Links to Pumpkin Carving Templates

Why is it that every year around this time we have the strong urge to take a sharp knife to a large round veggie inorder to gorge out its insides and carve holes into the outside to reveal image that can be illuminated during that one special night?

Why do we call it a Jack-O-Lantern? Well at the risk of plagerisim I will just give you a link. It is actually an interesting story involving Stingy Jack and the Devil.
History of the Pumpkin

How to find pumpkin tempalates?

The Pumpkin Lady

Pumpkin Glow

Jack-O-Patterns

Masterpiece Pumpkins

Halloween Pumpkins

Extreme Pumpkins

Spook Master

Zombie Pumpkin

HP Activity Center

Original Pumpkin Carving Patterns

Pumpkin Plans

The Pumpkin Farm

Pumpkin carving template for sports fans

Templates from Firebox

Templates from Windows

Templates from Hormel Foods

Notre Dame Templates

Bush Template

Well it is getting late...More updates later.. Don't forget to set your clocks back.

Laughing at the News

It is a little after 1am and I am trying to keep myself up so I can get on a night schedule for this week. Anyway, I just wanted to comment on a couple of articles in the news this week.

Man sought to match Bird's No. 33


OKLAHOMA CITY -- A man got a prison term longer than prosecutors and defense attorneys had agreed to -- all because of Larry Bird.

The lawyers reached a plea agreement this week for a 30-year term for a man accused of shooting with an intent to kill and robbery. But Eric James Torpy wanted his prison term to match Bird's jersey number 33.

"He said if he was going to go down, he was going to go down in Larry Bird's jersey," Oklahoma County District Judge Ray Elliott said. "We accommodated his request and he was just as happy as he could be.

"I've never seen anything like this in 26 years in the courthouse. But, I know the DA is happy about it."

First let me escort you back to the first 2 words of this article. Oklahoma City. I have to say, this fact didn't surprise me. Of course it is a bit strange to pay homage to a member of a team that is oh..let's say 1000 miles away? Pay homage. Now let's remind ourselves what the definition is:

Homage is generally used in modern English to mean any public show of respect to someone to whom you feel indebted

Ok. So let me get this straight. So Mr. Torpy wants to public declare his respect (or probably obsession) for Bird by serving 3 extra years for a PRISON sentence b/c he shot someone. Wouldn't 33 roses have accomplished the same thing? Lucky for Bird, this guy will be indisposed for the lucky 33 years.

Ok. The next article...well it really isn't an article it is just my reaction to a segment on CNN after the Washington bomb scare on Friday. The reporter explained a few of the following details:

"claimed he was best friends with the president,"

He also mentioned something about how spiderman was after him and some other really off the wall stuff. Now what was really funny is that the reporter said it with a straight face. Not even a grimace. That is impressive, b/c I was laughing pretty hard.

Anyway, I think my brain is beginning to go into "sleep" mode so I am off to get a caffeinated product.

Until later.

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You love to have fun, meet new people and things
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Where should U go on vacation ?(with pics)
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Acorns and ICU

Mason has been limping for a week and didn't seem to get any better. Historically, Mason isn't the most graceful dog and occasionally sprains something a limps for a few days. But I never saw him lick the top of his paw like he was now doing. I applied different types of pressures to his paw and moved it in all these directions and he elicited no pain...hmm, that was strange.

At school I brought this issue up and one of my classmate suggested that I really put my fingers up under his pads b/c goldens in Oklahoma tend to get things stuck up there. Ok. So when I got home after 12 that night I felt up in his pad and he tried to pull away as though it was painful. When I pulled my figure out I smelled a Staph. infection. So something was up, but I couldn't see with the light in the family room or without shaving.

The next night Nathan brought him up to school while I was on my ICU shift. We lifted him on the table and I shaved all the long airs off. I still couldn't see the problem. When I put a bright light up there I saw one of his pads was swelled and lacerated. I started pulled on the dried up pus and finally i pulled out 1/2 an acorn. How could he have fit 1/2 acorn up there is beyond me, but after we cleaned it up and wrapped it with bandages he was no longer limping and resumed being a happy doggie.


ICU Rotation

I am on my ICU rotation. What is that? Well all the small animal intensive care cases (the dogs on fluids, the hit by cars, the post-op dogs, the ashma cat...etc) go into ICU. They had this crazy schedule where you may work 7:30-4p one day and 12am-9am the next day, so my sleep schedule is totally wached. Nathan took this schedule a worked on it like a logic problem and ended up producing a really effecient schedule for future rotations...yea Nathan! Extra brownie points for me.

