Tag Archives: photos

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Dogs gone wild

DSC04561 (32k image)I took a few minutes to watch the dogs “at play” yesterday, with the camera. It seems they love to ham it up for me whenever I watch them They seem to know I like to watch them “wrestle” so they put on a little show when I settle in and watch. I sat in the backyard in the grass (Sandy wouldn’t let me sit in the living room after that until I changed clothes–she assumed I sat in dog poop) and watched them, snapping the camera every few seconds..!Image3 (42k image)

The highlights of these shots are embedded in this entry for your amusement. Peanut’s nickname is now “Cujo,” and you can see why. Man, he can look really scary when he wants to! Socks can make that face too, but it just doesn’t take on that evil look that Peanut can pull off. Maybe that’s because he’s had so much more practice–he gives Sandy that look on a daily basis… For some reason he just hates her. She can’t even pick him up without him throwing a fit. It makes things very interesting when “crate time” comes around and he has to go in. Ouch!DSC04605 (29k image)

Peanut seemed to start feeling this way about Sandy just after we brought Socks home after losing Peanut…If that makes any sense. To clarify, please read the short novel I wrote on how we lost Peanut and got Socks by clicking here. Anyway, Peanut has this jealousy toward Socks, and he seems to blame that on Sandy. DSC04562 (36k image)But almost any time anyone picks up Peanut he’ll growl and snarl if Socks is close by. I think it’s just out of habit though–He’s so used to Socks grabbing onto his rear-end and going to town on it in an instant when anyone lifts up .DSC04608 (38k image)Peanut’s front quarters. I guess he figures it’s the perfect entry position, so he takes every chance he can get. Or I should say he TOOK every chance he could get… he’s not doing that any more, the “repair” job took care of that little urge.

They’re getting along much better now though, despite how these photos make things appear. Rest assured, they were just playing around together and not really fighting at all, just showing off for me. Once I get up or even turn away and stop paying attention to them they quit wrestling and find something else to do.Image2 (56k image)

I Hope you enjoy the photos as much as I enjoyed taking them! L8r

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pop quiz

Time for a quiz! Today, while cleaning the basement, I found my old Elementary class photos, so here’s a quiz for you. Click below to popup each of the three class photos and see if you can find me. Imagine the grid is lettered A,B,C, etc. across the top and 1,2,3, etc. down the side. Now let me know which image you think is me in each of the classes. The quiz will be graded on a curve, naturally…

Class of 1971-1972 – 3rd Grade
Class of 1973-1974 – 5th Grade
Class of 1974-1975 – 6th Grade

I had Kevin try it and on the 3rd grade class he couldn’t find his daddy, but said “Hey! There’s ME!” as he pointed to the picture of me. But on the other two classes he failed miserably and couldn’t find me. Think: “Dorky Glasses”

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A day at Beth’s

Kevin and I spent the day at my sister Beth’s new house today. She has a nice big pool in her new backyard (along with a lot of bugs). Kevin and I had a great time, did a lot of swimming and had lunch. I should have photos posted soon. For now though, I have just this one. Are there any bug people out there? Can you identify this one??

It was about an inch and a half high and stuck inside her screen door window

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Family Daze

We had a great time at this year’s Pleasant Prairie Family Days! Kevin conquered the Titanic slide (twice), played a bunch of games and won some trinkets and took a train ride in a drum, among other things. We all watched the Aquanuts Waterski show on Lake Andrea, then came home for a rest.

The weather was interesting. We had a storm pass through about an hour before the fireworks. We left home again at 7:30pm to get there a little early and we could see the threatening clouds. In fact, Bear and George were going to meet us there, but the rain scared them away and they didn’t go. On our way there we had a torrential rain, then it stopped just before we entered the park! Perfect timing. In fact, I think the rain forced a LOT of people leave early, so it wasn’t even very crowded when the show actually started! It ended up being a very nice show, and they even started it 15 minutes early… Probably fearing more rain if they waited any longer. The ground was a little damp, but we had our portable chairs, so we were set. The show was really great, and I took hundreds of photos to share with everyone. I’ve narrowed it down for to my “Top 130.” Click here and enjoy!

