From this year's Chick-fil-A calendar, The Bovines in Blue:

Grill Street Blues
Notorius for his flame-grilled temper and unorthodox methods, Sgt. Randy Steakowitz of the Special Grilling Unit often finds himself embroiled in controversy. The well-seasoned sergeant's interrogations usually employ his patented "good sandwich/bad sandwich" technique, squeezing confessions fromt he most determined of criminals. Under Sgt. Steakowitz, the meat scales of justice have never been the same.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 146


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Several rounds of the movie contest are still open. Go!

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 147


Click here for the entry form.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 148


Click here for the entry form.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 149

Click here for the entry form.

When my family was visiting for Thanksgiving last year, Mr Moo was kind enough to take them all to the coast for a day so I could get some alone time and finish up a bunch of the cooking. Mr Moo took photos for me. They all look like they were having a good time.

The sunset was beautiful.

My parents even got to meet Big Foot.

Maine - September 2008 - Acadia National Park

Me atop Gorham Mountain.

We came across a few slugs while we were hiking in Maine last year. I have to admit, we were thoroughly unimpressed by them. Here's the largest Maine slug we saw:

Compare that to one we spotted while hiking here in Oregon:

Maine may have their lobsters, but we definitely win in the slug department.

My biggest accomplishment of today was sorting plane tickets for Mr Moo and I to visit my sister and BIL in South Carolina at the end of April. We've decided we want to visit all of the national parks in the US before we die, so we'll be spending a few days at Congaree National Park, the only one in South Carolina. We're also hoping to visit a couple state parks as well. Cross your fingers that the humidity won't be too unbearable and the ticks will still be hibernating.

Maine - September 2008 - Acadia National Park

When we were in Maine last year, we were surprised to learn that there is a sandy beach in Acadia National Park.

Having lived on the west coast for almost his entire life, Mr Moo had to take advantage of the opportunity to touch the Atlantic Ocean.

We got a great view of the beach once we were up on the Great Head Trail.

That massive mound in the background is The Beehive, which we ended up atop by accident and had to climb down (sheer cliff with iron rungs - oh joy) later in the day.

Maine - September 2008 - Acadia National Park

While hiking the Great Head Trail, we came across a section of the shoreline that wasn't a cliff and we could walk on. Unlike the sandy beach, it was the more traditional rocky shore that you associate with Maine.

The tide was out, which meant there was a lot of seaweed and slippery rocks, but also some great tidal pools. The closer we got to the water, the more careful we had to be because there were snails everywhere.



Mr Moo was trying out his new digital camera on this trip so there are photos of me for a change.

Moo!

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 146



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Lots of good guesses this past week, but, unfortunately, they were all incorrect. Several rounds of the contest are still open.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 147



Click here for the entry form.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 148



Click here for the entry form.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 149


Click here for the entry form.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 150

Click here for the entry form.

I'm having one of those days where I feel completely "off". For starters, I'm having a terrible histamine reaction to something. I can't seem to stop sneezing and my nose is running like an open refrigerator. On top of that, I'm exhausted because I didn't sleep well last night. I had a terrible time falling asleep because I couldn't get comfortable and, when I finally did nod off, I had terrible nightmares. I remember the last one vividly - Josie's throat was cut open in an accident, but she didn't die; she just crawled around in agony - and it's got me completely disconcerted. ((shudder)) I can't seem to concentrate on anything. I'm going to take a very long hot shower and see if that helps to clear my head, literally and figuratively, a bit.

Happy Birthday, sis.

Shower yesterday helped a little, but not much. I'm feeling a lot better today though. Managed some nightmare-free sleep last night, which I think helped more than anything.

We're not planning a whole lot for tomorrow (Valentine's Day). We're hoping to head out for a little while to do some geocaching, but the weather might not cooperate. We'll see what it's like in the morning and go from there.

Happy Valentine's Day, folks.

Looks like the weather is going to be okay today, so we're heading out to do some hiking/geocaching soon. Mr Moo did all the planning on his own. All I know is we're heading over the the area around the zoo. Should be interesting to see where we end up.

