Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

Rottweilers. Computers. Cameras. World Domination. Not necessarily in that order.

Rottweilers.
Computers. Cameras.
World Domination.
Not necessarily in that order.

Archives for November 2008

A chance to get caught up? (26 of 30)

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I’m looking forward to the possibility of a relaxing four-day weekend. Yes, it is Thanksgiving weekend, but since my husband is at the firehouse on Thanksgiving Day, I’ve opted to neither entertain nor be entertained. As you all know, my family is in Hawaii and we just got back from visiting them, so there is nowhere I’m truly obligated to be tomorrow. So I am planning to spend a peaceful day alone with the animals. For the record, I don’t like turkey anyway. Ham is my idea of a perfect holiday meal.

In fact, I have only one definite thing scheduled for the entire weekend, so it might be a good opportunity to get caught up on a few things that never seem to get done. Stuff like backing up the computer, getting rid of documents that are no longer needed for tax purposes and getting my office area organized a little better. Oh, and editing the contact list in the new BlackBerry. I probably should have edited the list on the Palm before transferring it to the BlackBerry (Palm Desktop Manager would have made it so much easier). Some of the contacts are quite dormant, but at least everyone on the list is still alive. This was not the case when I moved from Palm IIIc to Palm Tungsten E2.

Speaking of right now though, I’m not sure how I ever managed to watch TV before TiVo. I’ve been trying to watch the season finale of Sons of Anarchy since the first showing started, and between the phone and the dogs, I’ve paused and rewound so many times I’ve lost count. It’s quiet now, so I think it’s a good time to finally finish watching the show.

More technological fun (25 of 30)

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There is a lot of swearing going on here as we work at getting our new cell phones set up. Mostly not from me at this point, though, because I forgot the cables for my Palm Tungsten at work. I’m saving my heavy swearing for tomorrow when I attempt to transfer years of data from that Palm to my new BlackBerry.

Despite my attraction to the touch screen phones, I ended up getting the Curve rather than the Storm. After finally getting a little more time to play with both phones (and also the Palm Centro since I’ve been a Palm PDA user for about 8 years), I surprised myself by deciding the Curve worked better for me than the Storm. I think I would have preferred the Centro over either BlackBerry, except that VZNavigator won’t run on the Centro and that is something I definitely wanted to keep.

Now off to do the really important stuff… set up my ringtones!

Kennel website again (24 of 30)

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It looks like Axe might be going out in search of that championship sooner than I had originally thought. I talked to his soon-to-be handler this afternoon, and there’s a good opportunity to hand him over in about two and a half weeks. So the health tests and the kennel website now move up on the priority scale. The health tests are a priority because there’s no good reason to send an unbreedable dog out to get a championship (unless of course you’re doing it yourself for fun; it is still a sport as well as a measure of breed worthiness), and the kennel website is a priority because I’ll need some place to brag!

Here’s the comp I mentioned in my post on November 22:

I think I still like it. Yeah, I know the photo of Freya makes it look like she has an underbite. She doesn’t, and a better one has been taken since then. Axel was still in utero when this was designed so I’ve had ample time to locate photographs of both dogs. My dogs are not photogenic but fortunately they show a lot better than they photograph.

I’d better try to turn it into a working website before I get caught in the trap of second-guessing myself (grunge version? 70’s version? Web 2.0 version? I could go on and on and on and on, and I don’t even like designing stuff).

Miscellany (23 of 30)

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Today’s miscellaneous thoughts, none of which really go together:

  • Considering the number of TV segments and newspaper or magazine articles I’ve seen on how to deal with strange dogs, I will never understand why some idiots still choose to respond to a dog that is obviously unhappy with their proximity to our property line by stopping and staring at him rather than moving on in their original intended direction. Note to idiots: I am way more dangerous than he is. Don’t make me feel like I have to protect my property and my dog from you.
  • I took some time to amuse myself by reading some of the blogs and forums discussing Sons of Anarchy. Even though the creator of the show has talked about his intended Shakespearean parallels, I still have to say this to some folks: way to overanalyze! I also have something to say to some of those pseudointellectuals who claim they actually ride: try not to spout too much of the same stuff you are writing online if you ever do encounter any real bikers. I am also reminded of an older pet peeve of mine, which is female motorcyclists overanalyzing why they ride and talking about freedom and empowerment and all that. I haven’t ridden lately, but when I did, it was not to be free or empowered. It was because it was fun, as it should be for any woman or man who chooses to ride a motorcycle. If it’s not fun for you, why even bother, empowerment or no?
  • I have to shop for a new VPS provider for both work and hobby websites. We probably don’t truly need a VPS but it’s worked well for us (“us” being my business, myself, my husband, and some friends and clubs). Except for that one provider has gotten progressively more expensive without adding more features or better customer service (although customer service has remained decent), and another is suffering the after effects of a merger which managed to totally wipe out the formerly decent customer service and introduce a number of technical issues when servers were physically moved. I really hate the web host shopping process as there seems to be a prevalent theme of hosts being great for a year and then going slowly downhill.
  • I’m finally considering moving to a smart phone of some sort. I’ve been using a PDA plus a not-so-smart phone for the last two years (cell service contract, don’t ya know) but the pricing and just as importantly, the size, of the smart phones are now much more attractive than they were before. I checked out the BlackBerry Storm on Friday. I like it, very whiz-bang and all, but I still like the iPhone better. I don’t really want to switch cell providers but for the first time in a while, I’m thinking about it.
  • I just finished reading Twilight and I actually enjoyed it pretty well. I thought it would be too “young” for me but it did manage to hold my interest. Nice love story, actually. I doubt I’ll see the movie until it hits DVD/cable though, and I don’t know that I’ll read the sequels either. I like vampire stories, books and movies in general. I’m sure it won’t be a surprise that my favorite vampire image is Lestat: “I was roaming again, crashing through the night on my Harley-Davidson motorcycle with the Bach Goldberg variations turned up to full volume.” Obviously!
  • Saw Stir of Echoes today while flipping through the channels. That is probably my favorite filmed-in-Chicago movie. Very good and quite underrated, as is Kevin Bacon’s role in it.

That is enough miscellany for today, I think. See you tomorrow!

My kennel website, or lack of same (22 of 30)

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I used to have a website for our dogs, even though I have never bred a litter and don’t compete in shows or trials very often. I’ve actually had the kennel name domain since 1998, and the site was started a couple of years before that. I stopped maintaining and updating it a few years ago when two of our older dogs passed away.

When Freya came to live with us in January 2004, I thought I’d resurrect the website. I tossed some ideas around in my head, and even went as far as making Photoshop comps of one of them, but I still didn’t get the website back online.

When Axel came to live with us in January 2007, I went through that whole process once again. Still no website. As you know from yesterday’s post, Freya is now five years old. Axel’s second birthday is coming up in a matter of days.

I’m not sure why it’s been so hard for me to get motivated to put something new up for myself. I do maintenance and updates for a few dog club/organization websites, and my husband’s motorcycle club’s website. I also designed and maintain Axel’s breeder’s website, and a website for another breeder friend. But when it comes to my own site, I have the equivalent of writer’s block. Or maybe that should be designer’s block, or coder’s block.

I know, I know… I should stop overanalyzing my designs and just go ahead and do something, anything. So who is going to slap me to my senses and help me sort pictures of Freya and Axe?