Fun with leaves and dogs

This is the first full weekend that I have had off in over a month. There is much to be done to get ready for the holidays but there is also football on. I am currently watching the Alabama-Florida game and is as good as the hype (Which is why I am blogging?).

M went out with friends to lunch...that was 4 hours ago. I told her I was going to spend the day watching football but then that inexplicable urge to organize happened. I reckon that may be I am in the profession I am in.

The yard has been piling up with leaves since they started falling in mid-October. So off I went and in a hour I had this:

UPDATE: Yes, there are dogs in these photos; click on the photo to see proof. Yes, we do need a better camera. We are accepting donations

Google Chrome

Hey Mom, you like Google so much, they're coming out with a new browser.

Check it out, there is a comic book that goes with it explaining how it works and why it may be better than firefox (gasp!). Skip part two.

Should be on "Headlines"

Gotta love the new Kerrville Library.

What I did on my Summer Vacation

Three years ago we went down to South Padre Island with my family as we had the year before. We wanted to make it a tradition and we thought, "to hell with Hurricane Emily." Before hitting the Yucatan peninsula, Emily was a Category 5. By the time it hit SPI, it was barely a Category 1 Hurricane.

Everyone deserted the Island with the exception of us and some other fools. The fools won out that day as Emily came and went with some wind (matched by my Dad) and little damage. The rest of the vacation was great as were the huge waves generated by the storm.

This was Hurricane Emily before hitting SPI:


So this year we thought it would be even less so considering that Hurricane Dolly started out as a tropical storm BEFORE hitting the Yucatan. Obviously, we were wrong:

In case you can't tell, Dolly is tighter and more dense. You can look at the eye for scale.

Dolly stalled out in the Gulf some 30 miles off the coast and just sat there gaining strength and then moved in slowly as a Category 2. By that time, we didn't have power and didn't know enough to leave. We were also asleep at the time.

Here are some of the things we saw on our way off the Island after the storm had passed. The sun even came out for a bit that morning.

The Stripes will never be the same again. This happened to every single Stripes on the Island and every gas station that used the same tin, umbrella-like roof.

I've never seen a traffic light on the ground, it was big.

This was not the only power line pole that was snapped like this.

More power line poles. Electricity is not supposed to be restored to the Island for weeks. That is the only reason we left.

Don't let the light fool you, it had stopped raining by then. I was too hungover to worry much, but after we got passed the bridge, Port Isabel and State Highway 100 with no problems, we figured we were solid.

Sadly No!

US 83 was flooded in Weslaco, which is about 20 miles East of McAllen. To make matters worse, the dumbasses were turning traffic away into flooded frontage roads with no detour. Luckily, my parents, who were headin up this convoy, figured out that Business 83, which ran along the railroad would probably be safe so they tried that. Because of spotty cell phone reception, we didn't get the message for some time so we were 5 miles East of my parents. We drove through 2.5 feet floodwaters in our Toyota Camry with water splashing onto the windshield from slow moving school buses going the other way. That was the end of my hangover.

Today, I barely even remember the perfect 3 days we had before the storm came. Maybe better luck next year. Until then, I'll leave you with an image that will convince you never to take a dog to the beach (which we didn't do).


This is from our backyard.

Election Time

Back in 2006 I couldn't peel myself away from the daily congressional polls. Now I'm obsessed with the constant presidential polling.

I'll put up those nice little prediction tabs some time in September when everyone is paying attention, but for now I'm going to go out on a limb and call the race for Obama.

Will this jinx it? If you are a self-loathing democrat maybe. Not me. I was optimistic as fuck throughout the summer of 2006 and I continue to be.

Add all of the states that Kerry won plus Iowa, New Mexico, and Colorado and that is the end of the race. Try it!

And guess what? Obama doesn't need Ohio or Florida...but they could sure seal the deal pretty quick along with the new swing states of Virginia, Indiana, Georgia, North Carolina, and Missouri.

House Photos with Dogs

My brother and his family are coming in late June to see the house and he is going help me with some projects around the house. He has requested to see photos of the areas we'll be working on, so here they are.


Those two ugly ass cabinets are gone, along with the uneven mini-wall that they hang from. We'll attempt to replace them with those hook things that people hang pots and pans from. We'll keep that little butt there.


Next we'll put a new floor underneath the kitchen sink. At some point there was a leak in the sink and the previous owners just let it rot out the flooring underneath then some other jackasses put ill-fitting boards underneath. I'm not asking for perfection, just a stable place to put poisons and other cleaners from the tv. We'd like not to see this:


Finally, because our living room and laundry room are a converted garage, there are no vents for either room so they are both generally hotter than the rest of the house. I checked in the attic and the duct work is metal not that insulated wrapped stuff, whatever it's called.


The dogs seem to like their new home:

Some changes

Little G in Big D made the point that we at this blog are also guilty of; making reference to how we never post in every post.

With that said, we are making some changes at our new house that will hopefully facilitate more blog posts in the future.

Now that the new house is painted and each room is a different color, we have moved on to the placement of furniture. We have a strange living room because the original living room is tiny and the garage was converted to add on to the living room so it is a bit odd looking.

Because the length of the converted garage prevents us from using the entire space as a living room (my bad eyes and a normal sized television), we are going to split the room into a "reading room" and a tv room with beads* separating the two. The reading room will have books, the desktop computer and a sitting space some day, maybe a bearskin rug* for the fireplace.

