I absolutely love first-person storytelling. You get to hear what the character is thinking from his perspective, and I have to tell you, the main character of these books is one sarcastic son of a bitch. It's totally my kind of humor and the first seven books have kept me laughing for the last two weeks. I'm also glad I found the books when I did, since dog-sitting at someone's house that is located in the middle of nowwhere kind of limits your social activities.

Other than that, not a whole lot going on here. Work is work, life is life, and God willing, we'll all be here tomorrow to do it all over again.

I was worried about the flight home as soon as a boarded. There was a 5 year-old in front of me, a two year-old on the lap of the woman next to me, a newborn behind me and a two and three year-old across the aisle from me. All was well until we started our descent, and I know all of their ears hurt because they were crying. And then the two year-old next to me threw up. At least he didn't throw up on me. I felt so bad for his mom. She looked exhausted and ready to be home and they still had another leg of their trip left before they were home. She was so apologetic, but I know there's nothing she could do about. He really was a cute kid and once we were at cruising altitude, he fell asleep, so it's not like he was a terror. I've sat next to those kids before.

But at any rate, I'm home and get to sleep in my own bed tonight, so this is all you're getting from me.

My goal is to post every day for the next 30 days. If I can get into the habit, then maybe I'll continue to post.

At any rate, work has been wicked crazy the last several months. We're working on converting a client from one platform to another and there is some crazy accounting stuff that needs to be figured out.

I'm getting set for another 1 night road trip to go over this stuff with the client, and hopefully this time they'll understand what the hell we're telling them.

Aside from that, life is pretty dull for me. In addition to posting more frequently, I really need to get out of the house more often.

Much intoxication on Friday followed by a pretty good hangover Saturday and cold that's been kicking my butt since Sunday.

Good times, people. Good times.

i know i sent a text to wendy when the dueling piano people playing at throwbacks started playing vanilla ice. and right now there are definitely two of everything. i figure it's been several years since i've been intoxicated like this, so it's all good. i just have to make sure my roommate brings me to my car tomorrow. or some else at least.

i swear, if my friend get's hurt in iraq, i'll go over there myself and kick his ass. at leaset i know he'll be at a base that is relatively secure while he works on heliocopters. yep, kick his ass. i'm pretty sure i shouldn't attend any more of his going-away parties if this is how they end up.

no more alcohol for me.

spinning and one eye to see. not so good.

talk to you later, and i might delete this post when i'm sober enough to realize what i've typed.

later, dude.

p.s. i may have actually put the right link to wendy's site. but i could be wrong.]

good night. i'll sleep the drink off now.

1.How old will you be in five years? 34

2. Do you think you will be married by then? maybe

3. How tall are you? 5'8 1/2"

4. What do you look forward to most in the next six weeks? business trip to pittsburgh

5. What's the last movie you saw? ice age 2

6. Who was the last person you called? the conference call i'm currently on

7. Who was the last person to call you? my boss

8. What was the last text message you received? From my friend asking if we were still on for going out last Saturday

9. Do you prefer to call or text? neither?

10. Do you have any pets? No, but i want a cat!!!

11. What were you doing at 12am last night? Putting gas & oil in my car

12. Are your parents married/separated/divorced? Divorced.

13. When is the last time you saw your mom? Yesterday

14. What color are your eyes? blue

15. What time did you wake up today? 6:05 am

16. What are you wearing right now? jeans, fleece & doc martens

17. What's your favorite Christmas song? What child is this

18. Where is your favorite place to be? anywhere with interent access

19. Where is your least favorite place to be? work

20. Where would you go if you could go anywhere? if i could go anywhere, i would go everywhere.

21. Where do you think you'll be in 10 years? probably still be working at the same place. i've determined i'm a lifer.

22. do you tan or burn? burn, baby, burn

23. What did you fear was going to get you at night as a child? i don't recall fearing anything

24. What was the last thing that made you laugh? looking at pictures of my 13 month old niece and nephew

25. How many TVs do you have? i have 2, but there are 4 in my house

26. How big is your bed? full

27. Do you have a laptop or desktop computer? desktop

28. Do you sleep with or without clothes on? with

29. What color are your sheets? the current ones are a dark gray and cream plaid. they swap with the black and cream stripes

30. How many pillows do you sleep with? at any given time there are between 4-6 pillows on the bed. I sometimes sleep with two, sometimes with 6

31. What is your favorite season? summer

32. What do you like about fall? indian summer

33. What do you like about winter? snow

34. What do you like about the summer? everything except mowing the lawn

35. What do you like about spring? thunderstorms

36. How many states have you lived in? 1 - minnesota

37. How many cities/towns have you lived in? 8 - Lake Elmo, Woodbury, Rosemount, Stillwater, St. Paul, Roseville, Burnsville, Arden Hills.

