Basil

Basil woke up on Monday morning with the sniffles.  I don't know why it didn't occur to me that dogs can catch something like a cold but the truth of the matter is obvious.  In honor of his first illness, here are a few pictures to remind us all of the good old days.

One of his first days at home, laying claim to his spot on the couch.

First bath, back when he was much smaller.  Today, he can rest his chin on the edge of the tub rather than having to stand on his hind legs to see over it.

The blue tongue was a good indication that Basil was into something he shouldn't have been. It ended up being blue tissue paper.

According to our instructor, that certificate of completion was the first she had ever given to a spaniel of any type on his/her first attempt at basic obedience. Trust me, we earned it.

Hero For The Day: My Wife

This Monday, for the first time, Katie rode her bicycle to work with me.  We had done a practice ride a few Saturdays ago and "it wasn't too bad" so she decided to give it a shot on an actual work day. She probably isn't going to try to ride every work day year round (like I try to do) but is considering riding two or three days a week.  The motivations are the standard reasons for bicycle commuting: saving money on gas and getting good exercise.  In fact, the last one probably pushed her over the line.  When I rode in last Monday I told her I had burned 1000 Calories that day on the bicycle, she responded "If I ride my bicycle to work, I can eat almost anything without gaining weight."

Yes, yes you can.

The return of tortillas!

This news is a few months old but the local chain grocery store started to produce tortillas in-house again!  This particular store has has four different owners over the past handful of years, some choosing to use the existing in-house tortillas machine, some not.  For those of you keeping score at home, here's the history:

Albertson's 

The only evidence that the store was an Albertson's was the trademark blue font found on many signs and grocery carts throughout the store.  Ownership of this store took place before my time here in Wichita.

Tortilla status: Unknown

Food 4 Less

This chain is not related to the warehouse-style grocery store bearing the same name.  When I moved to Wichita in 2005, they were the owners of the store and though it was out of the way, I I often shopped there just for the tortillas.

Tortilla status: Plain, jalepeno cheese, roma tomato

Homeland

While out of town visiting family over Christmas break in 2006 Food 4 Less sold out to an in-town competitor: Homeland.  There was no improvement in any aspect of the store and in some areas, quality degraded.  It didn't take long before the tortillaria in the store was closed, seemingly for  good.

Tortilla status: moth-balled

Dillon's

Less than a year after Homeland bought our Food 4 Less, Dillon's bought out Homeland.  In both of these cases, it was not just our store that was affected; all of Wichita lost both of these chains in just a short time. (For those of you REALLY keeping score at home, you will have realized that Wichita has two major grocer's: Dillon's and Wal-Mart.  There are a few other smaller players such as Target and Aldi but I'm going to guess that 70% of Wichita primarily buys their food from one of the former.)  It took a few months but Dillon's management saw the wisdom of the tortillaria and brought it back.  I stumbled across this the same day I took my GRE; it was a very happy day.

Tortilla status: Plain, whole wheat, cinnamon and sugar, salsa