April 2005 Archives

We're happy it's Friday!

Ah, Friday, best day of the work week. It's really the best day of the week, because work doesn't seem so bad since it's almost over, and then there's so much weekend left to look forward to.

Marc and I went to try out a new Mexican restaurant last night, which turned out to be pretty good. The place was packed too.

We didn't do much the rest of the evening. Marc took pictures of the dog, and we each did stuff on the computer while we watched TV. Marc's computer died (again - we just replaced the RAM recently, and it's acting up again), so he commandeered my laptop. We're trying to decide now if I should try to fix it again (I'm lazy), or if we should just buy him a new one.

"The Apprentice" was pretty good last night. I was glad to see Alex get kicked off, because I've really come to dislike him these past few episodes. Especially after that stupid cart idea last week. I'm starting to wonder if it's going to be two women finalists. That would be interesting.

I actually really like it when it rains. But it sucks when it means that agility class gets cancelled (class is outdoors). So yesterday it rained, but then it stopped, and by the time we got home, it was actually pretty sunny outside. So I figured we might be able to have class after all.

I started the drive to Livermore (20 minutes away from home), and it started to get progressively cloudier. Then it started to sprinkle. By the time I got to our instructor's house, it was a consistent drizzle. Lorie was out there with her own dog, and we waited for a bit, hoping that it would stop, but it ended up just raining harder. At which point she decided class was going to be cancelled.

So, I drove back home, and did a little training with Bandit anyways, since I felt bad that we went all that way and did nothing. Plus I had a whole bag of hot dog bits I didn't want to waste. We worked on "side," "heel," "back," and "thru," which are basically all commands for him to line up on either my right or left side and sit.

Marc and I pretty much watched TV for the rest of the evening (I'm starting to think we watch too much, heh). We watched "Showdogs", which was funnier this week. The best was when Ryan and Brandon, the gay couple, got into this big fight, and Brandon stormed off and walked for like two hours. Ryan finally chased him down in the car, and the two of them made up, with Brandon mumbling, "well, at least I burned off dinner."

I think next week is the last episode? So sad.

We're having a Sustainability Faire at work today, and I volunteered to scoop ice cream for an hour. Which seems funny now, considering how cold it is today.

Last night I was reading an article about ways to save water. One factoid was about how one of the major uses of water was from toilets. I mentioned this to Marc, and joked that when we pee, we should just wait until the end of the day to flush, so you get multiple pees and only flush once to save water.

Later, when we were getting ready to go on a walk, we fought over who got to use the bathroom first, and I won. While Marc was waiting his turn, he poked his head in the bathroom and said, "If it's yellow, be mellow!"

Gross, haha.

Anyways, so we took the dogs out for a walk after dinner. Normally we just take Ironhorse trail and walk for about 45 minutes, back and forth. It gets kind of boring walking back on the same path though, so we decided to continue past the BART station to see if we could catch Ironhorse on the other side and make a big loop back home.

It didn't really work out that way. We ended up walking for 2 hours and never did manage to catch Ironhorse again. I was tired! Even Bandit slowed down near the end. Needless to say, we won't be taking that route again.

Marc took this picture of Bandit this weekend, while he was yawning, which turned out to look pretty freaky.

Friday night we met up with Steve and Erin and their kids for dinner. The plan was to go to this pizza place in Danville, but the wait was like an hour. We tried Amici's next, but the wait was just as bad, so we ended up eating at Baja Fresh, heh.

Marc and I rented Trekkies to watch that night. I'd seen half of it in Indianapolis, but never finished it. After the movie Marc joked that he had some major concerns about me because I used to be a big "Star Trek" fan. Hey, at least I never went to a convention.

Saturday morning I got up early to watch the NFL draft. Aaron Rodgers didn't get drafted first, which by that point wasn't a total surprise. The rest of the morning was painful though, because there weren't a lot of teams with quarterback needs after the Niners, and he just sat there as pick after pick went by. I ended up having the TiVo the draft because we had stuff to do that morning.

