Wake up!

Without question, it appears we hit the jackpot with our new dog. Tinkerbell 0.1 continues to impress. She still has not had a single potty accident in the house, which is unbelievable for a dog who's only 7 weeks old. We've taken her outside every hour or two and she does her business right away. If she takes off running across the yard, you better follow because a #2 stop is on the horizon. She's very particular about where she does her business.

I can also confirm that everything they say about Saint Bernard dogs are true. Tinkerbell is much different than any previous puppy I've dealt with.
She's very cyclical. She'll sleep for 15-30 minutes and then wake up and play for 20-30 minutes. After that, she'll lay back down and take another nap. It's somewhat nice in that you don't have to be on 'puppy alert' all day long. I don't think Kali 1.9 is sympathetic to the puppy's need for a nap. If the puppy lays down, she'll go over to the puppy and tap her on the head and say "Wake up!". Usually, Tinkerbell just rolls over and does her best to go back to sleep.

Kali has been mimicking everything that Tinkerbell does. When Tinkerbell is on the pillow, Kali wants to be on the pillow. When Tinkerbell is playing with her toys, Kali wants to be in on the action. When Tinkerbell lays down, Kali lays down right next to her and pets her nicely (most of the time). It's great to see them getting along so well early on. Tinkerbell has grabbed Kali's clothes and pulled her down on occasion, but that's what a young puppy does. We're working on the chewing/biting stuff and Tinkerbell seems to be learning pretty well. We'll have that reduced to a minimal level in a couple of months.

The puppy has landed.......

Tinkerbell 0.1 joined the Lime family last night. Kali 1.9 was extremely excited when we got to the farm to pick up the dog. The first thing she said when she saw the puppy was 'Cuddle!'. She was very interested in the puppy. Tinkerbell was a bit scared of Kali at first, because she was noisy and right in the puppy's face. The dog breeder gave Kali a small bowl with a few pieces of food in it. Tinkerbell didn't eat the food, so Kali reached into the bowl and took out a piece to give to the puppy. Tinkerbell ate the piece of food right away. Kali loved seeing that. Kali also pointed to Tinkerbell's ears, nose, mouth, and eyes and called each feature out by name.

When we said it was time to go, I told Kali that we were taking the puppy home with us. Kali got a big grin and reached out to pick the puppy up out of my arms. I let her know the puppy was too heavy and that I would carry her out. Kali and Mrs. Lime sat in back on the ride home and kept the puppy busy. After a few minutes on the road, Tinkerbell started to paw at the window and acted like she wanted out. At first, we thought she was just scared, but we decided to pull over and let her out. No sooner than she had hit the ground, she went potty! Kudos to Tinkerbell's mom for doing good work on potty training!

Once we got home, Kali laid down on the ground and Tinkerbell ran over and started licking and playing with Kali. Both of them had a lot of fun. Tinkerbell loved to lay in the cool grass. She grew up with a big grassy area to run around in, so I wasn't too surprised. She did all her potty business outside and didn't even consider doing it in the house. She slept well for most of the night, though she did wake up a couple of times. But I think we'll give her a pass since she was in relatively new surroundings.

I took a few photos and hope to have them up sometime this week.

Kali 1.9 gets a new play friend..........

Tonight we'll be headed out to pick up Tinkerbell 0.1. Kali 1.9 and Tinkerbell will likely spend most of Kali's formative years together. I'm sure we'll be seeing plenty of pictures with both of them in the coming years.

Mrs. Lime once again gets to take on the role of potty training the latest addition. She potty trained Nova 8.8 over the course of a month or so. Should be interested to see how Tinkerbell takes to the training.

Hell hath no fury.........

Kali 1.9 is generally an extremely well-behaved kid. She rarely causes many problems outside of being a bit demanding at times, but how many 21 month old kids aren't demanding and self-centered to some degree? However, there are rare times when Kali just doesn't wake up well from a nap and that can cause some big issues.

Yesterday, Kali had a big day. One of my friend's daughters was over at our house for the day to play with Kali. They had a great time playing together. Mrs. Lime set up a big tea party and they basically were stuck together at the hip for most of the day, with Kali wanting to do everything that her friend did.

Around 4:00 PM, Kali laid down for a nap. At 5:30, I woke Kali up because I didn't want her to sleep too late as her bedtime is 8:00 PM. She was NOT happy about it. Some heavy duty screaming and crying ensued, with every other word out of her mouth being 'NO!' for the rest of the evening. I did manage to get her in to put some ornaments on the Christmas tree, but even then, she was very much on edge. Hopefully she got a good night's sleep and is much more happy this morning.

