Friday, January 30, 2009

He finally did it.


I feel like joining him today.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Children of the Corn


Jaime substitute taught today. Apparently, they were not model students. She sent me this email from her iPhone in the middle of the day, and I had to laugh. Even though I knew she wasn't.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Things we wish hadn't happened

Sunday, we went on a hike through undiscovered trails in the open space next to our neighborhood. Which was great. Until Annie's unsuccessful attempt to hurdle a barbed wire fence. Fortunately, it was near the end of our walk and we took her straight to the car and into Boulder Emergency Pet Clinic.

Big ouch. Seeing Annie in all that pain broke my heart more than I expected it to. Not that this was expected. At all. Financially, or otherwise. The bright side, if there is one: Annie, the world's best dog, saved us $200 by not needing general anesthesia for her sutures.

Sunday night was a tough one, as she was still stoned from her I.V. administered opiate, pacing the apartment in her plastic Elizabethan collar, whimpering in pain and confusion. Eventually, Jaime fell asleep with her arm around Annie on the floor of the living room in the middle of the night.

For 12 days, she'll live in that collar any time we're not looking at her. No running, jumping, long walks, or dog park. Just pain meds and antibiotics.




I think I'll end this on a more positive image that sums up life with Annie. Taken 24 hrs after her lost fight with the barbed wire:

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Heed the fire safety sign, kids.


You may have heard about fires in Boulder this week. Burnt through the hills, destroyed a house or three, and evacuated thousands of homes. Nobody was hurt, so that's good. It's no fun when people lose their homes; fire isn't funny, but this photo is real, and funny. And ridiculous.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Slap Chop



You may not find this as funny as I did, but I have tears on my face from suppressing laughter at work.

"Stop having a boring tuna = stop having a boring life."

And what did he just say at 0:55?

el-oh-el!

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Things We Hope Don't Happen:

click to view in full.

jaime reminds me once in a long while that i will know i've done something really stupid the day i come home to find my smashed-in guitar being used a litter box for her brand new cat (which i would be allergic to).

and this cartoon made me laugh.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Christmas break random photo montage

Making pizza, salsa, chips, etc. from scratch, lounging at home, traveling to Philly (including a very long wait in DIA that started way too early in the morning), and good time with family. No pictures of snowboarding and my my first taste of telemark skiing, but read my Loveland Pass post below for a bit of that. Here's a small taste of everything else.









SuperHeroes, part two

Behold, I hereby resolve the cliffhanger hype from my SuperHeroes post. Stupdendous Man and WordGirl:



Monday, January 5, 2009

Professional Year in Review

Volkswagen's U.S. market share is up. Click here for the Bloomberg article.

CP+B wins Creativity Agency of the Year. Click here.

CP+B wins AdWeek Agency of the Year. Click here.

[Late breaking update, 1.19.09:] CP+B wins AdAge Agency of the Year. Hat trick. Click here.

It's no secret it was a tough year for the auto industry. Below are each manufacturer's U.S. numbers for December 2008 and the whole year vs. 2007. We're down -4.4%. American companies like Chrysler are down -30% (Chrysler's December '08 was down -53.1% over 2007's December - OUCH.) Mighty Toyota? 2008's total is down -15.4% Only Subaru was above zero at 0.3% over 2007's numbers. Gotta hand it to them.

CP+B played an important role, especially in the sales event messaging and dealer relations, but as much as I'd like to say advertising played the largest role, I can also see the argument against that. When you look at all the numbers together, you realize that product plays a major role. When you make a better product (read: better value) it tends to sell better. Especially when times are tough. That's one big reason VW was #2 in the industry (not counting ultra luxury brands like Aston Martin that inversely had an amazing 2008).

The other thing the numbers tell me is that my team at work was robbed this year. Robbed by a wheezing economy. All the signs point to 2008 possibly having been the year that VW took off and showed the states why they sell more cars than anyone else in Europe, China and Brazil. 2008 could have been our year. Instead, it was nobody's year. But we're better poised to launch out of the gate when the economy rebounds. Keep your radios tuned for that kids, then you can say Uncle Eric told you so.

New Years Day, Loveland Pass and Annie

Following through on my Loveland Pass post last April, I took Annie up to Loveland Pass backcountry on New Years Day.

I woke up New Year’s Day to find an email from Brig White asking if I wanted to start off the year right. We drove up to Loveland Pass with Annie and although there wasn’t a lot of new snow, it’s always nice to be out on the mountain. The best part was letting Annie loose in her element. As we hiked, she ran along, ran ahead, ran around, and always came when called. When we raced down the mountain, she raced behind us, taking turns chasing after me and Brig. When we hit the trees, she bolted through and even if I lost sight of her for a moment, I could call her name and she’d come jetting out of the forest, making first paw tracks in the snow, mouth wide open in a big lab smile.

We hitched 4 rides back up to the top of the pass. The first three were in the back of pickup trucks. I doubt this Miami born dog ever thought she be huddled with me in the exposed bed of a speeding pickup, with howling winter winds and snow ‘building character’ on our faces as we climbed to 12,000 ft pass in the Rockies. But she was. The fourth and last ride up was in a brand new Toyota Sequoia SUV. The driver pulled over to our thrown out thumbs and I had to walk around to his window and ask “I have a dog, is that okay?”
“Yeah, put her in the back with your stuff.”
She laid down in the heated car and pressed as much of her body, from chin to tail, into the relatively plush, carpeted floor. This was not the pickup experience she just had three times in a row. Without moving her head, she turned her eyes up at me and I could see her saying, Was this an option all along? She may not have been a huge fan of the more hardcore rides up the mountain, but she was nothing less then euphoric once her feet hit the ground and she could chase us back down, not a road in sight.

“Did your dog just follow you down the mountain?...That’s so cool.”

“That’s a great dog”
Etc., etc...

Talk about good times with man’s best friend. Part of me is so excited that she's only 2-years old and there are years of this to come. The other part of me tries to ignore how relatively short a dog's life is. We're squeezing it all in, enjoying the simple pleasures all the way.

She spent most of the next day recuperating at home, chin to tail, flat against the carpet, occasionally licking her slightly chapped paws. But I know she’ll gladly hop into the back of the next truck bed if it means she gets to run back down a snowy mountain with me.