Oh Boy, Here We Go Again . . .

I got another puppy!

Growing up my family had a dog. She was a black Maltese Poodle named Shado. She was the best dog you could have ever asked for. After 17 fantastic years on God's green Earth we had to put her down. That was extremely hard for me to do. I still miss her a lot and decided one day I would like to get another Maltese Poodle, Though it would have to be white, since it would be too hard and/or weird to have another black one that looked like Shado.

My sister, Britney, had been planning on getting a puppy the second she got a house and has been on the pup hunt. She found a litter of pure white Maltese Poodles that are so adorable that it's physically painful. Britney put one on hold immediately and I sent a picture to Jordan with zero hope that he would want another dog. We talked about it and talked about it, but in the end it was the pic that won him over. Like I said; so adorable that it's painful. So I put one on hold.

The next day Jordan changed his mind and I was having second thoughts. We were nervous about how the new pup would mix with our other dog, and our two cats. I drove with Britney and her hubby Ross to pick up their puppy, but, once I actually saw the puppies face to face I knew that it was mine. I sent the pic of me and the pup to Jordan (he was at work) and he was excited and said let's get it! Frankly, I was relieved 'cause I already did and was on my way home.

Technically Britney doesn't have her house yet, she moves in prob a week or so, so until then I'm babysitting her puppy. Which is nice for the pups 'cause they are brothers, and enjoy being together. They love to play fight. And they fight rough. I fear one will kill the other eventually, but such is life.

Britney named hers Havoc, which is quite fitting, 'cause he likes to wreak it. We tried on several million names, and none seemed to work. I've never had such a hard time finding the right name for an animal before. With my other pets they practically named themselves and sent it to me through osmosis. This little creature left it up to me entirely.

In the end I love the name we settled with. Meet Brighton:

He sure loves to sleep on his back, bless his soul.

And here he is with his brother:

As for Bella; The first night was really rough for her, she was such a nervous wreck that she started foaming at the mouth. It made me cry. At that point I had resigned that we were going to have to find Brighton a new home. But the next day she was much better, albeit still nervous. She was increasingly better and by Monday night she was playing with them and found a boyfriend in Havoc, although he is too young to know what kind of lovin' she was wanting from him.

Public Restroom Woes

There are a large number of no-no's when it comes to public restroom etiquette. I think I need to provide a training course for my coworkers on what this fabled list entails. Somehow I doubt they would appreciate my soapbox, however I'm confident no one at work reads this.  So, I will vent for all to hear um, read.

To the person on the cell phone:  How important can that call really be? You need to evaluate your priorities; do you need to talk on the phone more, or do you really need to pee? You can't, can't do both at the same time. Take your pick, and whichever feels more urgent, that's what you do. Talk about pressure-it's hard enough knowing some other random person can hear me while I do my thing, but I don't need said random person's significant other, bank rep, or roommate to hear me as well.

To the rocket pee people: "What's a 'rocket pee', Bre?" you may be asking. Why, I'll tell you, curious soul. A rocket pee, is when someone is apparently in so much of a hurry to pee that they force it out so fast that they could very well lift off. I used this phrase while describing the phenomenon to my hubby, and darn it all if it doesn't fit perfectly.

Heaven forbid I use a "stop and smell the roses" analogy at this time, as it is wildly inappropriate for the topic. However, I understand you may be in a time crunch with break time diminishing and all, but my thoughts are as follows: Can you really be that desperate to return to work? Let me repeat myself, because it's that big of a point, you are rushing through man's basic need because you want to hurry and why? The only thing waiting for you is work.

To the people that don't wash their hands: I genuinely have nothing to say to you. You are that dumb that I choose not to acknowledge your existence in this world, as I do not wish to talk to your kind for fear that you might touch me.

