The New Home of the Lost Children of Monongalia Ave.

Didn't make it.

2009-02-10T19:31:00.002-05:00

I forgot about Westminster!

And Jackie would have been a shoe in... with her tricks and behavior skills training.
Carapp.

Shoot me now.
Fart.

A New Hat

2008-12-17T17:34:00.004-05:00

I have been wanting a winter hat with a hole in it for my ponytail for ages. I haven't been able to find one that fits, though! So, I decided to take matters into my own hands and make one myself. So I toiled and sweated in the back seat of the bus on the way home from Kansas. And this is what I came up with:

Not exactly what I had envisioned, but Chuckie's happy. And I'll keep trying.

Ned meets Killer

2008-12-13T20:23:00.004-05:00

Killer visits the CX National Championships.

Helen Discovers Cookie Dough

2008-11-21T18:23:00.002-05:00

This is Helen's Hog Heaven.

ME, ME, ME!!

2008-11-15T12:05:00.005-05:00

I'M ON FACEBOOK NOW! W00T-
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1635224870

OOK OOK!
BE MY FRIEND PLEASE

ABE.

We said we'd never do it.

2008-11-11T12:48:00.005-05:00

I guess we lied. Sorry, Jackie.

Iron Pookie

2008-10-28T09:48:00.008-04:00

Way to go Abe, you got a Iron Cross for doing two laps out there!

Jackie wants to congratulate you. Good joerb!

Uh oh, looks heavy there little guy.

Oh Nooooo!

But look at all he won!
JR is speechless.

Just Another Day at the Races

2008-09-29T21:14:00.003-04:00

Jackie attended her first cross race this weekend, and was a SuperFan. She intently watched every single race.

Here she is waiting for the big show to begin.

I'm pretty sure she thinks we're all crazy.

At this point, I think she was more interested in chewing gunnar's jersey.

Congrats, Abe

2008-09-22T18:46:00.002-04:00

This is what Abe received for winning the Primate Division of the WVMBA series (plus a big wad of cash, of course). He does love those knobbies of his.

Good Job, ABE!

Jackie Takes a Digger

2008-09-08T18:12:00.002-04:00

Well, no human members of Team Bi-Atch crashed this weekend, but Jackie sure did. I don't even know how it happened, but there she was skittering across the road. I guess she just tripped while running full speed ahead. I am pretty sure it hurt me than it hurt her, though. It didn't seem to phase her, but she did skin her chin, one elbow, and the tops of her paws. I suspect she takes after my side of the family, because we Schauers have always had a tendency to face-plant.

Here she is hanging out under the car with her newest buddy, Luna.

Who wants to play?

2008-09-02T18:23:00.003-04:00

This is pretty much the first thing I see every morning:

No coffee is needed by this little beast.

Out of Control

2008-07-21T18:48:00.003-04:00

gunnar CLAIMS that he obtained this particularly gruesome wound during the race at Mt. Snow, but I think we all know what really happened...

Birthday Boy

2008-07-12T11:38:00.010-04:00

Watch out, World: Abe is turning 16 this weekend.

This means 2 things:
1) There is a new terror on the roads.

beep beep

2) He has been around for exactly 1/2 my life! (I am turning 32 this weekend.)

gunnar doesn't believe me when I say this is what Abe looked like 16 years ago. He also thinks I'll be carrying Abe around in a ziplock baggie in a couple of years.

I guess he has aged a bit, but I think he looks pretty good, considering he has:

been run over by 2 cars (both driven by my dad), (lost an eye, the second time)
been thoroughly saturated with water at least 3 times
almost caught on fire twice (head was smoking)
had multiple surgeries (thanks, Mom)
been to Australia, Scotland, Canada, and Germany

went to Germany by himself for 24 hours (first and last time he's been in checked luggage)

been to 38 states + Wash. D.C.
been stepped on, sat on, squashed, pummeled, teased and taunted more times than he cares to remember

Anyhow, he's been good company these past 16 years. I know that's weird, but a) frankly I don't care, and b) the world would be a better place if we all had a friend like Abe.

Everyone needs fuel

2008-07-06T13:23:00.002-04:00

And everyone loves Hammer Gel!

Junk in her Trunk

2008-06-24T17:38:00.004-04:00

Jackie is concerned that her butt looks big in this picture.

Somewhere, there is a naked turtle

2008-06-16T21:46:00.003-04:00

My mammy is an excellent scavenger, and found a turtle shell out hiking one day. She brought it home, Pops epoxied and shined it up, and VOILA-- Abe has a bike helmet!

