It Was Like a Fairy Tale Come True

SUMMARY: ...except the magic was the power of space flight and each hero's success was in coming back alive.

When I was born, no manmade object--let alone a human--had ever gone up into space. It wasn't until I was nearly two that the first satellite, Russia's Sputnik, woke the world to the realization that we had crossed a threshold: Before, we were a species locked to the ground, to a single planet, with the universe beyond our thin layer of atmosphere forbidden to us. And then, now, we stepped into a reality in which Infinity and Beyond were suddenly within our reach.

(Telstar was about the size of one of those inflatable exercise balls--34 inches across. Wikipedia photo source.)

My first recollections of our conquest of The Darkness Beyond were twofold: First, standing in the darkened driveway of our apartment complex with my parents and the neighbors, standing, eager, waiting, eyes heavenward, straining to see the tiny speck of light of Telstar on its scheduled pass across the heavens. I was six, and I knew from the excitement around me that something magical had happened.

(Wikipedia photo source.)
And, second, we knew all about the Mercury capsules, tiny tin cans barely big enough for a human, barely popping into space and dropping back to the sea, whence they were plucked by helicopter from the waters and deposited on the deck of a military vessel nearby. These were always suspenseful--would they burn up on reentry? Would they find that tiny speck in the ocean? The first American into space reached that goal for a mere 15 minutes the year I turned 5. Nine months later, the first American ever--and almost the first human ever--orbited Earth...a mere 3 times over a four-hour period. We must have seen these on TV (we had a TV in our house by then), because when my parents gifted me with a tiny plastic Mercury space capsule and bright orange helicopter with a skyhook dangling from a string, I knew all about how they were used. I loved that toy.(Wikimedia image source.)

This was my world as a child: Space travel was a miracle and our first steps into space were tiny, halting, fragile, risky things.

We watched every rocket launch on TV--and every one played out on TV for hours, broadcast live. We watched the countdown-- "T minus two hours and counting" said the man in the background--and sometimes you could see activity on the ground or watch the astronaut (with Gemini, two astronauts; with Apollo, finally, three) make his way into the tiny capsule. "T minus 10 seconds...9...8...7..." and I'd feel my heart rise with the rocket as it ponderously rose, ever so slowly, amazingly slowly for the tremendous power and fury of the fires and smoke erupting from its base, finally, magically, into the air, and the cameras watched it, the light of its rocket flickering, flickering, growing ever smaller, until it was out of sight.

A miracle. Every flight had simulations broadcast so that you could see what the rocket stages were doing as they separated, how the capsule maneuvered in space. And then, always at the end, that terrifying, burning, racing plunge into the sea, with no control; they dropped from orbit and fell, a flaming stone, through the atmosphere to the water below.

Forty years ago today--I was thirteen--men walked on the moon. Everyone talked about it. Everyone watched the broadcasts coming back live--Live!--from another planet. Astounding, just...astounding. The solar system now seemed within our reach, it felt like there was nowhere we couldn't go, places we couldn't explore, resources we couldn't find: Now--we could do it all! And yet, for all that we could land on the moon under control, and leave its surface again, back home to Earth and there was still that uncontrolled plummet to the vast, cold sea. (Wikipedia image source.)

I was fully an adult--out of college, married, owned my first home and then my second, before that changed. We watched the launch of the first space shuttle on TV, all of us, waiting to see whether it would even fly. And then, two days later, the suspenseful time as it descended from orbit back through the atmosphere and those dreadful minutes of silence where communication was impossible--

And, by all the Gods, it came through! We might have cheered when we heard the astronaut's voices as radio contact was reestablished. And then we waited with bated breath, begging silently, fists clenched, waiting to see whether it was possible for it to actually land again, under control, on the ground, safely and predictably. Then Lo!, it did! And I cried from the joy of it.

