Last night, around midnight, our dog, Benny became pretty restless. He started moving about the bedroom as if he couldn't get comfortable. This was followed by incessant panting and pacing about the house. He'd had a bit of restlessness the night before, so we didn't think anything of it at first.

But it kept up for quite a bit, so I tried to think about what was different that day. I'd kegged some homebrew earlier and spilt a bit of the filtered trub onto the floor. As he does with everything edible that falls within his range, he quickly lapped it up... and he's lapped up a bit of spilt beer before, so I didn't think anything of it. But I googled homebrew + dogs and found that hops can be very toxic for dogs. This particular homebrew …

Today, we had to say goodbye to the sweetest, most awkward, and lovable dog that I’ve ever met.

Garth was a stray that was picked up in SE Iowa in 2010 and put on doggy death row at a kill shelter. A foster home in Cedar Rapids rescued him and we adopted him soon after.

We got the privilege of hanging out with this sweet boy for nearly 11 years.

Later in life, Garth started developing lots of tumors, which eventually found their way to his pancreas and caused him to over produce insulin and cut his blood sugar to half of what it’s supposed to be. Insulinoma. We found out too late to be able to act on it in a meaningful way.

He started getting weaker and developed seizures that became more and more frequent. An episode this morning left …

At the end of my senior year of college, I drove out to this country road to make a phone call. There was a spot on the edge of this cornfield that I always went to for important calls (without being interrupted by one of my crazy dorm mates).

I was making a call to Marv Hardisty because I'd interviewed for a position on his team a couple weeks prior and wanted to check in. It was for my first potential, big corporate job after college and Marv would've been my boss's boss if I landed the gig.

Once Marv got on the phone, the first thing he wanted to talk about was the portfolio of work on my personal website. He told me that he was impressed, but was especially interested in brooksfsw.com. As soon as he asked about it, my heart dropped, …

I don't even really know how to start this... But as I'm sure you all have heard, our dog Ninja died this morning at just over 5 years old.

He'd been battling what we think was Addison's disease for the past couple weeks. Addison's disease is a disorder in which his adrenal glands don't produce enough steroid hormones. This basically sent his electrolytes out of wack, causing him to lose his appetite, become very weak, etc. It all came on super fast the monday before last. He was lethargic, unresponsive, and as what I can only describe as doggy-emo. So we took him into the vet, they hooked him up to some IVs, gave him a couple shots and he bounced back to his regular self - literally overnight. We then began weaning him off of …

Wow, what a weekend.

So, if you didn't know, Kari's grandpa, Morris Reynolds, died last Tuesday from a combination of old age and liver cancer. Whoa, right? Just jump right into it, Derek! Well, that's kind of the way it worked in real life. It just sort of snuck up on everyone... I mean, he was driving 2 weeks ago... sorta bumper cars style, but he was still driving.

That said, this weekend was full of Reynolds family time and funeral activity. As with any death, it's never a pleasant experience. The visitation is always awkward, lots of hugs with people you don't know, etc. I was pretty ok through the entire thing, but Saturday at the funeral is when it really got me. We went to breakfast at Morris's favorite breakfast …