Fool's gold at a poker table..........

I held my monthly poker game this past Saturday. No real excitement for our family, as Mrs. Lime, her dad, and I managed to be the first three players out of the tournament. I was actually the first one out. I happened to lose in a situation where I was an 80% favorite when I put my chips in the middle. That was unfortunate. Only thing that was more unfortunate was that I often put my chips at risk with the worst hand that evening.

I honestly made a fundamental play mistake. I had three players at my table that I had never played against before. Not only that, but one was in high school and the other two were in college. Early on, it was relatively apparent that all three of them were aggressive and relatively inexperienced. They knew how to play the game, but were very beatable.

When you see players like this at your table, you want to get their chips before someone else does. At the same time, there's a cardinal rule that must be acknowledged. You cannot and should not bluff a player who doesn't know when it's a good time to fold. It's much more likely that you can bluff a player who respects your play than a player who doesn't know when to consider the possibility that the other player has a better hand. I made several very good bluff moves on the new players that would have worked against more experienced players. The problem is that the newer players didn't have enough experience to know that I might be representing a good hand. My hand and my chips went down hand after hand. Nothing seemed to work.

So, let this be a lesson to anyone else bothering to listen. If you are playing against an aggressive, inexperienced player, you're better off waiting for a good hand to take their chips than thinking you can bluff them out of a pot. They'll likely call and you'll be the one looking like an inexperienced player.

More puppy pictures........

Snowflake 0.1 (her kennel name) is back with more fluffy cuteness. She's 5 weeks old in these pictures. She's ridiculously adorable (with inherent personal bias noted).......

I'm healthy!!!!!!!

Just got a letter from my life insurance company over the weekend. On the initial health check 2 years ago, for some reason a slight borderline blood pressure reading caused me to get the second best level of premium rather than the best. Mrs. Lime was there when the nurse read it off and was shocked when the nurse said it was borderline and didn't qualify it as normal

A month or two ago, Mrs. Lime and I took the retest. I evidently passed with flying colors, as they gave me the lowest premium level available! Woo-hoo! If the life insurance group says you're healthy, you're doing pretty well. Even better is that they can't test me again as long as I pay on this policy! So I'm going to head out tonight and eat a bucket of fried chicken to celebrate! Yea!!!!!!

Testosterone gone wild...........

Mrs. Lime had 'volunteered' me to be an official at a charity flag football tournament that was held by her sorority. Who knew how seriously some people take this kind of thing?

In the second game of the tournament, I actually physically restrained a guy and tossed him from the game. I got the feeling early on that the two fraternities playing in the game didn't like each other. My suspicions were confirmed when a player ran up to a player on the other team and chest bumped him while yelling in his face. I actually had overheard previous to the game that this aggressive guy was a Marine. Against my better judgement, I stepped in and wrapped the guy in a bear hug and guided him to the sidelines and told him to 'stay there'.

On the other sideline, there were a couple of guys still mouthing off when I returned to the field. So I then had to warn them to knock it off. Even better, that team had a guy in a tie and sweater vest who was actually their coach and was barking plays from the sidelines. It was totally laughable, though I obviously couldn't laugh since I was the official.

My 9 years of softball officiating experience came in awfully handy. Thank God for the ability to deal with those situations in a calm manner.

I'm so dizzy, my head is spinnin'.................

As regular readers have noticed, Kali 1.9 is a big fan of 'Dancing with the Stars'. As soon as that theme music starts, Kali is focused on only one thing.......dancing! As soon as the music starts for a dance, she'll head over to the nearest person looking for a dance partner.

When Kali first started dancing, she was mostly just running around aimlessly. After awhile, she moved to spinning in circles to the point where she now knows what 'dizzy' means. Of late, she's added in some hip action to spice up her dance routine.

Last night, I noticed that the results show was going to be on at 7:00 PM, so I turned it to the proper channel. Little did I know that there was a recap show preceeding the results show. The recap show had nothing but dances for an hour. Kali didn't know it was the same dances she watched the night before, so all was good.

I was dragged to my feet almost immediately as the first dance began. We did the whole dance and applauded the dancers when finished. Since this was a recap show, I only had a moment of rest before I was being dragged back to my feet for a second dance. Once we finished the second dance, we clapped again and then I sat down. The show went to a commercial. That creates a problem.

