One of my friends works at a well known web-hosting company, and keeps a stuffed Tux soft toy on/under his desk. Apparently it went missing and was recently located. He says he also received an email from a co-worker, containing what is in the link below. I found it rather amusing, and apparently so did he!
It’s been 24 hours now since we gained the latest addition to our family.
His name: Crash
His age: 10 weeks
His weight: 20 lbs.
He’s a Golden Retriever mixed with something unknown, we picked him out at the SPCA yesterday. He keeps becoming true to his name: particularly when steps or running are involved. He seems to be really good at falling down steps, and likes trying to run between peoples legs when running in the yard. We worked on teaching him “sit” today, as well as beginning work on not biting which he has been doing a lot. Right now he is out in the yard on the leash with Kelly, running around with his “cousin” Bella, Katie’s dog. They played a little at Katie’s house yesterday, and Bella was running circles around Crash, and he’d kinda wobble after her.
So far the cats are keeping their distances, Peel is definately getting the closest out of the three. Kreamer and Emma are just kinda there, and get very hissy when he runs after them.
I’m gonna go out and hang out with them for a while before we come back in for dinner!
For those interested, photos and videos: Here
I guess as selfish beings, whenever we see something we like we in turn want one of our own.
Meet Bella. Bella is a 4 month old purebred beagle, which my sister-in-law and her husband rescued from a trip to the pound on Saturday.
She’s pretty awesome, and is learning basic commands like ‘sit’, ‘come’, ‘lay down’, etc. We had her running around in the big yard yesterday on a 30 foot lead (and I took her on a run around the house with her leash). Fun to chase (and be chased by), as well as wrestling with her weird purple Giraffe/Lion soft toy thing.
All in all, Bella is pretty awesome. What I really want, though, is a Yellow Lab.
I don’t know this puppies name, I found the picture on a breeders site, but that is what I want ;-).
In other news, I feel a can of fly spray would be an excellent investment. There are 3 or 4 that won’t leave us alone (despite not working hard and regular showers :-P).
I also lost almost all my hair yesterday, in celebration of a year in the US (it wasn’t supposed to be for a couple of weeks, but for some reason we did it early…).
Photos, before:
And after:
I had the weirdest (and historically inaccurate) dream last night.
I am going to share it here for the intrigue and amusement of any and all who read it.
Now, I don’t know how, but I travelled back in time (and location?) and ended up in 1920’s England, at the primary/elementary school of my Grandad. I had my big camera with me, which was clearly out of place (Digital camera pre 1990 is very out of place!) in the time period so I was trying to take photos and being discreet as possible.
Anyway, I was in a lunchroom kinda thing, it was very grey and dull, and my 7-8 year old grandfather was at a table with 3 other boys talking quietly (I was across the room, my big 22 year old self). I recognized him almost immediately, as he looked pretty much like the photos of seen of my Dad as a young boy, and a few times he turned his head I noticed characteristics and resemblances of how he looks and acts as I’ve known him. The people I was there with decided it was time to leave, but I mustered up the courage to ask my young grandfather for confirmation that he was who I thought he was.
“Is your name Brian?”
“Yes, it is.”
“That’s your middle name isn’t it?”
“Not any more!”
“Do you mind if I ask what your first name used to be?”
“Coraline!” (I have NO clue where that came from.. I saw the movie like…a month ago and haven’t really thought about it since. Now that I think about it though, I played Tic-tac-toe/naughts and crosses with a 5 year old girl the other night, only we used pink and blue ‘buttons’ on a board of 9 squares, each containing the picture of a character from the movie. I digress..)
At this point I really had to follow the rest of my group out the door (they were all late teens/adults) but I took the opportunity to snap some more photos of my granddad across the room, he wasn’t watching having returned to the conversation with his friends.
I was led outside, and it was kindof like a gameshow. I’m not sure if I’ve had similar dreams before, or if it really is something I’ve seen on TV or in a movie, but I was to be given challenges to complete either for money or for the people I was working with (they were all teens I think) to live, big difference but I don’t remember which. May have even been both!
It was then that I realized there was snow on the ground, and my first challenge was related to one of the people on my team sliding around the school, I just wasn’t allowed to let him damage any classrooms in any way. You can probably tell by now that while my dreams are fairly specific, there isn’t a lot of detail as to how things happen, I just know they do. I guided the guy between buildings and managed to get him out onto the open sports fields, which I realised too late was a bad thing to do, as the fields themselves were/are a classroom (for PhysEd! Whether that even existed in the 20’s I doubt… We’d also slid along the inside edge of a clearly marked football field). Anyway, it was at this point where the host/gamemaster was walking along the field either with cameramen or henchmen and was about to reveal some kind of information when I woke up.
