Even though Zodiac is far from perfect, you always know where you stand with him. He has a pure heart with no concept of deception. He loves with all his heart and is always happy to see an old friend or make a new friend. This trait will serve him well the rest of his life, no matter what the future brings.
One of the important things in planning a story project is the workflow. This in an area that I still need lots of work and disciple. Even though I know that I should get the text done for a book project before I start all the other stuff, I keep finding myself moving forward with the design and layout when the text isn’t done. I’ve made it all work out in the end but I’m sure it would be faster and probably more effective too if I had followed a better workflow instead of jumping ahead.
So my tip for the day is figure out what needs to be done for your story project and the order it needs to be done in. Somethings can happen in parallel because they aren’t dependent upon each other. But other things need to wait until the right time in the project. My goal is to do a better job of planning my workflow and then actually stick to the plan. I’ll report back here to let you know how I do.
Here is a post from a year or so ago about Workflow for publishing with Adobe Creative Suite. There is some good information here.
Zodiac has had the best of relationships with two other puppies in training. First was Yakira (puppy #5). When Zodiac was young she was his guardian and mentor. As he grew older their relationship evolved into buddies. Through it all the two of them had many lively and exciting romps. When she returned to GDB for training he truly missed her.
A few months later Dune (puppy #7) came on the scene and Zodiac got to be the mentor. Yakira taught him well and he did many of the same things that Yakira had done for him. Though Dune’s personality is very different from Yakira’s, Zodiac and Dune have just as close a relationship. They can run full tilt around the house and a few minutes later be snuggled up together for a nap. Dune is going to miss Zodiac when it is his turn to return to GDB for training.
Since Zodiac is now officially “in class” it is time to step up the pace on posting the pages from his book. I’d like to get all the finished pages up by the time he graduates. So I’ll be posting a page everyday until I’m finished.
Zodiac is on in a zillion. Though he looks pretty much like many other black labs, he has a unique combination of personality traits that we have come to love and usually appreciate. He has this adorable way of looking up at you without really moving his head. This makes it so the whites of his eyes show. He has a slightly scruffy coat and really thick toenails. Zodiac is curious about everything and always wants to help when you are doing something usual. He loves to supervise me when I’m vacuuming. He is an excellent traveler and enjoys seeing and doing new things. Though he is the sixth puppy we have raised for GDB and he won’t be the last he is the one and only Zodiac.
Zodiac in the kennel kitchen
We got to see Zodiac today! He has grown-up so much that he recognized us before we recognized him. He was very excited of course. The last three months of training have added lots of muscle to his chest and his back legs. Bill commented that he now moves like a panther. It is easy to imagine him pulling in harness with the way he moves. His body is starting to fill out to match his over-sized feet.
We had lots of fun walking around campus, taking photos and hanging out in the paddock where Zodiac and Dune got to play. That was my favorite part, just hanging out together on the grass enjoying being together for a little while. Too soon we had to make the move to return home, but we are secure in the fact that Zodiac is doing great. I can see improvement in his impulse control and paying attention to collar cues in just the little time that we spent together. I think he is going to make a great guide dog for his new partner.
We brought home a young retired guide named Santini to her puppy raiser in Utah. Dune enjoyed having another dog in the car for the long trip home.
Zodiac like most labs has his wild moments when he dashes around the house. Some times I’ve heard this called labby loops. With Zodiac it is more of a zigzag than loops. He runs full speed one direction then abruptly changes direction and then changes direction again. He does this for just a couple of minutes and then he is back to normal.
As I prepared myself for Zodiac to be listed in phase 6 again this week. I was hoping for phase 7. Chances are next week he will be in phase 8. Zenith is in phase 8 and my friend’s puppy who was on the June recall has caught up to phase 6. Way to go Nairobi! We didn’t have good cell service at girls camp and so I didn’t get the news on the phase report until we came down from the mountain.
Though Zodiac has always been cute with maturing he now has a certain presence when he wants to, maybe even a little Zeus like in his demeanor. Zodiac started to show signs of maturing at the year mark but it really started to accelerate when he turned 14 months old.
Since he was about 9 months old we have been going to the local grade school a couple of times a week to listen to kids read. Zodiac has always been attracted to kids and their happy energy. But with his maturing he can now sit calmly in the hall and watch hundreds of kids walk by. I’m so proud of him. He is really grown-up.
Zodiac is now 3/4 of the way through his formal harness training to become a guide dog! This week’s phase report has him in phase 6 of 8 phases. The next class in Oregon starts on August 5th. It is unlikely that he will be “class ready” by then but the following class he probably will be. Then the challenge becomes finding the right partner for Zodiac. He needs just the right kind of handler, one that can appreciate his love of life and exuberance and being jumped on occasionally. I’m expecting it to take a while for him to graduate.
Zodiac has always had a zest for life. He is a fun-loving boy and loves to be out doing things, going new places and making new friends. Zodiac is sure that everyone he meets is just as happy to meet him. He is ever the optimist that something fun is just around the corner. I love the happy light that is typically in Zodiac’s eyes and his exuberance for life.
I started working on adding metadata to my photos today! I used Adobe Bridge which comes with any of the Creative Suite products. It was pretty slick. You have the ability to set up templates to fill in info that is the same over lots and lots of images. I put information in the template like contact info and copyright stuff. Next step was the keywords. Bridge has a hierarchical method of organizing keywords with keywords and sub-keywords. It already had keywords like people, places and events. I added dogs and things as additional keywords so far. Under dogs I put the names of all the puppies we have raised. Then I had some photos of other puppies in training, like Redding that we puppy sat a few weeks ago. I put him as a sub-keyword under Dune. I’m not sure if that is the right way to handle it but that what I’m doing for now. In Bridge you can select a whole bunch of photos that need the same keywords and add them all at the same time.
I found a really detailed article about labeling digital photos by Ken Watson. It talks all about the technical stuff and different software that helps with the metadata and metadata standards. It has very good reference information.
One thing I was disappointed about was that Windows xp doesn’t show all the metadata information that I added to my photos when you right-click on the image and pull up properties. You can add metadata in the fields that Windows provides under properties but it would be a very slow task and it doesn’t follow XMP standards (read Ken Watson’s article if you don’t know what that is). I’m pretty sure that newer operating systems do a better job on that score.
One disappointment is that Windows xp can’t see the all the metadata I added, like the keywords. But I’m happy to have gotten started on adding metadata to my photos. Tons more to do. A goal I’m making now is to add metadata as I save new photos to my machine. At least then I won’t be loosing more ground.
I just checked on Amazon and “My Grandma Mary” is there and available for sale! It is amazing to see it there for real. I Just had to share this milestone in family stories here. Plus we got it done by Pioneer Day, which is July 24th. The day that Brigham Young and the first batch of Mormon pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. I seems like a fitting day to complete this step of my journey to learn about Mary Taylor and share her story.
So I’ve official finished editing “My Grandma Mary” and now we are just waiting for the box of books I’ve ordered to print! I’m so excited and nervous as the same time. That takes me to the next step in the Doable approaching to telling your family stories, link. This book brings a whole new area to learn in sharing it with a broader audience.
One of the fun things about this book is that we have put hidden images throughout the book that represent other stories from the Martin Handcart Company that we didn’t put into the main storyline. The book refers to this blog for help in finding these images. I decided to do 4 levels of hints. The first level of hints in under the “My Grandma Mary” tab above and the rest I wrote as post that you can see below. I have links to these posts of the “My Grandma Mary” tab. Hopefully that this will work well in helping those who get stuck finding all the images. Some of them are really pretty easy but some are much harder. 
telling family tales 