Deepest thanks to everyone who offered their thoughts and prayers and support after Ember's passing. It really means a lot to me. I know many of you met her or were inspired by her, one way or another. She was a remarkable, one of a kind dog. The family we adopted her from sent a beautiful memorial flower arrangement. I will share a picture of them and the memorials we are having made for her, as soon as we get them back. I got really sick with a massive flair with the upset and stress of Ember's passing and other stuff going on with my mom going through cancer treatment. My jaw and face have been sore and swollen on and off during this time because of it, so I have just been sleeping a lot trying to feel better. Hope everyone is doing as well as can be.

Bright and Blessed Yule to everyone. Merry Winter Holiday, whichever one you celebrate, to everyone. May all your dreams and wishes come true.

I was going to play Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice tonight or tomorrow, only to discover you can't remap WSAD to arrow keys. I normally do, for accessibility reasons ( bad fingers and wrists ). Console gaming is clearly more important than PC. Will try and find a work around.

I'm alive. Been focusing all energy on some new endeavors and adventures the past several months. Happy I can finally start sharing info about it here. Stayed tuned. Hope everyone has been well.

Something I need to get out of my system. I am so sick and tired of people doing purposeful, malicious things to hurt others. Like the guy who purposefully backed into me beginning of November 2018, with his supersized pickup truck's tow hitch, on the exit ramp of the EJGH hospital parking garage, where I had stopped behind him waiting for him to continue down. I literally did nothing wrong, besides try and read a sticker he had in his rear window. I remember thinking it was funny how big the truck was because it almost touched the parking garage ceiling, and that tow hitch stuck out so I followed with a safe distance between us. Enough that when he stopped suddenly for no reason and sat there, I saw his reverse lights come on and had time to *honk honk* to warn him to stop, then lay full weight blaring my horn when he kept coming. But could not react fast enough to do that and put myself in reverse to avoid him. He didn't expect me to report it to the police or insurance. When his insurance company got notice from mine, he lawyered up and lied about it. Because he knew he was wrong and had something to hide. He claimed he was in a parking spot and I hit him, knowing it would put me at fault even though it is a complete lie. There was absolutely no damage to his truck because he rammed me with his tow hitch, knowing it would damage me but not him. Wonder how many other people he's done that to. So now I am stuck with around $600 in damages to my car that I can't afford to fix. My insurance won't cover anything until I exceed the $1k deductible I have. Must be nice to have money and a lawyer, to be a local influential individual who works with the local sports teams through the Superdome and as a local personal fitness coach who has been on TV. Which he apparently is, I found out. Must be nice to have the money from that and the merchandise he sells through his company, whose logo was on the truck he hit me with. Once again I am fucked even though I did everything right and everything I should have. Fucked because this guy has anger management issues or whatever else caused him to do what he did. Fucked because he lied about it to avoid responsibility. All I wanted was to get my car fixed from damages he caused. We won't mention that I ended up having to go to the hospital for neck and shoulder pain later that evening which turned out to be whiplash, because even a 5mph impact fucks you up when you have a connective tissue disorder. I hope the asshole reads this one day and realizes all he did was hurt a disabled person who never did anything to hurt him. I hope no one ever does the same thing to his daughter or anyone else he cares about. I forgive you, but I hope karma teaches you a lesson.

Totally stoked!! Mike and I got into the Anthem Closed Alpha happening this weekend!! We have both been really excited waiting for more information about the game to come out. Now we get to take a test drive!

Appeals Council threw out my case without even looking at it. They don't care that the judge was openly biased and wrongfully denied me. SSA didn't want to have to pay a 35yr old SSI *AND* SSDI plus back pay owed for both. I had enough work credits through this entire 2yr+ process before my hearing with the judge, but they expired while my case was drug out waiting for a hearing. Thus SSA knew it would prevent me being able to reapply for SSDI after the judge denied me. Now I have to start the process all over. I can only apply for SSI now.

