a few updates

First off, here's a picture taken on my cellphone of a very happy Mominator on the front seat of the rental Prius after our day of training lasts weekend. He crashed out shortly thereafter. He loves to hunt -- and he loves to be center of attention. Aaah, life with a vizsla.

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Second off, we went to Madison Square Garden for the first time last Friday to see some basketball. Meg has played some hoops in her time -- and while I never played, I saw a couple of Trailblazers games when I lived in Portland. Those were the Rasheed Wallace years -- when he seemed to spend as much time being ejected from games as he did scoring points. And seeing as the Knicks have stunk the past two years we've lived down here -- apparently owned and managed by nincompoops -- the best basketball show in town is, by far, the New York Liberty. And with all the (well-earned) hype surrounding Candace Parker, we decided we'd try to catch a Liberty vs. Sparks game. We had good seats and were treated to a great game that went down to the wire. I will say one thing: anyone that thinks the WNBA is somehow 'less' than the NBA... that was one physical game. No-one was giving anything away -- and a fan can't ask for more.

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The Tour de France is over. For being the best edition of the Tour in a long time, I apologize for not writing more about it. Carlos Sastre rode out of his own shadow and claimed the yellow jersey on the legendary Alpe d'Huez propelled by one of the strongest teams the Tour has ever seen. Importantly, too, we saw zero-tolerance from teams if any of their members tested postive for controlled substances. Arguably the only significant shadow was the absence of Alberto Contador and Team Astana -- but the best part of this tour was the appearance of rising talent: Andy Schleck, Roman Kreuziger, Bernhard Kohl and Romain Feillu. In any event, here's a Roberto Bettini photograph of Carlos Sastre riding the time-trial of his life last Saturday.

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On Sunday, we drove up to Northfield, MA, to celebrate Jaida's 3rd birthday. Jaida is Kim + Mike's little girl and the little princess of ForestKing Vizslas. It's always great to watch a little girl wade through her presents, mesmerized by each one, egged on by the crowd around her. It was also great to see a very pregnant Kyler... Kim has a new post on life with Miss Pregnant Pants. But the final picture is of me and Cedar on their back deck, laughing at our two boys hypnotized by Kim + Mike's chicken and quail coops. This was early in the afternoon before the torrential rain and wind arrived. We all had fun... till it came time to drive home and quickly realizing there were whole slew of trees down along I-91S.