To those that come to work and do their hair and makeup in the bathroom: The whole point of doing your hair and makeup is so you don't look like a hoodlum in public. You are now in public in all your hoodlum glory, so what's the point? We've already seen you all splotchy so it doesn't really matter. We know what you look like fer reals now. Sure, I like to sleep in as much as possible as well, but what's the difference between being 15 minutes late, and not actually starting work until 15 minutes after 'cause you were in the bathroom primping?

To the individuals that bring their food into the bathroom: You deserve to die. Which is convenient, because that is probably what's going to happen to you with who knows what airborne settling silent and invisible into your Hot Pocket®.

To those that bring their drinks into the bathroom: You probably won't die. Congratulations! However, you're really living life on the edge, you should probably just leave it outside the door. Note: This is only if you have a lid on your drink. If you have an open cup: You're probably going to die, yes. And "lid" in this circumstance cannot be defined by a fountain drink lid with a straw. The straw is definitely the Achilles Heel of your drink, the "who knows what" as discussed previously is tricky and can get down in there.

Now you think I'm a germaphobe, but word on the street is airborne googalies (please don't ask me to define that, just use your imagination) can "leap" up to six feet from your toilet. True story.

Lake Powell! A Trip of Firsts

For Labor Day weekend me, Jordan, my parents, my sis and her hubby, my brother and his wife and their three kids all went to Lake Powell! We rented a houseboat, and recently Jeff and Brit went in together to buy a boat, so we brought that as well.
We didn't want to waste the first day we had our houseboat in just driving down there, so we camped the first night, and picked the houseboat up first thing in the morning. We launched the speed boat, and then loaded up the houseboat and launched that. We then met up with the speed boat, hooked it up to the back of the boat and took off. We stopped the boat for lunch, and after that we took off to find a place to just park the boat so we could play. It was so nice to be able to sit back and relax and read while we were cruising. Eventually we got to the canyons where we thought we might want to park the boat. Because the houseboat doesn't go that fast, and it was so large that we didn't want it stuck in some small canyon we couldn't turn around in, we decided to launch the speedboat for a reconnaissance mission.

Jordan and I rode with Jeff on said mission. We cruised up one canyon, and took all the different ways that canyon branched out on, but because it was Labor Day weekend, everything was packed. Beyond packed. We left that canyon, and headed on to another. By this time we were well ahead of the houseboat, and Jordan had been eyeing the kneeboard we had in the boat with us. He kept eyeing it for a while and said, "Can we do that?" I was surprised 'cause I had never seen Jordan on a boat before, and he never wanted to go out boating with the fam before so I didn't really peg him as one that would want to hop out and try the kneeboard. We borrowed the kneeboard from a neighbor so none of us had tried it before, and we weren't sure how to really get up on it. So Jeff, said why not, we're ahead of the boat by a long shot, so we might as well play a little. So Jordan-who didn't even have a swimming suit on that point-hopped in the water clothes and all and gave it a go. The houseboat radioed in for our position and the conversation went as follows:

Jeff: "Guess who's breaking in the kneeboard?"

Dad: "Of course you."

Jeff: "Um, that's impossible since I'm on the radio with you, and I can't talk on the radio while I'm in the water."

Dad: "Not Bre?!" (Thanks for your confidence Dad!)

Jeff: "Guess again."

Dad: "You're kidding-Jordan?!"

I guess my whole fam, like me, assumed he was not all about the water sports. It was great that Jordan was such a shocker.

After we let the house boat get ahead of us a bit we decided to get back to our reconnaissance and it was looking pretty grim. Never again will I go on a holiday 'cause it was ridiculously crowded. We hit a dead end in one canyon called Hansen's Creek I believe and as we were turning around we noticed that both boats that were on the beach looked like they were leaving. We didn't know if they were just going off to play, or if they were leaving and not coming back. We asked one boat, and they said they were leaving, and they said that the other boat was leaving as well. Hallelujah. We waiting for them to leave and claimed our beach. We were really lucky 'cause it was sandy, so it wouldn't hurt the boats to beach there and the kiddies could play in the sand. It was also very secluded, so we had the canyon to ourselves, and we still had a large area in front of us where we could practice skiing, kneeboarding, and just tube off the main channel, with no one around to laugh at us, and with no wake other than our own. It was perfect.

