A couple of really cute puppies that I’ve spotted lately… enjoy!

One thing I’ve always wanted to do was to shoot a real gun. I never had the opportunity until today. Since my brother-in-law, Kyle, was in town for Christmas, he brought his guns that he inherited from his Dad when he passed. He offered to take me shooting, and I didn’t turn him down! So, today I went shooting for the first time with Kyle and his 3 guns: a 22, a 357 (shoots 38 & 357) and his 45 at a local shooting range.

It was quite an experience, let me tell you. If you’ve never shot a gun before, you should — you’ll have a lot more respect for them.

Read the Rest of ‘Went shootin’, y’all’

Well, it’s here again… in full swing.

I get it every year, somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas, usually closer to Christmas. This year no exception. It’s like clockwork, too… major head cold. First few days starts out with the scratchy throat, then it moves to severe congestion for a day, then straight to a massive sore throat for 3-4 days, combined with the *awesome* congestion. I’m currently going through a box of tissues per hour (or so it seems). It’s just lovely to be around me.

Thankfully last year I stumbled upon a new discovery, the Robitussin cough gels. My annual coughing head cold is so bad that before this discovery no over the counter drug would help. I tried the sprays, cough drops, liquids, and nothing worked. I even had a cough medicine prescribed to me by a doc that had codeine in it. That didn’t really work either. My last barely-working remedy before the gels was a shot or two of Jack Daniels before bed (sleeping is the worst time of course). Not a bad remedy, either, as it put me out quick too. But now the gels are all I need… so if you have a nasty cough, pick some up. You’ll thank me later!

Merry Christmacough!

Update 12/31/08 - The cough is nearly gone, but with this cold the CoughGels didn’t seem to stop my cold as well as they did last time.

Unfortunately these are unavailable in the states, probably due to its hazmat components. But still, I want one just to mess with.

More  videos after the break…

Read the Rest of ‘Adding to Christmas list: Pig toy’

It finally rained here in San Diego… a substantial amount, anyway. Forgot what the stuff looked like. I moved from rain country 17 years ago (Seattle) and I was sick of it, but it’s nice to see it here (when we do get it!) in SoCal.

We have some minor flooding going on in our back yard, but other than that it’s not a huge deal. Glad we’re done putting all the lights up outside!

It’s that time of year again, and Mel and I will be spending the next two weekends putting up lights outside our house. If you haven’t visited my GriswoldHome.com website in a while, it’s worth checking out. Traffic to it is dead during 10 months of the year. Magically, during November and December, traffic flourishes!

One thing that always gets me in the holiday lighting mood is to watch the video of when Mel and I were on the local news. Our homeowner’s association sent us a nastygram, telling us to take down some of our lights.

Between that, eggnog latte’s from Starbucks, and watching Christmas movies like “Christmas Vacation” and Tim Allen’s “Santa Clause” series, it’s all I need to get in the mood.

I finally (yes, I have been extremely busy!) got the chance to go outside today to check on the pool. Here’s what I found:

I cleaned it off, and the edges where the ash had built up on the tile wall. Hopefully the cleaner will do its job so we don’t have to drain the pool and get it acid-washed again like we did after the Cedar Fire 4 years ago!

Now that the Santa Ana winds have stopped, there’s a real good chance all the ash that has blown out to the West will come back East and land around here.  So, I’m holding off on doing any major ash cleanup around our yard (plants, concrete, etc.) for another week at least.

Krissy forwarded a forwarded X 100 email to me and this one is worth sharing. Time to get your pets ready for Halloween!

More…

Read the Rest of ‘Tis the season to irritate your dog’

San Diego is hot and humid, making it hard to get out and run! I had to go to Escondido to pick up an insurance claim check for our stolen Civic (actually belonged to my mother-in-law) which is now somewhere in Mexico, probably in parts. Looks like we get to go car shopping this weekend (which I detest).