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Friday, August 29, 2003 - 10:35 AM

David was right...a web site is a process, not a product! Just when I think I have everything I want on the site, I add something else. As you can see on the left, I've added a Quote Wall. The Quote Wall dates back to my high school days, when I printed out quotations in PrintShop (remember that ancient software?) and affixed them to my walls lacking wallpaper. I covered every spare inch of three walls. It may have seemed hideous to the outsider, but damn it was cool. Any newcomer held a few moments of silence while they read every last quote. Some of the quotes were from books, some from TV, others from people obtained in everyday conversation. Not all of the quotes were inspirational...most of them I just thought were downright hilarious. When I left for college, my mom made me tear down all of my beautiful quotes. I know...horrible thing to do to an 18-year old moving out. Before I tossed them in the trash, I wrote them all down in a spiral notebook, which I still have. I've decided to further immortalize these quotes by creating another Quote Wall, but this time on my web site. Most of the quotes I have listed so far were not on my original Quote Wall, but they are Quote Wall worthy. I'm going to have to wait until I get home to dig through my crap and find my notebook before I can post the rest of the original quotes. I'm sure my Quote Wall, like this blog, will be an ongoing process as I collect more Wall-worthy quotes.

posted by Keri
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Tuesday, August 26, 2003 - 9:14 AM

I can't talk enough about how wonderful so many people are about Krillin. My office never argued with me about why I needed a day off and they had pitched in and bought me a sympathy card when I returned. Kevin didn't ask me anything until I was ready, and ordered me to take it easy at work. Once again, our vet has proven how great they are. They sent us a sympathy card, which I have received before when pets pass away, but in this card, the aids wrote in what they loved most about Krillin. Our vet then again went above and beyond their obligations by refunding us for the four months of Revolution that Krillin won't use. Krillin's obedience school trainer even gave us a card and she gushed about how Krillin was one of her favorite students. To top it off, Christi told me that she had made a donation to the ASPCA in Krillin's name. Thanks to everyone who has been there for Shawn and I during this extremely rough time. You all have been fabulous, and I don't know how Shawn and I could have gotten through this so well without all of your help.

As a side note, we found out yesterday that for $2 extra, you can test your dog for this tick disease when your dog has his annual heartworm test. The next time you take your dog in for his annual visit, ask your vet about the ehrlichia/lyme disease test. I swear to you it will be worth it.

posted by Keri
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Friday, August 22, 2003 - 9:58 AM

After reading this article on the tick-born disease the e-vet assumed Krillin had, I am fairly certain this is what happened to him. He displayed some of these early warning signs months ago, that we wrote off as he gorged his food or had been eating grass. The symptoms listed in the final stages are EXACTLY what Krillin had when we took him to the e-vet. I urge all dog owners out there to read this article and be aware of this disease, as the only way to cure it is to catch it in the early subtle stages. Even if your dog has tick preventive treatments, you may not know what happened with your dog before you got him. This virus can lay dormant for up to two years after infection. I don't want anyone to go through what we had to with Krillin.

UPDATE: I talked to our esteemed DVM and he assured me that Krillin DID NOT die from this tick-born disease. Since Krillin died so quickly, he believes that Krillin had a heart condition, a virus that attacked his nervous system, or something as far-fetched as West Nile or early exposure to distemper.

posted by Keri
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Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 1:49 PM

I don't know if many people noticed, but I had a post on Monday, where I detailed that we took Krillin to the emergency vet on Saturday and I reiterated that he would be just fine. As you can see, that post is gone, because despite what the emergency vet told us, Krillin is not just fine. Krillin passed away Monday afternoon. It still seems incredibly unreal. Just last week he was fine...he graduated from obedience school and then just one week later he's in the emergency vet. I wish I could tell you what happened, but I can't, because I still don't know myself. We have a few theories, but we'll never know. That fact is killing me the most. I want to know why he died so I can prevent this in the future or at least warn my friends and family. Everyone keeps telling me that I did all I could. I have a $900 bill from the emergency vet to prove that. But I don't feel like I did enough. I still feel like I could have saved him if I had only taken him to our regular vet on Monday morning. Then maybe we would know what was wrong and Krillin would still be with us. He's supposed to be with us...he's only thirteen months old. Babies aren't supposed to die of unknown causes. I did everything right: he was up to date on his shots, he had monthly flea, tick and worm protection, he was fed good food everyday, we bathed him, so what did I do wrong??