So we went and dropped off the Mazda to get two new rear tires, because my coworker noticed on Friday that they were very, very bald. We went to America's Tire Co. first, and they didn't carry the OEM tires, which were Bridgestones. The girl helping us offered us some Michelins, which were more expensive than what I knew the Bridgestones to be, and $100 more than the other tire options, all of which I knew were decent tires. So I said to Marc, "well we don't want the Michelins," and the girl seemed to be insulted or something. I mean, ideally we wanted to get the same tires to match the fronts, and I sure as heck wasn't going to pay more for different ones when I could go to Wheel Works. So we ended up going to Wheel Works, where they had the Bridgestones. All in all, two tires installed ended up costing us about $600. Ouch.

We went sheep herding in the afternoon, where Jan had us continue using the techniques we learned in the clinic. It was raining on and off, which was interesting, because at some points I was just standing out there getting soaked. It was still pretty warm though, so the rain actually felt good because I was sweating.

It wasn't until we got home that I found out that Rodgers had gotten drafted at #24 by the Packers. Which is probably a better deal for him than the Niners, because he'll be able to sit and learn from a great QB. JJ Arrington ended up getting drafted at #44, and all total 5 Bears got drafted, and two others got signed as free agents.

Whew, this is turning out to be a long blog.

In the evening, Kenny and Leslie came over and we watched Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, which was pretty funny. Renee Zellweger seemed like she put on even more weight for this one than the last one.

Sunday we went to the horse ranch where Marc and Steve and Erin had gotten me a gift certificate for riding lessons. I'd tried calling the place a number of times, but never was able to get anyone to call me back, so we decided to go in person. I was originally just going to take beginner riding lessons since I've ridden before, but decided to first take basic horsemanship, so I can learn how to tack and groom a horse and all that stuff. My lessons don't start until June, it should be fun!

Marc napped in the afternoon and I worked on the new site design for a bit. I had a design that was almost ready, but decided to scrap it and start all over. That's the problem when you take eons to redesign a site - by the time you're almost done, it's been so long that you're already sick of it.

Okay, I think I've written enough!

Cynthia was just talking to me about our 10-year high school reunion. It's coming up (oh my god), but neither of us have heard anything about it. I've heard that the senior class president is supposed to organize it, but as far as I know, ours went AWOL some time ago. Oh well, I didn't vote for her anyways.

I guess all the people I'd really care to see I already keep in touch with as it is. Although it might be funny to see which girls got knocked up right after high school.

I finally ran out of home-made fish food yesterday, so it was time to thaw out some more oysters, scallops, shrimp, and assorted fish foods to make up a new batch of blender mush for the fish. It's not a horrible process except for the fact that this stuff, all whipped together, REEKS. I think the oysters are probably the worst offender. We basically have to air out the house afterwards. The fish love it, at least.

We also have these snails in our tank that have been laying eggs like crazy. Every other day I find new eggs on the glass. They're pretty neat looking, they lay them in this squiggly, back-and-forth pattern. I managed to get a good picture of some last night, so I'll probably post a picture sometime. Alas, I have yet to see any baby snails.

We watched "The Apprentice" last night, which was pretty good. I still can't believe Carolyn is only 34, because she looks older. But I like her a lot better this season than I did last season, I think she's got more moxy this time around. I'm not that high on any of the final four candidates, though.

It's Friday! I'm so happy! I'm excited about our herding lesson tomorrow too - I think going to the clinic helped me feel better about some of the frustration I was experiencing. Now I'm pretty amped about working towards running in a trial.

Oh, and tomorrow's the NFL Draft. Go Aaron Rodgers! Go JJ Arrington! GO BEARS!

I got into work super-early yesterday, so I left a little bit early. Marc and I carpooled, so we went home (after a detour at Aquatic Gallery to pick up fish food), took care of the dogs, watched TV for a bit, and then drove to Union City to meet up with Elaine, Leslie, Deepali, and Cynthia for dinner at TGIF.

We got there first, and then Elaine, so the three of us were chatting. Then Leslie, Deepali, and Cynthia all showed up together, and I think the decibel level at our table must have gone up ten-fold. Poor Marc, surrounded by noisy women all night.

