Saturday, March 29, 2008

Wait...nevermind

So we were wrong. When we went to bed last night I noticed that my night stand had been gone through. Upon closer inspection I noticed that my headphone case had been opened at the chords taken out. I know I did not leave them like that. I cherish that gift and take good care of them. Also the drawer was then reclosed leaving other cables and charger on the floor. So we checked Colette's night stand to find that my watch was missing. We were a little confused seeing that all of our expensive items that we thought would be the target were passed by for an Ebay purchased, cheap watch. We assumed that they were kids after drugs or money. Which we have neither. Then this morning Colette noticed that a month supply of birth control was taken. (Not a big deal she is pregnant).

So we think that they were here for something other than stuff they could either pawn or sell for money since nothing valuable was taken. The only other thing we can think of is that Colette has been working for American Express the past couple of months and is taking expired gift cards off the shelves and mailing then to AmEx. Maybe the perpetrator saw us bring in bags full of gift cards and wanted a piece of the action. Unfortunately for them, they were all in Colette's car at the time getting ready to be mailed out. Plus even if they were stolen, not one card is activated. So basically they are worth nothing. A piece of plastic and nothing more.

It sucks that we broken into, but thank God that nothing important was taken. We lost maybe $50 worth of stuff. A watch, that I really didn't wear (battery was dead) and birth control that costs us $5. Oh well. I have always tried to keep in mind that all that I have is a gift of God, if he wants it he can have it back. I guess yesterday I was supposed to have it still. Thank you Jesus.

Friday, March 28, 2008

The Break In

Today at around three o'clock I get a call on my phone from a number that I don't recognize, so I don't answer the phone. The person leaves a message and I quickly check to see who it was. It was my landlord saying there was an emergency and to call him back right away. Seconds later Colette's phone starts to ring and I tell her to answer, there was some sort of emergency.

I can tell by the way the conversation is going that our cat has escaped from our house and the screen is off of the window. Instant panic set in because we didn't leave our window open, so even if the screen was off our cat would still be in house. Though we though maybe he pushed the window open and tore the screen open. Now the landlord was walking to our place, since he called as soon as he heard about "the break in." When he arrived and saw the screen he said there is no way a cat did this to the screen. It is all bent out of shape and was completely off the window.

When we heard all of this we thought somebody broke in to our place and we are two hours away from home. There is not much we can do from here so I guess we will finish what we were doing and then head home. We asked the landlord to at least let our cat back in to the house and close the window; we would figure it out when we got home. So he entered our place, shut the window, and got solomon back inside the house. (By this time we were made aware that it was "the big cat" that got out).

About three hours later we arrived home to check out the damage and see if anything was stolen. We first saw the screen which was completely bent out of shape and not tore like you think a cat would have done. One corner looked like someone took a screw driver or something and pried the screen off. We unlocked the door and walked in, ran around the house and found that nothing was in fact missing. It had to have been Solomon that had some how managed to open the window wide enough to get through and somehow force the screen out of the window. We think that he saw another cat on our patio and that was not going to happen (he is very territorial these days). So he did something about it. So now we have a broken screen and a dirty couch from the cats coming in and out of the house.

I have a picture of the screen on my phone, but that is way over of the other side of the room. You will have to use your imagination.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Babies!!!


Tonight as i walked over to help Colette with the dishes I noticed our bearded dragon Skippy was sleeping a little awkward. She had her head on the ground and her back half lifted off of the ground. I called for Colette to come over and see the odd sleeping position. Then I noticed she wasn't sleeping, she was laying eggs. As of an hour later she has laid 12, working on 13 eggs. She can lay up to 40 or so. She is small so hopefully that won't happen, this is also her first time so some of her eggs might not be fertilized.

So for the next 60-80 days we will be incubating bearded dragon eggs, hopefully to a success.


Funny note for Colette and I: Colette is about 6 weeks along and Skippy most likely was "fertilized" 4-6 weeks ago. Apparently romance was in the air.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Hernia

You may remember that my cat was in heat. Well last Tuesday we took her to a clinic and got her fixed. She had a little incision on her belly that she had to be careful of for a while. A couple of days later (thursday) she had a golf ball sized lump on her stomach at her wound. We called the vet and they said to bring her in the next time they are open. So on tuesday we brought her back in to the clinic to find out she had a torn the stitches on the inside and her fat was sort of sticking out. Basically, she had given herself a hernia. So they put her under and fixed the tear. Now we have to keep her locked up in our bathroom to keep her from tearing out her stitches again. Stupid Cat.

