The Henry Tran

3-20-2008

I just can't seem to keep up with this site! I've been taking a lot of pictures of you know who, and I've managed to accumulate 3 months worth of pictures. On the plus side of things I guess I have plenty of stuff to post. I just added some pictures of our most recent play date. We had some new puppies join the usual suspects last weekend and judging by the pictures it looks like they had fun (the bulldog puppies). As usual Mabel was filthy, you can see in the last picture her belly is all muddy and wet. At least Mabel doesn't put up too much of a fuss when we give her a bath, maybe she'll learn not to get dirty someday. Yeah right.

I'm going to break a few rules too and add posts in the past. I know I shouldn't do this but it'll help keep the flow! Expect some posts to magically appear in the past, I'll put a current update letting you know that I put up an old post. I have some cute pictures coming up so keep checking up on the site!! Here is a sneak preview of good things to come.

1-30-2008

Wow! I've been spending the past 2 hours updating this site with old updates. Read the updates below to find out what I've been up to the past month. Not that you really care. Of course there are Mabel pictures in here and I'll be posting more up soon. I hope to reorganize the site to make it a little easier to follow, and hopefully add a section for my portfolio. Why a portfolio you ask? Mainly because I want to take pictures for people and start getting more photography work in.

Speaking of photography, the observant Mabel-fanatic will see that the number on my pictures has jumped from the high 9000 to the low 100s. Why do you ask? Well it just means I took over 10,000 photos since I got my camera. Splendid work Henry! Now if you could only improve with your photography!! Wow, 10,000 clicks. That's more than Karen has taken her entire life, this information is straight from the horses mouth. She said she only took two or three disposable camera's worth of pictures on her trip to greece. What's a disposable camera? Well if you're asking that you might be too young to know what a floppy disk or a message board is too. Go wikipedia it you young brats. Heck, they didn't even have 'photoshop' back then and these days it's a verb!!! Wow, we're getting old aren't we?

1-29-2008

Mabel's first puppy class was tonight and it was really helpful. We have been working with her for a while on the basics but getting her to do stuff with distractions is a whole new ball game.

At least she is worn out from playing with the bulldogs! They were incredibly cute with their short tails wiggling super fast. I realized how important it is to read the puppies' body language. It was good to see her be playful with other pups. Sorry no pics I am too tired myself!

I've been bad lately! I have added yet another hobby (expensive) to my extensive list. I enjoy anime, cel collecting, kendo, aikido, golf, tennis, volleyball, cars, photography, wine, cooking, cooking gadgets, darts, ping pong, fishing, home theater stuff, working out, drinking, video games, pet owning (I don't know if it's a hobby but it sure costs enough), camping, Hugo Boss (again more of a drug than hobby), finding new ways to prove that batman is better than superman, and probably a lot more. My point is I have a lot of pricey hobbies and now I collect anime figurines. Expect an update soon with some pictures of figurines and my long awaited cels (that I bought over 2 years ago and have been trying to get them professional framed since then!

On a final note I uploaded a boat load of updates and random pics from the last month. Hopefully you can make sense of it!

1-26-2008

I have a secret to tell you. I typed the last few updates on my new iPhone. It is surprisingly easy to use and it's extremely useful. I hate looking trendy but I can't deny the convenience of having the Internet, google maps, an iPod (listening to Utada Hikaru as I type) and a camera all on the go. Again hip and useful, too bad iTunes is a mystery to me.

For the new update I decided to upload some pics I took with the phone.

1-20-2008

I just spent a long weekend visiting Brandon in LA. I took a lot of useless photos of Hunter, Brandon and myself. I did get the typical Hollywood sign and this great landscape photo. It's so massive I don't think it'll fit in the tables so I'll just give you a direct link to this massive (I mean 3 MB compresed, massive) photo. Apparently it's rare for LA to be this clear. OK enough hype, just click.

I got to see Ron from Office Space. Nice guy and a nice city. I can't say that I love the traffic. Now I can see why stars want Priuses. Not only are they trendy but useful. No matter I'm happy with 300 hp. Now that I think about it, I did see a lot of fancy cars in LA (to no one's surprise. I saw a couple of Maseratis. It was cool at first, but when you see 3 or 4 of the same car on the street the novelty just wears off. I've seen a couple near my place so really LA isn't much different than home! Come on people if you're gonna have money at least spend it on something unique! OK I'm just really jealous, although I'd still rather buy a GT-R. Enough car talk, you're probably all bored!

While in LA we saw some cool things but this puppy was easily the cutest thing I saw in LA. Yeah it was a good trip!