(Wikipedia photo source)

Not long after that, as we who remembered how it had been sat around the TV for yet another blast-off, still as astounding as it had always been, my youngest sister (9 years younger), wandered into the living room, said, "Oh, another rocket launch," and wandered out again. And that was the first I truly realized that the magic of it all was lost to those who hadn't grown up with it, for whom space flight was a matter of fact, shuttles landing under a pilot's control an everyday occurrence.

I hope that, within my lifetime, we will find the magic again and find our way out to our moon, our neighboring planets, and their moons. Because it seems so sad that we should be imprisoned here, on a single planet, our little castle with nowhere to go if it should burn, when we have had the magic in our hands and shown that we could use it. I hope.

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Walking Into A Big Hole In The Ground

SUMMARY: I can do it; really I can.

I have this list. I've had this list for many, many years. It's all the things I want to do or see before I go on to the great parking lot in the sky. Oops, dang, now there's a movie about it, and this kind of list actually has a name, and it's called a "Bucket List." (Things to do before you kick the bucket.) Who knew?

"Hike into the Grand Canyon" is one of the list items. (I have always assumed that Hike Out Of The Grand Canyon is also on the list, but I suppose that's icing on the cake. There's always horses. At $150 a ride.)

Last fall, a friend an I actually made reservations for this coming May at the lodge at Havasu Falls. It's just a little wee hop of a hike. Don't let the bright red "Strenuous!" label on the page fool you. What's 10 miles, anyway? 19 miles of it straight down the side of a cliff and and 35 along the bottom of a never-ending canyon, but really, it's nothing.

If I only were walking 1-1.5 miles daily as I did for so many years until my knee crapped out on me last year and then I also lost Jake, who was a good dog for walking with, and left me with TIKA THE WALKHOUND FROM HADES. Here you see how much fun we're both having while I try to photograph flowers on a little stroll down the path along the local river, which has a vertical change of elevation of about 0.3 inches on a bad day. You should see how much more fun we both have when another dog walks by within 35 miles.

She will not be going to Havasu Falls with us.

But I also made this ToDoList back before I owned any kind of camera except the sort that you stick in your pocket and it's fine until you actually want to take a picture. Like, say, of an Ovis canadensis nelsoni at a quarter of a mile and you wish you had a real telephoto lens.

But now I have multitudes of SLR cameras (approximately two) with hundreds of lenses to complement them (at least 3, certainly less than 4). And as you can see, taking photos as I hike (or as I do just about anything, for that matter) is just as important as actually DOING the thing. Maybe moreso. Sorting them afterwards? Well, sort of liking walking out of the canyon, that's also icing on the cake--the point is that I TOOK the photos. Right? Am I right?

So not only do I have to get myself and 3 days of water and clothing down into the canyon, plus lunch (and sunscreen), I have to carry 40 pounds of camera equipment or I will feel NAKED. (Although I guess I probably don't need to take all two tripods.)

Anyway, the point is, I'm trying to get out and walk a whole lot more to get in shape for this lifetime dream, and I'm not doing it really well, (although perhaps better than I have for a while), and my excuse is always, "because the dogs need the exercise and stimulation as much as I do, but I can't deal with Tika today, so I guess I'll sit at home instead."

And, oh, by the way, on this list (which takes up several pages), the only mention of dogs is one question buried at the end under "miscellaneous," which is: "Where do dogs fit into all this?" You might guess that this was before Remington, Jake, Tika, Boost, and dog agility in general. Back when I wasn't sure whether dogs fit into it anywhere. Look at me now. Who knew?

(P.S. Thanks, Steph, for the photo. Note the stylish backwards baseball cap. I wear it to keep the sun out of my eyes. But pressing a camera against my face works just about as well and it would bump against the front of the cap, so my official photographer cap is backwards.)

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The Other Big Thing

SUMMARY: Tika brings home some USDAA placement ribbons, a rarity.

Way, way back in the ages dark, our instructor at the time (Rachel) suggested that we should all have goals for our agility that we reevaluate at the beginning of every year, along the lines of "qualify for the nationals in all three events" or "lick that dogwalk up contact problem for good". My stated goal was for Tika to "Take 1st regularly at USDAA trials among the usual gang of suspects."

