Discussions with Zharphyn

My wife and I are avid pet lovers.  During our marriage, we have had 2 cats, 3 bunnies, 2 dogs, 6 mice, 2 turtles, regular hamsters, dwarf hamsters, teddy bear hamsters, and two 55 gallon aquariums containing goldfish and tropical fish.  Our pets have given us a great deal of joy over the years.  Many fish have received a “burial at sea”, and the pet graveyard in the corner of my yard is getting full (hamsters and mice only have a 2-3 year lifespan).  It is rarely dull at my house.

Three years ago, my wife gave birth to our first child; my “precious angel” Sydney, and last year my “little buddy” Spencer joined us.  Needless to say it is getting crowded in my house.  My two dogs have taken the hardest hit since my children were born.  Going for a walk becomes a family event as my wife and I try to marshal two dogs and a double stroller.  Unfortunately with me now working twelve hour days 5 and 6 days a week, these kind of family events are becoming rarer and rarer.  My Staffordshire Terrier “Jake” needs a great deal of attention and affection.  In six years, he has stubbornly refused to learn how to walk on a leash.  He still strains against the leash, putting maximum tension on his neck.  I have tried traditional collars, “choker” collars, a head harness, and a body harness, and nothing works.  With the head harness, he does not pull, instead he struggles with the harness until he has finally worked it off of his nose, or he just sullenly trails behind me, clearly miserable.  At home, he is always underfoot because he wants attention.  Whenever we have any company, he goes berserk trying to get to the newcomer to say hello.  This would not be so bad, except that Jake’s method for hello is to climb all over you and lick your face until you drown.  Whenever we have company, we have to lock the dogs in our bedroom for the duration of the visit.  My wife has completely lost patience with Jake.  My three year old daughter, when asked, says that she does not like Jake.  Jake wants to run, but my yard is too small for him.  I feel horrible because I feel that I am not being fair to him, but when I stop to look at my options, I am uncertain what to do.  I do not have the time available to give him the attention that he needs.  If I try to find him a new home, am I being fair separating Jake from his buddy Simon (my other dog), or do I need to try and find a new home for both dogs together?  How does one even go about finding a good home for a dog?  Does it make me a bad owner to try and find a new home for Jake?  He was abandoned when he was about 9 months old.  My mother-in-law was sitting on her front porch at about 11pm one night when she noticed a van stop just up the road, a door opened and shut quickly and the van drove away.  Within a couple of minutes, there was a dog running along her front fence.  Jake spent one night at my MiL’s where he howled all night long, and then came to live with my wife and I.  For the first week or two he howled a lot, but now, after six years, he is an extremely happy dog.  I know in my heart that I cannot provide him the life that he deserves.  I know that he would find happiness with a new family.  But do I have the right to uproot him from his home and abandon him to a stranger?  I wish that I knew the right thing to do.

Farm Animals Dogs $15.06 Farm Animals Dogs

Dogs (Smart Animals) $26.98 Dogs (Smart Animals) by Meish Goldish Published in 2007 by Bearport Publishing

Working Dogs (Farm Animals) $17.48 Working Dogs (Farm Animals) by Sharon Dalgleish Published in 2005 by Chelsea Clubhouse

Dogs (Animals That Help Us) $27.48 Dogs (Animals That Help Us) by Jean Coppendale Published in 2008 by QEB Publishing

Dogs $22.02 From guide dogs and police dogs to horses that round up cattle, this appealing new series looks at the many ways animals help people everyday. Each book focuses on a different animal and surveys the jobs particular breeds do, the natural skills they have, and how they are trained.

Animals $5.99 With full-color reproductions, minimal text, and a helpful picture index, Animals: A First Art Book is a perfect introduction to great art. Paintings of horses, dogs, farm animals, and baby animals from a broad range of time periods and famous artists are used to illustrate various attributes associated with animals. An adjective appears on each spread in bold letters along with pictures of two different creatures, encouraging children to find similarities between different animals.

