Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

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

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

You, iPhones and the CTA

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You might be wondering why I am writing about iPhones, since I have a BlackBerry. Or about the CTA, since unless every single one of our impressive stable of two- and four-wheeled vehicles is out of service, I rarely take public transportation.

I just want to keep up with the exciting news that now you can supposedly use your iPhone in the subway. Quite a few of my friends on AT&T, with and without iPhones, wish that it was possible to consistently use their phones without dropped connections in their homes and cars, let alone a noisy subway. Priorities!

But since it’s more important to use your iPhone in the subway than in your home, hopefully you’ll still have it when you get off the train. iPhone and electronic gadget thefts in general are apparently on the rise on the CTA:

Beware of iPhone thefts on the CTA
Hold the Phone: iPhone, Gadget Thefts on the Rise

And yes, I am one of those people who would have liked to have an iPhone (still do, really) but did not want to put up with AT&T’s spotty coverage for the “privilege.” Verizon sucks in many other ways, but I can’t fault the coverage in the places I live, work and most frequently travel to. And what’s the point of a smartphone or any cell phone if you can’t get coverage?

(NaBloPoMo | January ’10: 13 of 31)

Freya: class notes

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Allan has been posting videos from the group classes, Board and Train, and private lessons on his YouTube channel. Here is our video from the first Saturday morning Rally Obedience class at Best Friends/American Pet Motel. You can see that the holiday break went on a little too long for us, and there are areas that need improvement, but I think we can be ready for the APDT trial at For Your Canine on January 23-24.

I don’t really know how to draw proper course maps, but this should give you an idea of the layout (click the map for a larger view). This course uses APDT signs:

Follow along, if you’d like:

Start: The rules, unlike traditional obedience, do not require the dog to be sitting at heel at the start. But I have found that if I do not require a sit and attention, things will usually go south pretty quickly.

1. 19-Slow Pace. We need to work on finding a pace that is slow, but not so slow that Freya wants to sit, as she did here.

2. 21-Normal Pace. We need a better transition between speeds in general.

3. 10-About “U” Turn. Not bad.

4. 3-HALT – Sit – Down. She tends to turn towards me on sits, and even more so on downs.

5. 13-360-Degree Right.
6. 11-270-Degree Right. Turns were sloppy.

7. 6-HALT – Sit – Down – Walk Around. Tight leash and a correction. Even though this was training, I really need to watch that, and the tendency to fold the leash one or two loops too tight.

8. 26-Spiral Left – Dog Inside. Not too bad.

9. 23-HALT – 90 Degree Pivot Right – HALT. Pivots definitely need work. Maybe a prayer for no left pivot at our next trial would also be in order.

10. 27-HALT – 1, 2, 3 steps forward. Ugh. I need to give her a better cue to begin moving. And also… remember to give it. Sorry, Freya!

11. 12-270-Degree Left.
12. 7-Right Turn. More sloppy turns.

13. 18-Call Front Finish Left. Not sure what happened here. Her fronts are usually much better than this. At least she finished in the correct direction, so that problem seems to be fixed.

Finish: Not a moment too soon!

(NaBloPoMo | January ’10: 12 of 31)

Snack break: teriyaki meatballs

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I think I’ve mentioned a couple of “retro-local” cookbooks with favorite tastes from my childhood in Hawaii that I always keep nearby. This is one of them:

This was a fundraiser cookbook produced by the women of Hui Manaolana, a service club which my aunt belonged to since she was a student at the University of Hawaii. She is 99 years old now, and the first edition of this cookbook was published in 1951. My own copy is from the 1969 printing. The recipes are those of the club members and their families and friends, very typical Hawaii Japanese home cooking.

I have made the teriyaki meatballs from this cookbook as appetizers for family gatherings and parties. They are quite well-liked, and I never seem to get to eat any of them myself before they are all snarfed down by others. My fault for not putting a couple aside for myself when I make them!

