Seeing the lama speak

This weekend I attended a talk by Garchen Rinpoche, a Dirkung Kagyu lama (aka buddhist lama). I have been interested in buddhism for sometime and last week I decided to attend a intro to buddhism and mediation class at Gar Drolma, which is a buddhist center in dayton. The lama founded this center and has a buddhist institute in arizona. He only come about once every year or year and half.

I really didn't know what to except but what happened definately wasn't quite what I had visioned. First off he didn't speak any english so he had a translator. Second off he was funny. He was joking around with some of the people and in his teachings he had some jokes. He was also an extremeley animated speaker. Eventhough I had no idea what he was saying it was fascinating to watch him and try to infer some of the meaning. He would speak for a while and the translator would take notes and then translate that chunk into english. He is definately one of the most joyous people I have ever witnessed.

All in all while I'm not sold on this buddhism thing, I'm glad that took this oppertunity to see a genuine lama speak.

Self checkout at the supermarket

I love the self checkout at the super market. I can be in and out very quickly if I only have a few items at least usually....... Self checkout is not a new thing. It has been around for quite sometime. I would have thought that everyone that wanted to try it would have by now. Apparently this is not the case. Today I'm at the Krogers (Kings sooper for all you Colorado folk) and I get stuck behind the slowest people. At station 1 we have a women with produce who thinks she can scan her box of clemtines and think it does scan, so the machine is yelling "Unexpected item in the bagging area, please remove". On machine 2 we have a women who doesn't realize that the machine works off of weight so she is too quick and gets the unexpected item so she takes it out and puts it back and the cycle continues for almost every item. Station 3 we have a women with quite a few items and too small children but mobile children. Not a good combination for self checkout! And finally on Station 4 we have an elderly gentlemen who is frankly baffled by the whole process. He slowly makes it through the instructions and scans each item. He doesn't put them in the bags he just lays them on the shelf. So when he is finally finished he is trying to put the items in the bags but things are falling out and then the lady monitoring the stations notices that he has missed an item. So he starts the whole process over again. Meanwhile there are still items on the shelf. Seriously people where have you been! And for the record and not to be mean but what possessed the old man to do the self checkout anyway! Not very many people of our grandparents generation are good with new technology! I told me neighbor Herb the other day to google something and he didn't even know what google was!

Almost back to his normal self

Charlie is feeling much better and is almost back to his normal self. The antibotics are doing the trick. Although he is getting feistier and fiestier about taking them. He hasn't spit one out yet so I suppose that is good. Friday morning I had to give it too him all by myself because I forgot to have Sean help me before he went to school. Let me tell you that was an entertaining ordeal. I had to go into the bathroom and shut the dogs out. I penned him between the counter and the wall and manager to pry his mouth open and shove the pill in! I'm sure it would have made and enteraining youtube video. Quincy's ears are almost all better and Toby is still healthy so will call it a good end to a stressful week.

Sick kitty

Charlie was acting funny when we got home from work last night. He didn't meet me at the door and wasn't begging for his dinner. He was just laying on the guest bed sleeping. At the time I thought perhaps he was just extra tired. Well by the time bed time rolled around he still hadn't moved so I picked him up and put him in front of his food dish. Still didn't want to eat. He seem kind of out of it as well. He didn't sleep with us last night and this morning I found him curled up in our closet. He wouldn't come out for breakfast and hadn't eaten all night. This is when I became very concerned. I call the vet as soon as they were open and was able to get him and appointment for 9:15am.

At 9am I got his carrier and loaded him in the car. He peed in his carrier while we were in the car. I didn't notice this until we got to the vet. His whole back end was wet! The vet saved some the urine for a sample and clean out my kennel. He was running a fever and had blood in his urine. Oh and he had some feas again. Sean and I had forgotten to give him his frontline and gave it too him last night. The vet thinks it is probably just a parasite from the feas or possibly a kidney infection. So hopefully it is one of those and not something worse. They took some blood and gave me antibotics.

