Matt Lichtenwalner

Mobile mapper for Ushr - roaming the US and Canada constantly. Maybe a bit of art and/or writing here and there to spice things up.

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Sadly, I don't remember much of my dream last night, but I do recall a single scene. I was in someone's house, and there were at least two other people there. I don't think any of us were the owners / renters of the place.

One of the people had to leave but they were terrified of the massive bulldog that lived in the house. So, I approached the animal and coaxed it onto its back for belly rubs. The person who had to leave did so slowly and cautiously, and the dog occassionally gave them the side eye, but overall was happy to have me rubbing its belly.

A fairly unimportant moment of a fairly unimportant dream, but I found it interesting because [warning - potential GoT spoilers for Season 6 ahead] I just watched the episode where one character unshackles two dragons. They did the scene well, and the body language for the dragons is really fantastic. The creators of GoT have done a fantastic job of getting across "wild but very intelligent creature". So much so that I found myself watching for 'tells' in the body language of the creatures as they were being unshackled.

Clearly, the scene had an impact on me because my dream was all about understanding the body language of the bulldog since I only knew them peripherally. 

ETA: Also, this is fantastic.

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9/1 '18 8 Comments
I think you've probably been spending your entire life unconsciously looking for tells from dogs. I mean that in a good way. Maybe the dream was a "yes you were right"confirmation that your sense that GoT got it right was right.

Right?
Sounds about right.

Funny thing is that dog tells are much like dragon tells which are much like human tells. :)
I seem to recall an X-Files episode about human tells and Luke Skywalker, but I might have got that wrong somewhere.
OH. OH. OH. I know exactly what you mean. It was an alien who disguised himself as different humans, and once it disguised itself as Luke Skywalker.
Never watched the X-Files. At least not in any real way. Maybe an episode way back in the past or something.

But you can bet I would watch the hell out of that episode.
 

Okay, I have a canine problem.

You all know that I love dogs way more than most humans probably should. It's kinda a thing. And it's fun or even cute most of the time, but...

Well, we've all had that experience where we're traveling and we see someone that we're just sure is Soandso from Suchandsuch. Only it's not. It's just someone who resembles that person. And they look enough like that person that you immediately felt a kind of bond with them (or animosity depending on how you feel about Miss or Mr. Soandso).

Well, I recently saw a tweet by Cherie Priest about an opinion her dog was displaying with their face.

I felt an immediate bond with the dog.

From a tweet.

Because (I eventually realized) it's features are a bit of an amalgam of several dogs I've known and been fond of over the years.

Yeah. I have a problem.

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7/31 '18 21 Comments
I am convinced that I have seen every Delaware license plate before. This is funny but it's not a joke. I really do think this. I know it's irrational because I can't have seen all 50.
What about the black ones?
There are some good images.google.com results available to round out the collection. (I had no idea that there were 50!)
omg. Watching his eyes dart back and forth from side to side while his head remained 'motionless'. Such a good derg!
Well, once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away (so, like, high school), I had a boyfriend who had a mom who had a cat who looked EXACTLY like Ernest Borgnine, I mean, it's like they were TWINS, and now I can't see Ernest Borgnine (not that I see him all that often, hardly ever, actually) without seeing that cat.
Re: “once upon a time... so, like high school” = you just made big points, for the record.

Re: cat like Ernest Borgnine - I could absolutely see that. :)
Wow, I remember Cherie and Aric from... 15(?) years ago. I've missed so much, apparently.
In truth, I haven't seen / read anything from her since the LJ days. I think Lindsay and someone else liked the tweet, which apparently was enough to bring it to my feed.

...which is a long way to say "me too".
Yeah, I retweeted the tweet because I follow instructions.

They moved from Chattanooga, TN to Seattle, her books became popular, she was Seattle's reigning Queen of Steampunk (she didn't like that title), then they wanted to buy a house so they moved back to Chattanooga, then things changed with Aric's job again, so now they're back in Seattle.
For what it's worth:
her books became popular enough that she has to protect herself from stalkers. so she is hard to get in touch with. BUT, someone with a name very similar to hers is a Jarnsaxa Rising supporter.
I did see what I thought was her name on the supporter page. (Oh yes, I really did stalk your website when you put it up. It was a fun night.)

