When the Kids Take the Car

Dolly loves putting her head out the back window of the truck

Franklin loves to drive. He's a take-charge dog!

Anyone who has teenagers always has to watch out for their kids grabbing the keys and taking the car. Our "Kids" are canine, but they think they're human. So, we learned that we ALSO have to watch out for them grabbing the car keys and taking the pick-up truck for a spin around the neighborhood.
  Franklin the Dachshund and Dolly the Weimaraner like joyriding. It's a fact.
Here's how it works:  Dolly can stand up on hind legs and grab the keys from the counter. Franklin then noses his way out of any door and Dolly follows to the pickup truck. Franklin knows where the alarm and door opener button is on the key chain, so the doors unlock, and Dolly opens them up.
  They both jump in, and Dolly closes the door by leaning out and grabbing it in her teeth. Franklin takes the wheel with his little feet (he can see over the dash, and DOES sit up on his butt to see out the front window. He holds sticks in his bottom feet and hits the gas and brake. Of course, his arms are too short to reach the signals, so he does without them, like half the people on the road anyway!
 Dolly loves sticking her head out the back window... catching the smells and the breeze.
So, recently we were driving home in the neighborhood and caught them both joyriding and got it on film!
KIDS!!!!

Franklin Knows How to Beg

Please can I have that turkey sandwich?

Our dachshund Franklin is 6 years old and he has perfected the art of begging and looking cute.
How many dogs do you know that can actually sit up on the rear end? (We think Dachshunds can)... But, Franklin can because he has some "extra baggage" back there and he's on a diet. So, whenever anyone comes over, he always puts on the "I'm cute, I'm sitting for you, give me food" look.

Come on! How cute do I have to be?

Football and CBS Network Television

  One thing that ticks us off is that every weekend we sit down to watch our favorite TV show on CBS,
"The Amazing Race," and the damned football game before it (and before 60 minutes) always runs over one hour, delaying the program. Getting up at 4:30am for work is a lot harder when your favorite TV show ends at 10pm instead of 9pm.
   Here's what we don't understand: With 100 PLUS channels devoted to sports, don't you think that football could be aired on one of those, to keep programming on a regular schedule for all the non-football fans?
I can understand it if there were just 3 channels as there were in the 1960s when we were kids- not today.
  Just because we don't watch football, and don't care for it doesn't have anything to do with this point- Like our dogs, we like sticking to a schedule. When something upsets it, we get irritated.
  So, to CBS, ABC and NBC networks- Let the sports channels air football, baseball, basketball, hockey, etc. THAT'S why they're there, right?

10 Reasons Why dogs and cats are better than children

Franklin and Dolly just don't look at the camera when you're
trying to take a picture of them. To tease us, they always
look in opposite directions!

This was sent to Rob from a co-worker (who apparently also has a dog or cat).
10 Reasons Why dogs and cats are better than children:

(1) eat less,
(2) don't ask for money all the time,
(3) are easier to train,
(4) normally come when called,
(5) never ask to drive the car,
(6) don't smoke or drink,
(7) don't want to wear your clothes,
(8) don't have to buy the latest fashions,
(9) don't need a gazillion dollars for college and
(10) if they get pregnant, you can sell their children (jeez!)

Doggone Good Weekend

The weather this weekend has been perfect. In the upper 70s/low 80s. So, we did a lot of errands, dog walks, and lots of stuff around the house- but

1) Franklin (the Dachshund) has apparently developed a foot fetish.
2) Dolly enjoys a stick in the backyard.
3) Franklin doing what he does best: Begs for food.
4) Tom and Rob being goofy as usual!
SPEAKING of goofy:  we rented the movie "Macgruber" Sat. night.
It's supposed to be a funny parody of the TV show MacGyver from the 1980s, but it wasn't funny. In fact, it was stupid. The only thing that got us through it was that the actor playing "Macgruber" was nice to look at (especially when he had no shirt on), and the other actor who played his partner was cute. Aside from that, don't bother renting it!

Going Gaga over Philippine Airlines

Being fans of Lady Gaga, we thought this was fun!

Cebu Pacific Air flight attendants twirl seat belts, prance down the aisle and spin in life jackets as Lady Gaga's song Just Dance blares over airplane loud speakers.

