Maisie the Graduate

Maisie and I graduated from our Basic Obedience class on Saturday. The picture was taken by the training instructor and is a bit blurry. This was the best of four pictures taken. The others were just a blond blur.


Maisie was the most headstrong of the group, but also the youngest. She was much more interested in the other dogs so she had trouble concentrating. I think we may re-take this class in the fall.

Christmas in July

You'll notice the new banner on the right. The Spring Fling, as you'll recall, was cancelled because of a fire at the datacenter where Nancy has her servers. So, our Spring Fling has now become Christmas in July. Nancy is still working to update all the pages, but clicking on the banner will take you to the site with updated information.

New dates are Thursday through Sunday, July 24-27, 2008.

I can't help it. . .

Joseph hates it when I make him the subject of my blog, but I'm very proud of him and I just have to share his good news.


He's flying to Chicago tomorrow to accept the Johnson Prize for the Master of Arts Program in the Social Sciences during the Spring Convocation on Friday at the University of Chicago. Joseph was a graduate of MAPPS with the Class of 2007.

The Earl S. and Esther Johnson Prize is awarded annually to that student in the Master of Arts Program in the Social Sciences whose paper best combines high scholarly achievement with concern for humanistic aspirations and the practical applications of the Social Sciences.

The $1,000 Prize was established in the memory of the founder and long-time director of the Program. It is awarded in the spring of each year to the writer of an M.A. paper submitted the preceding academic year. Papers that meet the prize criteria and earn a grade of A are automatically considered.

Thanks for letting me share the news; we're just so proud of him.

Maisie Update

Maisie is five months old now and growing so fast. She's very independent and head-strong and we all look pretty silly chasing her around the yard because she won't come to us. To her, it seems like playtime.

She's so different than our other Scotties, none of whom had formal training, but they learned all the words quickly and obeyed. Maisie and I attended our second obedience class last Saturday, along with 6 other dogs. We were both exhausted after more than an hour of our training. She was twisting around, whining, pulling on her leash, and rolling on the floor while the other dogs just sat there looking at her. And you should have seen the way the other parents were looking at me! She is the youngest of the group so that's our excuse.

We have "sit" down perfectly, but we don't "stay" or "down" or "come." More practice time is needed this week.

Maisie loves the water and she can make a terrible mess when the sprinklers are on. These pictures show her after the fun and after Joseph and I caught her.

Spring Fling Update

The fire at the datacenter in Houston, Texas, took down 9,000 servers and affected more than 100,000 websites. Our site was up in about five days; however, the work continues. Over the next several weeks as the datacenter gets all servers up and running, there will be planned outages lasting as long as 4 to 6 hours at a time. In order to ensure that our show would not be affected by these planned maintenance outages, the show has been moved to Thursday through Sunday, July 24-27, 2008.

Since Spring will be long gone by July, Nancy will be changing the theme of the show as well as all of the artists' booths. This will take her some time but as soon as she gives the okay for previewing, I will post the link here. I will keep you updated as I receive more information.

Oh No!

The dates of our Spring Fling are being postponed. The dedicated server holds Nancy's sites as well as mine. There was a huge fire in the building last week and the site was off-line for several days. You can read about the fire if you're interested. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/01/the_planet_houston_data_center_fire/

It's only a postponement and as soon as I have the new dates, I'll let you know.

At least my bears are done!

Mostly ready for Spring Fling. . .

My photos and descriptions have been submitted, Nancy's busy working on the artist "booths," and everyone is getting anxious for the conference and show. Nancy gave me a sneak peek at my "booth" and I can't tell you how excited I was seeing my bears as part of this event.

I hope you'll take a look at the show because in addition to "new and aspiring" artists, like me, there are many professional and master artists participating and their work is amazing and an inspiration to new artists.

I want to especially thank Kiki and Ron of Kiki Haynes Photography, La Quinta, California, for their hard work in getting my photos before the deadline. I very much appreciate their "above and beyond" efforts on my behalf.