Apparently Johnson had a friend over Christmas Eve

Victoria in the fog

This is nothing to do with Christmas but I just thought I'd mention that I had to go to Victoria again last week and it was on a very foggy day. That meant I got caught in a convoy of vehicles doing 50mph for a good part of the journey. Although that was frustrating it did have the effect of bumping my mileage up to 23.2 mpg
It did drop to 19.2 mpg on the way home against the wind but still pretty impressive for a 5.4 litre engine; I reckon the UK equivalent to be nearly 28 mpg; only 2 mpg less than my old 1600cc UK Ford!
So, back to Christmas and here are more pictures labeled More Christmas 07

Tartan Ted's Christmas card

For the second year running I have singularly failed to prepare cards in time for Christmas. No one in the UK will be getting one this year and few, if any, in the USA. Bit of a disaster really!
Oh well I thought I'd take a family picture by the Christmas tree and post it online with this lame excuse and maybe some folks will forgive and forget that "the Teds" have seemingly disappeared off the face of the planet.

That was the idea but as can be seen from these photographs, labeled Christmas 07, it is not easy to get everyone facing the same way at the same time; even if that amazing feat is achieved there are some really strange facial expressions to contend with and I'm not that proficient at Photoshop!
So here is a non flash photo of the kids and dog by the tree

A total lack of recall ...

Our new dog, Johnson, is a sweet dog, good with the children, gentle and loving. However - show him a seagull and you can say goodbye to any response to your commands until he is tired out running up and down the beach.
Check out our trip to the beach here labeled Port Aransas and see the small speck of a dog in the far distance of the photos enjoying a good run in the surf.
I guess I have a bit of work to do with him on the recall command as well as his walking to heel!
Anyway he certainly got enough exercise today and is fast asleep beside me as I type this entry.

A Saltire for Santa

Christmas time has come to Rockport and today was spent setting up the Christmas lights except that we are supposed to call them holiday lights. As an ex pat of the UK I see no reason to refer to this season by the name "holiday" since, in the UK I used to have a month off at this time of year and here in the USA I get one day - Christmas Day - whoopee!
Anyway our new dog, Johnson, sat patiently in the front yard all day while I climbed a wobbly sixteen foot ladder and hung all the lights that you see in this picture. Tomorrow I will finish the job by stringing lights on the trees to the left of this picture; then we will be visible from space.
For those who do not know; the Saltire is the Scottish flag and is made up of a blue background with a white St Andrew's cross layed on top, a fair representation thereof now lies in lights in my front yard.

Johnson joins our family

Here is our new family member:

Picture 1
Little Ted greets Johnson when he is transferred to our truck.

Picture 2
Johnson says "OK take my picture if you must"

Picture 3
He settles happily after a walk and falls asleep

Picture 4
Why did I bother to buy him a dog bed?

Sad day, happy day

Sadly I read this morning that my favorite "virtual" pet, Harley the Golden Retriever passed from this life yesterday. Go here to read about her - she was a great character.
I look forward to the day when Marie can bring herself to offer a new dog a place in her family; until then I shall miss reading about doggie adventures on Blue Ridge Blog.

The happy news, for Tartan Ted and family is that Little Ted and Ted are driving in Houston direction this afternoon to pick up our new family member who, in the interests of maintaining our fictional family names, will henceforth be called "Johnson"

Pictures will follow later today or on Sunday if we are very late home.

Little Ted visits Houston for his 5th birthday

We all went up to Houston for Little Ted's birthday and his Aunt arranged a fun filled day for him. Starting with a pony ride, then a visit to the Brittany rescue people, then the Houston Museum of Natural Science and then the highlight of the day - The Downtown Aquarium.
More pictures of Little Ted's day can be seen here labeled Houston.

And so to the Circus ...

"What did you say Little Ted?
A whole elephant?
You want a whole elephant? But you hardly ever eat all of a normal dinner!"

The circus came to town Friday and set up at the beach park. As Mrs Ted is still on crutches, and in fact has borrowed a wheelchair for the weekend, it fell to Ted to endure the dreadful experience of mobile entertainment in all its' tacky non splendor enjoy the delight of his children experiencing their first circus visit.
I guess life is what you make it and who am I to dampen the enthusiasm of young kids viewing circus entertainment for the first time. The oos and ahs and awesomes pouring from their lips and the big wide eyes full of wonder made it all worth while and they are not old and cynical like their Dad; they do not need, at this stage in their young lives, to wonder too much about health and safety issues, animal welfare concerns, and downright financial exploitation of the captive audience. That's Teds job and by golly he's on it!

The Honeymoon is over ...

Re: Ted's new job or, why he should have stayed retired and gone fishing.

My colleagues of the past 20 years in Scotland will be amused to hear that I have been told to stop coming into work so early!
Every minute of the day must be customer contact time either face to face or on the telephone and since no-one likes a sales call at 7:45am which, frankly, is when it would suit me to turn up for work, I have been told 8:15am is more appropriate.
8:15 it is then, but this week there have been few customers turning up in person and those that have appeared predominantly required some ongoing maintenance rather than providing new sales to appease the corporate gods who set unreasonable goals for us mortals to achieve.

