6 months till Christmas. I don't really know why I was thinking about that, but I've been wishing I had some Christmas music to listen to. Maybe it's my (not so) subconscious saying that it's too hot out. Or maybe I want presents.

Or both. There are certainly some things I wouldn't mind showing up for me!

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Five on Friday - Double the fun!
1. Remember the scene with Molly Ringwald putting lipstick on by holding it in her cleavage? Name one really bizarre thing you know how to do. No matter how small. I can usually tell you what time it is 'within the quarter hour) without looking at a clock.

2. What's your favorite way to pass the time? It really depends on my mood, but chances are that there will be music playing in the background.

3. What's your favorite restaurant and why? Going out to eat is such a rare treat that it really doesn't matter too much where we go. But if I had to pick one, I would probably go with Friendly's.

4. Which TV/Radio show did you like that's not aired any more? Any of the Star Treks, B5, West Wing

5. If you had a choice of learning another new language, what would you choose? What do you think that reflects about you? Klingon would be fun, if not practical. Arabic would be really useful, and could probably get me a really good job with the government.

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1. You're holding a dinner party and can invite three famous people from the past or present; who would they be? Presuming that we could all understand one another I would pick Einstein, Machiavelli, and da Vinci.

2. You have the opportunity to question someone about something you've always wanted to know and receive a truthful answer; what would your question be? The question of course is "Why?" Though I'm not sure who I would ask.

3. If you could change one thing in your life, what would it be? I'd have a house.

4. If you could save other people's lives by completing an act that would lead to your own death, would you do it? It depends on who it is I suppose.

5. Would you commit murder if you knew that you could get away with it? Maybe. I'm reading the question as in murder someone I know, not assassinate, or mass murder or anything. So, maybe.

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Went for a walk out at Centennial Park. We did the 2.4 mile loop around the lake. It was beautiful, well populated, paved, part shade, part sun.

Today we also lost Waldo, our first algae eater. I'm not sure why. He seemed healthy enough last night.

We visited a new park this weekend, Oregon Ridge State Park . I’m not entirely clear on how we missed this one in the book, considering how often we’ve referenced it, but it is a beautiful hike. At a little over 4 miles, mostly in shade, and of moderate difficulty (aka not really flat, but the inclines aren’t too bad) it was a good workout. Plus at the end is a beach! Now the neat thing about that is the beach has an entry fee, but if you hike your way into the park along the trails, you can get to the it without having to go through the gate. Maybe they figure that if you are willing to hike a couple of miles you deserve to swim free? The only downside to the beach is that they don’t allow puppy swimming.

After our hike we headed over to Gaer's for the Craft and Movie Night. None of us were in the mood for anything too angsty, so we watched I.Q., 9 to 5, and a couple of episodes of Dougie Howser MD. Tigs and I sewed up some dog toys that Lucy had unstuffed to various degrees. Tigs also worked on her latest cross stitch project. Gaer knitted, and changed outfits a couple of times, and I painted the elementals. Pictures to be taken tonight (maybe). Commentary on them when I post the pictures.

Sunday we headed out to Ikea for breakfast, and to look for a new TV stand. The one we bought last year just isn’t holding up to the weight of our hefty TV. It was (we discovered after we bought it) designed for a flat panel TV, rather then our big ol’ CRT, and now it is bowing. Plus the open bottom allowed the Monster to chew on the AV cords and a controller for the N64. We were successful both in obtaining breakfast and the TV stand.

While we were in White Marsh we also decided to swing across the street and hit Games Workshop. I wanted to take a look at the new terrain pieces they’ve come up with. The one I was most interested in was a new forest piece, but I was disappointed by. In person I felt it looked too plastic, and that it was something I could do myself to far better effect.

Next we popped over to AC Moors and I got some new t-shirts for work. I love it when they go on sale. Plain colored t-shirts for $2 each! Can’t beat that. Then we went home, and I got to work on my take home test for accounting.

The test itself wasn’t that bad. It had only 25 multiple choice questions, so it went quickly. There was only one problem that gave me any real pause. it was written in such a way that it required you to make a whole bunch of assumptions in order to be able to solve it. After getting it wrong, then thinking that there wasn’t a right answer, then getting an idea of how to solve it, I finally figured out the correct answer, and the correct way to solve for it. Once I finished with the test I moved onto the homework, and did about 3 hours more work.

