Happy New Year

January is nearly over, and I'm just getting around to my first post of the new year. In my last post, I mentioned that I had taken on a new challenge in designing a new feature into my synagogue's website.

That project has been successfully completed, and it runs flawlessly without any human intervention. In fact, some people have been so impressed by it that they've suggested the idea be commercialized. A new domain has already been registered in anticipation of this, and a partnership of sorts has been formed between me and someone who is better at the marketing end of things. Commercializing the product and some initial concepts about how it could be done was actually his idea, so it seems fair that he be included in any potential gain.

On other fronts, my son has completed his first semester at University, and his marks were promising. Also promising was that his portfolio of work earned him a spot in the university major of his choice. We're very proud of him.

Our daughter in Hamilton has been accepted in a college program designed to upgrade her current professional designation, and she started classes this month. She has shown a great deal of initiative getting into this program, and we wish her success in her quest.

Switching focus yet again, we've had significant changes in the family dynamic, vis-a-vis pets. For the past year, we have been living in sin, having made a conscious decision to defy the local bylaws by keeping more than two dogs. Around Christmas time, we took a trip across the border and saw a beautiful little dog that we wanted to adopt.

But, I opened my big mouth about having more than the legal number of dogs, and our adoption request was denied. For more than a year, we had anticipated the imminent death of our oldest and frailest dog. In fact, when we got our "third" dog, it was in anticipation that the oldest dog was near death. Anyway, about three weeks ago, she came down with another serious ailment, and that was the last straw. She was euthanized earlier this month. Immediately afterward, we visited a local breeder and put a deposit on a cocker spaniel puppy.

This would have brought us back to the three dog level, and one of those dogs, our beautiful purebred Black Lab, was deemed too large to be retained. We tried to sell her, but there were no serious offers, so we ended up surrendering her to the same no-kill shelter from which we had gotten our third dog last January.

So now, we're down to the legal two dog limit. We are left with smaller dogs than we've had in a while - the cocker/lab mix that we got last year, and the cocker puppy that we've had for the last two weeks.

Well, that brings us up to date. Any bets on when I'll post next?