So we got the houseboat all anchored down and it was time to play. We were all excited about the waterslide off the back of the boat, but then we saw that it was about a good five foot drop from the slide to the water, so that made us slightly wary. All of a sudden before we could realize what just happened Jordan went down the slide. Which was another surprise. He just has to be the first to do everything! In fact I think he was the first to water ski too.

I think the best part was the fact that we had nothing planned, no schedule pressing in on us. We could go out on the speedboat, go fishing, sit and read, nap, or jump off the back of the boat and play there. We played it all by ear and it was very relaxing. I am desperate to go back, and can't wait until next summer 'cause we are already planning a trip. I'd live there if I could.

New Position

For the last month and half (I told you I was behind on posts) I have had a new position at work. I am the new Documentation Specialist. Which doesn't mean anything to you, so in other words I am the administrator for the Knowledge Base. Which also doesn't mean anything to you. Unless you happen to know what a Knowledge Base is. Basically it's the database where all of our help articles are, all how-to articles for the web site. So, I write articles, edit articles, code, format and post articles. I also manage the database in terms of cleaning it up and keeping it maintained.

I have really enjoyed this new position, and I'm excited to see how it evolves as I am able to take on more challenging tasks. It has been really cool to be able to learn new things, and I'm anxious to see what else I can learn.

We also just released a new and improved Knowledge Base. It's a lot prettier than the old one, and increased functionality.

Click Here to see our slammin' new KB!

California Part Deux

I had written this huge long post, was nearly finished and had to save it to finish later. When I come back, what's happened? Apparently it never saved. OMGeez, really?

Ok, here's round two of part deux!

The next day we were going to Universal Studios, and we were excited 'cause there were some new rides there that weren't there when I was there before and Jordan had never been there before.

The park opened at ten, but we decided to not stress about getting there right at ten. Our GPS said that it would take about an hour and a half to get there "with traffic". So, we left around tenish. Of course "with traffic" was a nice way to plan to be safe, we should have planned for getting lost, ridiculously lost. We lost faith in our GPS and decided to not follow it, and that was our downfall. In our defense Universal Studios is already impossible to find. I don't know why they don't make it easier, but they sure tuck it away into the most hidden away spot of land they could. Granted the lot was there before they built the park onto it, and I'm sure they weren't concerned about tourists at that time, but really- when they build the park they could have maybe put some signs on the road telling you where it was. I dunno- maybe we're just retarded.

So, we're driving around downtown LA and we kept getting stuck on one way streets, and couldn't make our way back to the freeway where we were supposed to be. We were sitting at a red light and I notice that there was a sign above a business written in Chinese. I thought that was weird, and then I was looking around and I was noticing that all of the signs were in Chinese! And we started to see that everyone out on the streets were all Chinese as well. I felt like everyone knew a secret that we didn't, and that I was in some Twilight Zone. Then we realized what I'm sure you had already figured out- we were in china town! It was like we had stepped into a whole different world.

It was about 1:30 by they time we made our merry little way to the park. Phew. Because the park closed at 6:00 (lame) we were majorly pressed for time. Right when we got there we instantly saw a ride that didn't have a line, which was exactly what we needed. We then found out it didn't have a line because they were closed. The guy standing in front suggested that Water World was about to start, and they would be back up and running when Water World got out.

Water World was awesome, I remembered a little bit about it from when I was a kid, and it was cool to see it again. After that we snagged some lunch, and was anxious to get back to the line-less ride before a line formed.