When I got home from work he seemed about the same. However he seems to have perked up a little since then. I don't think he has eaten anything yet, but hopefully he will over night. He just seems a little more comfrontable then earlier. He is sleeping under my papason chair right now. He even purred for me a little.

I was really worried about him all day and when I got home from work. I hope that the worst is behind us now! All keep you all posted.

Toby is the only healthy animal in the house right now. Quincy had/has an ear infection. He gets to go to the vet tomorrow to have it rechecked. So keep your fingers crossed that Toby is not next!

Best superbowl ever!!!!

I have watched a number of super bowls over the years but almost always for the commercials. How ever this year's game was actually pretty intense and exciting. I was of course pulling for the Giant's given our family hatred of the Patriots. I also wanted to see Eli have a good game since he is always in the shadow of his brother. Also who else was highly amusing by the clips they keep showing of Peyton. It was just entertaining to watch his reactions. Plus seriously does the man have any friends! Oh and way to leave that women hanging at the end when they won. She was totally looking for a victory hug!

Oh and what was with the announcer's hair. Serious colic going on in the back the every time they showed him on TV. Honestly you think someone would have motioned to let him know. It was distracting!

Oh what was everyone's favorite ad? I personally liked the e-trader baby with the clown, the hank Budweiser, and planters uni-brow. There were quite a few good ones. You can watch them all here. Oh and who wants to see the new pixier Disney Wall-E movie!!!! See a trailer here.

The answers...Finally

I know you, my loyal reader were waiting in rapture for the answers to the "name the vegetable" quiz. Well the wait is finally over. Drum roll please.....

1. Arkansas traveler - Tomato
2. Small shining light - Watermelon
3. Ram's Horn- String Bean
4. Cosmic Purple - Carrot

Oh and the winner is Jenn, with the highest score of 1!!!! Your prize will arrive in 6-8 weeks..........perhaps longer.....knowing how mailing goes in our family!

The joys of home ownership....

Last night our furnance stopped working. It simply wouldn't come on. Of course we had to realize this at 9pm. It ws 65 in the house and the thermostat was set to 70. We tried turning it up, nothing happened. We tried turning it to EM Heat nothing happened. We check the circuit breaker in the garage. Nothing was tripped. So we put an extra blanket on the bed and went to sleep. We woke up at 6am and still no heat. The house was down to 57 degrees. Sean went to PT and I called the company that installed and maintained the system for the owner before the last one. I was surprised to actually get someone but since it wasn't an emergency and I didn't want to pay the extra for them to come during off hours I agreed that they could call after 8am. Now of course I had to be at the Vet at 8am so I gave them my cell phone number too. Quincy has an ear infection and the vet was sympathetic when I explained that my heat wasn't working and they might call while I was in with him. Of course they did call in the middle of the appointment. How embrassing but everyone was understanding. So after I returned home the house was at 55 degrees. Darn cold!!! My coworker suggested that I reset all the breakers associated with the heat. I went out to garage and did all the ones marked furnance, heat pump, and heater. Nothing happend. I then went back in the house and open up the closet with the furnance. I noticed that there were two breakers on the bottom. I reset the first one nothing, however when I reset the second one the air magically came back on!!! Yah!!!! However Sean and I decided to keep our appointment to have everything checked out anyways since we don't know why the breaker got tripped in the first place. The heat went on back on at 9:30 when it was 55 degrees. It is now 11:30am and it is only up to 59! I'm hoping that the last 10 degrees back up to 70 will go quickier since it is warming up outside. It was around 16 degrees this morning. The sun has come out and it is suppose to get into the 30s today. We have a heat pump and they don't work very well in super cold weather. We have a auxillary heater to supplement when it is very cold.

Well hopefully the repair person will come soon and nothing major will be wrong. Sean is coming home soon to relieve me so I can go into work. At least it is finally starting to feel a little less frigid in the house!!! I wish that I had fur like the animals. They didn't seem to be in the least bit bothered by the cold.