OK, WHAT did you do to Rudolph?!

So we get home and what is Dakota sporting with this time? You got it--Rudolph's antlers! Sorry kids, thanks to this insane pero negro, there is no red-nosed reindeer to guide santa's sleigh! Only a pitch black canine freak. But wait...I hear a new song coming on...maybe she'll do??

Then one foggy afternoon,


Bradley's comin' home.


D'kota with your eyes so bright,


Won't you trash my house tonight?


Then all the humans squeal-ed,


As they yelled it out in pain.


They'll never let Dakota,


Ever out her kennel again!!!


I have absolutely no idea where she came up with the antlers. When she first brought them home, they were connected with a swatch of skull. I've been worried that we'll find them planted in the tread of one of our car tires, since she leaves them any old place. Sort of reminds me of a certain refrigerator wheel, right BJ? Have we bonded with this dog yet?



Zac and I had a good campout last weekend down at the Johnson's ranch. Here are a couple of photos.





We decided to sleep with no fly on the tent. The moon was huge and bright, so we went to sleep watching it. It was cold but great!




Zac doesn't get cold--everyone else (except Russell) is bundled to the hilt.





I guess one of the highlights was when Matt, a lovable symmetrically shaped young man in our troop (that means his height and width proportions are approximately equivalent), slipped down the slope of the pond and became stuck in the mud in shallow water, unable to extract himself. He was a good sport, drying out the best he could near the fire. He didn't have a change of clothes. Notice how he smiles so big, even when his back is turned... Here's a big turtle he brought back with him!










This is Andy picking out Saphire's hooves. I did Sky's. Whoa, it's not the same picking out a 2200 lb shire as our 1100 lb quarters! What fun, though.




The pair pulled the wagon loaded with about 20 people all over the hills of the ranch. Incredible!

The Bitch is Back

With the premature demise of her only offspring, Dakota has quickly returned to her youthful exuberance that characterized her prior to child bearing and parental responsibilities. This is not wholy a good thing. Sure, it is entertaining to watch her bounce and prance and run, drag sticks twice her size, and generally make Tigger look like Gary from SpongeBob. But unfortunately, her sense of good judgment has shrunk as fast as her puppy-less teats and everything seems to be fair game once again. When I was asked by a fellow scouter at church yesterday what animal brain we would be bringing next (see our previous post regarding squirrel anatomy), I considered a certain black dog...
Do any of you remember Elton John's song, the one that inspired the title to this post???
If we didn't all enjoy her the rest of the time, we would entice her to go play with the neighbor's goats. Some of you will get my drift.
This is the remains of our competition volleyball, now stripped of its entire padded outer layer. You will see it as multi-colored flecks strewn across the front yard. Notice her remorse...


This is what is left of Laurie's autographed beach ball from girls camp. Who needs sentimental crap anyway. Thanks, Dakota. How she got it down is a mystery, unless she was able to bounce ninja-style off of the lockers, then the van and finally up the shelves and pull it out. Again, notice her perked up ears. Yes, there were things being uttered under our breath that she has not heard before!


Actually, she was looking over at the rest of her mayhem. Somehow she was able to open the Rubbermaid bin, pull out a string of Christmas lights (one of the few good ones no less), and rip parts of it to shreds. Boots, shoes, her own pillow, and cardboard are all part of her reverie. She just plain went nuts. This is all over one night's time. I think I am going to start keeping her in the rabbit cage (the rabbit was also a victim of her playtime craziness).

Squirrel anatomy class

I got home from work to find that a large unfortunate tree rat was lying dead in my front yard, apparently the victim of Dakota's very fast and agile hunting skills. He had not been lifeless long as his body was still quite supple. The logical thing to do of course was to pick him up and chase Dustin and Lauren with him. While the loud high pitched squeals were anticipated, we decided to turn the squirrel's unfortunate demise into a science project. We decided to disect him and examine his organs! So off to the bridge we all went, Zac, Dustin Lauren and I, to educate ourselves. Here are the results. WARNING: if you are a little squeamish, this may not be for you!