This ride was called "House of Horror" I believe. That should have been a red flag, but I think we both had in mind a ride like Haunted Mansion, or maybe it was a really scary indoor roller coaster. As we sauntered up to the door of the ride there was fog pouring out of the entrance, and as we got closer there was the world's creepiest man standing in the entrance in a very realistic mask, and a tux with white gloves and cape. He looked like that man from Texas Chainsaw Massacre decked out for the opera, and he was beckoning us to follow him. That should have also been a red flag, and while everything inside me was screaming not to follow this man, we plodded on.

Once we go inside there still was no line. You know how rides have the inside themed for whatever the ride was going to be? We thought that's what we were in; really creepy tight corridors fit for the theme of "House of Horrors". We kept expecting to hit the end of the line, when suddenly this evil man jumped out at us and scared the poo right out of me. It finally dawned on us, this was no ride. We were in a haunted house that you have to walk through. Talk about going into it blind. I don't want to go into major detail, I did that on the previous draft and it brought up terrible memories and I broke out in a cold sweat. Let's just say it's was the scariest haunted house I've ever been in. The blessed no line that attracted us was the worst part because we didn't have anyone in front of us screaming to warn us what was coming up, and there was no one behind us to give us a protected from behind feeling, and the idea that there could be some creepy man following us was horrible. And heaven knows I was too scared to look behind and check, afraid of what I might find. At one point I saw a guy about to jump out and I yelled "No!" and he jumped out and I yelled at him saying, "I said NO! You're mean!" It was traumatizing.

We made it out alive, but just barely. I was ready to blow off the rest of the rides and just sit on the steps in front of the ride and tell people NOT to go in!

Fast forward: The park closed, and as it was only six, we decided to explore the City Walk, which is basically a strip mall outside the park. We walked around, and perused the shops, got Jordan some sunglasses, and decided that we should go to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner, but had some time to kill until we were actually hungry. We had already been all over City Walk, and there wasn't anything else to keep us busy for another hour or two, so I suggested a movie. Jordan's wasn't a huge fan of the idea, as a movie is something that you can do anytime, and we were in Cali! But, my argument was a pretty good one, considering there really wasn't anything else for us to do, but see a movie. We saw Star Trek, which was good, and by the time we were out, we were very much ready for dinner.

Hard Rock Cafe was awesome. I have been to Hard Rocks in Salt Lake City, Orlando, Nassau Bahamas, Nashville TN, and I think Hollywood was my favorite. The atmosphere is always great, the food fantastic, and I got a souvenir glass, and we both got some souvenir clothes.

What a long fun and frustrating day! We got lost, loved ourselves some Universal Studios (minus the House of Horror) enjoyed the City Walk and we were exhausted, and ready to get back to the hotel and crash.

What the Flood?

Things have been kinda crazy lately, and I haven't kept up on my blog at all! So maybe I will hopefully be able to update it a little bit . . .

A couple weeks ago Jordan and I both had the day off, which is nothing short of a miracle, as he never has Saturdays off. I woke up with the possibilities floating through my head of all the many things we could do.

Then I got out of bed and the dream was killed. It took two full steps for it to sink in, or maybe for me to sink in. There was about an inch of water on my floor. My first thought was the water heaters. I opened the closet that had the water heaters, and sure enough that was the source of the water. I had a small panic until I realized that it was actually dripping down from the ceiling! I'd be lying if I said my first thought wasn't "Hurray, it's not our fault!" Assuming the upstairs neighbors' water heaters were directly above ours I thought something had gone wrong with theirs.