Monday was work, then class. After the class had been dismissed, I stayed after to talk with the professor both about the test and about the homework. It seems in spite of the stress I’ve been feeling that I’m actually getting this. It’s always nice to have someone tell you that you are on the right track!

Yesterday was a long day. After work we had puppy classes. That’s right, plural. It was the last night of our agility class, and then immediately after it was the first class of her advanced basic obedience class. For those of you not keeping track at home, that’s 2 and a half hours of class, for a 1 year old puppy. We decided to split the duties:I would handle her for the agility class, and Tigs would take her for obedience.

In agility we started off by reviewing all the basic skills we learned in the first couple of weeks, and then moved on to a new skill, teaching her to go out ahead of us. Lucy did pretty well at that, though when I yelled at her (as we were running) to “GO!!” she did look back at me questioning what it was I was saying. We did that a couple of times, which Lucy absolutely loved. After that we set up a course of 8 obstacles (tire, A frame, jump, tunnel, 3 more jumps, and shoot) and we were timed and scored while going through. I admit the addition of the time certainly made it a little more exciting, but mostly I just wanted to make sure would Lucy actually run the course and not just run around like a crazy puppy. So before we ran I made sure to put her target at the base of the A frame (to make sure she paused at the bottom of it) and adjusted the tire height down to her jump level. Then we ran. It was a great run, in spite of her knocking a bar off the first jump. She hit the target perfectly, listened to my commands, and was fast!! This is the first time we’ve ever done that many obstacles in a row! At the end, because of the placement of the 3 jumps and the shoot, and her running ahead I wasn’t at the end of the shoot to catch her, and being all excited as she was I could see the “WHATS NEXT?!?!” look in her eye. Knowing that if I didn’t give her something to do THAT INSTANT she would probably take off, I told her to run with me to go get the target back at the base of the A frame. We got there at the same time, I praised her, caught her, and gave her treats.

After that we headed next door to where the obedience class was going to be held. The teacher for obedience is the same one we had for the puppy obedience class we took, and Lucy absolutely LOVES her! There was some serious full body wiggling going on. I think that Lucy will really enjoy working obedience again. As much as she has fun doing agility, she seems to like obedience a little bit more. Probably because she gets to be more active, as she doesn’t have to wait for the other dogs to use the equipment.

Once class was finished we headed home, and made ourselves dinner. Lucy was really tired and got very annoyed with us for switching rooms. We kept going back and forth from the living room to the kitchen, and she would always come with us.

Today I actually don’t have class. The professor has an event tonight that she has to go to, and she didn’t think she’d be back in time for class. So I’ll take an hour or two tonight to do some more work on my project and do some more reading. We’ll probably also head to one of the pet stores, as it’s time for another water test for the fish tank. This week we lost Oscar the algae eater, 1 of only 2 fish that we’ve actually named. The neons are more of a hive group then individuals, and I’ve been thinking of the guppies as a matched pair, kind of like the Bynars. We think he may have been trying to clean the intake of the filter and gotten stuck, but we’re not sure. On top of that I also changed some of the water in the tank, so it’s time to test again. The snail we got (labeled “mysterious black snail”) is a whole lot of fun to watch. In addition to hitting Petco we’ll probably also hit the Target that’s in the same plaza, as there are a number of little things we need from there.

Lastly, tigergladys made me this icon a while back, and I wanted to share it with you!

Sounds like it should be the title of a D&D adventure, but instead it’s something less fun.

Tonight I start class. Or at least I’m supposed to. You see, on Friday CCBC audited their enrolment and decided that the class I had signed up for didn’t have enough students in it, so they cancelled it, and sent me a letter, which I received Saturday. The registrar’s office is of course closed on Saturday. All weekend I’ve had to spend my time wondering who I’m going to have to deal with in order to rectify the situation. Today I called the registrars office from work and found out there is another session being held at pretty much the same time also in Catonsville , and it has 6 spots left open in it. Of course I can’t switch it online, or over the phone because all of those options are closed due to the fact that today is the first day of summer session 1. What this means is that I’m going to go from work directly to CCBC, deal with whatever paperwork I need to at the registrars office, pickup the book for the class in the book store, and then go to class… until 10pm tonight. Good thing I packed an extra large lunch!

