I love taking Nali to one of the nicest off-leash dog trails around, a quick 2.5-mile trail out at Emma Long Park called Turkey Creek (http://www.austinparks.org/apfweb/park.php?parkId=666). With recent rains, the creek was flowing quickly, the weather was a perfect 65 degrees, and my Vibrams were perfect water-mud-rock combo shoes.

Nali, my beloved rescue mutt pup, used to be scared of water. But bringing her to Turkey Creek where she HAD to cross the water and letting her play with other dogs at Red Bud Isle who aren’t afraid has really brought her out of her shell.

Happy dog=Happy Lyssa.

u’z not doin well at dis game hooman u jus lost anuther ball down teh hole

sumfing is blokking mah pokkit.

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Last night our sleepy little village came to like.  It was our annual Toy Bingo fundraiser event and it felt like most of the village showed up.  The funds from this years bingo went to our local library.  Which, now that I am on the library board, I am very aware of just how much money it takes to run a small library in rural Alberta…and just how lucky our little village is to have  library.

So, after a quick supper of nachos, I hugged and kissed my family good-bye, checked my wallet for cash and headed out the door.  Firstly, I was struck at just how lovely last night was.  It wasn’t too cool.  I was in capri’s and a sweater…and for those of you know about Alberta weather at the end of November…what I was wearing was amazing.  Thankfully, we live right in the village so I was able to get there on my own steam.  I wasn’t the only one walking though.  It honestly felt like I was living in a Normal Rockwell picture.  People were coming out of their homes.  I could smell smoke from chimney’s and back yard fire pits.  People were laughing and talking with one another as we all made our way to the local rec center.  If you living in a more urban environment you don’t often get to experience how dark it can be out in the country.  Even though it was just supper time, the sky was black and there were a zillion little stars shinning over head.  If I had never made it to the bingo, I was more than happy just being outside, taking it all in.

Our little rec center was packed with players ready to win some toys.  Bingo for toys is my kind of gambling.  I didn’t win anything, but my money was going to one of my favorite places in our village…the library.  It was nice to sit in a room with your village and know so many of the faces there.  It sort of felt like one big family.  I shared my table with a group of friends, none of us winners of toys.  We drank pops ate candy and dabbed and dabbed and dabbed the night away.  It was so much fun.

Last night was a blast for me.  This was my first time going to the Toy Bingo…..the last years I haven’t felt very much like being a part of this village.  Now though, things are different.  I am different.  The change has been great.  It is after nights like these, nights where my world is small and safe.  Where I can knock on my neighbours door to watch my sleeping kids while my friend lets me borrow her suv to drive my sitter home, that reconfirmed for me, why we moved out into the country.  Now, if I could just convince Panago’s to drive out here for delivery, my life would be perfect!

The other day, Kathy and Stephen went to the craft market. Sitting on one of those dark wooded high back chairs (starting low on the ground) was a Rastafarian looking fellow playing what looked like a Djembe. Stephen was enthralled. After some time of what could have only been a piercing study (by a 26 month old) Stephen set out to find a Djembe he liked by testing a few. The Rastafarian looking fellow continued to play his own Djembe. Satisfied, Stephen found one he liked and sat on an empty chair next to the drummer. Obviously Kathy did not have a camera with her – Murphy’s Law in full effect; but many others did – if you were one of them please send a picture. For a while the Rastafarian showed Stephen how to play the Djembe, and Stephen copied as well as he could. I wish I was there.
So now it’s settled – I will be getting one of these drums for Stephen, gulp.
Anyway, here is Stephen playing drums (has sound) – very cool

Yoda says it’s a good idea to play a bit with Petey in the apartment after we come back from a walk before I put him back in his crate.  So, he doesn’t get the idea that being in the apartment = only being in the crate = a punishment.

So, sometimes we’ll play tug-of-war with his rope toy, and sometimes we’ll roughhouse, and sometimes I just lay on my back and let him lick the hell out of my face as much as I can stand it.

Well, sometimes Petey gets a little carried away and uses his teeth along with his tongue.  He’s bitten my lip once or twice, and my nose, as you can see in this picture.  It really hurt, and I reflexively cried out Ouch! (Samadar says crying a fake Ouch! sound is a good way to teach him not to jump up on people.  Like, just like how he’d yelp if I stepped on his tail or hurt him, a dog can understand you crying out as meaning that you’re feeling pain.  So if you make an Ouch! sound when he jumps  up, he’ll begin to understand it hurts people when he jumps up on them.  Even if it doesn’t really hurt, in theory it can get him to stop the behavior.  We’re trying it.)

What do you think, Marcia?

Anyway, it was really hurting, so I stuck my finger in there to dig for gold to check and see if I was bleeding, and yep, I was!  Petey had totes broke the skin.  Good thing he’s had that rabies shot, or else…

é.. hAEUhaeuae isso mesmo

mas acho q é fake , sei la… vale apena

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We have received this Restaurant City real life story from xnadchrist – thank you xnadchrist for sharing your story with us. It just goes to show, there is plenty of things to do in Restaurant City and the game is ever evolving. We at Playfish are always working to improve the game experience for all our players. You defintely have not seen the best of Restaurant City yet!

I remember when my boys were young and a few people told me I had them involved in to many things. I didn’t think they were. I saw this on a special report the other night and started to think about it.

This report reminded me of my niece who danced ALL THE TIME. Everyday she had dance. Not only did she have dancing but it was at “the best” dance studio in Minneapolis and wasn’t anywhere near their home. There was a lot of driving involved not to mention the money spent. But it’s all she got to do. Like the gymnast in the story. She finally got tired of never doing anything with her friends so when she got to high school, she quit dance and got to do everything in high school and not just dance.

