Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

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

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

Is it that time already?

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Time for September IComLeavWe, that is! This will be only my second time participating in this monthly week of sharing comments and finding or rediscovering blogs and friends. Last month I rudely failed to introduce myself except through my “about” page. This month I shall try to be a little less rude!

So, a big welcome from me, Kathi, to those of you who have wandered over here thanks to IComLeavWe! I stumbled upon IComLeavWe sort of indirectly through BlogHer last month, and it seemed like an interesting way to “meet” more bloggers and blogs. So here I am again. I hope you get a little smile out of my struggles with taming technology and Rottweilers, or marvel along with me at the freakshow that life in Chicago can be.

(NaBloPoMo | 75% Challenge: 221 of 274)

Did you miss me?

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Did you all miss me??

:: crickets ::

Hmmmm… well, okay, then! Maybe the question should be: did any of you notice I was gone??

I planned to take a few days off from blogging as soon as August’s NaBloPoMo was completed. I didn’t mean for it to stretch out past a week, but I’ve been stuck behind a computer screen for other reasons and didn’t feel like staying on to blog most nights. Some of it was for work, which is a welcome change from the shortage of paying customers over the summer. No one ever thinks that graphic arts is a seasonal business, but it is. Some of it was for the most poorly-chosen hobbies ever, websites and the Rottweiler magazine. I’ve talked about it before, and it just cannot be good for me to spend eight hours InDesigning and Photoshopping at work, and coming home to do more of the same plus DreamWeaving. At the very least, it’s making me crabby.

Does it sound like I’ve been neglecting the dogs? Yes, their training has been sliding a little too much considering that both Axel and Freya have Rally Obedience trials to prepare for. The dogs are far too self-centered to let themselves be neglected, and that is fine.

I have been keeping notes on a number of topics that I want to write about, and fortunately, very few of them are time-sensitive enough to go stale. At least you know you probably won’t be spoiler’d by the time I get around to writing about the season ending of Rescue Me and the new seasons of Mad Men and Sons of Anarchy… OMG, Sons of Anarchy, was that S2 opener a punch in the gut, or what?

Back soon. Or at least, it won’t be a whole week.

(NaBloPoMo | 75% Challenge: 220 of 274)

The summer that wasn’t

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I don’t think summer ever really got here. Except for maybe a week’s worth, in total, of dangerously hot and humid days, the entire summer was unseasonably cool and much too rainy for my taste. The yard doesn’t look as a bad as a Rottweiler-ravaged yard should, thanks to that rain and the resultant grassy growth spurts. But that’s it for silver linings.

And now, it’s the last day of August, still unseasonably cool or even cold, and summer is gone without ever having really been here. What an aggravating year this has been so far in so many ways.

(NaBloPoMo | August ’09: 31 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 219 of 274)

Who needs more than one computer anyway?

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Today I was helping Denise set up her new computer. As we made sure that both old and new computers were visible on the network and able to connect to the internet and printer, she said that she’d never really thought about having more than one computer at a time, and how that must seem a little funny to me.

Well, yes and no!

There are seven working computers and only two human residents at my house. One of those computers is on its last legs, and one is used only for German style dog shows (forgive me for not explaining fully, and I’ll probably write something here about German style dog shows soon enough anyway). Usually, the sole desktop and two or three of the laptops are live on our home network at any given time. So we’re really not that geeked out. Hey, I saw you laugh. Stop it now.

But even though having and using multiple computers is a given at our house now, that was not always the case. And we did not even plan for the possibility. We did quite a bit of remodeling shortly before we got DSL service in 2000. We ran a separate phone cable to the back office, and coaxial cable for TV to every room that didn’t already have it. But for some reason I never thought of running CAT5 for networking at the same time. Looking back, I am not even sure why we didn’t do it. The expense wouldn’t have been prohibitive, and obviously, we were running wires already.

I guess at that time I never envisioned having more than one computer, or wanting to have a computer anywhere other than an office area. And if I didn’t think of it, Dan certainly wouldn’t have thought of it either, not back then.

By the time we did get our first laptop, home wireless was available and pretty functional, so it’s never been a huge inconvenience. It would be nice to take advantage of the faster broadband speeds (another thing I didn’t see coming, I guess) with wired connections, but the thought of running cable again is not a pretty one.

Ah, well, live and learn…

(NaBloPoMo | August ’09: 30 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 218 of 274)

It’s different on a Harley

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I went to the Harley-Davidson dealer with Dan today. One of his bikes had been in for service and it was ready to pick up. I’ve written about my own Sportsters, and the fact that my riding has been extremely dormant since it’s hard to involve Rottweilers in the sport without a sidecar. So I haven’t had the need or desire to get a new bike. Today I saw one that could possibly change that. Wow, it was beautiful.

Sometime during the past few years when I was not paying much attention, Harley came out with a new matte-finish “Denim” paint line. I’ve always liked the blacked-out engines and pipes. I liked the look on the Night Rod, even though the V-Rod is not my kind of bike in general. But since I was living under a rock, I had no idea that the denim finish came in several colors. Even though Dan has bought a couple of bikes in recent years, he has never bought a Harley that wasn’t Vivid Black.

You might know that my present Sportsters are blue and purple. Well, at least that one of them is blue since, strangely enough, I don’t have any photos of the purple one.

The bike I saw today was a Sportster Nightster in Black Ice Denim. Black Ice Denim paint was apparently made with me in mind. It looks blue or purple, depending on the light and the angle. I was told that it looks black at night. You can look at the picture on the Harley website, and you’ll see a nice shade of blue, but it really doesn’t show what it looks like in real life.

A Sportster in this flavor now costs over $10,000. For a Sportster. Yeah, I know, we’re in the 21st century and that’s what stuff costs now. But for someone who bought her first Sportster during the $3,999-100% trade in days, it’s a heart-stopping moment. I think my first new car, a Honda Civic CRX, cost less than that. Not sure I can get past that until the economy perks up a bit, especially being the end of summer and all. But, man, that Nightster just calls out to me.

I spent a little more time on Harley’s website, checking out what else I’d missed when I wasn’t paying attention. There is a whole subsection for women riders, which I guess is a good thing. There is also a whole subsection for Latino riders, which struck me as a little bit odd. I don’t want to sound racist, or sour-grapes because there is no subsection for my people (Asian riders), but there weren’t any subsections for any other ethnic group and Harleys are sold worldwide.

Staying with the Harley theme, I’m watching tonight’s replays of Sons of Anarchy Season 1 episodes on FX, so I’m definitely well on the way to having all the storylines fresh in my mind before Season 2 starts on September 8.

(NaBloPoMo | August ’09: 29 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 217 of 274)