Monday, March 17, 2008

When's That Baby Due?

On friday I found out that I am/going to be a dad. That is right Colette is knocked up and I did the knocking. This is much sooner then we had planned but we could only do so much being that abstinence was and is not an option. It is weird to think that I am going to be a parent. That is something that old people do. As well this is going to be a part of my life for the rest of my life. I now have a new definition of who I am.

Anyway Colette and I are both very excited and can't wait already. If you want to know, we are calling "it" Rebel. Basically, because "it" didn't listen to our timing, so we are off to bad start with this one. Hopefully "it" will learn to listen better later in life.

Friday, March 14, 2008

RATM

My top 4 bands/artists of all time are Garth Brooks, James Taylor, Caedmon's Call and Rage Against the Machine. I know that last one sort of stands out from the others quite a bit. Through the years I have seen Caedmon's Call so many times I have lost count. I am amazed that I can say that. I have had the opportunity to see James Taylor twice now and am amazed that I can say that. Several years ago Garth Brooks retired from music and at the time I had never had the chance to see him play. This past year he started doing a show here and there and Colette and I spent too much money but had the fortunate ability to get tickets to a show at Staples Center. A long time ago now, Rage Against the Machine broke up, and much like Garth Brooks I have not had the opportunity to see them play. But recently they started to play again. RATM played Cochella Festival which I was unable to make it to. Now they are doing a world tour. Heres to hoping that I can see them in the near future...

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Starbucks is invading The Art of Whimsy

You know that little icon thingy to the left of the web address you are at? For blogger it is a little B...sort of. Anyway on The Art of Whimsy's website, which I pretend to create, that little icon turned into the symbol for Starbucks. I am not sure how this happened, I don't even know how to change it. Oh well, I guess we are sort of supporting starbucks even if we don't want to.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

New Header!!!!!!!!!

Sorry for all of the exclamation points, I got a little excited. I have been trying to put that picture up for months and months. Finally it worked. I am excited. Sad that is doesn't fit, but I can't really fix that right now and I don't want to take the picture down and not be able to put it back up...bye

Flight of the Conchords

If you have not seen the show, any of their videos on youtube, or heard their songs on the radio you are missing out and you need to watch this video. If you have seen or heard them then you will watch this video because you know it is freakin' hilarious. (Yes it is that funny). Actually I think I shall put two videos up. These are my favorite. Just as a warning the humor is dry.

Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros



Business Time

The Experts

I was listening to talk radio today, and the program was in the vain of call me and I will answer your questions. Sometimes these can be interesting because you get to hear what an actual "expert" would tell you to do in a given situation or what something means. (At least I find them interesting, but since I graduated I have had a desire to learn. Where was that desire for the first 21 years of my life?) But on this show, there were two speakers one guest and the host, every answered question started with: "I'm no expert and you should check to make sure what I am saying it true but..." Isn't that the whole point of me calling you? If I am going to have to go do the research to ensure that you told me the truth, shouldn't I just go to the research and not waste my time calling you?

That is just my thought on the situation.

Why I Love My Job

I probably talk about this way too often, but I am a guy and in case you didn't know, guy's tend to define themselves by what they do. If you don't agree with me you are wrong. Anyway, for the second day in a row I showed up for work at around 11:00 and was done by around 3:15. The thing that makes with great is that I get paid the same amount of money. There are a lot of jobs that boast short hours, but then your paycheck suffers. Not mine...

Plus (I should talk about this side of my job more), I get to hang out with JR. High, and High School kids all day. Some times they are terrible and have no respect for, adults, peers, and even themselves. But the majority of the time they are people just like everybody else. Show them a little respect and they will show you that same respect. I find this works the best with kids.

I think that too many adults treat teenagers like they are still 8 years old. Granted there are times when they still act like it. But they think they are mature and can make decisions all on their own. If you give them that respect or rather make them think you are letting them make adult decisions, teenagers will respect you so much more. The key to this situation is not letting them make actual adult decisions.

p.s. this program has more options on windows explorer than safari...

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Woke up too early

So i got up this morning at 6:30 and went to work. On the way I called to make sure I was going to the right school and discovered that I didn't need to be there until 11:15. So Colette turned the car around and we came home and are now watching Curious George. I'm drawing the line at Clifford the Big Red Dog.

