I made another addition to the RSS feature. You can now create a custom RSS feed and pull down just the categories that may be of interest to you. I mainly added this feature for Geoff Bowers over at Full As A Goog.
I thought it's about time I provide an update on the dogs. They're finally starting to calm down a bit and have even started napping together. Nikki wants to be around her sister all the time, and Maddie sometimes just wants to be by herself--it's like having a toddler and a teenager. :)
Nikki's still having some problems with house breaking, but she's getting much, much better. She's started going to the backdoor (most of the time) when she has to urinate. She's still urinating in the kennel. We've been able to monitor her enough that it appears she pees the second she wakes up. If she's napping in the living room and starts to stir, you've got to get her outside ASAP because she will have to potty. I also think she's doing a better job fully emptying her bladder when she's outside, before I think she was stopping prematurely. I beginning to give her a little more leeway in the house. I've even allowed her to sleep in bed a few times the past couple of nights.
NOTE:Point in case about the whole peeing after waking up. Right after I typed the sentence above about needing to take Nikki out right after she wakes up, I got a phone call. As I was talking on the phone, I heard Nikki stirring and turned around to look at her. She appeared to have been back to sleep, so I thought she might have just been getting more comfortable. Not 30 seconds later, I hear a sound resembling a someone hosing off their driveway. Sure enough, Nikki's urinating in her kennel again. I really have to start listening to myself!!!
I finally got off my lazy ass and added an RSS feed. You can thank Cameron Childress for getting my ass in gear. I've provided both an HTML and plain text version, although the plain text version may look a little rough and will be missing some HTML-only content (pictures, links, etc.) You can find the links to the RSS feed in the green box near the bottom of the left-hand navigation column. Now we'll see just how quickly I can bring down my server w/RSS requests. :)
For those of you who don't know what an RSS feed is, here's the v1.0 spec. Ok, that's probably too much information. Essentially RSS is a standardized method for syndicating and exchanging blog data. If you read a number of blogs each day that provide an RSS feed, you can use a program, like NewsDesk from Wildgrape, to keep track of all your different blog and news feeds—that way you don't have to visit a million sites each day.
Make sure to e-mail me if you have problems. I hacked this thing together pretty quickly, so there may be some quirks.
I've finally added some pictures of Nikki to the left-hand navigation bar. I'll try to add some more pictures of both Maddie & Nikki over the next week.
Well, today was my birthday. Jenn took me out for breakfast at Cracker Barrel and then we headed back to the house to relax a bit. We left the house around 2:30pm on our way to Troy, OH to pick out the new puppy.
There were three black female Labs left out the litter of 13 (the seven males were all still there.) We took Maddie with us to help pick out her baby sister. The remaining females all had very similiar personalities and they all took to Maddie right away—which was to be expected since the breeder has lots of Labs around the puppies. We ended up picking out the slightly smaller female—she just had a certain spunk about her. I let Jenn make the decision since she was the one purchasing the dog. Jenn decided the puppy's name is "Nikita," but we'll call her "Nikki."
After we left the breeder's house, we headed to my parent's house to celebrate my dad's and my birthday. The weather was really nice for February—in the high 50s, low 60s—so my Dad ended up being stuck at DQ because they were swamped. When we got to my parents house, Jenn, Jeff, my mom and I all stayed outside playing with the puppy for a few hours. My mom was running in and out of the house preparing dinner.
Ok, lessoned learned. Notebooks run hot. I placed my laptop on top of a book with a waxey cover (my copy of "Labrador Retrievers for Dummies" and it started melting the wax on the cover. Fortunately, I picked up my laptop before things got out of hand but there's a nice little burn mark on the cover.
So, just remember to be careful where you place your laptop when it's powered on. Not all flat services are safe.
Just talked to the breeder today (the one for our new Black Lab.) He wants us to come by Saturday to pick out our puppy from the litter. I'd would have preferred to take the puppy home the first weekend in March, but I don't see much since driving all the way there two weeks in a row. Plus, Saturday's my birthday and it just seems kind of appropriate.
Oh yeah, Jenn's leaning towards naming the puppy "Nikita" and calling her "Nikki." We'll see if she seems like a Nikki when we bring her home. :)
Well, I got my check for $13.86 today from the "Compact Disc Minimum Advertised Price Antitrust Litigation Settlement" class action lawsuit that was filed. There's more information on the actual lawsuit at the official site. Apparently over 120,000 Ohioans are recieving settlements. I signed up for the lawsuit via official site some time ago—I can't remember exactly when. I really hate the state of music right now. It's all about how to make as much money as quickly as possible—I get the feeling very few record company execs care about the music anymore. Just look at Britney Spears—she's nothing more than an image, she certainly can't sing. They process her vocals more than fruit that goes in a Hostess Fruit Pie.
Today was Jenn's 29th birthday. She went and worked out after work and then we headed to Champps for dinner. Her best friend, Jenny, and Eric & Krista met us for dinner. I was going to surprise Jenn by having a few more friends meet us at the house for cake, but dinner ran real late, so things didn't work out the way I planned. It was still a really nice dinner. I think Jenn had fun.
Well, it's been a long time since I've last blogged. That doesn't mean there hasn't been a ton of stuff going on, just that I've been too lazy to update everyone. :)
December went pretty fast, between contracting work and the Holidays the month really flew by. I picked up a little extra contracting work, doing some work for friends. I think my portion of the stuff turned out decent, so hopefully there's some more opportunity there in the future.
I also bought a new vehicle in December—I bought a black 2003 Toyota 4Runner. My Camry was running fine, but it was getting up there in miles and I'd already been driving it for 7 years. I know it's an odd time to buy a new vehicle, but it just seemed like the right time. Plus it was nice to have a new SUV for all the Holiday driving. :)
Well, Thanksgiving was a busy extended weekend. Being in a serious relationship tends to make the Holidays a little more packed with activities—because we get to celebrate with two families instead of one.
Jenn & I spent Thanksgiving morning at the Riverside Hospital. My cousin, JP, and his wife Betsy had their first child, a baby girl, Paisley Reese Sayers, at around 2:45am Thanskgiving morning. I got to take a number of pictures and videos that morning and burnt them to CD to give to JP's family at Thankgiving dinner.
After we left the hospital, I burnt the CDs and we left for Springfield for Thanksgiving dinner at my Uncle Jack and Aunt Nancy's house (JP's parent's house.) Dinner was great as always. I ended up taking about a 30 minute nap right after dinner. My Aunt has a cat, so I always end up having to take a Benedryl (sp?) and that always makes me drousy.
Jenn and I are thinking of getting another Labrador puppy. We went back to the breeder yesterday as one of Maddie's older sister's, Trixie, just had a litter with the same father as Maddie. (Trixie had the same mother as Maddie, Lulu, but a different father.) We took Maddie with us and we all seemed to bond with the same female. Maddie was very gentle with her and the breeder immediately said he thought Maddie would end up "adopting" the new puppy as hers. It was very precious to see the interaction between the two. We will have probably made a decision by tonight as to what we're going to do. The puppy wouldn't be ready until around Thanksgiving.