Very sorry to hear about Rylee, good that you have lots to keep you distracted at the moment and can be reassured he is in good hands.
We learnt the hard way not too long back just how useful pet insurance is, but at the time money is very secondary to getting a well loved member of the family better. I know how upsetting it can be to feel helpless in not being able to fix someone that totally depends on you, but also how the weight can lift knowing they are in the hands of those who maybe can, and can either way keep them comfortable with pain meds while trying.
Hopefully any family tears can be mixed with smiles from memories of all the daft/ adorable things he's got up to so far over the years.
Now I'd better stop typing before I bring too many tears to my eyes.

Ran across this video Mr. K, thought it might interest you.
P-47 Thunderbolt

Hi Mr K,

I've just caught up with your blog and I've a feeling from what you've written about Ryelee that you had to make a hard decison at the vets and he is now no longer with you.

I am so sorry if this is the case. Like ND, I still cry when I think about my beloved dog Sweep who we had to say goodbye to around 20 months ago.

I'm sending you a virtual cuddle over the airwaves.

Echoing NDCowdy, remember the good things. Ryelee had a good life and a lifelong friend in you. I don't know about labradoodles but 9 years is a good age for a labrador.

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Welcome back, Mr. K. I hope you had a marvelous time at the opera and with your family. Please tell us all about it.


edit: I have no idea what I did but I now have the Texas flag on my monitor as a background.

Thanks everybody, I do need friends for times like this.

Ryelee was a very sick boy, and he had been sick for a long time, he just didn't show it. By the time he was seen by the Vet at the Specialty Vet Hospital, it was too late to do much.

He acted fine, until mid January, I took him in to the Vet, and the 1st Vet, like me, thought it was his leg or hip, and prescribed some ant-inflammatory medicine. He stopped eating most of the time, and he got worse, and after a few more days, He was looking sicker, not better, and I took him back to the Vet, and a different Dr, saw him and she saw some new symptoms and she did a Blood Work-up, and found that his Potassium was way too high. She sent us to the Specialty Vet. Hospital. She told me "You need to go right now.", so we went, and the Vet, and other people where very helpful and nice. They put him on IVs, with Antibiotics, and monitored his heartbeat. They also did a lot of other things to try and stabilize him, but by the middle of the next day, he was continuing to get worse. It was very difficult, but I had to decide what to do. The Vet, told me the chances where low, and even if his kidneys recovered, he would have a lot of other problems to deal with after that. She also said that for a 9 year old dog, it would be too hard to overcome the problems. So, I decided to let him go, and that is extremely hard to do, and it was the right thing to do, but it was hard.

I am fine now, and in the next Post, I will tell Y'all about my Weekend. It was much better than the few days before.

Your Friend in Texas

Hi Nakia, and A'll Yall!

Well we went to Waco Saturday, to see Katie sing in her 1st Opera!

The Drive to Waco was uneventful for the 1st hour or so...
We stopped to fill the gas tank, and soon after that the Engine Light came on. That will make you pay attention to everything you can feel and hear. I stopped in a parking lot to check the oil and other levels, everything looked good, The day before, I had had the oil changed, and the fuel system cleaned, so I was thinking it may have fowled the Catalytic Converter, or the Gas-cap was goofed, so we went on to Waco. But soon after that the Traction Control System light came on, weird, but I can drive with that, as long as the road is dry, no big deal. But not long after that the Transmission started acting up. Well I was really aware of every bit of info I was getting from the sound and feel of everything now. Being basically in the middle of nowhere, I decided to continue on the trip. We made it without any other trouble, just the Transmission not shifting smoothly, and the Engine and TCS lights on. The temperature gauge was steady and in the same spot as always, so I was not too worried about it. The Engine was running smooth, and as long as I was very smooth on the throttle, the transmission was OK. So everything was acceptable. We had a good time with Kim and her Husband Casey, and with Katie, and the Opera was great.

I drove gently in Waco, and on the way home, so we made it back without any more trouble. Today I took the Van to the shop that had done the work Friday, and they put it on their diagnostic machine, it indicated that the Catalytic Converter was over range for something. After 130,000 miles, it may finally be time to replace it, it's expensive, about $900. I will give it 2 or 3 more tanks of gas to see if it clears up. I have seen this before, and if you change the Catalytic Converter every time it gets fouled, you would spend a lot of money unnecessarily. There was another thing on the diagnostic machine, the Torque Converter had an open circuit, that just means that it has a problem, so I will need to take it to a Transmission Shop, to check on it. Too bad I don't have much money, I think it is about time to buy a new Van, that would make all this go away, but the payments would be worse, maybe. I had to have this Transmission rebuilt some time back, and it may be under warranty, so I may get it fixed without as much cost as before, maybe. Or possibly the Torque Converter will not be too expensive to have fixed, maybe.