I figured she got notoriety and thus less approachable, and I was not close enough to keep up a regular chat relationship with her, so it's nice to hear about them!
Here is a story you may appreciate.
When we did the Indiegogo campaign, our original budget was $3K. We needed $70 to hit $1K before the campaign ended, with something like 48 hours to go. Cherie has over 20K Twitter followers. Jill got Rodney Anonymous to tweet about it. I sent Cherie an email asking her to tweet about it. I said it was because we were so close to $1K, I wouldn’t ask her otherwise, etc. I begged in as dignified a manner as I could. By then, I didn’t care about making $3K, but if we made $1K, I could pay each actor $50 (instead of the $200 each that’s the going rate for this kind of work). She said, in a very nice way, “I get asked to tweet about this kind of thing literally all the time, and I have a general policy of saying no, because if you say yes once, you have to say it for everyone, BUT, in your case, it’s a horse of a different color.”
She tweeted in support of the podcast and the campaign
AND
donated the last $70.
BOOM.
I had no reason to dislike her previously, but she just made beaucoup points in my book.
You are correct, I really appreciated that story. :)
Heh. Shame. I should have looked them up while I was out there. Not that she would have any idea who _I_ am, but still.
Same. Too far removed, but LJ gave us all that sense of knowing each other, so I miss them but don't really know them. It's such an odd feeling.
Right? I feel that a little here on OPW, but it's a significantly smaller crowd. I do have folks who I haven't met IRL here, but LJ seemed to distort things for me. I'm betting some of it had to do with the age I was when I was using it...

Which is to say "Probably wouldn't be as big a deal now since I'm an old bastard."
Dogs are never the problem. Unless you are a hot dog or a cookie.
True statement(s)!
 

The company car's transmission blew up. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but "it stopped working" isn't very sexy.

The shop says it should be fixed by late Wednesday / early Thursday.

Sucks that I'll be out of work most of the week, but it could be much, much worse.

That brings us to today. I'm actually kinda happy to be vehicle-less. When I'm done with work for the day, or on my days off, I try to leave the car parked and walk everywhere anyway, so this isn't terribly new territory. I try to pick hotels that are within walkable distance of 'stuff' thanks to my 'leave it parked' policy.

Today's walk via Google Maps:

After the park, and before returning to the hotel, I was walking through a residential area. About a block away from me (I was on 76th - a very busy road) I saw a dog running loose through the neighborhood. I stopped and watched him for a few minutes. He seemed very healthy, and I was pretty sure I could see a collar on him. When I saw him trying to (I assumed) re-enter a fenced in yard, I made my decision to try to help him out.

Clearly, he hated me.

He was absolutely charming. Still clearly a pup (though not a baby) he was youthful, but not wild/crazy. Once he'd decided that I wasn't going to hurt him, he cozied up to me and didn't leave my side more than for a second when he got excited.

I made some calls and someone came out to pick him up. Thankfully (?) they explained some bureaucratic bullshit about how I was technically over the county line and he had no jurisdiction and... yadda yadda.

He did do something mildly useful by giving me a leash for the pup which was little more than a rope lasso. He then went back to his truck to get the phone number of the folks I would have to call. They would have been my third shelter (SPCA, the local shelter, and then his recommendation.)

But while he was digging up the number, the owners of the house (that the pup was trying to re-enter) came out and claimed the dog.

I'd only spent between 1/2 hour and an hour with the dog, and I sincerely had a hard time giving him up. Maybe my idea of volunteering at a shelter isn't such a great idea.

Lastly - a quick video. (Sorry for the vertical video - in my defense, I was playing with a derrrrrrrrg.)

ETA: in the video I say “Owasso Texas”  which is something I kept doing over and over again, and I have no idea why. I was actually in Owasso Oklahoma. 

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11/28 '17 11 Comments
Sweet adventure!
It was indeed. Need more of those.
DEEEERRRRRGGGGGG!!!! *explodey heart*
Exactly right. :)
Dying of The Cute.
Right? He was really adorable.
WHOOZA DOG? WHOOZA GUD DAWGI? WHO IZ? WHOOZA GUD DAWG?
HE SO WUZ ALL CAPS!
Did you ever find out what his name was?
Because you're the DERG WHISPERER. What a cute derrrrg!
He was SO GUD!