Misty Morning Sunrise

I just love misty morning sunrises.  If I have to be up early for work, I might as well get a pretty view on the way in!

San Jose, California Trip & Photos

Today ends my week in San Jose, California.  I fly back home tomorrow morning after a very cool week of California sight seeing and an awesome SEO Conference hosted by Search Engine Strategies.  This was the first SEO conference I have attended and it was well worth it!  While a lot of the presentations were entry level, the ones that weren't were awesome!  I've learned a lot that I will be going home and applying to various sites I deal with on a daily basis.

On Monday we arrived with the whole day to go sight seeing.  Luckily for me, the co-worker I came here with used to live in San Jose and knew his way around and all the cool places to go.  Monday we spent the afternoon in San Francisco.  Tuesday evening we went to Santa Cruz to see the tide pools on the ocean front - what a cool place!  And tonight we drove into the Silcon Valley to see the Google complex and Apple corporate headquarters.  I know it's just a bunch of buildings, but it was too cool!

The week has flown by and has been exhausting.  I look forward to getting home to Jason and Portia and my pups, all of whom I have missed a lot!  And I can't wait to come back to California again when I have more time to really sight see and have Jason with me.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the week:

Another Lois Update & Other Stuff

Lois has been home now since Sunday and is doing really good!  Things were difficult at first because she wanted nothing to do with the prescription food the vet wanted her on.  She ate a little bit the first night but turned her nose up at it every offering after that.  Jason had a good idea to ball some up and bake them to make them crunchy.  The first night she loved them and ate a good handful of them. After that, she again wanted nothing to do with them.  Two days went by and she wouldn't take a single bite.  Anytime we put that food in front of her she would push it with her nose as far away as she could.  It would have been quite humerus if she didn't need to eat so bad.  Finally the vet allowed us to try a different type of food.  Again she ate a little the first night and then wanted nothing to do with it again.  So we tried one more and third time was a charm!  She apparently loves Nutro Max Weight Control so that will be her food from now on.

On her second day of eating full meals she began to vomit a little again.  We took her in for a blood test to ensure the pancreatitis was not erupting again.  Thankfully, it was not.  The vet believes now that she is eating on her own the feeding tube that is in her throat is agitating her as she eats and causing her to vomit.  So tomorrow morning Lois Lane goes back in to the vet to get the feeding tube removed - yay!  I'll update more tomorrow when she gets home and we see how she's doing.  She never reacts well to the anesthetic they use to put her under so I'm sure she'll be loopy for the first day or two home.  Then hopefully she can get back to her usual, crazy self.

Buddy is doing really good, too!  He hasn't had an accident in the house for almost a week now and his coat is starting to look almost normal.  I brush him almost every day and every brushing yields a flower pot packed full of white fur.  I bought a Furminator brush for the dogs because I had heard it rocked.  Boy does it ever!  I highly recommend it for anyone that has a dog that sheds - it's awesome!  They usually sell for around $50 for the large one at pet stores, however you can get them for half-price at our PetResearch store (and it helps to support the site as well).

In other news, Monday morning I head off to San Jose, California for a Search Engine Strategies conference for work.  I'm very disappointed that Jason can't come with me as planned, though still excited to see the Silicone Valley and very stoked for this conference.  It will not only help me a lot at work but also with my side business.  I'm going with a co-worker that used to live in San Jose, which is cool because he knows all the good places to go.  Due to the time difference we'll get there fairly early Monday and will have time to drive out to San Francisco and a few other places as well.  I'm taking my Nikon D80 and hope to get lots of cool photos!

Lois Lane is Home!

We finally got to bring Lois Lane home from the 24 hour vet today!  She has her feeding tube in still to make sure she's going to be able to eat and keep food down now that she's home.  If all goes well she goes back Wednesday to have the tube removed.  She was very, very excited to get home!  We've been home with her for a couple hours now and she's finally calming down.  So far, so good with no vomiting or regurgitation, but then she hasn't eaten yet, so we can only hope that things continue down a positive path.  Blue is also happy to have his chew toy....errr dog...back in the house.  Buddy is too since Lois is the only of our dogs that will really play with him.  (Hardy is just too old and Blue doesn't know how to play with such a big beast yet).  Unfortunately for Buddy it will be a few days before Lois can rough house with him.  Rough housing + Feeding Tube = Bad idea.

Lois is on anti-nausea meds and we have to clean out her feeding tube 3 times a day.  She's on a very strict specialized diet and we have to be extremely careful that she doesn't get into the other dogs' food or get any people food or it could cause a relapse.  We'll have to think of a new feeding schedule to accommodate everyone, but we'll get it worked out.  I don't care what it takes - my Lois Pain is home!  :D