Graduation

Sure, Quinn is cuter in a graduation cap, but I think Halo did ok for himself.

I feel like I live at PetSmart

So, I am no longer at the movies while John is at training.. On top of that, I have a really quiet house this evening because both dogs are sleeping (for 2 totally different reasons). I just picked up Sydney from her day at the vet where she got her nails trimmed, microchipped - in case she ever decides to run again - and her dreaded dental work, which included having 3 teeth extracted. So now she has pain meds and antibiotics to take twice a day. Luckily that starts tomorrow because she's really loopy tonight.

I couldn't get the other pictures to load but Halo is curled up behind me on the chair and Sydney is downstairs really out of it. Since she had the anesthesia today they said she would be a little disoriented for 12+ hours and that I should keep her away from stairs and keep Halo away from her. Luckily he's tired too. When Syd first laid down when we got home, her tongue was so far out of her mouth that it curled under her mouth and she was laying on it.. looked really sad so I had to bug her long enough to fix it and convince her to drink some water.

On the up side, Halo is having a fun week, going to doggie day camp while I work and he is exhausted from all the playing. That's going to be a big plus tomorrow when I take him to his class. Anyways, they tell me he loves it and I get a "Pawgress Report" each day when I pick him up and so far so good. I scanned the first day's report in but I'm not sure how much you can read. Funny that both days so far say he has lots of energy and loves to play chase with the other dogs. (What makes me happy is that they say these comments like they are a good thing). And on top of that, at nap time he sleeps like a champ.

So compared to the days they've been having, my days at work are a little uneventful.

to the movies

So, we have a new favorite movie theater (Thanks Des for the tip). There's this place called Movie Tavern and most of them are in Texas where they started out -- so to my Texas family, I suggest checking it out if one of the cities is near you. But there is only one in Ohio, and happens to be right nearby in Hilliard. Anyways, it's a full service restaurant mixed with a movie theater. Nice leather chairs and tables in front of everyone. And you even have little lights in case you need something in the middle of the movie and need to get your waiter's attention. And you can get anything from typical concessions food to appetizers to dinner and/or dessert.
So, we've been there the past two weekends and are heading back tonight for IronMan.

FYI...John now knows how to foil a bank robbery. He competed in his first defensive pistol competition yesterday and can't wait for the next one. He had to complete four scenarios as a part of the competition to test his accuracy, speed, and proficiency with his pistol. He said it was fun because they were given practical scenarios such as defending unarmed children from gunmen on a playground on Easter Sunday or shooting from behind a phone booth while gunmen hold your wife hostage in front of the bank and other crazy situations.

And this came just a day after pure exhaustion from chasing the dogs for about 3 hours Friday. Meanwhile, I was at work to miss all the excitement and didn't hear about it until later... which is probably good because everyone was back home by the time I knew. Here's the story as I heard it:
The cable guy showed up around noon to set up our Internet. He came to the front door instead of the back (like we had asked on the phone) and for those of you who don't know... the front door has no screen or storm door to block the dogs in. Sydney, who must have been waiting for this moment for a while now, ran under John's leg, knocking him down, and giving Halo an opening to get out too. They both ran around to the back and split in different directions. Halo being the new puppy, and probably easiest to catch, became the first priority. Luckily, Halo is too trusting with strangers and ran into a neighbor's house a few buildings over while they were moving in. John was able to get Halo back pretty quickly. Sydney was another story. By now, she was about two blocks away, and not as willing to be caught. He caught her within the first hour with the help of a neighbor as a distraction, but not wanting to go back in, Sydney bit John and broke from her collar. After another 2 hours of chasing back and forth, for what seemed like miles, he had just enough energy to "herd" Sydney into a fenced backyard and closed her in. When she tried to bite John a second time, his reflexes kicked in and he ended up flipping her onto her side, which caused her to finally give up and reluctantly be walked back home. Needless to say, John and Sydney weren't really on speaking terms Friday night and Sydney kept her distance while John slept for a few hours. At this point, John figured it would be ok to cancel the short run he had been planning for that night.
So... if you ever visit, please come to the back door.

