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New Member of the Family
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We went to the local animal shelter and picked out a new cat to join our household. She is about 2 years old and is extremely social. She maintains human contact whenever possible and she loves to rub her face of you, give head-butts, and purrs like crazy.
She is also a ninja. Seriously.
We brought her home and the first thing she did was run, no fly, towards Abraham our dog and began to tear him to ribbons. At one point, she flew through the air, landed on his face, and using her front claws to hang on, she proceeded to bite his nose while he flailed about in a panic. Claws, fur, hissing, and yelping were heard in a whirwhild of action that ensued for several minutes. She gave him a bloody nose and made it clear that if he did anything besides sit in the corner of the room, she was going to tear his eyes out. He complied until his memory lapsed (about 2 minutes) and was prompty given another whooping. She and Justin, our cat, seem to get along fine. They sniff each other and just don't seem to care one way or the other. I think Justin is keeping his distance so he doesn't become collateral damage during one of the cat's bombardments.
Both Rebecca and I made the mistake of holding the cat when the dog entered the room. I got bit lightly, but Rebecca got a deep bite. Her hand is pretty swollen, but the cat gave her plenty of loving later in the day to apologize. She is absolutely a doll with us and the kids.
We put the cat in Rebecca's office for the night to prevent any massacres from occuring. We named the cat "Ninja" as it perfectly describes her. All black. Check. Mammal. Check. Flips out and kills stuff? Check. This cat is Real Ultimate Power for sure.
You have to understand that this cat is about 5 lbs vs Abe's 75 lbs. I don't know why, but the poor pooch is absolutely horrified by the cat and tries to stick close to me for protection. This tactic doesn't work well as the cat likes to stick close for scratching.
We let Ninja and Abe roam freely in the house today and there have been a few scuffles, but nothing like yesterday. Abe has learned to keep his distance and Ninja has reduced her attack boundary to about 6 feet. So far, not blood has been drawn and Abe has shown what a baby he is. He now yelps if the cat even hisses at him. It's pretty comical.
I am confident that if Abe learns to submit the will of Ninja, they will get along fine. She has demonstrated her Real Ultimate Power and has assumed her place at the top of the pecking order. She is queen of the house and she knows it.
Welcome Ninja. :)
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The Spectacles Return
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After I had LASIK performed in 1999, my vision was better than perfect (20/20 and 20/15). Over the passed 2 years, I have noticed a slight degredation in focus and it came to head today. It dawned on me that my recent headaches were the result of eye strain. Enough is enough dagnabit, so I went to Lenscrafters and procured some new spectacles. I got half-frame ultra light frames and my vision is much better. My prescription is only .25 and .50, but even that little bit was driving me nuts. Now to watch some High Definition TV in focus!
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Chez Goings
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The house is starting to slowly, but surely feel like home. The pool is crystal clear (although I still have some mold spots that I need to scrub). I've been swimming in it every day for the past 3 days. It's a bit cold, but in the 90 degree heat it feels wonderful.
The bathroom is almost done. We did some touch up painting on Sunday and still have a little more to do. We then need to hang the wallpaper border and mount various hardware (towel racks, door curtain, etc) and we'll be done (for now).
The toilet in our bathroom is still out of commission. It appears that the bolts aren't secured to the floor and will need to be replaced. I think I might get a wild hair this weekend and pull the toilet up to have a look. I'll probably regret doing that, but it's really annoying to have to use the main bathroom in the middle of the night.
We bought the dining table on Saturday and it is awesome. My friend at work was very kind to let us have it for such a bargain. It is over 8 feet long when fully extended and seats 10 people, although we only have 8 chairs for now. We bought some plastic covers for the seats so the kids don't discolor them with their greasy fingers and food spills. Unfortunately, the hot days make sitting on them very uncomfortable. I think we'll need to make some cloth covers which should be easy if I can convince Rebecca to make them. :)
Craig came over last night and we talked about the stage and risers for the home theater for a while. He is going to help me design and hopefully build it all. I should have more on this later. We're just in the early design phase right now.
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24,950ft Above Sea Level is a Cool Place to Be
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The Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve sponsored an event at the Portland Air Force Base in honor of civilian employers of military reservists. Since one of my employees is in the Air National Guard, my boss and I were lucky enough to get invitations to this event.
We spent the whole day on Friday, 7/15 at the Air Force Base getting an excellent, very hands-on, tour. They took us up in a KC-135 in-flight refueling tanker and we got to see two F-15s being refueled at 24,950ft above sea level. We were able to hang out in the cockpit as well as operate the refueling boom which was a blast.
After the refueling, one of the F-15 pilots, Callsign "Stripper", spent the rest of the day with us offering his persepective on things. He was very cordial and seemed genuinely interested in us. I would have thought that he would be bored and aloof at having to give a tour. I later found out that he was in the reserves as well and when he wasn't flying fighter jets, he was a commerical pilot for FedEx. Now I know wht my packages always arrive on time!
We were also able to watch 2 F-15s take off in full augmentation (the new method of "afterburning"). It's really cool to see a Alaska Airlines 737 have to wait while two F-15's launch down the runway with a 10ft long streak of fire behind them. Then we watched 4 more F-15s take off in paired formation from the edge of the taxiway which was fun.
The next stop was the "Hush House" where they test jet engines after maintenance. In our case, we were able to watch a Pratt and Whitney F100 engine go from idle to full augmentation from about 15 feet away. The engine was sucking so much air that we had to brace ourselves as the wind was over 100mph at times. I've never been in a place where not having hearing protection would literally cause hearing damage within seconds. We had to wear two forms of hearing protection; ear plugs and ear muffs. Even with those on, the engine was very loud, especially when it was a full augmentation.
My camera is old and bulky so I didn't bring it. Luckily, my boss Kory was able to take lots of pictures which I posted on flickr.
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All Moved In
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We're all moved in and about 75% done unpacking. It is finally starting to feel like our home. I finally conquered the pool and it is almost ready for swimming. There is still some algae spots that I need to scrub, but the water is nice and clear. It is a stark difference from the black sludge that it was when we moved in.
This weekend we are planning on purchasing a new dining table from a coworker. It's a formal Ethen Allen Mahogany table that seats 8, possibly more with additional chairs. We're getting it for a great deal and are excited about it.
The game room is coming up as something that needs some TLC soon, but it is functional for now and is already better than the garage at our old place. :)
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