HAD I WANTED TO WORK IN A SODDING CALL CENTER I WOULD HAVE APPLIED FOR A "CALL CENTER" JOB!

And another thing ...
Not that I have been personally accused of committing this "heinous crime" - but I know a person who has - it is apparently frowned upon to "waste time" talking to a colleague however briefly when you could be acting all call center like and annoying poor people at home offering to sell them things they don't want.
I get the feeling that you are not meant to visit the rest room between 8:15am and 5:15pm either.
[Sic Semper tyrannis]

In the words of the bard [Robert Burns - Scottish Poet 1759 - 1796]

"But, Mousie, thou art thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o'mice an' men
Gang aft agley
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!"

So - should definitely have gone fishing instead!

Well that concludes today's rant although I should add I am saddened that the shine has somewhat rubbed off and the tarnish has taken over the asylum because, by and large, I like pretty much all of the lunatics therein.

Ted's training buddies

So, as I was saying before trucks and boots started to monopolize this blog, where has Ted been since August 4th?
Well, 4th to 19th he was confined to the house with strict instructions from Mrs Ted to finish that painting job and any other current projects prior to returning to the real world of full time employment. Then, from the 20th to date he has been traveling to Victoria to spend his days with these young ladies - oh what a trial that has been (just kidding girls).
I must say that it has been entertaining to be the "token Scotsman" amongst all y'all. (I still think I'm more of a Golden Retriever than a West Highland Terrier!)
There was another guy on the training course so I was not alone but he couldn't make it to lunch today.
Anywho, as I am a believer in identity protection, I shall not mention names. Suffice to say that the last seven weeks were made a lot easier for me by the way I was accepted into this class of Texans and made to feel special by everyone.
Thank you all.

Another picture of the truck, just because.

Parked up beside Mrs Ted's van

The road to Victoria

SR 185 to Victoria in the morning.
This is why we are thankful for the invention of cruise control.

The Texas Roadhouse, Victoria

Little Ted spotted this saddle on the way to our table and insisted that Ted take his picture beside it. Conversation over his steak (yes, Little Ted is an avid eater of dead cow - he loves it) revolved around the dog he has been promised when he turns 5 year old and the various types of vehicle he plans to keep on his property "when I'm a grown up" There was also something mentioned about a gun rack but we didn't go into that too deeply at this time!
Eddy is not as appreciative of dead cow and prefers to go for chicken but it mustn't have a spicy coating or it gets rejected. Mrs Ted, of course, is from Texas and so the dead cow is a given for her!

Daddy's boots - Take #4

Well here they are at last; one pair of brown Tony Lama and one pair of black Larry Mahan boots.

Daddy's boots - Take #3

"Daddy will put his foot up on the tire and you take a picture of the boot. Try not to stand in the light Eddy"
"Oh well, we tried"

Daddy's boots - Take #2

"Try again sweetheart, remember to get the boots in the picture"

"But it's so sunny Daddy I can't see"

Daddy's boots - Take #1

Ted asked Eddy to take a picture of him, in his new truck, wearing his new boots and this is how it went.

"Eddy, take a picture of Daddy please"
"Which button do I press Daddy?
"That one there Eddy, oops - yes, that one; try again please"

Just since I'm at the computer ....

.... here is a picture of Little Ted with his stuffed animals. He requested that I take this picture and was most insistent that all his "pets" were included:

The truck's maiden trip

We all went to the zoo together, zoo together, zoo together. That's a song isn't it?

Anyway we all piled into the F150 on Saturday last and sped up the road to Victoria where we visited the Texas Zoo, a fine little facility which occupied Eddy and Little Ted's attention for about an hour and then it was time for lunch at the IHOP

After lunch we visited Cavenders Boot Store where Ted got two pairs of boots, Little Ted got a pair of handcuffs (don't ask), Eddy got a pink pony, and Mrs Ted got the satisfaction of knowing her family was happy.

"On to Hobby Lobby" said Mrs Ted, "I need a small pot of brown paint"
And so we bought , literally, a truck load of Christmas decorations, sundry other items AND a small pot of brown paint - now Mrs Ted was truly happy.

Our day ended with dinner at The Texas Roadhouse followed by a leisurely hour and 15 minutes drive home. The children were tired, they went to bed happily - hurrah!

Where has Ted been since August 4th? ....

.... well, the weekend of August 11th - 12th Mrs Ted had me busy painting the house. Not all the house you understand; just 75% of it including the family room, dining room, kitchen, and entrance hall. Builders magnolia was no longer acceptable to Mrs Ted who has had a hard time putting up with it for nearly a year. Sunshine yellow was the chosen replacement and, with Grandmommy and Aunt Kathy stepping up to remove the children from underfoot, a concerted effort was made to have the job completed in two days.
Here are a couple of photos:















Sometime around then Ted interviewed for a job with a National company which is represented here in Rockport and, at the same time hurricane Dean was whipping itself up, Ted was asked if he could start on a training course commencing August 20th. Well, after nearly a year of being confined to the house and pretending to be a "house husband" of course the answer was YES!
So, for the past six weeks Ted has been traveling 140 miles a day to attend training for his new job and that, dear reader, explains the lack of recent blogging .
Of course, with Ted now traveling to work daily, arrangements had to be made for separate transport for Ted and Mrs Ted who for the past year have shared the minivan. Luckily Ted's father in law said we could use his Town car until we settled into a routine and this is how we have coped up until last weekend. Once Ted settled into his new job he felt obliged to return the Town car and get his own transport.
This is what he bought; the kids think it is a piece of play equipment!