That was a long time ago.

We hardly ever place in the top 4 in USDAA events. In fact--for those of you who just love the fact that I have a database where I can pull this info out in half a minute--in Tika's 179 Masters runs through last weekend, Tika has places in the top four for placement ribbons exactly 11 times:

• Two 2nds (her previous two Super-Qs)
• Five 3rds (2 gamblers, 2 standards, 1 jumper; 4 at trials with fewer than 20 dogs)
• Four 4ths (3 at trials with fewer than 20 dogs; 2 jumpers, 1 snooker, 1 standard)

We've never placed first in Masters. Never.

On Saturday, as the day drew to a close, it sank in that, not only had Tika earned her ADCH, but she had placed in three separate classes: 4th in pairs (and that's with an unknown 5-point fault; both I and my partner thought we were clean), and 3rd in both Standard and Snooker, all Qs. In one day, we had increased our lifetime number of Masters placements by over 25%.

It gave me an added cheery glow to the edges of the ADCH, but at the same time I couldn't help but note that there were still only between 20 and 24 dogs in our height class (our average Masters competition size over all this time is over 27 dogs, so this was a smallish trial this weekend), and even with the smaller number, we haven't managed to break the First Place Barrier.

This is in strong contrast to CPE trials, where it's unusual for Tika to NOT place first. As you might know if you've read some of my CPE posts, it is furthermore commonplace for Tika to have the fastest time or the highest number of points over *all* dogs competing on the same course, not just her own height class. I'm always a little disappointed when we can't pull off three or four of those in one CPE weekend. (It's just like, at at the CPE nationals, Tika takes 1st in most of her classes, 2nd in another, takes high in trial in Standard, and so on--but at the USDAA nationals I'm climbing all over myself with ecstasy when we place 10th or 11th in our height in even one event, let alone make it to the final round and place 22nd there over all heights in another event.) And there you have, in a nutshell, the difference in the competition between CPE and USDAA.

Sunday morning we started with Gamblers. Saturday's gamble was disappointing: Somehow in our opening sequence, Tika turned around on top of the Aframe and went back down the same side, negating a whole ton of points (and it wasn't a rear cross, either), and furthermore followed that by negating the gamble by taking a 2nd gamble obstacle in a row while I was trying to put on the skids and get back to her, so although she did the gamble flawlessly, we had very low opening points and no Q to show for it. So back to Sunday. Despite Saturday, Tika has lately proven to be a very good gamblin' dog, so there's been no stress, just fun for us.


The course presented lots of options in the opening, which meant that a clever course could possibly beat faster dogs whose handlers didn't think of that particular option. I like that, because sometimes I can come up with clever courses. And the gamble itself looked challenging and yet like one that I thought Tika and I had a good chance at while everyone else would crap out. I like that, too. (Being basically competitive.)

However, when we were told to clear the course, I hadn't come up with a course that I liked. My thought was jump, weaves, jump, tire, back through the tire, teeter, Aframe, jump, weaves, jump, teeter, aframe. But I wasn't thrilled with the back-to-back tire because Tika would be blasting at it after a wide-open run and it would be hard to make a tight turn; we had left the chute entirely undone, wasting a perfectly fine set of points; and I thought we'd have extra time left that we'd have to waste doing figure 8s on the two jumps this on this side of the Aframe while waiting for the gamble whistle.

I tried figuring out how to fit in weaves-chute-weaves-chute because it looked like a nice fast simple loop, and also teeter-tire-teeter-tire made a nice loop, but I couldn't manage to work them all in and also get two Aframes and still end up near the approach to the 1-2 instead of stuck in the back corner behind the aframe, teeter, and chute.

I chatted with our classmate, Ashley, who's always a good one for aggressive courses because he's regularly blowing everyone's socks off with his runs with Luka, so he always has lots of obstacles and covers lots of ground, plus he's in 16" so in no way in direct competition with us. (Although most friends will share their courses--even for super-Qs--it always feels weird to me to ask someone for ideas when you're both hoping for placements.)