Mr Moo has decided he wants a Wii so we're off to the store.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 146




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"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 148




Click here for the entry form.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 151

Click here for the entry form.

We haz Wii!

I was asked to post about the Wii games we own and whether or not we liked them. We haven't played with the system enough for the novelty to wear off, so we can't really say whether we love or hate anything just yet. I can, however, tell you what we own. Wii Sports and Wii Fit came with main console unit and the Wii Fit board respectively. Since we bought the Wii starter bundle at Best Buy, we also got Wii Play with the extra remote. Over the course of the weekend, Mr Moo also bought:
He also bought a WWII flying game called Blazing Angels, but it hasn't been opened yet and may get returned.

We went Geocaching for a little while on Saturday in the Hoyt Arboretum over by the zoo. Our first attempt was up a short, but lovely trail.

Mr Moo had written the information down incorrectly and this is the "large canopy" tree we thought the cache was supposed to be under.

Oops. Turns out, we were very close to the cache, but, due to the poor notes, we decided to leave this one for another day. Lesson learned: Don't let Mr Moo research the caches.

We successfully found the second cache. Normally, we would take a photo of one of us with the cache. However, due to the relentless parade of muggles (non-geocachers) passing by, we had to be incredibly discreet and couldn't get the photo taken. I did take a photo of the view from the cache site:

If it hadn't been so hazy, you would be able to see Mt Rainier, Mt St Helens and Mr Adams in that shot. We'll have to re-visit the park on a clearer day.

I've added a Geocaching page to my website. There isn't much there at the moment. To be honest, I'm not sure what I'm going to put there since it appears you can't embed anything from the official Geocaching website on your own. Bummer. I'll have to think on this one for a while. In the meantime, if you have an account with Geocaching and would like to visit our profile or add us as a friend, you can find us here: The Moos at geocaching.com

Normally, when I get up on Thursday mornings, the garbage and recycling bins are all out on the sidewalk still since Mr Moo goes to work before the garbage men come. This morning, they were nowhere to be found. Thinking he just forgot to put the garbage out to begin with, I sent Mr Moo an email and asked him what happened. His response: Josie went after the Garbage man, claws furiously cutting thru the air... he had to use the can to keep her at bay... and he took it to save his life

Awesome. :-)

(And, if you're really that curious to know what happened, he worked from home for a few hours this morning and brought the empty cans in before he left.)

The sun is kind of shining. The grass is, well, almost green. And there aren't any orange or palm trees in Oregon for swaying. Not having a White Christmas today, but we are going Geocaching. We've chosen an area with a slew of them. Hopefully, we'll be more successful than we were last weekend. We're heading to this general area:

View Larger Map

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 151


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Rounds 146 and 148 are also still open and have been for an age. They each have five screen captures now - too many to post. I've also run out of images for both of them so they'll sit as is until someone guesses them.

"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 152

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This weekend, I noticed our rose bushes are starting to sport a lot of buds.

Hard to believe that this scraggly looking thing will be a 7 foot high rose bush in a few months.

Spring is almost here! Yay!

We had decidedly more success at Geocaching on Saturday than we did the weekend before.



We found eight caches total! I haven't quite figured out how to add everything to a map just yet, but I've started listing our cache finds on the Geocaching page of my website. We're hoping to head out again this weekend if the weather holds up.

We had a really nice time hiking around the Sandy River Delta looking for geocaches on Saturday. It was really windy and chilly, but we were thrilled it didn't rain. Mt Hood even made an appearance later in the afternoon.

Forecast is calling for 1-3" of snow by tomorrow afternoon. Wheee! There's a cold front a-coming. It should start snowing sometime later tonight. It's going to move out just as fast, so whatever snow we do get will probably be gone by tomorrow night. I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

About 0400, when I went to bed, the snow was really coming down and there was maybe 0.25" on the ground. I'm sure if it continued snowing as hard as it was for any length of time, it piled up quite a bit more. However, upon my waking this morning, the sun was shining and there was not a flake to be found. So much for our 1-3". Oh, well. At least I got to enjoy it a little last night.

