Name That Ass

I promised you a contest, and I'm delivering…

This contest idea came to me as a result of 1) being bored, 2) having nothing to look at but a big, hairy ass, and 3) noticing that Tony's tail dock resembled a heart (hint hint...) Upon checking a random sample of our other horses, I noticed several had very distinct tails. Now some of these will be easy peasey, especially for our employees. But the rest of you have a fighting chance of matching the name to the butt.

I've posted tons of pictures over the last three years, plus descriptions of some of our horses. So your job, if you choose to accept it, it to match the name with the horse's ass.

I've simplified it a bit; after all we have five blacks and five Belgians, so I'm keeping the numbers down by only including the horses that you, if you've been a regular reader and paid attention, should be able to identify.

Like I said, there are no prizes, just glory. You can either put your guess in the comments or email me at slcslavedriver@gmail.com.

Good luck. Have fun! See how your ass knowledge compares with those of others…



#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

The above butts belong to the following horses, in no particular order:

Tony, Cisco, Charlie, Rex, Jerry, Bart, and Cleatus

Bits And Pieces

We had the honor of taking Arnold Friberg to his final resting place. He was a renowned artist and a member of the LDS church that lived and worked right here in Salt Lake City. I was not there to take photos, but you can learn all about it and watch video of Jim and Charlie here. On a side note, Jim is famous in our stable for, um, letting his "pride" show so to speak… which he did all during the funeral.

I don’t know, maybe it's a horses way of showing respect.

Speaking of walking around with your dingle hanging out; The horse named Kid, who had a long and illustrious career as a carriage horse and retired last year to northern Utah with Wease passed on last week after a valiant fight with, um, not being able to put his junk away. I'm sure there was something else going on there, but during a short, terse conversation with Wease, that's what I took away from the conversation. So, Kid has shucked his mortal coil and is probably posing for Arnold Friberg right now. Hopefully Arnold can slap some pretty on him, because Kid was one fugly looking horse.

How do you know when a horse is tall? You can't tell with Ro & I we're kinda shrimpy, but when Kar has to stand on a wagonette to hose Cisco down, you know he's tall, because Kar's up there just shy of six foot.

And that's about it unless you want to hear about my new cell phone (EVO, and it's way bigger than my last phone) or my new netbook (Acer, and it's half the size of my laptop) or how it's been as hot as the surface of the sun out here. Or how we were mentioned in an article about the bike riding ice cream vendors (except they called us horse carriage riders instead of horse carriage drivers.)

I'll be doing a contest next week. There are no prizes, just glory. The only way to study is to run through the blog and look at the pictures of our horses.

There Is No Warranty Against Insanity

I have a pool. It's nothing grand; people who usually vacation at the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas will not flock to my backyard any time soon. It's large enough for me to get into, as opposed to Luna's pool,
Luna's Pool
which I would not want to get into because it's dirty and has a distinct "Eau de Moist Chien" aroma about it.

Anyway, I purchased a solar cover for my pool. Living as I do in the desert with the low humidity, it can be very hot during the day but as soon as the sun goes down it rapidly cools. With a solar cover, the idea is that as the sun warms the pool, the little bubbles create extra mass (similar to a serrated blade being "longer" than a straight blade. The serrations add length; the bubbles add surface space or volume.) The cover also allows the air in the bubbles to heat up with then helps heat the water, and the cover helps retain the heat and also decreases evaporation.

So, I have a solar cover. Over this past spring into summer I've noticed after removing the solar cover a bunch of the "bubbles" have remained in the pool. In fact, often times it looks like I'm swimming with a jillion contact lenses, or very tiny appendage-less jellyfish. So, unable to locate my receipt (of course) I called the company I purchased it from, asked them to look up my sale via my customer number, and found out that, contrary to usual M.O. I did not in fact buy the cheapest piece of crap they sell, but one with a 2 year full and 8 year partial warranty.

