So this weekend we got a new puppy!  We went and visited dogs on Saturday, found one we really liked and put in an application and were immediately approved (as long as the home visit and meeting Aiko went ok).  The foster mom brought the pup to visit today, and things went pretty well so we now have a puppy.  She’s a white and caramel-beige hound mix, and we called her Quinne (like the Eskimo).  She’s very sweet and super adorable.  Aiko is being good, but is understandably a bit standoffish.  This will be an adjustment on everyones part!  Many photos to follow…

“Calvo said officers entered about 7:30 p.m., first shooting 7-year-old Payton. They then pursued 4-year-old Chase, who ran away and was shot by police from behind, he said.”

Now, I’m not sure who “feels threatened” when a 7yr old black lab trots up to them, likely with tail wagging, but naturally, the first instinct must be to bust a cap in its skull.  As if that wasn’t enough, they chased down the terrorizing pup’s younger sister, & shot her from behind.  Of course.  Logical.  Black labs, not pit bulls, not rottweilers, not dobermans.  Black labs.

It gets better.  The PG county geniuses never bothered to notify the local (Berwyn) police department.  Nope.  Just rolled up to the “suspect’s” house, kicked in the door, & promptly killed his dogs.  The kicker?  Guess whose house it was.  The mayor.

Hey, maybe that SWAT dude just wasn’t a dog person.

We’ve got all of our photos onto the PC, but Rebecca hasn’t really been around long enough to go through & edit them. Maybe once she gets back… She did post a couple on her Flickr page, though (link on the right).

Whew!

Aidan had a blast with Aiko, it was very cute

…see photos HERE

Check out our handy work…

I got sick of the goatee again already. I just get to a point where I’d really like it off my face, & I can’t think of any better time to go clean shaven than a return to work after an extended illness. Bec gave me the flu for Valentines this year, & I’ve been sick & out of work since last Thursday (she actually is still sick, & she got it 2 Sundays ago). Anyhow, before I shaved it all off, I decided to have a laugh with some mustache goodness.

I surprised Rebecca when she came home. She backed away in fear every time I got close to her, & kept yelling, “take it off!” It was hilarious. I tried to get her to be in one of the photos with me, but she shot that down too. No fun at all, I tells ya

Well, we’ve moved house, but aren’t nearly finished settling in.  We still have a ton of stuff left to unpack, & haven’t even begun to hang our art/photos, etc.  We have, however, finished building the fence (finally - thanks to all who helped), & we’ve finished the TV stand.  The TV should be here on Monday, & we need to get all of the home theater stuff unpacked & setup before then.  Before that happens, though, we have to finish staining the side of the bar to match the tone of the rest of it.  Staining the bar hasn’t been so easy, because the bead board is different material than the rest (we added a side panel of bead board that wasn’t previously there - it was up against the wall at the old place), but I think we’ve finally gotten it to the point where it looks similar enough to call it finished.

Classes have started for me again, so I’m trying to get as much reading/classwork done as possible, along with all of the unpacking.  Loads of fun.

Matty, on the other hand, had a completely different morning ride to work:

“Some 45 year old doofus-looking white dude passed out on the metro right at the takoma park stop. This woman was trying to call the train operator and she was an idiot so I had to point out where the call button was. Meanwhile the dude gets up and everyone was asking the guy if he was okay. he’s all “i’m fine, i just felt a little sick.” He’s like kind of adjusting himself and turning around . . . kind of trying to find a corner to hide in a little and become anonymous.

“Very quickly the car starts to fill with a horrible stench. Within a minute it smells as if we’re trapped in the diaper of a baby that someone’s been feeding Indian food to for a week. I mean people are gagging. All the while the guy is still fidgeting and adjusting himself and apologizing “I’m sorry. i shouldn’t have gotten on the metro. I’m sorry.” and you can see the back of his pants are glistening. It looked like someone pulled open the back of his pants and dumped a whole pot of stew down there.

“So we’re all about to start breaking windows on the train to get some air in there, but at the same time everyone’s trying to pretend like they don’t know what happened because obviously the dude is going to go shoot himself in the face later. I mean he’s a 45 year old man standing in the middle of a metro car in rush hour with his own feces running down his legs and everyone knows it. but the car is taking what seems like 10 minutes to get to the next stop. So we’re all trapped in this awkward purgatory.

“Finally we get to the stop and he gets off and we tell the train operator that the dude is fine and got off the train. That smell will haunt me for a while though.”

I think that if it came down to: developmentally-challenged mute swan, or 45yr old father of three passing out & pooping himself, the geezer gets it; hands-down.

Costume contest winners were:
Sexiest: those sexy Miami Vice men
Scariest: SMIB Steve (how’s that haircut treatin’ ya?)
Best Overall: Dave as Bob Ross, he even painted his happy little trees at the party
The whole Ghostbusters gang was a close second for the best overall as well.

Thanks to everyone who participated and donated to Lori’s Leukemia & Lymphoma fundraising Punkin’ Chunkin’ contest, she raised $50!  Congrats to Jason for his winning Punkin’ toss!

Big thanks to Darryl for coming through with Zoozooz!

I also really dug a couple of the bands. American Dumpster was really good, & I liked the D.J. Williams Projekt. American Dumpster’s hard to describe, but they’ve got a washboard player who really tears it up. ‘Nuff said. D.J. Williams Projekt sounds a lot like a Karl/Soulive mix.

The beers were ridiculous, as expected. It’s always a good thing when you can start your Saturday with a full pint of Siberian Night straight from the tap. Good news for MD’ers, too: Stone’s finally distributing. We had a long talk with the head of the Mid-Atlantic distributor account, who reassured us that they were coming out in force.

You can grab some videos of the show (primarily the Yard Dogs) here (~45MB). I only was able to get them to play with Real Player. Dunno why, but likely something to do w/my phone. Photos have been posted!

Yard Dogs: you need to come back to the Mid-Atlantic… SOON.