Glamour Shots

Constantly seeing photos in the paper or Foster & Smith's catalogs with pictures that aren't nearly as cute as our dog, I set out the other day to take some pictures that were worthy of entering into a photo contest. Still stinging from our 20th place finish in the Del Mar Kiwanis "Most Beautiful Dog" contest, I sought to rectify the wrongs that had been inflicted upon our family unit and bring us some manner of dog contest victory. I needed concrete evidence to show people how cute our dog is dammit, and I needed it now.

Taking pictures of a dog is easy enough, especially with a digital camera. Getting a good picture requires enough patience to snap hundreds of photos and a little luck that at least one of them will turn out decent. Shaak Ti tends to be on the squirmy wormy end of the spectrum of dogs. She'd rather aggressively try to clean the ear wax out of your ears with her tongue or chase sparrows around the yard than sit still for a photo opportunity, but we ended up getting a couple of good shots.

The end result of pictures turned out pretty damn good, they are the two photos in the entry. Yeah, our dog is pretty, that's about all I wanted to say. Sure most people will try to tell you that their dog is the prettiest, etc, but now I have the photo evidence to back it all up. Who's the good puppy????

Alaskan Adventure - A trip to Seward

With a little less than 24 hours notice I was summoned by my company (I consult, nay I consult with the best of them) to Anchorage, Alaska. A previous consultant had been on the job but had taken quite ill and they needed a replacement, stat. So I packed up a few things, including not the best pair of shoes for city ice conditions, and hopped on a plane for Alaska.

I arrived on Thursday night, worked on Friday, and expected to work the weekend, but was pleasantly surprised to learn that it was not as busy as expected and I had the weekend off. Sweet!! I chatted with a few locals and decided to take a drive to Seward, a 2.5 hour drive southwest down the Kenai Peninsula. My rental car was a Jeep Liberty, which despite it huge exterior size, was surprisingly cramped, but what the hell it was a rental right? Plus it had four wheel drive, which was nice.

Making my way south out of Anchorage the freeway only remained as the two lane blacktop for about 15 minutes before it turned into one lane in either direction. The weather was alternating light rain and snow showers, a tad blustery, but overall not a bad weather day by Alaska standards. The wind picked up as I drove along the Turnagain Arm, the shallow inlet along Anchorage. The radio still baffled me and even after several searches, I hadn't gotten anything better than top 40 (ummm no), country (really no), and some kind of psudeo rock (they were playing Creed, 'nuff said) music. I settled on Prince "When Doves Cry" which didn't seem appropriate for a solo drive along windswept rocks and majestic, snow covered peaks in the distance, but what the hell it's better than Creed right? Yes, yes indeed.

The drive to Seward was indeed picturesque and quite lovely. There weren't too many folks on the road and I was glad that, though a city slicker, I had brought a winter kit of provisions, water, and warm clothes just in case a Hoth style ice monster decided to attack my car, leaving me stranded along a lonely road.

Seward was a beautiful fishing town, but unfortunately since it was March and all, just about everything was closed for the season. The Kenai National Park (which is alleged to have a really cool glacier) was not technically closed, but you could only get there with sled dog or snowmobile, of which I had neither. Feeling a bit bummed out that I couldn't see a glacier I sought refuge in a reputable house of pancakes. I toured around town, found a diner with good pancakes and enjoyed a late breakfast while staring outside at the snowflakes gently meandering down from the sky.

If nothing else, the trip convinced me to return to Alaska during the summer months when the weather was warmer and more establishments were open and able to be proprieted.

Every Rose Has A Lot of Friggin' Thorns

While on our evening dog walk, on a pleasantly warm spring evening, our wonderful Shaak Ti displayed her newest manifestation of what I can only assume is some kind deathwish. I don't understand her mental processes, nor do I think I want to, but often times the result is her hitting her head, falling down, or otherwise hurting herself, which though it does not faze her, leads me to believe that eventually her high risk behavior is going to catch up with her. She will inevitably decide that indeed an ostrich is not too big of a bird to chase, or one day eat another pound of fudge. Despite this seeming urge to end her own life prematurely she lives every day to its puppy fullness.