We're a DVR family who ususally doesn't watch shows live. That includes Kali, who normally watches 'Dancing with the Stars' without commercials. So when the commercials hit, Kali ran over and vented on me. She yelled 'Dancing! Dancing!' and pointed to the TV. She assumed that since 'Dancing' wasn't on, that I must have changed the channel. I needed to save the situation quickly. So I did what any father in that situation would do. I hit the rewind button and played the first set of dances again. This achieved two things.......

1. Dancing was back on and Kali was happy.
2. By rewinding the show back a bit, I would be able to fast forward through all future commercial breaks.

We did 'Dancing' for the next hour non-stop. I have no idea how that girl remained standing through all that spinning. She's obviously going to be the one to ride the Tilt-A-Whirl (or any other spinning ride) with Mrs. Lime when we go to amusement parks. Regardless, the night was saved and there was much rejoicing. I'm already saving up for the dance class bills when she gets a bit older.

Five kinds of stupid in there........

My task was simple. Take an envelope into the local supermarket. Purchase postage for the envelope and then pick up milk. The postage situation was done in less than a minute. I found the milk and headed up to the cash register.

I went into the express line. The sign said '12 items or less'. In front of me in line stood a slob of a man with at LEAST 50 items in his cart. I could tell right off the bat that the cashier was pretty peeved that this guy was in his express aisle. Worse yet, after a few minutes of checking out, the guy decided to tell the cashier that he wanted a carton of cigarettes AFTER the rest of the items were scanned. I guess telling that to the cashier in advance never occurred to him.

The cashier was obviously irritated and told the guy that the cigarettes were at another counter. The guy responded that they told him to ask for them at checkout. So the cashier called a sack boy over to retrieve the cigarettes. Sackboy came back a minute later with a PACK of cigarettes. The cashier sent Sackboy back to get a carton instead.

A eco-friendly lady behind me (she had soy milk) leaned in front of me and loudly said, 'Do you know what we're waiting on?'. She obviously said it loudly to make sure she thoroughly irritated whoever was causing the delay. I just shrugged my shoulders, trying to avoid saying 'Yes, it's the MORON in front of me!'. The slob obviously heard her comment and looked down the line and said he 'was sorry for the confusion'. I continued to stare at a spot far away from the cashier, hoping to avoid saying 'You should apologize for the fact that you can't count to ten!'.

Meanwhile, for some unknown reason, the slob in front of me wrote out a check for the amount currently listed on the display, which did not include the carton of cigarettes yet. Sackboy arrived with the carton of cigarettes just as the slob was handing the cashier the check for the wrong amount. So the cigarettes were scanned in and we had to wait while the slob wrote a new check and voided out the old check.

I was thrilled when it was finally done and I could buy my $4 worth of milk and leave the joint. It was an exercise in self-control, but I thankfully came out of the supermarket without offending anyone.

Veterans' Day........

Honestly, now that I'm working for the federal government, I notice Veterans' Day far more than I otherwise would. I get the day off of work, so it's easy to recognize. I watched 'Saving Private Ryan' the other night for some reason. That movie provides the perfect example why we should take a day out of the year to honor military veterans. War is a necessary, but brutal endeavor. I'm thankful that we have so many people in the United States who are willing to serve their country and make the ultimate sacrifice if needed.

Political positives.........

I thought I'd get this post out of the way. I actually saw a couple of things that I saw that Obama was doing that I actually was happy to see, so I thought I'd go ahead and voice my approval fully knowing that I'll likely hate some of the economic blunders that he's expected to make in the coming months.

1. Full stem-cell research. The religious right has gone extremist-nutty in trying to defend their opposition to this kind of research. I really see no downside. Many people will benefit from the expansion of stem-cell research.

2. Close up Guantanamo Bay prison. Yes, there are a lot of nasty people there, but they deserve to be put on trial rather than being held just for the sake of holding them. Sure, some may go free, but that's the way things work. It should also put the U.S. in a positive light internationally.

3. Get rid of old Democrats who are committee chairmen. When you've got 3 guys over 80 years of age as chairmen of a committee, something is amiss. Robert Byrd is 90 years old and doesn't even chair all of the meetings in his committee. It's fine to have an 80+ year old legislator, but keep them out of the leadership roles. They don't have the stamina to do that kind of a job effectively.