Ted goes all high tech

When I first moved here from the "Old World" I thought cable TV was a pretty far advanced option over the steam driven television service I had been used to in my previous life. However, a year on, The Dish Network kindly offered to cut our monthly TV costs (marginally) , provide DVR service and also 32 High Definition channels currently unavailable through cable in this area. Always having a keen eye for a bargain (good Scottish trait) I signed us up for this wonderful new service. It has been installed for 4 days now, which is a bit of a relief considering that the cable company cut our service 5 days previously and we had all been suffering from "what, no TV" syndrome. Anyway, Little Ted has monopolized the big TV to watch "his" channel; Animal Planet, and he has happily been watching crocodiles devour gazelles and wilderbeast and meercats assassinating litters of rival family pups all with great interest and, apparently, no ill effects. Eddy, on the other hand, has scarcely noticed the difference between the one constantly playing DVD of Scooby Doo and the now available 250 satellite channels. Her attention has been drawn more to the enormous dish installation overshadowing her swimming pool!

I have to admit that, when I decided to opt for satellite, I was not expecting to have a miniature copy of Jodrell Bank screwed to the roof of my house and I do have to wonder ... "how will this stand up to hurricane force winds?" Only time will tell although the installer helpfully advised me that Dish Network have a team of installers ready to respond in post hurricane times to get you back up and running with TV service. He did not mention if they would help put the roof back on the house first.

Monster Truck terrorises Little Ted and Eddy ...

... well, not really, they liked it so much they asked to have their picture taken in front of the neighbors removal truck. (Neighbors from New Jersey, truck from Indiana)

Monday 30th July ...

... and Mrs Ted celebrates another birthday.
We spent the day in Corpus Christi, sans enfants, buying shoes and a desk and then had an early dinner at The Texas Roadhouse: Willie wasn't dining that night.

Then it was home to join the kids, their grandparents, and Cousins Paula and Linda for birthday cake and ice-cream.

Return to Goose Island or revenge of the flip flop ...

Cousin Ray took us for our first fishing trip in Texas. We returned to the pier of doom where Eddy and Little Ted lost their flip flops but this time we had a much happier time. Both kids caught catfish straight off although they were a tad reluctant to have anything to do with the fish once they were landed. It was as much as Ted and Ray could do to persuade them to have their photographs taken with their first catches.
Eddy went on to land a stingray and a couple of other types of fish the names of which escape me. Little Ted caught some more catfish but was a little disappointed not to bag a shark, especially when another fisherman on the pier told us he caught one earlier in the week right there where we were fishing!

Lindsay Lohan she is not but ...

... Eddy seems to have taken parking lessons from either her or Paris Hilton. She went up the street this morning in her Jeep to visit a friend and they returned in two vehicles - abandoning them in the driveway thus:

On the road with Grandmommy

Summer Holidays are here and we have 12 weeks of constant companionship with our delightful children. During one week in June we head off on a road trip with Grandmommy and the photographs from that trip, and other vacation time diversions, can be found here.
These photographs are also available from the Archive section of Tartanted entitled "Summer Holidays"

Deceased - it is an ex Western Cottonmouth

This may or may not be the snake I encountered the other night but it was located in the same place. Initially I thought it was better to see a dead snake than a live one but then my mind turned to what sort of beastie might be a snake predator.
The possibilities include cougars, badgers, heron, other snakes, or perhaps the domestic cat.
I think I may need to buy myself a pair of cowboy boots and a gun - just in case.
Can you get a shotgun rack to fit a mountain
bike?

Western Cottonmouth - so says Mrs Ted

I came across this little chap, about 24" long, on my evening bicycle ride around the sub-division yesterday evening. He was sitting in the middle of the pavement at the end of the dead end street which has no houses built on it yet. By the time I got the camera out he had slithered into the gutter and I was too timid to attempt a good "head shot" for identification purposes. Mrs Ted, after consulting our copy of Texas Snakes [ISBN: 1-58979-209-2], decided I was right to be cautious as the Western Cottonmouth is venomous.

Buddy at the beach

Ted's sister in-law is fostering dogs; this is Buddy, visiting for the weekend and taking a dip in the bay. The hand belongs to the sister in-law.

Ted and family are headed north towards the Dallas area this coming week for a holiday with grandmommy. As Ted's notebook died some time ago the photographic evidence of this epic journey will be posted on our return.

View from the bridge

Captain Little Ted surveys the view from his command.















I think he is contemplating sinking a passing aircraft carrier!