy!

Yikes. Pumpkins are getting huge

This is the 3rs day since I planted them. That makes 6 days total. They aren't even supposed to sprout for 6-10 days so this is far from usual. If I wake up and find them trying to open a beer they got out of the fridge, I'll make the news. They're no match for a pit bull, though, so, I'm pretty sure I'm safe...right!?

Squash seeds outside

Here are those same squash plants from the previous pics. I planted them pretty deep to help them stand up. Look at the size of the leaves, though. Seriously fast growing using the same 1,000ppm giberellic acid solution.

Pumpkins This morning

Here are the pumpkins I planted last night. Look at the insane growth from 11pm last night to 10am this morning. I'll post another pic this evening to give a 24-hour view. Yikes.

The Pumpkin Experiment

Here are the pumpkins I'm growing using the 1,000ppm giberellic acid solution. I germinated them in plastic baggies containting paper towels sprayed with the mixture. The seeds say they should germinate in 6-10 days. They did so in two. I let them stew in the baggie for one extra day and today, technically day 3, I planted them in this box to get them to grow into strong seedlings, then, they go outside into the garden. I'll be posting pics all along the way. There are 5
types of pumpkins in this box, so, it will be interesting to see how each one does.

I saw one account with a picture that seems to be genuine where a guy grew a 900lb pumpkin in 45 days with this stuff. Sounds like bullshit, but, after what I've seen these past few days, I'm starting to think it's true. Time will tell...and not that much time from what it looks like.

Feed Me Seymour!!! Day 3

Here are the squash seeds after 3 days. I'm moving them outside tonight. I'm afraid if I don't, I'm afraid they'll be stealing food out of the fridge at night. I'll start posting pics once they're
planted properly outside.

Day Two Squash Seeds

Here are the squash seeds two days after being planted. Giberellic acid sure is amazing.

An even better iPhone wallpaper

The title says it. I'm not on much of a mood to write more.

iPhone wallpaper from the park

Here's a pretty decent iPhone wallpaper image I took today in Birch
Grove Park (Northfield, NJ). Sometimes, when the light is just right,
the iPhone camera doesn't do too bad. A little saturation boost might
be good, but, I still like it.

Too tired to go on

Here's mojo after an intense romp in the backyard. He's hot and tired, so he won't lay down, yet he can hardly stay awake. Funny fellow. Pit bulls are such clowns.

Best Cat Pic Evar!!!

This is clearly not for actual cat lovers, or, for people who are cat lovers yet lack a sense of humor...but, still.... This pic was taken in a local area parking lot. We poked at the legs to see
if it was real - it was real. Rigor mortis had definitely set in, and it was clear it had been in there for some time. How you could drive around with a cat in your grill and not know it was there is way beyond me, yet, here it is. The only photoshop done on this was to blur the plate so I don't get phone calls from the killer.