November 2014 - Why I hate Fireworks - Louie's story

I didn't set out to hate fireworks, I hate them on behalf on Louie our first dog....no longer with us sadly....he didn't set out to hate fireworks initially but he ended up hating them due to one scary incident. This is Louie, he was a Tibetan Spaniel, a pretty amazing one.

When I was young, fireworks weren't as 'big' as they are now, I had one fireworks party growing up, but the majority of my fireworks were enjoyed out of the bedroom window looking at other peoples, such as they were. I wasn't that bothered about them growing up. 

When we first got a dog, we didn't give fireworks that much thought. Louie wasn't bothered by them and that was that. But that changed one night in mid March, totally not the fireworks season. Louie was in the garden about 10pm, when one of our near-neighbours let off some loud fireworks totally without warning, I never did know what exactly the occasion was. They had a dog themselves.....Anyway, this was the event that changed Louie's view of fireworks forever.

He was mooching around the garden as he always did, he was about 2 years old at the time. I had gone out into the garden to call him in, and just as I walked out of the back door a loud "whoosh" went off followed by several really loud bangs, made me jump. But they made Louie jump even more.....he flew into the house with wide eyes, clearly very shocked. He was panting and very different to how I had seen him before, the fireworks were still going off. From that day forward, that one event changed his view of fireworks from something to be ignored to something to be feared.

Every year, around this time of year, he began to get more and more fearful. We tried various therapies and drugs and even a dog behaviourist all to no avail. Louie had decided that fireworks were going to harm him, and nothing would change his mind. He would dig & scrape into the carpet incessantly, pant, scream in fright and in the end we had to put him into the car and drive out into the countryside where it was quiet. As soon as he was in the car, it was his sanctuary, he calmed down and went to sleep. It became a yearly event, as we charged out of the house with blankets, torches, books to read. We even had a soundtrack to this event, Louie seemed to be soothed by the music of Darren Hayes (of Savage Garden)....I still think of this time of year and Louie every time I hear this music.

By this time we had another Tibetan Spaniel, Nemo. He was thankfully completely nonplussed by fireworks and continues to be to this day. He tried to comfort Louie, but it didn't work.

Louie had an uncontrollable, totally maniacal fear of fireworks. He would not stop panicking no matter what, in his later years when his health was failing he wouldn't have stopped panicking even if it killed him....and to be honest we feared it would.

What really hinders handling the fireworks season is the sporadic randomness of when they go off. From mid-October they start, right the way beyond the 5th November. I don't really understand why we "celebrate" Guy Fawkes night in the first place, but if we are going to celebrate, why do we do so on any other night than the 5th November. We don't celebrate Christmas on the 18th December, just because this night might be more convenient. 

I am more and more of the opinion that fireworks should be banned for sale to the public and organised displays should only be on the 5th November, no matter what night it falls on, even if inconveniently it isn't at the weekend.

But this isn't because I am a killjoy, it is because of all the stories I hear from people about how scared their animals are by the fireworks, how they cower and panic at the sound. I wouldn't have believed some of the stories had I not owned a dog who showed such extreme reactions to the noise, you really cannot appreciate it until you have witnessed it. It is totally heartbreaking knowing there is nothing you can do to stop the anguish.

So even though Nemo is fine with fireworks, that didn't stop him being surprised tonight by our neighbour who backs onto our garden letting fireworks off tonight (2nd November). They know we have a dog, he happened to be in the garden when they let them off. They didn't let us know as a courtesy they would be doing it.....although he did scamper in from the garden a bit hyped, he soon calmed down. Luckily at 15 years old, he has enough experience to know if his parents aren't panicking about something, then he can happily curl up and go to sleep....which is what he did. 

But that event tonight is what prompted this blog, memories of Louie's experience which was much different.

I suspect that because of that experience with Louie, my attitude to fireworks is forever tainted. Unfortunately the usage of fireworks in our neighbourhood is getting ever more frequent, I think Saturday night (1st November) was every bit as noisy as a 5th November from a few years back. And part of the impact of fireworks now seems to be how loud they can be, rather than how pretty a picture they can make in the sky. Even though the RSPCA have championed 'quieter' fireworks, they haven't been taken up.

