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April 24, 2005

We just went to the ER to have a doctor pick Hollace's nose

Oh sheesh. In Hollace's 6 years, this is the first time we had to go to the ER with her.

Goofy kid, for some reason she can't explain, stuck a pea size bit of cotton up her nose. (I thought they get over that urge to stick stuff up their nose by 3 or 4)

She came to me all upset and panicky after she was trying to get it out. I couldn't see it and her nose was hurting her so after a call to the 24 hour nurse, we headed out to the ER. It was 9:30pm

I have never been in an ER (well ok, I gave birth in one but didn't really pay attention to my surroundings) and I was expecting the worst, you know like TV's ER and hours of waiting.

The ER was very nice and quiet. I told Hollace to bring her Leapster and all these little Hispanic kids swarmed her to see what she was doing.

Didn't have to wait long. I guess this piece of cotton wasn't lodged up high like I feared, it was at the tip but the doctor had a real hard time getting that sucker out.

We were out of there within an hour.

April 21, 2005

Expensive Monday

I took the car in on Monday to check into the radiator problem I had last week. Since the car is getting up there in miles we decided to get the timing belt changed as well. Also that morning I took Cloudy to the vet to get fixed.

By the end of the day my wallet was $1,200 lighter or rather my credit card was $1,200 heavier. At least I get points on my card so I can get some kind of trinket someday.

The cat cost $200. I didn't know it was so expensive to fix a cat. I think I found an expensive vet, oh well, what are you going to do? We decided late the night before NOT to declaw her. Neither me or RAW could handle it LOL. I saved $100 there. She is doing fine but it seems that she isn't using her claws anymore, like she got a virtual declawing or something.

I love that the weather is getting nice again so I can go for my lunch time walks. It is so therapeutic and mind clearing. While on my walk on Tuesday it occurred to me that the radiator was leaking because of the front end damage RAW gave it when he rear ended someone in February. I tell RAW this and it occurs to him that insurance should pick up the new radiator then. They send an adjuster in and determine it could of been caused by the crash (Tom the mechanic thought it looked more like wear and tear but his opinion doesn't matter in this). They says they will send a check for $274 (cost of new radiator). I ask RAW what about labor. He calls them back and they said since we got a new water pump they have to take the radiator off so it wasn't covered. RAW tells them we wouldn't of got a new water pump (goes hand in hand with timing belt) if it wasn't for the leaking radiator so now they are going to cover labor too. I should get a check for $349 next week.

When I bought my computer in February, I was entitled to nearly $200 in rebates. In March I call MacMall or whoever I bought it from asking where it was. They had no record of it but said they would take care of it. Nice, were they hoping I wouldn't remember? Is that how they do business with rebates? Anyway, they said if I don't see anything in 4 weeks, call again. Well 4 weeks came and I call. The guy says that a check was cut on April 6, I should get it by Monday for sure. I didn't. So I call again. This time they tell me that the rebate was credited to my credit card on April 6. Sure enough it was. Awfully nice of them to decide to pay my credit card for me. Yeah, that was the plan to put the $179 on my card but what if I didn't want to do that or had paid the card off? I didn't think rebate was really a credit. The thing is I changed credit cards in the meantime and closed the old account. Fortunately it was with the same bank (just upgraded) and it appears to have transfered correctly.

April 17, 2005

Decision, Decisions, Decisions

Both me and RAW have been going back and forth and back and forth on whether we want to front paw declaw Miss Cloudy. She goes in tomorrow morning to get fixed before getting back in heat and I scheduled the declawing as well. As it stands right now Miss Cloudy gets to keep the claws.

I really want that 50mm lens but boy do the expenses keep adding up preventing me from getting this lens. I must of picked the most expensive vet as it is costing me a fortune to take care of this cat. Add that to the car troubles with Subaru (car is in the shop tomorrow). Who knows how much that is going to cost me.

Yesterday Kathy called. She was finally getting ready to upgrade to OS X (we both went to the Apple Jaguar midnight unleashing a couple years ago, her copy has been boxed up since) But before she could get all her back ups, her old Mac's HD just died. I invited her over for hamburgers and had a nice visit.

Rented two movies this weekend. We seen Closer and Sideways. I have been trying to get Spanglish, maybe next time.

April 14, 2005

Recognition

I was already having a morning in a half. Yesterday on my way home from work my car just died. I went to go from a stop sign but the car had other ideas. I was able to coast it through the intersection. It might be radiator related as the needle was pegged high. We thought it had no oil either especially in light of the fact I took it to a Jiffy Lube for the first time (RAW always does my oil changes) 3 weeks ago.

