Day 3558

 I woke up at 6:30, played games for a while, and then got up to feed the pets.  Then I drove over to pigeon town to wait for the bird guy (Mike) to show up.  He got there a little after 8.  He showed me the pigeon setup and then set out a bird for his dog.

His dog is very well trained.  It did a fine search and located the dog.  Then he kicked the bird up and shot it so the dog could retrieve it.  He went through the exercise 3 times.  Then he suggested that I get Abby.  I went back to the trailer and got her.

Of course Abby went wild running all over the area.  We let her run off a little steam and then Mike set out a homing pigeon.  Abby ran around for a while, found the bird, and busted it.  Or maybe she just ran close by it and it flushed.  I'm not sure which.  Either is a big failure.

After that Mike gave me the three "dead" birds to use in training Abby and left.  We went back to the trailer for a short time and then left for Hooch's place. 

Traffic wasn't too bad, although there was some slowing before and after the 205 intersection.  We stopped at Tammie's to pick up some paint and then got to Hooch's place on time.  We waited a few minutes and then went to the park.

We spent about 1.5 hours at the park.  There were a lot of active dogs there, so Rico and Abby had a lot of playmates.  They also spent a lot of time playing together.  When they got tired we went to the Mad Greek's.  Martha joined us and brought my ear plugs.

We spent almost 2 hours eating and talking.  I didn't drink anything because I'd forgotten to bring my wallet.  I didn't want to be drinking if I go stopped on the way home. 

When we left I went down 185th to 26.  That was a mistake.  Traffic was at a standstill at 158th for as far as we could see.  We got off and took Walker road to 217.  It would have been quicker to drive back to Hooch's house.

Once we were on 217 the rest of the trip was OK except for some stop and go at the Stafford exit.  When we got home I dropped off the dog, got my wallet, and we left for Best Buy.  They had a great sale going on a laptop.  The m key on my current one is dying and the touch pad hasn't worked in years due to a driver problem.

The Salem Best Buy is the only one in the area with this laptop in stock.  They had 3.  When we got there a guy was buying one of them.  I bought another.  I'm not sure if the third had been purchased yet.  In any case it was good I didn't wait until tomorrow to go buy it.

When we got home I fed the pest and started watching videos.  That turned into a nap.  I had a couple of bowls of cereal and then went to deal with the pigeons.  Two of them are alive and waling around.  They can't fly though.  I wrapped up the third one and put it in the freezer like Mike said to.  I'll probably try to use the live ones to train Abby tomorrow.

I did a video/surfing mixfor the rest of the evening.  I wasn't up to dealing with a new computer.