"Hey, somebody ought to tell that dog he's got a double chin!"

I could do this guy's job much better.

"Geez, is that mastiff hung or what?!"

I'm hoping to see red heelers, but I don't know if they're a recognized breed. I'll go check that out when I'm done here.

Okay, they're doing the salute to search and rescue dogs now and I'm get teary already. And why is the police marching band wearing sidearms? Though, they're so bad I can understand why they might want to be able to defend themselves.

Here come the dogs. Excuse me for a minute ... BWAAAAAAAAAA!

Oh, my god. They gave the search and rescue people $250,000.

Oh, my GOD! The moron announcer is Joe Garagiola.

I was feeling much more like updating earlier this evening, but I had chores to do and Angel was so keyed up even after our walk that she needed a lot of attention. Now she's sacked out like potatoes. Then I had dinner, and that always slows down my momentum.

Had a strange dream about my dad yesterday afternoon. He was young, but he was depressed because he couldn't shoot anymore. He picked up a target rifle that had bright blue plastic instead of steel for the barrelling and other works. He shouldered it and then brought it down and asked, "Do you know what this means?" I said, no. He said, "It means I'll never go to Camp Perry again." And he was so sad. In the dream I thought that something about his health had made him unable to hold steady.

Camp Perry is a military base on Lake Erie in Ohio where they have shooting championships every year. The matches are in the summer, and it's just miserable. Rifle shooters bundle themselves up in a couple sweatshirts and a leather shooting jacket even in the hottest temperatures. It's all about locking your body into the most steady position possible. My dad loved it. He went every summer. I went once when I was a little girl. The whole family went, actually. We stayed in cinderblock quarters and used community showers. I remember mom took me to the beach one day and a huge storm rolled in more quickly than we could get away from it. Just part of the fun for the competitors. And my dad bought me a custom nametag�I picked red background, white trim, and blue letters�with my name engraved on it (Badsnake T. Badsnake) and a little rifle across the top.

At one point in the dream, my Dad looked down at me with his quiet gray eyes. My perspective was that of a little girl again, my Dad so much taller than me. He looked so young and handsome. But so sad.

After we talked about it awhile, Deb, who's feeling much better, thought it might be a manifestation of the growing stress I'm feeling about quitting smoking. My dad, whose health went into steep decline in the last six months of his life, was diagnosed with lung cancer six days before he died of pulmonary edema. My mom and sister watched him suffocate to death in the hospital, unable to help him.

Okay, didn't mean to get into that much detail.

It was a big day for digital photography. Foveon announced a new photo sensor chip technology that they're calling X3. When you read about megapixels in relation to the capability of a dig cam, they're talking about the little photo sensors. Each pixel is designated to capture one color�red or blue or green. But with this technology, the pixel can capture either red or blue or green. The process of interpreting that information is much more streamlined and simple, and the chip is inexpensive to produce. Also, when you get a 3.5 megapixel camera with one of these chips, you'll get the same resolution that a 7 megapixel camera with the current technology delivers. It's a little more complicated to explain why you get double instead of triple the resolution.

The X3 chip isn't in any cameras on the market yet, but it won't be long. If you've never heard of Foveon before, it's probably because most of the cameras they make are $25,000 jobbies for pro photographers.

And speaking of digital cameras, Nikon is having an online contest to give one away. If you want to try for it, first make sure you have the latest version of Macromedia Flash. Then go to the Nikon Coolpix site. Using clues released over a period of 14 days, you have to guess the slogan of the new camera that hasn't been released yet. They don't promise that they'll give you one of the new cameras, just a Nikon camera of their choosing. But still, a free digital camera is a free digital camera. I wan't Grouse to win. I want to see pictures of his dogs, from his auctions, pictures of elk seen from a helicopter.

If I win (and I'm going to try), I'm going to send it on a tour of D-landers without digital cameras.