Ok, tell me if the photo up top should stay:

I’ve put this photo from home in the masthead. Do you prefer it or the original?

The thing I like about the original is all the sky. Gives it a light feeling. The thing I like about the fields is the nice warm colour and the fact that its home. 

Don’t fret about the Décor!

I’m just playing around with different templates. Its so much easier to redecorate here than at home. I need to get it out of my system   Let me know if something is not working right ok?

Gotta love cats!

A friend sent me this link and I thought it was hilarious.

Hope you enjoy these kitties.  

Updated: Geek alert!

Update: If I was a sociologist I’d be pretty amazed at how much interest people take in handbags and their contents. We humans are fascinating.
A couple of commenters wanted the see the contents of the bag. Well, I cleaned things up when I transferred the contents from my previous bag so its slim pickins’. Here is what this one contains:

Wallet, cell phone, monogramed pen/pencil set, hand cream, lip balm, lipstick (in the green container), doggie notebook, mini calendar, keys to the Ford, Metropolitan Museum of Art flashlight (that little rectangular thing with the Ms on it), a matching pouch containing my work ID, office keys, laptop keys and building keys, and of course, the day planner (which is, after all what the tote is supposed to carry).

**********************

While I was away last week a parcel arrived in the mail.

My new leather dayplanner and matching tote. I love to be organized and write lists and all that stuff. Is this not a thing of beauty? God, I’m such a girly girl sometimes I even shock myself!

(Yes, I get really turned on by stationery stores too)

The work stuff…..

I shouldn’t leave the topic of my trip down south without mentioning something about the three days and evenings I actually spent working down there.

In so many ways it was an excellent work trip. The main thing being that I have been working remotely for many, many years and am part of a large network of people around the globe, trying to do things by netmeeting, e-mail and teleconference. It can be very frustrating. Since I came into my current role, the company I work for merged with another large company and many new people from that company came into my role at different locations. I’m called an ARL (Analytical Resource Leader). At the meeting last week I was thrilled to meet and spend time with 15 other ARLs, only 2 of whom I’ve met in person before. I presented the culmination of 2 years work from one of the teams I’m on and it went over well. We still have lots of work to do but made a lot of progress working together in person for several hours during the trip.

Another highlight was spending a bit of time with my boss, who lives in the Netherlands. I’ve only seen him twice in the last 5 years, although we talk on the phone a lot and are in touch quite a bit through all these teams I’m on.

There is an ARL from South America who I was happy to meet too. She is smart, lively, and funny. We have a lot in common in our work and family lives

I wish I could show you some pictures but I didn’t ask permission from anyone (other than Marsha and Michelle from my posts late last week).

One thing I really noticed is that we’re all aging quite a bit. But then I thought, you know, maybe its just that time has gone by and I’ve been working at the same place for 19 years! I find that amazing. How did that happen. Somehow I’m no longer a junior chemist type person and for some reason this just took me by surprise.

Mother Hen’s Final Resting place?

UPDATE:  I forgot to mention that, since Friday is my day to post at Cyberpols, there is another discussion related to this, ongoing over there.

So Marsha and I went to the National Museum of Funeral History on Monday morning. It was interesting. Honest.

One interesting display was the special coffins carved by the people of Ghana. It is part of their tradition to lay people to rest in a coffin that represents their life. Many of the people are fishermen and there were several elaborately carved coffins in the shape of shellfish or fish. This one here was near and dear to my heart because it is of a mother hen. The little plaque in front says:

“One of the most popular coffins among women, this one might be chosen to convey a caring nature – a ‘mother hen’ “

If this is Monday it must be Houston.

Well, the fun, purely social part of my trip down South was the day I spent in Houston.  My friend Marsha picked me up, we went to the Museum, went to get my car, then met Michelle at the restaurant for lunch.  Marsha used to have a blog called ‘Godless Mom in the Bible Belt’.  Luckily, I knew I was going to be down south a few months ago so contacted her before she got rid of the blog.  She’s a hoot! We had an instant connection when we talked on the phone and our day to together just enhanced it.  

Michelle has a blog called Dreamer’s Reality.  She’s a lady I originally met in the cyber space in the UK, because we both tended to read the blogs of the same group of wingnuts from that area of the world.  Michelle is sweet and funny and a total good ol’ Texas gal!  She met us at the restaurant with the baby she was taking care of. He was a perfect angel and slept while we ate and jabbered on for ages.  The picture that our waitress took of the three of us came out blurry but I have one of the two M’s together by the flowered fence and one of me.

