Oliver and I didn’t always see eye to eye on everything and had quite a few fights.  Eventually, we discovered that by letting him be an indoor/outdoor cat he was immeasurably happier.  We knew the risks of that decision, his sister Twist was hit by a car when she was just a couple of years old.  Oliver is also extremely friendly, so we worried about him getting “adopted” by another family.  Oliver also had little fear, picking fights with large dogs (Olive was 19 lbs), so we worried about him starting a fight that he couldn’t finish.  I guess I won’t ever really know what happened to him, and it is possible, however unlikely, that he will show up one day, rolling around on the sidewalk to greet me.

Here are some of the things about Oliver that I will never forget.

• He would stalk light switches, jumping up to turn them on or off, then always seemed surprised at the result and ran away.
• At night he would crawl onto my chest and lay down, then inch his way forwards to try and bite the hairs of my goatee and pull them.  It always made me nervous.
• Everyday when I came home from work he would be waiting for me by the front door, rolling around and purring.
• When he was younger he would play fetch with me, with those faux fabric mice.  I would throw them across the house and he would bring them back to me, over and over.
• For the majority of my life with Oliver, I never saw bugs in the house, ever.
• Oliver loved ice cream, and would get extremely aggressive going after my bowls.  Sometimes I let him lick them clean when I was done.

And lastly, here is a gallery of pictures of Oliver

Goodbye Oliver, I will miss you.

Oh, and I’m going to Mile High to see Obama speak tomorrow, are you?!?

On our way out the door for one of three-or-so-a-day hike’s, the neighbor down he road from out cabin waved us over. When we got close, we found a very large turtle on the front lawn. It was big, green, cranky, and clearly out of place. There is a small pond behind this cabin, and sometimes when there is heavy rain one or two of these suckers will get washed downstream and end up there. It was a common snapping turtle, and they are very aggressive. The kids actually listened to me for once and observed it from a healthy distance.

Kenny wandered down from up the hill and we started talking about what to do with the thing. Pat wanted to kill it, because it was dangerous for her tiny geriatric dog. It was about this time that Kenny asked the kid’s to name the turtle. They discussed it and came up with the name “Snappy”. Even if I had wanted to kill the turtle, which I didn’t, I couldn’t do something like that after the kids named it. Now that we have a name, get in for a closer look.

Snappy appears to be wise beyond…. it’s years. Just how do you determine the gender of a turtle, anyway.

Look at the size of Snappy’s tail! The neck was about the same length when Snappy was provoked enough to stick it’s head out all the way. I didn’t manage to get a picture of that though. The kids wandered away with mom, but I stayed behind to see things through. Kenny began flipping the thing over with his foot. I’m still not sure why.

After sufficient torture, I suggested we move Snappy to a box of some kind, so that the dog wouldn’t be in danger and Snappy would be less likely to be killed. Kenny found a high tech container and we coaxed Snappy in.

There is a tourist attraction just up the road from the cabin called Reptile Gardens that houses hundreds of creatures of this sort. I had Kenny give them a call to see if they would be willing to take Snappy into custody and give… it a nice home. They graciously accepted, so we loaded Snappy into the Subaru and carted him over there.

On second thought, maybe Snappy was a Box Turtle. Get it? Box Turtle? Never mind…

The nice man in the picture is carrying Snappy to a nice new home. Snappy will live the rest of his or her days in relative luxury, not having to worry about finding food or encountering homicidal dog owners.

The kids were sad to see her go, but I told them we will visit Snappy next time we come to South Dakota, which is normally about once a year. I am sure that I will be going to Reptile gardens to visit Snappy for many years to come.

Uh oh.