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We had a nice (somewhat quiet) 4th of July at home this year. We bought a few simple (legal) fireworks and sparklers and Sandy, Matt, and Kevin used them out in the backyard after it got dark. I took a few photos, and I thought this one turned out pretty neat.

Sandy hands Matt two sparklers.
(Matt’s in the flag t-shirt)

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Party & Parade

We had my 40th birthday bash Saturday.  Sandy threw a great party, made lots of great food, and everyone had a great time.  I think I had a few too many wine coolers myself, because I ended up with a splitting headache.  My bad leg was also a bit sore from all the walking around throughout the day, but that was expected.  The surprise “giveaway” sale at Bear’s neighbor’s house was a nice bonus. I think EVERYONE ended up taking a gift or two home from the party! Kevin was cute–as we left the neighbor’s house with a bunch of toys for him he said “Daddy, can I get some more toys at the NEXT house??”

Today was the Kenosha Civic Veteran’s Parade.  We watched from our usual spot on 60th Street and Sheridan Road at First United Methodist Church.  We sit there because they have a Strawberry Festival at the church the same day, and we love the brats, hotdogs and strawberries and ice cream!  It makes a great lunch, and then we’re early enough for decent seats when the parade starts.  The parade was pretty nice and I took over 140 pictures.  I’ll post them soon for everyone to see, as well as the photos from our trip to the Circus this week.

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It’s a done deal

I’m finished. My career at CirQon ended at around 11:00am this morning. I was dismissed. I, along with a few other remaining co-workers, stood around the office and watched in shock as the movers carted away the desks, cabinets and chairs that were once part of our home away from home. They were amazingly swift today, as if the end of the day today was some sort of deadline and they just realized they were out of time. The other four days of the week were very quiet in the building and all of a sudden it was bustling with movers in nearly every department at once!

As a few co-workers and I waited for our “walking papers” we watched them clearing each room and moving on to the next. We even had to switch to different rooms to wait in because the furniture was being moved out all around us most of the time!

If you’re not bored to death by this yet, read on for some photo highlights…

Wow, are these exciting. Take a look.

BootDisk (23k image)

This was my Weapon of Mass Destruction for the past two weeks. I think I reformatted about 40 hard drives containing a total of around 175GB of information before carting each one out to the dock to be loaded onto a tractor-trailer.

NoServers (60k image)

This is where the two servers were that sat next to me for years. Mark Stricklin, my former supervisor, added the countertop. It was attached to a desk on the left, and held up on the right by a fire safe. Mark got out of IT and went into politics and construction over a year ago. He was smart enough to get out before he was forced to…

LastWorkstation (66k image)

There it is. My lonely workstation before I was told to pack it up and move it out early this morning. The screen and keyboard at left aren’t attached to a computer–they were key conspirators in my use of the aforementioned Weapon of Mass Destruction… I would wheel each computer in on a gurney, hook up the IV’s (keyboard, mouse, monitor), and then procedure to fry all of it’s data. Can I be indicted for war crimes?

I have more photos of more empty rooms, empty shelves, and nothingness, but this is getting too depressing. Time to move on….

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Psycho Chihuahuas

Our two Chihuahuas, Peanut and Socks, have been developing some bad behavior lately.  Socks, and recently Peanut too, has been shredding many household items when we’re not at home.  They both also shred Kleenex, but they do this even when we ARE home, and sometimes right in front of us!  But we’ve come home and found many things, including photos, magazines, books, game controllers, Matt’s X-Box Live headset, CDs, and most-recently several DVDs, shredded to pieces!  This last incident pushed us to take immediate action, so I cleaned out the small bathroom in the basement we rarely used, put in a food and water dish and a pad, and now when we leave the house the dogs stay in there.  That was last Friday.  So far they’ve already pulled up most of the carpet in the bathroom, shredded the foam padding under it, and scratched the bottom of the door to shreds.  They haven’t gotten out though, so we’re not too concerned.  We expected some damage though, so that’s not a shock.

