The Dog Days of Winter - Introducing the Maltzers of Sacramento

Ever wonder what a cross between a Maltese...

and a Schnauzer



would look like?

The answer is one of the hottest and cutest designer breeds out there today: a Maltzer

Meet Emma and Chloe - two eight week old Maltzer puppies that our friend Ann just added to her family. They are supposed to be about 7 pounds once full grown and are definitely a step up from the plain old Maltese above!

Make your own judgements on comparisons to a Bagle (Basset Hound / Beagle Mix)

Peep innovation

The Marshmallow Peep has been around for years in its original chick form and many other shapes and colors. A new type of Peep has hit the market this Easter season that is truely different. It's the cocoa flavored Peep. It tastes like a drinking a cup of hot chocolate. I highly reccomend you pick some up.

Beagles sporting new collars...

Frequent readers (and there at least 2!) know that the beagles get new collars every 6 months or so. Since it feels like Spring out here in Cali we went shopping for their new "outfits"



Here's a nice one featuring Rangaer's tongue rather than the collar...

Chocolate!

Steph's friends threw her a party to celebrate her recent graduation. They had a monster three pound customized Hershey's chocolate bar made for the occasion.



We haven't mustered the courage to cut into the thing yet.

HAPPY V-DAY SAYS YUKI!!

All the way to Reno

Steph and I went to Reno for the week-end to see the Gin Blossoms. More on the Blossoms later. The trip itself was an adventure with a substantial amount of snow falling over Donner Pass over the week-end.


Reno itself was nice...

One the way home it was a Winter Wonderland...


Our stay at the El Dorado Hotel/Casino was fine. All in all, Virginia St. in Reno is like a blast from the past - think of Downtown Vegas if you've been there. Some of the lesser motels around are still advertising the fact that they have phones and color television in each room!

Artist who recorded Robert's favorite song dies

Singer Frankie Laine dies of heart failure at age 93

...with songs such as That's My Desire, Mule Train, Jezebel, I Believe and That Lucky Old Sun, Laine was a regular feature of the Top Ten in the years just before rock 'n' roll ushered in a new era of popular music. Robert's favorite song? MULE TRAIN!!! YAH!!!

Rivals.com

Rivals.com considers Jackets, Huskers, and Wolverines recruiting classes decent.

School TOTAL
s
Commits Avg Stars
Points
1 Florida 27 4 16 7 3.89 2,959
2 Southern Cal 18 6 10 2 4.22 2,761
3 Tennessee 32 5 11 15 3.63 2,726
4 LSU 26 2 19 5 3.88 2,695
5 Texas 24 2 16 5 3.79 2,562
6 South Carolina 31 1 14 13 3.42 2,190
7 Auburn 30 0 13 15 3.37 2,013
8 Notre Dame 18 1 12 4 3.72 1,932
9 Georgia 23 0 12 10 3.48 1,895
10 Alabama 24 0 10 11 3.29 1,790
11 Oregon 29 0 12 12 3.24 1,760
12 MICHIGAN 20 2 5 12 3.40 1,750
13 NEBRASKA 27 0 10 16 3.33 1,734
14 Oklahoma 20 1 9 8 3.45 1,718
15 Ohio State 15 0 12 3 3.80 1,577
16 North Carolina 23 2 4 12 3.13 1,542
17 Illinois 20 2 5 10 3.30 1,509
18 Florida State 19 0 8 9 3.32 1,464
19 GEORGIA TECH 20 0 8 10 3.30 1,453
20 Clemson 22 0 7 12 3.18 1,436
21 California 25 0 5 18 3.12 1,405
22 Miami-FL 17 1 7 7 3.41 1,401
23 Penn State 21 0 8 8 3.14 1,305
24 Virginia 24 0 7 11 3.04 1,267
25 Pittsburgh 24 0 6 13 3.04 1,265

Guessing Game Winner: Dad

Light dead on February 3rd. Dad wins. Congratulations.

Choxie!!!!

Print and use - Choxie may be the worst chocolate out there but they don't sting you too bad with this coupon!

Eliminating Data from a Hard Drive

We decided to donate one of our three desktop computers to Goodill but were a bit concerned about the hard drive still containing personal data/information. Studying the situation on the web didn't ease our concerns. One of the quotes - "A simple delete, erase, re-format or even the fdisk command for Windows is not sufficient because there are many products which will bring back the data and software."

I didn't want one little hard drive to prevent me donating the computer - a Pentium 4 Extreme Edition to a worthy cause.




So I continued my research and finally found a tool that, when used properly, guarantees the data on the drive will no longer be accessible. The cost of the tool was ~$20 which was within my budget.



I removed the drive and took it down to the end of the driveway and went to town. Mission accomplished!

Superbowl Party a Success

Here's a layout of all the food. In addition there were 4 kinds of beer and frozen strawberry margaritas.

The game itself was displayed in a 7 1/2 foot projection. The regular TV featured a 15 second delay (thanks to Tivo so there were instant instant replays of everything.

It's a Jayhawk College Gameday

I've been Tivoing ESPN's College Hoops Gameday to keep up with the season. I was happy to discover a Jayhawkcentric Gameday this morning thanks to tonights big game versus Texas A&M. Highlights from the crazy scene in Lawrence below were recorded directly from my TV screen.

Vista - Installation Review

First, because you are reading this, the installation has at least been somewhat successful. The installation took 1.5 hours and there were, and remain some complications.

The first big problem was my sound card, a Creative Audigy 4, stopped working. I finally found a beta driver install and got it back and running. Problem 2 remains the printer. My HP C3180 which is less than 6 months old is without driver and doesn't work. I figure it's only a matter of time until something shows up. Finally, iTunes. It doesn't recognize music I've purchased so won't allow me to play it. Lesson here is if you buy music from iTunes burn it and rip it to unprotected MP3s. I'm sure this will be fixed by Apple at some point as it is well-documented.

Aside from these, Vista seems to be working fine. It does give me a boot option which is kind of annoying when I turn the computer on.

SUPERBOWL MENU

I once went to a Superbowl party where the snacks were few and far between. There I was, stuck without munchies for the biggest game of the year. You can't order a pizza because on Superbowl Sunday, the pizza guy takes 4 hours to deliver. So last year when I hosted my own Superbowl party, I decided that my guests shouldn't want for munchies. This year I am again hosting a Superbowl party. My guests will not want for munchies.

The following group of images represents most of what will be served at the football party. There may be additions. This list does not include beverages, of which there will be many. Some of the items pictured will be combined with other items to make things like cheese dip and Oreo balls. The following food items contain 39,796 calories.

Last Post 'til Vista

I picked up the new Microsoft Operating System Vista today so this will be may last post until a successful install.



Hopefully the fact I couldn't open the damn box it came in wasn't foreshadowing of worse things to come. Wish me luck!

The Camelback

Camelback Mountain in Phoenix is always fun to see. I took this snap from the airport today.



Kind of along the same vein as old Horsetooth Rock in Fort Collins - search the blog for details on our last Horsetooth climb.