I must admit I’m a little nervous about going back to school. Maybe not for the usual reasons, but for the fact that I’ve got a whole lot of other things going on in my life, and I want to avoid disrupting them too much. For instance I have class Monday and Wednesday nights, and puppy class on Tuesday night. What are the chances that I’m going to have stuff assigned to me on Monday, due on Wednesday? Also I’m going to completely miss out on family time those nights… for the rest of the summer! And in the Fall? At least the classes are only 1 night a week then, but does that mean I should take 2? They aren’t offering anything I can take during the winter-term. I’m just going to have to see how this first summer session goes.

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Saturday we drove over to Frederick to visit the Monocacy Battlefield National Park and do a short ½ mile loop of a hike, complete with a swim for Lucy. It was too hot (as early as it was) to do one of the longer hikes. Plus we knew we’d be walking around Frederick enough to make up for it. We were headed to Frederick to pick up some more dog food and to hit the comic store to pick up our box. Shortly after leaving the house we were driving by the Jo-Ann Fabrics and we noticed that they were closing. I pulled over and Tigs went in to investigate. 20 minutes later she came out with a small bag! As you can imagine, it was rather busy inside. After we got back from Frederick we dropped a very tired Lucy at home and headed back to Jo-Ann’s to pick up some fabric for living room pillows.

Sunday we headed up to Lancaster to watch Cory and Alex play at a street fair in the city. All morning both of them kept praying for rain, and around the time we were heading into downtown Lancaster they got their wish. The heavens opened and rain fell. So we drove back to the house and unloaded the van. We still got to listen to them play, but in the basement, rather then in the street. And as always happens there was a ton of food! I always feel like I need to fast for a day or two after visiting their house.

One of the other things we did while we were up in Lancaster was to go through some of the boxes we had stored up there when we moved. While we still don't have room for any of the toys (good lord there are a lot of toys) I did snag a few more boxes of gaming stuff to sort through and organize. Very little of it (as you can imagine) got organized before we moved. So I have that to look forward to doing. I'm gonna need some more baggies though... Yay dollar stores!

As soon as I finish eating this yogurt the monster and I are going to take out the trash! Exciting days hua? No, actually we are. But then were going to Gunpowder Falls! I'm not exactly sure what we'll do after that. There are a number of options, and a number of things I need to do before actually going to Balticon, but I'll figure that out when we get back.

Feels so weird not going to work today... Good, but weird...

Have a great day everyone!

It was a full weekend once again. Saturday we took Lucy up to visit her doctor in Frederick . We discussed her change in bathroom habits, and they managed to collect a urine sample. It was kind of fun to watch the tech follow Lucy as she walked around the side of the vet's office with a cat food bowl, which she deftly slid under Lucy just as she squatted. They probably called today with the test results from that, but seeing as I left the cell phone at home this morning, I’ll have to wait a bit to find out. While at the vet's, Lucy also got a booster on one of her vaccines.

When we left the vet's office we went back down to downtown Frederick to hit the usual places and walk around a bunch. Frederick does this thing on the first Saturday of every month, a themed event. This Saturday was a celebration of May/Spring and so all the retailers downtown were giving away flowers. You could get a flower in every shop, and if you hit all the shops you would end the day with a huge bouquet. We didn't hit every store, and some seemed to be out, but we still have a vase full of flowers in the living room because of it! Around the 4th time going around downtown Lucy started to show signs of the vaccine hitting her; she slowed down and was walking as if slightly dizzy. So we bundled her back into the car, and drove up the road to Brainstorm Comics.

You might not have known it, but Saturday was the annual Free Comic Book Day. This has always been a pretty big day for me, ever since they started doing it about 5 years ago. Disappointingly FCBD at Brainstorm was only slightly better than Lancaster Comic Shop's showing 2 years ago. It’s especially disappointing considering the events that That’s Entertainment and Sarge’s put on. But we got our books, headed home, and Lucy crashed for the rest of the night! (One of the free comics featured a corgi artist - Christian Slade.)