38. Do you prefer shoes, socks, or bare feet? bare feet all the way

39. Are you a social person? not so much

40. What was the last thing you ate? burger king chicken fries

41. What is your favorite restaurant? mmm... Chipotle...

42. What is your favorite ice cream? Vanilla with hershey's syrup

43. What is your favorite dessert? chocolate (as long as there are no nuts involved)

44. What is your favorite kind of soup? chicken wild rice

45. What kind of jelly do you like on your PB & J sandwich? welchs grape jelly

47. Do you like coffee? no

48. How many glasses of water, a day, do you drink on average? what's water?

49. What do you drink in the morning? Mountain Dew

50. Would you rather sleep with someone else or alone? definitely someone to snuggle with

51. Do you sleep on a certain side of the bed? by myself, in the middle. with someone, on the right

52. Do you know how to play poker? depends on what kind

53. Do you like to cuddle? depends on who

54. Have you ever been to Canada? yes, i've snowshoed across a frozen lake and canoed into it as well

55. Do you have an addictive personality? somewhat

56. Do you eat out or at home more often? eat out. i don't cook

WHERE IS 57? one less thing to answer

58. Do you know anyone with the same birthday as you? nobody good shares a birthday with me. my best friend from high school was born the day before me.

59. Do you want kids? most definitely

60. Do you speak any other languages? i don't know that you could call my spanish and french speaking another language...but i can count!

61. Have you ever gotten stitches? yes, after i sliced my thumb open

62. Have you ever ridden in an ambulance? nope

63. Do you prefer an ocean or a pool? pool

64. Do you prefer a window seat or an aisle seats? aisle

65. Do you know how to drive a stick? yep. don't let me drive an automatic because i'll send you through the windshield trying to hit the non-existant clutch

66. What is your favorite thing to spend money on? i tend to spend most of mine eating out

67. Do you wear any jewelry 24/7? earings, two in each ear

68. What is your favorite TV show? Battlestar Galactica (The new one)

69. Can you roll your tongue? yep

70. Who is the funniest person you know? my buddy jimmie

71. Do you sleep with stuffed animals? nope

73. Do you still have clothes from when you were little? i don't think so

74. What color are your bedroom walls? white

75. Do you turn off the water while you brush your teeth? most of the time

76. Do you sleep with your closet doors open or closed? i would need doors on my closet in order to be able to close them

77. Would you rather be attacked by a big bear or a swarm of bees? bees. i know i'm not allergic and the stings don't hurt that bad

78. Do you flirt a lot? depends on my alcohol consumption

79. What do you dip a chicken nugget in? ranch

80. What is your favorite food? potatoes in most any form

81. Can you change the oil on a car? nope

82. Have you ever gotten a speeding ticket? 4 - one when i was 16, 2 a few years later and 1 a couple after that. nothing for about 6 years

83. Have you ever run out of gas? nope

84. What is your usual bedtime? anywhere between 11:30 pm and 2:00 am

86. Do you read the newspaper? online everyday

87. Do you have any magazine subscriptions? nope

88. Best comedian? dennis leary

89. Do you watch soap operas? i used to in college

90. Do you dance in the car? oh you bet i do. most of the time as long as no one can see me.

This has been one of the longest stretches of time in my life and I'm so happy it's over. I don't know when I'll buy a place again, but I think that when I do, I'll never sell it. It'll be that place you live in until you die, simply because I don't want to go through the stress of selling again.

On a totally different note, my niece and nephew are now one year old. They are absolutely the most adorable things in the world. I can't wait to see their personalities completely emerge, but right now it looks like Cohen is still the easy-going one who's too cute for words. Lily is a little spit-fire. Petite and full of curiosity. She's probably one of the funniest kids I've met. Most of what she does cracks me up. And oh the toys they got for their birthdays. I don't think anyone needs to buy them toys for the next three years, they got so many. And they were so cute eating their birthday cakes.

That's really all I've got for now. Probably more later.

I was cleaning out my car (you have no idea how nasty it was) and washing the windshield a little after 11:00 tonight when I saw a light out of the corner of my eye. I thought it was just someone driving down the street with their brights on until I heard "Is everything all right, ma'am?" Talk about through the roof! I just about crapped my pants and had a heart attack all at the same time. I look over and there are two cops standing behind my car under the eaves of the roof with their nifty flashlights in one hand and the other hand firmly planted on their holsters.