A video of them — doing a pretakeoff safety demonstration that was posted on YouTube on Sept. 30 — has drawn more than 7 million  hits.

http://content.usatoday.com/_common/_scripts/big_picture.aspx?width=490&height=402&storyURL=/travel/flights/2010-10-08-gagaflight08_ST_N.htm&imageURL=http://i.usatoday.net/money/_photos/2010/10/08/gagax-large.jpg

The Lost Dogs: Book - on my list!

There's a new book coming out called "the Lost Dogs" about how Michael Vick's (that IDIOT) dogs that he used in dog fighting were rescued, retrained and adopted to good homes. I can't wait to read how these dogs were saved. It gives hope for ALL dogs that have been abused.

American Religious Extremists -We Need to Fight Them

We need to combat our OWN religious extremists.
  This week that hateful wacko Fred Phelps and his 60 cult members are before the U.S. Supreme Court for protesting their hateful views against gay people at a military funeral of  a man who died in Iraq, that wasn't even gay. Their hateful, loud, nasty protest (carrying signs that said horrendous stuff like "Military men deserve to die because of our sins," "God hates fags" and other horrible stufff). (See article in USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/2010-10-06-supreme-court-snyder-phelps_N.htm?csp=hf  "This is a case about exploiting a private family's grief," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said.
  There is NO EXCUSE for Phelps' horrendous, offensive behavior, especially at a funeral.

One thing that struck me was that we are now in Afghanistan FIGHTING muslim religious extremists. We're fighting to eliminate them as a threat to our country and the world. However, Mr. Phelps IS a religious extremist here in the U.S., yet people are struggling to silence him. Think about it.

Phelps is breeding minds of hatred against others. We heard interviews with two of the 6 and 7 year olds in the Phelps family, and they were spitting hateful stuff against gay people. SIX AND SEVEN YEARS OLD!  It is our own right-wing "religious" extremists who are a danger to this country. Look at the "preacher" in Florida who wanted to burn the Koran and incited riots in Afghanistan and the middle east, putting our soldiers in more jeopardy.

Further, there has been a rash of teenage suicides lately because the "religious right-wing" promotes hatred and intolerance of gay people. The blood of these gay teenagers are on their hands. When will the U.S. start combating religious extremists in our own country?  There is no good that can come from leaving them alone to promote their brand of hatred and intolerance. We need to be one unified country and welcome everyone, no matter the race, sexuality, age, or culture. After all, God made and loves everyone.

VIDEO: Watermelon Face of the Amazing Race

Tom and I LOVE watching the "Amazing Race" on CBS Sunday nights. It's one of our all-time favorite shows where couples compete against each other doing tasks in countries around the world. Last weekend, one of the challenges was to use a slingshot to knock down a suit of armor (apparently its a game in one country), and a woman on one of the teams accidentally got hit in the face with a Watermelon when the slingshot shot backwards. It looked really painful, but we still laughed out loud. Fortunately the woman was okay... still, it's funny and the team laughed over it afterward. Enjoy!

We Installed a "New" Ceiling!

Last weekend, we did another home project that took all afternoon, but it was worth it.
Tom is always looking for new, cool ways to make the house look better inside and out, and came across a wallpaper for the CEILING that looks like floorboards. He found it on-line and we installed it on our Kitchen ceiling on Sunday, Sept. 26th. It took about 3-4 hours.The most difficult parts were cutting it correctly (which Tom did) and making sure it stayed up!  Of course, when you're putting up wall paper on the ceiling, all parts of it want to come off - so it took 2 of us to do it. Tom would line it up while I propped up the other end near the ceiling. Lining up the next piece was also somewhat of a challenge.
  The end result, however, was well worth it. What do you think?

Plain Ceiling -Before the wallpaper was installed

Installing the wallpaper on the ceiling

One corner done!

The Finished Ceiling!

Exploring Historic Annapolis



Nice flowers on the U.S. Naval Academy Grounds



Tomb of John Paul Jones, 1st Admiral of the U.S. Navy,
on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Academy

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Jose  and Jeff on a Naval Cannon



FUN WEEKEND - This weekend our friend Jeff introduced us to his new BF, Jose. Jose is a great guy, fun and easy going. After a nice lunch, we explored the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, then walked through the quaint streets and shops downtown. We posed for some pictures along the way.
 

Tom and Rob hoping they found the Fountain of Youth!

Sitting on the fountain of love. :)

Jose and Jeff at the Fountain of Youth!

Pearls Before Swine comic is perfect for Tom!

This is the comic strip of "Pearls Before Swine" from 9-27, and this is perfect for Tom. Rob would be the goat character and Tom would be the rat character. This is so true!