Ask a kinda/sorta lurker anything while we test out the new digs.

Great questions!!

My favorite classic car would be a toss up, partially because I'd love to have vehicles that my father owned back in the day. I think I'd have to go with either a 69 Chevelle SS, or a 69 Plymouth Roadrunner. I have much love for almost all of the American Muscle from the last 60s.

My first car was an '81 Mercury Lynx (clone of a Ford Escort). The deal was that my dad bought it for me (it was $250, with a blown engine) and paid for a new engine (through connections at a local Ford dealer we got one for about $150). In exchange I had to help install the new engine, and once it was up and running I had to pay for all maintenance, repairs, gas, and insurance. It was a true beater, but I had fun in that car. It was a 4-speed, so I learned to drive a manual transmission in it. So even though I recognize that that car was nothing special, and was basically a piece of crap, it was MY piece of crap, and I have a lot of fond memories from the days I owned it and from certain experiences I had when I had it.
--- merged: Aug 14, 2011 at 10:25 PM ---

No. It is Don Draper aka Jon Hamm, from Mad Men fame.

 

I highly recommend it. It's deep and entertaining. If you are willing to try watching it, be sure to invest in watching the first 4-6 episodes before passing judgment. The characters need developing, but they are worth the wait.

Stanley is a rock star, and doing awesome. Today we took him to a local state park for a hike. His favorite place in the whole world is the woods. He loves running loose there. He behaves well enough that we break the rules (don't tell!) and let him run off leash while we hike the trails. He got to wear himself out for a couple hours there today, then we gave him some treats to gnosh on. Let me tell ya, he lives the life!

 

A little of both, and he was on purpose. I had wanted a dog for a long time. Before where we lived it wasn't much of an option because of no yard. A little over a year before we got him we had bought our house, and it has a nice fenced in yard. So we talked about it and decided to get a dog. I wanted a huge dog (Mastiff), my wife wanted a medium/large sized dog (lab or retriever type), so we settled somewhere in the middle with a Bullmastiff. I also did tons and tons of research, and that breed just seemed like a great fit. I even did a few of those goofy "match your personality to a dog" tests online and usually got Bullmastiff in the top 1-2 breeds listed for me.

So we started researching where to get one. Though we would like to rescue one some day (and have done that with other pets in the past), we really wanted a puppy. None of the local rescue places had anything but adults available, and most of those were ones with severe health or behavioral issues. We didn't feel we were ready for that, so we started looking at breeders. I researched and called and researched and emailed and researched and called and researched and emailed all over the country. Several breeders wanted stupid amounts of money for their pups (one guy quoted me $3400 and insisted that if I drove 5 hours to see the puppies I'd be sold on needing to pay that much to get a quality dog), and a few either didn't have pups or it would be a massive expense to travel and see them. And because as I'm picky as I am, I wanted to see the parents before choosing a puppy. So it would be a huge pain to travel hours, or fly somewhere, then not even want one of those puppies. Eventually I found a breeder that was only about 15 minutes from my office. They had a litter of puppies that were due to be born in a couple of weeks. So I went over and met the father. He was gorgeous, and very laid back. The mother was co-owned with the breeder by a woman who lived about 45 minutes away, so once the puppies were born we went to meet her too. She was awesome. After checking us out for a second she was quite content to let us handle the puppies. She stayed in the room and kept an eye on us, but she was very trusting and not aggressive about it. So we agreed to get one from that litter. Several weeks later we went and picked our's out. There were 11 puppies and we had 2nd pick. So we played with, watched, and handled all of the males (we were set on a male) and picked Stanley based on his personality and reaction to us.

And yes, he gets pizzle all the time, he loves it.

And good point on the color! He's technically a red fawn. He's got a tiny hint darker fawn than most because his mother was red, his father was fawn. You can't really see it much until you put him next to a purely fawn dog, then it becomes more obvious.