RAW went to Jiffy Lube to complain and they went out with him. They got it started and checked it out and gave it another oil change. They couldn't find anything wrong with the radiator either beside the fact that it lost all of its fluid.

Because of all this I took the 87 Chyrsler to work this morning. For a big car it sure is small. I will have a bruised knee to say the least. At first I couldn't start that beast, once it did start I couldnt' get the parking brake off. I had to wake the man up for that one.

I get to work through wicked sunshine issues (sucks that I have to drive in due east sometimes).

I then go to the bathroom where I promptly plug up the toilet . It was starting to look like one of my childhood nightmares, being caught in a stall with toilet water coming over its banks. I hightailed it out of there horrified.

I then go up to get my daily alotment of water. I see Susan the big boss over everyone (in Adminstrative Services of which the creative group is part of). I often see her and she never makes acknowledgement that she knows who I am and I figure she doesn't so I pretend I don't see her.

Today however I am going to say hi to her if she gets close enough. I figured I would say "Hi Susan" and she would reply with a hi but with no name not remembering mine. I straighten out my badge in case she needs to refer to it ;-)

I walk out of the cafeteria not seeing her again and forgetting about the whole thought process I just went through when Susan stops me and tells me that she is always hearing great things about my work! We talk about the creative process and I tell her about it being my passion and we part ways.

Ok, she not only knows who I am, she made me all warm and fuzzy. Guess I am not as invisible as I thought.

Now I just need to get up my nerve to talk to Adam the art director on why he thinks the print designers should learn After Effects and other multimedia tools. He apparently doesn't respect what I do. I don't think it is so much against me but the fact he loves them and thinks they should do everything and the rest of us do production, grunt work. I don't know.

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UPDATE:

I guess a little recognition from higher ups especially when you thought they had no clue of you goes a long way.

Still living on the adrenelin of that I was able to call Adam over here and give him my beef. It was a good dialog and it opened up future dialog with the supervisor of print. We will talk further about it next week. I feel better about this now. If I didn't say anything which I might of done, it would of ate at me until I forgot about it.

April 06, 2005

Photography explosion!

Sheesh, there are a lot of people shooting photos and uploading them out there. I was having a hard enought time managing all the photoblogs I want to look at every day and there is usually only one photo a day on those but now I have been getting into Flickr photostreams.

I opened a Flickr account back in August (2 months before my photoblog launched). I can't remember why exactly but I am seeing now that all the cool photobloggers maintain Flickr accounts.

Well, I still wasn't seeing what the big deal with Flickr was. Then something clicked...With a photoblog you update one picture a day. What do you do with all the other nice photos you took that weren't quite blogworthy in the series? Upload them to Flickr of course!

And if I thought it was hard to manage so many photoblogs to view daily just watch out for Flickr. That community is very active with everyone picking favorite photos for their list and growing their contact list which then just takes you to the next mess of photos. And don't get me started on groups. I just signed onto the Macro, Canon DSLR and Toast groups.

Toast you ask? It is a group dedicated to taking pictures of toast and toasters. Why the heck not? Just last month I decided to concentrate on toaster art for my 3D. I can't explain my facination with toasters but I now see I am not alone.

Oh and I just found out that my self portrait finally made it on the Self Portrait Day

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Oh look, here is Cloudy's contribution to my blog!

April 02, 2005

Where is that cat?

The last time we seen her was at about 8am when she went under the bed. All three of us searched the house backwards and forwards looking for her. She is too new here to know her name or to respond to a shake of a Pounce treat can. We were at a loss and starting to get pissed and worried that maybe she escaped to the outside world.

At 5pm RAW opened the garage door and there she was. We did look on several occassions in there but there are a lot of hiding places. When that cat sleeps, she sleeps.

She came in and went directly to the food bowl. Later me and Hollace were watching Bambi and Miss Cloudy joined us in the chair sitting on my lap. She is quite the lap kitty for a young kitten. She has one cute trick, when she wants food, she will bump your leg then immediately roll over on her back.


April 01, 2005

Spring Break

On Good Friday we headed out to Fort Wayne in my old Subaru (instead of the new truck). The original plan was to stay there until Monday, then to Indy until Wednesday then to mom's and home by Wednesday night. Thursday we were going to start looking for a kitten.

Here is what happened.

About 10 minutes before we arrive at RAW's mom's she comes home to a little gray stripe kitten sitting on her porch. She lets it in.

