SLAPfish

Usually I like to consider myself an easy going gal. But for some reason, the company SNAPFISH has really rubbed me the wrong way and I can't get over it.

With all these great photos I've been getting of Barklee, I decided it would be great to have a bunch of stickers of him, cut out in white, that I could use on stationary and what not. So I photoshop some key shots and using a Web Photo Service called Snapfish - i upload my pictures, select the template I'd like to use, resize according to their grids for cropping, and pay by credit card for the stickers to get shipped to me.

Simple stuff. I purposely made it so that my pictures were nicely smack dab in the center, and if there were words, that they wouldn't cover anything. Before the order is set, it asks me to look one more time to make sure my crops are correct. They sure are! Ready, and send.

I get the stickers a few days later and find that the images are bleeding off the edge of the sticker borders. Noooo! Poor Puppy has shaved ears in one part and half a lip on the others.

I send a disgruntled email to their customer service and they did respond quickly. They said they were already sending a new set to me and that i could send the old ones back with their prepaid postage label. Alright... that sounds reasonable.

I just got the replacements. NOT only do they STILL have puppy's ears and lips cut off - but the coloring looks really tarnished YELLOW now. What the Hockey PUCK?!?!

Perhaps I am blowing this way out of proportion, but it just pisses me off that they'd go through all this trouble to NOT fix the problem. Okay, i'm done with my latte Venting now.

Splat

My car is covered with bug carcasses from the weekend road trip. I had planned to take it to the car wash, until i noticed that there's supposed to be Rain this week.

Would I look crazy to take it in, even if it was supposed to rain the same day?

Do bug splatters hurt the paint?

One more week of April... Is it possible to feel like time is dragging and flying by at the SAME time? I'm getting anxious about planning out some events or trips for the upcoming months... Perhaps I just need to make more little milestones to look forward to. I want to plan more camping trips and fishing trips and low key get togethers with friends. I haven't volunteered in ages so I'm trying to get myself to recommit to some events. Is it weird to constantly want a list of things to be doing at all times? Even if it's so that I can take that list and move it to the next day, or next week and know that I have things to take care of?

I recently dusted off my old Cranberries CD with "Ode to My Family" and realized just what a great album it is to sing along to! Half the lyrics don't quite make sense, and you sing with an accent you don't have... but it's fun nonetheless.

Now a word from our sponsors...

My weekend is starting tonight... whoo hooo....



See ya later suckas! :)

Too early to think about Halloween?

One of Herman's coworkers mentioned how his dog had the cutest Halloween costume.

So today I did a quick search on Google Images and came across the cutest website.


Boston Terriers in Disguise

Flowers and Fast Furries

Cue the spring music...

We woke up early on a Saturday morning to catch the first Egg Hunt of the day at Descanso Gardens. Okay, I'm a bit too old for egg hunting, but little SAM isn't!


Descanso is so pretty this time of the year. Plus they have a restaurant, gift shops and events throughout the year. If I had a garden, these would be the top contenders to join my foliage collection:



Another memorable moment today was taking Barklee to his very first Dog Park adventure. Well, it's possible his last owners took him to one, but considering they left him to fend for himself at a dirty animal shelter, I think not. Boy, did Barklee stretch his legs there. As all the other dogs casually pranced around, Barklee was doing laps around them and shocking other pet owners by pretending they were his owners too. That was one sad part... it was as if Barklee didn't even know me there! I'd call for him and whistle and pat my knees... and he'd run right past me as if i were invisible. (sigh) I guess I should be glad we could get him back on a leash to go home!



Is the spring music still running in your head? Well, here's a spring picture to close off this post...

Goood Friday

Today was a work holiday for me and it was nice to be on my own schedule. Too bad it was also the ONE day it had to rain. But it wasn't too bad... the sky was clear of rain clouds by late afternoon. :)

Did a bit of 'spot cleaning' - vacuuming the dust bunnies away - and even a load of laundry. Spent too long at my local Big Lots (this store scares most people, but I always find great miscellaneous items). Had lunch with Herman and a few of his coworkers and toured the facilities. Had a nice stroll with Barklee around the neighborhood (well, I've been doing this everyday practically). And even got some new snapshots of him to add to my collection of a gazillion Barklee pictures.

Here's one of my favorites that i cropped in:



And here's a plethora of faces my pup can make:

Doggy = Love = Sleep Deprivation

I finally got around to doing an updated movie for Barklee. Precious sleeping hours were sacrificed, but i think it was worth it.

To give perspective, since I've gotten Barklee... i've taken 126 movie clips of him. Out of these clips, I managed to cram the best snippets into less than 4 minutes. Special thanks to Michael Buble for tying it all together with his song "Save The Last Dance For Me" from his "It's Time" album. (Go buy it in stores, today!)

Hey... did you see LOST?

Or were you one of Adelphia's much adored clients that sat and watched a BLANK Screen 19 minutes into the NEW episode? Oh well. Watch something else... Oh look... NOTHING is working. Let's huddle around the old TV that still has rabbit ears and watch the last 20 minutes pushing the antennae around so that the audio won't sound like TTSCCHHH!!!!


I called the 24 hour Adelphia line...

"We're sorry your area is currently experiencing technical problems and our technicians are working on it. You can now hang up. If you'd like us to contact you when it's up, press 1. <1> Thank you. You will be contacted if when the service is up, between 9am - 9pm. You may now hang up. If you'd like to continue with this call, press 1. < sigh... 1> Thank you. You will be contacted if when the service is up, between 9am - 9pm. You may now hang up. If you'd like to continue with this call, press 1. Thank you. You will be contacted if when the service is up, between 9am - 9pm. You may now hang up. If you'd like to continue with this call, press 1. <$^&%$#! -- CLICK>

yawn... it's monday

Can i still blame jet lag on being sleepy going to work on a Monday... a week after i originally got back from my trip?


Maybe it's the NON-Drowsy medicine I took for Allergies. Yesterday i was sneezing and runny nose and my eyes felt dry - It's been years since i've had ANY allergies... I thought that Los Angeles had cured me of my childhood sneezy, runny nose, itchy eye days. Hopefully it's not really back! Hopefully it's not Barklee!

Supposed to rain today. I guess it's good for the plants... and it gives me a reason to use my nifty see-through umbrella I got in HK for less than 3 U.S. Dollars. :) Herman thinks it will be lucky to last a month... We'll see about that!