Anyway, I think I’ve cleaned up the nonsense from ‘lordmax’, and patched the holes.
Just goes to show that it doesn’t matter how pompous an OS is about security… someone will figure out how to get in.

Windows, Mac, Linux — it’s not any different. Updates are strongly suggested for a reason.

So do them. (:

Watch this video about mirror neurons.

I’ll try to be better about it in the coming months! (:

Cheers,
–Justin

Semester has started back up… Back to being busy! (:

Cheers!

He took this:

and made this:

AWESOME!

I thought it was just me, but I’m pretty sure something changed!

It will take some time to get used to it, but I like it.

PLEASE BE FOREWARNED THAT THIS IS NOT A HAPPY ENDING STORY.

I am working on this as I get time… sorry it is constantly being updated until I get all the details in there.

IT’S ALSO VERY LONG ————————- PROCEED WITH CAUTION

Wednesday June 3, 2009

I visit the Orange County Animal Shelter just for kicks.  I don’t think I’m going to get a dog today but I definitely want to see what they have available.  I go to look at the dogs (I want a puppy, not an older dog) and I see they have a few available.  I make an immediate connection with this Brown/Black-nose dog which says “Chow-Chow mix” as the breed.  I don’t know what a Chow Chow is, so I used Wikipedia to find an image and WHOA.  I DEFINITELY do NOT want a Chow-Chow mix.  But it was weird because I was connecting with this guy.  He and I were having eye contact that was more than just ‘hi.’  I walked around three or four times and made a similar connection with a Pit mix, but again I don’t want a Pit Bull.  At each pass I always seem to find a connection with the brown Chow-Chow mix puppy.  Anyway it wasn’t the right time to get a puppy yet, I was still too impulsive, so I went home.

Friday June 5, 2009

Today I decided I would go see how the puppies at the Durham County Animal Shelter looked, and then I would go back to Orange County to see what had changed.  Eventually I made my way back and found that same brown dog waiting for me.  He and I connected again and this time I decided that I would have a meet and greet with him.  He was very submissive and shy in the cage, but this was because there was a more dominant male puppy in there with him.  As soon as the worker set would-be Henry down in the meet-and-greet room, he turned into the puppy of your dreams.  He was so happy wagging his tail and he wasn’t hyper-active jumping around all over the place and biting uncontrollably.  He was chill.  He was awesome.  I decided right then he was mine.  So I filled out the paperwork – went to the store – and within an hour or so — Henry was at home with me. What a great feeling to have finally come out of this with someone I’d made a connection with.  I’d saved him from the animal shelter, from the cold concrete floor and the constant nagging of the alpha male.

Henry was great – he peed when we went outside, he pooped outside of the PetSmart – everything was going wonderfully!  He slept with me in the bed that night.

Saturday June 6, 2009

When I woke up at 6 or 7 he was looking at me ready to go potty.  I stumbled down to let him out.  I gave him some food and idiotically brought him back upstairs with me.  He pooped on my floor, haha.  I wanted to be mad but it was my fault!  I read just after that that I was supposed to take him out right after meals!  Oops…

Today was the first Summer League frisbee game I was going to be able to attend — so I went to it!  Why would I go alone?!  I took Henry with me !  He was so cute sitting in the front seat just hanging out. Everyone at the field loved him – I put a metal thing in the ground and he was such a good puppy — he didn’t try to escape or anything, just sat there content — when I poured him water – he drank.  When kids or adults came to pet him – he eagerly allowed it.  All around great things.

After we got back from frisbee, my friend Laura came over to meet Henry and then we went back to the animal shelter because she wanted to have a look. She was considering adopting soon, though she was more interested in an older dog for lack of puppy-training time.  After we got back, Laura left and Henry and I chilled again and had a great night walk.

This is when Henry met a frog/toad for the first time.  Hahaha… we were walking and something jumped in front of our path.  I got spooked but not Henry — he wanted to attack it, so I let him.  He caught the frog between his two hands and then went at it with his mouth. The next thing I know, the frog is hopping away and Henry is walking back and forth with his tongue out shaking his head violently.  Hahaha.. I was laughing so hard because I guess the frog secreted something that Henry was NOT fond of, haha.  I think he’d avoid frogs from now on!

Henry slept with me this evening.

Sunday June 7, 2009

Today we got up and did everything normally.  I thought it’d be fun to go to a park and run on a trail with Henry, so we packed up to leave!  We went over there and Henry was being his normal adorable self in my front seat and being a little wanker when it was time to get out of the car.  He just sat there and looked at me like — ‘but there’s A/C in here.’

We ran on the trails and at some point I tripped on a root and fell.  I dropped the leash in the process but instead of a normal puppy reaction of probably running off or going crazy because he was free, Henry just sat down and looked at me like “you have got to be kidding me… you are the biggest moron I’ve ever seen.”  So I picked up his leash and vowed never to make fun of Luke for falling on the trails again.  We went home.

Graham came over late and met Henry.  We were going to go fishing, so Henry was left in the kitchen where he was a good boy!  We watched most of the NBA finals and then Graham headed out.  That was the last time he would get to see Henry.