This initial incision gave us a good view of the colon, liver, heart, lungs and stomach, and probably some other stuff we weren't sure of, as well as, well, his male components.

This is a view of the heart cut in two as well as the lungs. The dark red mass is coagulated blood. We did this on the bridge so we could feed the fish and turtles in the pond when we finished.

This is simply gross. Maybe we have lived out too long...

In this photo, we learned that Shrek was telling the truth when he said that eyes are filled with jelly, as seen here to the right of the skull.

We all wanted to see the brain intact, so we took the head to the scroll saw, cut off just the top of the cranium, and voila! We were able to extract it along with the mudulla oblongata (we assume that if crocodiles have one as Col. Sanders taught us, squirrels surely do too). Here is what we found:

Dustin is taking the brain to school tomorrow in a jar filled with alcohol. Lauren claimed the skull and the tail. Kym was thrilled, needless to say. Zac has claim to the exterior male genitalia, which he is considering placing on the desk of his athletics coach who gave him lunch detention today for arriving 4 minutes early rather than 5 minutes. There are, perhaps, many ways to interpret such a gesture. I counseled Zac that he may not want to take credit for the exhibit, if he elects to go through with it!

Well, that's it for another day. Who knows what tomorrow will bring!

Post-Thanksgiving chillin

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at our home. Due to a dead battery and a mysteriously missing fuel pump relay (haha), Craig and Audrie were unable to leave when they planned. Chance, Dustin, Dakota and I took advantage of this opportunity to have lunch and a movie in the underground fort in the back. It was pretty cool to be six feet under and still moving around! Here are some pictures:

We took off a small part of the roof to let a little more light in. You can see what a wonderful cavernous hangout it is! The back wall is closed up with railroad ties. One enters by crawling through a 15' tunnel (that's where Dustin is squatting in the picture above), then dropping into the main chamber. Chance brought all the food in his backpack.

Since we couldn't find Lion King 1, we watched Lion King 1 1/2. We dined on PBJ's, chips, oranges, apples, Fruit Gushers, Kool-Aid and more--fare for a king!

It was hard to keep Dakota out of the food...

Chance had to guard his PBJ carefully!

Simba chillin out just like us!

I don't think he was scared, maybe cold a little...



We all hated to go, but a messenger was sent to end the party (and call me to fix the car...)

Some of you know that we have had a long-term canine guest at our home: Dakota. Dakota married Cosmo and they had a little girl: Vudoo. Very sadly, Vudoo went swimming in the pool with inadequate supervision last Saturday and now resides under several hundred pounds of dirt in our way back yard pet cemetery, which is now becoming quite populated. We were all very sad about this, especially Dustin who locked himself in his room when he found out. Vudoo, we are sorry and we will miss you. Dakota, I guess you don't get spayed just yet after all.


Each morning, Dakota, Cosmo and I accompany Dustin up to wait for the bus at the corner. Dakota, a very smart dog (not that she often uses it for good...), has learned a new trick, which Dustin captured on video as follows:




Typically, she licks off the mucoidal delicacy on her first jump. This one did not dangle as well as others. Oh well. Who knows what other tricks we'll learn while waiting for the bus!

This next picture relates to my last post, item 6. This is how I knew Dustin was home from school today. Please notice 1) empty tp roll on the right, and 2) fully clogged toilet on the left! For goodness sakes! It simply doesn't take an entire roll to clean or even to polish such a small bum! I am considering tp rationing...

