Where The Wild Things Are

I always liked this book as a kid. I'm not sure how cool the movie is going to be, but the trailer makes it look awesome. It could be the song, but now I want to see it.




As awesome as that was, this clip is so much better...

Good News!!!

I hate the Jonas Brothers.  I have no specific reason, but it's the first time aside from a sports rivalry that I have cheered for someone to not be successful.  I was thrilled when one of them fell flat on their face at an awards show about a year ago.  I make fun of them every time I see them (seriously, scarves and vests boys?).  I was sincerely pissed when I read a Rolling Stone article that implied they were the next Beatles.  Pretty much everything they try to be serious about is comical to me in some way.

They were nominated for Best New Artist this year.  If you ask me they aren't a new artist.  They have been being pushed by Disney for at least 3 years and I definitely wouldn't say their THIRD album by any definition can be called their first album that established their identity.  There is nothing about their identity that has changed since Disney established it for them when they were new artists 2-4 years ago.

I could go on a long rant about how much and why I hate them, but I am just going to leave it at a simple kudos to Adele.  She won best new artist and the Jonas Brothers did not!  I was cheering for her and Duffy, bust mostly I was cheering for anyone but the Jonas Brothers.

In case you were wondering Adele signed with a record label at the end of 2007 and released her first album in 2008, a true new artist in 2008.

Puppy Chow Arm

Casie was out of town for work all week so it was just the boys running the place.  The second evening she was gone I had to open a new bag of dog food.

Jackson is a little obsessed with food.  He acts like he hasn't eaten in days every time we feed him, and he always frantically looks for more food as soon as he finishes eating.  To help minimize the amount of time he obsessively looks for food we got an airtight, 5-gallon container that we dump the entire bag into.  As I opened the bag and poured it into the container I realized I left the scoop at the bottom of the container.

I could have just found a new scoop and waited until we got to the bottom of the container in a few weeks to get the scoop back, but that's not how we do things when it's just Jackson and me running the place.  We cook frozen food and eat it in the living room on disposable dish ware, and we find the dog food scoop no matter how ridiculous it seems.

So, as Jackson anxiously paced behind me trying to figure out why he wasn't eating his precious food, I dug my hand into the food and began fishing around for the scoop.  As far as I was concerned Jackson wasn't eating until I found the scoop.  That meant Jackson agreed with me and thought that finding his scoop was almost more important than the actual food.  It was his only hope of not starving, which as soon as he heard me say "eat" he was sure could happen at any moment.

By the time I found his scoop the food was past my elbow, halfway to my armpit.  It was like digging for a toy at the bottom of a cereal box.  The prize wasn't as exciting as anything I ever found as a kid, but Jackson was thrilled.  Then the rest of the night he licked my arm with so much enthusiasm that I thought he might try taking a bite.

My Parents Lied to Me

So I learned something new this week...how to tie my shoes. My parents (who are teachers) taught me how to tie my shoes the wrong way!

It turns out the knot I have been using my whole life is a Granny Knot which loosens when stressed while a Reef Knot actually tightens. Apparently I'm not alone with this common mistake in kindergarten knowledge. The pictures I got of Runner's World show how you know you're doing it wrong.

Wrong Right

I have always noticed that my tie was parallel to my foot and found it a little annoying, but I assumed I was somehow twisting something and it wasn't worth bothering to investigate. That is actually why I read the article in the first place. Finally! The solution to my persistent shoelace problem that haunts me every time I tie my shoe (okay so maybe it is for only 10 seconds).

Check out the Runner's World article. I think the video does a better job of explaining it if you discover your parents lied to you too and you want to learn the right way.

Oops!

We've had a lot of minor destruction in the house since Jackson moved in.  According to Casie it's all really my fault, not Jackson's.  I'm not sure how she got that idea.

When we play fetch in the house and Casie has a pop can in the my throwing path...not my fault.  When I was throwing a toy over the half wall for Jackson to chase and it knocks over our box of Christmas cards gouging the floor...not my fault.  When I threw a rubber bone for Jackson and it took a wild bounce leaving a small smudge on the wall...not my fault.

You can barely even see the mark!

I don't get why Casie was upset about a little mark on the wall.  How was I supposed to know a rubber bone would bounce that high?  Or go through the wall?  MAYBE it's because the day before that when Casie gently tossed me the same toy I told her it was too hard to throw in the house.  It was probably really just the fact that she didn't get to throw the bone through the wall.