Our vet has been absolutely wonderful through this entire process. The aids there loved Krillin very much. One of the aids always volunteered to work the weekends we boarded Krillin there. When they received the medical report from the emergency vet, they called us immediately and told us to bring him in as soon as we could. They even offered to stay open late for us. When Shawn called back with the bad news, they stayed open late just for us to bring in Krillin and talk with us. The aid that loved Krillin was scheduled to get off work at 2 and he stayed past 5:30 to talk with us and see Krillin. If you live in the Lewisville/Flower Mound area and you have pets, I highly recommend Dr. Gray at the Timber Valley Pet Hospital. They are wonderful, wonderful people. Even if we move to downtown Dallas, we are keeping them as our vet.

I'm doing much better today. I no longer cry when people talk to me, which has made it quite easier to work. I still miss him terribly, but I'm very happy for the fact that he has made this past year very special and very wonderful for me. I'm happy that Christi, Matt, and Matt's cousin talked me into adopting him. I don't regret a single minute of the time he spent with me. I also want to thank Christi for advising me not to remove his pictures of my site. He is still my third-born child, even though he is no longer with us, and I don't want to forget him. He was a wonderful dog, and I can only hope that God will lead me to another dog in the future half as wonderful as Krillin.

posted by Keri
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Wednesday, August 13, 2003 - 6:08 PM

Our wedding pictures are up for anyone who was there and hasn't seen the pictures or for anyone who wasn't there and is dying to know how it all looked. I'm getting pretty quick with the scanner. This whole process has taught me that digital cameras are really the best way to go. But maybe my scanner is the problem (it is a two in one printer and it was on sale at Wal-Mart).

Onwards to the gym so I can attain my Faye Valentine stomach!

posted by Keri
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Monday, August 11, 2003 - 8:33 PM

WHOOOOO HOOO! The Cel Gallery is up and running!

posted by Keri
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- 8:50 AM

It's Monday morning and my boss hasn't taken the liberty to get himself to work quite yet. I guess Schlitterbahn wore him out. I didn't have nearly as an exciting weekend as I'm sure he did, but I didn't completely sit at home with nothing to do. Friday night Krillin graduated from obedience school. It was nothing big, but was so cute to see all of the dogs wear the mortar boards and tassles and walk around with their diplomas. As I mentioned in the previous post, we saw Pirates of the Caribbean on Saturday night. I have never been a big fan of Johnny Depp, but no one could have played his role as well as he did. We heard that a lot of the lines and scenes from the actual ride were used in the movie, so Shawn and I are going to have to plan a trip to Disney World to investigate the similarities. On Sunday we went to Javier's for my Aunt Kay's birthday. Yummy yummy yummy. I wish I had brought a tape recorder for our dinner conversation and then mapped it out for posterity. Sometimes the leaps in topic just amazed me.

I hope everyone has a great week! I plan on continuing my procrastination project of studying for the LSAT to create my Cel Gallery. I know I should be studying, but I REALLY don't want to look at those types of questions anymore.

posted by Keri
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Sunday, August 10, 2003 - 10:57 PM

After lengthy debates with the gallery program, we have come to the following understanding: I will no longer yell obscenities at it and it will no longer piss me off. As a result, the gallery is up and running, and all of the albums contain pictures except for the Cel Gallery. That will take a little while longer as I will have to get the courage to remove the cels from their frames and scan them. I will also post some pictures of my wedding when I find the time to mull through my scrapbook and choose and scan pictures. (You can really tell when I bought a digital camera.)

And before I rush off to bed...

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! All of you scurvy dogs who have not seen Pirates of the Caribbean must drop what you are doing and go see it immediately! If you don't, I'll make you walk the plank.

posted by Keri
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Wednesday, August 06, 2003 - 2:15 PM

Attention! Feast your eyes upon the following important and life altering information! The links and the bio pages now work. They aren't perfect, but they work. The gallery will take a little while longer as the program and I are having creative differences. Stay tuned.

posted by Keri
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Tuesday, August 05, 2003 - 2:26 PM

Oh my God, where to begin. For those who haven't heard me talk about this every day for the past few weeks, or noticed my calendar, I went to Metallica's Summer Sanitarium tour on Sunday. To sum up, I can barely move my neck, my back hurts, my arms are sore, my throat is sore, and my ears are still ringing. Yea verily, it ruled. I have wanted to see this band since I was in high school. I think they had Candlebox and Alice in Chains open for them at the concert then, if that tells you how long ago it was. (And Mom, I came back from this one just FINE.) Words cannot describe how much this concert rocked, but I will try to anyway.

