Category Archives: Photos

I hate to laugh at your misfortune

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But I will anyway.

I truly do despise finding joy in the misfortune of others.

ROFLMAO!  You thought I was serious?

That is SO not true.  I think finding joy in misfortune is human.  It doesn’t have to be the misfortune of others — but it sure as hell feels better that way, eh?

Here’s the e-mail I got from Nathalie and the picture that shows what she’s talking about.

Glorious! I thought I’d share with you guys what it is like to live in my shoes. This is the scene that awaited me this morning when I woke up. I did not touch anything. It is all my Jack Russell Peyote’s doing. No staging. Just a dog with a vision (I guess!) I had to pry the thing off my seat with a spoon. And y’all thought you had problems…

Nathalie's expensive furniture with a new addition (joyful morning discovery)

Goodbye, Zoe

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My friend Brett had some bad news this week.  She had to have one of her dogs put to sleep early Sunday morning.  This is Zoe and here’s what Brett had to say.

Do you remember me mentioning my sick dog last week?  I had to put her down Sun morning at 3 am.  Needless to say, I have been suffering from a SERIOUS broken heart since then.  She was a German Shep and she was 10.  I adopted her from the human [sic] society when she was 8 weeks old.  Her stomach twisted and bloated.  They had to do emergency surgery on her.  When they opened her up, she was diagnosed with liver cancer and she would never have made it out of surgery.  They were having trouble regulating her heartbeat the whole time.

We as humans accept the fact that we will outlive almost all of our pets.  Our lifespan is longer than theirs and we understand from the beginning that we’ll see them grow from babies into adulthood and eventually into death.  It’s a measure of a person’s character when they can go through that and still have enough love and affection for animals to do it again and again.  Rescues like her are even more difficult in that sense as we adopted them to save their lives.

At least Zoe is no longer in pain.

Zoe (zoe1)

That’s something I rarely see

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Just after I moved, I was able to capture a rare and seldom seen phenomenon — all four of The Kids resting together.  There are certain combinations I've come to expect, but it's very rare to see all four of them resting in close proximity to each other.  That's just not their style except when it's time to go to bed, in which case they all join me.

I've added the picture to The Kids gallery as well as below.

All four of The Kids together (138_3874)

[left to right: Kazon, Kako, Grendel and Loki]

Check out my ride, dude

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The opportunity finally presented itself for me to get some pictures of my car posted.  There's a new gallery called Lexus IS 300 that has some exterior and interior shots of my awesome ride.

When Lexus announced in the late nineties that they would be releasing the IS 300 in America, I was thrilled.  I had followed the car through its various releases in Europe and Japan with delight as it was the first sport sedan Lexus designed to compete with the BMW 3 Series and the Audi A4.  Since Lexus (and Toyota) had been making the best cars for several years and my dissatisfaction with American cars had grown to a deafening roar, the IS 300 was right down my alley.

In late 1999, Lexus announced the IS 300 would be released in America in early 2000 (the 2001 year model).  I immediately ran down to my nearest Lexus dealership, Park Place Lexus, and ordered one.

The IS 300 didn't have many options because it was already a fully loaded car.  The few things I added were the limited slip differential, the heated seats, tinted windows, and a spoiler.  The base model (at the time) already came with the sport seating (perforated leather), full-function moonroof, 17″ alloy wheels with low-profile tires, power front seats, and a whole list of other goodies.

I was disheartened when Lexus delayed the release — several times, I might add — until early in August when I got a call from my salesman at Park Place telling me my car was on the boat.

I was so excited!  I had been looking forward to having one of the first IS 300s in the country since the initial announcement of their pending release here.

On September 7 of 2000, I drove it off the lot and have been thrilled with it since then.  No problems, no road noise, no wind noise, a perfect ride, plenty of power, and service that is second to none has made me a Lexus fan for life.

Of course, now that it's nearly four years old, I'm looking forward to the future release of the new IS models.  Although nothing is definite at this time, take a peak at what AutoWeek had to say about the upcoming models.  My current plan is to wait until I can order a new one, then I'll trade in my current car.  Luckily they retain good value (again thanks to the quality).

But all of that is in the future.  Besides, enough talk, more pictures.

Here are some highlights from the new gallery.

Here's a shot of the dashboard to give you a feel for the interior of the car.  You'll also notice the perforated leather at the bottom of the picture — this covers all of the seating surfaces (provides better grip than anything else I've seen).

My car (137_3798)

If, like me, the driver instrument console caught your attention, here's a better shot of it (with the chronometer-style instrumentation).  I've always thought of it as nice, clean, functional and very cool.

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Here are a few exterior shots of the car.

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You can see a few more shots (interior and exterior) in the Lexus IS 300 gallery.