Birthday Boy, Blue II

Happy birthday to me! That’s right, today, March 27, is the big day and this year happens to mark the fifth year of me roaming this earth. Unfortunately, that also means that I’ve hit the age of 35 (5X7), by this date next year I’ll be 42, and I’ve officially reached middle age as the English Bulldog’s lifespan is just 8-10 years.

Ah well, such is life. I’m just going to enjoy it one day at a time, which is really like seven days for me. Oh, it’s so depressing. I must think happy thoughts, which isn’t hard to do on a day like this when I got to go to campus and all my friends (read: students, faculty and staff) threw parties for me!

Yep, it’s been a busy birthday for me. Paying no attention to my birthday wish to sleep-in, my dad got me up early so he could work out at the HRC (rec center) before work. It’s beats staying at home, but seriously, let a lazy dog sleep!

Once we got in to work, we had just enough time to get settled in before heading over to an early registration event for incoming freshman and their parents. My role at that event is to greet people and pose for pictures. Since my dad got me up so early, there weren’t too many pictures that I had my eyes open for, nor was I standing in too many of them. Sorry about that.

After that I inhaled the breakfast that I neglected to eat to start the day and got a visit from my friend and colleague Linda Cooley who brought me four new toys and some delicious gourmet doggy treats in honor of my big day! Thanks Linda! Here’s a video of me receiving the gifts that Linda brought me…

I didn’t get too much time to play with my new toys as I had to head over to Atherton Student Union for my very own birthday party! The kind students with the Butler University Student Foundation (BUSF) hold a party in my honor each year and it’s fantastic. The entire campus community is invited and many of them stop by for a free cookie or cupcake, soda, the opportunity to get a picture with me and a chance to sign my birthday card. It’s so cool!

My friend Dave Furst, Sports Director at WRTV-6, the ABC affiliate in town, made sure a news camera was on hand to record the event as well so look for it on RTV-6 news this evening! Thanks Dave!

Lots of students came, I took countless pictures, salivated over cupcakes that I couldn’t have, and just had more fun than should be allowed for a bulldog. Thank you BUSF and Butler for the great party! Needless to say, I’m one tired pooch…

That’s what you get when you’re a celebrity, I suppose. To finish out the day, I think I’ll nap some more and my dad says that we’ve got to make a stop over at the Vision Racing shop too. Fine by me, I love field trips! I also particularly like to visit my buddies at Vision Racing.

Hey, be sure to check out my YouTube channel, “BlueTube” for more great videos. I have lots of four-legged visitors this month (Bella the Beagle, Pepper, Xena and Xander) and a lot of our escapades are captured on film and featured on www.YouTube.com/ButlerBlue2, so check it out.
Thanks to everyone for the well wishes, presents, prizes, treats, pats on the head, and love on my special day! I’m not just the luckiest mascot in the world, but the luckiest dog as well. Thank you!

…and many more!

Blue II

New Year...Same Blue II

Happy New Year everyone! Sorry I’m a little late on that, I know, but keep in mind that it’s not my fault…I don’t get to type these things so I’m at the mercy of my old man finding his way to the keyboard to hammer these posts out. Needless to say, the hustle and bustle of the holidays followed by a “family” (family = sans family dog) hasn’t given him much time to submit a new post on my behalf.

Yep, he and my mom took off for Disney World for a little more than a week, back on Jan. 9th while I got to go stay with my Kaltenmark grandparents in Wabash, Ind. I love my grandparents, but I’m not so certain that I got the losing end of that deal. My dad said something about no dogs being allowed at Disney World. What? No dogs? Isn’t their main mascot a mouse?! Please.

Oh well, as the week without my parents went on, I resigned myself to the fact that I’m was going to be away from them for a while and spending some quality time with the grandparents wasn’t so bad. After all, I was able to get plenty of sleep, attention, pampering and playtime with my toys. So, while it wasn’t so bad, it still was no Disney World either. Below are some pics my grandpa took to illustrate my week...

I hope the holidays and the first couple weeks of the New Year treated everyone very well. Per usual, jolly old Saint Nick was kind to me. I’ve got enough new toys to keep me busy for a while. Below is a little video of me tearing in to one of my presents. You can view more video at my BlueTube site or www.youtube.com/butlerblue2.