We got dressed and Jordan went upstairs to ask the people if their water heater was leaking. He came back down saying that they weren't home, and there was a lock on their doorknob. Great, they were moving, so how the heck were we going to get in touch with them? Obviously we're not the greatest neighbors in the world and don't talk to them, so we had no contact information, or even a name. I called my dad for advice and he suggested that we contacted the HOA president. But, I remember my realtor saying when we moved in that the HOA president lived above us. Perfect. My realtor lived in the same area, under the same HOA so I thought he might have the president's number, but I didn't have my realtor's number anymore. SO I called my mother-in-law (who used the same realtor) and got the realtor's number from her. I call the realtor, and he didn't have the guys contact info, but he had the HOA vice-presidents number. So I called that guy and he had neighbor guy's number! PHEW!!! I was finally going to reach the guy! Meanwhile our ceiling is still leaking. So I call neighbor guy . . . and get the voicemail. For real? Ok, granted if I saw an unknown number I probably wouldn't have answered either, so I left a voicemail, and tried not to sound like a bratty neighbor as I explained that my ceiling was leaking and that it was most likely their water heaters.

Luckily we didn't have to wait too long for a call back. Neighbor guy said that he had just replaced the water heaters, so that probably wasn't the problem. I wasn't about to count anything out and thought that we were about to have a confrontation when he said that he was at a family reunion and would leave now and should be there in about a half hour. What a relief.

He got home and said that it was his swamp cooler that was leaking, and said point blank it's his responsibility and that he was going to make sure that we were taken care of. I was floored, 'cause most people don't want to admit to being at fault like that. He was true to his word and got a guy over to check damages and clean the place up. We got the walls dried really quickly and decided that there was no damage in the walls, but the carpet was another story. We had lighter carpet and the water that was leaking was less than clean. To get the carpet dried ASAP he sucked up all the water and cut out the wet part and laid it out in the sun to dry. I was a little surprised he did this when I figured you could just lift it up and stick a fan under there, but hey- he was the expert I suppose.

Once the carpet was dry we put it back in sans padding (since the padding was a lost cause), and we wanted to cover the carpet tacks that were all over the floor so we could let the cats out (they were locked up all day, poor dearies). Overall we were really lucky that the damage wasn't extensive, We were able to dry the couch out and there wasn't any watermarks on it (only one got wet). We moved the DVD shelf out of the way since it was in the water a bit, and there was no damage to that, but it was a pain in the butt to take all our DVDs off the shelves!

A couple days later we had a guy come look at the carpet to see if it could be reinstalled, and taking one look at it he questioned why the heck this other guy cut it out, and said that he could have just stuck a fan under there, (interesting) and because it was cut and it was an older carpet he could put it back in, but there would be seam very visible. SO WE GOT NEW CARPET! I was very much pro-new carpet, and Jordan wanted to just have our current carpet reinstalled 'cause he thought it would be a pain to get whole new carpet 'cause we would have to move everything out and put it back. Of course it would be a pain (and it was) but it's also FREE carpet! Definitely worth the hassle. I pointed out that eventually we're going to want to sell or rent and we would have to get new carpet then, so we might as well do it now while it's free. So that's what we did.

I am definitely for seeing the silver lining in every tragedy. For example last year I got in a really bad car accident and my beautiful Jetta was completely trashed. That sucked horribly, but the car that I got after that saved in $150 a month in payments and insurance. So, I still say that getting in that car accident was the best financial move I've ever made. No one wants a flood, but- I got free carpet, so hurray!

I absolutely love my new carpet! And I leave you with a beautiful pic of Bella, and you can see the carpet in the background. It's a twofer.

California Part 1!

I've held this off 'cause I didn't have time to start a long story about the trip, and long it would inevitably be. So, I'm just going to do this in parts! To save me time, and you boredom!

We left Tue morning around 8ish and were making really good time, until we decided to stop in Vegas to have a look around. Vegas is not as exciting as I remember, that is for sure. So, we wasted about two hours or so walking around, and decided that we'd rather be driving and just get there sooner, so we hopped back into our faithful car, and we were on our way.

Vegas stop aside we still made incredibly good time, we got there about 7, checked in and promptly ordered "room service". But we just called it Dominoes. After some hearty pasta, we relaxed our stiff driving muscles in the hot tub. Phew, what a long day.

