Julio’s Musings Around Columbia County, New York

Well, an unfortunate event befell Rasputin this past week. He was run over by a bus on Benton Road while inexplicably chasing the bus. This was your typical school bus that passed by every school day around 3:30pm. It seems he had a habit of chasing cars that I was not aware of until his demise. Sadly this is a high probability event for our furry pets , squirrels and deer in this neck of the woods north of New York City. There is just no respect for those other animals made of metal and averaging two or more tons in weight.
The driver of the bus was considerate enough to stop and honk the horn to wake the owner from her stupor.
Rasputin was buried with full honors at the Miyares Farm. Not sure what happens to their souls or if they even have one. Maybe they come back as a Level 5 leader. Why would I associate a dog with that type of leader? Don’t know , but wouldn’t associate a cat , that is for sure.
What is a level 5 leader? Follow the link and review the book Good to Great.

Tags: Julio Hernandez-Miyares, Dogs, Columbia County

Nothing cuter then two dogs roughing it out especially when there is a large discrepancy in size.
This action took place at the Miyares Farm on a late spring afternoon.

Tags: Miyares Farm, Columbia County, Julio Hernandez-Miyares

Miyares Dog

Originally uploaded by julio.miyares.

Springtime in Columbia County, New York Series

Now this is the life! Chewing on a bone on a comfortable spring day 2007 on the Miyares Farm, employee # 0004 otherwise known as Tsar takes a break from chasing squirrels and other vermin and acting as co-receptionist.
Miyares Farm Dogs

Tags: Columbia County, Dog

Lonely Wheel Barrel

Originally uploaded by julio.miyares.

Lots of yard work at the Miyares Farm the weekend of April 21 as spring finally arrived in Columbia County, at least for the day. The temperature hit the magic number of 70 degrees and for the moment, the boiler fell silent.

Raking, trimming, disposing was the order of the day but some time was taken out for fun with the Dogs who are the happiest of the bunch as well as the traditional trip to Happy Clown for New York’s best ice cream..

Tags: Miyares Farm, Julio Hernandez-Miyares, Dog

Day at the Mall

Originally uploaded by julio.miyares.

Spent part of a balmy November fall afternoon in Reston, Virigina with Scooter O’Leary shown here on the lap of proud papa Super Developer Patrick O’Leary of Nsshutdown fame.
During the course of a little over an hour, there must of been about 10 people coming in and out of the Starbucks that asked to carry and/or pet Scooter. Scooter who is 5 months old and weighs all of 9 pounds is socialable with both Humans and other dogs of which there were a few taking in the fine afternoon with their owners.

I grew up with daschunds as that was my family’s dog of choice.
I had forgotten how absolutely cute they are.
Maybe I should get one for myself? Hey Scooter you dating anyone?

If you are interested in reading more about Scooter’s life in Reston, Virginia go to Scooter’s blog

Tags: Scooter Oleary, daschund

Columbia County - Miyares Forest

Originally uploaded by julio.miyares.

A spooky morning photo of the Hernandez-Miyares Forest at the Columbia County Estate. One of my recent favorites.
The morning mist was burning off when this photo was taken. Admittedly this was a lucky shot. I was just testing out the camera focusing into the forest. I was not thinking about how it would come out with the mist and sun rays starting to burn through.

The forest goes back for miles in many directions. I have explored it but have not yet gotten to its edge. Coyotes,Deer and wild turkey inhabit its confines. Serafin Hernandez-Miyares was lost in this forest for three days and 2 nights. Did he reach the edge of the Forest?? I don’t know, none of us know. And never will!

Tags: Columbia County, Julio Hernandez-Miyares

I just love the fact Serafin Hernandez-Miyares, a member of the Canine family and a cute one at that I would say, is now number 1 on Google Search. Interestingly enough, Scooter O’Leary, a friend of Serafin’s is number 2. Not surprising as a posting about Serafin’s escape and 2 days lost in the wilds of Columbia County, New York which linked to Scooter’s blog now entangles the two in the Search rankings.

