The Life and Times of Paul the Dog

One of the earliest photos of Paul, July 2002.

It is with tremendous heaviness of heart that I return to the blog to announce the passing of my beloved dog, Paul. Paul passed on Monday, January 27th of this year. At the time, my life was in a bit of a pressure cooker in many ways - personally, professionally, and otherwise, and it was all I could do to just hang on and deal with things one day at a time. I couldn't bear the thought of a big public announcement, either on the blog here, or on Facebook, where he has had a lot of fans over the years. I imagined an outpouring of well wishes and sympathy that seemed like it would crush or drown me, well-intentioned though I knew such an outpouring would be. At the same time I was counseled by a friend, that "sometimes grief needs privacy." So I gathered all the photos I knew I would want to use for this post when I was eventually ready, and then let it go and moved on in my own way.

Paul was the original Parson Architecture Spokesdog™, and with his passing I felt like I had lost part of my own voice.

So now it is nearly 8 months later, and I finally feel like I have sufficient distance, and I'm ready to pay proper tribute to Paul Baby, who was my loyal and stalwart companion since June 26, 2002, the day I brought him home from the Beagles and Buddies Rescue.

A Little Pre-Summer Interlude

Ok, so I've been totally neglectful of the blog for months.  And now it's almost Memorial Day, which means Summer is nearly upon us, and I have a huge backlog of stuff I've been doing, all the while thinking, "this would be good to put on the blog..."

And then I'm onto the next thing without taking any time out to stop and reflect and think about anything.  And then the next thing, and the next thing and the next thing.

Meanwhile there the blog sits in a big old months-long silent streak.

Going to try and break that streak right here and now with a fun little interlude that will hopefully help lead us into a fun summer of adventures and blogging about them.

Here (below) is an interactive panoramic photo I shot last summer, when I was in Chicago playing Uncle Nanny to my sister's kids and hanging around photographing buildings in the Loop in my spare time.  You can click anywhere on the image (once it loads its 5 mb - sorry about the size) and pan around almost a full 360 degrees.