My recent schedule at the new job has kept me from sitting down to post anything here for the better part of two months now. When one of the co-managers quit, I was sort of thrust into the role. That would all be well and good if not for the fact that when combined with an unreliable work force, I was on schedule for 56 hours a weed, but working more like 60. Tack onto that an hour commute -each way- and I was at work, or on my way to or from it, for about 75% of my waking hours. Hell, I have hardly even had any time to look at porn!
I’m not entirely sure if I have had anything worth posting during that time anyway. I bought a car back in October, I had been meaning to make mention of it here, as cars are not exactly the type of thing that I just buy every day. The car I bought is a 2001 Saturn Sl1. I chose it after spending quite a bit of time on the internet comparing all the key features in used automobiles: reliability. This car is defenitely not the prettiest car out there -it isn’t damaged in any way, in fact it looks almost like new, it just wasn’t very pretty when they made it. It had 70,000 miles on it when I bought it and I have already added 8,000 miles onto that with my new commute. I paid $3200 for it, which was $2200 less than what Kelly blue book priced it at in good condition. It has performed admirably thus far, and even manages to average 34mpg, though it was closer to 38mpg before I started ignoring the speed limit.
I also had a personal anniversary to celebrate earlier this month. January 5th was the one year anniversary of my quitting drinking. While I am not normally the type of person to get too excited about anniversaries, nor to even acknowledge my own personal achievments, this one meant something to me. Consider that I hadn’t been sober for an entire week for about 17 years prior to this and you will understand why I am proud of this one. I still don’t really talk about it (aside from a few family memebers very few people know that I ever drank at all. Which just goes to show that I was good at hiding it.), but it was the most difficult thing that I have ever done, and the accomplishment that I am most proud of in my entire adult life. I truly can understand why so many people try and fail, or succeed but relapse. I still don’t know if I am on board with calling alcoholism a disease, but I am certainly a lot more sympathetic to what alcoholics are going through, especially those who are trying to sober up.
One of our dogs died in October, I made mention of that here. Our other dog, Warlock, has seemed a bit depressed since then, as I imagine I would be if the only friend I had of my own species was taken from me. My wife and I had been talking about getting another dog since sometime in November. We decided to wait until a couple of weeks into January to get one. The reasoning was simple: those Christmas puppies turn out to be a lot more work than the children who got them ever imagined. As a result, animal shelters begin getting in far more animals than they can find homes for in January. Better to spring them from the joint when they are on death row than to get one of them when they are so cute and fuzzy before Christmas. After a couple of trips to our local animal shelter, I found Warlock a new little brother.
The new puppy is 7 months old. They told me it is a mix of Catahoula Leopard Dog and Doxie -whatever the hell that is. He is considerably smaller than Warlock, and will remain so. Warlock is in the 60 pound range, and the new puppy, whom we named “Scruffers” (well, I named him Lord Scruffenheimer III, but the wife says we have to call him Scruffers for short) will only be about half that. Warlock has been doing a pretty good job of keeping up with the puppy’s energy, but now when he lays down he is like a stone for the next six or eight hours -minimum. But they seem to be getting along pretty well. Scruffers has a very unique color pattern to him that I am not sure what to make of; It’s almost brindle, but then it’s almost dirty mop water too. In fact I would have believed them more if they had told me that he was a cross between a wire-haired terrier and a dirty mop.
You can see a bit more of his coloring in this shot:
And one last shot. This was the most adorable picture ever, right until Scruffers saw the camera. Then he jumped up such that when the camera clicked he was about .2 inches from it: edit 11/18/09. The following photo is the most hit file on my site by about 400%. Someone has this linked somewhere, but I don’t know where)
Well that’s all for now, I will try to throw something up here from time to time, as I am sure you are all dying to see more pictures of my adorable dogs (can you sense the sarcasm?).