It seems someone called 911, gave my address and hung up. I told the cops everything was fine, that I was just cleaning out my car. They asked if anyone else was here, so I told them my roommate was, but that she was sleeping. They asked me to go and wake her up so they could make sure she was okay. Then they asked us where our cell phones were. Mine was in my bedroom, far away from where I was when they got the call, and my roommate's was in her room. I'm pretty sure she didn't call in her sleep. They asked our cell numbers to make sure the call really didn't come from us, and then they went on their merry way.

Part of me really hopes it was just a prank call, because if someone really needed help, they obviously didn't get it. The other part of me would like to hurt whoever did the pranking. Not becaue I don't think it's a good one, but because I had to wake my roommate up and now she's freaked out. I'm not saying I would ever do it, but hey, I do think it was a good one.

**Update - My roommate called the police station today to find out what happened. It turns out the person who called 911 was hard to understand and the police weren't sure if they were giving our address or the address of some apartments about a mile down the road. They sent out cops to both locations, and it turns out it did come from the apartments. At least my roommate can get some sleep tonight.

This year, as I settled in to watch the spectacle on TV, I got distracted by the commercials and changed the channel. By the time I flipped back, wondering when I was going to see it, they'd already played it.

Now I have to track down an MP3 of it somewhere on the internet so I can get my Tchaikovsky fix.

At any rate, I hope you all had a fun, excellent and safe 4th of July. I'll talk to you all later.

**When I did a search on Blingo for '1812 overture mp3', the very first link was to our very own Minnesota Orchestra. I'll be seeing them again in a few weeks and am so excited about it. If I could have tickets to every concert there, I totally would.

In the meantime, the house continues to rumble as the various fireworks displays around the cities finish up. We can't see any of them from here, but on a clear night like tonight, we can hear the low explosions from the finales. All of that sound just pushes it's way past the house.

Let's hope that's the only explosions I ever hear. After today's little incident with North Korea test-firing long-range rockets, it makes you wonder if we're falling back into the cold war of my early childhood. Let's hope everyone in charge keeps a cool and level head and can come to some sort of agreement about what's acceptable and what isn't.**

As an example:

On Sunday she was sitting on a blanket with a pacifier in her mouth. Her brother was gnawing on one, but he didn't really care that it was pacifier. She hopped on her butt (oh yes, she's figured that out; she can't crawl, but when she's sitting up, she can hop) over to her brother, pulled the pacifier out of his mouth and just held it. He didn't care, reached over and grabbed something else to chew on, and she promptly put his pacifier down and grabbed the new toy he had. He again grabbed something else of the blanket and she once again took it. He really didn't care that she was taking stuff he had. She is most assuredly the boss of him.

But it's all okay right now, because they're babies and I love them so much I just want to eat up their precious little fingers. Ask me how much I love them when they're teenagers and their hormones are raging and I might give you a different answer, but right now, it's all about the love.

Shortly before 9:00 this evening I went into the garage. What did a see but a baby bunny no bigger than the palm of my hand freaking the hell out in the middle of the garage. He promptly took off and hid behind the giant chest freezer that could easily hold a couple of bodies.

I went and got my cousin and the two of us went on a hunt to see if he had made it out while I was in the house. After about 10 minutes of searching we found the poor baby in a tiny little ball as far behind the freezer as he could make it. We found a box to put at one end of the freezer and I found the thing we use to clean out the gutters and thought, "This will be skinny enough to fit back there." So I gently prodded behind the freezer while my cousin bravely held the box in place, only after telling me that she better not get bit and get rabies.

The baby started hopping toward the box. My cousin kept me informed of where he was and he finally made it all the way into the box. When we opened the garage door to let him out, who was sitting underneath the big pine at the bottom of the driveway but big daddy bunny. He went home without one of his kids and his wife kicked him out until he found the little one and brought him back safely home.

After a successful catch and release, the little baby started hopping back towards the garage!! He knew he was in big trouble and that daddy was gonna kick his ass for wandering off earlier in the day. Thankfully, before he found the garage, he found a shrub to hide under.

Here's the little bugger after we caught him. Dreadfully scary, I know. I think I'll name him Bunnicula.

I'm thinking they got a call because someone saw a kid with a gun and they came to check it out. When I came back from the gas station, the cop was standing next to one of the cars talking to these kids and a few adults (parents maybe? though I don't think I've ever seen an adult watching any of those hoodlums playing outside). He was still holding the gun and showing them something. All I know is that I hope it was a fake gun. If I hear anything remotely like gunfire over the next couple of days, I think I'll lose my mind.