They’ve also taken to “marking” everything in the house! Chairs, couches, doors, etc. etc., leaving us to have to clean, scrub, mop and sanitize everything over and over again.  We tried some Hartz “Stay-off” spray on many areas, but it doesn’t phase them except for a few sneezes.

If anyone has any ideas about how to make the behavior stop (without a huge cash outlay) we’d really appreciate it.  We plan on getting both of them neutered eventually, and we’ve heard this can help with the behavior problems, but we’ve also heard other people that say it didn’t help with anything when they had it done to their dogs.  If you have any ideas please add a comment to this posting or e-mail jim@jimtrottier.com.

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Enjoying the Christmas season

Kevin had a nice Advent program at church tonight. He sang with the other 3 and 4 year olds. Afterward we went to see Christmas Lane and all the wonderful Christmas decorations, and then stopped at the Christmas Train house close to Christmas Lane. It was amazing, as it is every year! Santa was there tonight, talking to the kids and handing out little gifts for the kids. They also had hot chocolate, hot apple cider, snacks and cookies. The train set is a major attraction in Kenosha this time of year, and tonight was no exception. It was a very crowded street tonight, probably because Santa was there. The trains take up this guy’s entire front yard and backyard, and the tracks run throughout, and the trains even travel from the front yard to the backyard! There are a few photos in our albums, but we plan to take a bunch more during the daytime this year to give everyone a good idea of how amazing this setup really is, and to help get the word out and attract even more people! So stay tuned, we should have a new album up soon. Meanwhile, we’ve just posted the pictures from Kevin and his class’s field trip to the Jelly Belly Warehouse, so take a look at those when you get a chance.

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PT Cruiser Block Party

Well, summer is pretty much over.  The weather is cooling down and fall is in the air. We got a 2002 PT Cruiser from Frank Boucher in Racine last Christmas!  Sort of a Christmas gift for Sandy and I from ourselves, except SHE gets to drive it 99% of the time… And we just got back from Chrysler’s PT Block Party last night.  4 free tickets to Great America we just couldn’t pass up!  We had a great time too! Take a look.  Let’s see… what else happened since my last blog… OH!  Peanut’s new too!  He’s our new Chihuahua puppy.  Kevin’s godfather, Rich had male and female Chihuahuas and they had a litter of pups!  He was nice enough to give us first pick, so we chose a male.  He looked like a peanut, so that’s what we named him! We have some newborn photos of him as well as plenty of photos of him at every stage of growth up to now.  He’s not full size yet, and looks a bit short and fat when he goes back to his family to visit.  His twin brother Howard is much taller and skinnier, yet they say he eats like a horse!  He’s doing good, but just now learning to NOT chew on everything in the house, and instead sticking mainly to his own chew toys.   That’s about it for the significant stuff I think.  If not, I’ll post more in the next blog entry.  For a “visual” update of things more often though, be sure to check our Photo Albums page once in a while.  I post photos much more often than blog entries, so you should check there first for updates.  I also send regular e-mail updates to everyone who visits my site on a regular basis, so if you want to be added to the list, please let me know.

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Spring is here

Spring is here! It’s warming up off-and-on around here. In the 70’s yesterday, but extremely windy.  We had a chance to wash one of the cars and go to the park with Kevin, and just spent as much of the day outside as we could.  By the end of the day Kevin was exhausted and cranky.  We have a lot of new photos online now, just in time for spring.  They’re in an album called “Spring 2001”.  You can get to them through our photo albums section or just by clicking here.

Since our last update we have switched from MSN Dial-up to RoadRunner Cable Internet.  WOW, what a difference!  We’re always connected now, no dialing up, and we were able to get rid of our second phone line, which was used just for the computer.  This alone saved us the difference in price between MSN and RoadRunner, so it was definitely worth the price for us, especially with the overall increase in speed! I can download a 5MB MP3 in about 30 seconds, and download most programs and updates in less than a minute!  We’re really happy with it.  I’ve also started a comparison chart here on our site to compare the different speeds.  You can see the results by clicking here, and you can test your own connection and submit your results to me by clicking here.