Tag: pets

We can all use a feel-good story

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A few years ago, I joined a Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) Facebook group, because I was really just looking for intel on how to get tickets to baseball games in Korea.  Mythical (then) gf was going to Seoul for a month and expressed interest in going to a baseball game while out there, and I figured English speaking Koreans on this particular KBO group would be a great resource to tap into.

I never left the group, and when the coronavirus pandemic started and all sports shut down across the globe, one of the very first professional leagues to get back on track was the KBO, and for a very brief part of summer, all sports-starved eyes of the world were all focused on KBO.  As far as the Facebook group went, the membership exploded, with the most prevalent sector of noobs showing up being degenerate gamblers, practically begging the group for any tips any info to use.  Still, I stayed in the group, because it was Korean and it was baseball, and I enjoyed seeing the perspectives of fans in a completely different realm outside of MLB and affiliated ball. 

A few weeks ago, I saw a post pop up, about a guy who had witnessed a bus hit a dog, and how he was trying to rescue said dog.  Frankly, given my general attention span when it comes to social media, I didn’t even realize at first that it was coming from the KBO group, and then I saw the name of the person who had made the post – a person named Anthony Lerew.

The reason why this name rang a bell for me, is that a long time ago, when I was still early in my quest to visit all 30 MLB ballparks, when my travels took me into Boston, naturally I planned it during a weekend when the Braves would be making a rare interleague appearance out there, long before I realized that I was a walking bad luck charm for the Braves* whenever I traveled.

As was often times the norm back in those days, teams loved to call up pitchers from Triple-A for interleague games, mostly on account of the fact that their opposite league opponents would have zero familiarity with them, and hope that such would give them an edge.  The Braves called Anthony Lerew up from Richmond to pitch against the Red Sox, and I remember sitting in Cheers in Boston, having a massive burger and a Sam Adams, while the game started, relishing in being that tourist with the away team’s hat, hoping for a good game for the Braves in hallowed Fenway Park.

Lerew gave up three earned runs, and the Braves lost 13-3.  As was occasionally the case with Bobby Cox, he had a short trigger with young pitchers like Lerew and pulled him after the second, and let a bunch of trash pitchers absorb the rest of the afternoon.

What I didn’t really realize was that was Lerew’s last appearance for the Atlanta Braves.  He was back in the minor leagues the following year, and I vaguely have some recollection of him getting shelved with injury before being released.  As was the case with many former Braves, Dayton Moore was quick to pick him up and bring him to the Royals, where he had a few more appearances in the bigs in 2009 and 2010, before his major league career ended.

Unbeknownst to me, his career continued on long after his time in affiliated ball, and he kept on pitching wherever his talents could be utilized.  Japan, Korea, Venezuela, the Independents.  He had one particularly good year in 2012, where he pitched 170 innings for the Kia Tigers, while maintaining a 3.83 ERA. 

I have no idea if that one particular year had anything to do with his present, but fast forward to present day, and Anthony Lerew is still in baseball now, where he is on the coaching staff for the Kia Tigers.  This made me happy to learn, as there’s always something so beautiful about the guys that are baseball lifers that always stay involved in the game, even after their playing careers are over.

Anyway, back to the story about the dog, one thing that I learned from my two trips to Korea, is that their bus drivers are among the most reckless drivers on the planet.  I spent maybe cumulatively 20 days in various parts of Korea over those trips, and I witnessed no less than three different incidents of buses hitting cars or guys on scooters, from Seoul to Jeju to Geongju.  The notion of a Korean bus driver hitting a dog and driving off is about as surprising as finding out about pollen in Georgia.

So Lerew came across a badly injured dog, and decided to take it upon himself to try and rescue him.  Unsurprising, costs would be an issue, as KBO salaries are nowhere near pro salaries in America, much less for a non-player coach, so Lerew did what many in the world do whenever they try to raise money for a cause: GoFundMe.

99 times out of 100, I tend to kind of pretend like I didn’t see a GoFundMe, because there’s at any given time so many of them out there that have some degree of personal connection to me, and it’s not that I don’t care about any of these causes so much as I got a second kid on the way, my finances are pretty buttoned up, and I don’t always have the capacity to get involved.

But once a Brave, always a Brave to me, and I always remembered Lerew from Boston, and when I saw him, he always had the most killer sideburns.

Plus it wasn’t like Lerew was trying to exploit GoFundMe and/or his friends, to raise money in order to pay bills or some sort of debt that was his own fault and was totally avoidable.  He was just trying to rescue an injured dog.  Who doesn’t love dogs?  So I donated a small amount, with genuine hopes that he would reach his target goal of the equivalent of $7,000 USD to pay for surgery, rehab, vaccines and other costs.

