Board Takes No Action After Raccoon Bus Incident

I know that you've all been on pins and needles wanting to know the outcome of the weekends raccoon incident, so here's the story courtesy of the Grand Forks Herald. Even though this just occurred over the weekend, the local school Board made a decision by Tuesday.  Things work fast in North Dakota. 


Carrington wrestling coach retains position after raccoon incident

Mark Pazdernik retained his current head coaching position with the Cardinals after allowing a handful of his wrestlers to capture and transport a raccoon during a team bus trip from Carrington to Grafton on Friday. 

CARRINGTON, N.D. — No motion was made on a recommendation by the Carrington High School administration to place wrestling coach Mark Pazdernik on administrative leave through the remainder of the 2010-11 high school wrestling season during Tuesday’s open school board meeting.

As a result, Pazdernik retained his current head coaching position with the Cardinals after allowing a handful of his wrestlers to capture and transport a raccoon during a team bus trip from Carrington to Grafton on Friday.

2 Women Ejected From Runaway Dogsled Near Brainerd, Minn.

One more article from the Grand Forks Herald over the weekend.  It was a good weekend for interesting news.  The moral of the story, a dogsled excursion might not be the best choice for a 75th birthday celebration. 


2 women ejected from runaway dogsled near Brainerd, Minn.

BAXTER, Minn. — What started out as a 75th birthday celebration turned into a wild ride for two women taking a sled dog excursion on the Paul Bunyan Trail near Brainerd.

The women were aboard a sled pulled by 15 dogs when their owner stopped to adjust a harness. As she was heading back to the sled, the dogs snapped a line and took off Friday.
Passengers Dianne Lindvall and Shirley Connolly were pulled by the unmanned sled before being thrown off. Both women were injured but not seriously, and Connolly — who was celebrating her 75th birthday — was taken to a hospital.

The Brainerd Dispatch reports officers stopped the dogs by grabbing their lines and jumping on the sled. The pack was halted nearly three miles from where it took off.

Photo credit: AP Photo/Brainerd Dispatch, Steve Kohls - link here

Raccoon Encounter Ends Wrestling Tourney for N.D. Team

Here's an article from the Grand Forks Herald this morning.  I'm not making this up.  I don't think I could make this up.  Sorry it looks kind of goofy, but the links to the Grand Forks Herald require a subscription and disappear after 7 days, this way you get to read it forever.  For those of you short on time, I've highlighted the important pieces or quotations. 

You get some interesting news here in North Dakota....

Raccoon encounter ends wrestling tourney for N.D. team

A raccoon ended Carrington’s bid for a fourth consecutive championship in the North Dakota Region 2 dual high school wrestling tournament. 

Carrington earned a berth in Saturday’s region tournament final in Grafton after winning its first two duals. But when Carrington school officials discovered the school’s athletes had been exposed to a live wild raccoon over the weekend, they quickly pulled the team out of the tournament before the championship dual was held.

“We (school administrators) found out as the tournament was going on that while our students were on the way to the event, they were exposed to a raccoon,’’ Carrington school superintendent Brian Duchscherer said.

Udi's Gluten Free Bread and Muffins

Ever since Alycia learned of her Celiac disease and need to lead a righteous gluten free life, we've searched the four corners of the earth and Internet for a good gluten free bread.  That search has taken almost three years and countless experimentations with dense, grainy, chewy, terrible tasting, poor textured crappy bread.  Good gluten free bread became the white whale (which would make me Capt Ahab, who shares more personality characteristics with me than I care to admit), something to be searched for and never found. 

I heard about Udi's gluten free breads last summer from a client (who is also a Celiac in a family of Celiacs) in San Diego who claimed the bread was so good "you didn't even need to toast it".  Now I'd tried enough gluten free bread in my day to be able to sniff out some serious malarkey, so I scoffed at this, and called BS on that claim.  It didn't really matter though since Udi's wasn't carried anywhere in North Dakota, but that all changed last week when I saw it stocked at our local natural foods co-op, Amazing Grains.

Our Little Graduate

Our littlest graduate recently earned her degree from the highest canine learning institution here in Grand Forks, North Dakota - Petco.  Yes our little puppy attained the third highest degree offered by this learned and historic institution by graduating with high honors from puppy class. 

Here's a photo of graduation day.  Due to the inclement weather conditions the classes are actually held inside Petco, in the aisles.  This is the dog food aisle where we had our classes.  It's quite an odd set up, instructions are briefly interrupted by people searching for a sack of dog food, puppies are distracted by the stock boy in the aisle over, wandering puppy noses are constantly sniffing out the lamb and alpaca byproduct snacks, etc. 

We brought Shaak Ti in on the final day of class to celebrate her little sisters graduation and smell all the lovely smells in Petco.  Big sister Shaak Ti couldn't have been prouder of her little sister.  A good time was indeed had by all.

Baby Pictures - My New Nephew

As promised, pictures of my new nephew Jacob. 

And props to my Dad who upon reading my last post promptly sent me a real, full sized picture of Jacob, thus proving that he not only reads the blog, but has very strong computer skills.  I didn't ask how long the picture sending process took though, or how many people were involved in assisting. 

Uncle John

Prior to a last week, my only experience with Uncle John has been the fabulous and satisfying collections of the Uncle John's bathroom reader series.  These books come in many editions and have been given to me through the years by friends and family.  Apparently for those who know me, the assumption is that I spend a large amount of time in the bathroom.  This is actually untrue, I am quite efficient.

If you are the type of person that needs some diversionary fun and educational enlightenment whilst taking care of daily activities, I would highly recommend the Uncle John's bathroom reader series, they're full of small vignettes that leave you both enlightened and lightened.  (This is probably the first/only poop joke, poop pun, or extensive scatological reference we've had here at the normally very high brow Deaf Dogs and Benevolent Gnomes, so quit yer whinin'.)



But now the title of "Uncle John" has new and special meaning, mostly because I am officially an Uncle.  Uncle John to be specific.  My sister and her husband had their first child and I'm officially an Uncle. 

I don't have any photos of the new baby to post (Jacob Brent is his name), since all I've gotten are cell phone pictures of my new nephew.  As soon as I get some real photos, I'll be sure to post them. Unfortunately since sister and her hubby are in the crazy first weeks of dealing with the new arrival, we have to rely on my Dad to supply pictures, which is why I don't have any real pics yet.

Deaf Puppy Picture of The Week

I've been alternating between dealing with the basement finishing (much more on this in another post) and working at the computer.  Puppy has been curled up behind my chair in a "too-small-for-me-but-I-don't-care" sized dog bed.  They're all leg and awkward neck angle at this age.