A strange coolness hugged the evening ground after a week of near 100º temperatures. Fireflies hung suspended above the parched grass, glowing in surreal blinks, looking for a mate to celebrate the turn of good weather. After my throw, the yellow tennis ball rolled between two trees with Rudy hard on its path. In this [...]
Our backyard lies in the shade in winter. Snow is still two feet deep back there. The slow melt of day freezes into a hockey rink every night. Icicles the size of Darth Vader’s light saber flow off the eaves of the house like crystal daggers. Some are 5 feet long. Fifteen feet of steps [...]
Rudy loves to eat a big meal, ride around in the car, listen to seasonal music and look at Christmas lights. The sparkling strings hypnotize him into a holidaze. Last night we took him for a little ride through the neighborhood. He sat wide-eyed in the backseat, front leg propped against the armrest, leaning on [...]
Rudy, our Jack Russell, has been the subject of many of my stories. Not that millions of people are reading these blogs, but he has become s bit of a celebrity amongst the dogs in our neighborhood. They hang around the front yard waiting to get a glimpse of him. Even cats have begun to [...]
I have lost my tomato war with the squirrels. I admit it. I tried to fight the good fight, but I am beat, whipped, defeated. My plants grew the size of trees, yet furry-tailed thieves stole every tomato but two runty lumps, which I ate like a cave man right off the vine while staring [...]
If you have one of these beasts, you know all about this subject. Some dogs shed more than others – pounds of hair a week. Rudy, our Jack, sheds so much he spends half of his energy just re-growing hair. We finally got a Dyson Animal. This thing is suppose to suck like Snakes On [...]
I was thinking about calling this, “How To Succeed In Business Without Being Human.” I decided, instead, to shorten it to: Being a Jack.
A Jack Russell Terrier is an MBA on four legs. An extremely successful business model is coded into the traits of a Jack. Business and Jacks are always evolving, always-adapting and usually [...]
Lightning hit the tall pine in our backyard, blowing out the bark down the side like a fat man ripping a cheap shirt. The big tree slowly died. The squirrels didn’t care. It was nothing but a ladder to them. They started caring yesterday.
RUDY JOURNAL: STARDATE APRIL 2008: Rudy, our Jack Russell, has begun to expand his menu of tricks. A few months ago, we noticed that he had added a new move to his repertoire of ball chasing. He knows words too.
We tend to attach logos to the ends of our accomplishments in branding. I’d like to look at the last 29 years, however, as experiences (plural) rather than experience (singular). There is a big difference.
I have said this for 20 years (if you have worked with me, you know it already): Every commercial should have a dog, preferably a talking dog. Bud Light knows this truth of advertising. Few branders have put as many dogs in commercials as they have (thank you DDB Chicago).
Now I have witnessed ad dog [...]
A calf is just a small cow, not much bigger than a good-sized dog, but when it hits you in the chest, running full tilt, it hurts like a kick from a pair of size-13 Tony Lamas administered by a man who knows how. Not many extra points are given for catching a 200-pound calf [...]
Ding dong, the wicked Leona Helmsley is dead. If you were a fan of hers, don’t blame me for that Oz reference, I didn’t give her the moniker “The Queen Of Mean.” I just report what I read in official news sources, and those reports are 40 miles long. I do have one request of [...]
When I was young, my grandparents had a dog that took up on the farm – a “suck-egg dog,” as my grandpaw called him. He said a suck-egg dog was a no-account bum of a beast who had to be cordoned off from the chicken house lest he gobble down all the eggs, hence the [...]
Or her worst enemy. Or her parents, grandparents, brother, sister, cousin, whatever.
Diamonds, in essence, are just carbon, squeezed by heat and pressure into a hard rock and sold for too much money to those guilted into the purchase. You and I are carbon forms. Animals are just stacks of loosely organized carbon. Diamonds are densely [...]