Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Show me your balls

Someone asked me to show them my balls a while back... So I did.

(work safe, I swear)

Sunday, February 25, 2007

1/320 of a second

That's how long it took to take this picture:

This is a shot that I took at today's 5-4 'Catters loss to the Stockton Thunder. Neither the ref or goal judge saw the puck go in because it was in and out so fast, but a lot of fans saw it go in.

I personally didn't see it go in, but it can be difficult to track the puck through my Rebel's viewfinder... but it looks like the biscuit's in the basket to me.

Crossposted to Through our eyes

Friday, February 23, 2007

There goes the neighborhood

From last night's Buffalo-Ottawa game:

You don't see that kind of thing happen much in hockey.

Reminds me of the old 'Catters bench-clearing brawl in 2004.

Good memories.

Remember though, folks, there's MUCH more to hockey than the fights.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

March Madness

I got an email from Ticketmaster about a presale for next year's regional in Houston. For $158 I could get a ticket to all the games of that regional.

I'm not much of a basketball fan, but I always watch the NCAA tournament. It's one of my favorite things in sports.

So did I buy a ticket?

Hell yea.

I'd say that I can't wait, but it's a year off...

Crossposted to Through our eyes

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Back to school

Today I began what should be an interesting journey throughout the next six months.

I began a series of online classes that will give me all the know-how to work as a veterinary assistant.

It's an online course offered through Alvin Community College's online Continuing Education program. The course doesn't require being admitted to Alvin CC and only cost $79 per course.

All the courses (three to finish the program) are six weeks long with new courses starting every month. New lessons are up twice a week, along with a quiz (that doesn't count), discussion area for the lesson, and other activities that will help us when we take the final exam that will determine if we pass or not.

This should be an interesting ride...

Crossposted to Through our eyes

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Quote of the day

"You don't have to worry about Mad Cow Disease here. Before we buy our cows we send them all to anger management."

-A grill chef at Tokyo Japanese Steakhouse and Sushi Bar

We went there today to celebrate four February birthdays in the family. We seven of us sat at one of the grill tables for our meal. The guy who worked our table was a real piece of work.

Tons of fun... and some of the best food I've had in a long time.

Crossposted to Through our eyes

Monday, February 19, 2007

I swear I won't just do crossposts at this one...

...in fact, I won't crosspost anything to/from there.

I'm writing at another blog now.

METRO is full of crap is letting me share my goofy side with the world.

I'm having fun with it :)

Friday, February 16, 2007

I hate to brag, but...

Back in June I did an entry about the Bonura family, who I thought was turning the tragic death of their daughter into greed. The post drew an interesting comment (#6), which I responded to.

Here's the basic gist of the story as published by the Enterprise back in June (the link to the story no longer works):

The family of a student killed in the March bus accident involving the West Brook High School girls soccer team sued the bus company and its driver Wednesday.

The lawsuit, filed in Jefferson County district court on behalf of Alicia Bonura's family, alleges the bus chartered from Sun Travel was unsafe and that the driver was negligent.

[snip]

The lawsuit seeks both actual and punitive damages from Sun Travel and Lorri Ann White, the Silsbee resident who drove the bus.

The manufacturers of the bus and its parts also will be added as defendants in the lawsuit, Ferguson said.

I said, among other things:

If anybody's responsible, it's the guy who didn't secure his cargo to the trailer.

The Texas Department of Public Safety has finished their report on the accident... and they agree with me.

KFDM News has learned the Texas Department of Public Safety just finished its report on the West Brook soccer team bus crash.

[snip]

Sergeant Havard says the DPS will turn over its report, which is several hundred pages long, to the Liberty County District Attorney's office. Havard, who led the investigation, says he'll ask the D.A. to file criminally negligent homicide charges against the driver of the pick up truck for failing to secure the styrofoam.

That charge is a state jail felony.

The DPS says no charges will be filed against the driver of the charter bus, because she didn't cause the accident.

And I didn't need an investigation that took most of a year!

So, here's my question. Now that it's been established who's really responsible, will the parties that were cleared of wrongdoing be removed from the lawsuit?

My money's on no.

Crossposted to Through our eyes

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Apple Computer will NEVER get my money

I picked up Bear's ashes today.

After I did that I went to the Galleria to grab some food.

I'd been thinking about finally getting an Ipod, so I stopped in the Apple store on my way out.

I was ready to buy the black 30 GB model until I asked the salesperson (who I shall call Macboy) about the device's compatibility with Windows Vista. The talk went something like this:

Macboy: You're running Vista?

Me: Yea.

Macboy: [in what I consider a condescending tone] We don't support Vista yet.

Me: [Turns around and walks out]

Well, my apologies for not praying toward Cupertino, California (where Apple's corporate headquarters are located) five times a day.