Monday June 8, 2009

The early morning hours of Monday were the worst ever!  Every 1 – 1.5 hours I woke up to Henry vomiting all over my carpet.  I wasn’t thinking rationally enough to take him downstairs in the kitchen where it would be easier to clean, I just wanted him to be with me.  Alas probably 10 times between 2:30 AM and 7:30 AM he vomited.   I attributed this to the people food I had let him taste earlier in the day vowing to him that he’d not get any more for quite a while!

He was acting very strange on Monday – lethargic and not wanting to do much when he was inside.  He even went into his crate on his own to lay on his blankets.  I was a little stumped, but I justified this by saying that if I had puked all night I’d need a day or so to get back to 100%.

I taught lab this night from 8:30 – 10:20, so I had left Henry in the kitchen.  When I got back from lab and opened the door – there was Henry, standing in my hallway — outside of the kitchen.  ‘Now how in the hell did you get out of the kitchen?’ was all that I could think.  Then my roommate, Yang, came flying downstairs to tell me that he’d just left him out downstairs because he thought he was just sleeping.  At this point I see an outline of poop in the distance and explain the reasoning to Yang about why he was in the kitchen to begin with.  I clean up this mess and leave Henry in the kitchen.  Now I tell him that if he’s not better by tomorrow morning – he’s going to the vet!

Tuesday June 9, 2009

I go downstairs and find another spot of diarrhea and I’m like OK Henry – pack it up big guy – I’m taking you in.  Thankfully it was not too early otherwise I would have driven over to the PetSmart (Banfield) too early and had to come back.  Anyway, I take him in and they say ohh let’s check him out for parvovirus (and hope it’s negative) and hopefully he just has some worms, which we can take care of for you.

While they set up the test Henry is acting his normal self — calm, cool, and collected.

Then the news.  The parvo test is positive; very strong positive; the dot is nearly black it’s so strongly positive.  All of a sudden the nurse goes out of the room and says “OMG WE HAVE A PARVO IN ROOM 3″ — Another nurse comes up to the room and looks in the window from the back and says “AWWWWW NOT THIS ONEEEEEE”

Meanwhile I have no earthly idea what is going on.  The nurse comes back in and says this is a positive parvo test, we’re going to have to wait for the vet.  and she says they’re going to have to bring out the bleach.  I’m thinking what?!  What is going on!??!?! They leave me with Henry and the front of the room opens and another woman says, “Excuse me sir, which side of the aisle did you walk down?” — They’re out there moping it with bleach.

OK This is freaky – someone has to tell me what the hell is going on.  Finally the nurse starts telling me about the disease.  Her and the vet come in and give me this spiel about how it’s 50/50 chance that Henry will make it through the parvo treatment.  Parvo is a virus so there is no treatment for it — they can only treat the symptoms.  They will give him an IV and keep his fluid levels high as well as isolate him so that he cannot infect other puppies or unvaccinated dogs.  They tell me that the odds are in my favor because of the time that I’d brought him in — he was still alert and paying attention to his name, etc.  There are parvo patients that come in and are far worse off.

The nurse tells me it’s going to probably be upwards of $500 to treat him.  I agree whole-heartedly because I know that Henry will make it.  I have to leave Henry now and go back to my house.

Wednesday June 10, 2009

I call the vet Wed. night to see how he’s doing and they tell me that he’s vomitted some and diarrhea’d some, but overall he was doing OK and that I should call back tomorrow.  I drove over to the PetSmart to go visit him – but I drove over too late, the vet side of things had already closed.

Thursday June 11, 2009

I call in this morning to see how Henry is doing and whether I can come visit him.  I was told that he was still diarrhea but no more vomitting and that this was good news.  I was also told that I could come in to see Henry this evening at 6PM.  Yang and I went together to go see Henry.

Henry was in bad shape.  He was very scrawny and he was not too upbeat.  The vet assured me that he was taking the treatment well, though.  We watched Henry drink a bowl of water – which was a promising sign because he did not throw up immediately after taking the water.  The vet said that he was looking better and that probably one more night in the hospital and he’d be ready to take home tomorrow (Friday).  In order to make sure this was still the plan I was instructed to call in around noon on Friday to see how things were going.  Yang and I washed our hands, dipped the bottom of our shoes in bleach and headed home.  Man.. we were so depressed about the situation — but at the same time anxious about Henry’s return!

Friday June 12, 2009

I call the Banfield office at 11:30 AM to ask how ‘my parvo suspect, Henry’ is doing.  I get on the phone with the vet and he says that Henry has not vomited today, nor had diarrhea and that it was very likely he would be diagnosed as ready to be released tonight.  With glee I say that’s great news and he tells me to come in around 5:30 PM to pick him up.  I didn’t ask why the time delay, but basically I figured they needed to clean him up and get the IV out, etc and maybe have him leave at a down time (because after all he was still contagious).  Either way I didn’t think anything of it.  Luke and I were going to make a diagnosis about whether we were going camping this weekend and whether Henry could be joining us.  After I saw him on Thursday I knew that he wasn’t coming camping this weekend — he was not in top shape.