The Dogs $10.41 The nameless narrator of The Dogs: A Modern Bestiary lives in her studio apartment with a pack of Doberman pinchers. The dogs, led by the cruel, charismatic bitch named Miss Dog, alternate between being brutal attack animals and loyal companions, being real and otherworldly. Some chapters draw upon the ecstatic and horrifying visions of Christian mystics; others take place in the landscapes of familiar fairytales; others in the banal settings of the late-night pick-up bars or suburban picnics. The narrator uneasily inhabits these worlds until the dogs force her to take irrevocable action. Rebecca Brown is the author of other fictions, including The Terrible Girls, Annie Oakley”s Girl, and The Gifts of the Body. She lives in Seattle.

In the past few months, a good friend of mine has been educating me about what is really happening on and around this planet. What I have learned both scares me and saddens me. There are greedy people in positions of great power on our planet who are using their wealth to suppress and manipulate the population.
“Secret societies” such as the Vril, Bildeburgers, the Tri-Lateral Commission, Freemasons, and the Illuminati are believed to be controlling world governments in one form or another. In the USA, the Federal Reserve Bank is what prints the money, and controls interest rates. In turn, this controls the US economy. The US economy is used as a benchmark for other countries’ economies. What most people do not realize, is that the Federal Reserve Bank is a private organization. This private organization is the only entity legally allowed to print money. Money which is then loaned to the United States Most people do not understand how the United States can have such huge deficit budgets. The reality is that all US currency in circulation in the World, the United States government owes to the Federal Reserve bank, with interest. Unless the United States government changes the laws, they can never balance the federal budget. Which means that every year, they have to borrow more money from the Federal Reserve Bank, which puts them deeper into debt. One would think that the government would be eager to change this situation and change the laws. Unfortunately, the American electoral system is broken, which allows for corrupt men to become president. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George Bush (Sr and Jr) are members of the Bildeburgers. The Bildeburgers control the Federal Reserve Bank. Which means that the President was making money by not changing the system. Barack Obama was believed to be a huge change when he took power. He had promised a great many things that he would do. However, when one looks at his track record, we learn a sad truth about President Obama. As an example, he campaigned with a promise of immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq. Instead he has committed an additional 30,000 troops.

We have, sadly, come to learn that Barack Obama is also a member of the Bildeburgers.

more another time…

-Zharphyn

I thought that I should introduce myself and give a quick synopsis of what I plan for my blog.

I am married, in my mid-thirties with two children.  I have three aquariums, two contain tropical fish, and the third is for my turtles.  I am a computer programmer by trade, and a novelist at heart.  I have some grandiose ideas for a tree fort in my backyard for my children to enjoy, and I expect that project to take several years to complete.

I intend to post about my progress with my tree fort, some of my creative writing, my assorted pets, and whatever else strikes my fancy that day.

Firstly, my animals.  My wife and I love animals.  Currently we have two dogs (Jake and Simon), one cat (Willow), one rabbit (Byron), three goldfish (Gabrielle, Xena, and Hercules), two turtles (Crush and Titan), three Plecostomus (Squirt, Monster, and Dragon), and a fish tank full of assorted unnamed tetras.

In the very corner of my yard, I have several trees and shrubs which creates a large hidden space.  For my tree fort, I have visions of a multi-story free standing structure in the hidden corner.  I then foresee a long bridge crossing from the top of the structure over to a platform in the tree in the middle of my yard.  There will then be a ladder going from that platform high up into the tree to a high lookout.  As I said, a grandiose plan that will take several years to complete.  However, since my children are currently 2.5 years and 2 months old, I believe that I have time to build my vision.  I have started reading books on tree fort and tree house construction to aid me in my vision.

I am currently trying to study the computer programming language Java in an effort to further my career.  A very good friend of mine has a successful programming business that he would like me to join, but first I need to update my programming skills.  I have not actively written software in several years, and I am finding it difficult to get back into that mode of thinking.  I am hoping that I can respark my creative thinking process through writing this blog.  However, with a two month old son that is not sleeping through the night, and a two and a half year old daughter that has become very clingy to me it is difficult to find the time to study.

-Zharphyn