Anyway, I have learned quite a bit. I am practicing puting in catheters on legs. But I have gotten to put in a urinary catheter, a central venous catheter (in the neck), make up fluids, calculate fluid and drug dosages, etc etc. I think this is mainly a skills based rotation b/c in practice our techs will do most of this stuff but I guess we have to know how to do it so we can teach them.

One thing that has been sad is that we have had several animals who came in and were terminally ill. They were in pain, they were suffering, and their owners for one reason or another wouldn't put them down. I understand that isn't my decision to make and thus I can express my opinions in this format. Let's take Mason or Cody as an example. They have served as my devoted companions through thick and thin for over 11 years. No matter how busy I was or how long I was gone, they never questioned my love for them. They have stayed by my side. It would literally tear my insides out to have to watch my devoted companions, my loved ones die in such agony, to live in such an undignified matter, to sit there through their suffering being unable to help heal my own suffering.

So when is enough, enough? I have thought this many times myself and I asked a professor once who gave me an extremely insightful answer. Think of 3 things your animal LOVES to do. When your animal can no do these things then it may be time.

Podcasts

The other day (or rather the other week) I fired up my itunes program and for what seemed like the millionth time, the computer asked me to update my itunes software...........FINE!
After all was said and done, I notice this new menu..Podcast...what is that?

It seemed like a bunch of different internet radio shows that I could listen to on my own time without commercials. Cool!

So what has attracted me interest in the podcast world?

1. NPR's Story of the Day - this is a collection of stories about what many would think of as ordinary people and kind of gives a little insight about them.

2. Two Minute Photoshop Tricks : This is a great little podcast that allows you to tackle photoshop, one element at a time. I have been using Photoshop since about 2000 and I never new that CTRL + SHIFT + O opened a file brower menu where you could rename files in batches or add on copyright details to them.

3. Digital Photograph Tips From the Top Floor : I am not sure what i think about this yet. I may go back and listen to quiet a few of them when I have time to play with my camera (or when I get a new Digital Camera...hint, hint see Wish List ). There are alot of interviews with famous photographers. Let you know more about this later.

4. Mondays: What Sunday Threw up This is kind of has a Geek "Daily Show" feel to it. They talk about weird stuff you can buy off the internet (some of it you may actualyl find useful)and segments like "You are Dumber Than me" (one episode described a crack addict pulled over by a cop and his drug sniffing dog and how the addict tried to distract the dog by throwing dog treats out the window). But they have on a few occasions had to made public apologies for offending one group or another, so if you are easily offended I would not listen.

5. MuggleNet We all have dirty secrets...well I like Harry Potter and I have no problem listening to this 16 year old and 20 year old discuss HP. It is actually more insightful than you would think and they try to have intellegent answers to everyone's questions.

6.Purina Well since Purina is the greatest Pet food company, how could their podcast be any bad? This is acually taken from a radio show segment in St. Louis (Purina's headquarters) where they have a vet who answers questions and provides explainations for those ever present mysteries, like ...why do cats purr? I have actually learned a few things from him.

7. Newsweek on the Air This is a weekly program about various highlights in the news. Hard to say much about it, but if you are a CNN or MSNBC watching type of person you will probably enjoy this. I have enjoyed some of their stories (esecially about the Bird Flu)

8. Phone Taps, Romeo's Celebrity Crank Calls, Z100 Interviews, Adventures of Greg T the Frat Boy I grew up listening to NYC's Z100. And I just about flipped when I saw this on itunes. Nothing brings back more memories of the tri-state area then a pissed off Brooklyn, Italian, man who is being lead on by a loved one over the radio. Great stuff.

9. Science Friday Just because I don't have class doesn't mean I am not interested in learning a little science. The dog flu was especially interesting (and I hope will be helpful on my boards).

10. SCRAPcast I originally thought, how can you talk about scrapbooking with no visuals? Well this lady does a fantastic job about talking about her own experiences or describing projects. I learned a ton on how to organize my scrapstuff. One of my favorites.

11. Street Stories Everyone has an interesting story to tell and this cast tells it. Quite inspiring.

12. Genealogy Guys Here is my other secret...I am a genealogy buff. I love family history. I so wish this podcast aired more than once a week, I have learned a ton just from the few I have listened to. They talk about everything genealogy from DNA genealogy to Genealogy confrences. And if you have questions, they will try take them into consideration for future shows.

13. Who Said Are you a literature buff? Well test your knowledge. This caster will read an excerp from a book or poem and you have to think of who said it. She reveals the answer on the next pod cast.

Others - These are some new ones that I haven't really checked out yet but I am working on it.

Crafty Chica
Craft Pod

Enjoy!