The concert was at Texas Stadium, and I went with Christi, her boyfriend, Matt, and Jen. (Shawn was supposed to go, as this was my anniversary gift to him, but he had drill and was unable to get out of it.) I bought the tickets months ago, and when I purchased them online, the only thing I knew was that they were for general admission. I didn't realize until I received a reminder from TicketMaster a few weeks ago that the general admission seats were on the field. We arrived a couple of hours early, and upon our arrival we learned that the field was divided up into two sections: floor and pit. The pit section was about ten yards from the stage, with a rod iron fence separating the pit from the floor. Where were we? Oh yeah, we were in the pit!!! We were so close we could see facial expressions!!! Lucky for us, the pit was not overly crowded, so we had plenty of breathing room and space to jump around in.

The first opening band was Mudvayne, a band I had never heard of. They came out wearing Texas flag shirts, which of course sent the stadium into a frenzy. They were pretty good. They set the tone for the rest of the concert and got us very pumped for the rest of the bands. The next band was the Deftones. I had not heard of them before, either, but they played some songs I had heard on the radio. They were kind of a disappointment compared to Mudvayne. Linkin Park was next. To put it simply, Linkin Park ruled. I have two of their CDs, which I thoroughly enjoy, and I've always wanted to see them in concert, but nothing prepared me for how intense of a show they put on. They played for over an hour, and I would have been happy with another hour. I knew every one of the songs they played, and I don't think I kept still or quiet the whole time they were on stage. Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous show. I will go see them again, I don't care if I go alone. But I don't think I will, because our little group was pumped up with excitement about Linkin Park after that show. Limp Bizkit was next in line. I really wanted to see this band too. I must say that Fred Durst has some really interesting tattoos. Even though Limp Bizkit was fabulous too, they didn't rule as much as Linkin Park. Limp Bizkit did have a few memorable moments. They started to play "Sanitarium", and then Lars came out and pretended to argue with Fred Durst. Lars then played the rest of the song with the band. Limp Bizkit also made a very interesting parody of George Michael. Remember him?? Limp Bizkit may have been the most audience engaging band. Fred Durst jumped into the pit and sang "Break Stuff" on a bunch of people's shoulders. During another song, he walked around the stadium and shook hands with rest of the audience that couldn't see him as well as we could.

Finally, Metallica. Metallica made their grand entrance at 9 p.m. with a scene from the "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" on the giant screens. Metallica played every one of their old school hits. They only played two songs from their new album, which sound MUCH MUCH better live than they do on the CD. The show lasted over two incredible hours. For their intro into "Nothing Else Matters", Kirk picked out the melody with Lars' drumsticks, and then they swapped instruments and played the beginning of the song fabulously. They ended the concert with "Fuel", and they used so many cool pyrotechnics at one point the entire stage looked like it was on fire. They had two encores, but it was the second one that really ruled. The entire stadium was pitch black and they started the second encore with a bunch of loud pyrotechnics that matched the gunfire and explosions at the beginning of "One", but this went on for ten minutes. It was glorious. "One" was the song that introduced me to the glory and fabulousness of Metallica, so I was thrilled to see the song open this way as one of the big encore songs. They finished the encore with "Enter Sandman", but Hetfield had to stop singing halfway through because the entire band and his crew attacked him on stage with creme pies and silly string for his fortieth birthday. It was awesome. They started up "Enter Sandman" again, but had to stop once more, because Lars let Hetfield know that there were supposed to be fireworks. Hetfield laughed about it, and they started "Enter Sandman" again with a glorious fireworks show.

After vowing that we would see them again, we left as quickly as we could and headed back to Corinth to obtain food. The last time we had eaten was around 11:30, except for Matt who snuck in a hot dog without our knowledge, and it was now after midnight. To say that we were ravenous is an underestimation. I didn't get home until close to 2 a.m., so I didn't quite make it to work the next day. Sorry, Dad, I don't live at home, so I'm not walking with you to the mailbox. Matt and I were the bums of the group. Jen got up the next morning for a Cal II test and Christi went to her teacher training. This concert was so worth it, but I'm not ready to experience it again for quite awhile. When did I get to feel so old?

I took several pictures of the concert with my camera phone, since they wouldn't allow cameras. Sad to say, the only one that came out half-way decent is the picture of the pyrotechnics during "Fuel". If you are looking into purchasing a camera phone, they're great if you only want to take pictures of something less than two feet away and if you don't mind the pixellation.

Well, I've said more than enough, and I still have work to do. This may be my only post for the week since I babbled too much and I still have to finish the rest of the site. Have a great week!

posted by Keri
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