Now normally when we're walking, she loves to jump up, onto retaining walls or ledges, or any structure that runs along the sidewalk where she can explore and be higher up than if she walked like other normal dogs, i.e. at ground level. Having witnessed this behavior over several months, I've gotten used to it. Every once in a while she'll try to run ahead and jump up on a wall, misjudge how much leash she has available, and get yanked back to earth mid-jump. This doesn't seem to faze her a bit and she continues along her merry way.

On this particular we approached a house with a 2.5 to 3 foot wall out front. This house typically has a few cats running around and since Shaak Ti tends to get a bit ramped up as we approach, I was prepared for her to pull a bit on the leash, maybe even whine a tad. I wasn't prepared for her to suddenly stop, turn left and jump completely over the wall.

Now the other side of this wall was a good foot below the sidewalk level and there wasn't a soft cushy lawn for her to land on, but a series of rose bushes. And not just rose bushes, but the stumps of the rose bushes that had been trimmed back for the winter. As soon as she jumped I ran to the wall to find that she had impaled her back left leg and butt onto a big thorny rose bush stump. She was impaled so deeply that she was stuck in the bush and couldn't move. I had to gently lift her out and then spend the next several minutes pulling a dozen huge thorns out of her leg and paw. She wound up bleeding in a couple places where the thorns had penetrated deeply enough, but aside from shaking for a minute, was pretty much good to go.

The dog owner concept is pretty new to me, so this was my first time seeing my dog bleeding. I was somewhere between frightened and angry. Frightened because I care about my dog and didn't like to see my dog bleeding, and angry because who the hell jumps over a wall when they have no idea what's on the other side? Seriously, who does that?

After treating Shaak Ti with some doggie first aid spray, I continued to be mad at her for the ordeal and her lack of judgment. She was soon forgiven and I realized that the decision making and rational thought processing areas of her brain may be underdeveloped, but that makes her even more endearing and lovable.

A Day at the Beach

There has been some rain in San Diego over the past week or two, which closes the regular dog park that we usually take Shaak Ti to visit. Shaak Ti needs to play with other dogs on a regular basis, period. She needs to run, wrestle, chew on other dogs, and have other dogs knock her over. It's a fact of life as certain as poop and blue skies. Our normal regimen of two walks a day, play time, and the every other day three-mile run aren't quite enough for her. She needs to run, wrestle with other dogs, and completely tire herself out, at least three to four times a week. Since the dog park has been closed, I started taking her to the beach. Coronado has a terrific dog beach, fenced on two sides, with the ocean on the third side.

When Shaak Ti gets to the beach the first priority is of course, taking a nice long whizz, don't want all that extra water weight slowing you down now do ya'? Sometimes there is the accompanying bowel movement, and then she's good. Once the systems are all purged and she has introduced herself to all the dogs in the immediate vicinity, she sets out on her task of clearing the beach of all birds. This is done by chasing them until they fly away. No gimmicks here. Most days this is simple enough, a sandpiper or two, maybe a pelican out along the surfline that needs to be escorted away, but for the most part not a difficult task, then she can get to the dog playing that she so dearly loves. I'd like to think that she has a complex motto like "A beach full of birds is no beach for me", but more than likely the thought process is "unnhhhh birds chase" or something that effect.

But after a good storm and the surf has kicked up, there are many interesting (and I assume tasty) things for birds to investigate and peck at on the beach, and as such there can be dozens of them all along the length of the shoreline. Such was the case the other day. Shaak Ti took her job so seriously that she tore around, full speed for almost twenty minutes until every bird was gone from the dog beach. She had the look of a crazed dog, tearing around at full speed, hell bent on catching her avian adversary, but alas, it was not to be. Once the dog beach was cleared, she turned her attention to the rest of the vast coastline full of birds (but forbidden for dogs) and took off at full speed.

Now being deaf, unless we have eye contact, and (and this is the important part) she is willing to come back, I have to rely on the faith that she will be a good dog and eventually come back. So far this has worked, but today I wasn't too sure. This seemed in doubt as she ran further and further down the beach, sprinting in wide circles to scare every bird to take flight until she was a good half a mile down the beach and still running in in the opposite direction.


