the wrathful dove

My poor boy is gone. This is how it happened.

These people came by the house yesterday evening to inquire if we wanted to have our dead tree removed. I asked them about some trees and branches that were pushing through our fence. They said they could take care of those too.

When the tree guy and I left the backyard, the fence didn’t shut quite properly, but I secured it. They went back there again though to take some measurements and apparently they didn’t secure the fence properly.

After they left, I fed my boys Bodie and Doobie and then as usual let them outside into the fenced-in backyard to do their business. Melinda Google chatted with me to say she was coming home and asked me to put some rolls into the oven as she was starved. I asked her to get some bones from Target because Bodie had been sad and wanting one for several days. I figured it would be a nice surprise for him. After I finished chatting with her, I wanted to bring the dogs inside. If I leave them too long out there, they (especially Bodie) usually start barking at stuff like the neighbor’s dogs.

To my horror, they were not in the back yard. Read more

A few months ago, my wife purchased a MacBook after I had been talking about how cool it would be to have one for many months. She has since become a big fan of Mac OS X. One of the cool programs that came with her Mac is Garage Band. It’s a really great tool for creating music through your computer complete with a full array of midi samples, midi instruments, and the ability to record your vocals via the built-in microphone in a Mac.

Melinda has been really enjoying playing around with it lately, and today she posted a blog entry about her experiences along with a really cool example of what Garage Band can do (and of what a fine what voice my wife possesses!)

Do check it out here: Good Morning, Mr. Fish

Yesterday (September 7) was my five year wedding anniversary. Usually, my wife and I take a trip somewhere out of town for this occasion, but this year we decided to stay in town during our vacation with no plans in particular other than that we would eat dinner at a nice restaurant on the actual day of our anniversary. This is no small feat mind you as my wife suffers from celiac disease aka gluten-intolerance. Essentially, this means she cannot eat anything derived from wheat, rye, barley, or oats (usually) without getting really sick in her digestive system for days. So if you think about how much food out there involves bread, pasta, or just seasonings that involve wheat as a filler product, then you can start to imagine how annoying and hard it is to find places where we can safely eat worry free. Fortunately, there are more and more places that are gluten aware and a few that even offer gluten-free menus, but even then we have to worry about whether the staff is truly well-informed because we have often encountered staff who prepare a salad with croûtons and simply scoop them off when they see the note about gluten-free food thinking that this will suffice when it will not.

Over the last few years since her diagnosis, our restaurant choices have been pretty narrow as it’s such a pain to feel out a new place for safety and suitability, but in the last year we have had a new resource to turn to for guidance in the shape of the Atlanta Gluten Free Dining club. People share reviews there of places where they have successfully enjoyed gluten-free meals. So with our anniversary rapidly approaching and wishing to try someplace different, we consulted the group’s forum and found a few options including the one that we eventually settled upon: Roy’s.
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