The last time I made them was for a party in December that I was not attending as a persistent winter cold had sapped all my energy and sociability. I went so far as to get out a small container to put my meatballs aside… then forgot to actually put any meatballs in it. By the time I realized my error, the meatballs were several miles down the road on the way to the party. Oh, well!

Following is the recipe, with my own changes noted. You can substitute dried powdered ginger and garlic if you absolutely have to, but using fresh ginger root and garlic, especially in the sauce, will make a very positive difference.

Teriyaki Meatballs
(from Hui Manaolana’s Japanese Foods cookbook)

Meatballs:
1½ pounds lean ground beef
¼ cup finely chopped onion
1 egg
½ teaspoon salt
dash of black pepper
2 tablespoons shoyu (soy sauce – imported Japanese soy sauce, please, or if you use domestic soy sauce, please use Kikkoman)
½ teaspoon grated ginger
1 clove garlic, grated
1 teaspoon brown sugar
Mix thoroughly and form into appetizer-sized meatballs. Bake at 350° for 8 minutes on each side.

Sauce:
1 cup shoyu (see above)
2 tablespoons sake (Japanese rice wine – if I don’t have any, I just leave it out rather than substitute any other type of spirits and add a little more shoyu)
6 tablespoons sugar (since I have the brown sugar out for the meatballs, I usually do 3 tablespoons brown sugar and 3 tablespoons white sugar)
2 teaspoons grated ginger
2 cloves garlic, grated
1½ teaspoons cornstarch mixed with cold water
Bring all ingredients except cornstarch mixture to a boil. Add cornstarch mixture slowly and stir until sauce thickens slightly. Pour over meatballs and enjoy. (EDITED TO ADD: the last time I made this, my grater went missing, so I strained out the not-quite-fine enough fragments of ginger and garlic before adding the cornstarch mixture)

(NaBloPoMo | January ’10: 11 of 31)

Issues, we have technology issues

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The update to WordPress 2.9.1 went fine, as did the updates to several plugins and the pre-update backups to the database and files. So at least something is working well here. Not everything, though.

I’ve been trying out some to-do list/task manager software. BlackBerry Tasks doesn’t sync to anything else. Google Tasks doesn’t sync to my BlackBerry. Remember The Milk syncs to Google Calendar when both RTM and Google Calendar feel like speaking to one another, and that’s apparently not predictable. Is that big fun, or what? I’m thinking about going back to pen and paper. There really is something very soul-satisfying about drawing that heavy line through a completed task.

Another technology issue that came out of left field involves my family and Skype. I would have never in a million years expected most of my family to want to do the video call thing. But after my uncle passed away last month, one of the things my brother and cousin did was to get everyone set up on Skype to be able to stay in touch despite the distance between most of us. I’ve had a Skype account for a while, but I’ve used it only for magazine business, mostly file transfers and text chat. I do not do video. Ever.

To keep in touch with my family, I suppose I can be more flexible on that point. And then it turns out I may have difficulty doing so, since it seems to involve some workarounds to get the Sony VAIO Motion Eye camera to work properly with Skype. That will have to wait until the laptop comes back from the fan replacement. By then I should have mustered up the energy to deal with technology issues.

(NaBloPoMo | January ’10: 10 of 31)

Dogs in the big lake again

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Back in the spring, I mentioned two separate incidents in which dogs jumped or fell into Lake Michigan, owners went in after them, and humans and canines both needed saving. It happened again on Thursday night, and at this time of year, the consequences could have been really awful. Dogs and human were rescued, and are fine now.

Most of these stories involve dogs let off-leash where it is technically not legal to do so, and owners who either are not paying close enough attention to call their dogs back from a potentially dangerous situation, or dogs that don’t have a solid enough recall to come back immediately to an owner who is paying close attention.

I totally get that dogs should be able to run sometimes. What I will not get in the slightest, however, is if a rescuer, whether it be a Good Samaritan or a paid professional first responder, is injured or killed saving someone from their own lack of judgment.

(NaBloPoMo | January ’10: 9 of 31)