It's a Meagle

So, after a little research online last night, we've come to the conclusion that Halo's breed (if you can really call it that) is Meagle, which is a Miniature Pinscher/Beagle mix... Though I like to think a more appropriate hybrid name would have been Mingle, but whatever. He leans more toward the MinPin from what we can tell though.

Apparently these mixes that are being bred and sold like purebreds -- like Labradoodles, Puggles, and Chugs (cissi) -- are more widespread AND they even have their own club...the American Canine Hybrid Club. Good to know. If you check it out, I found a list of 300+ recognized "breeds."

Here are some of my favorite names from the list: Rattle, Taco Terrier, Bowzer, Jack-A-Bee, Faux Frenchbo Bulldog, Bossi-Poo, Cheeks, Free-Lance Bulldog, Crustie, Shocker, Dorkie, Cojack, Jug, Poshies, Saint Berdoodle, Foodle, and Sharp Eagle.

details, details

As far as the job goes... I'm working at one of the headquarter offices (in Dublin, not downtown) for Nationwide on their Life Insurance floor. Basically I'm split between two departments, or will be. So far my training is only on the billing&payment side of things. I'm bouncing around a little bit between doing training part of the day and just shadowing people the rest of the day for now until my computer system is set up and I can work without interrupting the rest of what they have to get done. But it's good.. I think I'm actually being taught more processes than originally planned because of it.

Oh.. and for the living room. The pictures with the dogs are all taken in our living room, but the profile pic/Ninja picture is definitely not ours. ;)

(finally)

I got a job. And started today.

More dog pictures

This is Halo's giraffe toy that he loves... and he's right at that point where he's cutting his big dog teeth, so the head stayed whole for about 30 seconds...
And once we had him home for a few hours, and we started getting icy rain, I realized that he might just need something to wear on the really cold days. John's not a big fan (at all) of dressing up dogs, but luckily we found a happy compromise when we came across a Cavalier jersey at Petsmart... And if we can find a plain colored doggie sweatshirt that fits him, I'm thinking about getting that sewing Halo logo onto it for him.
And this one is just to prove that Sydney is adjusting.

All in the Family

Since this is the prodigal return of the Zebra Lounge, we figured we'd start off big. Or in this case, small. Meet Halo (named after one of the greatest games ever created). Technically, according to Franklin County, his name is Kris... but that's just on paper. He's pretty crazy and wound up, but he's ours. He's almost 5 months old.
As you can probably guess, Sydney's in super territorial mode, but all in all, she's adjusting well and they like each other.

A little bit of De-Motivation for everyone

Voices from the Zebra Lounge...

(John speaking)
Jill, Because you are now my family, I am not going to verbally bash you for not knowing what the zebra lounge is. But I will say this, you cannot find your coolness or your Steve Martin like quirkiness until you can effectively define it without my help. (PS...Lisa didn't know what it meant either...and still might not really know.)

(Lisa) Kara, The first background was just the first thing I found to get the blog setup. I really like the new one we found. However, I am having an issue because in the Template section where you're supposed to have an option that says "Add new Element"... I don't have one. Any ideas?

(John) Kara... Our backgrounds are magical entities owned by the Microsoft corporation, so if you value your life you'll quit bringing it up.

The Siskel to my Ebert (pre-aneurism)

FYI...I have brought on a consultant for this blog (John).

Mr. Crosby says "I am delighted to be a part of this project and intend to bring a fresh, hip, and 'Ricky Martin-like' smoothness to the Blogger world."

Stay tuned for updates.

Ta-DA!

And.. here I am. Finally, right?

I'm still unpacking in the extra room/computer room, and I finally found the connector cord for my camera today (I have two and couldn't find either one since before the move...) so I'll try and work on getting some pictures up in the near future.