Things are not looking good for Bungee right now. I neglected to post about it, but she pretty much completely recovered from her weak leg episode in early January. Since it seemed the antibiotics were the cure, we all assumed it was just a temporary kidney infection and she would be fine. Well, we were wrong. It's now looking like it was a tumor after all and it's come back with a vengeance. She's not just weak in her right leg this time. It's completely paralyzed. She can't use or move it at all. When we went to feed her and Stuka tonight, we noticed she was doing all she could to stay upright, using her beak to hold herself most of the time, and could tell she was completely exhausted. I pulled her out and put her into the smaller spare cage by herself. I draped a washcloth over the two perches and made a sort of hammock. She's not even trying to stand up anymore. She's just lying in it, which, for birds, is not a good thing. Not a good thing at all. I'm going to call the avian hospital in the morning. Mr Moo has made it very clear he doesn't want to spend a lot more money on her and, honestly, I don't think there's anything else to be done anyway. We'll probably schedule an appointment for her to be euthanized this weekend.

EDIT:

Bungee in her new digs. She had a nap and something to eat so she is able to sit up a bit better, but the leg is still useless.

We found and captured Bungee in our backyard on May 19, 2002. She had escaped from somewhere and was voraciously eating out of the tray feeder on our patio. The avian vet guessed her age to be somewhere around 2-3 years old at the time. That would make her 8-10 years old now. My online research tells me their average lifespan is 7 years old so I think we've done okay by her.

She's doing okay at the moment. Just like all birds, she doesn't like lying down so she's doing all she can to sit on the extra perch we added last night. I can tell she's frustrated that her leg isn't doing what she wants. She's managing to stay balanced on top of the perch, but as soon as she starts to doze off, she tips forward and jolts awake. She's leaning against the side of the cage to help stay balanced, but it's still a struggle. Poor thing.

I'm waiting to hear back from Mr Moo regarding his schedule for the rest of the day. Once I do, I'll schedule the appointment for either tonight or tomorrow.

EDIT: Appointment is at 4:30 today.

She's gone. The doctor gave her a quick exam when we got there and found a tumor about the size of a peanut M&M in her belly, which is gigantic for a bird this small. I expressed some doubts about doing the euthanasia today since Bungee was still eating well and doing her best at climbing around the cage. The vet assured me it was the right thing to do. She said, based on how fast the tumor has grown, if we didn't put Bungee to sleep today, it would only be a matter of a few days before before she would have stopped eating and moving around altogether. It's better that we didn't let her get that bad and suffer at all.

The process was very quick. The vet gave her a large syringe full of Phenobarbital in her belly. Within a few seconds, she started getting very sleepy. I gave her a few scritches on the head as the medicine did its thing. She was gone within about a minute. I held her for a few minutes afterward. She was so tiny and light in my hands. I think the washcloth she was on weighed more than she did. After confirming the final arrangements, the doctor took her away and we left. We're having her cremated and her ashes will be ready to pick up sometime early next week. Not sure if we'll get another urn or put her in with Zoe. I can't think about that just yet.

Goodnight, my Bungee. Sleep well.

I cried until I was dehydrated last night, but I'm feeling a little better today. Needless to say, I didn't sleep well at all. I harbor a lot of guilt when my pets die. I know I give them a good home and treat them like royalty, but there's always a part of me that wonders if I did something wrong or could have done more. Yes, I'm well aware it's completely irrational. It's just how I am and a big part of what keeps me up at night.

Mr Moo and I had planned to go Geocaching again today, but I'm not sure either one of us is up for it. He got up ridiculously early for a Saturday morning to get a haircut so we're both running on fumes. I think we're going to maybe run a few errands, take it easy for the rest of the day and try heading out into the wilderness tomorrow instead. I really don't feel like doing it at all this weekend, but I know getting out of the house and getting some fresh air will be good for me.