Walters Press

Monday, November 02, 2009

The Pride of the Southland Marching Band

The pride did a halloween themed halftime show on Saturday night at the UT/South Carolina game. It was awesome! Here is the part where the entire band put down their instruments and did the Thriller dance!

Sunday, November 01, 2009

Happy 8th birthday Riley!

Today is Riley's 8th birthday (observed). I do not know his actual birthday because I rescued him at about 3 months old in January 2002. I do know that the dalmatian rescue agency I got him from rescued him from an animal shelter in San Diego. I can't believe that someone wouldn't want my boy and send him to a shelter:( I like to joke that maybe Riley was born in a back alley in Tijuana and thats how he ended up in San Diego.

When Riley came to me he was named "Bart" by the woman who had rescued him. I remember the first time I saw him. He was in the back of this woman's SUV in a crate. She told me that he was crate trained and almost 100% potty trained. I had already bought a crate for him. The dog never went in a crate after that. He would not go in at all! So much for the crate training! The woman sat him at the bottom of the steps to my apartment and told me he had never seen steps to her knowledge, so he wouldn't know how to climb them. He was definitely big enough to climb them (25lbs) but was so clumsy he couldn't do it! He came into my apartment and immediately pulled out all the ant traps from the previous tenant.

This adoption agency always came to your place to check it out to see if it was suitable for a dog, etc. before releasing the dog to you. I remember I still had the Christmas tree in my living room and so I had been rushing to get it out so my place would look bigger (the woman only gave m about 30 minutes notice she was coming). I honestly thought the woman was just coming to look at my place, not give me the dog. After about 10 minutes of talking to me she said, "ok, that's $35!" I thought, wow, this dog is really mine? She didn't even ask me if I wanted him! Well, I guess I did (I'd been looking for a dog for a while)!

I lived on the beach so I immediately took Riley down to the sand. I am guessing he'd never seen the ocean before because he ran right out into the water and a big wave crashed over him! He ran right back to me and scratched my leg (I still have a scar to this day) and has been afraid of water ever since! Every time I'd take him to the beach after that he'd run underneath the houses to be as far away from the water as he could!

I had a game that night and I wasn't supposed to have a pet in my apartment so I figured I'd take him with me. I didn't know what to do with him so I gave him to one of Chris's friends to keep and Riley pee'd in his apartment!

Our first day together:

From Riley and friends

Some more puppy pictures

From Riley and friends

Riley after bathtime. Not happy.

From Riley and friends

Two years old

From Riley and friends

Riley and his friend Brodie

From Riley and friends

We tried an automatic feeder for a while. Riley was confused.

From Riley and friends

Coming home from a trip to the desert

From Riley and friends

Riley will do anything to make his dad happy

From Riley and friends

Good cheek sugar

From Riley and friends

Riley makes people smile. When he rides in the car with me he sits in the passenger seat like a person. When we stop at red lights he always gets a smile out of people from other cars.

Riley has lived an exciting life. He has been stolen by a homeless person and run away countless times. One time, he ran about 5 miles of the LA Marathon (by himself)! If you want to hear these stories, you'll have to ask:)

He is my best friend and I love him so much!

Monday, October 26, 2009

Carving our pumpkin 2009

Our annual pumpkin carving was last night. We used to always carve a "T" into our pumpkins but this year decided to try to carve the checkerboard end zone into our pumpkin. For those of you not familar with the checkerboard end zones:

Here is our project:

From Halloween 2009

Riley LOVES pumpkin. The vet told us it was good for him because of the fiber:) He also likes to chew on the stalk.

From Halloween 2009

Riley patiently waiting for any pumpkin scraps we threw his way

From Halloween 2009

Friday, October 23, 2009

Coolhaus

You know we have thousands of taco trucks in LA. Sometimes you have to have a taco from that particular truck, so you race to the street corner where you know it is at that time of day to get your fix.

With the popularity of Twitter it is now easier to find those trucks as most will advertise their location on twitter each day. Other types of food trucks have been popping up in LA getting on the twitter bandwagon. @BarbiesQ has pulled pork sandwiches, ribs and veggie burgers. @letsbefrank sells organic grass-fed beef hotdogs in trailers in LA and San Francisco.

Last night @coolhaus was parked in front of a restaurant across the street from our house. It's a mobile Diddy Riese (SHANA!) except better! They serve handmade ice cream sandwiches made from homemade ice cream and cookies. I had mint ice cream with chocolate cookies and the ice cream had real mint leaves in it, not chemicals that make it taste like mint. It was really good!

Friday, October 16, 2009

Labor Day Weekend 2009

Chris and I went to Tennessee for Labor Day weekend this year. We went to a Vols game and celebrated my mom and sisters birthdays.

A house on the UT campus that I've never really paid attention to but have walked past thousands of times

From Labory Day Weekend 2009--Tennessee

A sea of orange during the Vol Walk--our first sighting of Lane Kiffin!

From Labory Day Weekend 2009--Tennessee

The Pride!

From Labory Day Weekend 2009--Tennessee

My favorite thing in the world! Running through the T!

From Labory Day Weekend 2009--Tennessee

If you look closely you can see Smokey running across the end zone after a touchdown!

From Labory Day Weekend 2009--Tennessee

I never knew that UT had these beautiful gardens on the Ag campus...but of course I never had any reason to go over there, except to look for the body farm!

From Labory Day Weekend 2009--Tennessee

The Vol Navy

From Labory Day Weekend 2009--Tennessee

Celebrating mama and Tracy's birthday on Sunday

From Labory Day Weekend 2009--Tennessee

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Look at this face

This is Ben. We are visiting his parents this weekend and he got a bath for our visit! Looks like he's saying "oh the things I go through for you"

Saturday, October 03, 2009

More letterpress

I did some printing today and took pictures of some of the steps. Here you can see my hands on the movable type that creates the impression on the paper. I am adding "furniture" (the pieces of wood) around the type so that I can "lock it up" for printing.

From Letterpress

Putting the chase (the metal frame that holds the type) into the press

From Letterpress

Putting blue ink on the press

From Letterpress

Manually turning the flywheel to test out the press

From Letterpress

I mixed blue and black ink to make navy

From Letterpress

This is a close up of the type. Each individual letter is a piece of lead. I worked on the type for several nights this week. It takes a lot of patience to set this type--this is how entire newspapers used to be printed! I can also print from magnesium plates if I want to print something like a design for an invitation, etc. (that is much less time consuming, but more expensive)