With the recent events of last week, the dogs have been on my mind a lot recently. So, this seems to be a fitting post. I painted these large paintings of our dogs to go on the wall in the living room. They are done in a vector kind of styling with duotone coloring. Everyone says I need to do this for other people… and I may.
I picked up the police report yesterday about the dog attack. The pit bull was released to the owner. I have no clue why any government entity would allow a dog that had killed another dog on a person’s front yard to be released.
I love dogs. I love all breeds of dogs. It is because I love dogs and don’t want to see anymore of them hurt that I believe this dog should be put down.
The owner lives in our neighborhood. He’s only about 5 streets over from our house. I have heard that this dog has even attacked a person before and that they have a dangerous dog order on it and have to carry additional insurance because of it. But, I don’t know that for sure. According to the police report, he let his dogs into the backyard and then went to let them back in and his gate was open and he dogs were gone. It took 17 minutes for those dogs to get loose and kill another dog. It could have been any number of dogs being walked in the neighborhood at any given time. It could have been a little kid.
We have to do something about this.
I was planning on putting up some photos of some new work I’ve done recently, but am kind of in a down mood. Miranda and I were involved in an incident last night that made us both feel very uneasy and sad.
We were driving home from work and were in our neighborhood. We saw a dog walking down the street, so we stopped to see if we could find a tag and find an owner. We do this a lot actually. Miranda never likes to see a lost dog. Well, when we stopped to see this dog another dog popped out of the tall grass. This one was a pit bull that seemed friendly. He had a collar on and we tried to get a look at it, but he went past us and suddenly, they started running down the street like they were going home or were called or something. We hopped into the car to go home and we thought we heard screaming. We stopped, and Miranda jumped out of the car and ran down the street where the dogs had gone. I turned off the car and ran behind her. When I got there I saw a pretty gruesome scene.
Miranda was grabbing the pit bull by the neck. The pit bull had a little dachshund in its mouth. The dachshund had a leash on and its owner was the one screaming. She actually had 2 dachshunds on a leash but only one was being hurt. I jumped in and went for the pit bulls neck to try and squeeze it so it would let go. It wasn’t letting go. So, I reached my hands down pried it jaws open with both hands. The dachshund was freed but very badly hurt. Luckily for Miranda and me, the pit bull didn’t turn on us. I grabbed it by its collar, twisted it tight and held the dog down. He just kind of sat there panting. A neighbor called the police and the dachshund was rushed to the vet.
I held that dog until the police came and we were able to get it in the police car. It seemed like a normal dog at that point. Then we went home and washed up. I had quite a bit of blood on me and a few scratches from his teeth. We called my sister (who works at the vet’s office) for updates. He went into surgery and was being sutured up. This morning we learned that the dachshund, Gump, didn’t make it. He had lost too much blood.
I always get so irritated when I see people with their dogs and no leashes. Everyone thinks there dog is “good” and won’t hurt anyone. But you can never tell what is going on in a dog’s brain. This seemingly nice dog went nuts. Leash laws are there to protect not only people, but also the dogs. I am thinking about starting a campaign in the neighborhood about dog safety. And no, I don’t blame this solely on the breed. I’ve known pit bulls and pit mixes that were the sweetest dogs in the world to both people and other dogs. It is the way they are raised that can make any breed bad. In this case I blame the owner. We don’t know who that is yet, but the dog had a collar and a rabies tag on it. The police should be able to track it down. The owner raised it to be mean this way somehow. And then they didn’t do enough to keep control of the animal. It was on the loose.
I think that’s all I’ll write about this for now. I’m so sad and so angry at the same time.
I photographed a house recently on Oak Grove Island in Brunswick, GA. It was a really nice house located across from the 3rd green of the golf course there. It also had a lagoon in the back and a nice pool and patio.
I have included my photos of this house below. For more information on this house call Marcia Kronn at Hodnett Cooper Real Estate or visit: 123 Shipmaster
We had a busy weekend. Lots of projects got done and we had a lot of fun.
Friday we came home after work and did some cooking in the new kitchen. We made some excellent tuna steaks, mashed potatoes and asparagus. Miranda and I are really enjoying cooking together. Then I made Miranda watch one of my favorite movies: Apocalypse Now.
Saturday I did some work on my Jeep… continuing a project I’ve been working on for a while and am getting close to finishing. We took a trip to Lowes to get some baseboard and painting supplies and pick up a toolbox at Sears that I had ordered. Then we left to go to Jacksonville’s St. John’s Town Center. We stopped first at JoAnnes. We bought some stools on closeout a couple weeks ago that were all white… not anymore. We removed the seats and painted them silver. Now we needed fabric to cover the seats. We found some fabric that was the same pattern but in 4 different colors. Then we headed to the Apple store.
