the dawgs are back in da house

the dogs and their humans have returned home after an exhausting weekend at the national flyball championships at the canberra royal show. the humans stupidly decided camping would be a good idea. camp beds and running round after dogs for three days dont really go together. ive never been so tired in my life.

the good news. the st george phoenix ran their little doggie legs off and the team of poppi, ned, kobe and possum won 8 races out of 12 over the two days (there are five heats within each race). they were in division one and the racing was fast. the team broke its own personal best time of 19.05 seconds (official) many times over and ran a new best time of 18.236 seconds. we beat everyone. we even beat the defending champions - the roger federer team. (i wont name them. you can find out if you really want). they were our last race of the comp and we beat them. we were pretty sure this meant that we won the whole thing. the judge thought so too.

the bad news. apparently someone from their team found out the result before it was official (you can keep track yourself but sometimes when its that close it can come down to head to head heats and best times) and they put in a protest. we didnt know about this until after we were presented with our second place (on a countback, which is really equal first). this is a very tightly regulated sport. there are processes in place. in this instance the protest did not follow correct procedures. persons were made privy to information they shouldnt have been. persons used their influence as committee members to have a recount done which someone did until a more satisfactory result was obtained. we have of course launched a counter-protest and probably not much will come of it, but i hope the other persons involved enjoy their ill-gotten trophy and think that its ok to cheat and use power corruptly all for the sake of a piece of a silverwear. i hope they sleep well at night.

so elation, disappointment, anger and joy, all mixed together. we came out of nowhere (this team has only come together over the last few months) and took on the top teams and they couldnt beat us fair and square. everyone else there wanted us to win. people were screaming for us to win. people cried when we did win. you had better believe a certain black and yellow team are watching their backs cos we're comin' to get ya!

here is my possum in action:



so really we had a great time at the canberra show. i saw michelle's prize winning crochet and thought it lovely. the canary yellow thing was vile. i met michelle. how lovely was that! george, bertie and pj came to visit. i bought a noosa hat but steered clear of the opal lady. i ate gozleme. i love gozleme. trent and i had a fight about walking to the shower together. we made up. we ate huge chunks of steak on the stone grill at eagle hawk pub. we ate dark chocolate m and ms and dark chocolate maltesers and amandas amazing currant and whisky cake, and we got up before dawn for three days in a row.

as the box loader for the team (the person who puts the balls in the spring loaded box for the dogs to catch) i was presented with a gift from my team. it was the best box loader gift i ever got:

joanne and donni conspiring together again. donni is a wicked enabler :) thank goodness.

when we got home late yesterday arvo there was an email from the dynamic duo saying they had managed to fnd time to meet me at 630 that evening. i had to go to the first lecture for the third year cultural history course im teaching this session at 530 so after that i ran up to his nibs' office and we chatted. some nice things were said about the transformation of the pensky since the last time they read it. it was nice to have acknowledgement of how much work i had done, and there were comments about style and punctuation, comments about stuff i can cut from the conclusion. comments about things still not agreed with, differences of interpretation, theoretical slippages, some awkward phrases. there was discussion about examiners. they had looked into the one i suggested that they didnt know and agreed he was a good choice. we made a list of four we all agreed upon. they think its not quite ready but they are willing to take the risk. i think they realised there was no point fighting anymore. they said i can submit. next wednesday march 5.

champagne anyone?

i didnt get much knitting done while away so the second patonyle contrast sock for trent comes along slowly, and i really want to retry that fancy silk sock with my new harmonys, and i really want to cast on some poms with my ranco, but i will wait. before i left some progress was made on the lace leaf scarf:

i am teaching six contact hours this session while i get some articles and a book proposal and some job applications happening. hopefully i will get some serious knitting done too.

maybe i might even get some sleep.

k xx