Happy Birthday, Jasmine! As you can tell from the “cake”, she turned 9 years old today. According to this dog age calculator, that’s the human equivalent of 68 years old, but I don’t know of many “seniors” that run as fast as Jazzy still does. I made the cake myself, using canned food as a base and decorating it with dry food. I did the same thing on her first birthday, and on that day she and her sister Bailey enjoyed the feast together (Happy birthday, Bailey!) Today she had it all to herself. Making the cake is fun, but unfortunately I have a cold and for some weird reason I always have one day when I’m sick during which I’m hypersensitive to smell. Today is that day, so the overwhelming “aroma” of the canned food was difficult to take. As for her gift, she received a duck toy that she loves. Jaz is great at receiving gifts, actually - no matter what you give her she always plays with it and carries it around for a while. She’s especially fond of these duck toys because of the cool sound they make when squeezed. It’s a shame that she’ll likely ruin that feature within a day or so, as she always does. 

Congratulations, Jessica! My oldest niece has graduated from Air Force basic training, and I couldn’t be more proud. My Dad and my brother Larry went down to San Antonio to celebrate her graduation and spend some time with her. From all accounts it was a great trip - they were both hugely impressed by AB Jessica M. Kulla, who was one of only three in her entire squadron to graduate with honors. And like most who go through boot camp, she’s carrying herself with a confidence that wasn’t there before. Not to mention she is now incredibly neat and organized, and for those of you who know her that’s quite a change. Oh, and just like her father when he completed Marine Corps boot camp, she’s somehow become quite a bit taller, as you can see from this photo. Fortunately, she’s retained the intelligence, wit and humor that she’s had since she was a young child. No matter what she decides to do with her life now, I am confident that she will succeed. She’s already shipped out from Texas and is now at her training school in California just north of Los Angeles. The Air Force base there has 37 miles of prime coastline, so it should be a pleasant experience. Good luck, Jess!

From the “stuff I didn’t remember I had” department, here is a cute little portable doghouse that I don’t have any recollection of buying. It’s pretty neat - it folds flat, and if I remember correctly it can even be folded further into a small disc, but for the life of me I can’t recall how to fold it. I rediscovered it while I was looking for golf balls in the basement the other day, which is odd because it was in plain sight all along. Somehow it’s been invisible all those times I’ve gone downstairs to do laundry and, on occasion, to work out. Since I’ve started leaving Jazzy on the back deck for short stretches of time, it certainly comes in handy to give her some shelter from the sun and the flying insects that she’s constantly “battling.” So far she hasn’t been thrilled to be on the deck alone, despite having her kiddy pool to lounge in (she sometimes will just lie down in the water for a while). The first day she went so far as to escape by pushing aside the deck chairs that were blocking her exit. She even moved the half-full 5-gallon bucket that was there to secure the chairs in place. That’s something she never would have done when she was younger, but she’s a bit pushier in her old age - she’ll be nine years old in a few weeks, if you can believe that! Fortunately she still respects baby gates, so I put one up in the exit to keep her confined and she’s getting used to being out there. 

Okay, I’ve finally found the job for me. It was even listed first in this search. Wish me luck!

 So I’m driving south on I-95 the other day on my way back from Pawtucket (sadly I wasn’t there to see a PawSox game), when I notice that my car seems a bit on the noisy side. Not a mechanical noise like an engine knock or a flat tire; no, it was more like a wind noise, as if a door wasn’t properly shut or a window was open slightly, but without any directional clues. After determining that it wasn’t any of the doors or windows, I tried listening more closely (and without any music blaring). I still couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but with my concentration heightened I could “feel” an aerodynamic change to the car. The front was clearly generating a bit of lift, or at the very least a substantial amount of drag that isn’t normally present. Now, you don’t have to be Adrian Newey to know that there aren’t a lot of ways that can happen on a production car. But since the hood of the car was quite clearly closed I was at odds to determine the source. So I took the next exit and pulled off into an empty parking lot. I opened the hood and saw that there was something amiss at the bottom of the car. I had to look underneath the car to get a better look, so it figures that I was wearing a nice shirt and tie at the time. Fortunately I had a blanket in the trunk to help me keep clean. This (photo) is what I found. It’s half of a plastic shield that covers the bottom of the engine bay (ironically enough it’s purpose is probably to reduce noise), and by the time I stopped it was dangling below the car and barely attached. With a yank I removed the “barely” and was on my way again.