To make a long story short, she eventually came back, sort of willingly. After jogging to get her, she ran by me and I grabbed her, so I guess that counts. Rarely does she become afflicted with the crazy crazy, but this was such a day. The good news is that she was really tired and a complaint and well behaved pooch for the remainder of the day. Until tomorrow....

A Mammoth Mammoth

OK, so I didn't really see a Mammoth, or even a mammoth mammoth, though I suppose that all mammoths are in fact mammoth. I'm also not sure what the record for the number of times that the word mammoth was used in a sentence, but I think that last one should be close. Back to the issue at hand though, if anyone has seen a non-mammoth mammoth (that isn't a baby mammoth), well then I'll buy you a nice big frosty YooHoo.

Last Wednesday we packed up my sisters ginormous Ford Excursion Diesel 67000 and trucked up to Mammoth Mountain with four people, three dogs, three snowboards, several sacks of snacks, and hopefully millions of happy little cilia that are resprouting in Super Gluten Free Gal's duodenum. Alliteration ahoy hoy. The journey was surprisingly quick as we had a CHP officer as a chauffer and we were on the mountain in a mere six hours. With the exception of a car sick, vomiting Chihuahua/miniature pinscher (Mocha, my sister's dog), the journey was relatively un remarkable.

Conditions on the mountain were ideal. It hadn't snowed in four or five days so there was packed powder everywhere, but it didn't get cold enough at night to significantly ice things over or create a hard pack. The temps were in the high 30s and low 40's, warm enough to soften the snow without making it slushy. The weather held for the four day trip and we enjoyed sunny skies, light winds and a wonderful time on the slopes.

Gluten free meals were prepared ahead of time by Super Gluten Free Gal and Soggy Rice Pasta Boy and the first night we chowed down on homemade chili (very tasty) and the next night gluten free pasta and veggie casserole (good for the two of us, not so warmly embraced by sister and her hubby). Oh well, you can't win them all, and hell, I'm not here to try and convert anyone, so it's no big deal if we don't wow everyone.

I Hate Northwest Airlines

I hate Northwest Airlines. With a passion, with a vengeance, with an almost incomprehensible ire that rises from my very soul. Normally I consider myself above such petty venting, but I feel compelled to share my story with others so that we may all speak with our pocketbooks and rid the world of the scourge of this terrible airline.

My girlfriend is from a small town in North Dakota, and the only feasible way to get there is to fly from sunny San Diego to Minneapolis, then take a connecting flight to Grand Forks, North Dakota. Mind you it's still an hour and a half drive from Grand Forks to her town, and though her parents come to pick us up at the airport, it still makes for a long day of travel. Realistically though, it's the only place to fly into. We could fly into Winnppeg, Canada, which is about the same distance away, but suddenly that's an international flight, more expensive, and troublesome for my girlfriend to bring her dog along in the plane. Fargo is a three hour drive from her small town, which is doable, but a bit unrealistic.
We flew from San Diego early on the day after Christmas and were checking our bags at the Northwest counter in San Diego(we had e-ticketed the flight) when the gate attendant casually asked what was in one of our bags. We had four total bags between two people, each of us had a piece of luggage and a snowboard bag. We were planning on doing some snowboarding at the Frostfire Resort in Wallhalla, ND since it got us out of the house and out into the great frozen wilderness of North Dakota.

We'd almost finished checking the luggage when the gate attendant casually asked "what's in the bags?"

We replied honestly that they had snowboards. Little did I know that this was a big mistake

"Well that's going to be an extra charge" she said, and after looking it up said, "it's an additional $80 per bag".

My girlfriend and looked at each other dumbfounded. She'd flown this same route four years in a row with her snowboard, always on Northwest Airlines, around the holidays and had never been charged and additional fee for a snowboard bag. I'd flown before with my snowboard or golf clubs dozens of times and had never been charged an additional fee on any airline, ever. We each gently explained this to the gate attendant, but when it was obvious she didn't understand this, I began making an angry face and told her "no, we're not paying that".

I asked for her supervisor, but since it was 5:00am, she was the only person on duty at the time, and there was no one else to help, and certainly no one else with any authority. We were left with no choice, having been dropped off at the airport, there was no way to leave the bags and not take them on the trip. After several more minutes of arguing and her calling "someone" on the phone who mysteriously confirmed the additional charge. I angrily and begrudgingly gave her my credit card and asked for the number of customer service so I could complain and hopefully get a refund.