Sunday felt a bit more like Monday then it usually does - we got up early, put Lucy in the kitchen, and headed to an AKC Agility Trial down in Millersville, to volunteer for the ODTC again. This time was a little different as Kim, Cory, and Alex (aunt, cousin, cousin) came down from PA to see it with us. I felt a little bad about having to work at the event while they were watching, but they all seemed to really enjoy it. Kim was thrilled at all the poodles that were running, and Tigs says she wants a puppy, as Lucy is now old. For the record, Lucy isn’t even a year old at this point. (There were some very cute puppies though. One was named after the tonksmonster.) The boys are going to be pushing to get a dog more often now I think.

When we got home Sunday evening Lucy was thrilled to see us, and all the toys we brought home for her. (Each part of the event you work you get a coupon good for a toy, or $2 off food at the event, or $2 off the cost to register to run a dog at an event during 2007. We aren't going to be running a dog in 2007 and we brought our own food. Between the 2 of us we collected a total of 18 coupons, and brought home 16 toys, with two left over as proof that we were there.) However, Lucy was still worn out from the vaccine, and so we all relaxed on the couch and watched Voyager.

Next weekend is just as booked. Saturday, I’ll be going to a Hirst Arts party up near Harrisburg PA with some people I met on the INTERNET, while Tigs and Lucy will be going back to Frederick to go to the opening day of a new dog park. Sunday we are planning on tackling the BWI trail. Over 12 miles long! It’s the longest we’ve attempted yet! We’re hoping to be up to doing the Maryland portion of the Appalachian Trail this fall (40+ miles).

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White Dwarf is Games Workshop’s monthly publication that is about half advertisement and half content. Of the half of the magazine that contains useful content for GW's various games, only half of it (a quarter of the original) is generally interesting to me, and most of it is more entertaining then useful. However, several years worth of issues were taking up space on one of the bookshelves and in the closet. It’s amazing how it grows to fill all that space… Anyway, I decided that to make my life a little easier I would cut up my magazines, taking out the articles that interested me, and the pictures that inspired me. Last night I finished putting all the ones I wanted to keep into page holders that fit in a 3-ring binder. It’s nice being able to flip open an binder and see all the articles that have interested me since I’ve started this, and none of the fluff. Now the only thing I need to worry about is what to do with the gutted White Dwarf issues. I gave a small stack to my cousins this weekend, and they may want the rest. Otherwise they’ll either end up in the dumpster or I may give them to the pediatric ward.

There are definite downsides to having taken an unexpected 3 hour nap today after out hike. It's now 1AM and I'm only sort of tired. On top of that, the internet isn't interesting. I'd play a game but I want to get some sleep tonight... *Sigh*

Tonight was fun though! Tigs and I went down to jainasolo5's house along with silentrequiem and 2 guys whose names I should remember but don't. We played Apples to Apples. That is the absolute perfect party game. It takes 3 seconds to learn, and you can play basically until you run out of cards. I've been wanting to play it for a while now, having heard great reviews about it, and now that I have, I want it!!

Tomorrow... well today actually... we are all going down to Druid Hill Park and doing the March for the Animals. It's going to be very exciting for Lucymonster, and crazy busy. There's going to be all sorts of things going on in addition to the walk. But more about that tomorrow.

Peace, Love, & Hope

Books 13-15

Only Forward
By Michael Marshall Smith

Sometime in the future, when people live in self divided neighborhoods based on their lifestyles a man named Stark must track down a missing person. The tale makes it's way through various neighborhoods, tells you of the past, and brings you to Jeamland, a repository of dream and memory, and spits you out in the last few pages to a shocking end. I was very surprised by this novel and hated that I was only reading it during my lunch break!

Drowned Hopes
By Donald E Westlake

This is the first Dortmunder novel I've read, though it's the 7th in the series. The writing is a little slow, but witty, the story funny, and the characters are just a whole lot of fun to laugh at. I mean how hard it is to retrieve a casket with $700,000 from an abandoned town? So what if the town was flooded as part of a new reservoir?

Dog Eat Dog: A Very Human Book About Dogs and Dog Shows
By Jane Stern & Michael Stern

This slightly more serious look at dog shows (as compared to say Best in Show) follows Mimi Einstein, owner of the Allstar Kennel in upstate New York, a bullmastiff breeder over a year as she wins and loses in the show ring. Side stories about such topics as the specialized art of dog grooming, and rare breeds are interspersed with funny touching looks at Mimi's love of her dogs, and the world they inhabit.