Lets face it, the task was relatively easy. Hernandez-Miyares is not a common name and neither is Serafin. In fact, I kind of made up Serafin. Not sure if it is a legitimate name for anything.

Secondly, there is a lot of content I have promoted out in the ether. Serafin Flickr photos , dogster.com, my own blog.

Tags: Serafin Hernandez-Miyares, Dogs, Julio Hernandez-Miyares

Employee of the Month

Originally uploaded by julio.miyares.

What does it take to be “Employee of the Month”? Just ask Rasputin de Bernard, a 3 year old Corgy shown here working his job as the official greeter at Hawthorne Valley Farm located in Ghent, a small village in northern Columbia County in New York State.

You have to be cute! That’s easy for a Corgy, they are born that way.
You have to show enthusiasm for the job even on blustery cold days which it was when this photo was taken.
You have to be social and respectful of the other dog visitors of which there are plenty as many of the human visitors bring their dogs with them.

A virtual friend of Rasputin is Scotter O’Leary owned by Super Developer Patrick O’Leary of NSShutdown fame.
Hey Patrick, when do you think Scooter will be an “Employee of the Month”?

Tags: Corgy, Rasputin de Bernard, Columbia County, Ghent

Serafin Hernandez-Miyares sleeping

Originally uploaded by julio.miyares.

Well. since I last blogged about Serafin Hernadez-Miyares (by the way the #1 result in Google and Yahoo for that name) 3 days ago, he managed to escape again and disappear into the woods of Columbia County, New York. Its easy to disappear in Columbia County if you are a human being and even more so if you are a dog. Two cold nights he slept I don’t know where but from the looks of him , it wasn’t a pleasant place. Though he appeared Wednesday morning November 1,2006 on the front steps with a spring in his step and a glad to see you look albeit with a ravenous appetite, he is now in a state of total funk.

This is a picture of what he looks like though it was taken a few months ago so it is not the actual representation. What he encountered on those 2 lonely nights in the forest filled with other howling wild animals I shudder to think.
I am a camper and I have spent nights in even more remote locales but never by myself. Even with friends, a night out in the dark forest is a scary thing.

On a more positive note, I wanted to confer a welcome to a virtual friend of Serafin Hernandez-Miyares. Its Scooter O’Leary also the number one result in Google for that term plus a pretty cute dog to boot.
Here is Scooter’s link to his blog hosted by his proud papa super developer Patrick O’Leary.

Tags: Columbia County, Serafin Hernandez-Miyares

That is what you mostly hear when at the many teleconference meetings I attend on a regular basis. In fact I hear the same thing at in person meetings as many individuals bring their PCs to “work” during the course of the meeting. It has become a pet peeve of mine as if you are not the Project Manager and taking notes (how they got that unenviable responsibility I don’t know but better them then me , then you should be listening intently to the on-going conversation and not incessantly im’ing or blogging or reviewing the number of worthless stock options or whatever.

In fact, I believe one of the major contributors to the lack of decisions or even agreement on what a decision was when one is made is that most people attending the teleconference are not paying a wit of attention to what is going on in the proceedings.

Irrelevant picture of one of my dogs.

As an aside ,Can’t imagine how difficult it was to grab a copy of this AOL Pictures image on my computer. Downloading to desktop doesn’t work whether on a MAC or a Windows machine. I have been using Flickr to maintain my photos. That statement is a stretch as I only recently purchased a digital camera but now I take it with me all over and takes photos of skyscrapers, subway stations, dogs, countryside whatever. I tried out a free Flick Account and within one week I had upgraded to the Pro version for approximately $25 a year. Something like 2 gigabytes upload storage per month! Quite easy to do the basics including selecting an uploaded photo, writing some text and creating a blog entry directly from the Flickr site. Now if only AOL Picture could do that!