We got three desserts, but when the final check came, our waitress had forgotten to include them. Everyone was like, "SCORE!" instead of thinking about telling the waitress, which probably tells you where we all stand on the moral scale, haha. Does it put me a bit higher if I at least felt bad about it?

Anyways, to sort of make up for it, we ended up leaving the waitress a 30% tip.

Marc and I watched "Showdogs" when we got home - not too much funny stuff in this episode, but I thought it was still pretty good, mostly because we got some better insight into some of the people and what makes them tick. In a scary way, I kind of see a little of myself in some of them - like Kyra who's not sure she wants to have kids because it would take time away from her dog, and I think I sort of indentify with Moira.

It's scary, but I can easily see myself having four border collies and spending all my weekends competing, hehe.

Last night I had a dream that wasn't scary, but at the same time was scary, you know what I mean? Like nothing happened, but I kept having this dreadful feeling the whole time. I remember part of it was that Marc and I were at some kind of museum for the Shane company (the jewelry chain), and we were on this kind of ride, where we were in this boat that was moving in a little river on a track, and we stopped at this one display that had a jewel on it that looked really crappy.

Also, we lived in a house that had these big greenhouse windows and a really big rocking horse. I don't know what that's supposed to mean. I had the creeps for a little while even after I woke up.

Well, time for lunch. I have a presentation to give this afternoon, which I am NOT looking forward to.

I didn't write anything yesterday, so I feel like I should write something today, but I don't have much to say. Sad.

I watched "Nanny 911" for the first time Sunday night. Man, I knew kids could be bad, but I never thought they could be this bad. The 4-year-old actually told her mom she was "garbage." It was all pretty well explained by the attitude of the father though, who was a complete and total tool.

The night before last, I had a very weird dream, which I remembered vividly after waking up, but which I can't remember at all now. That's frustrating.

Animal Planet has been re-running a dog show like 5 times a day for the past 4 days, and I keep missing the herding group. I've seen every other group, including best in show, but I keep missing the group I want to see. Last night it was on and I think I either switched to another channel and forgot to switch back or I fell asleep.

"LOST" isn't new until May 4, which totally blows. But at least "Showdogs" is new tonight. I found out there's only 6 episodes in total! Bummer.

I think I want to get another puppy when Bandit gets to be around 3. I just can't decide what yet. Part of me wants to do rescue, and part of me wants to get a pup from a breeder. There's all sorts of breeds I want too (rotties, sheperds, etc), but I'm really leaning towards another border collie. I've really fallen in love with them. Well, plenty of time to decide. :)

Okay, I think I've written enough about random, useless things for today!

Getting ready to go on Saturday.

This morning I got to sleep in a little bit since I didn't need to be at the farm until 9 am. The lesson was really good, although there were points where I had trouble hearing Marc because he was talking to me through a walkie talkie. At one point I think it became obvious that I wasn't sure what he was asking me to do, because he came up and worked with Bandit himself a little bit just to demonstrate what he meant. Surprisingly, Bandit worked for him with no problems.

I really like his methods though, because they don't require you to be very harsh with the dog or scream at the top of your lungs. Bandit did really well at the private lesson, and I'm really glad we signed up for it.

I also got the pictures from Saturday's clinic up - you can see them here. Mostly they're of me looking kind of goofy.

Okay, time to actually get some work done today. Bleh.

Bandit waits his turn at the clinic.

Friday night we hung out with Vicki and our friend Elaine, who's in town for a couple weeks. We rented Spanglish, which wasn't bad, but felt very, very long.

Saturday was the Marc Christopher herding clinic! I was pretty excited about this. We got to the farm at 7 am, an hour early, to help set up. I left Bandit in the car while we were working, and he immediately moved to the driver's seat. He knew we were around sheep, so he was pretty anxious. At one point he actually honked the horn! Not on purpose obviously, but it was still pretty funny.

We were the 11th pair to go, so we spent the morning just watching other people go and seeing what their mistakes and problems were. I think I probably learned the most just from doing that. There were lots of border collies there, and a couple other breeds, although I think Bandit was definitely the cutest dog there. I saw some guy go up to him while he was tethered up and take pictures of him (I was surprised he didn't bark at the guy).