OK, wile we where in Waco we did see the Opera, and it was very sad and very well done. "Dialogues of the Carmelites" by Francis Poulenc is about the Carmelite Convent, and the events there that happened during the French Revolution. Look it up, lots of info about this Opera. Interesting Sad but True story.

Katie made the Baylor Opera program this year, and she did not have a major roll, but she was on stage a lot. She did sing, but she did not have a solo piece of her own. She was Sister Martha, in real life this Nun died by the Guillotine, with all the other Sisters. There will be another Opera or some Operatic opportunity next Fall, and I bet she will get a better part. Next Spring will be another full Opera, and by then she will have more influence on how things go. Most of the Major rolls go to Graduate Students, and she has more talent than most of them, so we will see how it works out. Katie has made it a point to make it clear, that she will Sing in Opera, and she has not wavered from that goal since 6th grade.

More Tomorrow...

Your Friend in Texas

Glad to hear you had a good trip even if the journey was a bit dicey due to the car having transmission issues. Hopefully you're right and a few tanks of gas will clear the problem.

Katie sounds very determined as well as talented. I'm sure she'll achieve any goal she decides upon.

Hi Sue;

The Catalytic Converter is a device required by the EPA, and is part of the exhaust system, it is needed to reduce the CO, NOx, and VOCs. It can be effected by contaminants in the Fuel, or worn Valve Guides that leak oil into the combustion chamber. Sometimes the engine light will come on indicating a problem with it, but usually running it for a few hundred miles, will burn out most contaminates. Usually the Catalytic Converter will last the life of the car, but 135,000 miles is a lot of miles, so I may have to replace it. A bad Catalytic Converter will lower your gas mileage, and let more pollutants through.

The Torque Converter Is the device between the Engine and an Automatic Transmission, and it is normally very reliable, and will last longer than the car. But sometimes it will fail and if it quits, it will have to be replaced. I could replace it myself, and save a lot of money, but I will probably take it to a Transmission shop, and let them do this job. Soon.

Mr. K

Testing, can you see this cool animation? I can.

It is from an explanation of von Karman Vortices. Read all about it, interesting.
Link: http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/education-and-outreach/additional/science-focus/ocean-color/science_focus.shtml/vonKarman_vortices.shtml

Your Friend in Texas

Back in the days when I smoked inside, I used to see that regularly - now I can put a name to the phenomenon

Hi Wet;

Yep, just about everything can be modeled with Math, and displayed on computers.

OK, Everybody;

I saw a local Super Bowl Commercial for a grocery store chain that is very big in Texas, HEB. Watch it to get a better idea of what we ain't here in Texas.



Your Friend in Texas

Mr. K,
Y'all don't ride horses, wear ten gallon hats etc? I don't believe it. Texas men are all over six feet tall, the woman can knock quarter out of a tree a half mile away with a bull whip and, well just and.

Y'all are bigger than life and have close ties to my birth state. Naturally you are legend.

Good commercial.

Say it aint so Mr K. As I only believe what various media say, now I don't know what to think about texans. I'm with Nakia on this, it just does not compute. Wait a sec, I got it! That tv ad was taking the piss and actually meant the opposite. It's all good Nakia, this means that our commonly held ideas on texans can remain unshattered. I mean, we KNOW they wear ten gallon hats, ride horses, shoot horse thieves etc. That ad was just a funny bit of reverse psychology and should in know way change our minds. Good try Mr K, but you remain a lean and mean texas cowboy. Y'all come back now, ya hear AR.

p.s. Really sorry about your doggy. It just plain sucks to make that decision. One of my dogs is 14 this year. She is still going strong but is starting to suffer a bit of arthritis and is going blind from cataracts. Animal loving AR.

analog, you are right. Mr. K had me scared there. So thanks for straightening that out. I can sleep peacefully now.

Well I tried, Texas is full of people that moved here as adults, and they are not real Texans, some try, but most of them just don't get it.

I haven't rode a Horse in at least 35 years, There are a lot of Ranches all over Texas, even a few in Houston. The only interest in an oil well I have is through a weird family inheritance of a very small fraction of the Mineral Rites to a piece of land only 22 acres, with in walking distance to the Rio Grande River. A oil and gas developer was interested in making a Lease for the Natural Gas under this land, but I haven't heard anything about it in at least a year. Texas has some of the best Sweet Crude in the World, and there are oil fields all over Texas. I had a pair of Cowboy Boots as a kid, I got them from a cousin that had out grown them, I normally wear sandals. I never had any kind of a Cowboy Hat. In just about every town or city in Texas, there is at least one Rodeo each year, the Houston Rodeo I think is the Words largest Rodeo. It lasts for about 3 weeks. Big belt buckles are very popular here, like most States that have a lot of Ranching. Barbecue is big in Texas, and there are hundreds of BBQ joints in the Houston area, but we don't grill stakes for breakfast, Sausage. Texans love all kinds of Sports, but Football is King in Texas, Football, not that sissy game where the players run around trying to kick a round ball for an hour and a half. Real Football, the kind where we knock the other players around as hard as we can, and the ball is pointed, when it hits the ground, you never know where it will go. The Houston Dynamo is the local Pro Soccer Team, and they have won some Championships in the last few years. Texas has some of the best Universities in the US. Texas has always had new people coming here from all over the World. Texas is Home for people born just about anywhere.