On our trip to South Dakota we caught her chewing on rocks quite a few times and were, or so we thought, diligent about taking them away from her. The gave her some medicine that would force her to vomit in hopes that it would get them out, otherwise she would be going under the knife. It turns out the medicine was successful and got the rocks out. Oh, did I just say rocks? They found the following had been in her stomach:

• A couple pieces of shale and some other unidentified yellow rock
• A hairball
• A yellow bead
• Wood chips
• A small piece of paper with the following writing: 24″ x 21″

Apparently my dog can no longer be left unsupervised with anything smaller than her head.

All silliness aside, this is quite dangerous. Unfortunately one small rock made into her intestinal track, but the vet feels comfortable that it will pass through with little trouble. Until then, I get to inspect dog poop!

When I got back from vacation (several posts forthcoming regarding that) I had a lovely surprise waiting for me. There are 15 different flavors in that box. I thought about torturing you all with a post about each flavor, once a day. Good thing I’m lazy!

Thanks Josh!

A conversation from the movie Gross Pointe Blank:

Debi: So, is there a Mrs. Mysterio?
Martin Q. Blank: No, but I do have a very nice cat?
Debi: Not the same.
Martin Q. Blank: Well, you don’t know my cat, it’s very demanding.
Debi: It? You don’t know if it’s a boy or girl?
Martin Q. Blank: I respect its privacy.

After this discovery, we talked about whether or not “Diablo” was a good name for a girl. Amy says she wants to keep it, so we will. I am still not sure.

When I was young, my mom and I saw an adorable chocolate lab at a pet store and ended up convincing the rest of the family to get her. All of us came up with ideas for a name, but in the end the grown-ups decided to name her Tucker. Throughout the entire life of that dog, it slightly bothered me that she had what I considered to be a masculine name. For the record, my name for Tucker was “Mocha”.

The problem is we already have out puppy trained to the name Diablo, and the kids have bonded with her over that name. So, the name stays. If anyone asks, I’ll just tell them it’s because shes a little she-devil.

I headed over and found my kids playing with this adorable puppy. He was only six weeks old, way too young to be separated from his mother already. The adoption agent told us he came from Texas, where they euthanize a lot of animals because they can’t find homes. Apparently Colorado is such a good place to get dogs adopted that a lot of them are shipped in.

Madeleine looked up with at me, dog in hand and said “Daddy, I *love* him”. I looked at Amy, and I saw in her eyes there was no way I was getting out of that store without that dog. We have talked quite a bit about getting another dog as a companion for Dante, so why not now?

The meet & greet went well:

The trip was great fun. After several weeks of cold weather, walking into the warm California sun was nothing short of amazing. I was so excited, I took excessive amounts of pictures of palm trees (only included some of them).

The trip was very organized. We got off the plane and only waited a short time for the shuttle to pick us up right outside. Upon arriving we milled around the giant letters while we waited for someone to get tickets, then the whole group went in and walked all the way to Toon Town at the back of the park for a group photo.

After that, mom and I were on our own and we had a blast, going on every major ride in the park and eating overpriced food. I only have two regrets. First, we had to leave as it was starting to get dark so we missed the parade. Second, I searched high and low for Alice in Wonderland themed merchandise but didn’t really find much. Tinkerbell has taken over everything.

There were lots of great moments, but here were some of my favorites:

• Space Mountain: This ride was *intense*. It was long, fast, and really made you feel like you were flying through space.
• Nemo Submarine Ride: I guess this used to be the Captain Nemo ride and was remade for the animated Nemo film. You cram your head against a little window and look underwater. There are digital screens that place the movie characters in real environments, and some of them are done so well you can’t separate reality at all. Very well done.
• Indiana Jones: This was a cinematic roller coaster, full of bats, rats, snakes and the like. It was also very well done

Overall I have to say I really enjoyed Disneyland. After being to so many other amusement parks I thought that, as an adult, it would just seem like a Disney themed version of those. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Their attention to every tiny detail helps immerse you in their world completely. There were times I really felt like a little kid again, it was amazing.

The shuttle picked us up like clockwork and got us back to the plane on time. All in all we were only gone from Denver for about 16 hours, can’t beat that for a day trip!