When it was our turn to go into the training pen, I was pretty nervous. We made some mistakes right off the bat, but after he told me what I was doing wrong, I think we did pretty well.

Overall it was a great day. I learned a lot, and got to see a lot of dogs and handlers. Marc and I both got REALLY sunburned though. My arms still hurt, and they look like lobster claws. We'd originally had the option to sign up for two days of the clinic, and I'd only signed up for one, but regretted that after experiencing it. Luckily they had some private lesson spots available for Monday, so I signed up for one in the morning.

After the clinic was over on Saturday, Jan and Marc (the trainer) and some other people were going out to dinner, so we decided to join them. We ate at this pub in Danville, which was pretty good. It was fun, too, to sit with a bunch of people all talking about dogs and horses.

Then we came home, and I fell asleep at like 10 pm. On a Saturday!

Sunday I was TIRED. I don't know if it was from sitting out in the sun all day Saturday, but I was wiped. I did manage to wake up and go watch the Sunday clinic for about an hour, but then I came home and basically napped some more. Marc took some pictures of the pets while I was sleeping, and got this cute one of Bandit and Stubby:

Then I guess he decided it would be funny to put all the pets on the bed while I was sleeping and take pictures. So here's me napping with all the pets:

Cynthia came over in the afternoon and we watched Sideways with her, which was another so-so movie. I thought it was funny in parts, but nothing great.

Alright, bedtime, I've got sheep tomorrow! I'll post pictures from the clinic tomorrow sometime.

Can you guess what this is a picture of? I'll reveal below.

I forgot to blog about "Showdogs Moms and Dads" yesterday. Hilarious episode. Ryan and Brandon, the gay couple, brought their little puppy to his first "show" which was more for fun than really show. The dog took second place. Out of two dogs. I couldn't believe how patient the judge was, that dog was a little terror.

Still, the best moment of the series so far is the lady with the crazy, biting little dog, who was crying, "He bite me in my vagina!" "I tell everyone when he's loose to RUN AWAY!" Classic.

Last night we watched "The Apprentice" and I'm so glad that Chris is finally, FINALLY gone. I still find it funny that he was just in the news for being arrested because he got upset (how surprising!) over not wanting to pay a $20 cover charge for some bar. The guy is a millionaire, for heaven's sake.

I'm bummed though that Kendra will have immunity - I just don't think she has the maturity for the job. She's just way too immature and annoying.

Bandit under the covers in the morning.

I can't believe I have to wake up at like 5:30 tomorrow morning for the clinic. I'm gonna be there all day too, which means I should probably go to bed at like 9 or something, haha.

Anyways, the picture at the top was part of a picture of Bandit's nose - zoomed in from this picture here:

Oh, and finally, I found this little audio clip with some lady who calls 911 from a Burger King drive-thru. Some people are so asinine, it just kills you.

Yesterday, my coworker Christine and I were walking down a stairwell at work, where someone had apparently just laid a massive fart before us. We had to hold our noses the rest of the way down, it was totally raunchy.

Last night I got the new powerhead I'd ordered for our tank. It pumps 820 gallons per hour! So now we have pretty good, massive flow in our tank. I think Dory is really enjoying it, she likes to swim against the current, and then go whee! and get blown away and do it all over again.

Remember our yellow watchman goby? The fish with the sad face that just sits on the bottom in the front? Well, I'd gotten him originally hoping he'd pair up with this shrimp we have, but he never did, although there were times it looked like he was bringing it food. Anyways, now the goby has decided to move, and he's moved to the back corner of the tank. So now, not only has he not paired up with the shrimp, and not only does he hardly move at all, but I can't even see him anymore! At least he still has a funny face. Too bad you can't see it though.

Marc went after work to go see Jacob, our nephew, play in his first baseball game (he's 4). I would have gone, but I had Bandit's agility class, and we've missed out on quite a few lately, so I didn't want to miss another. Marc did show me a picture he took with his phone of Jacob in his uniform, which was pretty cute.

Bandit did really well in class last night, he was really flying and we hardly made any mistakes. It was funny, there was one point in class where I was standing waiting for our turn, and Bandit was just sitting next to me quietly watching the dog running, when the lady behind us said to her dog, "Now why can't you be more mature like B-A-N-D-I-T?" He's behaving much better in class these days.