He started with the jump-Aframe and went out to the tire, which I hadn't even thought of, duh-- Hence jump-aframe-tire-teeter-tire-teeter-aframe-jump-weave-weave but he couldn't figure out how to get the chute in. Duh, I thought, and said, "weave-chute-weave-chute", and we both departed with pleased excitement about that course. Had a nice flow to it and, if I released Tika from all four contacts immediately, I felt that we had a chance at it.

To wrap up what's again becoming a long story, Tika executed perfectly, the whistle blew as we were entering the last chute so we didn't get those last 2 points; she's really fast and sent out nicely for a change ahead of me across #1 and #2, caught my meaning immediately as she blasted out of #2 and pushed herself back out to #3 instead of continuing to veer towards me, got the up contact, did a fast dogwalk, stuck her down contact, and made it over the #4 before time ran out without having knocked any bars. Another Q.

The almost-end of the story is that, not only did she Q, but she placed 1st in the 26" class. And, sure, there were only 22 dogs, but we're still competing against perennial national finalists like Rachel Sanders and the amazing Fable, Greg Leal and Coty and Tala, Susan Cochrane and Aiko, Tania Chadwick and Kidd... So I was very pleased and proud.

But the real end to the story is that our score ended up being the highest of all 82 masters dogs, all heights, even Luka, who ran a modified opening that exchanged some points for a chance to do the dogwalk in the hopes that it would help Luka realize it was there and make the gamble. They did get the gamble, but who knows whether it was because of that or just because they know what they're doing anyway.'

The top left quadrant of the accumulator sheet. (Click for larger image.)

What a thrill! And I'm not being facetious. This was a bigger feat to me than the ADCH, of all things, maybe because I knew that, eventually, we'd just get that Dang Super-Q and finish the ADCH, but I wasn't convinced any longer that we'd ever get a 1st, let alone high score, in Masters.

But we drove all out on this one; I sacrificed later contact stability for an instant release, and pushed pushed pushed, and yet felt no major stress because nothing at all of any significance hinged on our Qing or placing. This reminds me of a comment made by, I believe, Jo Sermon, on more than one occasion: That the worst thing that happened to agility in the U.S. is titles. She says that, in the UK (at least until recently), you advanced to higher levels only by placing and there was no such thing as a Qualifying score/minimum acceptable level. You had to go all out all the time to try to beat other dogs, but because there are SO many dogs competing over there and so few placements to be had, the stress level was low, resulting in an attitude of, ah, what the heck, I'm not going to win anyway, I might as well get the best I possibly can out of me and my dog and just have a great time. She said that coming over here to the states, she sees people overhandling, overrestraining, undercompeting, and so on, and so often not letting their dogs be as good as they could be because they're so worried about doing things letter-perfect to get that minimal Q.

And I'm somewhat guilty of that. I almost always hold Tika on her contacts because, otherwise, she starts blowing them off entirely and then we get faults and lose our chances to Q. But, when it's important to me to finish among the top--such as in Snookers and Steeplechases--I release her as fast as I can and drive her as hard as I can and we do reasonably well most of the time. So I wonder what my agility life would be like if I drove her like that all the time?

And maybe it's time to find out. We have no reason left to hold it in. Sure, there are bronzes and silvers and golds and, maybe, someday, platinums if we Q enough, but really that ADCH is the plateau beyond which one's entire agility career stretches out beyond. Huh. Something to ponder.

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Agility-Related Goals for This Week

SUMMARY: Some realism, some extreme optimism.

