Michael & Liz are Bloggable

Just wanted to post pictures of my most recent woodworking project. There aren't too many pictures of the steps I took to do it, but I'm loving the results and wanted to share them. Here are all the pictures:




What took the most amount of time was the stenciling of their names and signatures. It was about a half hour per letter if you include the drying. Also the paw signatures were created using a combination of a chopped off PVC pipe and the center hole from my athletic tape. We figured the way their names are written match who they are. Gryffin is a male and usually don't care about their signature. We figured he'd write in block letters. Daisy is a female and more fancy and we figured she'd have more curvy writing. Also Daisy is smaller than Gryffin so her signature is smaller.

I did learn one thing when working on this project and that is that white paint cannot be polyurethaned. You cannot see it in the pictures, but there is a slight yellow tint to the white paint. I was very upset about it at first but really, it's hard to see and no one would see it at first glance. Also as it was pointed out to me today, they are dog bowls and will get dirty anyway.

Also through this project, I have been asked to make 3 more dog bowl dishes, 2 for my sisters and 1 for my Mom's friend who will pay for the wood. I love having projects to work on. Although it seems like my deadline is Thanksgiving. I also have a Secret Santa woodworking project to work on as well. I better get hoppin' in October.

w00t October! More on that later!

As most people who read this blog know, I like to make things out of wood and more specifically, I like to make birdhouses. Well back in March, Liz and I went to the Raleigh birdhouse competition and it has inspired me to compete next year in it. I was prepared to walk in and be floored by the talent and super glad I didn't try to compete. But honestly, the houses there were not spectacular. I got confidence that whatever I make would and could do well. For more information on it, this is the site from this year.

What I learned from going to this is that the concept and idea of the birdhouse is MUCH more important than the talent or skills it takes to make it. I think a creative birdhouse would win over a nice looking one. So that's why I'm posting today. Can you give me some ideas for a sweet birdhouse design? Here's what I'm thinking about so far to get you started:

First Idea:
How sweet would a birdhouse look with the face of a transformer on it? The hole entrance could be the eyes or the hole at the top? Both front and back sides could be different transformer logos or the same logo on each side:
















Second Idea:
A bird house shaped like a beehive. I could get a branch from a tree outside and hang the beehive birdhouse from the branch to make it seem like it's an actual beehive and it will have an open slot for an entrance. I have no pictures of the idea, but I do have the concept mapped out in my brain.

Do you have an idea of a sweet birdhouse design? I am not looking for easy simple ones either although those are always appreciated. That Transformer birdhouse will be RIDICULOUSLY difficult to build (especially with my limited toolset). Any idea is a good one. Let me know what you think!!

Well football starts again today and I decided to log in and make my prediction for the Bengals. I am torn this season.

I love the Bengals and I want them to do well. I want them to win. But since last season I have started following a blog that I have come to enjoy and agree with. It's called the Who Dey Revolution. The goal is basically to call out and expose the crappy Bengals management in order to get changes made to the way the team is run. The guy, as cynical as he comes off, is 100% right about almost everything. He makes it obvious how terrible the Bengals organization is run. It's painful to say, but any success the Bengals acheive is pure dumb luck. They really will be the siberia of the NFL until they get competent management. Did you know the Bengals only employee 1 scout? Yes that's right, 1 NFL scout for 1 NFL team. There are only 6 teams in the NFL who don't have a GM. Those 6 teams include either extremely successful owners (Jerry Jones) or extremely unsuccessful owners (Mike Brown and Al Davis). There is no in between. You'd think with 19 years of crappiness, maybe going a different route for success would be good?? Those are just a few of the topics the blogger at Who Dey Revolution brings up.

So as you can see, it's understandable that I'm torn on rooting for them to win.

Regardless, I enter another year hoping for the best and expecting the worse. Can you believe last season I actually predicted that the Bengals would be ruined by injuries? Check it out. Well I didn't get it all right, Rudi Johnson didn't do well in Detroit, but Carson took the year off with an arm problem so I got that right at least. This year I can't help but be optimistic. Carson is back and doing well, Ochocinco is reenergized and talking about playing in the Super Bowl, apparently Cedric Benson is playing this year at the same weight he was in college (his last good football season), and the defense has added a bunch of new players and is expected to improve their 12th ranked defense from last year. How could this not be a good team?