You know, the people you'll see on any tech blog who think that Microsoft is evil and Mac can do no wrong.

I can't stand them.

Not that I pray towards Redmond, WA or anything.

I'll never buy anything Apple or Mac the rest of my life.

Anyways, I went to Fry's and bought a black Zune instead. They both cost the same.

I'll let y'all know what I think about it soon.

Crossposted to Through our eyes

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Coming home

Bear's specialist called today to let us know that his ashes were back and that we could come by whenever to pick them up.

I knew they'd be calling, I just thought it would take longer. At least another week.

I guess I'll be making (hopefully) my last trip to GCVS later this week to bring Bear home.

Just not the way I would have liked to.

Crossposted to Through our eyes

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Label me what you will

I'm finally working on implementing Blogger's labels feature.

You know, it's a real pain in the ass to sort through 500 posts and file them into categories.

Friday, February 09, 2007

For Bear

Yes, I'm doing dogblogging this week, but this week's different.

This one's gonna be all about Theodore Samuel the Bear or, as y'all simply know him, Bear.

We got Bear at seven weeks old on election night 2004. I still remember the night really well. I picked up Jason from school and we headed over to Houston. We met my mom at her house and her boyfriend drove us over to Bear's breeder's house, which was on the opposite side of town and that I had no idea how to get to. We saw the little guy, the last one left in his litter, and fell in love instantly.

He spent most of his time that first week or two here in Jason's room under the bed, only coming outside once in a while to play for about 15 minutes before he got tired. He didn't bark for the first two weeks here so we were starting to wonder if he was capable of barking.

He was.

He got big fast.

Really big.

Shelties aren't supposed to get taller than 16 inches at the shoulder but he got closer to 20. We joked that we might have fed him too well.

Of course, with his size, he couldn't be a stud, so we got him fixed.

We made the mistake of introducing Bruiser, our second dog, into the mix that day. Bear wasn't too happy about having an energetic little puppy around when he wasn't up to playing around.

He of course got better and had a good buddy to play with. One of his favorite things to do was to get Bruiser to chase him around the backyard.

His other favorite thing to do was chase tennis balls. We must have gone through dozens of them before I bought a package of Tuff Balls at PetSmart. I think the three that we pulled out of the package when I bought them are still in the toy pile... or at least somewhere in the house.

Even as a grown-up dog, he was still pretty laid back around the house with one exception: strangers. If he didn't know you he considered you a threat to his "herd" and would bark and bark and bark at you. On thanksgiving in 2005 I brought my then-girlfriend over to do dinner with the family (her first visit to my place) and Bear scared the crap out of her. I'd seriously never seen him freak out at a stranger that bad. Looking back, maybe he was just trying to tell me that she wasn't the one for me. She broke up with me less than a week later.

He was always a sweet, affectionate little boy, but also not one of those dogs that demands your attention all the time. When he wanted it though, well you'd better give him all the attention in the world!

Of course, if you knew him well enough that he didn't bark at you constantly you couldn't help but love him and give him all the attention he wanted. I don't think he ever met a human that didn't like him once they got to know each other. It was just that the whole getting to know each other thing was kinda difficult with all of the barking he'd do at people he didn't know.

Then he got sick.

He picked up a rare fungal infection from drinking out of a puddle in the backyard. We knew it was going to be a long road ahead of us, but we were optimistic.

As the disease progressed, he began losing weight and was a little snippy, but was the same dog he'd always been.

Here are some pics that I took of him last month.


Yes, I know I'm a handsome devil.


Was that a dog on the TV? I think it was!


It's naptime, you can leave me alone now.

Unfortunately, the disease wasn't responding to medication, so we put him to sleep on Tuesday.

As a final note, I want to thank all the people who have been sending thoughts and prayers my way. Y'all have helped to make a sucky situation just a little better.

Now that you've had all this to bum you out, go check out this week's Friday Ark to lift your spirits.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Blogging forecast

As you have probably noticed, blogging has been light recently.

As your official blogging forecaster, I shall forecast what it will be like in the says ahead:

With a potent mixture of mourning, transitioning to Windows Vista, and a nasty case of the crud it looks like blogging will likely be very light for the next few days.

This has been your blogging forecast, brought to you by the Justin's Random Swag CafePress store, carrying all of your official Justin's Random Thoughts apparrel.

Crossposted to Through our eyes

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

When doing the right thing really, really sucks

We took Bear back to the specialist today.

When we went in, the nurse lady cleaned up his backside and shaved him some to help with the odor.

Dr. Burney looked at him while he was back there and told us what we were afraid of... that the medicine wasn't working and that there was really nothing more that could be done.

