About a week ago my puppy Remington was diagnosed with cancer. It all started when we noticed he had blood in his urine. He had a course of antibiotics for a UTI but that didn’t do anything. After that was another type of antibiotic for possible prostate infection. When neither worked, we took him in for an ultrasound and a needle biopsy. A couple of days later we learned he had cancer, that was a week ago.
We were referred to the OSU oncology center who performed another ultrasound. The tumors were adjacent to his ureter and around his spleen, which was more than likely the source of the bleeding.
We spoke to the doctors several times over the last few days trying to figure out the next best course of action for him. We spoke to them again this morning and had scheduled a cat scan to get a much better idea of the location of the tumors, prior to a surgical procedure to remove them.
We were out this afternoon and had dinner, when we returned home it was obvious that something was very wrong with Remy. He didn’t come and greet us in his usual goofy way, he just lay in the kitchen, he couldn’t even stand. It was quite clear that the tumors in his abdomen had further attacked his body leaving him unable to function. He was very lethargic, had white gums and was somewhat cool to the touch, he was bleeding inside and we knew he wasn’t going to last the night.
We hung out with him in the kitchen for a while trying to postpone the inevitable. We knew there was nothing we could do to save him.
It was obvious he was in pain and we didn’t want him to suffer any more. We took him to medvet. I wept the entire way there.
It was hard signing the paperwork, very hard. We thought we were going to have many more months with this sweet puppy before this day would arrive.
We spent our last moments with him comforting him as best we could.
Now he is no longer in pain. Very soon he will be running through a forest being goofy, playing with lots of other dogs and his favorite toy.
Since moving to the Columbus area, I’ve practically been a hermit, rarely venturing out. I live and work on the outskirts of Columbus, rarely needing to travel inside the I270 circular. There are a number of really great neighborhoods within the I270 ring, like Upper Arlington, Clintonville and the Short North, but to me and my limited travels, I jokingly call anything within I270 “downtown”. On the occasion that I have driven through “downtown” I’ve noticed a number of bars that would be quite interesting to visit:
Ok so the last one is not downtown, but I pass by it all the time and yet have never gone inside, which is really quite odd, since I used to frequent an Irish bar in London (a lot!) before moving here.
There are so many really cool bars and taverns in Columbus. I probably won’t get to sample them all, but I’d love to step into a few of them, sample their food and beverages and perhaps record my visit with a photo.
What other bars and taverns in Columbus should be on my list?
It’s been so long since I really did much with this site, so I thought it was time to give it a spring cleaning. I chose a nicely coded wordpress theme and made a few minor adjustments. Unfortunately this site hasn’t received much attention since I’ve been in ‘head down’ mode for the past couple of years.
Enjoy the new theme and feel to drop me a line if you see something broken, missing or quirky.
For those of you who are into military humor, I had to repost these set of pictures, which came to me via email. I’m glad they still have a sense of humor with all the stuff they have to deal with. Thanks to all the service men and women keeping America safe.
This message is a warning originally sent from the FBI:
For those of you who like to grill it up during the summer, here’s a safety announcement you should be aware of. Please put this information out to ALL personnel. For those of you who exchange your propane tanks, this is something you definitely need to be aware of, especially in light of the recent news of ‘Meth-labs’ in our area. Meth cooks are getting propane tanks from exchanges at Wal-Mart, Kroger, etc. and emptying them of the propane. Then, they are filling them with anhydrous ammonia (which they now have a recipe for by the way). After they are finished with them, they return them to the store. They are then refilled with propane and sent back for you and me to buy. Anhydrous ammonia is very corrosive and weakens the structure of the tank. It can be very dangerous when mixed with propane and hooked up to our grills, etc. You should inspect the propane tank for any blue or greenish residue around the valve areas. If it is present, refuse to purchase that tank. Check out the National Propane Gas Association Website for more details. They also have pictures.