And, the item is still under warranty. The helpful operator advised me the steps I needed to do to submit a claim:

Cut a 12x12 piece of the cover out.




Write a letter with my information on it so they can verify the purchase.

Slip the cover sample and the letter into a padded envelope…

???



Excuse me? A PADDED envelope? To ship stuff that is essentially really thick bubble wrap?

Insane.

Kick Me...

Working as I do for a carriage company there are not a whole lot of perks. The hours are long, and those long hours are usually hot, cold or wet. You can't use the john unless you wrangle another carriage company employee into holding your horse for you while you disappear into Temple Square for a stolen moment of relief in the heated/air-conditioned comfort of the Visitor's Center. And you pack a lunch or brave the yuckyness that is the Carl's Jr's drive thru, because decent restaurants just don't see a need to add "Carriage Parking" in their lots. However, the one perk I do have, the one that makes me shudder at the thought of looking for a "real" job (ie one with actual schedules) is the benefit of being able to pick and choose the days on which I do work.

This is my benefit package. It's the reason why others were jealous because I traveled to Chicago last August for two weeks, returned home for four days, then took off camping for another week. And while it tends to drive Ro insane, ("Who the hell am I supposed to get to cover this weird wedding? It's goofy, and I need you to drive it!") She cannot complain over much because she also takes off whenever the spirit moves her.

Which bring us to this: I do not sign up to work holidays that involve drinking and/or fireworks.

Why?

Because on those days I usually find myself drinking and blowing off fireworks, that's why.

However, this past Friday I conceded to work the Riverton Fourth Of July (but held on the Second of July) Parade. I assumed it would be easy, fast, and painless. Three words I adore.

What I got was what I always get: long, tedious and so-not-worth-it. I won’t go into all the details, because the blog will only spiral down into a rant, which is not unusual, however I have given Ro permission to beat me senseless the next time I agree to drive in a parade. And after she has beaten me into a heap, I've encouraged her to then give several swift kicks, lest I ever forget and agree to work a parade again.

Anyway, although our parade ended much better than some others did, here are some observations regarding it:

I drove the Grand Marshall, Cleatus Hamilton, and his lovely wife Sharon. Cleatus is a relation to the carriage company owners, and my favorite horse Cletus is name for Grand Marshall Cleatus. They even got to meet, although I don't think either one was too impressed with the other.

And while Cleatus (the human one) and Sharon are nice, they are getting up there in age, so when they realized the quantity of candy they would be required to toss to the crowd they blanched a bit. And I must admit that for a little while there the begging from the sidelines was so intense I felt like I was roaming the streets of Calcutta with a pocket full of coins. So I assisted, tossing taffy high into the air and watching it bean bystanders on the noggin.

Okay, I admit, that part was fun. Pelting people with candy left me with a warm, fuzzy feeling. Giddy, even.

Plus it gave me plenty of ammunition to use when children ran into the street and tossed "poppers" at Rex's hooves. I "gave" those kids extra candy. At a high rate of speed. Aimed at their heads.

Oddly enough, they thanked me for it.

Silly people.

Anyway, for your viewing pleasure, here are a few photos from the Riverton Parade.

And while you enjoy them, I'm going to get a big ass glass of wine and shoot bottle rockets disguised as Tootsie-Rolls at the neighbor's kids.




The Grand Marshall sign. It's a good thing I drove Rex, if I'd driven Cleatus he would have been confused by all the people lining the parade route shouting out his name.



Human Cleatus with his wife Sharon.



The Cleatuses meet.




Slave Driver and Rex.



Hardrock and Cleatus: they brought up the rear.




Parade veteran Scooter,(driving Tony) who for reasons I cannot fathom, loves to drive parades.



Scooter again.





Scooter and I were at the front of the parade, Hardrock at the end. We had to sit and wait for it to be ove to get back to the horse trailers. I spent five hours of my life working this parade, none of which I will ever get back.