Just as every place we have ever lived, the new place is kinda...sub-par. I don't qite know how to be nice about it. It has potential and it is a relief to finally be able to do something about all of the minor things that need to be changed. I'd list them, but then I'd bore you. And don't worry, in person I won't talk about the house the same way that people talk about their first born child.

We hope to have the place ship-shape in time or the house-warming party. And when would this party be? We were hoping to have it sooner than later but many conspired to put it off on until July 12th. In chronological order, those preventing you, my friend, from enjoying a keg of beer later instead of sooner: M's family, the democrats, another previously scheduled house-warming party, my family, and finally America. See you then.

In the next post, we'll have photos of some of the minor work that my brother is going to help me with at the end of June so it will be ready for the party.

*No not really

Not our dogs, but worth a look

This little one merits a link.

Sorry we've been skimping on the dog-centered posts. I promise pictures of Oscar and Felix getting used to their new house later this Spring.

m

A New House

M and I bought a house today. We are looking forward to finally having a place big enough to have people other than my sister over. Because we actually bought an affordable house at a reasonable price, there are some things that have to be fixed.

 

Some professionally: new roof (which the seller agreed to pay), replacement of aluminum wiring with copper, and termite poisoning.

Some amateurly: new toilets, replacing the sliding glass door with a real backdoor, fixing a hole in the drywall in the laundry room, replacing the hideous ceiling fan and overhead light in the living room, replacing the cabinets.

And finally the stuff that we are recruiting volunteers for: painting!

 

In the future we hope to build a rainwater harvesting system as well as replacing the backyard grass with native plants and grasses.

 

Not all of these things will be done in time for the party in June, but we are hoping that you all can make it.

 

See previous post for picture.

Oscar Party

So apparently not everyone goes to an Oscar Party to get drunk and make fun of people giving themselves awards. Did you know that the Academy Awards Show has won several Emmys. WTF? There were however two who were just too good to even watch the show. They were so rude, they just distracted everyone from the High Life and montages.

They did win an award though, for best picture:


Can't you just feel their anticipation?

In the House

As I mentioned in a previous post (albeit in a subtle way), M and I are in the process of buying a house.

Here it is:



It's a good example of never say never. Before we moved out west and before we had dogs, I never wanted to own a house. Houses tie you down, they need constant maintenance, they can suck your entire weekend, it takes more than 10 minutes to clean them, you have to pay for it twice over, you have to pay the racket that is home owners insurance....BUT

You get your own yard, you can make the interior in your own image, you can have parties and not have to answer to anyone but your neighbors and possibly the police, you have a real kitchen, you can have house guests.....add whatever you'd like to.

The picture may or may not do the actual house justice depending on your feelings towards the author...i.e. that DM is an ass and that house is a piece; or I like DM and the house looks nice.

Party in June!!

Still busy

So here is what has been going on.
I was about to settle into a routine when my schedule changed. Now I'm on the evenings and occasional weekends rotation. Sounds bad, but its good. It means that on Tuesdays I get to sleep in till about 10 and on the weekend that I work it means that the following weekend will be a 3 day weekend. Still taking the bus and have gotten used to getting up earlier and getting home later in our small attempt to save some money and simultaneously wean the US off foreign oil.

I wrote about myself first because M had it way better this week. She was a volunteer at the Clinton-Obama debate at UT yesterday. Her job was to hang in the "spin room" and watch the debate. After it was over, she held up signs with the names of several policy wonks so that the press could find them and ask them questions like: "Healthcare, good or bad? War, good or bad?"
She didn't get mentioned by name, but do you think you can find her?: http://www.statesman.com/ap/mediahub/media/slideshow/index.jsp?tId=81404

Tonight we're taking a page out of The Gay Place: going to a bar, then going to a university function where there will be more alcohol and possibly some fun, then maybe to the Obama rally at the Capital (Capitol?)

And if all this is exciting enough for you, there is this.

UPDATE: Didn't make it to the rally, but we did have fun!

Perils of the Profession

I really the like the profession that I work in; cool people; cool material; public service; but one of the rarely talked about difficulties is what archivists are exposed to...

 

Later in life back problems; risk of mold inhalation. Those things aren't really that bad. What sticks in my mind long after I leave work are the disturbing images that come in some collections. Like today having to look through (and possibly have to scan later) photos taken from a particularly famous mass murder scene.

 

There have been other times that have been as bad or worse. It reminds me that real life is unavoidable no matter how what certain parenting segments of the population want to believe.

Busy Busy Busy

I remember in early December chastising myself about how we never post anymore. There are 2 reasons: the draconian internet use policies of the City and I prefer to spend what time I have with Oscar, Felix, and/or M (not in that order).
I figured out how to get around the internet use policy by using the e-mail-post function. The other reason isn't going to change anytime soon. Not that it matters as this blog has been relegated back to a diary as we have most certainly lost whatever readership we once had.
No dog pictures, no readers.
We have done a lot over the past 2 months.

M got all As and I started a new job, one that actually requires me to work.
We traveled a total of 26 hours in the car going to Oklahoma and McAllen over the holidays.
We got involved in a community action group and I am an officer in a regional archives association.
We are currently looking for an affordable house to buy with a yard for the dogs and future creatures.