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Archive for July, 2018

Identity comes crawling-slow.41fzQdFUfSL._SS300_

It took us years to figure out the gene pool of our lunacy-to-therapy-dog rescue animal, the pride of two Pennsylvania nursing homes and favorite doggie of children on two continents. Then, one unsuspecting Saturday afternoon, Mr Google and YouTube made it all crystal clear in the space of about 13 minutes: Rhea is a Whipador!

The undeniably Labrador Retriever characteristics blend effortlessly with the elegantly curved back half, the madly playful figure-eight runs round yard and house and municipal park, the thin rather than broad face. We would have loved Rhea no matter who her parents are, but now we are 99% sure she is half Labbie and half Whippet.

So we bought this cup.

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41TXbEhIqkL._SS300_Until recently, the job for which these Dog Waste Bags are designed required a shovel in our expansive Indiana back yard or a slight detour into nature off a Pennsylvania country lane. Now, however, our Whipador faces down the requirements of nature in a small side yard on an urban campus in Colombia. To complicate matters only slightly, much larger guard dogs that prowl our campus at night appear to have developed a predilection for our yard as their latrine. As I noted, they are large. My short morning stroll becomes too often a moment of discovery.

Enter these dog waste bags with their ingenious little leash-borne dispenser. They come tightly wound into rolls, fit nicely in a pocket when the leash and its dispenser are not in action, and in general help me adjust to my newfound intimacy with dog poop in the least shattering way possible. Honestly, I hardly mind the task any more.

When were these invented? What did we do before that? I shudder to think on it.

Fantastic product.

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When it came to the hard decision to take our beloved Whipador with us on our move 413wKZdIjdL._SS300_from the USA to Colombia, here’s what we needed from the GITTIN’ THIS DONE department:

  • the ability to order the right-sized crate, not too big, not too small, without having to run from one pet store to the next to eyeball things.
  • the assurance that the produce would meet all airline and government-agency requirements.
  • solid construction at a not-exorbitant price.

Rhea and her family are now happily ensconced in Colombia and the trip is a distant memory. All went well, in part because this product made its part of the complex journey both simple and predictable.

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A great product, snagged at last minute on Amazon as we were making final prep for a 51Q7yRwiPHL._SS300_multi-old-suitcase move of personal effects and their owners from the USA to Colombia. I wasn’t sure if some of the old bags would stand the stress of our over-packing. These well-made luggage straps added an extra layer of assurance and their bright colors made our bags double easy to identify at the baggage carousel upon arrival. Another inexpensive little product that makes AmazonPrime a godsend for last-minute needs as circumstances throw them across one’s path.

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Wonderful little product here. I love the predictability and economy of it. We bought31t-3k4TzBL these as an add-on level of protection as we were moving a beloved dog overseas in a dog crate on a Colombian airliner. Easy to get, easy to use, easy to remove. Great value.

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41uM1wjugdL._SS300_I consider this a strong-value product. I ordered it and will use it for a narrow purpose rather than as an every-day winter hat against business-casual and higher dress requirements.

I live for most of the year in a warm, South American, climate. I tend to make a handful of business visits to North American locations when it’s winter in those places. For this reason, I need a suitcase-resilient, economical, neutral cap for my large, bald head. The 9th Street Seville British Dome Ascot gives me what I need.

For comfort reasons, I would probably opt to pay a little more and acquire a more comfortable head-capper if I were spending lots of time in winter climates and this were an every-day part of my uniform.

But for my purposes, this product represents strong value.

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Sitting outside our home in Medellín, Colombia as I finish this long Robert Ludlum trilogy, two thoughts ‘just pop into my head’. This description of jocose randomness is the standard family dialect when I ask my wife after a particularly good recipe has made its mark on an evening around the table, ‘How did you come up with that?’

‘It just popped into my head.’

So, far from the kitchen, here goes:

First, the next Bourne book and/or movie needs to be set in Colombia. Our own northern 51O3lPCHlEL._SS300_Andean city—with its steep valley walls, its exotic potpourri of neighborhoods and its innovative deployment of cable cars and escalators as public transportation to and from the sprawling city sectors that cover both sides of the mile-high Valley of Aburrá—makes the perfect setting for, say, the first seven chapters of Bourne IV. Then the action could move on to seaside Cartagena, with its walled jewel of a city left to us by the Spaniards in unintended payment for the gold they stole. From these promising beginnings, we have an abundant portfolio of other eye-catching sites for the location manager to scout. Since Robert Ludlum left us in 2001, this will require that some studied disciple become struck with Ludlum’s conspiratorial madness and pick up the late imaginer’s pen. (more…)

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