Craig & Min-Ah - Home Blog

Show Your Support for Ducks Unlimited

2010-06-28T16:27:00.000-07:00

Ducks Unlimited is a great charity who does a lot for the environment. We may not see immediate results of their work but they make a huge difference behind the scenes. Please consider giving a little to them...click on the DU banner above to give, every little bit helps. Thanks.

Tira the Hunter

2010-06-09T15:44:00.000-07:00

Tira caught two more birds. Here's the new tally:

            Birds       Bugs       Gophers       Lizards       Moles       Squirrels     
          10       Lots       3       1       2       6

Snake!

2010-06-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

The other day I finally got around to cutting down a 20ft tall hedge-like tree on the corner of our house. I checked it out for bird nests (the other tree had robin eggs in it so I waited to cut that one down) and saw none so I started sawing it down with an electric chain saw. After I got a few vertical limbs cut down, my dog got Tira got really excited and was looking my way. I went to her and looked around thinking she saw a bird, butterfly, or squirrel but didn't see anything so I went back to the tree to get back to work. The next limb I cut down was a big one and when it hit the ground I saw a 5ft shiny black snake slithering away as fast as it could go. Tira had seen the snake in the tree over my head. I hated to think what would have happened if it had fallen on me when I was cutting the tree down...

I identified the snake as a black rat snake and let it be...not scared of it but I don't like snakes (that's the one thing I have in common with Indiana Jones). The snake picture below isn't the actual snake in our yard...just a snake photo I found that's of the same type as the one we have.

Our Three Favorita AGT Auditions

2010-06-02T05:55:00.000-07:00

Here's our three favorite acts from America's Got Talent. Hope you enjoy them as much as we did.

My First Recipe

2010-05-23T16:55:00.000-07:00

I made spaghetti today using my original recipe. It delicious and easy to make, I've make it dozens of times and for some reason decided to write the recipe down to share. Hopefully, someone else will like it as well which may encourage me to write down my other recipes...

Craig's Spaghetti Sauce Recipe (53KB)

Tira's New Trick

2010-05-10T13:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Tira showed off a new trick she learned. While looking for birds in a hedge, she figured out that if she stood on her back two leg with her front legs on the bush, leaned backwards, and lunged forward onto the bush (like a bear trying to knock someone out of a tree) she could force any birds hiding inside to fly out. She did this a few times and made quite a few birds leave, almost catching one. Not sure how she figured this out but she's proving to be a smart little hunter.

Tira v. The Bird

2010-04-11T11:40:00.000-07:00

Every morning Tira runs outside to look at and listen to all the birds. Two mornings ago she was so infatuated with the birds chirping she sat under a tree for maybe 30-45 minutes. When she came in Min-Ah screamed and called me. Tira had been pooped on by the birds as she sat under the tree looking for birds. I thought this was really ironic and funny but promptly gave her a quick bath. I doubt Tira cared about the mess on her back...

Photo Gallery Update

2010-04-03T15:19:00.000-07:00

We (finally) moved into our new house and got FIOS installed. The added speed versus our old DSL means we can upload all full-sized photos to the photo galleries section.

Tira's Fans

2010-01-30T05:50:00.000-08:00

Tira's only been in Virginia for a week but in that time we've had three people pull their vehicles over (two were driving down the main road) and say how good looking she was and ask about her. She's also had dozens of people stop us on the sidewalk and ask about her. This is while the temperature's hovering near or below freezing...

We need to keep an eye on her and make sure she's not being stalked...

New Blogs

2009-12-29T16:26:00.001-08:00

I've migrated all the blogs from the style built into RapidWeaver to http://blogger.com This gives me more options and makes it easier to organize the blogs. Plus I can add, edit, or delete blogs away from my computer which is something I'll probably never use :)

Trapped! The Mike Turner Story

2009-12-29T16:26:00.000-08:00

I had this story buried within my site and I wanted to bring it to light. It's my favorite story taken from Backpacker Magazine. I hope you like it as much as I did. Click on the .pdf icon below to view the story...

trapped.pdf (143KB)

The Tragedy of the Commons

2009-12-29T16:24:00.000-08:00

This is a reprint of Gerrit Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons which is a classic environmental report on how we all share certain environmental conditions. Click on the .pdf icon below to view the story...

traagedyofthecommons.pdf (86KB)

Quick Story About Socialism

2009-12-28T15:04:00.000-08:00

A coworker sent this to me and I think it’s pretty clever:

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class.
That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".
All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.
As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.
The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.
All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.
Could not be any simpler than that.

