Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

I never did get around to writing about Adobe Photoshop’s 20th anniversary back in February. We, as in my company, were not on board from the very start. But the first version we used was 2.0, and we have been using it continuously ever since. Along the way, it evolved from an infrequently used semi-novelty to a critical piece of software that is absolutely essential to the continued existence, let alone the success, of our business. It’s also been an increasingly essential part of my personal computer toolbox (and by that, I mean a legally obtained, paid-in-full personal copy) for about five years now. My particular prepress production area of expertise is typography and page layout, so my Photoshop skills are clumsy at best, but I still love me some Photoshop even for the very basic work I do with it.

Even as a longtime mostly happy user of Adobe products, I still have mixed feelings about the upcoming release of a new version, CS5. This version will no longer work on PowerPC (non-Intel) Macs. Since our small shop still uses quite a few final generation PowerPCs, the upgrade will have a significant financial impact upon us. In this still-shaky economic climate, I am not looking forward to that part at all. Our upgrade timing will be closely tied to that of our clients. Some are small design shops whose financial concerns will be similar to ours. Others are corporations: now that could go either way. Some will not want to do an upgrade over hundreds of machines, and others will have a budget to burn. Guess what I’m hoping for, at least to buy us some time.

I do have to say, though… my feelings for this one new Photoshop feature are not mixed at all. Even though I upgraded from CS2 to CS4 only a year ago, and spent more money than I cared to at the time to do so, I’d consider upgrading to CS5 for content-aware fill alone:

That just blew me away.

(NaBloPoMo | March ’10: 25 of 31)

Although there was some progress made toward fixing crooked sits and sloppy turns, this was not one of our better pre-trial review sessions. This was the last run-through of the day, and you can see that Freya is beginning to shut down a bit.

Strangely enough, this less-than-stellar practice session was followed the next day by one of our best trial performances: a score of 208 and 1st place in the Level 1 “A” division. The next trial run later on Sunday resulted in a NQ, though, so I’m not quite sure what the moral of the story might be.

Maybe it’s just that I need to figure out the best way to do the last-minute practices and to handle the downtime between trials. Are the day-before last minute practices more helpful or stressful? So far, they seem to be more helpful, but maybe I should lessen the number of run-throughs. Should I do more or less warm-up between trials, and how soon before showtime for the second trial? That one isn’t quite so obvious.

As always, you can see more videos of Freya, her classmates, and other dogs-in-training on Allan’s YouTube channel.

(NaBloPoMo | February ’10: 14 of 28)

Since most of our classmates were at the first day of For Your Canine’s APDT trials on January 23, Freya and I basically got a private lesson that day to help us prepare for the following day’s trials. Allan set up a practice course for us designed by one of the judges that I’d be trialing under on Sunday. I was able to view this video to identify areas to work on before doing another run-through. Allan posted a video of that run-through to his blog.

No course map today since it was a course used in an actual trial for which I did not get permission to publicly post.

Start: I still want to get better attention from Freya at the start. She does now seem to know that we ain’t goin’ nowhere until she makes eye contact with me. Our next run started off with better attention.

25. Spiral Right – Dog Outside. She’s lagging, partly because she’s not paying full attention to me, and partly because I’m not being interesting enough nor am I giving her enough cues to stay with me. Our teamwork is much better in the next run.

8. Left Turn, 13. 360-Degree Right Turn. I’m surprised we don’t lose more points on turns in trials. We did a little better in the next run.

2. Halt-Sit-Stand. Freya has never had a pretty stand. I would like to be able to stand her with a verbal command alone and will work toward that. She does not move around much which is an improvement.

20. Fast Pace, 21. Normal Pace. Still need to work on making pace changes more noticeable. Varying the length, even more so than the speed, of my own steps seems to be the key.

17. Call Front, Finish Right. Slow and crooked sit. Sits seem to be the current problem area. On the next run, I gave her both verbal and signal cues to help her sit quickly and in the correct place.

11. 270-Degree Right Turn, 10. About “U” Turn. See above; we really have to work on polishing our turns.

23. Halt – 90 Degree Pivot Right – Halt + 5. Halt – Sit – Walk Around. This is something that I believe exists only in APDT Rally. Signs can be “married” as in this example. The ending Halt with Sit of sign 23 is used as the beginning Halt-Sit of sign 5; it is not performed again. So the sequence is Halt with Sit – 90 Degree Pivot Right where dog moves with handler – Halt with Sit – handler Walk Around dog. We did ok.

