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 …

As most of you know, Kari and I hosted a Halloween Party this weekend... and if you didn't come - you're lame.

We had a little over half of the turnout that we had last year... but it was still a good time. Most of our out-of-towners didn't make it this time, however Tara came down from Mpls and Jake and Ania came from Illinois.

Anyway, there were some pretty amazing costumes, like Winnie the Pooh, Zombies, Me, Richard Simmons, etc, etc. Take a look at the pics.

All the beer pretty much got drank, aside from maybe a couple pints of light. So, I think the next party we have, I'm just going to get a regular keg instead of 2 small kegs.

Also, we picked Ninja up on Sunday. He looks pretty hilarious. After a few hours of him …

We just went up to the vet to have Ninja's leg looked at. It turns out that he completely tore his cruciate ligament in his left leg.

The good news is that his knee is easily fixable with TPLO surgery.
The bad news is that it costs over $2,000.
The worse news is that his right knee is partially torn.

So right around Christmas time, I suppose we will be buying Ninja a second knee.
$5,000 on our free dog and we decided to go through with it.

...And don't get me wrong, I would like our 3 year old dog to have new knees, especially if money wasn't an issue... but the truth is - money is an issue. A big issue.

Please send money for Christmas presents this year...

For a new hip.

So, Ninja has been acting really funny lately, like his hind legs aren't working and are hurting him. He's been having a lot of trouble getting onto furniture, getting up stairs, and even getting up off the floor. Several times lately he's tried to hop into bed and got completely denied. And even worse yet, he has to use the stairs for nearly everything - even going to the bathroom. To watch such a young/playful dog have so much trouble has been really rough to watch.

That said, last night I took Ninja to the vet, he didn't feel anything wrong in Ninja's legs, so we x-rayed. The x-rays showed that his left femur is misshaped at the hip joint which is causing Hip Dysplasia. Mixed with the size of our dog, he's …

As if I even have to say it... Dog parties are stupid. Kari had this brilliant idea to have a dog party at our house for Ninja's 2nd birthday. I originally didn't like it for a few reasons, one being that it ties us a lot closer to being parents than I'm really comfortable with. But also, wtf? However I agreed to it for both of those same reasons. One, I like having a dong in place of a kid. and B, I thought it'd be pretty hilarious.

I dunno, once it started, I wasn't quite feeling it. Kari decorated our house for a dog party, which felt way lame on an over-the-top level. All the girl dogs fought and nearly killed a couple smaller dogs. And I got peed on - which actually was a highlight, haha. Pics.

Aside from that the …

Oh Yeah. So, we had a Halloween Party last weekend, which marked the biggest party held in my house to date - 40 people. I didn't realize how much fun that costume parties can be. It sort of makes an automatic ice breaker and then everyone ends up hanging out with everyone. I loved it. Check out my pics, Nicole's Pics, Zach's Pics.

And to continue the radness, Des Moines Alive got invited to the Friends and Family pre-opening party for Cabaret Night Club. We're also getting invites for the VIP party. I'm pretty excited. We have some good plans to make the site much better... Not to mention the new Mobile site that we just launched. We're totally going to rock it.

This weekend will be pretty ridiculous as well. Ninja turned …

Hmm, so I've done enough extreme activities and hurt myself enough times that I keep a couple of those wrist/ankle/knee wraps around - and today I'm wearing one, haha. Stupid wrists.

See, Zach and I were skating last night for quite a while. I was finally starting to stick a couple grinds that felt super unnatural to me before. It was going well. So well in fact, that I started hitting them with more speed. And as some of you know, when grinding, especially with torqued grinds such as royales, it's easy to let your feet slip out from under you and fall hard, thus hurting your wrist or back or whatever.

Well, this didn't happen. Although it would maybe make for a better story. Actually, i didn't fall once. I hurt my wrist …

So this was a pretty unplanned weekend... Originally we were supposed to go to Mt Vernon to hang out with our friends. But since we\'re poor and have a ton of stuff to catch up on, we decided to stay here. Luckily it turned out to be a fun weekend anyway...

Friday Ninja got surgery. He had his balls cut out and dew claws removed - for some reason it didn\'t slow him down a bit though. Just to be safe we got him a cone head so he wouldn\'t chew stitches out. Plus I thought it would be funny.

Kevi came over friday so that he could find an apartment (w00t!). Since he was in town we decided to have a few people over to grill out. We made steaks, chicken, salmon, etc. Chuck brought pheasant, haha. It was a fun time. We mostly h…

Ah, what a weekend. Kari and I went to Mount Vernon and Cedar rapids to have a 'going steady celebration' with our parents. Friday was open so I totally planned on breaking Cornell - because I love breaking Cornell. So, I called friends to meet me there - Kevi, and Jeff. Soon, I realized that both friends are really, incredibly lame. Jeff had to hang out with his gf and Kevi had to either sit at home or hang out with his gf, or both. Lamers. But anyway, I ate at Lincoln Cafe - so good (it was in Oprah Magazine once, haha), hung out with lots of girls, saw old friends at the bars, and walked around campus until 3AM or so. I was only mildly destructive without my friends there. Basically I just took pictures and looked pretty. I …