Holy Bat-Cake!

First: my official website has been redesigned, updated and relaunched. If you haven't been yet please check it out!

This week I'm house-sitting for a friend. He also used to be one of my college professors (the head of my department, to be exact). A man of God and a really great friend. He's been a boat-load of help as I've worked on this latest book (more on that some other time).

Mostly I'm watching his dog, Topper.

Behold: Topper

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Great dog. Very quiet (most of the time), but REALLY hyper at moments. The dog requires a lot of stimulation. Like a junkyard dog (a lot of the more aggressive breeds of dog just need proper stimulation, and it's only when they don't get it do they eat people (so I'm told)).

Funny story about that. When I was working as a Location Manager for the Hertz Corporation at Denver International Airport I would drive by this same house every day, and there was a car parked out front (just in front of the highway), facing oncoming traffic. And every day there was a guy sitting in the driver's seat, casually reading his newspaper, and his massive dog in the passenger's seat, with it's head hanging out the window watching the incoming traffic (and LOVING it). I suppose this was all meant to keep the dog from going crazy and becoming a monstrous predator. Just amusing to see the same thing day after day after day after....

So when I got the email a few weeks ago my friend explained that he'd make sure to pack the refrigerator with my "favorites". Being a goof-ball I replied that Batman was my favorite and was wondering if he could stuff Batman in there (I'm still pretty certain there's a Mr. Freeze reference in there somewhere). Alas, when I arrived with the intention of using the time to write, I discovered that Batman was not in the refrigerator. Instead, I found the following:

Behold:

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Yes, that's a Batman pencil/notebook set. And a note with a bat-signal on it. Wicked awesome :)

But that's not all. This is the (literal) icing on the cake. I also found this waiting for me:

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Please try to contain your palpable envy :)

So that's what I'm doing this week; hanging out with a really neat dog, writing, and eating Batman cake (I actually can't bring myself to cut it, it's so STINKING awesome).

Happy 4th of July, all!