If only they weren't Cincinnati. I'm afraid the higher my optimism is, the higher my disappointment will be. I read somewhere that the Bengals could potentially win 10 games this year. I say bogus, we aren't going to split with BOTH Pittsburgh and Baltimore. I'll believe it when I see it. My prediction is that it will be an up and down year. Our offense will disappear for a few games and I think we'll end up 7-9. I don't think Benson is going to make a big impact this year and Bernard Scott may have to come in to pick up the slack. Unless any of the wide receivers or Carson get hurt, I think they'll all have a decent year. The defense will improve but will be mediocre and stay around 12th ranked in the league. We're better than we were last year but not as good as we were in 2005. If we had an easier division I'd be a little more optimistic about our record, but I just can't see us having a winning record.

And if you just read all that, congratulations, I could barely stand to type it myself.

It may not be clear by the post above but... Go Bengals!

Also I can't wait until October.

I have this problem where I always watch movies and get a little sad. Like when the first Harry Potter movie came out I thought "This is the last time we're ever going to see Harry Potter for the first time!" And then when the sixth one came out, "We will only ever see a new Harry Potter movie two more times!" Sad I know! Well when I was little, and by little I mean pre-college, whenever I watched a comedy I would think "Who is ever going to be as funny?" For example:

Chris Farley died. Who is every going to be as funny?
Adam Sandler got older and his good-goofy movies were over. Who is ever going to be as funny?
Jim Carey got older and starts doing serious roles. Who is ever going to be as funny?

In my teeny brain I thought whenever these actors stopped being funny, my idea of what was funny would no longer make me laugh and would no longer be comedy. It was several years ago when I discovered Will Ferrell that this thought started getting pushed away. Then last year or the year before I found out how hilarious Seth Rogen was and the thought of "Who is ever going to be as funny?" drifted away even further. Well this year, I would say that there are 3 guys that have pushed that thought even further away.

Paul Rudd:
Paul was in the 40-year-old Virgin and I thought he was pretty hilarious. His back and forth conversation with Seth Rogen saying "you know how I know you're gay? you like coldplay" made me wheez the first time I saw it. And his latest movie "I love you, Man" is just as funny. I think what makes him funny is that he doesn't even try. He has this dry humor that is just too hilarious. For a long time he was a supporting actor in a lot of different things like "Friends", but with a lead role in "I love you, Man" I felt like he nailed it. The only downside I can find with Paul is that he (as well as Seth Rogen and Jason Siegel) tend to be in movies that are really raunchy.







Ed Helms:
I think I could watch this guy on TV all day long and still not get tired of him. Often times in TV sitcoms it's extremely risky introducing new characters. You risk ruining the karma that all the current characters have. Ed was introduced on The Office a little late into the show and he was an instant hit with me. He has this goofy smile that just makes you love him.

But as if being funny wasn't enough, Ed sings. It's goofy and ridiculous and totally not professional but the kind of singing that fits perfectly into comedy. He sung this song on the movie "The Hangover" and also sung it on Conan O'Brien when he appeared on the show. Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojkUv4aWY_0

and by the way, he is actually playing the piano:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tO9utIOXag

I can't wait to see what he produces in the future!

Michael Cera:
I am not going to act like Michael Cera is nearly as funny as Ed Helms or Paul Rudd, but he is very funny. I think his humor lies entirely with how he pronunciates words and sentences. For example we just saw "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" the other day and there were several quotes that made us crack up, like:

"This is not a taxi, my friend, I promise you!"

"If anyone is getting raped in that van, it'll be a guy. "

"Also that mix CD... uh that I left on your doorstep was the last one that I'll be making for you. More or less... "

He just has a way of delivering lines that is unique. I haven't yet seen the movie "Year One" but I am very excited about it.


I am slowly getting over my thinking that comedy lies in the actors. Comedy as well as the actors will change over time and I'm confident I will keep on laughing no matter what.

I think with every male homeowner, there are things around the house that you just don't feel like getting involved in. With me, there is basically just one thing and that is electricity. I've been burned too many times and I just don't want to deal with it. Power my lights, heat my food, blend my ice cream, but leave my fingers and body alone. "Just turn off the breaker in the garage" you might say, "well a few year's too late" my fingers might respond. Doesn't always work.

Today I decided to tackle the Sweet Room fan. Since we moved in March 2007, it hasn't worked. The light would turn on but the fan wouldn't spin. Last summer we box fanned it. This summer we decided not to deal with heat and kept our A/C at a tolerable 74. Promptly after getting our high electric bill, I changed our thermostat to 78 and I immediately started sweating.

Last night was miserable. Liz went out for the night and I stayed in and did nothing but sweat my Nay-nays off. I brought the unacceptable box fan in and got fed up. Early July my Mom gave us some money for our anniversary and today that money bought us a fan remote control unit.