Update (7/12/2008):
The NPGA has taken down this page from their site, so here’s an archived copy of that page:
If you’re going to try to promote a search conference, the worst possible way to promote it is to comment spam a blogger in the SEM community. Since I have math comment protection they had to have at least made some effort to fill out the form manually (unless there’s a workaround I didn’t know about).
The event talks about meeting gurus and learning the ins and outs of search engine marketing from the top experts. Do they think that comment spamming their event is an acceptable practice? Were they trying to get me to attend? I certainly never buy anything from a spammer (to discourage the practice).
What would you think if SMX or pubcon started comment spamming?
I’m going to hold this comment in my askimet bucket for now in case I decide to want to contact them or name them publically.
I’m excited to announce that I’ve accepted a position at ECNext. I will be responsible for the SEO of some very large websites including Manta, AccessMyLibrary, Goliath and approx 40 other sites. Each contain many millions of pages so optimizing them is going to be fun and very rewarding. These sites have huge growth potential and I’m excited to be working alongside some very bright individuals.
Large scale website optimization is very different to regular SEO, although many of the same principals still apply. As time goes by, I hope to post about some of these issues here.
I’ve very much enjoyed working for Pittsburgh Internet Consulting and helping the company grow, but unfortunately this was an opportunity too good to miss. I wish them all the best in future, they’re a solid whitehat shop with a top notch crew.
This move also means that I will have to give up the badges for my Google AdWords Professional Qualification and the recent Microsoft adExcellence program, since they’re tied more to the client, than the person who took the test.
This also happens to be my one thousandth post on SEOrefugee, since my blog posts are also syndicated to the forum via RSS.
Over the next couple of weeks posts are going to be scarce as I wrap up things in Pittsburgh and move the family out to Columbus, OH.
I’m not as brave as Robert Scoble to post my cell on this blog, but Grandcentral provides users (and myself) with a nice alternative. I decided to participate in the beta for Grandcentral and signed up just prior to the Google acquisition. It has a range of really neat features such as:
Choose a unique Grandcentral number which you can choose to publish or not
Different ring tones for different groups of contacts
Different announcements
Access voicemail through a web interface
Choose which phone (cell, home, office, etc) you want to receive inbound calls
Set up rules for groups of users so they can or cannot call certain phones
Ability to screen calls by sending them all to voicemail
SPAM filter to automatically block or screen calls
Email/SMS notification of new voicemails
*@grandcentral.com email forwarding
Webcall button so people can call you from your website
Here’s a video demonstrating some of the features by the founders:
The beta program has now moved to invitation only although I started with 5 invites, I now only have 3 left. If you’d like an invite, give me a nice, juicy (that’ll appear in technorati) link and send me a quick message. How’s that for linkbait? ;-)
Last night I was driving back home from the office and witnessed a car accident. A lady in a cavalier two cars ahead of me wanted to turn left and didn’t yield to the oncoming traffic. She ploughed into an old camaro and although everyone walked away, both cars could be totaled by the insurance companies.
I was the second car behind the cavalier and saw the collision, the person between us obviously saw what happened and the driver behind the camaro must also have seen the accident, but I was the only one who stopped.
I’m still stunned that the guy at the gas station who only heard the collision, a passing nurse (and her husband) and myself were the only people who stopped to bear witness and help. I can only figure that people did not want to stop because their dinner was getting cold, they were late for an appointment, or they had fears of being caught up in a law suit for trying to help.
Once the cops arrived on the scene and took over directing traffic, I gave my statement and contact details. The cops thanked me and seemed grateful that I had bothered to stop.
If you witness an accident, please stop and help. Even if it’s to move something out of the road, help open a car door, or just be there for someone to talk to. If someone you were close to were involved in a car accident, you’d want someone to stop and help them right?
Reuben has worked in both inhouse and agency SEO roles for over a decade and has lead Manta's SEO team since mid 2007. In his spare time he enjoys playing with his kids and is an avid photographer. Read more about Reuben Yau.