To explain further, we got the City Pass, which gives you three days park hopper (Disneyland and California Adventure) and one day Sea World, one day San Diego Zoo and one day to Universal Studios. Although we only had four days to play, this was still the best value since the whole pass was only $230. But we were set on getting the most use out of it.

We woke up bright and early for Disneyland, and were determined to be there right as it opened. Our hotel was three blocks from the park, so we decided to walk. Turns out they were the three longest blocks in the history of the United States. It took us a good 20 minutes just to get to the park. Once we were there, we were jubilant to say the least. We headed straight to Tommorrowland, not on purpose- that's just where our feet and the flow of traffic steered us. We then chose Star Tours as the first ride for the simple fact that there was no line, and we weren't wasting any time. Star Tours was a blast for two reasons. First, when we were all buckled in and the right was just about to start, I started to say "Oh, crap! Oh, crap!" over and over in a really panicked voice, and I scared the poo about of a little girl behind me, 'cause she saw how "scared" I was, she figured it was going to be a really scary ride. Heh heh heh. Second, I sat next to the world's frailest looking old lady. I'm surprised her hip didn't break on the way in. So halfway through the ride Jordan turns to me and says "Is that old lady still alive?" And I laughed my head off. Once the ride stopped the old lady humphed and said "We didn't even go anywhere, I think we just stayed in the same spot." And Jordan I marveled on the miracle of her making it through the ride without either dying or breaking something.

The next ride we went on (I'm not going to give a play by play of each ride, but the first two just happened to be the most memorable) was Space Mountain. This is my favorite coaster in the park (not like there are many to choose from) so I was excited. The line was also short, so it was an even better choice. We were walking through the line and Jordan was asking me what the ride was. Knowing he's not a big roller coaster fan, I inferred it was a lot like the Star Tours ride, where you stay in one place and you feel like you're moving. Then he started to notice the signs saying it's a face paced thrill ride, and basically warning the old, the pregnant and the faint of heart to not ride. But it was too late, he was already stuck in the line. Muahahaha. So, we get further in, and we're above the ride and he can see the cars below and everyone taking off and his fears were confirmed, that it is indeed a coaster. However, the highlight of the ride was actually in the line. The was last month in the thick of the Swine Flu scare, so Disneyland being a crowded public place I'm sure there was little paranoia. Jordan just happened to sneeze, and without skipping a beat he looks at his hands dramatically and says "Ah crap . . . My swine flu is acting up again . . . " The lady in front of us widened her eyes and surreptitiously distanced her self. The ride itself was a joy, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Jordan screamed, which just made me laugh harder, and made the experience all the better.

Overall, the day was grand. We went on almost every ride that we wanted (we didn't get to do the Finding Nemo ride, 'cause the line was so long, and there were no fast passes) and we were officially tuckered out. We hadn't even gone over to California, so we decided to hurry and go over and do Tower of Terror, which was another that we were really wanting to do. It surprised me that Jordan didn't want to do any roller coasters, but was excited about Tower of Terror. To me, that's the scariest ride in both parks. In line by us was a lady with her son, who was probably 7 yrs old or so. He was BAWLING like his puppy just died. His mom said if you're too scared, we can leave and you can go back to the hotel and go swimming. Of course the little boy can't say that he's too scared to he just stands there and bawls his eyes out. And mom, because he never said that he wanted to go kept him in the line. My personal opinion- Mom wanted to go on the ride, and if her son didn't she couldn't go on the ride. I saw this a couple times throughout the vacation. Wow people.

So, that was a glorious end to a glorious day. But wait- After an utterly exhausting day of walking all over the parks and standing in line, we still have to make the arduous trek back to the hotel. I wanted to die, I contemplated hiding and sleeping in the park overnight, I considered hitchhiking, and didn't rule out stealing a car. Nevertheless, achy bones, weary muscles and blistered feet aside, we made it back, and enjoyed another lovely dip in the pool.