Also, a dreaming wombat (something from Australia that (probably) won't try to kill you.

Not necessarily! Wombats have been known to kill people who enter their burrows. (Their defence against home invasion is to crush the invader against the roof of their burrow, push-up style. Useful against dingoes.) More commonly, they're one of the worst native animals to hit while driving.

Note - avoid wombats at all costs.

In CJ news, he can now add paid model to his resume. He just did a photo shoot with two of his EMS classmates. The pictures will be used for textbooks, slides, workbooks and other EMS related things.

Once upon a time I was in a math textbook, playing with the unit blocks. As I recall, the picture was 70's-tastic.

Respect the wombat's boundaries.

Wasn't there just an article about how it makes financial sense to buy a house in Cleveland or somewhere and spend literally every weekend in Brooklyn, vs. living in NYC?

There was an article recently about how it's cheaper to live in Spain and commute than live in London. [link]

One of our dogs is a very good (loud) watchdog. He is on the alert for dangerous intruders. Of course, in his mind, "dangerous intruders" includes deliverymen, raccoons, anyone walking their dog on the sidewalk out front and the occasional large windblown leaf.

The other dog is his hype man. Chet will run to the window and bark like mad, while Truman will stay where he's sleeping, but lift his head up and throw a couple of support barks in there, before going back to sleep.

Timelies all!

I got to work this morning, only to find a pipe burst and flooded the server room in my building. No network. There is wi-fi in the building, but my work computer just couldn't connect to it. At least our corridor had power.

Real estate is depressing. And I don't even have it bad, I have a place I bought at a good time and I can afford it. But it's no $72k townhouse. Otoh, I love Seattle. The weather today is so nice.

It's not bad, Sophia. The meat is a little expensive for what you get and the portions generally a bit small. I use it mostly for things like vegetables and other staples rather than the premade meals. In my experience it's worth it for the convenience. But then you have to understand that in my world it used to take forty five minutes to get to the nearest grocery, so anyone bringing anything to my door twice a month was like unto a deity.

Sheryl, that sucks!

Scrappy, my two have similar behaviors.

As for real estate, I can't get upset about it because I am lucky enough to have bought the house I was renting (I paid a little bit over market at the time I bought it) and the Bay Area has gone nuts again. Sure I could sell mine and make a tidy profit, but then I'd have to move 3+ hours away to afford anything else. And I love Oakland. I do know someone who bought in East Palo Alto in the 1990s (when it had more homicides per capita than Oakland) and since Facebook is less than a mile away from her house, she's selling it for 6 times more than she paid for it and moving out of state to buy a house in cash. She's retiring. That's sort of what my plan is, too. Except I am a long way from retirement and my plan changes every 10 minutes.

Oh! And I meant to say, thanks for the move~ma for my folks. They are now settled in Texas safely, albeit not without some drama at the end, and the movers dropped their stuff off at their rental house yesterday. Their old house is sold, and they won't close on the new one until later this winter. Then they'll start on renovations for it, so they won't be settled settled for more than a year. But the hard part is done.