It was a weird night last night – I wasn’t sleepy, then I was really sleepy so I rolled over to sleep and couldn’t, then I got awake and somewhere in that mix (and a lot of “Are you OK?’s” from Kelly (who was also having a difficult time sleeping)) I fell asleep. Then had to get up at around 8:30 to go let the chickens out (I HATE CHICKENS.. more on them later) and came back and fell asleep awkwardly on the yellow chair, where the dream continued.
So there you have it, my weird dream of weirdness, laugh or analyze, or if you REALLY must, do both 😉
One: I fixed a computer tonight. Probably still some work to do, left it installing SP3 on XP, but still needs verification that sound works (not hopeful), that the virus is actually gone (BEWARE, ANTI-VIRUS-1 IS A VIRUS. Found removal instructions online through google and following them in safe mode seemed to work a charm.)
Two: I’ve put up a photoblog at photoblog.i-al.net, and theres nearly 2 months of photos stacked back waiting to appear. Some of these are up at DailySerene, but others are photos that weren’t appropriate for DS for whatever reason.
Three: The chances increased over the last three weeks that my work authorization card would arrive this week, as it did not arrive in any of those.
Fourth: (this one needs a quote)
Application Type: I485, APPLICATION TO REGISTER PERMANENT RESIDENCE OR TO ADJUST STATUS
Current Status: This case is now pending at the office to which it was transferred.
The I485 APPLICATION TO REGISTER PERMANENT RESIDENCE OR TO ADJUST STATUS was transferred and is now pending standard processing at a USCIS office. You will be notified by mail when a decision is made, or if the office needs something from you. If you move while this case is pending, please use our Change of Address online tool to update your case with your new address. We process cases in the order we receive them. You can use our processing dates to estimate when this case will be done, counting from when USCIS received it.
Basically what this means is that we finally have all the paperwork needed and it’s been forwarded to a USCIS office for processing rather than at the National Benefits Service Center where we were posting everything.
For those interested in tracking it further, the application was received on either July 2nd, 2008 or February 25th 2009 (depending whether they are counting from initial receipt of our application, or the acknowledgement of receipt of everything they asked for), and it is at the CALIFORNIA SERVICE CENTER. I’ll try and keep you up to date with any changes and events that occur.
So, for the last month or so my most recent project has been under fairly tight wraps. Partly for fear all the related domain names would be taken, and partly because I feared someone would take the idea as a whole.
No more shall I fear, as I launch a new website: The Daily Serene Image.
To quote myself:
Daily Serenity was an idea conceived by demigail in 2008. Made into a reality by Zeke in October of 2008, the site went public in the following month.Accepting any images from both amateur and professional photographers alike, Daily Serenity survives photographically based on its contributors.
Every day a new image is randomly selected from the list of those available (having been screened and approved by administrators). A brief description provided by the photographer is displayed with the image, along with a link to the photographers website (where applicable).
Published images are also archived indefinitely, with a static link available for each one. All published images are also available for download, both in widescreen and standard versions. These are sized appropriately for use as desktop wallpaper/backgrounds.
What Daily Images will be needing is contributors to provide photos and images for the site. Registration is free, and while no payment is provided for images supplied or used, no payment is required either. The terms and conditions of uploads are available when registering to provide photos, and all photos are checked and approved before they will appear on the site.
Are you a photographer? Consider some free publicity by contributing some of your work to Daily Images. If the Daily Serene Image takes off, it may grow into multiple sites of a similar nature, covering different themes.
The Washington monument, the pool of reflection.
Often called the nations…er…member, one must consider that while it is a large building, it’s also incredibly small with regard to the size of the country.
This photo is edited, although only with relation to coloring.
Taken from the Lincoln Memorial, towards the Washington Monument. Almost invisible at the other end of the Pool of Reflection is the WW2 memorial.
Taken with the S9600, recolored using the tools in iPhoto.
This one was too cute to pass up. This is from the same trip as the last picture, in May while my parents were in the US.
This squirrel was seen posing with the tree. Looks like it wants to be in Playboy or something.
You guessed it, S9600.
On another trip to the District of Columbia, some time was spent at the monuments. These two ducks are just 2 of the many that are in and around the pool of reflection. Unfortunately there are also more than one or two floaters in the pool also. One is lead to wonder what the cause of their succumbing was..
S9600.
Having just been to the Holocaust museum in Washington DC (Part of the Smithsonian, I believe), we saw this little guy on the street. I know they’re almost like birds here, but I’m not used to seeing them so often, so here is one of my many photos of them.
S9600.