Too late to make it right

The MacBook is like crack. I can't seem to put it down and go to bed before midnight these days.

One of the things I love about it is the Adium IM client, which allows me to combine my MSN Messenger, Yahoo and Gmail chat contacts in the same app/window. It just signs me into all of them, and I can chat with anyone who's online from any of the services. So much more convenient than signing into multiple clients. My only wish for it was that it would use my Mac's built-in webcam. Maybe that'll happen in a future version. For now it's text-only chatting for me.

We had a nice time with TJ's parents, who left yesterday to visit Robin in North Dakota. After that they'll drive back to Tucson. Must be nice to be retired! :D

Tomorrow is my last "real" day at work, since Wednesday is a holiday and Thursday morning is my exit interview where I have to hand in my badge and everything else. Weird that my almost 5 years at Microsoft is so close to the end. But I have no regrets right now. (Ask me again in 6 months!)

To celebrate my last week of working part-time, Spike and I are taking a road trip to Vancouver. In order to cross the border, Spike needs his rabies tag and a certificate so I spent some time today tracking down replacements for all of the tags on his collar. A few months ago, he mysteriously lost all of them, including the ring they were on. He still had his collar, but the ring and all 4 tags, including the very nice handmade nametag, were gone. I'm sure they're in our yard somewhere, so I'm still holding out hope that we'll find it.

In the meantime we bought him a cheap tag with his name and our address/ph numbers from Petco. Today I finally got around to replacing his rabies tag and King County license as well, so that if he does manage to escape in Canada (I hope not!) he can find his way back home.

I made our reservation, at a very swanky 5 star hotel, which we got for a really good rate on Hotwire. (I took my chances since most of the nice Vancouver hotels are at least small dog-friendly.) So I'm looking forward to the trip, and hope to tire Spike out enough with our daily activities so that he won't be tempted to bark in the hotel room. I live in fear of being the annoying guest and/or getting booted out into the street because of his ear-splitting howl.

On our agenda are Granville Island, Stanley Park, a crepe stand, and the Frites french fry place Leslie and I visited when we went last January. And lots of walking. Vancouver also seems to have a ton of off-leash parks so we'll try to hit a few of those too. It'll be a nice vacation for both of us, and Peanut and TJ will also enjoy their male bonding time at home.

Whew! If I sign off now, I can attempt to go to bed before midnight. Only 2 minutes left!!