A Dog with Character

Shelby & I have retired his dog Woody from farm living to suburban life as he is 9 years old and we wanted a dog at our new house.  So far, Woody has exhibited a great deal of character in his new home, with no signs of depression or anguish in his departure from the farm.  

1. He will not poop in our yard.  He will only go while we're on a walk around the neighborhood.
2. He will not poop in the grass.  He usually goes right on road.
3. He snores.  And he sleeps a lot.
4. He was a quick study to figure out the doggie door.  Which btw was installed by a previous owner, through two walls - one of which is brick.  Thanks!
5. He doesn't bark much at other dogs.  After watching countless episodes of "It's Me or the Dog," I believe this is because he is confident, while other dogs are not.
6. He is good on a leash.  Impressive only because up until 10 days ago, he had never worn a collar, much less been walked on a leash.
7. He is fairly cooperative about indoor rules (i.e. no dogs on the furniture), although he will sneak a nap on the couch when no one is paying attention.
8. He is talkative.  He makes little squeaks, which could be considered whines if he were really whining, but these noises are happy sounds.
9. He used to kill raccoons.  You know, back in his younger days.
10. He likes to be around us.  He has never been the only dog around, so he is really milking this "only child" thing!

My Beef with WSJ.com

A small part of my job requires me to find newspaper articles online that were first found in the print edition, particularly from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and then print them out for filing.  Political bias aside, NYT online is super nice b/c pretty much any article from the past 2 centuries is free, and they have good "printer friendly" formatting, although their pictures are never included.  WSJ on the other hand is a bit stingy in the articles they supply to the regular reader.  Articles available to online subscribers (which does not necessarily include the print subscribers) can be purchased by average folk for $3 or something crazy.  Lately I've noticed that a lot more articles have been available for free, which is fantastic because their printer friendly formats include the pictures from the article - the saving grace of WSJ.  That must have been a cruel tease because now, the whole WSJ website has changed for the worse - their printer friendly formatting is in a tiny font, and no pictures!  Also, I just tried to search for an article from Feb 2008, only to find out that you can only search for the past 3 months.  Boo on WSJ.  

Praises for Marriage #10-12

Well, I have been enjoying marriage too much to blog about it at the 4 month mark.  On September 24, 2008, I was two days away from moving into our new house - and hadn't hardly packed a thing (including my computer, so I guess technically I could have blogged).  Now that things have sort of calmed back down, I can reflect on the more three things to love about marriage:

10.  Making a house a home.

11.  Surviving the process of buying a house during The Great Depression.

12.  Cookouts for two.

There are certainly MANY more praises for marriage than these three.  An infinite amount, to be exact.  Like many others in this blog, this post is one of many to come in a series.  Don't want to give all the secrets of marriage away at once!