We Are Adopting!

Before Valli and I got married we talked about dogs. We both like dogs. We talked briefly about having a dog of our own someday. It went something like this, I think.

Hey Valli, one day I’d like a dog. Like a German Shepherd. That would be awesome, right?

Ok Honey.

Maybe a year later we got married and I decided to bring it up again. That conversation went a lot differently than I had planned. Turns out Valli and I were polar opposites on nearly every aspect on dog ownership. I said when I get back from Afghanistan, she was thinking more like three or five years down the road. I was thinking keep the dog inside, she wants it outside. She wanted fixed, I wanted all natural. I wanted a purebred pup, she wanted an inexpensive or free/rescued full-grown dog that was already trained. I was thinking companion and family member, she was thinking security system. We were as far from the same page as we could imagine. We have never disagreed on anything as much as we have over the hypothetical dog.

But after discussing the subject again and again, after reading all the books, after digging up every concern, after lots of compromises (mostly on the part of my saintly wife of whom I am completely undeserving) and a firm understanding that I owe her big time! -we have reached a consensus.

And here it is.




This little guy, or one of his brothers, will be coming home with us in January. He's a German Shepherd. Mom and Dad are both 85 pound working dogs. The plan also entails that I will ensure he is trained to be prefectly behaved on his own and around children by the time I leave for the next (and last) deployment in about 2 years. Bonus points if he will "maul-slash-scare-the-urine-out-of" people when Valli decides they are threatening, bothersome, or especially annoying. He will be a full-time outside dog except for very special occasions. I will handle all fencing (before the wee one gets here), housing, and waste disposal issues. A Valli has been doing great at finding deals on the internet for pet crates, buried fences, and other neat dog items. There are still other details to iron out but on the whole we have reached a settlement. We are both looking forward to bringing him home.

Valli's thought's: "Looking forward to bringing Dave home soon."

Meet Me In Saint Louis

This weekend we went to St Louis.  A first for both of us.  We had a great time.  This trip was engineered by my wife- who came into possession of a pair of major league baseball tickets.  A friend of hers from work had the tickets but the game was rained out. But the friend couldn't go on the reschudualed date.  He offered them to said wife instead- woohoo!  We drove the 250 some miles Saturday morning to beautiful St Louie.  Downtown was really impressive.  The new Busch Stadium and The Arch are both next to the river and only a couple blocks away from each other.  We watched the game- Cardinals vs Brewers.  

 

We were almost the only people NOT wearing red in the entire stadium.  There were 3 guys in the same section as we were- Milwaukee fans and all wearing blue jerseys- resolutely cheering against the overwhelming boos that erupted every time the Cards got spanked.  No booing from the boys in blue though.  We were a pretty long way up though.  They were probably scared of getting thrown over the railing.  At least they weren't Cubs fans.  The second-most-popular apparel at the game behind Cards paraphernalia was "Cubs Suck" shirts.  So the game was cool.  Our seats were in the shade.  And there were lots of entertaining little blurbs and gimmicks in between each inning. I was disappointed that there wasn't any free stuff getting passed out for the early birds- like they did at the Oakland A's games I went to as a kid.  It costs $4.50 for a bottle of water.  Gay.

 
I touched it!  I touched it!



Cheese.                                                                                                                                    

After the game we walked around the waterfront and checked out The Arch.  Elevator tickets were sold out for the next 5 hours so we didn't go inside.  The weather was sunny and HOT.  We splashed around in a fountain to cool off a little and went down to the free St Louis Zoo.  It was small as far as acres go, but they had a lot of really neat animals. It had a suprising number of endangered and nearly extinct animals- like the Amur Tiger, and the Mountain Gorilla.  
We tried to see all of these first and take their pictures in case they are all gone by the time my kids are old enough to start appreciating them.  The one constantly crappy thing about the zoo were the people in it- and especially the kids.  I look at going to the zoo like going to a museum.  There should be a little respect and reverence observed for all the poor captive suffering animals.  Especially the ones who are on the brink of extinction.  At one point a little Hispanic boy and his fat mommy were hitting the glass on the other side of which was leaning a pair of resting chimpanzee.  I dearly wanted to pound on the glass with her fat stupid face and then feed her kid to something.  There was a shirtless white trash hill-billy whooping and hollering into the gorilla enclosure, and a black all-girl family big enough to pass as a school field trip in which every member litterally screamed every pithy, ignorant thought that passed through their narrow, closed minds.  (I am not racist- I hate all stupid people the same)
 

  My wife taming a black mamba.                                               

Otherwise- It was an amazing experience.  Almost all the enclosures were clean, dynamic, and inhabited.  The grounds were beautiful, and the animals inside all looked healthy, and only slightly dazed and neurotic.  The highest point for me was getting to feed a giraffe.  I wished my wife got to as well.  As soon as the other patrons saw what I did, there was a tsunami of children.  Some were literally climbing over the fences and into the pens to hold up handfuls of grass.  Concerned parents assuage this with- "Billy, do you really think you should be inside the giraffe cage?"  Nice job, dad.  We split quickly before anyone got trampled- and have it pinned on my bad example.  My other favorite thing was getting to watch the chimps from really close up.  They are awesome- and seem so smart.  After watching them for a while I half expected them to look up and start talking.
We didn't get home until almost two in the morning on Sunday but we had a great time.  Hope you like the pictures.  We finally got our camera replaced.