Live Strong Shelby

The picture to the left is an old one of Shelby sleeping with her head in her food bowl. Now that Shelby has been living with us I can see how this might happen because she wants to eat as soon as she wakes up.


As many of you probably know, Shebly had a mast cell tumor removed last week. A mast cell tumor is cancerous, and comes in 3 grades

Grade 1: Removing the tumor completely should prevent the cancer
Grade 2: Even with removing the tumor, cancer may spread if the area is not radiated, or the dog under goes chemotherapy
Grade 3: Severe cancer, dog is expected to live 4-5 months

We were pretty worried, all of the reading online about these tumors only made us more concerned for Shelby. The GOOD NEWS is that Shebly's tumor came back grade 1 and she should be fine!

So Shebly has plenty of days left to steal my shoes, lay on my clean clothes, shed in the house, and wake us up at 5am to be fed.

These tumors are apparently common and can be found on puppies as well as adult dogs. Please check your dog regularly and use this site for some helpful info: Mast Cell Tumors

Movie Review: Lake House

Meghan and I rented "Lake House" last night per Shelby's request. If you are not familiar with the movie, it's about 2 people who fall in love (blah blah blah) but the fun part is that they rent the same lake house but live 2 years apart. Got it? They fall in love but are in different times.

I really enjoyed the movie because it makes you think differently and it takes you a while to get into what's going on. However you have to get over the fact that yes Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock are the main characters, but NO there is no exploding bus involved. Also the movie is NOT about really convincing you how they could communicate 2 years apart or how they fall in love, all of that you kind of quickly have to take for granted.

The movie spends most of its time saying if these things were possible, what might happen and how strange this must be. I had no problem getting past these things and enjoying the movie for what it's about, a neat idea. If you are the type of person who gets hung up on the details of a movie and it ruins it for you, this movie may bug you. However the idea is fun and I really enjoyed it.

Reminded me a bit of K-PAX, which I also recommend. That's a movie that makes you feel like a kid again, like there really is all sorts of possibility that we don't yet understand.

Instant Replay in Football

I have been watching a lot of football this weekend (which is true for most weekends in the fall) and a recurring theme needs to be discussed. I think instant replay is important and should stay with football, because the officials make a lot of stupid calls and only replay has preserved the proper outcome of the game (remember the tuck rule game, imagine if justice wasn't served?).

The major gripe I have with instant replay is the fact that you never really know what's real until minutes later. I have seen a lot of exciting games, and sometimes you want to jump up and cheer for an amazing play (like an INT returned for a touchdown). But now I find that I don't really celebrate as much, you feel like you have to be reserved, there is a little bit of you that doesn't want to get emotionally attached to the outcome because it may be overturned by instant replay.

Last but not least, I do NOT believe that officials are sticking to the policy of NOT overturning a call without "indisputable evidence". I think they turn over calls all the time based on what they thick happened versus seeing a clear replay that would be considered "indisputable".