Another from Holly’s sister Jill…This is just an excerpt, you’ll have to look at the PDF below for the rest.
What to do in a Terrorist Attack
The US government has a new website, http://www.ready.gov. displaying public service symbols for terrorism readiness, in the tradition of the old “duck and cover” campaigns after WWII. The fun thing is that these pictures are so ambiguous they could mean anything! Here are a few guesses about what they mean:
I usually hate email forwards but Holly’s sister, Jill, sent her this one (to Holly) that made me laugh. The “moral” of the email was that parent’s should always double-check their kid’s homework. Holly brings home pictures that her 1st and 2nd graders draw in class and they look like this one (different content, of course):
According to the email, the funny thing is that the kid’s mom worked at Home Depot and she is selling a shovel.
I noticed last week that Bailey had broken another tooth - the last one he broke in mid 2006 had to be removed, which cost a pretty penny and also left him with no feeling in his hind leg after a shot of antibiotics gone awry. I tried getting him into the Vet’s office Friday morning before our Chicago trip but had to wait until this morning before they could see him.
It turns out that Bailey’s very aggressive chewing is reeking havoc on his teeth - in addition to breaking another tooth he has worn the enamel off several more and is at risk of chipping or breaking those too. The Doc today was very thorough and fit him in tomorrow to remove the current broken tooth and clean the rest of them while he is knocked out.
In an attempt to fins a long term solution we are going to try Prozac to see if we can’t stop him from chewing as a result of his separation anxiety. The Doc also informed me that Target offers the generic form of Prozac under their $4 dollar prescription plan, or three months for $10. The same pills at the vet’s office would be $20 more a month so kudos to him for helping me save a bit of money. We left the office with a script for Bailey Rapin and will soon find out if this will help calm him down while we’re out of the house.
Stay tuned for updates…I’ll see if the vet will snap a photo of his teeth while he is under.
This past weekend Holly and I traveled to Chicago for the Bayes-McGee wedding…not just a wedding, a rock wedding. Holly and I made the trip down Friday morning with our friends Mark and Dauvan and decided mid-trip that we were going to drive all the way into the city rather than taking the south shore train in as previously planned. Aside from the normal traffic this wasn’t such a bad plan - we ended up getting into the hotel a couple hours earlier than planned which gave us plenty of time to walk around the Miracle Mile. We walked everywhere and then some, by the end of the day we all had very sore feet when we returned to the hotel. We shopped a bit and found the ipod vending machine at Macy’s - pretty cool.
We stayed at the Affinia Hotel - a very nice place but a little over-priced in my opinion. The location was great (right off Michigan Ave.) but the place looks like a work in progress, like mid-renovation. The lobby and lobby restaurant/bar were great but the rooms were a bit run down. The best part of the stay was the “pillow menu,” when you get there you can select from a number of different pillows ranging from the ipod pillow to the Swedish memory foam pillow.
The rock wedding was fun; leave it to Corey and Alisa to plan such a fun and non-traditional event. The ceremony was held at an art gallery with a great open bar before and afterwards - this was the first wedding I’ve sat through while sipping a beer. No traditional music either - Corey controlled (remotely) the soundtrack with a custom playlist on his iphone. Alisa walked down the “aisle” to Bryan Adam’s Heaven and the ceremony wrapped up with some Van Halen. After the ceremony we dined on some very eclectic food that was catered in and then finally moved the party over the W hotel / Whiskey Sky bar on the 33rd floor over looking Navy Pier. We spent the rest of the evening imbibing only the finest spirits while enjoying a fun night out with friends. Many thanks to Corey and Alisa for giving such a great reason to get together and celebrate.
My sister Kristin hounded me for another post so here is a general update.
My last couple weeks were consumed with planning an annual meeting for our neighborhood association - one of the joys of being president. After inviting a number of guests to address the “crowd” including the two men running for House of Representatives, a police lieutenant, and a local business I was really concerned that an audience wouldn’t show up. I had 2500 fliers printed up and distributed to other board members to hand out but I am not sure to what extent that was done. All said and done we had a crowd of about 15 people, including the guest speakers. Not great, but our average crowd is about 25 so this wasn’t terrible considering the fact that nothing exciting happens on our side of town.
I spent this past weekend up north with my brother, Matt, at the cabin - we winterized the garage, pulled the snowmobile out of storage and put in wood flooring in one of the bedrooms. It was a cold weekend but a good time - we got a lot done. The flooring is really nice and was pretty easy to install. Matt did most of the install work; my supporting role was limited to running outside every 5 minutes to make cuts for the next row. Here are a couple pics of the process. Check out the sweet linoleum we covered up!
All said and done the flooring project took about 5 hours. We ran to the lumber yard and picked up some nice trim which will be installed sometime soon. An upcoming project will also be to paint the paneling in the room to see if we can improve the look at all. The original plan was to drywall but that project is being put off for the time being.
Here is a shot of the snowmobile - it currently only goes straight as the steering is seized up. Hopefully this is an easy fix but I am not banking on it.