• Today: Walk around the (long) block--about 2/3 miles. Exercycle briskly 10 minutes. 5 minutes quad work. Jump-knocking drills with Tika and Boost. Finish removing plants around lilac in hopes it will be taken away later today--then another 15 feet of usable length in my yard! Woohoo! Go to class with Tika, my cold be danged.
• Thurs: Walk around the long block. Exercycle 10 minutes. 5 minutes quad work. Go to class with Boost. Go-on drills with Boost. Bar-knocking and snooker practice with Tika.
• Fri: Walk around the long block. 10 minutes exercycle. 5 minutes quads. Pack & load car for the weekend (usually takes 1-2 hours). Snooker and bar-knocking drills with Tika. Go-on drills with Boost. Get to bed early.
• Rise at the crack of 4am, drive 2 hours to Santa Rosa, ice my knee after every run (5 with Tika), earn Tika's ADCH with a Super-Q, don't freeze my buns off. Night at Motel 6.
• Sun: Ice my knee after every run (5 with Boost), earn Boost's AD with a Standard leg. Don't freeze my buns off. Remember to do stuff with Jake. Drive home, stopping for nap if need be.
• Mon: Walk around the long block. 10 minutes exercycle. 5 minutes quads. I dunno, that's 5 days from now!

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No CPE for Me This Year

SUMMARY: How can there be so many trials and so little time? And money?

First, you have to understand that I spearheaded getting CPE into The Bay Team. I attended the early first demo trials in CA held by other clubs, I researched it, I proposed it to the club, I volunteered to chair the first couple of trials, found a new agility site, and so on and so on. (Although we now do two CPEs a year instead of two NADACs, that was more NADAC's doing than mine. Once everyone had an alternative, almost everyone welcomed it with delight.)

No CPE this year worth mentioning

And yet--I'm thinking that I'm not going to be doing any CPE this year except for the two Bay Team ones and the VAST one in March that I've already committed to be chief ring steward for in exchange for free entries and maybe the Thanksgiving one at WAG, which is always a hoot. I'm really really really trying to cut back on the number of trials. Don't really WANT to, but money is a big factor--both in entry fees/hotel/gas and in time that I'm not putting in my max billable hours when I'm going off to agility for the weekend, and my finances show it. In 2005 and 2006 I vowed I'd cut back from 20-some-odd to only 10 a year. I managed to cut back to 20-some-odd. (Not one of my most successful goal-setting experiences.)

Many USDAA trials

I'd rather concentrate on USDAA, and I count 13 USDAA trials just within 2 hours of home this year, plus Scottsdale, and there we go, that uses up my maximum of 10 trials for the year. (Read: Ha! I'll never cut back to 10!) It's been really tough going for almost 4 months with no agility competitions because of my knee, but in some ways kind of nice. I'm horrified to see that there are 2 months during the summer when there's NOTHING (cpe or usdaa anyway) anywhere at all. (Read my personal online weekend calendar)

Free entries would of course help, but I also don't want to exhaust myself working chief ring steward every trial with 3 dogs to tend to. And I not everyone gives free entries for that, anyway. Score table's a little better but, again, not everyone gives freebies for that, and it does tie me down a lot although not so exhausting.

Other issues

So I dunno. I hate to give up the opportunities to do stuff with Boost in CPE, or to eventually in some distant fantasy future earn Tika's CATE, but I just don't see how I'm going to swing it. And the lotto machine wouldn't take my dollar yesterday, so THAT plan won't work.

AND I'm going to do power paws camp this year with Boost, I've decided--I submitted my application today--we really need the intense time together and the learning experience, and there goes another weekend and my budget all blown to pieces. :-/ Sigh. Why couldn't I take up an inexpensive hobby like... like... I dunno, graffiti? (As long as you don't get caught.)

Take the summer off?

So back onto those 8 weeks in midsummer: I can't believe that there's nothing to do between the VAST USDAA June 2/3 and the Bay Team CPE July 21/22. (Read Karey's Famous Calendar for agility of interest to Bay Areans) That's 6 weekends in a row with no agility! Oh, sure, if you do that namby-pamby AKC stuff or can deal with NADAC so-called agility--or drive to Portland!?!?! for USDAA-- why can't some of these folks move their CPEs and USDAAs from the winter & spring out to the middle of summer? That's a great time for agility in the Central Valley! (Read about the central valley summer climate)

Argh! What will I do???

