![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bikes, dogs, blue screens
Aug. 25th, 2007 04:40 pmToday was the Blazing Saddles Century, a ride I've done a number of times over the years, most recently two years ago. Given the heat and the fact that I haven't been biking much this year, I might have skipped it, but I promised ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tcb that I'd be there, and I'm generally game for a challenge, so I did. At the last minute, I decided to take the 20 year old Raleigh rather than the 5 year old Bianchi. They're both good bikes, both kind of curmudgeonly, like me.
It was pretty good up to the lunch stop at mile 47, but I never my groove back, so I split off to do the metric century. It kind of felt like quitting (although it was still 17 miles back to the finish from the decision point), but I really didn't have it in me to go another 40 miles.
Funny thing about timing. As soon as I got home, I was greeted with a veterinary emergency. Josie (13½ year old greyhound) had collapsed in the back yard, couldn't even lift her head, and was panting fast and hard with her tongue all the way out of her mouth, even after being hosed down. Word from the vet - rubbing alcohol to the foot pads and groin area to help her cool down faster. By the time we got her to the vet, she could lift her head, and had retracted the tongue a bit. EKG, chest X-rays, blood work, oxygen, subcutaneous fluids, IV fluids, and the diagnosis is...heat stroke and dehydration. Still, they're keeping her overnight, because she's still not breathing normally without oxygen, and can't sit up, much less walk.
In other news, I picked up a new hard drive for the laptop, hoping to clone it for a minimum of fuss, but I appear to have waited too long - it won't stay up long enough to do anything meaningful, and often doesn't come up at all. I've got full backups of all my personal data and projects, but I never bothered to back up the programs. I can reinstall all the programs on the new disk, but that's a pain, and I can't get things like the corporate VPN client until at least Monday. We're at a crunch time, and it would have been handy to get some work done this weekend, but I don't feel like driving up to Nashua to spend time in the office on the weekend.
tcb that I'd be there, and I'm generally game for a challenge, so I did. At the last minute, I decided to take the 20 year old Raleigh rather than the 5 year old Bianchi. They're both good bikes, both kind of curmudgeonly, like me.It was pretty good up to the lunch stop at mile 47, but I never my groove back, so I split off to do the metric century. It kind of felt like quitting (although it was still 17 miles back to the finish from the decision point), but I really didn't have it in me to go another 40 miles.
Funny thing about timing. As soon as I got home, I was greeted with a veterinary emergency. Josie (13½ year old greyhound) had collapsed in the back yard, couldn't even lift her head, and was panting fast and hard with her tongue all the way out of her mouth, even after being hosed down. Word from the vet - rubbing alcohol to the foot pads and groin area to help her cool down faster. By the time we got her to the vet, she could lift her head, and had retracted the tongue a bit. EKG, chest X-rays, blood work, oxygen, subcutaneous fluids, IV fluids, and the diagnosis is...heat stroke and dehydration. Still, they're keeping her overnight, because she's still not breathing normally without oxygen, and can't sit up, much less walk.
In other news, I picked up a new hard drive for the laptop, hoping to clone it for a minimum of fuss, but I appear to have waited too long - it won't stay up long enough to do anything meaningful, and often doesn't come up at all. I've got full backups of all my personal data and projects, but I never bothered to back up the programs. I can reinstall all the programs on the new disk, but that's a pain, and I can't get things like the corporate VPN client until at least Monday. We're at a crunch time, and it would have been handy to get some work done this weekend, but I don't feel like driving up to Nashua to spend time in the office on the weekend.