Luke thankfully decides to go with me, and we head over there at 5:25PM.  I get to the store and go to the Banfield part.  I pay the $800 vet bill.  They want me to bring my own crate to get Henry, so I go to get it out of the car.  I brought the crate and I went back into the vet area to where Henry was in isolation. The vet told me he needed to administer one more shot and that Henry might whimper but that was OK.  He gives him the shot and they put puppy pads down in my crate for Henry to sit on.

The nurse picks up Henry (he is really in a sad state of affairs, very skinny and very weak) he stands in the cage with wobbly knees and wags his tail when he sees me.  I am talking to him and telling him he needs to lay down so that we can go home and he can rest.  He finally kind of flops over into a position where he’s just laying there panting.  We wheel him out of the back and out into the PetSmart store.  The vet goes over the medicines that I need to use and the prescription food I need to buy.

I get a pack of 150 puppy pads, 3 cans of the prescription food and head towards the front with the meds and Henry in the crate.  I pay and before we go out I look and Henry hasn’t moved since he first flopped down.  He’s in the exact same position.  Luke says something like man, he must be really out of it on some drugs or something.  Of course, I think that must be the reason — what else am I to think?  The receipt from this checkout says 5:48 PM. This means by the time we got him all loaded up in the car and were leaving the parking lot it was probably close to 5:55 – 6:00.  Not 1 minute out of the parking lot we’re going up a hill and Luke looks back and Henry is urinating on himself.  He makes a comment but I ignore it and say well, yea, he’s probably had to do that for the last couple of days — but having a puppy means things are going to get peed on — no big deal.  On this same hill Henry slid backwards on the puppy pads so that he was still in the exact same position, just at the back of the crate now.

We get home.  We bring him into the kitchen and start petting him.   He’s got this kind of glazed over look about him where I can’t tell if we’re connecting like we did when he was in the pound or if he’s just staring into the distance.  I’m continuing to pet him and pull some shedded fur off of him. I get some water for Henry and we’re just chilling in the kitchen together.  I make a passing comment to Luke like – ‘man, if I saw this guy laying in the street or in a field or something – I’d say — jeez, this guy is about to die.’  Keep in mind that he had just been released from Banfield for being well enough that I could care for him at home 20 minutes prior to this.

I went upstairs to get a few boxes to bring downstairs because I was supposed to meet someone to sell something on Craigslist.  I go outside to call the buyer. He didn’t answer so I left a message and came back in and now Luke was sitting down at the crate petting Henry.  This was the only time Luke had met Henry except for the photographs of when I first got him.  So I’m sitting in the kitchen chair at the table when the shit hits the fan.

All of a sudden Henry has moved his head slightly backwards and he’s making this very loud and obnoxious breathing noises.  Luke says ‘Hey man, I don’t think this is good.’ and I say something like ‘Naw man, he probably just fell asleep and he’s going into some crazy med dreams.’  At this point Henry makes a louder gasp and then Luke really gets spooked and kind of backs away from the crate.  At this point I realize something is going on, so I get down out of the chair and take the place Luke had been in.  I reach in to pet him but I’m scared too because his mouth is open (and it looks like he could get spooked and bite me) and he is like gasp then no breathing.. then wait 5-10 seconds.. then another loud gasp.. then nothing.  I say to Luke – MAN I DONT THINK HES BREATHING ANYMORE – and then he gasps again.  I’m trying to pet him and say come on Henry… but that was it.  that was his last breath.  He defecated all over himself and the smell of death has never been clearer. Luke just happens to look at his watch and it says… 6:35 PM.  We had not been home for 30 minutes, and my puppy, who had been ‘rebounding’ was gone.  Neither one of us knew what to say.  Neither one of us knew what to do.  In a matter of minutes we had just seen Henry take his last five breaths — this was the largest creature I’ve ever seen die.  As in, my hand was on his back as he was letting go.  That is a life experience I will never forget.

Flabbergasted, I keep saying I HAVE TO CALL THE VET.  I go outside and call them.  I say Um… Henry just passed away as soon as we got to my house!  The lady says “that is terrible news! im so sorry..’ etc.  So I ask them what do I do – and she says well you can bring the body back up here and we can cremate him and we can get the ashes for you. (I don’t want the ashes) but I ask if this will cost me more money.  She says taking the dog won’t but receiving the ashes would cost money.

Luke and I drive back up there with Henry’s body and walk through the store making a huge scene.  (They asked me to bring him in through the front… what else was I going to do)  I brought his body in a towel and handed him to the nurse who had just loaded him into the crate not 1 hour prior.  Her and some other lady were out there and Luke and I started firing questions at them.  Their main response was something like “well that’s just how that virus is.”  and ” I can’t make that call, you can come and talk to the head vet tomorrow morning — he handles everything.”

Defeated, dejected, and utterly numb we walk back to the counter, return the food/puppypads and go back home…

Saturday June 13, 2009

Luke and I went back to Banfield to talk to the ‘head vet.’