Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

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

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

A long-lost warbird is heading home

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I am not the history expert in our family. That would be my husband. Still, I was once a member of EAA, the Experimental Aircraft Association, with an interest in military aircraft, particularly the Warbirds of the World War II era. So you know a story involving a long-lost warbird being recovered from the depths of Lake Michigan off Waukegan Harbor to eventually return to Hawaii would catch our interest.

SBD-2 Dauntless, February 1942
SBD-2 Dauntless, February 1942 (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons by William T. Barr, photographer’s mate, USN)

The Douglas SBD-2 Dauntless dive bomber raised from Lake Michigan on Friday, much like the one in the photo, is the second one recovered this year. Three hundred planes are estimated to be at the bottom of the lake. These planes were used for aircraft carrier qualification training. They flew out of the now-closed Glenview Naval Air Station and the aircraft carriers were at Navy Pier. Some of the training planes had been used in combat. This one had been at Pearl Harbor, and will end up there once again at the Pacific Aviation Museum on Ford Island in about three years.

So many interesting facts about the plane’s history and the people and organizations involved in the recovery are detailed by reporters from Honolulu and Lake County. Very cool for me to be able to read coverage from newspapers in both of my hometowns:

Honolulu Star-Bulletin: Crew to recover bomber with local ties from lake

Lake County News-Sun (a Chicago Sun-Times News Group paper): ‘Hula blessing’ greets dive bomber pulled from lake

We have not yet visited the Pacific Aviation Museum, and perhaps we will wait until this plane gets there to do so.

(NaBloPoMo | June ‘09: 20 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 147 of 274)

Life in the food chain

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“Check near the back gate for dead things before you let the dogs out. There’s a hawk… no, probably a falcon… killing something on top of the garbage can.”

What an uplifting start to the day, huh? Even though you don’t usually think about seeing birds of prey in a residential neighborhood in Chicago, we do have quite a few urban falcons and hawks in the area. It was probably a peregrine falcon, like this one (although we have seen the occasional red-tailed hawk nearby):
Falcon
Creative Commons License photo credit: stirwise

It was also considerate enough to eat or haul away its entire kill, except the feathers… a LOT of feathers… clinging to the top of the garbage can.

No time to play CSI: Norwood Park because the day’s thunderstorms were on the way. No rain yet by the time I left for work, but the wind had kicked up. Axel was standing still in the back yard and his ears were flapping in the wind like he was about to take flight. Okay, that’s not really funny given yesterday’s post about the Rottweiler in a tornado. But they were flapping pretty good.

There were a lot of areas with storm damage and power outages. Happily, we were once again unscathed. The dogs and I never actually got wet despite the torrential downpours. We managed to time all of our outdoor excursions between the thunderstorms.

This is what my commute to work looked like as I hit the Ohio Street offramp. Looking to the south, it was very grey but there were still some patches of light and almost-clear sky:
south061909

Looking to the north, the clouds were dropping lower and turning black and threatening:
north061909

I did get inside the office about a minute before the clouds made good on their threat of a drenching rain.

(NaBloPoMo | June ‘09: 19 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 146 of 274)

Weather woes

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We have severe weather warnings in effect here in the Chicago area until tomorrow afternoon. Heavy rain and thunderstorms are expected, and this is also the time of year when tornados can happen.

The Rottweilers are glad to be house dogs, as they, and I, still remember the tale of Chase, the Rottweiler who took a block-long ride à la Toto in a June tornado in south suburban Richton Park, just around this time last year. His story is still out there on the ‘net, including video:

CBS2 Chicago: Dog Survives Toto Impression During Tornado

Um. That would be video of happy rescued Chase with his relieved family. You don’t really think someone would be out in a tornado shooting a video of a dog flying through the air, do you? What’s that? Yes, this is Chicago. Okay. Point taken. Still no flying dog video.

(NaBloPoMo | June ‘09: 18 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 145 of 274)

Applause where it’s deserved

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During the time I was moving my business and personal domains to WiredTree, I mentioned several times how impressed I was with their excellent customer service and technical support. I moved the business domain first, and Monday was the one-month anniversary of the move. Everything has gone quite well this month, with only minor move-related issues that were taken care of almost as soon as I hit “Enter” on the support ticket request.

I was still surprised and pleased to receive a follow-up email from WiredTree customer service manager Joe Doss, checking to make sure that all was in fact going well, reminding me of the different support options, and inviting my general feedback.

I continue to be totally impressed with WiredTree, am very happy to have a great hosting company like this local to me in Chicago, and am feeling very good about my decision to have both my business and personal VPSs there.

I want to say a good word for my former web host, Web.com. I ended up there by way of HostPro being sold to Interland being sold to Web.com. You can see that could have been a recipe for disaster, although honestly I never had the issues with Interland that some of the bad reviews during that time would have predicted. In fact, my overall experience was quite good, with local American 24/7 tech support, available by either ticket or phone, throughout all of the moves. I did not leave because I was dissatisfied with customer service or tech support. Rather, the ownership changes had ultimately resulted in a move away from VPS support, and my aging server was not able to be updated to 21st century standards.

I had a rather frustrating experience while cancelling, though. I cancelled on my billing day and the customer service person who handled the call would not cancel the charge for the coming month. When the automated follow-up email arrived, I expressed my displeasure that the charge was not waived since the cancellation was made on the billing day by a long-time customer who had never missed a payment. Within less than 24 hours, I had a call and an email stating they would reverse the charge. When the credit did not show up online, a customer support supervisor took responsibility for walking the credit through the system and making sure it went through properly. All ended well. I would be happy to continue to recommend them to anyone who needs shared personal or commerce hosting.

So that’s my good customer service story for two companies. Just wish I had more of them!

(NaBloPoMo | June ‘09: 17 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 144 of 274)

I wonder if I need a smaller dog

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I was looking at the video I made on Sunday to help set up future videos of obedience practice sessions in the yard. I made a short clip of Axel so he wouldn’t be jealous that Freya’s clip was featured in Sunday’s post. Okay, not really. It was so I could figure out how to set up a video album in Gallery 2. The file size of Freya’s video was a little too large, so I had to make a smaller one.

Anyway, as I watched the clip, it struck me.

Do I need a smaller dog? Is my dog that big, or am I really that short? Or does the camera just make him look bigger, and me look fatter?

Once again, try to overlook the sloppy leash handling. We were really just working on the camcorder settings for the “real” videos that will be coming soon. If it ever stops raining, that is. Yes, sad to say that the rain has come back after two short days of sunshine. It’s supposed to be around on and off all week. We’re going to rust instead of tan this summer.

Oh. I don’t really want a smaller dog. With only a very short break, there has always been a large male Rottweiler here since 1994. The house would seem very empty without one taking up that space.

(NaBloPoMo | June ‘09: 16 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 143 of 274)