Archive for the 'Barney' Category

Where’d Everybody Go?

Heather’s been light on the posts and pictures of late. As a partial substitute, you might subscribe to BBPhoto, a series of photos I take. They’re of middling quality because of the iPhone’s camera, and you’ll have to deal with the daily headshot, but on the weekends at least, there are a fair number of the kids.

That said, she’s currently working on the last couple months of pictures, so hopefully she’ll be posting those today or tomorrow.

Not For The Squeamish!

Ok, anyone who’s an avid animal lover, stop reading now.

I myself, love animals, but there has been an exception as of late. Namely, the moles and voles destroying our once pristine back yard. When we moved in the grass was green and lush, the beds undisturbed. But now, the yard is pitted and has dead patches perfectly in the form of a network of underground tunnels! In an effort against using those horrible mole traps that basically slice the animal in half, I bought both a treatment that you spray over the lawn, and one of those stakes that you bury and it sends out a tone and vibration that’s supposed to be annoying to the moles and therefore encourage them to hastily retreat from the yard and never come back. No such luck. They did move from the area I put the stake in, but just over to the other end of the yard; Yes, the only part left that was actually untouched by them!

Grrrrrrr.

So, I went out back the other day to stamp down the mounds of dirt they had pushed up once again, when I saw movement by my foot. I was wearing flimsy flipflops, so I instinctually lifted my foot and put it right back down on the back half of a vole! Yuck! I desperately looked around for something to grab it with, but by the time I looked back down he had dug his way back into the ground. Lucky for him that I was wearing flipflops, and that I was standing on the squishy dirt he had so recently dug up, or he most certainly would have had his back end crushed! I was resigning myself that I was just going to have to go buy some poison or a trap, when my husband stepped in. Literally.

We were sitting at the kitchen table, just chatting after dinner, when Barney suddenly looked out the sliding glass door and casually said, “There’s a mole in the yard” and got up and walked outside. I told him he better grab a pair of gardening gloves or something to grab it with, and he just grinned. I watched with fascination as he scanned the ground and I figured he had gone out there too late, and the mole had already vanished. Suddenly, he raised his leg high in the air, karate kid fashion, and brought his heel down hard into the lawn. I sat, dumbstruck, horrified yet curious as to whether this crude tactic had actually worked. He turned to me and, very pleased with himself said, “Got it!”

I of course had to ask how he could be so sure and he relayed some gruesome description of seeing the movement, knowing which way it was headed, striking perfectly, feeling something under his foot, and then nothing. *wretch*

I told him I didn’t want some dead mole rotting right below the surface of the yard, and asked him to dig it up. Mostly I wanted to see for myself whether or not he actually killed a mole because to be honest, I had my doubts. He dug up the grass and sure enough, there was fur! Now I was expecting a vole because that’s what I had almost crushed beneath my own foot accidentally. A vole, like the size of your thumb. This however, this was a large guinea pig sized thing!  He must have died instantly, as there was no breathing and I couldn’t detect a heartbeat by watching closely.  Feeling sorry for the fuzzy little thing but so very glad to be rid of it, I dug it out of the ground and tossed it over the fence into the greenspace behind the house.

We’ll see if the destructive activity in the yard dies down, or if Mr. Mole had friends. I’m willing to bet the latter is more likely, but they better watch out, because Barney the mighty mole hunter is on the prowl and deadly accurate.

“Me Time”

Barney has been away all week at a computer geek, I mean code genius conference in D.C., where all of the people like him can get together, hang out, swap secrets, and actually have other people understand what they’re talking about all the time. ;) I love him dearly and am in constant awe of his coding prowess and overall intelligence, but I fear that when it comes to idle chitchat with him about the stuff he’s working on, I am the leader of the Smile And Nod Club. As much as his dorkishness makes me feel like the biggest moron on the planet, I can’t complain too much because tomorrow he’s bringing home a Wii for me to play with, that he won in a coding competition. Yes, you read it right. A coding competition. Code Monkeys slave away writing some code, they submit it, and whoever’s is the “most useful” wins. Don’t really understand that type of arbitrary judging, but hey, they chose him as the winner, and that means I get a Wii, so I’m inclined to agree with their judgement. That and he’s a coding master and was bound to win regardless… ;)

While he’s been away, I’ve had so much free time in the evenings, I haven’t known what to do with myself. Well, other than finally catch up on all of the television shows I’ve had recorded for the past month, and surf the internet until 2 in the morning. I swear I have no self control or internal clock when he’s not here, rigidly sticking to his bedtime schedule. Also, me being the paranoid freak that I am, I don’t really want to turn the lights off and go to sleep when he’s not here beside me. I wander around the house listening for strange noises, locking and rechecking doors and windows, and I hate to admit it, even leave one of the lights on so that I can finally get to sleep each night. Luckily he returns tomorrow night, so my body wont have to suffer from lack of sleep for much longer. I’m not just looking forward to his return because of the Wii’s homecoming and the return of my mighty, nightly bedside protector of a husband, but also because I really miss him when he’s gone. We don’t spend enough time together as it is (yes, mostly my fault for packing a lifetime of activities into my 20’s) but we’re rarely so geographically separated, so when he’s across the country, the feeling is amplified. When he’s home, even if we’re doing our own things in the evenings, we still see each other for fleeting moments, and have the other next to us when we finally crawl into bed each night. There’s a comfort, security, bond, and love there that I often take for granted . . . . but not on nights like this when its absence is so palpable.