(That's my cousins, Andrew and Alex Dinkins on the assist.)

Outside of the presents there was just a lot of hanging out with family, napping and eating…the sort of thing I do on a daily basis really. We did watch that new movie, Kung Fu Panda…I liked it and I couldn’t help but notice some similarities between the panda and myself. We’re both big, cumbersome, jolly, hungry cuddly guys. I just don’t know much in the way of ninja battle tactics. It’s a good movie...I suggest it for all ages.

It seemed that the Nintendo Wii was another popular activity this past holiday season and well, all of that activity in front of the TV kind of got me excited. I mean, think about how that looks to me; humans standing in the living room, waving their arms at the TV while jumping around and contorting their bodies. To this bulldog it looks like your either having a grand mal seizure or inviting me to play. I just assume the latter and take it upon myself to jump on your leg and completely wreck any positive progress you’ve made in whatever game you’re playing. Game over Nintendo Wii; game on Blue II.

Moving on, the New Year started out well for us Butler Bulldogs as the men’s basketball team reentered the Top-25 rankings. In late December they hit the AP poll and into the first week of 2009 they moved up and entered both polls. A week later and they moved up yet again. We’ll see what this week brings, but regardless of our position in the Top 25, it’s just nice to be there.
At 16-1, the Dawgs are looking good…keep up the good work!

Well, that’s about all the material that I have for you at the moment. All this vacationing, mostly by my parents, has left me with little to discuss. However, worry not, with the students returning to campus, basketball season getting into full swing, and other things, I have a feeling that my social and work calendar will be full soon enough and I’ll have plenty to share. Until then, stay warm and enjoy the start of 2009!

Blue II

Already a December to Remember

Thanksgiving 2008 is in the books and we are now officially amidst the Holiday Season. That automatically means things get busy as I’m sure you’ve probably already noticed. For me anyway, there’s been no Thanksgiving hangover. It’s been nothing, but Holiday hustle and bustle for me. But what’s new? I’m always busy, so I’ll just get to the good stuff.

Flash back to Saturday and it was the Butler versus Evansville men’s basketball game at Hinkle Fieldhouse where the Bulldogs looked strong in a convincing victory over the Purple Aces. This game was memorable for me for a couple of reasons.

Here’s the first item: Shelly Rabideau, who works in Butler’s purchasing services department by day and assists with the game day will call on the side, is famous for baking and bringing homemade chocolate chip cookies. For this game she put forth a little extra effort and made me some special peanut butter cookies with dog-safe ingredients in a recipe she got from Three Dog Bakery. I loved them! She even made enough for me to take some home so I’ve been enjoying them every night this week. Thanks Shelly!

The other reason that the Butler/Evansville game is memorable is because the State of Indiana Governor, Mitch Daniels was in the crowd and I was able to get my picture with him Thanks for the pic, Mitch!

Oh yeah, America’s Best Frisbee dogs also performed at halftime of the Butler/Evansville game and while I did enjoy the performance, those dogs only have one trick...catching Frisbees…so I’m not even going to waste my time on them.

After the game, my folks and I headed up to Wabash, Ind. for a second Thanksgiving dinner with my mom’s side of the family. Besides scoring a little more good Thanksgiving grub, I was able to experience the season’s first significant snowfall on Sunday morning. Between 2-4 inches fell in Wabash County on Sunday morning so I went out and enjoyed that just a little bit. I’m alright with the snow, it’s fun to play in, but as you’ll see in the video, when I just want to go out and do my “business” the snow is less than ideal.



Speaking of videos, it’s been drawn to my attention by my esteemed colleague, Brad Ward, that I’ve uploaded 102 videos on YouTube (currently only 97 show up on BlueTube, but five others were added in the favorites from a different account). From those 102 videos that have been uploaded over the last nine months I’ve had 30,348 total views; or about 110 video views a day! Not bad for a Bulldog!

So what does all of that mean? Nothing. However, I’ll do my best to have my dad record anything and everything and throw it up on my YouTube page because clearly some of you out there are enjoying watching that stuff. Fine by me, that’s why I do what I do.

In addition to video, I also do photo shoots, as you may remember from the video and pictures from my post last week. I finally have some of the official pictures from that and they are posted below. Feast your eyes on that!