Last night I had a dream about the NFL draft, of all things. The 49ers had drafted a cornerback, and everyone was like, "what the hell are they thinking?" and Aaron Rodgers (who played for Cal) was slipping past the 8th spot and still not getting picked by a team. Then I dreamt that I woke up and realized that was a dream, and that I blogged about it. And then this morning I realized that all of it was a dream. Very random.

Marc and I went to Aquatic Gallery after work last night, where I spent the last half of my monthly fish budget. I got two really big coral frags for $45. They're probably not the rarest or nicest of frags (normally for $45 I can get a frag that's like one branch that's an inch long - these guys were 4 inches or so with multiple branches), but since we've been having a few die off on us, I'm not really in the mood to be buying fancy stuff. I really like them anyways. One is green and brown with blue tips, and the other is red and purple.

After dinner we watched Flight of the Phoenix, which was kind of eh. It was okay, but not that great. I normally like Giovanni Ribici, but he was soooo annoying in this movie. I guess that means he did a good job with the character. Ironically, after we watched the movie, the news was doing a segment on building your own plane.

Lastly, this little bit is kinda old, but in case you haven't seen the Dutch kid lip-synching to the "Numa Numa" song, here it is. So funny.

Don't you hate when you have something you want to blog about, but you keep forgetting, and the next thing you know, it was something that happened like two years ago? Anyways, I had something like that, so I called Marc up just now to see if he remembered. Our conversation went something like this:

"Do you remember that thing I told you I wanted to blog about?"

"Hmm...I think it was something about me."

"Do you remember what?"

"No, but I remember saying that you had to make sure you included some part of the story or something."

"Oh yeahhhhh..."

"What was it?"

"I have no idea."

Anyways, I did end up remembering, although now that I've hyped it all up, it probably won't be so interesting anymore.

But anyways, so a couple months ago Marc went and bid on this phone on eBay. It was a Panasonic phone that had a corded base and a second cordless base, and he won it for like $20. This was without doing any research or anything - he just bid on it because it was a Panasonic, and it was cheap, which is the magic word to Marc.

So we get the phone (and finally the battery after they forgot to include it in the first shipment), and we find out the cordless handset doesn't work so well. So Marc goes online to check out the reviews for the phone. The first one says, "WORST PHONE EVER." It doesn't get much better from there.

eBay is a dangerous place for Marc.

Anyways, last night was really boring, I just played on the computer while Marc worked on his movie database (he's up to over 500 movies that he's seen now). I also annoyed him by playing with the bottle opener that Kenny got me, which plays the Cal fight song every time you use it.

Oh, and I found this audio clip of a radio station (sounds British) that does a phone prank with two Chinese take-out restaurants, which is hilarious. I was literally laughing so hard I was crying. You can hear it here.

Marc got a $100 gift certificate to Scott's Seafood in Walnut Creek, so he took me there for dinner Thursday night. I got a 2 pound whole Maine lobster which cost $48. It was amazing. I don't think I've ever seen a lobster so big. I felt kind of guilty eating it, like Homer Simpson did when he ate Pinchy. I even had a bib on that said, "Let's get cracking!" It was really, really yummy. Marc took a picture of me getting ready to eat it:

Marc had a filet, and for dessert he got creme brulee and I had bananas foster. Both were really good, and we ended up having to pay $40 on top of the $100 gift certificate! It was worth it though.

I took Friday off, and we got up early and left the house at 6 am to drive up to Tahoe to ski. What should have been a 3-hour drive ended up taking us 5 hours because it was snowing pretty badly, and we had to stop multiple times to put on chains and to clear the ice from the windshield. To add to our troubles, we ended up getting lost and going a half-hour out of our way. We did finally get to Northstar and got about 4 hours worth of skiing in, which turned out to be enough, because we were pretty tired by the end. The skiing was fantastic though, because the snow was nice, deep powder, not icy at all like it normally is in the spring. It snowed almost the whole time we were there.