I wish that I was still sleeping, but such is life. Oh well...

Monday, March 10, 2008

All My Exes Live In Portola

On Saturday night Colette and I went and hung out with my ex Brittney and her husband Danny. It is sad but there are a lot of people who couldn't imagine hanging out with ex-girlfriends or boyfriends. I wasn't sure either, but over the last few months Colette and Britt have been "Myspace Buddies," so hanging out seemed like the next logical step. Despite any nerves or fears, I don't think things were weird or akward at all. Everybody got along great. Go figure we are all sort of similar people.

I will say that this all worked is because Britt is a very forgiving person. I may have been a complete ass for a little while after we broke up. Sort of that angry stage of grief (wow that makes me sound like a wuss...I am) taken out on her (feeble attemp at apology...again). But I think even despite of everything said and done and the past that we can have a normal friendship. Plus Colette and her seem to get along great. And not to leave her hubby out, we seemed to get along just fine and enjoyed each other's company (and that makes us sound gay).

So it seems that Colette and I made "new" friends and now we have to go visit them at their house three hours away. What I really want is friends that live within like 20 min of my house. That would be great. And for revenge, we will make them come over to our house.

Technology

I know that I am really not old at all, but I can't help but thinking that "kids these days" are so lucky with their educational oportunities. Today I subbed for a class that was a "technology" class that taught them how to use Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks. The amount of knowledge that they have gained in such a short time is amazing. Today they were using Dreamweaver to create a webpage, and their pages look just as good if not better than anything I could come up with. Sometimes I wish that I had learned all of this information when I was a kid. Although, I must say that I probably wouldn't have taken advantage of that opportunity.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

New Toy

I bought a new toy today. It isn't that exciting but I am excited. I got (Colette and I got) a 320 GB external hard drive. We have all but officially filled up the harddrive on our laptop and needed some more room. The cool part about this harddrive is that it is powered through the USB drive. So I don't have to plug the thing in. That is my favorite part. Apple makes an external harddrive that is wireless. That is much cooler but twice as much money. I am not rich. If blogger was cool I would show you a pretty picture, but it won't let me upload a picture. Stupid website.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Garth Brooks

Ok, if you don't like country, that is fine. But I do. Growing up my favorite artist was Garth Brooks. Before I got to go see him live, he retired. That was a sad time. The man has won entertainer of year 6 times in 9 years. He must know how to put on a show. He is also the highest selling solo artist of all time. Again, he must know what he is doing. So when I heard that he was putting on a show in L.A. I had to go and was going to spend almost any amount of money to go. Tickets went on sale and in five minutes he sold out Staples Center. So they added another show, five minutes later, another, another. After it was said and done he sold out five shows at Staples Center in five minutes a show. I didn't not get tickets. So I paid a lot more than I should have and bought my wife and I tickets.

Needless to say, but I am going to say it anyway. The show was amazing. I couldn't imagine a better show. The coolest part was watching him absolutely loving his life. His love a performing and playing music was so clearly seen, it was contagious.

Another cool story: After he left for the first time, he came back about one minute later, saying "you never know what is going to happen. I was backstage and this lady on break, said that she always wanted to meet me and asked what it is like being me. I have always thought that the best way to learn is to jump in with both feet." At that he asked for (i forgot her name we will call her lupita) to come up on stage. This little old lady come out. He had the crowd cheer for her. He then sang her a song and had the crowd sing to her. He then had anybody that brought a camera to take it out, and snap a quick picture of the two of them together. The place lit up. It was crazy. And to make sure she never forgot this moment. he gave her his hat.

I know the stories are much cooler, being there, but I thought I thought I would tell them anyway.

I'm Back (said like that creepy girl in Poltergeist)

Really I have no excuse for my lack of blogging in the last three months. Well, I guess I have one, it is just a bad one. I am lazy. For whatever reason, it started feeling like homework. (Wait I have a good reason, lent). But homework that I didn't really have to do, so I didn't. Anyway I am back, I had tons of things to blog about but didn't. I would try to remember them, but that is an impossible task. I will just have to start over. Sorry friends, but I also have no idea what is going on in your lifes. So if anything really important happened let me know.

As a side note: my cat, is in heat. She goes crazy rolling around on the floor, every once in a while, and will not shut up. She keeps us up at night, and screams all day. i think she is calling all the boys over. Our boy solomon is just confused at why she is acting so strange. he is neutered.