Dog Attack

New thing today, two dogs attacked our dog. Everything's ok, no physical damage, just a scare and a lucky miss. Our dog is a little dog, stray Lhasa Apso Shitzu mix and a sweet friendly one. So we have relatives who have these 13 and 7 year old pit bull mixes. They're nice dogs overall. I like them. They're friendly with humans but don't get exercise and are not sociable or friendly with other dogs. We've never had the dogs meet, as we know it wouldn't be good, as the pit bull mixes aren't friendly. But a relative today wanted to give it a shot and try out to see if they could be sociable and get them friendly and used to each other. With the holidays it would be nice to have all our dogs get along and be able to hang out together.

We were very cautious and careful, but alas, the mixes were still aggressive and lunged at our dog. They were trying to be social, but I think they just couldn't figure out this was a friendly situation. I think not enough social opportunities at all for these dogs. They sniffed aggressively, were very excited and possibly thought it was a snack or game or I don't know, just not really being calm or friendly. Husband and I go by Cesar Milan guides, and these were nice dogs, but it was definitely a situation where the human owner didn't follow dog psychology or understand that their dogs were not being calm or sociable, but were excited and mildly aggressive.

Good thing we stayed on our toes and stayed calm, but basically, no dice. It's just irritating when someone thinks their dogs can be friendly, but isn't honest with themselves to realize their dogs can't be sociable with other dogs. In order to test the sociability theory it put our dog in danger. Ugh!!! There were two close calls, and it could have been quite disastrous if one of the bigger dogs got a good lock or bite on our dog. Luckily our little one is quick and smart and avoided any damage. Relative has offered to lock their dogs up in the garage next time if we want to bring our dog over. That was really nice, but we will see? Might just be better to keep our little one safe at home. That was a first, to have dogs attack our dog, and I'm trying to stay positive but it was upsetting. But alas, let it go, live and learn.

Car Died

New thing today, my car died. It's never just died or stopped working before. Thankfully it happened at the best possible time. We were with relatives after a night out, exiting the freeway near home, when all of a sudden at the light at the offramp, the car just died. Kaput. No reviving it or turning it back on so we could drive.

We were lucky with the relatives, we had help. We pushed the car off to the side of the road and called for a tow. We had another relative come by and take some of us home while we waited for the tow. One relative was super knowledgeable with cars, and thinks its the timing belt just went out. He predicts it will be a reasonably inexpensive fix, and something not so serious based on the car history.

So basically, thank God :) everyone was ok, this didn't happen at a terrible time, and it's all manageable (we hope). We had relatives around that were nearby or right there that could help us. We still need to have the car looked at by a mechanic, but just glad that it broke the way it did.

Thanks God! And Family!

Photo Timer

New thing of the day, used the timed shot feature on my new camera.

I recently got a Canon PowerShot SX210 IS at Best Buy during the holiday sales, because I was going on a trip to New Orleans and wanted a better camera, and my other one is about 5 years old and starting to glitch on me. The reviews were excellent, and I did some homework playing with it in the store and hunting online before buying it. It's pocket size, has 14x optical zoom, and a few fancy manual features that I may use if I learn and become more of a photography person. Just enough room to grow but not too big to handle. I had a Canon and like the brand. I especially like the color accent feature and the overall reliability it's given me over years.

Anyway, I still am not completely comfortable using all the buttons and features. It's snazzy, but I'm not as quick or automatic with it as I am with my old one. It's not intuitive, yet. Anyway today was a birthday dinner and I wanted in on a group photo, so decided to try out the timer option.

Never done that before on my camera, and in general I never really used it. So we tried it, and it worked beautifully. The only thing was I couldn't get a good angle for the camera to sit on, so the shot isn't ideal. But the timing, the ease of setting it up and all that was very easy and good. Just still unfamiliar with a lot of the buttons and need to learn them. The only thing that really bugs me is that, the flash pops up where I naturally place my hand, so it doesn't always pop up when I go to take a photo so I need to shut it down and restart it a lot.

My plan is to play with the camera and read the manual in-depth after finals. Can't be sitting there for 2 hours playing with it when I need to be writing papers (BOOOOO!) or studying (BOOOOO!). Ugh.

So that's all. Trying new things and so far, the camera has performed ok. Not loving it, but I think it takes getting used to.

The Great Holiday Plans Charlie Brown

New thing of the day, as a married couple, deciding how we're going to split and spend time with the families during the holidays.

This is not our first holiday season as a married couple. We were newlyweds in 2009, so we had holiday season 2009 to spend with the families. Thing is, they're all local and it was super easy to figure out plans.

This year, 2010, we have quite a few relatives living up in northern California, and now we have to consider driving up north for the holidays. This means scheduling time to drive up north and drive down home area LA to spend it with the families. Plus splitting it between our two families, and also between time off work and such.

It was so much easier planning this stuff as a single person. No easy way out or in. Ugh. Plans may or may not work. That's all. The joys of marriage. It's rough - am welcome to any suggestions on planning.

Never seen "Four Christmases" before, but I assume it sorta feels like that. Being torn between multiple families, trying to see everyone in one day.

PS: I've also never seen The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown or A Charlie Brown Christmas. Something to add to new thing of the day.