Irish Trojan in Tennessee

R.I.P., Robbie

By Brendan Loy

I'm afraid I have some very sad news to report. A few days ago, while we were out west visiting Arizona and Colorado, our beloved greyhound, Robbie, died unexpectedly and suddenly of bloat. He was two months shy of seven years old.

It happened overnight last Sunday night at the kennel where he was staying. It wasn't the kennel's fault; bloat strikes rapidly and without warning, and there was no indication anything was wrong until too late. I got a call early Monday morning giving me the news. I didn't mention it here on the blog until now because I wanted to wait till I had had time to put together a proper photographic tribute. I've now done so; you can view 186 pictures and 12 videos of Robbie, from 2004 through 2008, on Flickr. (Slideshow here.)

The photo gallery traces not just Robbie's life, but our lives over the last four-plus years: getting our graduate degrees at ASU and Notre Dame, moving in and out of various apartments, and criss-crossing the country by car, from Mesa to South Bend, then to Glendale and back to South Bend, and finally to Knoxville. In each place, we've found new places for Robbie to play, from Mesa's Quail Run dog park, to the tennis court and lawn at South Bend's Clover Ridge apartments, to Jay & Ashley's back yard in Loudon, among others.

And of course, geographic changes haven't been the half of it. Since adopting Robbie from the Arizona Greyhound Rescue in March of '04, Becky and I have gotten engaged, married, and had a baby. We've both earned graduate degrees, and have gone from being 21- and 22-year-old kids to 26-year-old adults. Oh yeah, and I briefly became a national media sensation -- to the point where Robbie himself made the New York Times. :)

Through all these changes, we've had our gentle giant -- our very own "40 mile-an-hour couch potato" -- as a constant presence in our lives. Needless to say, he will be sorely missed.

Much more after the jump.

"Big, black dogs just don't get adopted"

By Brendan Loy

Andrew Hiller on this story: "It's time to stop barking, and start listening. An invitation to a national conversation on dog race." Heh.

As the owner of a big, black dog, I am personally offended by the prejudice against said dogs, and I hereby demand that all the presidential candidates immediately and personally reject and denounce the dog-racist sentiments which CNN has bravely shined a light on... and if any candidate does not do so within the next five minutes, I will consider him or her to be presumptively a dog-racist! :P

R.I.P., Pug

By Brendan Loy

It is my sad duty to report that Pug, my goldfish, has passed away.

Pug had been showing increasing signs of listlessness in recent days, so it's probably fair to say that it was "his time." We think he probably died sometime this morning or early afternoon; he was discovered floating amidst his fake plants this evening when I tried to feed him.

He was given the traditional burial at sea, and afterwards we played Confutatis (from Mozart's Requiem) in his honor.

Shortly after Pug's nautical burial, Becky, Loyette and I were walking Robbie on this pleasant spring evening, and we (well, Becky and I, at least) found ourselves musing about what an eventful time in our lives Pug witnessed. When we first got him, way back on May 30, 2007, I was a brand new law-school graduate, just starting to think about the daunting prospect of studying for the bar. Becky, meanwhile, was a mere nine weeks pregnant -- and we'd only known that she was pregnant for less than a month. Loyette, for her part, was not quite an inch long, about the size of a grape. Oh yes, and our apartment was still full of unpacked boxes from our big move to Knoxville a mere nine days earlier.

Flash forward to today: Loyette is 3 months old, and a true master at the fine art of grabbing things and putting them in her mouth. Becky's a mom, and a damn fine one. I'm a dad, an experienced law clerk, and an honest-to-goodness lawyer. (Is that an oxymoron?) Our once box-filled apartment has become a comfy home, as, more broadly, has the once unfamiliar city of Knoxville. And Becky and I are both way more "domestic" than we ever could have imagined back then, having settled very comfortably into our roles as parents.

From inside his watery home, atop the side table next to our couch, Pug saw all these changes in our lives. And he saw them while braving the hungry stares of frustrated cats who could never quite figure out how to pry open that darn tank. Pug may have been a neurotic fish (thanks to those cats), but he was a good fish, and we bid him a fond farewell. Swim in peace, Pug. May you find comfort in that great fishy palace in the sky sea.

Mmm... fish

By Brendan Loy

Poor Pug. It must be nerve-wracking, constantly dealing with this:

You wanted kittens?

By Brendan Loy

Someone requested, in the grand MgoBlog tradition of reacting to humiliating losses, that I post something involving kittens. Well, here you go:

Trojans r teh suxxors.

Aw, kitties

By Brendan Loy

After the humiliation of losing to Appalachian State, the Michigan fanatics at MGoBlog turned to kittens to dull the pain of it all. Perhaps it'll work for my fellow Domers reeling from the Irish's unprecedented 0-4 start (and the prospect of coming into the Navy game 0-8)? Let's see:

No? Oh well, it was worth a try.

Goooo Irish, Beeeeeat Boilers. (Please?)

P.S. Perhaps, instead of kittens, we'll feel better if we think back on happier times? Like, for example...

...and...

"What the hell are you doing in the shotgun in a monsoon? You’re asking Drew Stanton to run the option in Hurricane Katrina!"

Ah, those were the days.