Once we arrived in North Dakota we made three calls to Northwest encompassing a total of almost four hours with still no resolution. We learned that indeed the charge had been incorrect, and we should not have been assessed the additional fee. Vindication was fairly easy, refund of the money though, was a bit more difficult. It was only upon leaving from the airport in Grand Forks that a helpful (and competent – it is very rare to find competence in the ranks of Northwest employees) person finally started the refund process and gave me a follow up number for the refund department to call.

When I called the refund department today (a month after it was allegedly "processed"), they had no record of my refund claim. I was instructed to fax my refund claim information to their office in Minnesota where it would only take "a day or so" to process it. If it can happen that quickly, then why doesn't it? Northwest seems to thrive on poor customer relations, bad policies, inadequately trained staff, and poor customer service.

To top it all off, both the trip there and return trip, including each leg (flight to Minneapolis and connection to Grand Forks on the way there, and to Minneapolis and connection to San Diego) of the trip was delayed at least an hour and half, for every conceivable reason, but surprisingly enough, not weather. On the flight to Grand Forks we sat at the gate for over two and a half hours because they couldn't find the crew to load the baggage. Yup, bags were sitting right there beside t plane, but they couldn't find someone to load them. Inconceivable incompetence across the board.

I will never, ever fly Northwest again, and will advise friends, family, and anyone who will listen to do the same. If the proposed merger with Delta goes through, I will boycott them as well. As for future trips to North Dakota, I'll be flying into Minneapolis (on a different airline) and driving the 6 hours to get to my destination. It's cheaper and ultimately faster.

More Gluten Free Adventures

In sticking with the comic book theme from the previous gluten free post, once the introductions are made, the superhero has been gifted their new powers, perhaps even tested their new found powers or fought their first villain. It is then we see them return to ordinary life, take a job, and assume his alter ego, usually an unassuming, even boring occupation. In my case, I have assumed the identity of a non-mild mannered, opinionated, somewhat slackery accounting consultant. Be warned that the next accountant you meet, perhaps even the one doing your taxes this year, could in fact be a superhero's sidekick in disguise.

With 8 months or so of gluten free kitchen experimentation under my belt I now feel as though I have a wealth of wisdom, though surely that barely scratches the surface for people who have had gluten free diets for many years. Interestingly enough, diagnoses of Celiac Disease have only been brought to the forefront in the past few years. Whether doctors are better at understanding the complex and various manifestations of the disease, or simply the word has gotten out, incresing numbers of people are requiring gluten free diets. It is estimated that 1 in 133 people in the US have Celiac Disease, with higher concentrations in certain ethnic backgrounds (especially Irish).

Once you get past the foundation that just about everything has wheat in it, and many vegetarian and fake meat options (Morningstar fake chicken nuggets, Boca Burgers) all have gluten in them, you don't have a ton of choices of prepackaged prepared food. I still love the Morningstar fake chicken nuggets, patties, breakfast sausage links, and fake corn dogs, damn good the whole lot of them, but unfortunately Super Gluten Free Gal can't have them anymore. What you end up doing is preparing a lot of things from scratch or purchasing specialty gluten free items from Whole Foods or an equivalent specialty grocer. This unfortunately can get quite spendy. Whole Foods has a delicious gluten free herb bread that costs $9. Yeah, that's right $9 for an average sized loaf of bread. It's damn tasty bread, almost worth the price, but unfortunately with the dual handicap of girlfriend being a grad student and me having a bad attitude about working, it just ain't gonna happen on a regular basis. On the plus side, it makes great stocking stuffers. Many a gluten free food item was given on Christmas to rave reviews.

The two most difficult ingredients to deal with are probably soy sauce and malted barley, both of which are a no-no for a Celiac. Soy sauce is in literally everything, just about every Asian, Vietnamese, or Thai dish with a sauce component has soy sauce in it somewhere. This makes going out to eat at these types of restaurants difficult, not only because so many menu items are off limits, but also because communicating special dietary needs to servers is, well let's just call it "problematic". And malted barley is in almost every mainstream cereal and packaged baked good. So far the only cold breakfast cereal that we've been able to find are puffed rice (uggh) and gluten free corn flakes from Whole Foods (very tasty). Luckily Soggy Rice Pasta Boy is there most mornings to make a delicious hot breakfast for our superhero, eliminating her longing for those breakfast cereals which she cannot have.