    

 

 

 

The day started out with lightning, thunder and copious amounts of rain. By lunchtime it was humid and warm. Every time I got out of the car or came out of a building I was exclaiming over the amazing humidity, the smells of green things and dirt, and the warmth. It was a real treat.

First Impressions!

Here I am in my driveway on Sunday before heading to the airport:

-10C

Here I am dipping my toes in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday afternoon:

 

82F.

 ’Nuff said.  (heh heh)

Leaving soon….

I am going on a business trip to Southern Texas and will be back blogging by the 24th I hope.   My first day,  in Houston,  will be purely for fun and then it will be a mad rush to Freeport for non-stop meetings and such until I come home. When I’m back, I’ll fill you in my sure to be exciting visit with fellow bloggers MHN for short from Dreamer’s Reality and Godless Mom in the Bible Belt (who no longer has a blog).  Oh yeah, and, because I have this fascination with death, rituals, funerals, and the science there of, we’re going to visit the National Museum of Funeral History.   Too cool!

 

Kyahgirl’s House of Horrors

Tickersoid’s poodles were wondering about how I am groomed to look so nice. Well,basically, Kyahgirl tortures me on a regular basis.

The beauty of poodles (besides the fact that we’re smart, sweet, funny, energetic, and humble) is that there is never any shedding whatsoever. The downside of that is we require more regular care (haircuts). In my case, because I’m living in the house and now allowed on the couches and bed (sometimes if I’m sneaky) they insist on bathing me quite often.  I wish that blabbermouth breeder hadn’t told them I’m a water dog so don’t worry about bathing me too much!

Anyway, my Breeder, Elly, showed them the basics when I was a puppy. Kyahgirl would do my nails and trim me up a bit but when I was small,  they took me to a groomer.  As I grew, Kyahgirl became more confident. The humans bought a really good clipper and some other tools of torture.  By the time I was six months old it was costing them $70 every 6-8 weeks to have me beautified, plus it was a gigantic pain in the arse for everyone to travel to the groomers, have me spend the day there, get picked up at the end of the day.

Because Kyahgirl is so cheap thrifty she got serious about doing my grooming.  The payback on the cost of all the equipment (about $400) takes about 1 year.

What you need is pictured above:

1. Oster A5 clippers,
2. 1 -  4F blade for the body and legs.
3. 2 -  #10 blades for the face, ears, tail, belly, and feet. (You should have at least 2 because they get hot and you have to change them out and let them cool so you don’t burn the victim subject.
4. A slicker brush
5. A dog comb
6. Scissors (proper grooming ones)
7. Goddamn ear hair pluckers Forceps for the ear hairs, (I am prone to ear infections so Kyahgirl ruthlessly plucks the hair from inside my ears. She uses the the long forceps pictured on the right by the blue bulb. She sometimes uses the bulb to wash out my ears. Something we both hate.)
8. Dremel tool for the nails. (Kyahgirl swears that the Dremel tool is the best thing for trimming my nails. No bleeding, no accidental nicks on the quick.  I wish she’d take that thing out to the garage and build a bird house or something but that’s just me.  )

There are a couple of good articles on line on grooming. Here is one:

http://www.agt.net/public/diplomat/groom.html

http://www.avontipoodles.com/grooming.htm

Oh yeah,  she bought this book on ebay. Elly says its one of the best books on grooming there is, even though the dog on the front looks like an idiot. (Elly didn’t say that, I did). The book has excellent info on tools required as well as detailed technique. There are  a lot of fruitcake looking hairstyles in there which, thankfully, the alpha female hasn’t tried to inflict on me.

It takes her about 3 hours to do the whole works. Its about an hour to just do the short parts (face, ears, feet, tail, belly). Sometimes I get a treat. Mostly I just get hell for fidgeting too much!

Here’s a picture of me as a baby with my dam and siblings. I’ll be darned if I know which one of those sausages is me so don’t even ask.

Here are  pictures of my sire as a poof (that’s a show clip or lion cut), as a hunk (that’s called a Dutch clip).

Anymore questions?  I thought not, you’re all snoring now.

My work here is done.

Fondly,

Casper