1-12-2008

I took Mabel to Ana's again for play time! Poor Ana never gets her peace when shorty is around. I did hear Ana growl for the first time. The dogs were eating their dental treats (see my depressing 12-31-2007 update) and Mabel was checking Ana's out. Apparently Mabel needs to mind her own business! In Mabel's defense, Ana was hogging all the treats and using her sneakiest tactics to get all the dental treats!

The weird thing is, the treats don't lost that long for Ana. What takes Mabel a few hours to chew down (if she even finishes it), will take Ana maybe 10 minutes. Well at least we managed to find a good gift idea for Ana that's good for her teeth!

1-6-2008

Play date! I've learned the joy of dog play dates. Mike, our awesome trainer, has been cool enough to bring his stud of a dog out to play. This is his new puppy, Miles. We think he's Australian cattle dog and part pointer. They get along so well I couldn't ask for a better puppy match. Miles pretty much runs the show which is OK with me. I am just happy Mabel sleeps all day after a play date. I finally had a chance to get stuff done, just not updating this site.

Looking at the pictures you can see the immediate difference in size between the two 4 month old puppies. I think Miles is around 30 pounds in these pictures. He's a strong, fast, smart, and hungry dog. He's tricky, when I would work with Mabel on her tricks he would steal food out of my pouch. Unfortunately he tricked me multiple times, as Bill Clinton said, "Trick me once, shame on you. Trick me twice, shame on me." Even if that's not exact, it's better than how President Bush did at remembering it without any help. Enough with the politics, it's puppy time!

1-1-2008

Hopefully 2008 will be a good year for everyone. I have nothing really exciting to report other than we took Mabel out for a nice long walk and got some peace and quiet. Two hours walking the puppy is no easy task, but the rewards are well worth it. Unfortunately the pictures didn't turn out all that great (I don't think I'd get Karen's approval) so I have nothing to post. :( Sorry, maybe next time I can take an interesting photo. On that note, maybe I can actually keep up to date on my site and post things on time, yeah right. I have a better chance of losing 20 pounds than post pictures on time, which means I'll fat and lazy for 2008. 25 years of fatty procrastination.

12-31-2007

Happy New Years devoted Mabel fans! If you're a real fan you wouldn't dream of going out and having fun, no certainly not. Instead you'd be craving to take your puppy to the vet. We took Mabel to the vet today, we thought partying and drinking was too cliche. Mabel uncharacteristically growled and got her panties in a bunch when the vet tried to stick her hands in the princess' mouth. Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde would be an understatement. You usually think of shots and weighing your puppy when you think of a vet, but we got a good treat tip for Mabel. There are these dental treats that look like raw hide (but aren't) and they keep Mabel busy for a long time. The one we got from the vet today lasted almost 4 hours, that to non-pet owners means 4 hours of quiet and productivity! To loyal fans of thehenrytran.com that means photo-ops!

12-30-2007

Well the end of the year is coming around and I have nothing exciting to report. We finally got some heavy rain and it brought the squirrels out of the woodwork. I found this fuzzy friend trying to dry off on my porch. It looks as funny as Mabel does out of the tub. Speaking of the devil, I also snapped a picture of her the night before discovering the powers of the window! It's like a whole new world out there. Yes, we have our windows open on December 30th.

December 25, 2007

It's been a while! I hate the holidays mainly because it breaks my rhythm/flow. Believe it or not I do have a sense of rythm contrary to my looks. Just don't ask me to dance sober. I'm going to cheat and date this for december eventhough today is january 29.

To sum up, I went home for the holidays which went well. My sister came back from Denmark for 2 weeks to spend time with the awesome Tran clan. We got to spend some time together as a family and reminisce about old Macy moose. She certainly was missed this Christmas. Here is a picture of Macy sitting around last Christmas.

A lot has happened with our little superstar over the holidays. When Karen and I came up to PA we went to Philadelphia to see Karen's Uncle Bob. Here Mabel met Riley. Easily the largest puppy she has played with to date, you can see how Mabel compares to Riley's water bowl. Riley clocked in at 90 pounds, big enough to give Karen a run for her money. Fortunately Riley is a sweetie and played nicely. Poor Joan was worried sick, unlike daddy who firmly believes in tough love and survival of the fittest.

After spending the weekend visiting Karen's family I took Mabel to York. She got to meet the nephews and niece. As suspected she did really well. Unfortunately she spent a lot of time in the kennel because daddy doesn't know how to take a day off.

Other than that it was a normal holiday. I posted a bunch of family pictures for your viewing entertainment. Also I got to see some old friends. Of course CK and I played video games, but I also got to take some great pictures of him. Take a look at this genuine player.

Finally I threw in some obligatory family pictures and sprinkled in some pictures of food. More of a Thanksgiving meal than a Christmas meal. Not that I care. Oh and of course Mabel was there to play with everyone. She only scored one present from my family but she also got to chew on the leftover gift wrap. Nice!

