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It's been a quiet week here for the most part. Work wise there have been a bunch of updates and other items to get done before the end of the year, so thats been keeping me pretty busy during the days.
I have been waffling about what to do for new years for a while, but finally decided to just stay around town. It would have been nice to go down to Las Cruces and spend it with friends, but the 22 hours of driving and all the costs didn't sound worth it. After my car being in the shop (which luckily was mostly paid for by insurance) and twyla going into expensive surgery, spending more on a trip doesn't sound like a good idea right now.
Thanks to J I finally got around to watching firefly. Wow. It's super good. Like countless others, I have to wonder why on earth they canceled it so quickly. It's become my favorate post Civil War Western. I hope the movie is good.
Merry Christmas all. It's been a pretty good one here. Got up pretty early and started baking. Made a cake, some apple crisp and made some mashed potatoes. Then this afternoon it was off to B and W's house for xmas dinner. Everything was very nice there. The dogs had a wonderfull time running around the large back yard there. The food was all excellent. Hope everyone is having a good time wherever they are.
Finally got down the walnut in boulder for their lovely december/january barlywine. It was delightfull as always. I think the year before last where they let us sample the previous years barleywine was the best, but this year wasn't bad at all.
Winter is here now in a big way. Cold temps and snow (althought not too much snow yet). Here's some pictures from the walk in the cold with the pups today.
and then a well deserved rest:
You would hardly know it was December outside today. It's sunny and warm and very nice. Took the dogs for a walk and they had a nice time. Lots of squirrels out today, although at least the suicide bunny that we sometimes see wasn't around. Just as well, as holding back the hounds from eating the bunny while it just sits there isn't all that much fun.
Well, it was a pretty busy week last week. Fair nice stream of things at work (always seems to get busy in the early part of december at least). Bottled Beer tuesday night, GURPS game wednsday night, Hacking Society on thursday night, and not much friday. No particular plans this weekend either except to relax and get some house cleaning and laundry and such done.
Twyla is starting to get back to full healthy. The first few days after the surgery she had "leaking" issues. Mostly those are gone, but I have to muzzle her to keep her from licking and pulling out her stiches. She gets the stiches out next thursday, so hopefully she will be 100% by then.
Well, dropped Twyla off at the vet around 8:45am this morning for surgery. She came through it reasonably well. Picked her back up around 4:15pm and she was still very grogy, but able to walk and jump up into the truck. Got home and she went out for a bathroom break and then back in and promptly went to sleep. Slept like a rock until a bit ago and wanted to go out again. Hopefully she will be happier tomorrow after a good nights sleep.
Well, the holiday party went pretty well last night. There was a pretty good turnout (at least for one of my parties) ( I think there were about 12 people there). Nice varied crowd, talking politics, art, photography, geekspeaking and having a nice time. The only downside is that there are a bunch of leftover sweets, which since they are here I will probibly end up eating myself. Oh well, tis the season to gain weight.
Finally got my urban back. Pretty happy to have my own truck that can carry more than one dog, has my music in it, and drives like I like.
The GURPS game is going pretty well. We had our first combat, and the party survived (barely). The plot hasn't really started to unfold yet, but it will start playing out next session I think. We will see how fast the players can figure things out.
Tomorrow I get to go help out with more pet pictures with satan^H^H^H^H^Hsanta in greely. It's for a good cause (the greyhound group gets 1/2 of each picture sale), witch is pretty darn good. Then tomorrow night is a nice holiday party. Hopefully there will be a nice turnout. Anyone reading this is welcome to attend. Email for directions.
Skipped the usual petsmart meet-n-greet Saturday since I could only fit one dog in the rental car. Feel kind of bad about missing it, but it would have been a pretty gigantic hassle, and 2 dogs would have been pretty annoyed.
Took the FINE rental down to Colorado Springs Saturday afternoon for Kathy's Open house. Got to see a nice casting demo and look over all the nice goodies, as well as visit with Kathy for a bit.
Saturday night elusis was DJ'ing down in Denver, and I wanted to go. However, by the time later evening rolled around, I was not feeling very social or like dealing with driving the rental down in Denver and parking it, so I bailed.
Sunday I went up to Fort Collins and the petsmart there and helped out with taking pictures with Santa as a fundraiser for CGC. It was a bit on the slow side, but we still did about 10-15 pictures, so thats 50-75$ for the group.
Unfortunately, Monday I found out that Twyla has a abscessed anal glad. Pretty nasty and painful looking. So, next week she gets to go in and get her anal glads removed. Poor pup. Have to keep her from licking it and get antibiotics into it in the mean time.
Well, now we know the answer to the age old question: "How many greyhounds can you fit in a 2005 Pontiac grand am?". The answer is of course: one. The passenger seat is too narrow to hit one, the wells behind the front seats are too small to fit one, and the car is narrow enough across that only one can really fit on the back seat.
Well, todays Urban news makes me happy that I have the extended warentee even more. It appears the problem is the head gaskets. So, they are going to pull the heads and make sure they aren't cracked or warped, and put in new head gaskets and flush everything out. This was the 2000$ option. Good thing I only have to pay 100$. Since it's not going to be ready until next week sometime, I went out and rented a car (which the insurance people should also be paying for). It's a generic 2005 pontiac grand am thing. The downside of it is that I am not sure if there is any way to fit all the dogs in it tomorrow when I am supposed to go to petsmart. I guess I will try tomorrow to cram them in it and see if it will work.
On the good side, I think the GURPS game yesterday night went reasonably well. Most of the night was devoted to making characters, but we managed to get in 45min or so of introduction leading up to a combat (that we will run next week). Looks like it should be an amusing group.
On the minus side I took my truck in to have them check a few things and it's looking pretty nasty. They found coolant in the oil, meaning all sorts of nasty possibilities. Luckily I did get an extended warentee on it when I got it, so it's probibly only going to cost me the $100 deductable instead of a possible 600, 1100 and 2000. It's still in the shop as of now. I sure hope they finish it tomorrow. If they don't I probibly will have to look into getting a rental, as I have a bunch of places I need to be this weekend.
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