The drive home took almost just as long, because we had to stop again to put on chains, and it started to snow pretty badly at some parts. Marc and I trying to put on chains together turned out to be somewhat of a fiasco. We don't work well together as a team - I like to take charge, and Marc doesn't respond well to bossiness, haha.

Saturday we slept in pretty late, and basically woke up, had lunch, and took Bandit sheep herding. I was hoping to get a little improvement in before our clinic next weekend (Jan is hosting a clinic with another trainer, who will be working one-on-one with us, along with a bunch of other dogs - it costs $25 to spectate, in case anyone is interested). He's still not listening to me very well, which is pretty frustrating, because it feels like we're starting back from square one.

Saturday night we had dinner with Vicki and Deepali at Rigatoni's, and then we rented Closer. Kenny came over too, to watch the movie. It wasn't bad, but fairly depressing. Julia Roberts' lips seem to get bigger and bigger as she gets older.

Sunday we didn't do much. Ran a few fish store errands and then bummed around. We watched some episodes of "The Contender" on TiVo, which I'm really starting to get into. I also watched some of "Showdogs Moms and Dads" which is pretty funny. There's one lady on there who has the most annoying manner of speaking.

And finally, I have one small rant. So, our house came with a washer and dryer. Obviously, since it came with the house, we didn't get a really fancy model or anything. Our dryer basically has 3 heat settings: Regular, Medium, and No Heat. Most good dryers have a No Heat, Low, Medium, and High setting. You can see where my frustration lies. WHAT THE FUCK is the difference between Regular and Medium? Is it only to me that this is completely not intuitive?

It boggles my mind that they didn't think to put either Regular and Low or Regular and High. I have no idea if Medium is less heat than Regular, or more heat. The only logical conclusion I can deduce is that because Medium is between Regular and No Heat on the dial, then it must be lower heat than Regular. But who knows, if they're stupid enough to use no logic in labelling these things, then who's to say they used any logic in positioning them?

I mean, I don't get who the brain trust was that designed this. In most things, Regular and Medium mean the same thing - order "regular" fries and they give you the medium size. Regular implies middle-of-the-road, neither high nor low. So it makes no sense to have two settings that imply the same goddamn thing! And no, it doesn't say anywhere in the instruction booklet what's what. Arg arg arg.

I am going to write the manufacturer a letter tomorrow.

Well, thankfully the weather held out yesterday, and we were able to go to agility class. We had a lot of new people, so class was pretty crowded. Before we left for class though, I had made up little hot dog pieces for Bandit, and then decided to cook myself a hot dog because I was pretty hungry (class doesn't start until 7). I microwaved it for a minute, which turned out to be entirely too long, because when I took it out, it had completely split down the middle and folded open like it had exploded from the inside, and it was curled up into a "C" shape and about half as long as it was before I cooked it. It looked pretty nasty.

I still ate it anyways.

Anyways, so class was crowded, but we still got a lot of work in, and Bandit did well on his jumping sequences. I've discovered that I really have to watch where my body is, because he seems to pick up on even the slightest mis-motion from me - if I'm a bit too far out, he'll move far out.

After I got home, we had dinner and watched "Lost." I love this show! I hope the season finale lives up to the hype.

I also did the water change on the tank (we kept putting it off from Sunday), and pulled out a bunch of hair algae in the process. That stuff is so disgusting, it's like mushy seaweed. And it sucks, because I basically have to stick my hand in there and pull it out with my fingers. It keeps coming back too.

Then it was bedtime. Did I already mention that I sleep better on the $15 free pillow I got in Indy than the $60 Tempurpedic pillow we bought? Is anyone out there looking for a Tempurpedic pillow?

I almost forgot to blog today, but Deepali thankfully reminded me. So you are all now no longer deprived of the boring minutiae of my life!

Yesterday I met Marc after work at the auto shop in Fremont, where the Rav4 was being fixed (it was making this embarrassingly horrible screeching noise whenever it was in reverse). From there, we decided to check out the new Costco. We bought a few things (stayed under $100, amazing!), and then ended up having "dinner" there. I had a polish dog and split a slice of pepperoni pizza with Marc (who had another slice on top of that).