13. 360-Degree Right Turn. See previous comments on turns.

28. Halt – Turn Right – 1 Step – Halt + 3. Halt – Sit – Down. Another set of “married” signs. I want to phase out the excessive body English for the Down signal, but Freya’s Down has not been too consistent, so I will stick with a firm tone and exaggerated signal for now.

9. About Turn Right, 14. 360-Degree Left Turn, 8. Left Turn, 10. About “U” Turn. See previous comments on turns.

Bonus: Exercise 1. Halt – Leave Dog – Call To Heel. This is one of our better bonus exercises, but could use some polishing. I’d like her to come in closer and straighter.

This is the first session where I switched to a 4-foot leash. I found it helped me greatly in keeping a loose leash. Even when I tied knots in my 6-foot leash, I found myself folding it too short or grabbing it too short and below the knots. It may not have been the greatest idea in general to switch leashes the day before a trial, but in terms of avoiding point losses for tight leash, it was very successful.

As always, you can see more videos of our rally obedience classmates, as well as Allan’s other training clients, on his YouTube channel.

(NaBloPoMo | February ’10: 3 of 28)

You can check out all of the videos from Allan Ross’s Saturday morning Rally Obedience class at Best Friends/American Pet Motel on his YouTube channel. While you are here at Rottweilers Ate My Laptop, though, you can only watch Freya and me. We are selfish like that!

The APDT trial at For Your Canine is now less than a week away, so I will be making an extra effort to get to a Wednesday evening rally practice session, as well as working on cleaning up our least successful exercises at home. We are still possibly doomed if faced with my personal nemesis, sign #24: HALT – 90 Degree Pivot Left – HALT. We are entered in two trials on Sunday only.

Here is the course map, using APDT signs (click for a larger view). One of these days I will learn to draw nicer course maps. Today is not that day.

Once again, you can follow along with us:

Start: Again, I would like to get better attention from Freya whether it is required or not. If she starts out too distracted, it doesn’t get better until almost halfway into the run.

1. 19-Slow Pace.
2. 21-Normal Pace. Better than last week, she didn’t try to sit during the slow pace. I think I still need to show more of a change between the different paces.

3. 10-About “U” Turn. Ugh, miscue on my part. Should have been “back” not “fuss.”

4. 5-HALT – Sit – Walk Around. Freya seems to have lost her automatic sit somewhere along the line. Strange, because she hasn’t been in a conformation ring in literally years. Errors here are mostly mine, though. On the walk around, I’m holding the leash way too low, so I gave her an accidental correction when taking off again. Not to mention there would have points off for a tight leash, too.

5. 16- Call Front – Forward Left. Here, too, I’m holding the leash too low, again giving an accidental correction on the call front, with the leash too tight until the finish was completed.

6. 11-270-Degree Right.
7. 8-Left Turn. Sloppy turns.

8. 29-Straight Figure 8. I need to pay more attention on the walkthroughs, especially for spots like this where the path between signs is slightly offset for space reasons. Need to work on our pace through the cones. On the bright side, Freya totally ignored the barking from the gallery.

9. 9-About Turn – Right. Slightly sloppy.

10. 20-Fast Pace.
11. 21-Normal Pace. Again, need to work on finding the right pace for us. She almost got away on the fast!

12. 23-HALT – 90 Degree Pivot Right – HALT. Better than last week, only one try needed and she did actually move with me.

13. 7-Right Turn. Sloppy turn.

14. 26-Spiral Left – Dog Inside. Not too bad.

Bonus: Halt, Leave Dog, Call To Heel. That went better than I expected, except for where I almost whacked her in the face when she came to heel!

I still have much more of an issue with holding the leash too tight than I realized. Good thing to have video like this to bring that point home.

Is anyone besides me interested in seeing class notes every week? I can see where it might get boring to anyone who isn’t 1) me, 2) Freya, or 3) our instructor or classmates. And it probably isn’t that exciting to 3) after a while either!

(NaBloPoMo | January ’10: 18 of 31)

Allan has been posting videos from the group classes, Board and Train, and private lessons on his YouTube channel. Here is our video from the first Saturday morning Rally Obedience class at Best Friends/American Pet Motel. You can see that the holiday break went on a little too long for us, and there are areas that need improvement, but I think we can be ready for the APDT trial at For Your Canine on January 23-24.

