Well, another couple of busy weeks have passed. I got caught up on some things that have been looming overhead for a while which I’m happy about.

On 12/5 we got our first snow. It wasn’t much, but it made the holler look really pretty. Here are some pictures:

The cats are still fighting. Selena has been instigating fights with Smokey and he seems to becoming more depressed/generally pissed off. I hope they can work out their differences soon. Smokey sprayed the wall in the guest bedroom the other day. We put some aluminum foil down where he sprayed. We read that cats don’t like walking on the foil but we’re going to keep the door to the guest room closed for a while just in case he would “strike again.”

We were up in PA again for a quick visit with my family and to attend our friend’s annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Party. We had a great time as usual. We were able to stay the night this year so we didn’t have to cut the night short. Here are some pictures:

Well, that’s it for this one. I’ll be writing another one this week to catch up before the holidays. Night.

Categories: Misc., beer
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Well, we’ve been pretty busy the past week. We have a new addition to our family. A few weeks ago, Holly and I went to the local Humane Society to look at some cats. We picked one out, filled out some paper work and waited to hear if we were approved. We got a call a day before Thanksgiving saying that we had been approved and that we can pick Smokey up over the weekend. Since we already have a 12 year-old cat, Selena, we did some research to get some tips on how to make both cats comfortable in their new shared environment. We tried a few different things, but found the best way to let them get used to each other was to let them coexist together in the entire house. Selena doesn’t seem to care for Smokey all that much. I don’t know if she’s depressed or just eating Smokey’s food, but she seems to have put on some extra pounds in the past couple weeks. Selena hisses and growls at Smokey if he gets too close, so he seems to keep outside of her buffer zone.

We started to decorate the house for Christmas. I got the tree out of the crawl space and put it up. Holly and I decorated it together. I also started to put some lights on the outdoor trees. Here are some pictures of the cats and the tree.

I put some of the items/mods back on my car that I had to temporarily replace in order to pass VA state inspection. The B3 Passat Wolfsburg Side marker covers and the Japanese euro rub strip went back on the car Friday, 11/30/07. The car still doesn’t have any side rub strips on currently. I took them off to replace with real black textured euro rub strips, but it turns out I had 2 sets of the same side. So I had to send the wrong ones back and have the correct ones sent from the company (TMTuning in Germany). They are supposed to get here this week so I’m hoping for a warm day where I can finally put them on. That way, the car will look a little less stupid.

I am also in the search for a new vehicle. I plan on selling my GTI in the late winter or early spring and get a wagon. The cars on the list are as follows:

1. B6 or B5 Audi A4 Avant (wagon)
2. B5 or B5.5 VW Passat wagon
3. Volvo V70 T5

The stipulations are the car has to be manual transmission, should be around or under 50k miles and be around $15k. I’m keeping my eyes peeled for any cars that meet my criteria and hoping to learn a bit more about the cars on my wish list. If I would find the perfect car, I would hope I could put my car up for a quick sale and get the new one. We shall see. I’ve been wanting a wagon for a while now and it’s getting closer to becoming a reality. I’ll be sad to see the GTI go, but it’s time for me to move on and move up.

On 11/30/07, we were leaving to do some things around town when we noticed the dogs were looking at something on the ground at the bottom of the driveway. We noticed it was some sort of hawk that appeared to be hurt. We assumed it was it’s wing since he was hopping away from the dogs, but wasn’t attempting to fly at all. We looked it up and saw that is was a Cooper’s Hawk. I don’t think I ever saw a hawk that close up. It had really cool red eyes.

I did some screen printing for the first time in months. I need to reclaim (clean off, re-coat with emulsion and expose) some of the screens since they got screwed up while printing in preparation for H2O International VW/Audi Show.

I went up to PA this weekend for my niece Rachel’s baptism on Sunday, 12/02/07. It was great to see a lot of family and friends I haven’t seen in a while.

I’ve started my “get in shape” program this morning. I ran for about a mile from our house to the mailboxes and back. I will also be biking and hiking as much as possible. So, I’m going to end this one here since I need to get up a little bit earlier than usual. Night.

Categories: Misc.
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