I'm almost done with another book, but I wanted to get this posted so I could put the books back on the shelf. A bit of a slow month, but still doing well toward my goal. Not sure if April will pick up the pace much, as it looks like it's going to be a busy month.

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Friday night was interesting. I got off of work early and went out to the Howard county fair grounds to volunteer at an obedience rally event. Tigs was already there by the time I arrived. The event started a little bit after 4, and we were there for at least 4 hours, at the end of which they fed us!

Saturday we all went to Susquehanna State Park for a hike. Unfortunately the directions weren't the best and we went down the wrong trail for about a mile. The trail we had planned on was supposed to be moderate to easy, and the one we were on was moderate to extreme! 45 degree climbs and all. Checking the book we realized the error, and figured out that we had entered the park from the wrong spot. So we hiked back to the car, and headed around to the trail we had originally planned on. That was a much flatter hike, and more populated too. At the far end of the spur was a dam, and some strategically placed porta-potties. After a few minutes watching the water pour out we headed back. Total we did about 2 miles on the difficult trail, and another 6 on the easy one.

Sunday I got in some painting time, and I am almost done with the Last Chancers. Finally!! They need a little bit of basing done, and then clear coated, and then BAM! They're done! Then I'm going to finish off the Necron Lord, and then' who knows? I'm sure I'll come up with something. In other game related news I got 2 free cases to hold minis in. That's right!! 2!! For free!! I just need to cut the foam for them to actually hold minis, rather then the medical scope that came in them.

Tonight I'll be filling out the final tax forms, and getting them into the mail tomorrow. I can't tell you how cool it is to be to be getting a nice rebate! Of course most of it is going to the credit cards. And speaking of credit cards I applied for a Discover card that came with an introductory 0% interest rate (for 12 months) and transferred the bulk of my high interest debt over to it. Now I can concentrate on paying it off, rather then paying the interest.

1. At your next birthday celebration you can have any flavor, shape, size, and style of cake you want. What do you choose? (bonus: post a photo or link to a photo of your ideal birthday cake)
Maybe something that looks like this:


2. For friends and loved ones: do you buy a birthday cake or bake one for them?
If it’s something I can make, I’ll definitely go that route.

3. Do you prefer sumptuous flavor or incredible decorations?
I prefer flavor.

4. What interesting cake, frosting, and filling combination would you most love to try?
I guess a peanut butter fudge cake, with a really light frosting, or maybe no frosting at all, and instead a scoop of french vanilla ice cream to go with it.

5. Tell us about a school subject or hobby that is a "cake walk" for you.
Most of school was pretty easy for me…

Wednesday night when I was driving home along the Northern Parkway I drove over a broken piece of cement which ripped a hole in my front passenger side wheel. I pulled off into a gas station to take a look at my now very flat tire. I then pulled out the cell phone to call AAA, when I realized I don’t have my wallet on me. So I called Tigs and asked her to find my wallet and bring it to me. This was made more then necessarily difficult because I didn’t know where to tell her to look for it. In the end it was found on the chair I had put my pants on the night before. It must have fallen out. So then I gave her the directions on how to get to where I am, except I gave them to her wrong, so she got a lot a little lost trying to get to me. Eventually she made it, and I decided to limp the car one lot over to the Mr. Tire that was next to the gas station. I did, and they put on the donut for me, but couldn't put on a new tire for me till Thursday. Fine, Tigs followed me home, and I went back the next day, and they put on a new tire for me. $65, plus all the time it took on Wednesday and Thursday to do it. Fun hua? And what timing… stupid cars…

This weekend is going to contain one of my favorite activities, and one that we had to give up due to the fun winter weather. Admittedly it hasn’t really been that bad a winter, but it’s been unpleasant enough to keep us from going out on hikes with Lucy! Not this weekend though! A high in the 50’s tomorrow, mostly sunny… perfect! Sure it’ll be muddy, but Lucy loves muddy hikes, and it’s such fun to watch her enjoy herself and the satisfied look she has at the end make any cleanup totally worth it.

