Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

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

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

Axel’s on the road again!

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It has been much quieter around the house for the last few days. There are four fewer paws of doom thumping and jumping about since Axel left on Sunday. The next couple of weeks will be devoted to Remedial Show Dog 101, where Julia magically turns him back into a show dog after a summer of wild abandon. Then it’s off to the shows, and hopefully there will be enough majors available this fall. If all goes well, he will be back in Chicago in mid-December as a new AKC Champion with a Rally Novice title.

I don’t really want to think about it yet, but I have to figure out what to do if all doesn’t go well. I want Axe to have a championship. But I don’t want him to be one of those dogs that lives his whole life on the road.

So, it has to go well. And that’s that.

I miss Axe (although I don’t miss him acting out his dislike of anyone getting too close to me or our house, and he defines “too close” as “in the same county”). Freya misses her little brother even more. They fight like closely-aged human siblings and there are days it really seems like they hate each other. But whenever one is away, the one still at home so obviously misses the traveler. It would almost be cute if she didn’t look so depressed.

(NaBloPoMo | 75% Challenge: 244 of 274)

Freya’s Midweek Mischief

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Last Saturday, Sue kindly offered to share her Wednesday evening private lesson time with anyone in the group obedience class who wanted to do Rally Obedience. Since I got home from work just early enough to make the drive in time, Freya and I took her up on the offer.

There were just three of us with a total of four dogs, so it was a good opportunity to run through a couple of typical novice-level courses and get critiques from each other and our instructor.

Freya wasn’t working particularly well. She was very distracted and I just could not get her to focus until the hour was almost over. I think part of the problem was that we should have taken more time to warm up, both at home before leaving and before joining the group. It was still a worthwhile evening, though. We can really use all of the practice time available before the next trial, and the more of it that is away from home, the better.

Unfortunately I forgot to bring my video camera, and we are all at the point where it will help us to be able to see our own performances and note things that need correcting, as well as being told what to watch for. I’ve now added a “bring video camera” reminder to all of the training dates on my calendar.

As usual, Freya is having a post-training nap. Axel is wide awake and looking for trouble. I’d better go and find him some!

(NaBloPoMo | October ’09: 21 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 243 of 274)

Typekit and “real” fonts on the web

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I heard that Typekit is now sending out invitations, so I signed up for a trial account. I’m behind the curve as usual, and I’m still not sure when I’m going to get to really test it out, but I’m very interested in the concept.

As you already know if you saw my recent post on the Sun-Times buyout, my work background is in the graphic arts, specifically pre-press production, and originally typography. I have also had a web page, website, and/or blog online since 1995 and on one of my own domains since 1999. So you can see I’ve been gritting my teeth about not having more say over typography on the web for a very long time.

Typekit is a service that hosts a library of web-licensed high-quality fonts. Theoretically, it should allow your pages to display using the typography you intended. I am looking forward to seeing if this is the reality as well.

While HTML5 and CSS3 offer better type handling features than past versions, there is still the issue of older browsers and older operating systems. Boing Boing’s recent redesign looked fine to anyone using a current browser on Windows Vista or Mac OS X, but not so good to those using older versions of browsers, or older operating systems such as Windows XP which are still in very wide use.

I’m still hopeful and interested in Typekit and other solutions to getting real typography on the web, including Font Squirrel’s free @font-face kits. I use paid-for fonts more often than free fonts, largely due to quality issues, but I am not against free when that free is also of good quality and more important, not stolen. So I do want to check it out.

I hope to have some time to play with fonts after Axel leaves on his road trip and before it’s time to start preparing for vacation. You’ll hear from me again about the joy of fonts then!

(NaBloPoMo | October ’09:20 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 242 of 274)

Miscellaneous catch-up

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Just catching up on a number of things that happened while I wasn’t paying attention:

Dog handler Mary Wild’s case has been continued again, this time until November 24, 2009. The wheels of justice certainly turn slowly. While I know this is true of many criminal and civil cases, not just cases involving animal cruelty, it just doesn’t seem right that it will be winter before this case involving dogs dying from heat stroke due to Ms. Wild’s neglectful actions will be heard.

Nail polish killer Lora Hunt pleaded not guilty to reckless homicide and is free on $100,000 bail. Trial is scheduled for December 7. There are links to news stories from the arraignment on October 8 on the Black Nail Brigade website.

I was looking forward to a late fall return of Southland only to find that NBC has cancelled it. WTF, NBC? Cancelling Medium (thank you, CBS, for picking it up), Life and now Southland? And you give me Mercy and Trauma? Dear Lord.

(NaBloPoMo | October ’09: 19 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 241 of 274)