Hope you all had a good holiday! Enjoy the pics.

12-16-2007

Well, our spoiled dog takes one more step towards being even more spoiled. Karen and I bought her yet another toy, this one also falls into the "plush" category. Karen has named this guy "George", as in George of the Jungle. She also thinks he's a lion, but I think he's a leopard. The freaking toy is bigger than she is. It reminds me of those spoiled kids that had stuffed animals that were as big as they were, definitely a sign of upper class spoiled-ness.

12-14-2007

Lot's of new updates! Mabel had a trainer stop by and work with her last Sunday and it's amazing how fast she learns. She picked up some basic tricks like "lay", "come here", and a few others in as little as 3 tries!! It only took Mike (the trainer) 10 minutes to teach Mabel "lay" which really shocked me. I can't wait to see what other things she picks up. Mike also worked with Karen and I for a while, giving us some great tips to keep the biter under control.

The first tip was to get Mabel more KONG toys (see my last update). While we were at the pet store we picked up a new toy for Mabel (well she picked it out herself actually). It's a cute green frog that I have dubbed Kappa. Dirty Mabel has already licked the toy so much it's now completely filthy. Fortunately she loves Kappa as much as much as human flesh so my hands have enjoyed a brief respite from Mabel's fangs. Poor Kappa will never be clean again.

Mike also recommended that we get Mabel a backpack when she gets a little bigger. I couldn't resist and got her one now just so she can get used to it. I can see now why people dress their dogs up in little outfits, nothing boosts your self confidence more than seeing your puppy look like a complete fool. I've uploaded a bunch of new photos on Mabel's page, I hope to have that page reworked and broken down by the end of the weekend. Enjoy the pictures for now!

12-3-2007

It's official, Mabel's ears have finally stood up! She looks a lot like a fox. In other news, we have bought her another chew toy. She's actually chewing on it as I type this. It's a KONG chew toy, you can find it at KONG pet toys. She really seems to like the stuffing that came with it. Sorry, no new pictures of Mabel to upload.

12-1-2007

Ok I'm cheating, this really should be part of yesterday's update but if I break this into two daily updates it will create the illusion of regularity. So for today's update I've added videos of both Macy and Mabel to my site. Go to their pages to see the videos and enjoy!

11-30-2007

After much pressure, I've updated the site with more Mabel pictures! Mabel has grown so much since she's come home with me. She now can go up and down the apartment steps without much trouble. She's still scared of going down the steps but completely fearless going up. Mabel has been to Pennsylvania to visit the family and everyone loved her. Check out Mabel's new pictures!

Also, I've updated a finally started compressing my pictures so most of the pages will load faster. The enormous Kyoto project is still in the works, but Mabel's and Macy's page should now be a little faster (although I'm not thrilled that the thumbnails have lost a lot of the quality of the original pictures). Thanks for putting up with my laziness.

11-9-2007

Mabel is doing well and everyone is asbolutely loving her. I bet if I were to look at my site visits they've probably increased 100 fold because of her. I've updated both the Mabel and Macy pages with more pictures. I've also put a lot of info about Mabel, almost like a FAQ. Enjoy the pics!

Macy
Mabel

Finally, I have a random picture I took from Elon's campus. Enjoy!

11-3-2007

Yay! A happy update to my site!! To see my new floofer, click here.

I know Macy would be very happy with the new addition! I miss you Macy!

10-21-2007

I have a three things that I wanted to mention in this update. The first is I've uploaded some extra pictures to the Kyoto blog. I hope that by the end of the year I can have everything uploaded. I'd also like to have a link to just the pictures from Kyoto, in case you aren't interested in the words!

Second, I wanted to mention three animes that I've been watching. Death Note, School Rumble, and Nodame Cantabile are all wonderful series. Each series captivated me in a different way, and if you have the chance definitely check these animes out!

The third point is unfortunately about my dear dog Macy. She passed away on October 16th, 2007. I was fortunate that there were so many people who supported me this past week. They certainly made this hard time much more bearable. I wanted to make a special thanks to Matt who was very supportive of me when Macy died, I couldn't have asked for a better friend to be there with me. Macy has been a very important member of the family for over 14 years (and always will be a part of the family). She will be sorely missed. I am happy that I could be with her when she died. I hope she knows that she was not alone and certainly loved. I've uploaded just a handful of pictures that I've taken of Macy while she was living in my apartment. I hope that the 2 months she was with me were as happy for her as they were for me. Also, thanks Macy for many wonderful memories! <3

4-05-2007

Hello Everyone! It's good to have a website back, I hope everyone is excited to view my page. I'm currently working on my site and will be making updates as often as possible. Nothing on this page is new as of now, but I plan on finishing my Kyoto pictures soon and then we can get to the fun stuff! Stay tuned.