Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Joel said, make it shorter, so here`s an edited version:

This post isn`t dedicated to business but can certainly include it. This is about moments in life that you`ll never forget. It`s just an opportunity to share a story for a smile, a laugh, a tear, a doh!, a wow!, or just a head nod or two.

To kick it off, I`ll share one moment that I`ll never forget.

"The Roof Dogs of San Miguel"
A few years back, I was in San Miguel, Mexico, a very historical colonial Mexican city.

I was swept away by the charm of the town on my first day there. As night fell, the cathedral was lit up by floodlights, and the sound of couples meandering and talking along the narrow cobblestone streets wandered in through my B&B window.

But the unforgettable moment occured shortly after falling asleep... and then awaking... to the sound of barking.

It was my first exposure to the roof dogs of San Miguel.

Sitting up in the hard bed, no screens on the open window, it was impossible to ignore that not one dog was barking, not two, but what sounded like a hundred.

After a few minutes, strangely, the barking just stopped. Then one dog would bark once, sharply, and another would answer from a distance, then another, and all of sudden, dogs by the dozen would chime in. There were big dog barks, little yapper barks, and it would start and stop throughout that night.

Breakfasting in the bed and breakfast courtyard the next morning, I inquired with the waitress about what was going on last night. Her English skills weren`t very good, so instead she just pointed behind me to the flat rooftop of the B&B.

Standing there, leaning over the edge with hanging jowls and tongue was a huge Rottweiler looking down on the breakfast eaters.

The waitress then pointed the other way, across the street toward the opposite roof. Two stout Jack Russel Terriers were looking over the rooftop edge.

Strange.

After breakfast  I headed back into town to tour the shops. But this time I kept peaking upward. And yes, dogs were everywhere... on the flat rooftops.

I guess, because there are no yards in San Miguel, "letting the dog out" in San Miguel actually has come to mean, "letting the dog up".

Pets play on the flat roofs in San Miguel. And they rule the night from their perches.

That`s one I`ll never forget.



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Rich Sloan , Co-Founder, Chief Startupologist, StartupNation

maybe the dogs help "tar" the roof tops - to keep them water resistant.

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James Lindon, Ph.D. Patent Attorney
Lindon & Lindon, LLC
Cleveland, Ohio
Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights, Pharmacy Law, Litigation
[this is not legal advice - provided for discussion only]
Intellectual Property for the Individual and Small Business: Identify, Protect, Enforce, Defend.
"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
http://www.LindonLaw.com

They must have large bladders as trees don`t grow on roofs!


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eBidmywork.com   "connecting homeowners with local services"

It reminds me of the famous "twilight bark" in the Disney movie, 101 Dalmatians, where various dogs bark a message across the land.  After Cruella kidnaps the 99 puppies, word is sent to London from the countryside by way of barking.  That sequence ends in the city with dogs barking the message back and forth to each other, some dogs on rooftops.

So maybe the Rooftop Dogs of San Miguel are actually communicating important messages.  Maybe there are missing puppies outside of San Miguel.

Here`s mine:

I was washing my face yesterday. I had taken off my wedding ring and put it on the bathroom counter. My toddler (20 months old and not really talking) is just tall enough to counter surf now, so she had her little hands up there. So I finish getting dressed, and I go back into the bathroom ... ring is gone.

So I`m asking her, "did you see Mama`s ring? Where did you put Mama`s ring?" And she looks at me puzzled, like she`s thinking.

So I start looking through the bathroom, the bedrooms, the office, the living room. (I`m starting to wonder if she`s put it in the toilet or tossed it outside somewhere ...) And I get the idea of showing her the other ring (it`s a titanium set from a artisan jeweler in New Zealand) to see if that rings a bell for her. So I start walking down the hallway to the bathroom to get the other ring, and she comes FLYING out of the office, RUNNING, yelling "MAMA! MAMA! MAMA!" And she`s got my ring in her hand, holding it high above her head as she runs with her doll in the other arm, and this HUGE SMILE on her face. So I give her a big hug and kisses, telling her how smart she is to find my ring, and she`s just BEAMING with a smile from ear to ear.

Made me a little sniffly.

Many moons ago, at a time when the world was young and long haired humanoids roamed the earth at the tender age of 22 I set out to backpack the Amazon jungle. In Tingo Maria a small town in the outskirts of the jungle I met a bunch of local folks with whom I end up spending most of my time. The rivers there had me fascinated, they are very, very wide, so wide in fact that the ports have two piers one used during the dry season and another as much as several hundred yards away from the water`s edge (during the dry season) that is used during the rainy season. Of course during the rainy season the summer pier is underwater in the middle of the engorged river. One especially hot day during the dry season I went with my friends to the field were they were working, I decided to borrow their canoe and go check out the area, as it was all new to me. I must`ve paddled about 300 yards clear across to the other side of the river where there was this majestic tree, it was huge not quite as tall as the others but the canopy covered a very large area so it provided an inviting shade, so, I headed that way. Suddenly I realized that the folks I`d left behind were yelling and screaming at me, they were close enough that I could hear them but not close enough to make out what they were saying. Thinking `ehh whatever it is, it`s gonna have to wait, I`m not going back now...`  so I kept on my way. Once under the tree there was this breeze that appeared to come from nowhere amplifying the cooling effect of the shade, it was just gorgeous, there were a ton of wild animals under that tree, birds, monkeys and a couple small things I had idea what they might`ve been.

So, there I was enjoying myself being one with nature, it was all relatively quiet, the occasional bird would chirp and the monkeys would each make a small sound every now and then. I can`t think of a more ideal place, the river, the trees, the animals, it was just beautiful. At some point a branch cracked very loudly, clearly it scared some monkeys because they started hauling and jumping up and down on their branches, the more they jumped the louder they became, they louder they were the more monkeys joined in the fray. For some reason the monkeys must`ve thought I had something to do with that loud noise because they were pointing at me while they hauled, then, almost all at once, as if carefully coordinated by a master of ceremonies they all took a dump on their hands and started throwing it at me. With deadly accuracy I must say... Needless to say, I got out of there as fast as I could.

Once back on the other side of the river I found out that what they had been yelling at me was to stay away from that tree, those monkeys were notorious for a reason. Now, that`s one day I`ll never forget.

Can`t limit it to just ONE moment:

--Those first days after our daughter was born when I just couldn`t take my eyes off her.

--The excruciating pain when I got caught up in a portuguese man-of-war while snorkeling in Key Largo.

--The sunsets from Mallory Dock in Key West.

I could go on and on.  So many memories... Thanks for making me stop for a change to remember.

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cookie,

thanks for sharing!

here`s another one from my life`s treasure chest, from when i was a kid:

my whole family was on a sailing cruise. we`d been out for days. it was a 30` boat called, Deja Vu, and cabin fever was setting in.

i got into a spat with my older sister. with five of us (parents and brother Jeff included) sharing the limited space of the boat, in no site of land, our parents` patience with the incessant arguing ran thin quickly.

so what did they do? they banished us. they forced us together into the dinghy, reeled it out off the transom of the sailboat about 50 feet back and left us back there dragging... to duke it out on our own.

it was BRILLIANT! 1) our bickering was now out of earshot, 2) we were forced to work out our issues on our own, and 3) within 20 minutes we were playing and having fun as we dragged along.

very good memory. very good trick.


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Rich Sloan , Co-Founder, Chief Startupologist, StartupNation

What clever folks!  No wonder you & Jeff are so inventive.

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