I’ve had enough me time.

Have a safe trip home sweet. We love and miss you.

To Our Daddy On Fathers Day

I asked Lindsay and Emery to help me write something nice about their daddy this Fathers Day morning, and this is what they had to say:Smiley Sweeties

Lindsay:  "Daddy is nice… And fun… And he gives me snuggles… Or something… And reads me books… And what else?"

Emery then interjects an emphatic "UHHHHHHHHH" in agreement and claps while smiling like a goon.

Me: "He also works very hard every day to keep us happy and healthy and let us live in this nice house."

Lindsay:  "And gives us our new neighborhood and Lisa!" (the neighbor gal).  "And ‘Quila!  I like having a good doggy here.  And playing with him" (daddy) "is fun."

Emery drools in agreement. 

Straight from the mouths of babes.  Happy Fathers Day Barney.My Little Turtles  You’re the most wonderful daddy I could ever have hoped for our kids, and I couldn’t do this without you.   I love that our kids are going to grow up knowing how much you love them, each and every day.  You do an amazing job of making them feel special and appreciated, and they adore you for that.  And so do I.

We Love You! 

I Forgot To Mention

I forgot to test you all to guess who captioned which pictures in the

new gallery.  ;)  I’m sure you’ll figure it out.

No Longer Wise

It’s unclear to me why going to work after getting my teeth pulled
is such unexpected behaviour.  As well as Carrie and Mom, Heather,
Chloe, and everyone at my office thought the same thing.  It’s not
as if I don’t understand how to recover from trauma (I did spend 10
years balancing my body at the edge of it’s capabilities), or am a
glutton for pain (my body’s voracious appetite for Percocet
demonstrates that).  I just had stuff to do, and as long as I was
able to do it, I figured I would.  And yes, I left work and went
home for the day before I took the narcotics.  I’m not an idiot either.  ;)

The procedure was straightforward throughout.  Started with the
prerequisite "you have beautiful teeth" that I get every time, then
numbed me up, ranked on my jaw for 30 minutes (with three brief pauses:
one to sit up and swallow, and two to cut my bottom teeth in half), and
then I was done.  Moist gauze came out in 45 minutes, novacaine
wore off about 2.5 hours later, aside from the front-left corner of my
tongue and lips which persisted for two more hours, rode home an hour
and half after that, took some drugs and then slept for a couple
hours.  Now I’m awake, a little achy (suprisingly, at least to me,
is that it’s my jaw joint - which surely has a better name - that’s the
most sore, not the tooth holes), with imperceptible swelling, and otherwise all good.

Happy Birthday Sweetie!

Well, he’s finally done it.  Barney has officially joined the ranks of the quarter centurians. 

He turns 25 today and I’m sure his dear mother
is feeling some residual aches and pains just remembering his
birth.  After laboring for 30-something hours, brave Dodo finally
welcomed the giant that was/is Barney into the world.  I can’t
remember exactly how much he said he weighed, over ten pounds, we’ll
have to ask Dodo, but I think he was 24 inches long.  At birth
people.  That’s a two foot long baby!  Yikes.

Dodo did a great job raising him into a wonderful man though, no matter how rocky the start, one I’m proud to say is my husband and father of my children.  He’s the most wonderful daddy I’ve ever seen, many thanks going to his own father who was/is a superb role model.  I look forward to many, many more birthdays to come, and hope you enjoy this one sweetie!

We love you so much.  Happy Birthday! 

Gimme A Head With Hair….

Well folks, he finally did it.  After several weeks of me
"gently suggesting" that Barney trim up his hair and beard, he went
ahead with it.  He tried to punish me by leaving various parts of
his beard/mustache, making himself look like some sort of scary Back
Street Boy.  I wish I’d taken pictures of that, but alas, I didn’t
think about it ’til he finally shaved it all off for good. 

I did however have to hear about it for days after he cut it.  "My
face is cold"  "I couldn’t sleep last night because my head was
too cold"  "I’m going to freeze my ass off on my bike now"  I
guess that’s what I get for nagging him about it for so long.  ;)

Here is a Before and After shot for your viewing pleasure.  There are a few more pics of the adventure in the March Gallery if you’re interested.  I think you look wonderful sweetie!

An Interesting Perspective

This is from a ColdFusion developer from down in Australia, posted to one of the developer mailing lists I participate in. An interesting perspective, I thought.

A Big Day!!!

Yes, of course it’s Melbourne Cup day in Australia, but possibly even
more important, it’s the day that 200 million lucky people get a
chance to elect the President of the Entire World.

So I would encourage you, if you happen to be one of that lucky few,
to take advantage of the opportunity. As someone who will be greatly
affected by the result, yet as one of the huge majority who do not
actually have a say, I hope you will not let the chance go by.

I don’t mind who you vote for (I do really), just as long as you get
out there and do it.

Enjoy it!
Lee, from Australia — voter turn-out 99+%.

The Smell of Freedom

So, after spending a month riding my motorcycle around, I’ve come to the conclusion that a great part of the enjoyment of riding comes from the fact that you can actually smell things on your journeys, rather than just the stale air of a car.

There’s not a lot to smell, in general, but those serendipitious moments when you catch a whiff of something and it brings forth pleasurable thoughts…… Lets just say it’s a welcome break from the daily grind. Of course, you also get diesel and manure in all their glory, but I’m convincied it’s part of the reason people ride, most of them blissfully unaware that their mind is selfishishly using them.

There’s the thought of the week from Heather’s guest author.