Problem solving
One of the things that my home theater lacks is a decent cooling system. As the heat kicks up in the summer the HT slowly warms up during the day. Even though it cools down outside in the evening, the theater is still warm. In the past I'd open the door and blow a fan for about 10 or 15 minutes to cool it off. This worked well enough for me. However, when I get 4 or 5 people in there all that body heat can make it a tad uncomfortable. Nothing horrible, just less than ideal.
So this weekend, I installed a small air conditioner unit. I placed it outside to keep the noise to a minimum. I need to build the enclosure for it to protect it from the elements and make it look a bit less ghetto. (Even after all these years, I still gotta fight off that "poor college student" mentality. ) The AC works great. It cools off the room and helps maintain an acceptable temp. A few more tweaks and it'll be complete.
On the Dudley front, here's a pic of him playing with his "Kong". Apparently in the modern dog world, the Kong is all the rage. One of those "you gotta have one" sorts of things. They're made of super tough rubber and are hollow. The idea is to stuff treats, meat, peanut butter, etc. inside the Kong and let him at it. It's supposed to give the dog something to do and help keep them occupied.
Whatever the case may be, Dudley seems to enjoy his. After about 15 minutes of trying to get at the contents of the Kong using the technique in the photo, he tried a new approach that worked much better.
He started tossing the Kong around by picking it up with his mouth, running a few steps and then releasing it into to air. As it bounced to the ground and tumbled, he'd search the nearby area for any remnants that were jarred loose. He did this about 4 or 5 times until nearly all of the meat was knocked out. It was really cool to watch and see him problem solve something. Kind of like when the monkey-man in 2001 picked up the bone for the first time. Synapses firing. Thinking as opposed to instinct...or maybe he just got lucky.
