Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

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

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

New page: Rally Obedience trial calendar

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Look up on top, and you’ll see that I’ve added a standing page with a Rally Obedience trial calendar.

This calendar is generated from my two personal Google trial calendars. One lists all the Chicago-area APDT, UKC, and AKC Rally Obedience trials that I have information on. I don’t usually travel for trials, so this basically means the Chicago metro area, and maybe southern Wisconsin and northwest Indiana. These are listed in blue on the page. When I actually make plans to enter a trial, I move it to the second calendar, and these trials will be listed in red on the page.

I started these calendars to help me keep track of our trials, but I hope the calendar page is also useful to others in this sector who are looking for a nearby rally trial, whether to compete or just to observe.

Speaking of rally, it’s that time again for Freya’s one month of “fame” on the UKC New Title Holders page, with her URO2! And yes, of course there is a screenshot, what did you think?

(NaBloPoMo | April ’10: 24 of 30)

Communication appreciation

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It was a very nice surprise to see a comment on Wednesday’s Communication Breakdown post from Mark Button, Towerstream’s Manager of Customer Care. While I know that many companies keep a close eye on social media and the blogosphere, and I’ve even had first-hand good experience with this with our (as in my own, and my company’s as well) web hosting company WiredTree, it was still a bit unexpected and very much welcome. Since this blog and my Twitter account are used mostly for personal communications, and neither I nor my company could be considered a large account, it is good to see that we are still considered important enough to reach out to. Thank you, Mark and Towerstream!

I was also surprised to get a very quick response (less than 24 hours) for a kind of nothing question that I’d emailed to Kraft Foods/Nabisco. The answer unfortunately wasn’t what I wanted to hear, as it seems they have no plans to bring back Oreo Double Delight Coffee ‘n’ Cream cookies in the foreseeable future. Boo to that, but applause for the speedy response.

(NaBloPoMo | April ’10: 23 of 30)

Drawing the line… is there even still a line?

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My recently-purchased MacBook is now fully loaded with all of my most-needed software and “stuff.” Since I opted to go with the not-newly-updated and much less expensive MacBook rather than the whiz-bang new-Mac-smell of the just-updated MacBook Pro, I won’t bore you with a long review. I’ll just say that it’s a nice and logical upgrade from my trusty but aging iBook G4, at a great price ($882 out the door, which is less than the original purchase price of the iBook) and it’s lighter to carry to work as it’s quite a bit more compact. See?

As you can see, I am giving up FireWire, which I used exactly twice (we have some FireWire portable hard drives that we use at the office, which can also be connected via USB), and an internal modem, which I don’t think I ever used.

Now, after thinking about what’s on my Mac and what’s on my PC, I’m wondering about something else.
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Communication breakdown

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So late last week, I received a call from Towerstream, the new broadband provider for our workplace. So what, you say? Well, we didn’t realize we’d left Sparkplug Communications. We certainly hadn’t requested it… yet… as our contract is not up until July. It turns out that Sparkplug has divested their holdings in the Chicago and Nashville markets. Friday’s call from Towerstream, the company that acquired those holdings, was the first notification we received. Neither I, nor our office manager, as the primary/technical and billing contacts, had received so much as a phone call, email, or voice mail from Sparkplug.
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6-bee

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I’m not really a big fan of Jimmy Fallon, or the current incarnation of Late Night, except for Slow Jam the News. But I totally love these “6-bee” Glee parodies…

Good stuff!

Speaking of Glee, I didn’t expect to like this week’s Madonna-themed episode, but there was more to like than not. Didn’t really need to see that “Vogue” number two weeks in a row, though.

(NaBloPoMo | April ’10: 20 of 30)