I haven't made any updates in a while about Tesla's training progress. Nothing too ground shattering had happened, just working through his adolescent stuff. It was all going fairly well, he was doing well at doctor's appointments and in public, fine in pet stores and anywhere else we went. Bracing well, starting to retrieve objects in public, more challenging scenarios. But then there was an incident involving a pack of nasty reactive dogs belonging to an irresponsible neighbor of family we visited. They were constantly fence fighting trying to antagonize Ember and Tesla, who ignored them. At one point the bad dogs started fighting with each other right next to the fence, and because I was near the fence when it happened, Tesla ran toward me and them, to defend me. I stepped in to stop him, grabbing his collar to hold him back, because the other dogs were small and I was worried he would be blamed for hurting them or of him getting hurt. I lost my balance and used my hand to steady myself on the ground. The most aggressive of those bad dogs pushed through/under the chain fence at that point and nailed my hand while trying to get at Tesla, and the whole thing got Tesla real upset. I actually ended up having a pain induced syncope episode and passed out after I managed to stumble deliriously inside with partial tunnel vision. I had to go to the emergency clinic and report the incident. Then went through a horrible experience of having an allergic reaction to the antibiotics they gave me as precaution for the animal bite. Ever since that happened, Tesla has been reactive to other dogs and more protective in general. Any time he sees dogs in public, he has outbursts. I have been working for months trying to re-socialize him, and just when it seems like we have progress, something happens to undo it. Like the amazing day of Tesla going with me to the hospital for doctor's appointments and radiology stuff. Got all sorts of comments on how well behaved he was, etc. Then we stopped by our local pet store to see friends and get his claws ground, since I was having bad wrist trouble. He was fine with dogs already behind the counter, peeking over to see them curiously while we waited our turn. A man suddenly comes in despite that I was right against the door and there was clearly no space with big Tesla standing there too. The guy had some sort of Pekinese or similar, and the dog was straining at the leash panting like crazy pulling to get into the salon... right into Tesla's face. Which triggered an outburst. It's difficult. I now feel like I am "that person, with that kind of dog". I have worked with dog reactivity, but none of my own personal dogs have ever been this bad off. I am at a point now where I don't have much choice but to consider Tesla a washout. Unless I can drastically change the behavior to where it wouldn't be a liability. I don't have the money for taking him to repeated long term reactive dog classes to try and sort the issue out, and I am not sure it would fix things enough to allow him to ever not have that liability. Unfortunately assistance dogs cannot be reactive in the way he is acting. He'd be perfect for Schutzhund IPO work. Which is the next thing we are going to try, to see if putting the reaction under controlled environment and command will help him understand he should not react that way unless asked to do so, and only in the IPO "game" situations. It's sort of like a kid going to karate. They learn discipline and skills and time and place for using those skills and energy, in controlled environments or situations. Even with the specific training, there is no guarantee it will work well enough that I can keep working Tesla as my assistance dog. Even with the right training, he probably never will be 100% again. There might be too much liability if there is even a slight chance he might become reactive at the wrong place and time. Granted, this could happen with ANY dog, even one who has never shown any reactivity. They are animals, not machines. At this rate I don't have many options. I will probably need to get another dog, if by some miracle I can't make Tesla work out. I run into the same problem as before. As much as I want to keep Tesla and I am really attached to him, I don't really have the financial means to keep 3 large dogs ( Ember, Tesla, and whoever new dog is ) if I do need to start all over again and get another dog. Especially since we'd be looking at a larger breed like a mastiff type dog. I'm just not sure I can try owner training again,between the financial and emotional strain. Raising these dogs from tiny pups and then them being perfect except for some random fluke reason, too much emotional hurt in it and feeling like a failure when I have been forced to rehome them. I am still on CPL's waiting list, but have not heard anything back besides forms to update my information periodically. I am not hopeful I will hear anything anytime soon. I am at a point where I am ready to give up if this working dog training doesn't work. Maybe I'll just become a hermit and not leave the house anymore. This week starts the Schutzhund IPO training with someone I was introduced to who has experience with police K-9s and military working dogs. He is familiar with the most high drive of working dog lines, which will be a valuable asset in trying to reshape Tesla's behavior. Fingers crossed this will all somehow work out. I will post more updates along the way. Positive thoughts for us are greatly appreciated.

I haven't been online a lot since the end of November or so, mainly because a lot of things have been happening and changing in my life. I had a breakdown of sorts over the holidays and went into self preservation mode. I was in a real dark place, and I am just managing to really pull myself above it where I hope it won't affect my friends or anyone around me that I care about. I can't really talk about part of what happened. All I can say is it mainly revolved around the judge denying my Disability case, for biased reasons. I have filed an appeal with the Appeals Council, and that's all I can really say publicly. If you want to know more, feel free to ask in private. Stress over the Disability hearing and then denial, caused autoimmune flairups from those stress triggers and snowballed. I got pretty sick several times as a result. Also had real bad flairs with my hands and wrists, needed steroid injections in my wrists. Raw skin on my hands has also made it hard to do things. Had several bad Trigeminal Neuralgia flairs where the pain was so excruciating I just didn't want to exist. Like I said, the usual. Had some other things happening. Family stuff. Family illness. Deaths in the family. Just a lot of overwhelming emotional things that happened back to back. I feel horrible that I haven't been able to be there and be supportive for everyone in the way I want to, and in the past was capable of doing. I feel like these shortcomings make me a bad person. I know people have been concerned, not hearing from me. I just wanted to let everyone know I was doing as okay as can be. Just didn't want to be a downer writing about nothing but depressing things, because no one wants to read about that. I have little art and creative things, or geeky science and gardening stuff ( mostly just pictures ) I have been keeping a record of over the months. I just haven't had the energy or presence of mind to process all the photos and upload them yet. I hope to do that soon. Some I have already shared with my Patreons, who I am eternally grateful to and thankful for their continued support and understanding despite my absences and limited capacity to create on the level I wish I could and used to be able to. I am trying. My doctors have agreed that it is beneficial to keep trying, modify and incorporate what I can into my physical therapy exercises and such. Just taking everything day by day. Will start doing some catching up with everyone as I am able to. Hope everyone is doing well.

Tesla is 1 year old today. Happy birthday, you fuzzy dork!