My Aching Back, Watermarks and the Pups

I knew this would happen. When I bought a rower for our home a couple weeks ago one of my main concerns was to avoid injuring myself by going at it too hard before my body had a chance to adapt to the new demands I was placing on it; my knees and back in particular. I had a couple of very good workouts early on which left me pumped for more.

I came home from work a couple Tuesdays ago and jumped on it for a quick 10,000 meters. I remember thinking during the workout that I really should back off and maybe do just half the distance. My body was tired and I was trying to finish the distance faster than any of my earlier efforts. And I did; I shaved a full minute off my previous best. A few hours later though I was beginning to feel some twinges in my lower back which had me wondering if I'd made a mistake. I had my answer the next day. Yes, I'd injured my lower back and I'd have to wait for it to heal before I could do any more rowing. I'm still waiting. I hope to be back on it by the early part of next week.

I'm still able to ride my rollers without any discomfort in my back so that hasn't changed.

I post a lot of photos online either on my website, my blog or my Flickr account. I have a friend at work who likes to put a watermark on all of his photos so nobody else can claim them as their own. I like to give Tim, a coworker, a hard time about it as I think he's a bit over-the-top sometimes with his watermarks. But maybe not.

I was looking at some Frank Lloyd Wright stained glass photos on Flickr this morning when I ran across one of my own...on someone else's account. Hmmm, I recognized it right away and wondered why someone would lift a photo of mine from my website and place it among theirs. Maybe I've got the wrong idea about how this is supposed to work. Anyway, I left a comment on the photo with a link to where it is on my site. I expect that it'll be taken down. If not, it's no big deal as long as they leave my comment intact. But, should they simply delete my comment and leave the photo I think I may be a little bit miffed by that.

Maybe I'm no better for sometimes using The Duplex comic panels at the end of my posts without giving full credit each time to Glenn McCoy. The difference, I think, is that I'm not passing it off as something I did.

I still don't think I'll be placing watermarks on my photos. The large ones take away from the photo itself and the small ones off to the corner are too easy to Photoshop out.

Charlie has come a long way in the last few weeks toward winning Allie over. I was just upstairs watching the two of them wrestle for a good 15-20 minutes. Allie is very gentle with him even though he can be a bit of a pest at times. Tammy picked him up when she thought Allie had had enough but she no sooner did that and Allie was reaching up on her hind legs trying to get at Charlie in Tammy's arms. She put him back down and they resumed their play.

They finished a few minutes later with Allie getting Charlie on his back in a submissive position. She held him there and didn't walk away until he had finished resisting. It was neat to watch.

Toby has become a lot less aggressive toward Charlie. He's still reluctant to join in with them in their wrestling and chasing but I think he will before too long. I feel bad for him that he's not able to let his guard down yet.

I compiled some video of this past week and stitched it together. The last half is especially funny.