A zoomed in shot with weapon

And the (arguably) guilty party

In case you're wondering, I already patched the hole and will be painting it tomorrow.  No matter how many times Casie offered to make repairs while I was in class this weekend I insisted on being the one to fix it.  Even though it wasn't my fault, it was more my fault than Casie's but only because she wasn't even home for the incident.

I've Got Blisters On My Fingers

My parents got me a set of snowshoes to build for Christmas.  These are the wood and rawhide (neoprene these days) kind made by a family in the U.P. and distributed across the U.S. (and probably at least Canada if not elsewhere, eh).  Jackson is a huge fan of snowshoeing, or at least the fact that I walk him in the deep snow (he couldn't care less what is on my feet as long as I trudge through knee deep snow with him).  They weren't easy to make.  There were a lot of...phases...to the process.  Here's how it went.

Day 0:  Cool!  I can't wait to start.  Jackson will love snowshoeing!

Day 1:  What were my parents thinking?!  This doesn't make any sense!  What idiot wrote these instructions.  I'm pretty sure my visualization skills are above average but these pictures don't make sense.  "Tie a Lark's Knot."  Gee, I would if I knew what that was.  These guys might make good snowshoes, but their written communication skills are terrible.

Day 1.5:  I'm glad my parents could explain a little, it's not too bad now.  I would have been completely lost if they hadn't added their supplemental instructions to the packet.  By packet I mean, the three useless pages that came with the snowshoes.

Day 2:  I got the middle of both shoes done, not bad.  My fingers hurt and I'm bleeding all over the neoprene from one of the cuts on my hands.  Time for a little break.  I might actually write real direction, copy write them, and sell them to the Iverson's.  These guys are horrible at instructions!

Day 2.5:  What does that even mean?  "Just weave."  That's all the directions I get for the heel and toe?!  Not even a picture showing what "weave" means?  My parents weren't a ton of help either since this is different from my dad's set.  At least they agreed that my guessing interpretation was logical.  "Just weave,"  seriously...if I ever meet these Iverson people I'm going to offer some constructive criticism...hopefully I'll be more polite about it than I feel right now.

Day 2.75:  Make it "as tight as possible" huh?  It would have been nice to know I would be threading something between those two surfaces later.  I actually made it too tight.  How could one person possibly do this?  It takes all of Ben's strength AND me heaving with all my body weight to thread it through only moving a foot at a time.  Oh, and now I found a mistake so I have to undo that part and start the toe over!  Ahhhh!!!  I wouldn't give this gift to an enemy.

Day 3:  I'm still frustrated I need to undo and redo those two impossible spots on the toe.  I need another day before I deal with unlacing the stupid toe.

Day 4:  My fingers are no longer red, but the tips are still sore and swollen so I'm going to wait another day.  Besides the cuts on my hands could use another day.

Day 7:  Ben broke out his tools for re-lacing baseball gloves.  The neoprene was so tight we bent one, but it was still a huge help.  One toe down...yay!  The heel is even easier now that I get what "just weave" means.  I got the toe wrapped...nice.  Wrapped the heel...ah, crap!  I stopped over an inch early and now it's lopsided.  Sure it won't affect the function, but it's going to bug me forever!  Who buys something like this for someone?  I bet it's all sorts of fun at a brewery with an instructor to help.  All I have is pictures and crappy directions.  And crappy beer, stupid Sam's Winter Lager...Ben got the last Octoberfest yesterday so now I'm stuck pretending this is a good substitute.

Day 8:  Got the other heel done.  It isn't any easier, but it's a little less frustrating with Ben's awesome tool.  I have way more than enough neoprene for the last toe so I'm just going to cut my mistake out of the original toes instead of unstringing it.  Yeah, it's that hard and so not worth another cut on my hand.  Got the last toe done...I can't wait until this is over.

Day 8.25:  Wrapped both the heel and toe on the second one.  I might have enough to redo the other heel.  If I don't have enough it's going to suck to redo for no reason though.  This SUCKS!!

Day 8.5:  Haha!  There was enough!  It was worth it and now I don't have a lopsided wrap to look at the rest of my life.  That's right the rest of my life, I'll never get rid of these snowshoes...and I'll NEVER make my own snowshoes again.  I just need to put the harnesses on.

Day 8.75:  Of course.  The Iverson's didn't feel the need to put instructions on the harness.  They pretty much didn't give any instructions on the rest of the snowshoe, why start now?  I can't make any sense of the harnesses either.  I can't tell what strap goes to what buckle or what part of the foot each strap goes around.  Dad wasn't much help since he somehow ended up with a different harness than me.  I somehow figured it out from hearing how his worked though.