It didn’t take long at all for the goal to be met, because clearly there are many out there that love baseball, love dogs, recognized Lerew, or whatever reason.  I think it hit the goal in 2-3 days, and I was pleased to see Anthony Lerew notch a win in one of the many things in the world out there that are more important than just baseball.

The best part about this whole story has been Lerew and his family’s complete transparency during the whole aftermath of the fundraiser.  It’s not that I wouldn’t have trusted him, but in this jaded day and age of scumbags and thieves, I can understand the Lerews’ overcaution with transparency, and they posted updates on a near daily basis of the journey of Oreo (the dog’s new name), updates on surgeries, receipts, and adorable rehab videos; in English and in Korean.

As of today, it sounds as if the worst of the journey is over, and Oreo has been discharged from the vet and is on her way to a life of care and compassion with the Lerews in Korea.

Honestly, I didn’t really know where I was really going with this post so much as I just wanted to share a story of rare positivity and a happy ending in this time of the world that is desperately in need of stories like this.  I loved hearing that Anthony Lerew is still in baseball, and that he’s a person of great compassion, faith and resourceful enough to utilize technology, and that there are many also compassionate people out there who are willing to chip in for a good cause.

My 600 Lb. Diet – Day 6

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m finding that the biggest opponent of staving off hunger is staying awake longer than is necessary.  Actually, I knew that, because back in like 2006 when I was actively dieting pretty well, I had some pretty regimented hours because my life wasn’t in a particularly good place, and I slept a lot to deal with a lot of the depression I was dealing with, so I went to bed at pretty predictable hours and had a pretty routine schedule as far as eating went.  It was probably close to intermittent fasting before intermittent fasting was coined.

Dealing with a possible emergency situation with one of the house’s pets and went to an emergency clinic for the first time ever.  Now I’ve heard lots of things, mostly negative about emergency vets, but almost all of them involve lots of waiting.  Which is kind of fair, because you’re going with no appointments, the on-call doctors there have to react and diagnose quickly, and things can go tits up with one bad decision.

Regardless, I sat in the parking lot for two hours after being told 30 minutes to an hour, watched several cars that came after me leave before I did, so I called to find out what was up, only to find out that my pet hadn’t been seen yet, and “was next” in about 30-45 minutes.  I told them I didn’t live far, and they finished the statement for me by telling me to go home.  So instead of doing the critical schoolwork I had planned on doing this evening, in the indeterminable window of time it will take for my pet to be seen, I’m catching up on writing this diatribe as well as summarizing my Dr. Nowzaradan diet’s day, as I have been doing over the last week.

But yeah, I’m typically in bed by now, and the hunger I’m feeling isn’t registering while I’m asleep.  But because I’m not asleep, the hunger is real, and I know I’m not eating again until like 7:30 am.  Combined with anxiousness over the wellbeing of my pet, this is not a particularly good way to start a very well-needed weekend.

Breakfast – Same as Day 3
Snack – Same as Day 1
Lunch – Same as Day 1
Snack – Same as Day 1 + 0.7oz extra turkey (end of package, 30 cal, 5g pro)
Dinner – Same as Day 1

Exercise
• 50 sit-ups (50)
• 125 push-ups (25, 70, 30)

Total
1,225 calories, 129.5 grams of protein.
Total cost: $9.35

GOOD BOY

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

lol’d: dog left in truck attempts to get at Tupperware full of bacon grease, inadvertently puts vehicle in gear, causes fender bender in parking lot

Sometimes we just need funny stories to brighten a day.  This is one of them.  Elvis, which is an appropriate name for this dog, attempts to get at some bacon grease and instead drives a truck into a parked car.

It’s not like Elvis could be held accountable for any of this, because it was his less-than intelligent owner who left A DOG, alone in a vehicle that had a container full of BACON grease, and somehow expected that everything would be okay while he went into the store.

Anyway, the best news of this story is that nobody was hurt, most of all Elvis.  A Mitsubishi Lancer took a little bit of a ding, but considering that it’s a Lancer, it’s not like any damage was done in the first place.  Unfortunately for Elvis, it didn’t look like he succeeded at getting any of that sweet bacon grease though, however. 😢

Imagine if…

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Last night, amid the news that horrendous storms were going to pass through Georgia overnight, I went to bed with some concern over the trees in my back yard, and concerns that a large branch that really could be better off being pruned off would be the greatest risk to my home, if it were to snap and fall on my house.  I made sure my freshly repaired computer was properly powered down, and I was hoping that my dog wouldn’t be scared by all the arriving flashing lights of lightning pulsing through the night skies.  Regardless, I went to bed fairly easy because I am old.