In the Apple store I finally got to see the iPhone 3G in person. It’s nice, but I’m not convinced I need to upgrade yet… especially since we don’t have 3G coverage here (let’s get cracking, AT&T!). But what I really wanted to look at was the AppleTV. I talked with a salesman there to clear up some confusion I had on it, and walked out the door with one. I hooked it up when we got back and it worked great. We downloaded a movie (Rendition) that we had tried to watch twice before through the TiVo/Amazon Unbox feature. It stopped downloading both times on us. The movie selection is really poor on it, too. So, with the AppleTV, the movie selection is much better and you can download it as an HD movie! It also streams music right off the computer which is really nice.
On Sunday we watched the movie we had downloaded (you can start watching right away, but we didn’t). Then I started some more projects. I painted the baseboard then started reupholstering the counter stools. Meanwhile, Miranda gave baths to all 5 dogs. Yes, we had 5 dogs this weekend. Along with our three, we had my mother’s dog Allie because they are on vacation and a friend’s dog, Hallie, who were out of town. So, she bathed them all while I recovered the counter stool seats. Then we went into town to go to Publix and get some of their good bread for dinner. When we returned, I installed the baseboard in the hall bathroom. It’s one of those things I never completed. Still have a couple other things to do in there as well. After installing and caulking them it looks much better.
We watched another movie that evening after cooking dinner. It was No Country for Old Men. It was good but a bit strange and not the greatest of endings (or so we thought). I also worked on a painting for a little while. Sorry there are no photos of anything, but I was just too busy to take them. I’ll try to get some photos later this week.
My Dad and I installed the wine rack above the refrigerator this weekend and I knocked out a couple of minor things on the punch list. It seems that (for the most part) the kitchen is done! Yes, there is still some baseboard to install on one wall as you can probably see, but it is pretty much done.
I am including a couple of “before” photos I took with my iphone. They are not very good quality, but show the kitchen before the wall was knocked down and another before all the cabinets were removed. That IS the new oven in the old kitchen… hooked up to make sure it was working properly since we bought it on a closeout. I know Miranda has some better “before” photos than I do.
Here are the final photos I took last night. We are both very happy with the new kitchen and enjoy using it much more than the old one. We find ourselves just using it a lot more… experimenting with new dishes, etc. I think Miranda bakes something almost every night. You can see in the photos a raspberry cheesecake sitting there having just come out of the oven!
Though I would say that I designed the kitchen for the most part, most of the credit should go to my Dad who was there for every step of the project and was the brains behind the operation. I was more of an assistant. Once again, just like the bathrooms we did before this, I learned a lot from him. He is a wealth of knowledge and Miranda is certain that he knows literally everything about everything. My brother, Bill, who owns Wood & Laminate, a high-end, custom furniture shop in Jacksonville, was also a big help. We made a lot of the end panels, shelves, and, the most crucial piece, the center island butcher block top at his shop. He worked a whole weekend on my stuff and I am very grateful for it.
Before:
After:
I was contacted by a professor at Florida State University (College of Social Work) about doing a logo for a new program of theirs. The program is called the Florida Long Term Care Research Partnership (FLTCRP). They wanted a logo that they could use letterhead and other printed material. I thought long and hard about this project and how to incorporate both a visual of helping/care and also wanted to make sure it was uniquely Florida-based.
Nothing says care more than a reaching or helping hand. When I put my hands together I started to see the state of Florida in them. I ran with it and soon, the logo was done. The client was very happy with the design. I also designed the letterhead, cards, and envelopes for them.
I have been working on some banners for the Kingsland, Georgia Welcome Center for a while now. Work has been slow due to problems getting photographs together, but it seems to have all come out in the end. These are large banners that are almost 7 foot tall and 3 foot wide. They are double sided and hang from a stand. These banners and stands are placed throughout the lobby of the Welcome Center just off I-95. I did 4 of these banners a while ago and they are in the Center now. The other 10 have just been placed on order and should be up soon. They highlight some of the key features of the Kingsland and Coastal Georgia area. Some of the photos used on the banners are shot by me (you may recognize some of them) and some of them are stock photography.
I photographed a house in Brunswick on the marsh last week. I also made some virtual tours of the place. What a cool location and one of the nicest “extra” buildings on a property. They had a party area/outdoor kitchen/covered picnic area that would be really nice to enjoy.
One of the products I sell is a combination of photos, virtual tours, information and details all placed on its very own web site. The listing has a domain name that is the address or name of the property. I have done a couple of these recently. I hope to do more. http://www.138glyndale.com
I took this photo a while ago but just now got to process it. I like the solitary look of the lighthouse in the purply-blue light of the evening. There are so many shots of the lighthouse out there that I sometimes hesitate to shoot it. I once heard a photographer say that when you go to Paris, take the photo of the Eiffel Tower that has been taken a million times before. Take it immediately so as to get it out of the way. Now you you don’t need to do that and can look for other angles and compositions. I feel that way about the lighthouse here. I’ve taken the postcard shot that everyone else has and now try to get different angles and views on it. This is just one example.
I am going to try and get some nice photos of the kitchen this weekend. We have just the smallest punch list to go through and we are done. Quite frankly, I am pretty happy it’s done.