Day 8.9:  Finally!  They're done!  Now it's time to take Jackson with me on a test run.

The final product.

My harness (so my Dad can see why I was so confused when he was describing his).

So now that it's over it is kind of cool to have a pair of snowshoes I made.  Although I had my moments of doubt along the way, I really do appreciate the gift now that I'm done.  And I appreciate the actual snowshoes more than a straight purchased pair after the blood and silent profanity.  They worked great, and like I mentioned at the beginning Jackson is a big fan of the activity.  He goes a few clicks faster than I would choose to go on my own, but he keeps it exciting.

A History Lesson

Todd is my cartoon buddy.  We haven't talked cartoons lately, but when I was in Ohio this was a frequent topic (considering we are college graduates and working professionals).  We both like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (who doesn't) except for the future/time travel ones (really bad).  We didn't have much to choose from since most cartoons these days are not cool so we usually agreed on the good and bad of various cartoons and shared with each other the good channels and times to catch cartoons Saturday morning.  Sherlock Holmes in the future for example...a lot of potential, Holmes is almost always cool.  Future Holmes...not so good, in fact one of the worst.  I think Watson was a robot, if that helps depict how bad it was.

One cartoon I always enjoyed was Liberty Kids.  It may have been my favorite, but I'm not sure I can admit that to TMNT.  I could never quite sell Todd on how cool it was (although he never said it was bad), but trust me they're awesome.  They are way better than most of the cartoons that play today.  Plus they're historically accurate and trick kids into learning about the revolutionary era.  I'm not all about educational kids shows, but I am a fan of tricking kids.

Well, I have a new favorite educational history show.  I get a whole new appreciation for history from some true experts with each episode.  It is called Drunk History, available on YouTube.  Unfortunately there are only 5 episodes, but they are pretty much 5 minutes of awesome including Jack Black as Ben Franklin (my favorite).  Go check them out.  There is profanity in case that offends you.

I hope they aren't done posting new episodes so I can continue my education in American History.

World's Nastiest Dog

Jackson ate his poop the other day.  Then he at a small dog treat because Ben couldn't stand his breath.  Before that he ate a small piece of plastic from his new favorite dog toy.

Later that day I was upstairs unpacking and Ben was washing a few dishes when he turned to look at Jackson and saw him sitting by the door with two streams of drool extending from the corner of his mouth almost to the floor.  Ben called me asking where the camera was so he could get a picture before he wiped Jackson's face.  I ran downstairs to show him where it was and then it hit me.

The smell of puke and poop saturated the air when I got to the third step.  The stench was so bad it actually made me feel like I was going to puke.  By the time I was halfway down the steps my eyes started to burn, and Ben slowly said, "Oooohhh, Jackson puked..."  Ben ran to let Jackson outside in case there was another round on its way up.  As I came around the corner I saw what Ben just ran away from.

Right in front of the couch was a big puddle of pea-green puke.  The dog treat was in about three different pieces since he doesn't chew his food.  There was a little piece of plastic at the edge the puddle and, of course, two big turds right in the middle.

It was the most disgusting thing I have ever cleaned up.  Even after cleaning the puke, washing the carpet, taking out the trash, spraying air freshener, and lighting a candle all I could smell was poopy puke.

Jackson wasn't allowed to lick me for the next 24 hours.

Dream On

So I woke up at 3:00AM today trying to decide if I should brave the ice storm to spend a few hours on campus before work.  At about 3:30 (I decided to stay in bed) I was still partially awake trying to convince myself that I had made the right choice (turns out the power was out on campus half the day anyway so "yay" for being lazy).  Suddenly Ben starts making moaning/barking/who-knows-what sounds.

It lasted about 10 seconds before I sat up and asked him if he was okay.  I actually thought something might be wrong.  Actually...my first thought was that he knew I was half awake and decided to make the dreaming Jackson noises he finds so entertaining just to mess with me.  Ben responded mumbling something about a dream.

His dream involved him being startled by a prowler of sorts in an imaginary camper that wasn't ours but was parked in our driveway.  Apparently, this caused him to take a couple gasping breaths before he scaring away the stranger.  Then I woke him up.

Once I figured out he wasn't just messing with me I couldn't stop laughing.  I'm sure you had to be there or at least hear his dream "gasping" to find this as entertaining as I did, but trust me it was hilarious.