Now that he has a jersey and a helmet, he's all set for the Little Belgian races!

Living the Good Life

2008-06-03T22:42:00.005-04:00

Admittedly, Jackie gets away with a bit more than little dD did. I guess that's because we've sadly learned that little furry friends can be gone in a blink of an eye.
That said, it's hard for us to tell Jackie she really shouldn't be up on the couch, especially cuddling that pillow. I am hoping gunnar's mother never sees these photos, b/c her mother made that made the pillow years and years ago, and she probably wouldn't think Jackie looks as cute as we do.

Killer Strikes Again

2008-06-03T22:22:00.004-04:00

This week I am at the American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Expo in lovely Minneapolis. The key word there is "Expo." Expo = lots of free stuff. I have managed to resist most of the stuff, because Lord knows I don't need more pens, magnets, and other diddlies, but this little guy certainly caught my eye with his happy little helmet head and all. Remember, safety first! I've named him Ermi (Environmental Relative Moldiness Index).

Unfortunately, once I got back to the hotel, Ermi's smug grin didn't last long as Killer and his sharp pointy teeth got ahold of him. I guess helmets are no match for a vicious streak a mile wide.

Love Sticks, Love Holes

2008-05-21T09:34:00.005-04:00

Jackie sure does!
Unceasingly in fact.
Always and forever.

These are the sticks that she has brought back from our walks, mostly over at the UHS Short Track and Training Course.
There is a poor Scarecrow underneath there somewhere.
There is also a toothbrush, some lacrosse balls, a baseball, a few pine cones, some chestnuts, a surveyors stake, and a few things weren't not sure of-

And I just found this gem this morning.
Hard to tell how deep it is, but it is, and it's a very nice and cleanly dug hole. She's perfecting her trade-

And here's some of the minefield that used to be our back yard.
It's very dangerous to hang laundry now, but it's worth it to have Jackie be so happy-
Well gosh darn it, can't find what I was looking for. Gotta go, be back in a few...

Well, regardless, some of the others aren't as amused at this, including my mother and these poor guys-

And yes, Willy has on ear protection. Poor little guy.

Another Lost Child

2008-05-15T18:48:00.005-04:00

We have come to that wonderful time of the year when the WVU students are leaving for the summer! This week is always interesting, b/c as you probably know, college students dump a ton of their crap before they leave. It truly amazes me what these kids just throw out instead of donating to Goodwill. Needless to say, gunnar and I are not above dumpster diving, if something catches our eye.

This is what I found on the way home from work on Friday. He was just sitting there on top of a pile of trashed furniture.

Can you believe these kids? I mean a) poor Pooh, and b) I wonder if it ever crossed their mind that some kid might love a giant Pooh??! He really is brand-new.

Here he is making friends with my old big Pooh, who I rescued from a garage sale when I was 4 years old. It's kind of neat to see the old and new version of Pooh. Anyhow, the new big Pooh won't be around for long, b/c we will give him to Christian Crossings and some little kid will be thrilled to get him.

Take Your Kid to Work Day

2008-04-24T22:33:00.003-04:00

Since I always like to support NIOSH sponsored programs, I brought some Kids to work today for the official Take Your Kid to Work Day. I hate to say it, but I think my Kids were by far the cutest ones there.

No, I do not plan to ever grow up.

Anyhow, Abe and Cheet-O were most helpful and helped me out with creating a poster with Power Point, and even answered the dreaded phone for me.
For lunch I walked down to Sheetz and got them some treats.

By the end of the day, they were more than ready to go home, though, as I always am.

Jackie and Willie spent the day digging more deep holes in the backyard.

Mini-Cooper

2008-04-07T20:04:00.005-04:00

Abe made a friend while visiting Wisconsin.

Jackie has a boyfriend

2008-03-29T15:41:00.007-04:00

This is Ivan.

He is a Rob's purebred Estate Doberman puppy, whose official name is Something-or-other D-84 Ivan Von G-Force. He's 7 months old and weighs 78 lbs, but he will eventually weigh about 120-130 pounds and could pretty much crunch Jackie in half if he wanted to.

Fortunately, he doesn't mind playing with a little mutt from the other side of the tracks, and Jackie even puts him in his place a time or two.

She likes to show off by having him chase her through tight spots and up, down, all around. The little tease even flirts with danger by stealing his bone and taunting him with it.

Unfortunately, the fun ends with a bath.

