What kid wouldn’t want this?

Okay, this action figure is sold from Dragon in Dreams, and it DOES NOT come with the ninja swords and light saber. But with a few accessories from other action figures, you can make your own dream Obama action figure just like the ones pictured here.

Did you see that seen in Monsters, Inc where the big beasty gets shaved down and has to wear that cone over his head after being touched by a child’s sock?

Thats what my doggy looks like – shaved down with a cone over her head.

The surgery went well. They removed the fatty tumor on her leg and she is doing well. They took a biopsy so they can analyze it and see if it is malignant. For now, though, Purdy is uncomfortable but healthy and active.

Before surgery

After surgery

Purdy, in her younger days

Today, our dog, Purdy, goes in for surgery. She has a fatty growth on her leg that has gotten quite huge, and the vet finally decided that it needed to come off. She went in this morning at 9:00, and will be spending the night.

She’s an old dog, about 14 years old, so there is some concern about the surgery. But I am confident that everything will come out well.

Because graphs are funny. Right?

. . what do you mean “no, not really.”?

I missed the Inauguration ceremonies. Not that I cared about most of it, but it would have been nice to see the swearing-in of the new president Live. It was a truly historic moment.

My wife is having massive back-pains so I made dinner last night. Started making chicken tenders and creamed corn. Burned the creamed corn somehow, so we had chicken tenders and green beans, although I ate some of the burnt creamed corn just to prove it wasn’t that bad.

It was.

Today i’ve decided to start a new diet, since the diet I’ve been on since New Years has only lost me 1 pound. This new diet is called the Every Other Day (EOD) Diet. The idea is that on “Feast” days, you eat what you want (you aren’t supposed to go out of your way to stuff yourself, but you just eat what you normally would if you weren’t dieting). On “Fast” days you don’t eat anything (although you are allowed sugarless gum and diet sodas – and water of course).

I’ve actually done some research on this diet.

The advantages are:

• It is sustainable. Since you don’t have to deny yourself any of your favorite foods for longer than a day, it is easy to stick with.
• It works. Of course, any diet works if you stick to it. The trouble is sticking to it.
• It may have similar benefits to a Calorie Restricted Diet. It’s been known for well over a year that a Calorie Restricted diet will not only make you very thin, but may also prolong life by 20 – 30%.

Disadvantages:

• Crankiness on “Fast” days. Seriously, this is listed as the primary disadvantage of this diet over other diets. Which is stupid, since i’d rather be cranky every other day than every day.

So, what else is going on. . .

Work is work. We’ve been a bit busy. I’m doing a lot of viscosity and density measurments. Doing some other work involving inks as well, but I fear to go into details because I don’t want to get “Deuced” (for those who don’t know, getting “Deuced” means getting fired for things you write on your blog — apparently it happens often enough for them to have come up with a term for it).

Lastly. Amber is leaving for college again on Sunday. We’ll miss her for the most part.

Yesterday we got a pleasant surprise. Alaxis’ mother brought Alaxis by for a visit!

This after we had resigned ourselves to never seeing her again, out of the blue, Jen brought her over. It was great to see her and she looks really good. Jen also promised that next Friday, Alaxis would be able to stay with us overnight. Since Jen is a bit crazy and erratic, I won’t hold my breath. But I hope she follows through this time.