Links to some Texas things:
Houston Rodeo https://www.rodeohouston.com/
Texas Football, this site is all about Football in Texas.http://www.texasfootball.com/highschool/
The NFL, Houston Texans http://www.houstontexans.com/
The local MLS Soccer Team, the Dynamo http://www.houstondynamo.com/
List, by rank, of Universities and Collages in Texas.
http://www.4icu.org/us/Texas.htm
Travel Texas site.
http://www.traveltex.com/
Diversity in Texas.
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Houston-region-is-now-the-most-diverse-in-the-U-S-3384174.php
A Teachers resource site. http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/states/texas/

Lots more info out there about Texas, Google will show you the way.

Your Friend in Texas

Real football my arse. If gridiron (or whatever you folks call it) was so good, US teams would not have to import aussie AFL players to show your teams how to kick a football! Shit stirring AR.

At least the football players are a better import than the beer.

Be Nice Nakia;
Rugby is big in Australia, and it is closer to the original American Football than today's Football. No pads, or helmets, and lots of banging heads. The energy of the hits are less, but without the protective equipment, the Aussie players have it easy when they come to play in the NFL. Fosters Beer is probably made in the US under license, to avoid the long ride in a ship, like several European Beers.

Hi AR;
Remember that the Aussie Football players, are Place Kickers, and Punters, not Linemen, or Running Backs. Also realize that Place Kickers are usually the leading scorers in Football. Beer is made in lots of places here in Texas.

Your Friend in Texas, the land of Oil, Cattle, Aerospace, Petrochemicals, and where Football is King.

Hi Mr. K,

Hope all is well with you and you are coming to grips with things. As for the beer no one is shoving it down our throats. When people from other countries complain about Starbucks and MacDonald I try to point out to them that they do not have patronize those places. Do the same thing I do don't shop there.
Business goes where the profit is. No profit they won't stay there. That's the bottom line.

The Australian is good in my opinion.

Nakia, your friend in New Jersey land of the retiree.

Hi Mr K,

I've just realised it's over a week since you posted on your blog - where are you? I'm missing reading about how life is in Texas.

Howdy All Y'all:

I have been... Let me say; not in the mood to talk to anybody.

I was expecting to get over it, but trying to ignore the rest of the World, is lonely, so I decided to KICK myself back into the crowd. So whether you want me, or not, here I am.

Anyway, I think Nakia has noticed me playing Fallout New Vegas a lot for the last 2 or 3 weeks. Steam will let you know who is playing what. If you have Steam, and you are not my Steam friend, please send me a Friend request on Steam, Mr. K281.

I had gotten board with Skyrim, so I went back and picked up where I left off in Fallout New Vegas. I was on my 2nd play through, and had just started the Old World Blues DLC, that where I was back in February of 2011. A few weeks ago, at the recommendation of... Hummm... I forget who, I got the DLCs Lonesome Road, and Gun Runners' Arsenal, as you can imagine, I have been playing a lot of New Vegas, it took me about 3 weeks of playing to get out of The Big Mountain. That was a lot of fun, and occasionally challenging. Now I am deep into the Divide, tracking Ulysses, more fun and challenges.

I am starting to think FONV is a better game than Skyrim.

I need to record some lines for a Mod Project at the Wormhole, the Secrets of Trade Mod. It will be a very good Mod, once it is finished, or at least in it's 1st version. Nakia, Sue, and a few others are recording parts for this Mod.

Your Friend in Texas

Well i just found out that the minecraft server i have been playing on, the one doombuggie(from TEG) recommended, is shutting down, though they said they would prefer to keep the site and teamspeak server running. So even though it is almost 2 am here i am not in the mood to go to sleep at the moment.

Welcome back Mr. K,

Please take some advice from one who has gone through at least some of what you are going through stay busy and in contact with those who care about you and appreciate you. I am glad to hear you are doing the Wormhole lines. That should be a really good mod or mods if they can pull it together. Lots of work for voice actors.

Nakia your worrisome friend in New Jersey.

Hi Lndf;
If the minecraft server you use is shuts down, you will lose contact with the people you play with? Maybe you could get a list of your friends before that happens and you could all move to a new minecraft server.

Hi Nakia;
Yep, Secrets of Trade should be a good Mod. "if they can pull it together."

Your Friend in Texas