GOBIBLOG #10

Hi Everyone!

Well, as Mom has been saying a lot lately, “D-Day is almost here, Gobes. Fasten your seatbelt!” I assume she means that Maui Jim is starting pretty soon, and that my life will be even more chaotic than it already is? Of course she doesn’t bother to explain comments like that to me so I just have to interpret as well as my little dachshund brain can. She said that she’s actually quite happy with the number of people coming to Maui considering the horrendous price of gas, and also the fact that it’s a Pan American Games year which has taken away some of the usual Hot Shots who compete here. Now why anyone would choose to go to Rio de Janero (for God’s sake) over Wayne, Illinois is beyond me, but what do I know? As for the gas prices, if everyone used elephants instead of cars like they do in many places in Thailand, that problem would be a non issue. Maybe I’ll run for President next year. What does everyone think? I have a lot of good ideas, and I’m sure I could do a fine job – but don’t get me started on politics!

Ritch the Designer and Nice Jon who feeds me pizza were here last month to “tweak” their cross country courses, and it was good to see them. Then for a reason that escapes me, Ritch the Designer came back again to meet with Dead Hampton’s primary victim, Mark Phillips and look at these same cross country courses all over again. I guess it takes a lot of looking and tweaking before they can get things just right for the horses. I know that they are doing a bunch of work on something called “footing” which as far as I can gather is the stuff that horses gallop on. Another friend of Mom’s named Chris who is southern, and who learned very early on that feeding me lots of cookies makes the world a better place, has been riding on a tractor all day every day on the galloping lanes. This tractor pulls something called an aeravator behind it that punches holes in the ground and vibrates and makes the ground soft. Weird! I’ve never seen this machine in action, but one of my assistant blogsters reported to me how it works. It sounds boring, and when Chris comes home at night, it looks like he’s been dragged through a dust bowl.

Anyway, when Mark Phillips was here, I was surprised to discover that I didn’t mind him all that much despite what Hampton had said about him before he got dead. Although he didn’t feed me any cookies, he did scratch my ears, and I guess that has to count for something. He was working at the kitchen table pretty late at night, but I didn’t bite him even though I could have. I just curled up and went to sleep on my bed in the corner with Sluggers while he wrote long boring things about the Maui Jim courses he’d seen that day. I’m sure he was intimidated by my fierce reputation, and that’s why he was so nice to me! Ritch the Designer said that they also spent quite a bit of time “laying down a track” (whatever that means) for the AEC’s advanced division, and from all reports, this will be very exciting. Then shortly after Ritch the Designer left, Nice Jon reappeared. He also is tweaking his courses so tweaking seems to be a never ending process. It seems like a waste of time to me, but again, what do I know?

We’ve had lots of house guests for me to entertain in the last month. Sheila from Arizona spent a couple of days and brought some really good cookies which she gave me. My friend Mort who helps his Mom run Rolex, (NOT Timex), sent me a very neat elephant. It’s also blue, and it tasted really good when I was unstuffing it. It is now my outdoor elephant who helps me do all kinds of things like scare away the Cullegan man and hunt for things to kill. (Speaking of which, I killed a bird last week! He’d flown into a glass window and got stunned so I finished him off. Grandma Ana who is also here until Maui Jim said that I was the bravest little dog she’d ever seen – and then she threw the bird away. Go figure!)

Apparently there has been quite a bit of conversation on the Chronicle Forum, something I personally don’t read, but which Mom does, about Maui Jim and also about the AEC’s. Mom promised the people who read the Forum that I’d explain the new twist that will be on the Maui Jim courses called “Gobi Tips.” This was actually Nice Jon’s idea, and I jumped on it because it will be fun for everyone and will also give this Blog some publicity. Here’s the scoop. I have written a number of “tips” for competitors, bits of advice about certain jumps and also some philosophical musings. These have been laminated and will be posted around the courses for people to read and maybe even learn from. I hope everyone likes them. I’m not going to tell you what they say, but I will give you one hint. When you look at the beautiful flowers that Lamplight has planted around the water jumps and the Bank Complex, you’ll see several Gobi Tips. Read them carefully and mind what they say!

We all got through the 4th of July in good shape, but for the life of me, I can’t understand why humans have to make such loud noises to celebrate. Several times, I was awakened from a deep sleep and a great dream about elephants and cookies, (my two favorite subjects), and I was sure we were being bombed. It’s a good thing I’m as courageous as I am! I had to keep Sluggers and Bruised calm through it all.

Well, I’d better close and go get some rest. I have a feeling things are soon going to get pretty hectic here, and I’ll need to be at my best. I’ll leave you with an interesting Gobifact. In the 13th century, King Henry III kept an elephant in the Tower of London. Now how cool is that????? I wish I’d been there!

Wish us all well for Maui Jim, and I’ll write again when I’ve rested up and gotten the house back in order.

Lots of love

Gobi