Coming up we have a prescheduled hike we’re doing. It’s to raise money for the SPCA. There are prizes given out for the most donations that are given by both teams and individual entrants. While I don’t expect to place in any of those categories, I would like to be able to say we did it for something. We’ve already received some pledges but we are slightly short of our goal. Unlike NPR I promise I won’t hold your programming hostage until you give us money. I don’t think you care about my posts that much honestly. Instead I’m merely going to ask, if you can, please donate. Thank you. (It's in tigergladys' name since the car had to be in mine. Compromise. :) )

http://marchfortheanimals.kintera.org/voconnell

We did. And now, at about 5:20 it's already getting dark. Fun!

Today's been a fun and productive day, and the amazing thing is, it's not even evening yet!! So far we've gone to breakfast, gone and picked up tigergladys's new fleece, went grocery shopping for the first time in 3 weeks (well, for more then 4 items anyway), and we went on a really cool hike at Soldiers Delight. This last one required Lucy to take a shower as she was a muddy muddy puppy!

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It's now 10:46. NPR is playing the original War of the Worlds. We just finished watching the second disk of Gilmore Girls, I've painted that old dreadnought to a gaming standard, which of course means I need to do more to it, but a gaming standard was my goal. Pictures tomorrow, maybe.

Lucy, due to over eating, dehydration, or something she ate/drank while on the hike (including endangered pant life) has given her stomach issues. Messy stomach issues. She's been an unhappy puppy all evening.

Also I won my auction!! Now I just have to wait for it to arrive...

The Lady Chapel
By Candice M. Robb 3.25/4
The second volume in the Owen Archer series. It's a nice look into 14th century England, and an enjoyable murder mystery too.

Sammy's Hill
By Kristin Gore 4/4
Have you ever watched the West Wing? You know Donna? This is a book about a character almost exactly like Donna, who works for a Senator as his health policy advisor. If you like The West Wing, and Donna in particular, or even just enjoy a well written story about a quirky fun woman and her adventures, you'll enjoy this!

Nightfall at Algemron (vol. 3 of the Harbinger Trilogy)
By Diane Duane 3.25/4
Wrapping up a solid sci-fi series this third volume really should have opened up the Star*Drive setting for Wizards of the Coast and role players everywhere. Unfortunately WotC acquired the license to Star Wars almost immediately after releasing this series and a few of the RPG rule books. Once that happened they dropped Star*Drive and the Alternity system like a hot potato. It may be worth it to snag the rest of the books that were published for Star*Drive. I've enjoyed the 4 I've read so far! Don't misunderstand, it's pulp, but good pulp!

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The Last Chancers I've recently painted!

Demo Man


Animal

( Those that have come before! )

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Today we went on our third hike out of the 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles of Baltimore. Today was hike #22, at the Irvine Nature Center, and I don't recommend it. Getting there is easy, getting to the trail is a little harder, and figuring out the maps... not so much. The trail is poorly marked, badly maintained, and the maps... are of very questionable usefulness. I wish I could say otherwise. Because of going through all the side trails trying to figure out where we were going and having to turn around when we went the wrong way, it took us 2 hours to do the hike rather than the 1 that was predicted. Luckily that translates out to about twice the distance too, so it wasn't a total waste of time, exercise-wise.

3 posts yesterday... Odd for me.

Another scorcher out there today. According to the weather channel it is currently (at 4:10 pm) 97 degrees and feels like 103. I've already 2 liters of water, and I'll be refilling it before I go.

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For those not in the know, today is Cow Appreciation Day. In honor of this fine (if hot) day I would like to share my most recent up close and personal cow experience. Back on 7/1/06, when tigergladys and I were on our hike we stopped off at the park's farm and checked out the different animals. They had 4 cows out in the field, all pressed up against the west side of their fence, trying to enjoy as much shade as was possible. One of the cows there, a red and white one was just the cutest thing on 4 hooves.



She was young, with big brown eyes, and a little smile, and as was giving her a good rubbing I decided to scratch her neck and chin.



If any of you had ever met Cedric you will recognize this face. She was in heaven!



This kept up for a few minutes, after which she lay down in the grass and stretched, making the same groaning sounds as Cedric used to make.



I gave all the other cows scratches too, but none of them appreciated it like the red one did.

I hope you all have an udderly fantastic Cow Appreciation Day!

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At 4:23 the weather channel now says it feels like 104!! Fantastic!