Then a huge, ice-covered tree branch fell in our yard and I finally stopped laughing.  We are in a state of emergency you know.  Don't worry, our power didn't even go out.  Everyone else in the state woke up to floods, cars under tree limbs, and no power but we just woke up to Ben barking in his sleep.

Ben's Horror Film

Jackson started losing his baby teeth about a month ago.  He finally started losing his molars and "fangs" (as Ben likes to call them) this past week.  Today Ben was horsing around with Jackson getting him all worked up and jawing his arm (as in, Jackson was jawing Ben's arm).  I was watching and laughing at the goofy way Jackson was jumping all around when I noticed something soaring through the air.  I thought it was a large drop of spittle and I got up to wipe it off the floor.

As I bent over to wipe it up another flying particle shot in my direction.  With a quick Matrix-like move I dodged the debris only to realize the spot I was about to wipe up and the piece I just dodged were teeth.

As I pointed this out to Ben another tooth landed on the carpet and Ben noticed his arm and hand were covered in blood.  Being the nice (and slightly grossed out) wife that I am I ran to grab something for Ben to wipe the blood off with.  By the time I got back there was even more blood on Ben's hand and a huge drop of bloody spit shot toward me, landing on the carpet.

Unfortunately we couldn't get a good picture of the blood since Ben's sweatshirt was kind of dark, but trust me it was gross.  In horror movie terms it was more of a Friday the 13th type gore, but that's still pretty gross when you thought you were just going to play tug-of-war or fetch with your cute puppy.

Any day you have to use someone else's shower is not a good day

I'm in Vegas this week for work.  I flew in early Monday because I hate the idea of burning part of my weekend flying for work.  Since I had a lot to do when I got here on Monday I took an early flight.  So I woke up at 3AM (EST) Monday, caught my flight and landed in Vegas at 1030.

Since no one told me Fox Rent-a-Car is a shady establishment, I rented a car through them because it was the best deal and it took me nearly 2 hrs from when I got my luggage to when I got my room.  They gave me a key and said, "Just go outside and push the lock button.  It's a PT Cruiser, white...I think."  There were no parking space numbers and there was no license plate number on my key.  I feel like I'm driving a stolen vehicle the cops have been looking for.

I was busy all day Monday and finally got to bed at 2AM.  The person I was picking up at the airport got in at 12AM instead of  7PM and the airline lost all their luggage.  The next day didn't start until 7AM, but I woke up at 4AM and couldn't get back to sleep.  So after being awake for 26 straight hours I only got 2 hrs of sleep.

I went for a run and got ready to take a shower...but my shower didn't work.  Fortunately my entire office was on this trip with me so I called a friend with a working shower.  An hour into the opening session I went back to the airport to retrieve the lost luggage and made it back just in time for the next event to start.  When I finally found a 2 hour break in my day I decided to take a nap.  During my nap I received 4 phone calls so I cut that short after 20 minutes and did some homework.

My last event for the day ran an hour late so I didn't get to head out for dinner until 9PM.  After dinner I was convinced to hang out for one drink.  At which point I was carded in such a way that made me feel like a 12-yr old trying to buy alcohol.  One $12 drink later, I decided to turned in since I was running short on sleep and the person I had picked up at the airport Monday had to be back at the airport at 6:30AM.  The hole day wasn't lost though.

As I was heading back to my room I walked by the Bellagio fountain show and noticed a lady really enjoying the display of water and light.  She was smiling as if this was the greatest thing she had ever seen.  I took an extra second to look at her because she looked a little too happy (even for Vegas).  Then I noticed she has tears of joy streaming down her face.  No joke.

So I got a little enjoyment out of my 47 hour day.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words...

Great photo, Obama!

1-1

And there was pee all over the crate today...

Jackson's Big Day

Today was a very eventful day.  By eventful I really mean uneventful.

Our neighbors graciously offered to take Jackson out during the day when they are around.  He usually gets to go out once or twice a day, and while Ben was out of town they even came over to let him out in the evening since I had class.  They are out of town this week so Jackson doesn't get any bathroom breaks while he is trapped in his crate all day.  Today was the first test of his bladder.  No one to come when he whines, he really had to hold it all day.

We expected to come home to a mess today.  Even when Tom and Liz are around he manages to make a mess by the time we get home half the time.  Today he managed to control himself for 10 hours!  This may not be exciting for anyone else, but it's a big deal here in NC.  This is like the Lions winning a Super Bowl, well maybe just winning a game (0-4, at least they got rid of Millen).

Sure, he may still lick himself all the time, and he did just run full speed into a parked car the other day.  But now he can proudly say he can hold his water.