 

That kind of mistreatment of dogs makes me sick. It's also part of the reason I wanted to see the father, mother, and their living environments before getting a puppy. The breeder I got him from keeps his dogs in the house as pets. At that time they had Stanley's father, two retired (and now fixed so they wouldn't breed anymore) females, and a Chiahuahua. They only one that would bark when you rang the front bell was the Chiahuahua, they also said she was the only one that was aggressive. Despite having four dogs in the house, their house was very clean and well kept. All of the Bullmastiffs were calm and tolerated strangers. The day I stopped to first meet Stanley's father he was eating when I arrived. The breeder said "go pet him". I was reluctant because I didn't know how a 140lb dog would react to a stranger touching him when he was eating. The breeder told me he'd be fine. And he was right. I walked up and petted him. His only reaction was to slowly start wagging his tail while continuing to eat.

I also liked that they have a policy of only letting each female have two litters. After that they retire her, get her fixed, and either keep her as a pet or find a good home for her. Many of the females they co-own. So basically someone gets a female from them, agrees to breed her once or twice then get her fixed, with the breeder and co-owner splitting the money. That was the case with Stanley's mother. The co-owner was a widow with 3 teenage children. She wanted a big dog around the house to make her feel safer after her husband passed. Her house was also very clean, the mother well taken care of, and they did an awesome job of caring for the puppies. She was a school teacher, and the puppies were born at the beginning of summer break. So she made sure that either her or one of her children was in the same room with the puppies 24 hours a day after they were born. They were concerned that the mother or other puppies might accidently smother one since there were 11 of them, so they literally didn't let them out of their site! After seeing both parents and their homes I was very happy to take a puppy from that type of breeder. Since then we've taken Stanley back to see both his mother and father, and the mother's owner has come to our house to visit and let them play. I still occasionally get emails from both her and the breeder asking for updates. The breeder also made me sign a contract saying that if I ever got rid of Stanley that I would give the breeder the first option to take him because he wanted to be sure he'd always be in a good home.

Stanley does the same thing as Kinston with sticks. There is a state park near our house that has acres and acres of trails through the woods. He loves it there and will often drag huge limbs around like they are tiny sticks. He also lays like Kinston is in your pic. This is one from when he was about 9 months old:



They are great dogs, we couldn't be happier.

 

Haha, no. We don't drink much tea, and he's never really tried to drink anything but water. I've given him a few drops of beer out of the bottle once or twice and he loved it, but I don't want him to get used to it.

I used to have a Trans Am for a toy. One of the first things I did was put a Borla exhaust on it. Somewhere down the line I signed up for a message board and was trying to come up with both a unique and fairly anonymous username. That car was a huge focus at the time, so I settled on that. Though the car has since left, the name for use on most message boards I frequent stuck.

All the things that cross your mind as you lurk and read? Start posting them. Even if you are mainly agreeing with someone else, but have a slight drop of extra insight or opinion, throw it out there. Don't expect much, especially at first. Don't get bent out of shape if your posts largely go unreplied to. Most message boards are about familiarity. Once the regular posters start recognizing you and start building a profile in their head of what you say and think they are more likely to respond. The only way to get that is by being proactive yourself first. I've been extremely active on a few other forums during my time at TFP, but never really active here. I decided that the new board changes were as good of a motivation as any, and I've tried to add something every day. I've found that the more I contribute, the more likely others are to respond with either posts in reference to mine, or the new "like" feature which at least tells me they read and either concur or were amused.

But it HAS to start with a willingness to contribute your thoughts with the intent to give something to the forum, not with the idea of getting attention or approval in response. That part usually takes a decent sized initial investment.

 

Is it working yet?

 

I seem to be on a roll today, and the wine I opened is hitting the spot, so if there are any stragglers wanting to ask a question, fire away.

 

Ok, I confess. Due to work I'm in central Iowa on Valentine's. There is literally nothing else left for me to do. I had a nice dinner, a few beers, and now I'm back at the hotel. Out of desperation for entertainment I'm bumping this thread ONE more time.

Any thoughts, questions, pokes, prods, or responses worth discussing?