We knew what that meant and all agreed that we should end his suffering and put him to sleep.


I'm gonna miss ya, buddy

Crossposted to Through our eyes

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Third Annual Super Bowl Predictions

Yes, this is the third year I've done these.

Two years ago, I nailed everything.

Last year, I only got the winner of the game right.

So let's look at what Vegas is saying, shall we?

The Game:

Colts. Peyton Manning finally got the big game monkey off of his back, and now he's going to get his ring.

The Spread:

Indy will beat the 6.5 spread.

Over/Under:

Peyton Manning's a dynamic QB and I think the Colts offense will just outmatch the Bears D. I'd say that they'd go over the 47.0 mark, but the 60% chance of rain makes me think that scoring will be down... but will it be down enough? I think so. Under.

Post-game analysis:

(edited in at 21:09, just after the concolusion of the game)

Three for three!!!

Do I rock or do I rock?

Crossposted to Through our eyes

Declaring shenanigans

I am hereby declaring shenanigans on Wildcatters owner Rick Adams from something said in the article that ran about the town hall meeting:

Powers said an early-season meeting for season ticket holders brought out less than half the team and no head coach. Adams denied an event ever took place and that there are various reasons an event for season ticket holders had not taken place yet.

(Emphasis added by me)

O RLY? Let's just look into that, because I could have sworn there was one and I was there. I remember it being on a softball night and the only reason I was able to go was because we had a 9:30 game that night.

Thankfully for me, Gmail keeps archives, so let's take a look...

*checks Gmail archives*

from: Jennifer Nguyen jnguyen@wildcattershockey.com

reply-to: jnguyen@wildcattershockey.com

to: Jennifer Nguyen <jnguyen@wildcattershockey.com>,
"Angie Trevino (E-mail 2)" <atrevino@wildcattershockey.com>,
"Anthony Langella (E-mail)" <alangella@wildcattershockey.com>,
"Jessica Munson (E-mail)" <jmunson@wildcattershockey.com>,
"Quincy Bird (E-mail)" <qbird@wildcattershockey.com>,
"Rick Adams (E-mail)" <radams@wildcattershockey.com>,
"Steve Samoyedny (E-mail)" <ssamoyedny@wildcattershockey.com>

date: Oct 19, 2006 11:12 AM

subject: Exclusive Season Ticket Holder Celebration!

You’re Invited…
Season Ticket Holder Exclusive Celebration!

Mingle With The Players
Let’s Build the Momentum Days Before Home Opener
Sponsored by: KFDM Channel 6

Monday, October 23, 2006
6:30 p.m.
Madison’s on Dowlen
4020 Dowlen Road

Season tickets will be available for pick up!

Let’s Pack the Park!
Not too late to get extra Home opener Tickets!
Get Them Soon, Seats Going Quick!

Thank you,

Jennifer Nguyen
General Manager
409-951-5507
jnguyen@wildcattershockey.com

Just for kicks, here's a screenshot of the email taken from a printable version.

Looks like it happened to me...

If I remember right, Rick was even there.

Oh how soon we forget, eh?

That is if he really did forget and wasn't just trying to look good, something I'd expect from a lawyer.

Crossposted to Through our eyes

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Who said it was good for nothing but lining the bird cage?

(Spotted on setxtrailerpark.com)

Someone seems to have found another good use for the Enterprise:

They say it takes all kinds to make the world go round. Well, the management and staff at the new Hooters in Beaumont, the delightfully tacky yet unefined restaurant known for its well-endowed waitresses and hot wings, learned that lesson the hard way this past Thursday.

That’s when a registered sex offender was arrested at the restaurant for masturbating while sitting in a booth near restrooms, according to police reports.

[snip]

The report, obtained by The Examiner, states the officer observed the man trying to cover himself with a Beaumont Enterprise newspaper on his lap while masturbating underneath the table.

(Emphasis added by me)

Well that's certainly a better use than reading it!

Not crossposted to Through our eyes for obvious reasons ;)

Thursday, February 01, 2007

An update on Bear

I figured that it was about time that I say something about how the guy's doin.

I'm not really sure if there's any improvement, but I'm probably too close to the situation... a visit with the specialist soon will tell us something.

He still struggles to poo and when he does it's runny as all hell. For a long-haired dog that takes some pride in his grooming it's not a pretty thing. Let's just say that when I say that his breath smells like crap, I mean it. HIS BREATH SMELLS LIKE CRAP. We bought some of those dental bones yesterday that are suppossed to help freshen breath and those have seemed to help.

He hasn't been eating as much, but I'm really not sure what to make of it.

As far as his spirits, he's still been just about as playful as he's always been, but he does get a little snippy at times.

We'll see what happens I guess...

Crossposted to Through our eyes