I got the 8 foot ladder out, flipped the electrical off from the Sweet Room and went to town. It took me about an hour of fiddling until I got the new remote control installed and "POOF! ... IT'S ALIVE ... IT'S AAAALLLIIIIIIVVVEEE!!!"

I fixed a household item that had been previously broken. My man card has a few stamps on it already: deck, garage shelving, wainscoting in the blue bedroom. Today my man card just got stamped with "Sweet Room fan".

Turns out, it wasn't as hard as I had imagined. Also I discovered on the other side of the white blades that there is a wood color. So I also flipped the blades over. You can't see it in the picture, but the fan is spinning. It's not the prettiest fan, but it came with the house, and that's good enough for me:

Haven't blogged in forever. The point of this post is to say that we have found Daisy and Gryffin's favorite food.

Since we got them, we have always struggled finding them food they'll enjoy. Gryffin will scarf down anything we put in front of him but Daisy is super picky. We used to give her food that you put warm water in and it would be super tasty but she hated it after a while and would refuse to eat it.

We tried puppy, small breed, and adult breed formulas of different brands and they never seemed too thrilled. We leaned toward Purina Pro Plan small breed formula but she got sick of that. We decide to try the Purina Pro Plan adult breed formula that included "tender" pieces mixed in (whatever that means). Somehow these "tender" pieces were given the name "Chewies" and from now on whenever we feed them we yell "CHEWIES". We have never seen Daisy scarf it down so fast. Usually she leaves food in her bowl throughout the day and never finishes any meal but with this food she would finish it on the spot. It was hilarious because when we got the first bag we could actually see her getting a little fatter with this food and she would sometimes burp when she's done.

We one time decided to switched back to small breed for variety and she immediately went back to her old ways and we could see her weight start going down again. Maybe this is the dog equivalent of McDonalds but they LOVE the "chewies". Here are the beloved chewies:


We may have to learn how to put her on a diet but still give her chewies at the same time. That last thing we'll have is an overweight chihuahua. That's like animal cruelty with their small, thin leg bones bearing more weight then they should.


BTW: Just an update on the birds, last weekend the 4 baby blue birds fledged and I immediately cleaned out the bird house. We almost saw them leave the house as the babies were poking their head out in the morning but we had to leave so we never saw them fly away. Since then there has been no trace of babies or parents. We're hoping to get one more brood of babies before the winter comes... oh winter... how i miss you.

That's the most pathetic blog post title I've ever had... but it's true.

By the way, the other two birds hatched yesterday so they are all alive and well inside the house.

Yesterday during our Harry Potter Marathon some may have noticed that I'm a little too obsessive over the safety of our birds in the backyard. Part of it is that I enjoy seeing them grow up and care about them but it's mostly because I wouldn't be able to take the fact that if the Mom, Dad, or baby bluebirds were killed it would be 100% my fault. If that were to happen I don't know what I'd do. I set this birdhouse out and I couldn't help but feel responsible if something hurt them. I might take the house down or who knows, it may solidify my resolve to keep them safe. So needless to say, I feel like I have some sort of responsibility toward the birds.


Yesterday during the marathon a male House Sparrow(pictured above) landed on the house and I freaked out. I threw up my arms and ran out the door and scared it away. Now granted the Mom and Dad were both there to scare it away as well so they were doing their jobs, but House Sparrows are the #1 predator for Bluebirds. I was surprised because I have a "Sparrow Spooker" installed on the house. Obviously it's not working and it concerns me. But if they got into the house, they would kill the Mom, Dad, and babies, and then lay eggs in the birdhouse on top of their carcasses, and use their dead bodies to feed their own babies. This cannot happen.

Last night I woke up at 2:30 AM in a sweat after a dream/nightmare in which I opened the birdhouse and this exact scenario had played out. I was sweating, my heart racing and as ridiculous as I know it is, I spent the next two hours mulling over what to do about it. It was the middle of the night so obviously I wasn't thinking clearly, but I considered going down and checking on them. I realized that they were probably safe, so I then thought "Should I go down and watch the house and make sure nothing hurts them?" So if the Sparrow Spooker isn't working, what do I need to put on the house to stop the predators?!?! All really stupid thoughts, but I lost two hours of sleep thinking about it.

Maybe the answer is to do nothing and let nature take it's course. I hate that answer.

I just opened the house and the baby birds are OK... but on a related note, I may be going insane. I'll keep you updated :)