So if you are thinking of letting some fireworks off, think of the animals. Whilst some of them couldn't care less, some are scared, some of them literally scared to death.

July 2014 - Digital music

Like many people, I have a fondness for music....in fact that is an understatement, I couldn't live life without music in it. I love rock, metal, pop, blues...pretty much all-sorts. But although I don't consider myself to have OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), when it comes to organising my digital music, I most certainly do.

When I first started putting music files on my PC, I didn't understand what I was doing. I fired up the software that was installed - Windows Media Player (WMP) - put in a CD and hit the 'rip' button. It was brilliant, music to listen to on the computer whenever I wanted it. What I hadn't realised was that WMP had kindly ripped my music in the proprietary 'Windows' format of Windows Media Audio (WMA). But this wasn't apparent for some time.

I've owned various early MP3 players, but one of them mysteriously wouldn't play the files I put on it.....eventually I figured out it was because it would only play .MP3 files. Of course it was at this point I realised that I hadn't been ripping to MP3 format. Then my wife bought me an iPod Touch and along came iTunes and its default .M4A Apple format. This time I was much wiser though, and made sure it's default ripping setting was set to .MP3 before it started. However, what I hadn't bargained for when it imported all my music, was it creating a .M4A version of every .WMA file as it went along. Brilliant, now I had two copies of loads of my music taking up valuable hard drive space. Yes, I know I could have read the manual before I started, but honestly, who does that :-)

So time ticked by and my music collection grew and grew and got more and more disorganised. So I decided to take decisive action, and convert all my .WMA tracks into MP3. It took blooming ages, but over the course of quite a few weeks I did it. At the same time, I discovered that my tracks didn't all have the correct album art, artist name or album name. So I went about creating the correct ID3 tags for all my files in both WMP and iTunes. It took time, but it was all worth it in the end, if only for viewing Cover Flow on the iPod Touch.

So coming bang up to date, the latest project is to sort out all those M4A copies of the WMA tracks iTunes created all those years ago. This could be as easy as just deleting the iTunes music folder on my computer, but my OCD wouldn't let me do this....just as well as it turns out. Over the late May bank holiday weekend, I started the process and found all sorts of anomalies but I'm getting there. In a couple of weeks I hope to have a library of just MP3 tracks that both WMP and iTunes libraries point to and can play seamlessly. The other advantage is that any player I use will play any file I have, for instance I have a memory stick full of music in the car which will only play MP3 files, a Sony Walkman MP3 player which I don't think plays WMA files etc. etc. 

Then there a couple of other niggles. The memory stick I use in the car, is immediately wiped by WMP if I try to use it to sync files, I've had two frustrating sessions of time-wasting with it and the only reliable piece of software that seems to work with the memory stick is Winamp. So I have 3 music libraries to keep up to date, WMP for the Sony, Winamp for the car and iTunes for the iPod. I'm a fool to myself, there must be an easier way!

Then of course there is the bit-rate argument, what is the best. I don't know a definitive answer to that, but I use 192kbps. That seems to give the best balance between file size and decent sound quality. However the audiophile's amongst you will be shouting "lossless" but I'm afraid I haven't got either the hard drive/MP3 player/memory stick space for it or the pain of re-ripping my entire music CD collection. If I ever do buy a music streaming device for my house (I'd love a Sonos system) then 192 it will have to be.

Then, as if that weren't enough there is the project to convert all my Vinyl to MP3. That project has stalled somewhat because it takes so long. I am pretty pleased with the Ion USB record deck I bought off eBay to do the work, but it is going to take ages. Never mind, the vinyl isn't going anywhere.....

So that is my digital music musings for the moment, a high workload, but I really enjoy trawling through it all and it helps me to rediscover music that otherwise would get forgotten about.

Cheers for now, Carl