Ready for Racing

2008-03-27T18:46:00.004-04:00

I must say I think my mammy went above and beyond the call of duty. Thanks to her excellent seamstress skills, Abe is now ready to serve as my own personal domestique. Thanks, Mammy!!!

eye did itt

2008-03-15T11:32:00.002-04:00

wurkd aun mummees fon nd komptr nd thai r styl wurkng!
awl bi mi selv.
cheetoe

Patience

2008-03-13T21:50:00.004-04:00

Don't worry, Jackie-- spring will be here soon!

Welcome to Arizona

2008-02-26T18:19:00.009-05:00

Abe and Cheet-o became intimately familiar with the foliage of AZ.

Ow, ow, ow!!!!!

"We'll be taking these Huggies and whatever cash ya got"

2008-02-15T20:35:00.014-05:00

"And make it quick, we're in dutch with the folks."

* from the movie "Raising Jackie"

old Poopie Pants

Caution: Parental Discretion Advised

2008-01-28T19:17:00.001-05:00

As gunnar hinted, we've had some turmoil in the Shogren household. Jackie is one stealthy and persistent little mongrel, that's for sure. Somehow she snuck into the bedroom and ate Cheet-o's eyeballs. Poor gunnar was the one to find our sweet Cheet-o; I can only imagine his horror. I was pretty chagrined when I got the call at work.
After I raced home as fast as my legs could carry me, I scrounged around until I found a fresh set of googly eyes (the last pair!), and it was time for a little surgery.
Here's poor Cheet-o as I first saw him.
Wave at the camera, Cheet-o! Hey, over here!
The next picture might make you recoil in horror. Poor little guy.
Fortunately, I am an experienced surgeon with this type of thing.
Voila!!!! They might need a little breaking in...

I know Cheet-o's eyes must look mighty tempting to the young Jackie (either that or she's tired of him staring at her), so I ordered a gross of googly eyes on-line and am fully prepared to perform more transplants (but I hope I don't have to!).

Hi, my name is Jackie and I have a little piggy nose. Now go away so I can eat gunnar's shoe.

Terror Attacks!

2008-01-25T16:08:00.000-05:00

And attacks some more just for good measure!

I'm afraid there's no love between the kids and Jackie.
This might take a while for the wounds to heal and forgiveness to be dispersed.
Oh my.

Poor kids...

Mutton, Anyone?

2008-01-23T19:45:00.000-05:00

Well, it was only a matter of time before Jackie got ahold of one of the Kids. This little sheep took one for the team. Twice.
Last night the sheep was known as "Gimpy," seeing as one of his legs had been brutally amputated by Jackie during the afternoon. Today, I guess she sniffed him out again and did him a favor by evening out his appendages. He is now a Corgi-Sheep.
Henceforth he shall be known as "Stumpy."

It's really hard to chastise this little face.

Her Name is

2008-01-20T20:02:00.002-05:00

Jackie O Amy Winky Thumper Shogren

We couldn't stand her not having a name any longer.

Jackie-O, from The B-52's, 52 Girls
Jackie, from Jackie French, who wrote Diary of a Wombat
Jackie, from The Misfits, Bullet
Jackie, short for Jackal

Amy, like Winehouse, cause Jackie wears eye makeup too, not that Jackie has issues...

Winky, from Best of Show

And what ever else you can infer from anything.

Whew.
Now we can get along with our lives...

New Kid On The Block!

2008-01-19T17:48:00.000-05:00

So we finally did it, went out and got another doggie.

Betsy had been poking about on petfinder.com for quite some time now, so I decided that when I got my final Xmas gift from her (a Slusho shirt!, http://slusho.jp) I'd give her a card entitling her to one pound puppy.
That was Thursday evening, it's now Saturday, and we've had our dog since about noon.

We got her at the Humane Society of Harrison County.
We hadn't decided on her yet, in fact the picture that they had of her really wasn't all that great looking, but we picked there first because they were open, they didn't require a home visit, and I was sure that once we went in a shelter that we'd find a suitable creature no matter where we went. We wanted to give some doggie another chance.

They had named her Thumper, and here's the photo they had on the site-

They had a few other suitable doggies, and any of them would have been great, but she was the sweetest at first and tried really hard to push on the fence when Betsy was petting her. We petted them all, and they were all nice. Too nice, cause we had to make a decision, and it wasn't going to be easy.

But we ended up taking her home.
Everyone should take a dog home from a shelter.