(Photos by Brent Smith)

Pretty good stuff, huh? How many dogs do you know that could do that? I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t easy…took some serious restraint to not tear open those nicely wrapped boxes and completely devour that cake, but I finally got to enjoy the cake so it was worth the wait and temptation. Not to mention, thanks to my discipline the pictures turned out pretty sweet looking too!

Today I had the privilege of visiting Stone Gate Elementary School in Zionsville, Ind. to read a book to my cousin Lauren’s kindergarten class. Lauren happens to be the student of the week this week and as a result, it was her chance to invite a special guest to come to her class and read a book of her choosing. Naturally, she picked me to join my dad and her mom and the book was If You Gave a Cat a Cupcake. Lauren’s mom did the reading and I did the tricks. We also handed out my READ! bookmarks to the class. Good times! Thanks for inviting me, Lauren!

Speaking of reading, not only can our Butler Bulldogs play a mean brand of basketball, but they read a good book every now and again as well. This week you can dial up starting freshman forward, Gordon Hayward (pictured) and hear him read “Roly Poly Puppies” on the Indianapolis Public Library line at 317-275-4444. It only takes a couple of minutes and its fun to do, so dial it up and have a listen.

As I mentioned to open the blog, we are currently amidst the Holiday Season and that means, gifts, presents, prizes, treats and much more. I love it! The fun has already begun as Linda Cooley, the secretary for the Political Science Dept. has already brought me an early gift…a tin full of little Three Dog Bakery peanut butter snacks. They are delicious! Thanks Linda!

I think I also have a “Secret Santa” as I mysteriously had one of my favorite Build-A-Bear teddy bears show up in my office. Thanks to whomever left that for me. I’ve already claimed it as my own and I’m enjoying it very much! I hope this is just a prelude of much more Holiday cheer to come my way! I must have been a good boy this year and made it on Santa’s “nice list.”

I got a couple of other great items this week thanks to Butler grad and owner of Your Image Works, Mary Shaw, who was able to find some shirts that actually fit me. With such a barreled chest and skinny hips, it’s hard to find clothes that fit, but thankfully, Mary came to my rescue. I now have a custom Dawg Pound shirt to wear to the games and a special Butler recycle shirt for Butler’s Eco Dawgs program. I’ll have more to report later about the Eco Dawgs thing…this shirt is just the beginning, but I can tell you that “Butler Blue is going ‘Green!’” Here are some pics of my new threads…

Tonight I’m headed back to campus and over to Hinkle Fieldhouse for team pictures with the Cheerleading squad and I also got a couple of photos taken with the new mascot costume. You may remember their picture from last year contained a bulldog that was not the author of this blog. That’s all I’m going to say about it, but if you search the blog you can find my opinions on the matter. I’m excited that they invited me back and I’m happy to get my pics with the squad and the new mascot. Here's a few shots from tonight...

And don’t forget, that new mascot costume still needs a name and we’re asking you to help us select that new name. The Name That Dawg! mascot naming contest runs through Dec. 7, so don’t delay…log on to http://www.butlersports.com/ and place your vote today!

Talk of the new mascot costumes has reminded me of a story my dad showed me on FoxSports.com the other day about “Mascots Gone Bad.” You can read all about it here: http://msn.foxsports.com/cfb/pgStory?contentId=8824820&MSNHPHCP&GT1=39002#sport=COLLEGE%20FOOTBALL&photo=8824504

Let’s hope that myself nor my esteemed costumed colleague don’t make this list any time soon!

Finally, I want to invite all of you dog and cat owners to the Furry Friends Holiday Open House this Saturday, Dec. 6, 2008 from 1-4 p.m. at the southwest corner of 49th Street and College Ave. One of my partners and sponsors, City Dogs Grocery, is located there along with building dwellers Claire Corbin Photography and The Paw Patch Veterinarian Hospitals. They’ve all teamed up to offer pet photos with Santa, treats, raffle goodie bags and discounts on their products. I’ll be there to support City Dogs Grocery and you should come on out as well!

Don't forget to tune in to ESPNU at 8 p.m. ET tomorrow evening to watch the men's basketball team take on Cleveland State who was picked first in the pre-season Horizon League poll!

Go Dawgs!

Blue II