Tools Used to Create the Site

2009-11-01T08:23:00.000-08:00

I've been asked what toold I use to create this site so I'd like to list the software I use. If you have any questions about anything, please let me know.

I use RapidWeaver for the following pages:

Home
About
Contact
Gallery Selection Page
Recipes
Thoughts
Tira's Movie

The theme is a heavily modified version of Blueball Design's High-Def Color theme which was modded using CSSEdit

The photo galleries are stored in iPhoto; taken from my digital camera or scanned via XSane; edited by Gimp, Pixelmator, Acorn, and/or Picturesque; generated by iWeb; and linked via RapidWeaver.

The movies are taken from my digital camera and converted to .flv using ffmpeg (CLI) or VideoFlashConverter.

All files are FTP'ed either by RapidWeaver or Forklift. Seems like a lot of work but I want things to look a certain way and am willing to take some time to do it right. I had tried to migrate the entire site to Drupal or Joomla (server-side content management system) but didn't want to learn PHP and thought the site was slower.

Still at It

2009-07-06T18:52:00.000-07:00

The other day I noticed a gopher hole near our backyard patio so I stuck a hose in the hole and went inside. You can Tira was very interested and was watching. About five minutes later I looked outside and Tira was gone so I went outside to see what she was up to. She was acting funny and I later saw she had a gopher in her mouth.

Tira and I are now tied with the number of gophers we’ve each caught... I need to read some books on gopher catching so I can regain the throne!

Tira at the Beach

2008-10-18T15:51:00.000-07:00

We took Tira to the beach and let her run wild for the first time. She was running as fast as she could go chasing birds, sniffing things, and just looking around. When I’d call or blow my dog whistle she’d respond and trot in our general direction before returning to us. We were almost done for the day when she saw a bird that she really wanted to catch. She ran after it and kept going and going until she was a long ways away from us. I called, blew the whistle, and tried to get her attention but she was in the zone. Tira may have been over 1/4 mile away when she ran into a couple walking. Luckily, the bird changed direction or flew away and Tira started coming back. All the while I was running after her. When I finally caught her, I hooked her back up to her lead and we played a while longer before going home.

Not sure I’ll do that again but it was fun. A couple of photos of Tira’s beach run are in her photo album.

Tira's First Real Walk

2008-10-13T14:27:00.000-07:00

Today we went on a 1.5 mile walk at Punch Bowl Lake, a fairly well isolated location. As usual, Tira was going nuts chasing all the butterflies. After we got a little ways down the road and away from any chance of traffic, we decided to unhook her from her 26ft leash and let her run wild. I was a little worried she’d forget about us and just chase birds and bugs but Min-Ah wasn’t too concerned. Tira did run like crazy but always kept us in sight. When we called to her she came running back to us. It was obvious she was happy with her tail wagging and her tongue swinging around.

Next week we’re going to take her to the beaches that were just reopened. I hope she’s just as good...I’m bringing the camera this time and the dog whistle.

Can You Beat This?

2008-05-19T15:53:00.000-07:00

Finally broke the 2200 barrier in Wii Tennis.

Tira's First Haircut

2008-05-01T11:36:00.000-07:00

We just gave Tira her first haircut using our new Oster Protege clippers (and a #10 blade, no comb or guard). We literally filled a grocery bag with the hair we clipped off her. She looks totally different and so much better.

Almost Bowled 300 in Wii Bowling

2008-03-09T10:01:00.000-07:00

I went into the tenth frame of Wii Bowling and choked on the second ball. So close...and I've almost done this two times and choked both times...Min-ah's high score is actually 290. of course, I didn't bother taking a picture to prove it :)

New Picnic Table

2008-02-16T20:17:00.000-08:00

Just built two picnic tables, one for us and another for a friend. We think they came out nice, although mine has shims underneath on the braces. Took the two of us about six hours to put two tables together. The plans are here.

Welcome!

2007-12-30T20:57:00.000-08:00

Welcome to our homepage, hope you find something useful or interesting.