Mike Munhall

We have a dog. His name is Cashin “Cash” Scott. He’s a retired racing greyhound that we adopted over the weekend after meeting him earlier in the week.

He’s huge, he’s lazy, and he gets along very well with the cats. He’s a bit thin right now, but we’re going to fatten him up a bit.

One interesting thing about retired racers is that their bloodline and his racing history is available online: pedigree | 60 races | stats.

Here are more photos of Cash.

I finished Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince yesterday. So many twists, turns, unanswered questions… I shouldn’t talk about the story in the event that somebody reading this post hasn’t read the book yet. Half Blood Prince is easily one of the better books in the series, if not the best.

Dorrie had been waiting for me to finish this book so she could share with me Zablanc‘s theory on what is going to happen. Hey, Zablanc, have you shared that theory with the world yet? I don’t want to do it here if you’re keeping it to yourself. But, it’s a good idea and I think it’s worth sharing.

We ordered the last Harry Potter book from Amazon when they announced it was available for pre-order. Hopefully we’ll be reading it 3-5 days (no delivery on Sundays and holidays) after it’s officially available.

Monday is my 34th birthday. Dorrie has planned an Extravaganza Weekend (E.W.) which starts today, Friday. It’s 11:40 a.m. and I have no clue what we’re doing. Since I have no homework this weekend and, really, have no obligations whatsoever, I’m going to make the most of it and play as much as possible. I’ll document in this post what I’m up to throughout the weekend.

Friday, February 9, 2007, 11:40:35

I slept in until 7:30 and eventually made it downstairs to feed the cats and brew some coffee. One of my favorite weekend things is to sit on the couch or in the loft with the computer on the lapdesk and dork around. This morning I dorked around by catching up on some chess games on Red Hot Pawn and answering a few emails. After that, I started optimizing the images that are being used in the next time-lapse movie.

So far, the highlight of the morning has been beating the snot out of the computer on my Kingmaster III. Of course, I played at level one out of 73. But, it’s my birthday and I’m not going to ruin it by being a loser.

Dorrie’s feeling better today (she’s had a cold), which is good since I can only assume that she’s part of this E.W. that she planned. Dorrie made pancakes and bacon. Oh, good Lord, I love bacon. I haven’t been able to extract any information from her regarding E.W., but I know we are supposed to be somewhere at 1:00-ish, we’re leaving around noon (which means our destination is roughly a one-hour drive away), and I am to bring a book and my camera.

I spend the last part of the morning at the workbench in the basement listening to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club while cleaning the piss from my camera filters and lenses. I don’t know where that oily shit comes from, but believe me when I tell you that it’s hard to get that crap off even with the right cleaners, papers and cloths.

Dorrie has a blindfold in her hand and is ready to leave. More later…

Friday, February 9, 2007, 18:10:15

I was blindfolded as soon as we got in the car. Too bad, too, because it was a beautiful day. Here’s a picture of my view out the window on the way to the secret destination:

Four right turns, one left turn, and 25 minutes later I felt the sun beating down on me from the right side. We were heading east-ish. I determined there was only one place we could be going: the airport. Whoot! We’re taking a trip! I let Dorrie know that there’s nothing out this way except the airport so she let me take off the blindfold.

We parked and went in, but had no luggage. Something weird was going on. And then, you wouldn’t believe who we just happened to run in to — my best friends Alex, Dana and Nadia — all the way from Albuquerque. What a crazy coincidence! So crazy, in fact, that Dorrie and I forgot all about our own trip, went to lunch with our friends and have been hanging out at home since.

This really has been a great surprise. Alex, Dana and Nadia are going to spend the weekend with us. We don’t really have plans yet, but certainly we’ll be meeting up with Matt and Monica tonight and/or tomorrow. Should be a really good weekend.

More later… Nadia has her hand in my beer.

Sunday, February 11, 2007, 08:17:33

This will be the last update to this post. Not too much exciting stuff happened this weekend. Nevertheless, it was a good one.

Friday night the gang watched Little Miss Sunshine (what a great movie…) and then hit the sack. Saturday was rather uneventful. We lounged around in the morning while Dorrie got some prep work done on my birthday dinner and birthday cake. I went to Englewood Camera that afternoon to pick up a repaired Hasselblad lens and then we packed a lunch and went to Daniels Park. Matt and Monica came over yesterday afternoon for birthday dinner and cake. We watched The Secret and then called it a night.

It’s Sunday morning now and Alex, Dana and Nadia are heading over to their rental property in Westminster. We’ll meet up with them at Matt and Monica’s this afternoon before taking them to the airport.

Damn, it was good to hang out with them. I missed them. It’s nice to have the house back, though.