Oh, and a note to the Republicans as they prepare for the upcoming elections in 2010 and 2012. My main affiliation is to the Republicans. The reason is that, last I checked, we were 'conservative'. There should be one plank in your platform: Cut costs and balance the federal budget. You'd be shocked how many people would actually support a candidate that would make that his top priority.

Movies gone wild....

The red carpet was rolled out on Friday night. Kali 1.8 went to her first movie in the movie theater. We got there nice and early and picked out a good seat where she had several feet of open space in front of her to roam around during the movie. Kali was a big fan of the seats in the theater. She'd say 'up' and 'down' as she flipped the seat up and down. Who knew that the simple action of sitting down in a movie theater would be so educational?

Before the movie, Kali played peek-a-boo and said 'Hi' to a nearby girl that was her age. They kept each other entertained for the 15 minutes that we had to wait. They smiled and waved at each other, both acting somewhat shy while still interested in each other. Once the previews started, Kali wanted to keep playing with her friend, but we let her know that the movie was starting and she had to sit down. After a 30 second protest, she settled down.

While Mrs. Lime and I aren't even sure how it happened, somewhere in the early moments of the previews, Kali starting raising her finger to her mouth and was telling us 'Shhhhhhhh!'. Mrs. Lime and I were obviously interrupting her movie experience and she was having none of it. We acquiesced to her wishes and stopped chatting.

We went to see Madagascar 2: Escape to Africa. It was actually a pretty good show. There were several animals that were in performing acts in New York City and they decided to escape and go back to Africa, where they were originally born. The movie was about them acclimating back into the old environment. Toss in a few butt and fart jokes for the kids along with some jokes for the adults that the kids didn't get and you've got a good family movie. Kali watched the movie very closely, though she did move from seat to seat during the movie. I think she was pretty impressed with the size of the screen.

At the end of the movie, the credits had dance mix music along with the characters dancing on the screen. Pandemonium ensued. The kids in the theater all jumped up and started dancing in the aisles. Kali was running around in circles, smiling the whole time. She was tossing in a spin here and there. She started to get a bit dizzy from all the dancing. She looked less like a dancing queen and more like a drunken sailor, but it didn't faze her a bit. She had a blast.

Last night, Kali and I sat down to watch her favorite movie (The Little Mermaid). Kali pointed to the couch and told me to 'sit' and then she climbed up on the couch next to me. As the movie started, I had something wet hit my hand. I turned over and saw Kali saying, or should I say spraying, 'Shhhhhhh!'. I'm guessing we won't ever have to teach her the value of silence during a movie. She's already telling me to be quiet before the movie has even started.

Vacation on the DMZ........

I'm normally not a huge fan of passing on a multitude of links, but I saw an article that was so different that I just had to share. An American took a trip over to South Korea and visited the DMZ between North and South Korea. There's some extremely surreal pictures in this article...........

Trip to the DMZ

I found this interesting election day tidbit.........

First off, great to see a big turnout of the electorate in the election yesterday. While the candidate that I supported didn't win the presidency, I think it's wonderful to see increased participation in any form. People need to be involved in politics because it does affect them.

I found this information out of yesterday's election to be extremely interesting. For those that are unaware, there were gay marriage bans on the ballot in California and Florida.

In California, white voters were 51% opposed to the gay marriage ban. Black voters were 70% in favor of the gay marriage ban.

In Florida, white voters were 60% against the gay marriage ban. Black voters voted 3:1 in favor of a gay marriage ban.

In summary, while the massive African-American turnout of yesterday's election helped push one discrimination barrier aside, it appears that same influx of African-American voters rolled back a discrimination breakthrough on the gay rights front. The same-sex community may rue the day that they supported Barack Obama. They got a liberal candidate into the Oval Office, but they lost their right to get married due to the influx of supporters for that candidate. That's a bitter pill to swallow.

Election Day musings..........

Saw this conversation over at a message board...........

Poster #1: I'm not worried about Obama winning the election. I'm worried about the giant meteor heading towards Earth.

Poster #2: No worries. Obama has promised to evenly distribute pieces of the meteor to all U.S. citizens and illegal aliens.

Election Day!!!!

GET OUT AND VOTE!!!!!

The big one only comes once every 4 years. It's always an exciting day, though recently it has turned into Super Bowl-like proportions with the closer races in 2000 and 2004. I do think that the polling data put out in recent weeks has had some issues in regards to polling weights and that some of these states will be much more competitive than most believe. Either way, Election Day is always a lot of fun and I'm guessing today will be no different.