After Costco, we drove back home, took care of the dogs, and then went to Ross because Marc needed new pants. I ended up getting 3 shirts, a jacket, and a belt, all for not much money, which was cool. Like the belt, for instance. I was looking for one like it at Macy's and it cost $58 there. I got a similar one at Ross for $8. You know, those last two sentences sound oddly like a Ross commercial I saw once.

Then we got home and it was basically time to go to bed, it was so late already.

Oh yeah, Cynthia, I ended up using the Petsmart gift cards to buy the cats a bed, and Bandit a new sheep toy (which has a smiley face and grass sticking out of its mouth). Bandit said to say "thank you."

"LOST" is new tonight! I'm so excited!

I'm back!

I ended up not trying to get on an earlier flight home, and stuck with my original flight Friday evening. So Thursday night I went out and got White Castle burgers. Really not that great. Not horrible, but nothing great. They're probably best if you're starving at midnight and want a snack.

I also went shopped a bit that afternoon. I bought a pair of shoes, and then went to a Select Comfort store (they're the ones that make the Sleep Number bed), because I had a coupon for a free pillow. I had to go through a demo of the bed (which was really, really cool), and then I got my free cheapy pillow. The lady who helped me was really nice too, because she gave me a free t-shirt that had a sleepy smiley face on it.

Friday I went to the Indianapolis Zoo. It was pretty cold, so not that many animals were out, but it was still pretty cool. I didn't manage to kill that much time there, though. Then I drove to the mall downtown, and since I had so much time before I had to go to the airport, I decided to watch Sin City at the theater there. I figured it would be a good time to watch it, since I kinda wanted to see it, and I knew Marc wouldn't. I actually liked it, I wasn't sure if I would. I'm pretty sure Marc would've hated it.

After that, I went to the airport. My flights got a little delayed (rain in Indy and rain in Chicago, where my layover was), but not too badly. It was almost 11:30 by the time I got my luggage and Marc picked me up from the airport (he brought Bandit with him, hehe).

Funny (and irritating) side event: my hotel kept screwing something up with my personal credit card, which I'd given them to charge any incidentals to. They tried to put a $25 hold on the card, and managed instead to charge our card $750 TWELVE times, for a total of $9000! After going back and forth between Discover and the hotel front desk, I finally got it cleared up. They tried to do the hold again, and managed to charge us $9000 AGAIN. On Friday when I checked out, and was clearing up the second incident, I asked the guy to make sure they weren't going to try to put another hold on it, because obviously something kept getting screwed up. He assured me they weren't. But of course, that day, we had yet another $9000 charged. As of now, it still isn't fixed.

Anyways, Saturday was a pretty kick-back day. We didn't have herding, so we took my car to the shop, had lunch, shopped a little, and napped.

Sunday morning, Melanie and her boyfriend Henry came over with Lucas. They were supposed to be at our house at 10, but at 10:20 we realized that they must have forgotten to change their clocks. I thought about calling them, but we figured it might be more fun just to play along with it. They finally showed up at 11:05, and were like, "sorry we're a few minutes late." I was trying not to crack up.

We got the dogs in the car, and as we were leaving for the lake, I nonchalantly said, "oh, don't forget to change your clocks, guys."

The lake was fun. I love this place because it's not that crowded, and you basically get a spot all to yourselves, which is good, because Bandit can't be trusted with kids around. He had a good time chasing the water along the shore, and Lucas had fun trying to block him.

I brought my new camera, and Marc and I took a bunch of pictures, which you can see here.

After that we went back to our place and grilled up some burgers and sausages for lunch. Thankfully, it managed not to rain until evening.

The funniest thing happened when we were back at our house. We had all the dogs inside, and the cats were hanging out too. Stubby had never seen Lucas before, and he was really curious. Lucas was really wary of him though. So for like 10 minutes, we watched Lucas, all of 100 pounds, trotting around the house, being chased by Stubby, all of 10 pounds, who had his tail straight up in the air and all puffed up and intent on sniffing the dog. It was hilarious. Stubby just wouldn't leave him alone. Poor Lucas even tried to hide behind the couch. He got even more confused when Snuggles showed up.

Anyways, it's good to be back home! (But not back at work.)