Finally, I wanted to add some interesting detail on the endless counting that goes on in my mind. First, you may find, as do I, that if you cluster the counting, it becomes at once more reliable and easier. For example, you can count to 10 by 1,2,3,4...10. OR, you can hear two groups of 3 beats and one group of 4 beats and that is 10. I wonder if any computer algorithms take advantage of this approach? It is WAY easier to count this way, then you just have to keep track of the 10's.
The other number related thing is that I sometimes convert to other number bases. For example, when I saw BJ and Katherine's house address, 11101, I converted it from binary to 29 base 10 (decimal). That made it pretty easy to remember and also serves as an error check.
So that's it for tonight's show. Happy Thanksgiving to all our family and friends :)

No pictures, just text, so if that's boring to you, adios. I am in a quirky mood, so here goes my six someone asked me for a long time ago but I ignored:

1. My mind works with numbers only. Names don't stick until a number goes with it, doesn't matter if it's a phone number, a serial number, or a tail number--I need numbers to think.

2. Which brings me to the next item: I count in my head for any repetitive activity in which I engage. It is automatic. It comes from my Medulla Oblongatta (however you spell that, Waterboy). For example, when I urinate, the counter starts. The number counting has been in french for 30 years now. So, a safety stop will count out to between 10-15. A recognizable but not yet serious situation is a 15-25 tic event. A wake me up out of a dead sleep will go for 30-45. A STOP everything now and go this instant will get 60 or more... And lest you think it is limited to dehydration exclusively, I count steps as I run, cycle, fill my water containers, chew, brush my teeth, etc, etc ad nausium

3. Speaking of brushing my teeth, I am meticulous. I think I passed this down to Amber (was it in your post about brushing teeth being an absolute prerequisite to going to bed?) So, my morning brushing gets 10 strokes for each "station" in my mouth. I have assigned 22 stations, which means 220 brush storkes, with each one being a "back-forth". Yes, I am OCD, no doubt. Night time gets double, with some extra work to make sure the nasty textured crap on the inside is for sure gone, cuz the tongue travels religiously and methodically over the teeth 24/7 and it KNOWS the crap spots and will NOT let me alone if there is some. So that makes 440 + at night. Now you know why it takes me so long to get to bed. The up side is that I recently went to the dentist for my first cleaning since 1993 (yes, that's before a couple of my kids were born). To their astonishment, the hygenists were amazed that they had no work to do. HA! Poetic justice!

4. Since the pre-existence I believe, I ALWAYS put on my left sock, pant leg, shoe, or whatever first, then my right. NO exceptions. If for some reason the right goes on first, I take it off and start over. This is scarry for some of you who thought you knew me. Oh well, breathe deeply.

5. I can't stand for the 3-way light switches (you know, the ones that have 2 or more places you can turn a light off or on) to be in the "on" position if the light is off, or in the "off" position if the light is on. I will go all the way across the house/office/yard to fix this anomaly. So, for exampnle, our front exterior porch lights can be controlled by a switch in the kitchen by the sliding door, by a switch at the front door, or by a switch next to the exterior door going into Nick's room. I will navigate the entire house to fix an irregularity with the switch position. Actually, this annoys even me, but I have to live with myself so I just do it as fast as I can.

6. I am glad that we are only responsible to post 6 items or I would possibly be reclassified by my peers out of the sane component of the human race. However, I may find some sympathy among other men with this last one. I only use two squares of TP at a time, neatly folded over, when doing my business. If by some unfortunate chance the quality of the TP is sub-par, it may have to be three squares to avoid a puncture. I use the full size, then fold in half and use again, then in half again, thus getting three swipes out of two squares. That maximizes the use out of that piece of flush-it-away expense. Until I started living with females, I assumed this was pretty much the norm world-wide. One roll of TP can last me up to 12 years. Since I have been living with women now for the past 29 years, I realize that one roll is only supposed to last one day--you know, one roll=one day. When we are on TP rationing in the last days, I hope to make some converts. It drives me insane(r).

So there you have it. I'm as weird a duck as ever quacked. I'll get back to pictures for the next post--much safer.

OK, i haven't died. I'll get a real post up this weekend. With Laurie gone there is just too much to do! Look at that time--past midnight, so ridiculous. We have to tell you all about the wonderful trip to Mexico with the Cardon family. It was a truly unique and wonderful experience. More this weekend (I hope...)