My kids started out playing an instrument and they both played baseball. Jason played hockey one year and then switched over to basketball. Toby tried a bunch of different things like wrestling, karate and he really liked his guns. They also had Sunday school and confirmation. They only did one thing per season.They both also had swimming lessons all winter at the jr high school. I guess my point is that we didn’t race from one thing to another and they only did the things they wanted to do. I never made them do anything but they did have to finish what they started. Toby hated basketball but I made him finish the season and told him he didn’t have to play again.

Do you think kids now are involved in to many things? Do you think kids just play enough? I always thought playing was very important.

Today ex-New Jersey Nets and former NBA star Jayson Williams sad, and long drawn out self-inflicted downfall both personally and financially is about to come to a conclusive resolve. The retired NBA star accepted a plea deal in  his shooting case, and will face prison.

A person with knowledge of the case against retired NBA star Jayson Williams says the former player has agreed to a plea deal that would send him to prison for up to three years for shooting a driver55-year-old limousine driver Costas ”Gus” Christofi at Williams’s estate .

It has been reported that Williams was playing with a shotgun while giving a tour of his 30,000-square home when the weapon fired, killing Christofi.

In 1992, Williams was accused of breaking a beer mug over a patron’s head at a saloon in Chicago. Two years later, he was accused of firing a semiautomatic weapon into the parking lot at the Meadowlands Sports Complex. He was never criminally charged in either case,which led to him being free to murder the innocent driver in cold blood.

A report concerning the case is quoted here from Wikipedia….

That April, Williams was acquitted of the more serious charges against him, but the court’s jury deadlocked on a charge of reckless manslaughter, and he currently faces a retrial on that charge. He was convicted on four counts of trying to cover up the shooting. In January 2003, the family of Costas ”Gus” Christofi settled with Williams in a wrongful death civil lawsuit for $2.75 million.

On April 21, 2006, a Hunterdon County appeals court ruled that Williams can be retried on a reckless manslaughter charge stemming from the shooting death of Christofi.^[2][3] The court repeatedly delayed the retrial for a series of reasons, such as the State’s 2008 appeal of a ruling relating to prosecutorial misconduct at the first trial.^[4] A September 2009 hearing is expected to resolve the misconduct issue so that the retrial can begin.^[5] The maximum sentence for the charged manslaughter is 10 years…. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayson_Williams

Williams had been offered plea deals that would have allowed him to spend less time in jail, but they were turned down by the defense attorneys.

Maybe it has something to do with his contentious divorce he is going through with his wife Tanya Young Williams.

She filed the divorce papers on Valentine’s day of this year, because she is mad and fed up with the conflicted Williams. 

The divorce papers were filed in the Manhattan Supreme Court just hours before the seventh anniversary of the day Jayson fatally shot his limo driver in his New Jersey mansion after a booze-fueled night spent entertaining a some Harlem Globetrotters and friends. 

In the papers filed Tanya alleges that Williams threatened to kill her, faked committing suicide, falsely said that he had stomach cancer and urinated in the kitchen sink. His wife also allegedly found cocaine and condoms in his drawer, sources familiar with the case said.

Tanya Williams, who is black, also claims in the court papers that he cruelly bragged to her that he performed oral sex “on white girls.”

“Here is a guy who has spent wildly and dissipated marital assets and has, of course, acted reckless and been just absent, violent and not a father, not a husband,” said her lawyer, Malcolm Taub.

That sounds like a reason to want to be locked away in prison for as many years as possible.

One of the earlier offers, the person said, came just before a hearing last month on whether a racial slur used by a detective and other conduct by the county prosecutor’s office should result in dismissal of the reckless manslaughter count and the cover-up convictions.

 State Superior Court Judge Edward Coleman later rejected the defense’s claim that, had they known about the slur, they would have changed their trial strategy.

If calling a black perpetrator of a murder or any crime at all a racial slur, in this case it was the ”N” word, is the grounds to be acquitted of a crime, then a lot of brothers in prison would be set free, and some of them need to stay there.

I am not condoning the vile usage of the word by any race of law men, but I think the murder trumps the racial slur.I say send the person that used it to sensitivity training, but it is an insult to the deceased family, to allow it to be used as a grounds for dismissal.

I contend that the deliberate use of a racial slur is basically bad behavior, but the use of it in this investigation had no affect on the trial of Jayson Williams, and would not have been used to impeach any of the evidence. It simply was an O.J. Simpson style of racial defense, but the dynamics are incredibly different.

There are some actual occurences where it could be used to impeach a witness, or cast suspicion on an investigator, and the false usage here only diminishes the relevance of the real cases. We need to stop using race as an excuse for all of our bad behavior, and I can see how that might frustrate a lot of white people who  generally are not racist, but may not be held up as examples of racially sensitive beings…I mean are any of us immune to being imperfectly human,…I don’t think so.

Jayson Williams will plead guilty to aggravated assault charges on Friday and will have to serve at least 18 months in prison.

That should give him time to think about how to deal with his soon to be ex-wife, as well as make it difficult for her to get at him.

I used to admire Jayson Williams, because his father was a construction contractor just like my dad, and he, just like me, had been involved in expanding the family business. I also saw on a documentary about him, how he actually helped build his expansive estate, along with his now deceased father. It reminded me of my own family, except without the NBA money and fame.

It is truly sad for me to see how he made a shamble of his life, and I can only hope he gets it together.

For more details on these sad developments for Jayson Williams, click on the links below…

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4670272

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/regional/item_2mrfaFcTI6sqKNk1E1UCvM

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/11/19/general-nj-jayson-williams-plea_7140600.html

chek awt mah squeaky toy!