I don’t really know how to draw proper course maps, but this should give you an idea of the layout (click the map for a larger view). This course uses APDT signs:

Follow along, if you’d like:

Start: The rules, unlike traditional obedience, do not require the dog to be sitting at heel at the start. But I have found that if I do not require a sit and attention, things will usually go south pretty quickly.

1. 19-Slow Pace. We need to work on finding a pace that is slow, but not so slow that Freya wants to sit, as she did here.

2. 21-Normal Pace. We need a better transition between speeds in general.

3. 10-About “U” Turn. Not bad.

4. 3-HALT – Sit – Down. She tends to turn towards me on sits, and even more so on downs.

5. 13-360-Degree Right.
6. 11-270-Degree Right. Turns were sloppy.

7. 6-HALT – Sit – Down – Walk Around. Tight leash and a correction. Even though this was training, I really need to watch that, and the tendency to fold the leash one or two loops too tight.

8. 26-Spiral Left – Dog Inside. Not too bad.

9. 23-HALT – 90 Degree Pivot Right – HALT. Pivots definitely need work. Maybe a prayer for no left pivot at our next trial would also be in order.

10. 27-HALT – 1, 2, 3 steps forward. Ugh. I need to give her a better cue to begin moving. And also… remember to give it. Sorry, Freya!

11. 12-270-Degree Left.
12. 7-Right Turn. More sloppy turns.

13. 18-Call Front Finish Left. Not sure what happened here. Her fronts are usually much better than this. At least she finished in the correct direction, so that problem seems to be fixed.

Finish: Not a moment too soon!

(NaBloPoMo | January ’10: 12 of 31)

We are in Honolulu for a week or two every winter, so we have had many opportunities to see the world-famous big waves of the North Shore of Oahu. Theoretically, that is. Despite the fact that Waimea Bay is internationally known for big waves, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve gone by there during the 18 years I lived there, and during yearly trips ever after, and seen it looking as flat as a glass tabletop.

Dan and I have been married for 16 years, or 17 trips to Hawaii for him, and he can count the number of times he’s seen big surf on Waimea Bay on one hand, and still have fingers left over.

We once again missed the really big stuff during November’s trip, although it was out there. I had to laugh when I heard one of the news interviews with various surfers and surf watchers. A woman who had moved to Hawaii in 2004 said that it was the first time in the five years she’d lived there that she’d seen big waves on Waimea Bay. I heard her loud and clear!

The really big thing that we missed was “The Eddie” — the 2009/2010 Quiksilver In Memory of Eddie Aikau. This tournament is held in memory of legendary Hawaiian surfer and waterman Eddie Aikau, who was lost at sea in 1978 when the voyaging canoe Hokule’a capsized. Aikau was lost in the last rescue attempt of his life as he went to seek help for the rest of the crew. The tournament holding period runs from December 1 through the end of February, and wave face height must be 40 feet or more for the tournament to be held. It has been held only eight times since its inception in 1984, including this year’s exciting competition held on December 8, won by Greg Long.

You can see videos online at Quiksilver’s site, like this highlights video:

Watch the video for Heat 8 (actually Heat 4 of Round 2); you’ll see 100-point rides from winner Long and Ramon Navarro:

Also check out these highlights from Riff Raff Surfboards. We encountered some heavy traffic and crowded conditions on the one day we headed up to the North Shore, but nothing like what you’ll see in this video!

Although I grew up in Hawaii, I’ve never gone board surfing and certainly I’ve never surfed big waves! I was never a really strong swimmer and always nearsighted, so water sports weren’t a huge draw for me. I could sit and watch the ocean and surfers for hours, though. I love the Internet for making it possible for me to watch the entire tournament online on a frigid December day in Chicago.

As you may already know, we have been watching a squirrel’s nest outside our office window for a while now. We have seen him? her? in the courtyard area and in the alley, but the only time it was seen entering or leaving its nest, we did not have a camera handy.

Until this afternoon!

You can see it holding an object (probably some food item) as it enters the nest, remains only long enough to put away the object, exits the nest, and then scampers down and across to the second floor deck area.

Okay, so maybe it’s not that exciting to those of you who live in areas where wildlife is abundant, but hey, this is downtown Chicago and I’ll take what I can get in the way of critters. But no, I will not be filming urban rats as my next wildlife project!

(NaBloPoMo | November ’09: 9 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 254 of 274)