We get there, Hollace names her Cloudy. She is now our cat. I estimate her to be about 4 months old. She is very mellow and laid back for a kitten and loves to eat. She immediately finds the make shift litter box and based on her condition we realize she has to be an indoor cat. But where did she come from? Did she lose her way or get ditched somewhere? We do let her go a couple times to see if she goes back home but all she does is go back by the shed and sit in the windowsill and wait for us to let her in. I think fate has brought us this kitten a couple days before we go to try and find one.

Saturday night me and RAW try out a different seafood restraurant to celebrate our 12 years of marriage. I have to say we both had one of the best meals out in our lives....so good. I had salmon covered in a dill blue cheese sauce with aspargus roasted with blue cheese. Lots of blue cheese I know. RAW had macadamia nut crusted halibut and red snapper. I wanted that as well but we hate to order the same thing so we can sample each others. I think I liked his better but both were excellant.

On Monday afternoon we headed out to Indy for a day and night at a water park hotel. Because it is a popular spring break week, I spent the big bucks to reserve a room here. When we got there Hollace wanted to go to the regular hotel pool. We then walk over to the water park to see it and Hollace immediately cops an attitude. It is loud and she does not want to go there, only the first pool we seen. RAW is crabby and now so is she. I am starting to get pissed myself. I didn't pay over $200 to just use only the hotel pool.

Lately Hollace has been doing the thing (or eating) the thing she likes the least to get it over with so she agreed to go to the water park pools first to get it over with but she insists she won't be happy.

She gets over the noise and we have a good time. I think I have warped my poor kid over the "be careful" phrase I said many times. She is too careful and won't take a chance. She hates getting her head wet but by the end of the trip she tries to get use to it. We eventually had to spend time at the hotel pool as well but that was ok.

The next day I buy myself a pretty bathing suit to replace the horrid old faded hand me down one in the little shop area off the water park and we hang out there floating down the lazy river or in the hot tub until 1:30. Then we dry off and get dressed and go to the arcade. Hollace made out pretty good there. She only had 114 tickets but when we cashed in the receipt printed out someone elses 123 tickets as well so she was able to get a 200 point prize. Who am I to argue?

Now it is time to find another hotel. We find a blah one by the airport that will do. It has a pool and Hollace is anxious to go there. I am all pooled out so I don't suit up but just sit there in a chair. I guess this pool is too cold for Hollace so she sits in the hot tub which is only luke warm. We don't stay long. It is hard to top that last hotel.

Me and Hollace stay up late going through all my No Doubt songs finding songs I didn't burn on the first CD so I can burn a second CD for Hollace who apparently loves No Doubt.

The next day, Wednesday, our plan was to go to the Children's museum but because the weather is perfect (mid 70s, sunny) we decided to go to the zoo instead. Both me and RAW are all walked out and old feeling at the end of 4 hours. We then get in the car once we found it and head back to Fort Wayne (2 hour drive) for the night then head out the next morning with the new kitten to my mom's house.

Cloudy survives the nearly 3 hour drive and makes herself at home at mom's. She doesn't like the cats in residents there, Millie and Marshmellow. Aunts Bobbie and Jean both stop by to see the new kitty.

The original plan there was to leave by 4pm so we could get home in plenty time for RAW to go to a school board election meeting at 7:30 but around that time we notice a car parked in the field behind the house and four guys get out with what looks like rifles.

My parent's don't want to call the police or anything. They let RAW do it. My dad stands out there in a red sweat shirt just waiting like a target. Finally the cops come, 4 of them with shotguns go out to look for the guys. On the news there while we are waiting, is a story about how a 5 year old girl wakes up to gun shots, calls 911 when she discovers her parent have been fatal shot. It was apparantly a mistaken identity. Some drug deals thought they ratted them out to the police. Now I am worried that these 4 guys might want revenge on my parents since we called the police. We wait more. We can't leave now, got to see how this plays out.

Eventually they find the 4 guys and we find out the dudes had BB guns for BB gun fights.

Now it is time to try and find Cloudy. She is nowhere to be seen. Finally I turn on the stairway light and see her sleeping on the top stair on a towel.

It is now 6:30, we finally leave. On the way home we had to stop at the airport to pick up Cindy's van. They are in Arizona and doesn't want to pay (understandably) parking there for the week and a half they are gone.

We get home at 8:30 with 18 messages on the phone. The first 6 are from Haley then the rest was school board people.

Cloudy is adjusting fine here. Today me and Hollace went shopping for kitty supplies.

Tonight we renting The Incredibles. Hollace has been reluctant to see it sure it was going to scare her. She decided she will try and tough it out tonight. Well it turns out it is the best movie she has ever scene. Goofy kid