Weekend Wrap-Up


I know what you're thinking. “I'm so sick of seeing their stupid hiking pictures. Don't they ever do anything else?? How much good clean family fun can one quartet of humans and canines have, anyhow?? Well at least this time there aren't any pictures of that unbelievably cute baby in her pink hat. Thank goodnes for that.”

To which I can only say …
1) Yes, more hiking pictures. And even more here.
2) Lots of other stuff, really … we only hike once a week, sometimes barely that. This week, it was Meyer Ranch. Lovely spot. Gorgeous wildflowers. We here in Co have to make the most of our summers. Winters aren't as bad as some places, but they can get nasty and feel very ong.
3) Here she is … hehe. Continue reading “Weekend Wrap-Up”

On Solid Ground


Guess what Miss Tabby did for the first time on Friday. Yup … solid food (well sort of mushy, but you know what I mean). The doc had advised that we start her between 4 and 6 months and we hit the mark almost right down the middle.

She's been sort of interested in our food for a while now, but I didn't really see the need to complicate life with solid foods, not to mention, the stuff about food allergies they tell you about, but I told myself that if I saw a good reason for her to start solids, we would. Well last week, after sleeping through the night for over 2 months, she stopped. And she was waking up HUNGRY. Obviously, her last bottle at 7:30 or 8, wasn't holding her 'til 4 or 5 anymore. So we got her some lovely organic rice cereal and we're starting out with that. After that I get to start making some of the recipes from the books I've got.

As for Miss Tabby, she's enjoying her solids and sleeping through the night again.

Fun with Wikipedia

Marisa invited me to play a little game with Wikipedia. Here's how it goes … type your birthday (August 4) into Wikipedia and find 3 events, 2 births, and one holiday .. and tag five people. Here's what I found.

Man a lot of depressing stuff happened on my birthday. There's loads of “so and so was found dead,” etc. For instance Lizzie Borden's family was found murdered on this day in 1892.

And in 1914, a little thing known as World War I began when Germany invaded Belgium and England declared war in Germany. The US sat on its thumbs (ahhh the good ol' days).

On the bright side, the global conspiracy that is the Free Masons saw fit to elevate George Washington to the highest basic rank of the fraternity in 1753. Yay!

Now, growing up, I always knew I shared my b'day with the Queen Mum and later, Billy Bob Thorton (oh whoopee :P), but who knew that I shared my b'day with the likes of Stefan Brogan (Snake from Degrassi), born in 1972 and Nascar Hottie (well, relatively speaking), Jeff Gordon, Born 1971.

As for Holidays, looks like the only one I can make much sense of is an Egyptian Festival, Jubilation of the Heart of Re, that was held on that day. How they did the calendar versions is anyone's guess. Maybe it was actually held some time in April?

I also found it interesting that on my actual date of birth (Aug 4, 1980), nothing is listed in Wikipedia. Hmmm…

As for the tagging bit, play if you like.

Jesser 2.0


As you may or may have not noticed by looking at my handy-dandy to-do list … a site re-do is in the works. Overall look and feel will probably change little, but I'm streamlining code and making certain things easier and nicer. You can preview my efforts here.

Obviously, I have scant time to work on this, so I'm stealing 10 minutes during lunch break and 20 minutes after Tabs goes to bed. And surprisingly, it's coming along. While I think it would be lovely to launch 2.0 on my blog's 4th blogiversary (8/8/07), I doubt it'll be ready in time. Anyhoo, if you have any thoughts on the redesign … things you wouldn't mind seeing or that under no circumstances can I get rid of or just general suggestions, let me know!

How We Spent Our Weekend

We had a weird sort of weekend. One of those where nothing goes as planned, but hey that's life. Especially with a baby.

Friday night we had a lovely time. We went to dinner and then headed to the drive in to see Ratatouille and Harry Potter #5. It's so hard for me to judge the HP movies on their own merits that I can't really tell you if I liked it or not. But I can tell you that I thought Ratatouille was awesome. I did sleep through part of it though, but only because I was totally exhausted … not because it wasn't great!!

Saturday we got up around 8 and fed Miss Tabby. Then we went back to sleep for an hour or so. When we woke up at 10, we could tell something wasn't quite right. Our little angel had turned very fussy and was warm. She tends to feel a bit warm right after she's woken up, so we put it off to that, but it didn't go away. We temped her and got 100.5 and 101.5 in succession. Off to the doc's we went. Continue reading “How We Spent Our Weekend”

Tourist Weekend Pt 3

Well I finally managed to get all the pictures from this past weekend gathered together, sorted, and uploaded to Flickr. It took a small miracle. Now, about that trip.

We left Denver after work on Thursday and took a long drive to Alimosa, where we stayed the night.


The next morning, after a nice breakfast at our Best Western, we drove out to the Great Sand Dunes National Park. I hadn't been there since I was a kid, but it was absolutely incredible to me. It's so wild to think that in the middle of mountainous state, there's these HUGE piles of sand. The people look like ants on an anthill. We walked around on the dunes, found a bug, played in the mud and the sand and just generally enjoyed ourselves.

After a lovely lunch at the Sand Dunes Oasis, including wonderful PIE, we went back down the road a bit and headed for Zapata Falls. It's a nice short hike with interesting terrain along the way. That leads to a wonderful river that you hike along (and in!) … until you come to a cave … inside there is the waterfall. And it's incredible. So refreshing after a day in the hot hot sun.

After that, we headed further south towards Durango. We got to drive through the gorgeous Rio Grande National Forest, and among other things: see goats, eat icees, have a blow-out (Tabbs, you'll kill me for posting this when you're 16 – but remember – it was daddy who took the picture!!), and admire the scenery. We made it into Mesa Verde late Friday night. More on that later …

We Have a Weiner!

Well apparently it was an easier question than I thought. Yvett got it right straight off … it was foil. My darling doggy stole a piece of foil (on which we had cooked some salmon) and chomped it on down. He has also developed a rather sinister love of tea. He loves to rip open the boxes of tea bags (especially the sweeter smelling herbal fruit teas, I notice) and make a mess of things.

Oh, and as a prize for Yvett's correct guess (and cuz I've got nothing better to do/say and cuz I would anyhow), I'll answer her question. No, the band this time around was Born in the Flood which sounded to me like a watered down version of Counting Crows. But I am known for missing the point vis-a-vis music sometimes. Anyhoo. I found myself almost missing the obnoxiously loud comic stylings of Mr. Pacman … almost.

I'm kinda worried about the foil though. I think I will google “dog eats foil.” Good thing he's got his own doggy medical insurance.

Still no photos, sorry. Hopefully tomorrow. Sheesh.

Gross out on Wednesday

Still no vacation photos. I'm very excited to share our trip and I'm kinda annoyed that I haven't been able to get my act together. But at least I have a good excuse. We went to see Back to the Future at Red Rocks last night. It was very enjoyable, despite the rain and the fact that I slept through part of it because I was so knackered. Anyhow … didn't get home til almost midnight.

But I have a very good and fun Wednesday game for you. Take a look at the photo after the jump and see if you can figure out what Loki ate and subsequently spit up all over our bedroom carpet. Weak stomachs need not apply. Continue reading “Gross out on Wednesday”

Still Here!

Hi All! I'm still here, just so insanely busy that this is the first time I've checked my email since last Wednesday!! Sheesh. We had a great time on our trip, but a recap and photos may be somewhat delayed since some of the photos are on my mom's laptop and I haven't had time to upload the others.

Hope all is well with everyone else.