Decisions, decisions

Tomokee LOVES new tennis balls, or least those that are new to him. We recently threw a garden party, and one of our guests kindly brought Tomokee some used tennis balls. We let him choose one -- it took a bit of sniffing, but he actually was able to select just one.

A good dog park day

We took Tomokee to the dog park today. He did less of his usual bark-bark-bark-play-with-me-bark thing, which was good. He still does not come when called in the dog park, but he will respond to the sit command and stop whatever he's doing and slowly sit down so that we can leash him up. It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing.
He's also willing to jump into the back cargo area of the car so that we don't have to lift him into it one half of his body at a time, which is a site to behold. However, it does require one of us to sit in the back seat, dangle a tasty treat into the cargo area, and yell "ham!" It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing.

Hiking

We went hiking with Tomokee in Fremont Older open space preseve recently. Here he is enduring yet another photo op.

Play date

Tomokee had a play date in our yard this evening with Agave, one of the neighborhood dogs. Agave is looking a little grimy because she enjoyed our pond a little too much. (Can you say pond scum?) Tomokee is nice and dry because he's never taken an interest in the pond. All in all, a good time was had by all.

GIVE IT UP for TOXIC-P!!!

So, Toxic-P is one of the multiple names we use for Tomokee. The picture, above, shows how he came by this particular name.

This was the topic of a discussion held as I was conferencing on a "making of" commentary for an audio drama I direct (assembling the actors' voices, effects and music) just prior to rolling into the "making of" recording. So, it was in these preliminary discussions that the name came up, in sort of a "making of making of" snippet. It's set to a good rapper-esque squeak'n'beat.

Happy Adoptiversary, Tomokee!

Tomokee has been with us for two whole years! We didn't even kill him two days ago for eating a quarter of our pasta salad from a bowl on the counter. He's advanced from a hyperactive loony teenager to a not-so-hyperactive still-loony adult. Now, if we can just convince him to jump into the back of the car when needed, life would be perfect.

Albino Bumble Bee?

So, we're chucking the tennis ball around for T-dog and Betty has me run and get the camera. We've seen lots of honey bees and plenty of your standard mil-spec black and yellow bumble bees, but this was a new one on us. Betty, who likes to name things, animate and inanimate has dubbed this fine beast, "Oscar."

If my Googling chops are suffering good karma, this might be a Bombus fervidus (Fabricius) (assuming that the name submitted for blessing by the ESA went through back in '07).

[NOTE: updated 9-Jun-08 --
My Google-fu has failed me on this one. Here's a photo of the fervidus:



and, while it certainly has less black, it's not what we saw.

So, being desirous of a more formal name than, "Oscar," I'll propose Bombus festivus (a bug for the rest of us!)]

[Second update (9-jun-08): The Google-fu chi returns!

I found our friend, a form of carpenter bee known as Xylocopa varipuncta here, with this nice photo:


OK -- the search appears done, but feel free to drop us a comment... we're pretty amazed with the printed-circuit look to the face (and the fact the picture came out halfway decently).