However, I woke up at 5 am to other dog whining, wanting to be let out.  This has become something of a normal occurrence now, and I’m finding that I’m not even making it to my personal alarm more frequently than not, much to my occasional annoyance.  Regardless, with the night (mostly) passed, my mind began churning with curiosity of how bad the weather still was, at 5 in the morning.

Taking the dogs out, it was just wet outside, like it was just any other rain that had passed by.  After coming back in, I went to the rear windows to try and get a scope of the backyard, and despite it being dark, I didn’t see any large branches sitting ominously in my yard, mocking me with an “almost got you” proximity to my home.  So, with the supposed nightmare storms in the past, I tried to get a little bit more sleep, failed anyway, and began my day earlier than usual, since I can justify going in at ass o’clock because of the busy season at work.

Durning my morning surfing rounds, I come to discover that despite the fact that my region of the metro Atlanta area seemed to make it through the night relatively unscathed, there were other areas that weren’t as lucky.  Namely, one specific neighborhood in South Fulton County which got a literal brunt of the night’s storms, as an actual tornado touched down right in the subdivision and basically obliterated an entire neighborhood.

Continue reading “Imagine if…” →

Weird ass dreams

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Seldom do I remember my dreams, but when I do and they’re particularly weird or strange, I like to write them down so that I can try and process what I think my mind is going through, or just to remember them so I can think about later, or in cases like this, so that I can have something to write about when I feel like there’s nothing to write about.

In this particular dream, Earth has been invaded by aliens that remain faceless throughout the duration of my dream.  They do not seem to necessarily be hostile, but based on their request of humanity, there is an underlying threat of world domination that seems to be present throughout it.  I think at one point in the dream, I compare them to the Borg from Star Trek, and that the key to defeating them might be domesticated animals like dogs, because they seem to have a lock down on dominating humanity, but not necessarily animals.

Anyway, the aliens basically request that humanity submit to them, and that humans can voluntarily submit themselves to a remaining lifetime of captivity where they will live out their lives in what’s basically hotel rooms or really small apartments.  However, they will basically get anything they want or need, so it doesn’t really sound like that bad of a deal, except for the fact that we’re all voluntarily giving ourselves away to live in a degree of captivity.

Mythical gf and I, among many other people in the world decide to take the deal, because there’s an underlying sense of humanity going all biblical on each other once the aliens likely become more hostile and violent to resistance of their existence, and the notion of safety and security in spite of confinement seems like the more logical choice than to live in a world that has a high chance of going dystopian.

We show up to one of the areas where humans basically check themselves in, and naturally there’s that perpetual second-guessing of wondering if we’re doing the right thing, and how we’re basically giving up our lives and all of our earthly possessions and that there’s not really any turning back once we give ourselves up.

Continue reading “Weird ass dreams” →

Thieves?  More like HEROES

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Two wrongs don’t make right: Hoodlums break into truck to steal a laptop, inadvertently rescue German Shepard left in truck with windows up

When the day is over, all parties involved are shitheads.

I’m trying to weigh in my head which is the worse infraction, and I’m definitely leaning towards the asshole truck owner who left his poor German Shepard in the car with the windows up in the middle of summer. 

Breaking and entering and theft aren’t cool at all, and it makes my blood boil just thinking about when some thugs broke into my own house while I was home, but these thugs ultimately weren’t trying to hurt anyone, just steal.  But deliberately leaving a dog in a vehicle in the middle of the summer with the windows closed is basically attempting homicide, in a manner of speaking.  Whether it was a dog or any other living creature, actual life was at stake on the choices of the truck owner, and for that reason, he’s the bigger piece of shit in this story.

Continue reading “Thieves?  More like HEROES” →

Merry Christmas!

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I don’t really have a whole lot to say about the occasion, so I’ll let the picture do most of the talking for me.

It was nice to sleep in for two weekdays, and naturally they have felt way too short, but I can say that it was a pleasant and relaxing Christmas for me. I have probably eaten too much over the last few days, and will probably eat more than I should in the coming week or two, but that’s kind of what the holidays are all about, in some capacity.

And it was nice to finally catch up with a lot of the shows accumulating on the ol’ DVR, like American Horror Story: Coven and the fourth season of The Walking Dead.