Back from Wyoming

Sunday was long. I spent much of it waiting at the airport for a flight that kept getting delayed. Not delayed by 30 minutes, but by hours and hours. Why was I in Wyoming waiting for a flight? Allie and I visited my folks. It was great seeing my parents for the first time in awhile.

As for Wyoming, I'm sure its citizens enjoy that state. I, on the other hand, will be very selective as to when I visit it in the future.

Wyoming Trip

 November 13, 2009 to November 17, 2009 with Patricia Lorono and Alice.

Visited Riverton, Wyoming. (Original post/backup link)

Toebzilla

Rat Terriers are an interesting breed. They are smart, but independent. That means, they understand you, but take your directions more as suggestions than actual commands. So, our Rat Terrier is named Toebzilla for the fact that he can be a little terror that acts like Godzilla by often walking around on two paws as he terrorizes. Maybe that's where the word terrier comes from? He is adorable and loving.

He does look to us for approval, though its more a matter of watching us to see what he can get away with. Right now, he's sleeping on our couch on top of a quilted blanket which he has adopted as he bed. He did try to take this liberty without my permission, so I made him get off the couch and wait for permission to hop back on. Now that he's sleeping, he's not terrorizing anything.

SoCal Road Trip

August 7, 2009 to August 10, 2009 with Alice, visited San Luis Obispo, California, Santa Barbara, California, Pismo Beach, California, Lake Cachuma and Santa Barbara Zoo. (Original post/backup link)

Early one morning

One particular morning a month or so ago, my dog asked to go outside to take care of business a bit earlier than usual. Being that he is still rather young, I obliged. It must've been about 4 AM. The sky was still dark with the slightest hint of morning twilight. The air was crisp with a pleasant scent. While the little guy squatted, I had a chance to look around. I was treated with my own little safari. Two jack rabbits where off in the distance playing around in the tall grass. Little roadrunner-like birds where running back and forth across the road. Other birds fluttered about from tree to tree, sometimes chased out by the squirrels. This is the sight I beheld from just beyond my from porch.

Monterey Excursion

June 9, 2009 to June 10, 2009 with Alice.  Visited Monterey, California, Pacific Grove, California, Carmel, Pebble Beach, Green Gables Inn, A Four Sisters Inn (301 Ocean View Boulevard, Pacific Grove, CA), Cannery Row and 17-Mile Drive. (Original post/backup link).

Super Dog

No, I don't have a wonder dog. He's still a puppy, and still doing puppy things, like ignoring me, pooing when he feels like, and causing trouble. Some days are good and some days are not so good. Right now, he's looking at me wondering when I'm going to get off the computer and give him attention.
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Ok, it's now 15 minutes later. He's into his chew-toys right now and I'm watching TV. Hmm, should I be tweeting this entry instead of blogging it?

Got a Rat Terrier Name "Toebzilla"

On April 16, 2009 with Alice in Santa Clara, CA, we added Toby to our family. (Original post/backup link)

New doggie member of the family soon

Allie and I have a new member of our family that will be joining us soon. It's an adorable Rat Terrier. While we wait for it, I guess it can be said that we are paper pregnant, but in terms of buying a dog and waiting for it to reach 8 weeks. (No reputable breeder will release a puppy before 8 weeks, so I've been told and have read from multiple sources.)

So, there will be hours and hours of time invested in a new member of the family. We both grew up with pets, but this is our first pet together. We are excited. We are going to be putting a lot of effort into preparing for him. Even though we haven't seen our little Rattie in a few weeks, we've already named him. Per my usual, I will likely come up with an alias for him on the blog. I'll post some pictures once he's settled in to his new home in a couple of weeks.

Birthday bash

The "birthday" BBQ near my house turned out to be a lot of fun. I was surrounded (at one point quite literally) by friends and family. One thing I am honored by is the fact that everyone in my life together represents tremendous diversity, much like myself.

It was my fortunate luck to have my BBQ scheduled (by my wife) on the first non-rainy weekend in months (scheduled over a month in advance). The day was gorgeous, with barely the slightest hint of tiny white puffy clouds once in awhile. As the day approached, we discovered this was going to be a great weather day. Knowing it was going to be the first good weather weekend in a long time, I got up early to claim the ideal BBQ spot at the park.

At about 11:30AM, friends and family started to trickle in. It was funny that the only people to actually show up at the start time was Allie's co-workers and friends. "MY" friends didn't start showing up till about 12:30PM (as I expected anyway). Overall, about 20 people showed up.

Over the week leading up to the BBQ, I asked Allie if we had everything we needed for BBQ'ing, including all necessary utensils. In particular, I was concerned about us having the grill brush. She assured me that we did indeed have everything. Well, at about 12:30PM, I started to get the BBQ started. Coals - check. Lighter - check. Lighter fluid - check. Kindling - check. BBQ fork - check. BBQ spatula - check. BBQ grill brush - ???. Again, BBQ grill brush - ??? No brush! OMG! So, here I am at my birthday party having to go out to buy the tool. I head to the local Safeway. No luck. Fortunately, we have a Home Depot kinda close by. They had plenty of choices. After getting back to the BBQ (after like 20 minutes or so), I found more people showed up. Good. "I can get help with the BBQ'ing," I commented to myself.

Once we got the BBQ'ing going, it soon became apparent that Allie had marinated the chicken to perfection. They where a big hit. We had planned to BBQ without BBQ sauce, so this was a welcomed surprize into this brave new world.

Another hit was the large size Blizzard ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. The whole thing was gone in minutes. Of course, even though my birthday (which was earlier in the month) was only the excuse to get everyone together, everyone felt inclined to surround me and single "Happy Birthday". Dear lord!

My only real complaint is that I literally spend 12 hours in the Sun, without so much as a freckle to show for it. Normally, I would have tanned and reddened significantly. However, on this day, I used some SPF 70 stuff that Allie had on hand. I only applied it once early in the morning. I was as white as ever at the end of the day. I've never seen that before. I'm a little bummed about that. Here I am having a great time and I have no sunburn to show for it. ;-)