Qualifying for nationals

Plus it's scary having 3 months(!) from the VAST USDAA to the next USDAA at the end of August. I'm trying to not panic about national qualification, but since I missed a couple of chances in the fall due to my knee, I see only:
VAST: Grand Prix and steeplechase
CAT: stpl only
Haute TRACS combined trial: gp, stp, team (4-day trial, argh, that's where my knee first blew out last year)
SMART: probably stp, gp
Bay Team--No tournament at all??? When was the last time that we ever had no tournament at all? Is this overreaction to last year when Saturday was All-Team, All The Time, and no one came?
VAST: team, stp, gp (all in 2 days??)

then all of a sudden we've got 3 months off before the next set of 3 USDAAs in a row (last chances before nationals) and I'll be stewing like crazy if we haven't already Qed in everything for Scottsdale. This needing *2* each of BOTH Steeplechase and Grand Prix is nuts. Thank the gods that it requires only one team so far. My Q rate is just not that high that I think I can get 2 out of 3 with both dogs in both GP and stpl! Argh argh argh!

There are a couple in there in southern california, but driving 6 hours each way is REALLY exhausting. (I know, I know, I'm spoiled rotten.)

Life as an agility addict is full of difficult choices. And, I know, I'm supposed to be doing this for FUN. Which it is. And think how much time and money it will save me if my dogs don't qualify for nationals for a change!

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Agility Goals

SUMMARY: I always have goals that I pay more or less attention to. Here are some current ones.

One of the only 2 or 3 agility blogs that I follow (Training Journal for Devon and Jaime) stated her 2007 agility goals and challenged readers to share their agility goals for 2007. I responded with a summary of the following:

I don't really set New Year's goals; my agility goals evolve and I try to keep them current based on our current issues.

My current goals with Tika are to practice jump-knocking drills 20 times 3 times a week and practice serpentines 20 times a week. And to fix the dogwalk up contact by practicing touch-n-go drills, crud, I hate these, 10 times a day, 3 days a week. I hope that's enough. I had intended to work on the dang dogwalk while we had all this down time, to really develop her skill and muscle memory for it--we've done no agility since the Nationals at the beginning of November--but look, here it is January and only 3 and a half weeks to our first USDAA trial of the year! (I'm not doing any CPE this month because I'm still not running full out as I continue knee recuperation.)

My current goal with Boost is to learn how to do serpentines and threadles. (I should have been working on these all along--they're a big gap in our skill set compared to our classmates.) I have some excellent notes from Nancy from class that I need to dig out and review, because I've been trying to reproduce from memory and am not succeeding. I don't know why I'm willing to try 20 or 30 times to figure it out on my own but not willing to walk out to the garage to get my training notebook from the car. My laziness manifests itself in odd ways. And our first class since before Thanksgiving is this Thursday! So I want to be ready to go...

And my goal for my knee recovery is to get back to doing my exercises for my quads--at least 30 minutes of exercycle a day (snoooorrrre) and at least 15 minutes of other exercises, and to keep walking more every day to build up to a mile a day again. I did actually do exercycle and leg lifts today, and I have been walking more and more all the time, have gone back to parking my car way far out in the parking lot and walking into the store and all that, and the knee is holding up better and better for just walking. And I need to start working in some jogging around the yard and a little tiny bit of working up towards sprinting, to really confirm where the knee is still painful and where it's just stiff or getting out of condition.

I think I'll be fine for the Jan 27-28 trial. At least it's low-key: Saturday is only Masters, so that's 5 runs with Tika, and Sunday is only Starters and Advanced, so that's 5 runs with Boost. But the following weekend is a full-scale USDAA trial out in Turlock--4 runs plus Steeplechase EACH on Saturday; 3 runs plus Grand Prix EACH on Sunday--and I just filled out my entry to run in everything for both Tika and Boost.

And, oh yeah, speaking of goals that I don't have specific control over: I want to finish that one Snooker Super-Q for Tika's ADCH and that one Standard leg for Boost's AD! ASAP! (But the former will be helped by bar-knocking drills, and the latter should be immensely helped by all the weave-entry practice we've been doing.)

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