Once we got her home we let her sniff everywhere and most everything. She didn't even start to attack any of the numerous kids hanging around in very exposed places.
Here's a pretty good shot of her and the cute face-

Betsy really likes her freckled ear-

I like her almost "Corgi" or some other dog look to her face, just can't place it just yet-

Got a pretty thick coat of short ivory hair. Little somewhat turned up nose. And right now a pink little belly from her recent operation. She's a bit larger than Anni, but I'm sure they're going to be good buddies and JR promised that they'd be up this next week to get acquainted and play.
She's also kind of weird/normal looking sometimes when you view her from the side-

But you know, she's only about 8 months old, she's still got some growing to do and she's spent the last couple months living in a shelter.
We think she's plenty wonderful just how she is right now.

Got plenty of spunk too as she drug Betsy *up* from the Dog Park (yes, we took her to the Dog Park already. Wanted to see Dave M. and also cause dD never wanted or would go).
*Up* all the steps and I was forced to play catch up to them. Our new critter likes to go hard!

The rest of the kids are a little leery, but I'm sure as long as she doesn't chew, mangle, or maim them everything will be just fine in our little home-

Someone, somewhere had decided that she was a Jack Russel Mix, which I'm not so sure about, but hey, she's probably got a bit of lots in her.

We're think of naming her Jackie (as in Jackie O) or maybe Cory. We'd better think of something soon though.
Also, she was a birthday gift for Cheeto, though he's not super sure of that decision now...

Night At The Museum

2008-01-13T00:10:00.001-05:00

Has nothing on us here.

Really.

Let's hear it for Dan and the weekend!

2008-01-11T17:29:00.000-05:00

I must have been downstairs at the time,

But Dan from casdorphpiano.com fame and fortune stopped over and dropped off some payment for services rendered.
He had originally agreed on giving me a 6-pack of cheap beer for the work, but K-Roger doesn't carry the 6ers of PBR, so he had to go with the 30 Can Case!

Before I was able to get up and check it out, the kids had drug it off the side-porch, opened the Big Box O'PBR, found their respective places in the living room and started throwing back a few-

Man, what a time!
The last two episodes of the first Season of LOST!
We watched the first one, then took a walk (well some just stayed and drank more), then came back, made a little pizza, refreshed our ice-cold ones, and settled in for the finale-

Then watched the bonus features of course.
Soon enough we all fell asleep worrying about Walt, the Others, and wondering what the noises were around us.
Yikes.

I must say, we're all ready for a little bit of the weekend, aren't we?

Well, that's no ordinary rabbit.

2008-01-10T12:40:00.001-05:00

"That's the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!"

This is our new friend and pal.
Betsy got him for me for Xmas. He's a "Rabbit With Big Pointy Teeth".
Cheeto's pretty excited to greet him, but looks a bit wary too, perhaps he has good reason, or perhaps Cheeto always looks a bit wary-

"My you do have some *big pointy teeth*, yes siree, I can see them quite clearly now"-

Don't get too close Cheeto, we don't quite know how our new friend is going to act around others, especially one's with nice soft noses and other parts.

Uh oh, I think we now know what our friend likes to do-

Oh my Cheeto, looks like he's really got quite a good grip on you.
Do try and get away would you?
Whatever you do, don't let him get on top!

Well at least you're still focused on him-

Good move Cheeto!
If you're lucky at all he'll loosen his grip and fall to the floor.
And if you're luckier still he won't still have your foot-

Well Cheeto's probably going to be ok... in a while. Though he certainly did get quite the scare. But little cute band-aids make all sorts of things feel better and those Hell* Kitty one's we have did just the trick-

Oh yeah, our "Rabbit with Big Pointy Teeth" is named Killer.
He may have a "vicious streak a mile wide", but we're doing a pretty good job of keeping him at bay and off the noses of others.

Welcome to the family Killer!

Everyone Needs TV Time!

2008-01-08T22:04:00.000-05:00

Even Mac.
Mac's a nice little fellow and when he's not hanging out w/ the others in the bag, or laying around the place, or in a box, well, he likes to watch the screen.
It's not a big screen, it's a screen that's more his size-

Everyone loves to bask in its salubrious glow-

"Say Mac, where we headed?"

Let Us In!

2008-01-05T16:35:00.000-05:00

gunnar got us a new penquin for our winter arctic animal display. He's terribly cute, with that little bowtie!!

We were gone for a few days, and when we came home, they had disappeared from their stations and were clamoring to get in the front door!

I guess they wanted to join all the other Kids for fun and games.

How does this thing work??

2007-11-06T20:09:00.001-05:00

Hmmmm, technology!!!