So about a month ago, we brought a new member into our family. And I think it is about high time to introduce him to the world. His name is Chewbacca (officially) and he is a mixed breed, mostly Shih Tzu and Lhasa Apso, about (?) a year old. We adopted him as a stray from the Humane Society, so we are unsure of the age, but their vets thought about a year.Due to the way names evolve in our house, he also goes by any one of the following names: Chewy (most commonly), Chewbear (from Pooh Bear), Chewbert (as in Cuthbert of SK's Dark Tower), Chewstopheles (from Mephistopheles of Faustian legend) and Chewseph (like Joseph). And unrelated to his original name he also goes by Coldnose, Wetbeard and Sir-Licks-A-Lot. No wonder he never listens to us when we call him. Poor puppy is confused!
He really is a pretty great dog, though. He has only had two accidents since he has been at our house and he plays fetch like no one's business. He will literally play with his squeaky tennis ball for hours! He thinks he is the most fierce and tough dog in the world also.
On walks he will literally choke himself trying to get at other dogs. Mostly this is for playing, but if they bark at him, he will not stand down. He will bark and growl and I'm sure if Chewy got the chance he would try to tear the other dog apart. He's therefore good guard dog around the house, growling and barking if people approach the front door. This makes sense however, since I read up on the Lhasa Apso. It turns out these little cute dogs were actually bred to be guard dogs in Tibet! Who would have guessed, since they are generally very small and cute. The only bad things is that I think Chewster (there's another name he goes by on occasion) might be a tad OCD. He will literally lick things for hours. Whether it be the wood floors or the walls of his crate where he sleeps at night or the futon cushion when he is sitting on it with us, he will not stop. It drives us nuts sometimes. And then there is the fact of him going around the house and trying to eat everything that is in his path. I just now found him with a glass marble in his mouth! We don't even own any marbles... I have no idea where her picks up this crap. But enough of the bad, he really is a great dog.Anyway, I never wanted to be one of those people who go on and on about their pets, as if they were babies or actual people, but here I am doing it. I really don't like those people and I don't want to be one. So, I will let it go for a while.
We are supposed to be those trendy gen x'ers who have no kids and plenty of disposable income (yeah, right) and who travel the country, living in big cities with trains and expensive groceries. And now I'm sounding all domestic. Sheesh. :-) So whatever, it's fun. I'll now leave you then, with a couple shots of Chewy and the infamous tennis ball. 
He really loves that darn ball. I tried to get him to carry around a little stuffed dog that we got for him at the beginning (is that creepy, a dog with a pet dog?) but give him any toy with a little fluff in it and he will tear it apart in a matter of minutes. He's gone through about 3 of them and he's not getting any more!"Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement." Charles M. Schultz as Snoopy (1922-200)
2 comments:
AWWWWWW!!!!
Chewy is a cutie! I'm telling Shan, she's gonna go nuts. And ya know what? This domestication thing ain't that bad, is it? It feels somehow comforting...
I guess I don't get wormholes either. A few years back, Brian Greene spoke at Calvin's January Series, and I went. Most of it flew right over my head, but he tried to explain chaos theory and super string theory and how there's probably around 11 different dimensions rather than the three (and now four) that we commonly think about. The one thing that stuck with me was his explanation of the chaos theory (I think?). Anyway, since atoms themselves are made up of 90% or more of simply empty space, that means that even the most solid, concrete thing we can imagine is 90% empty space. As such, we can mathematically demonstrate that the probability to walk through walls is real. However small that chance might be, the chance does exsist.
I feel my head exploding...on to the airlines!
Technically, the money from user fees would be earmarked for a fund to be used for the modernization of the system, which really is desperately needed. The thinking is that with modernization, our air traffic control system would be able to handle more aircraft, and be able to space them closer together, effectively reducing delays caused by congestion. But most of the congestion is on the ground, not in the sky, and so you can modernize it all you want, you'll still only get so many aircraft on the airport at one time. Once you reach that limit, there will still be congestion. And with the airlines purchasing smaller regional jets instead of their "mainliners", congestion is a problem largely of the airline's making.
For instance, let's say that Northwest flies a route from Grand Rapids to Detroit. Currently, they have one aircraft that flies it twice a day, with 100 seats. Thats two departures and two arrivals, to bring 200 people from Grand Rapids to Detroit.
But they find that they can do it cheaper with two separate, smaller jets that seat 50. But both of those aircraft have to fly twice a day to bring the same 200 people from Grand Rapids to Detroit. Now you have four departures and four arrivals for the same number of people.
And overbooking? Let's use the 100 seat airplane. Let's say that we fill the airplane. 100 tickets bought and paid for. The national average is that about 15-20% of passengers, for whatever reason, don't show up for their flight. That's empty seats and lost revenue. So if we know that we have that buffer there, let's next time sell 115 seats. If everyone shows up, it's less trouble to re-book them than it would be to just fly around with all those empty seats. Pretty dumb, but legal, unfortunate for us, fortunate for the airlines.
That's part of the reason why I think the airlines should foot the majority of the bill for this modernization anyway. It's a problem largely of their doing, and it's a problem that will affect them way worse that it will affect us in the general aviation community.
This could have been a separate post, I guess. It's more fun to comment, though!
wingnut
...Yeah, it seems like every time cosmologists come up with a new theory, there is something else out there that they then need to explain! I think when we get to the very end of it all, it will be a little piece of scrap paper with God's handwriting all over it, it'll probably say something like "Pretty cool, huh?"
It's not so much that the airline loses out on the money you paid them. They will put you on another flight or give a refund. But the airplane is going whether you're on it or not, and it will burn about the same amount of fuel, it's tires will wear out the same, the airframe will devalue at the same rate. Basically, the less people are on a flight, the more expensive per person it is to operate that flight.
Actually, the current funding system in place right now uses fuel taxes to pay for upgrades and system maintenance. So the more fuel you buy, the more you're paying into the system. Not quite a percentage based system, but probably as close as you can come. But the airlines don't want to pay more for fuel, since they're barely solvent anyway (average airline profit margin is around 1%), and so they suggested the user fees idea, which would make general aviation pay on top of all the fuel taxes everyone pays anyway, and that's not fair.
Besides, the beaurocracy that would be needed to assess, charge, and collect these user fees would probably cost way more than what the government would collect with them anyway.
AND, not to be "Slippery Slope Guy", but once they start charging these fees, where do you think it will stop? I don't think it will.
wingnut
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