The other big bummer is oatmeal. Oatmeal is intrinsically gluten free but either processed in the same facility as wheat, transported in the same trucks, or even grown in a field near wheat, so conventional oats are not guaranteed to be gluten free. So now due to cross contamination issues you've also eliminated all oats from your diet as well. This did not sit well with Super Gluten Free Gal since her upbringing on the wild North Dakota frontier had taught her to appreciate hot breakfast cereals, and sadly oatmeal was one of the few remaining options. There are a few place that offer certified gluten free oatmeal that has been tested and determined to have zero/insignificant amounts of gluten. Gluten Free Oats offers 2 pound, 9 oz bags for $10, plus a few more dollars for shipping and handling, but well worth it so Super Gluten Free Gal can have oatmeal again.

Next on the list donuts.....but you'll have to wait for that.

The Beginnings of Gluten Free Fun

All good comic books spend their first few episodes dedicated to detailing how the superhero (and sometimes his arch nemesis) came to be. Spaceship from another planet, radioactive spider, nuclear disaster, scientific experiment gone horribly wrong, or the ever popular gamma rays. Each cause had its inevitable effect and the result guided the direction of the comic book through the years. Well you're about to hear of the beginnings of Super Gluten Free Gal and her faithful sidekick Soggy Rice Pasta Boy.

Mealtimes and cooking have always been a source of enjoyment, relaxation, experimentation, and just plain fun for me for many years, having worked in the food and beverage industry throughout high school and then in the De La Guerra Dining Commons at UC Santa Barbara all throughout college. My girlfriend has also enjoyed those same pursuits having been a vegetarian since her college days, almost eleven years, and together we are quite the team in the kitchen. I tend to take the reins when it comes to tasks involving knives or taking things out of the oven, because though I love her dearly, she is incredibly clumsy in the kitchen.

When we first started dating, I'd go over to her little one bedroom apartment and chat with her while she prepared dinner. Her kitchen was so small that two people literally couldn't occupy it simultaneously, let alone both work in there. So I'd sit at her kitchen table and we'd talk while she would prepare dinner. Inexorably at least a couple of times I'd gasp in horror as she would come millimeters away from slicing her finger, or wince when she would forget that a pan she had just taken out of the oven was still hot and burn her hand. It was physically painful to sit and watch so I slowly started offering my help with the more dangerous tasks, and eventually commandeered any culinary activity that was to scary for me to watch her perform. To her defense, that tiny little kitchen had about a foot and a half of counter space, she had the wrong types of knives, and was using her grandmothers antique cutting board that was more slippery than a freshly caught bass, so the odds were sort of stacked against her.

Holidays and birthdays became opportunities to give her the gift of safety, non-slip cutting boards, manageable knives, etc. Not a day goes by where I don't hear "oops" or hear a bonking or clattering sound multiple times, but I worry less about her losing a digit than I used to, which is nice. The other day during a particularly festive breakfast I decided that I would count the number of "oops" for the whole day. Sadly I ended with a count of four midway through breakfast before I gave up with both of us laughing extremely hard.

In Spring 2007 my girlfriend was diagnosed with Celiac Disease, an autoimmune disease that is essentially an allergy to all wheat, rye, barley, and gluten containing products. She was diagnosed after several years of gastrointestinal issues and two bouts of pancreatitis within 18 months. Considering that she is not the likely candidate for pancreatitis, one of her doctors finally realized that something else might be at work and ordered the test for Celiac Disease. We were simultaneously relieved (glad it wasn't something more serious) and confused, "what the heck is gluten?". Well gluten is in just about everything as it turns out and we've had to rethink how we do just about everything, from ingredient label reading, food storage, meal selection and preparation, it's been an interesting process, and we've had some fun along the way. She often thanks me for being willing to experiment with new foods, and try new things, and above all cook her delicious gluten free foods, but she's wonderful and deserves it. Besides, I have my stash of regular wheat bread out in the garage where she'll never find it.....