The end of a journey

Last night marked the end of a long but happy journey. It's a journey I've taken three times now and this time was almost as delightful as the first time. The big difference this time is that I had a traveling companion. About two years ago I started reading the Harry Potter series to my daughter. Now 100+ hours and almost 4,000 pages later we finished the seventh book.

Completing the series was bittersweet. On one hand it has been an incredible amount of fun reading to her and following Harry through his seven years at Hogwarts. Seeing her reaction to some of the twists in the book and just being able to talk to her about the story has been wonderful. I can't tell you how many nights I've was anxiously awaiting the time when we could start reading again just to get to one of my favorite parts in whatever book we were on and see or hear her reactions.

On the other, we're done and to be honest, I'm a bit sad. I guess part of the reason is that in the two years that we've been reading, she's gone from a "big girl" to being nearly a pre-teen. With the teen years ahead I can see in the not too distant future when reading a story to her just isn't going to be welcomed.

Thankfully, I still have some time to spend reading to my not so little girl. We've started in on the Artemis Foul series and might even delve into the Hunger Games. While I know that I likely won't be reading to her for too much longer, my hope is that she'll keep an open mind to the types of books that she reads in the future and that maybe we'll even continue to read some of the same books.

How not to be a good neighbor

This morning was pretty much the norm for the last 5 months. Got ready for work and then took the dog for a walk around the block. Shelby likes to talk to the dogs (and rabbits) that are out in the morning and I know which houses are likely to have "friends" for her to talk to. I try to keep her from barking too much since it's usually before 6:30. There is one house behind us that has a little white dog that is frequently barking at us at the front screen door.

As always, Shelby immediately starts barking and pulling on the leash at the dog. I had about 6 feet of leash to work with so she was at least a few feet onto their front lawn. Instead of calming their dog down, the woman that lives there, opens the front door and lets their dog out. I couldn't believe it. At that point all I could really think about was getting Shelby away from their dog. I was more concerned with the fact that Shelby is pretty dog aggressive and didn't want something to happen to either dog. Meanwhile I hear the woman yelling at me about getting my dog off their lawn. I couldn't let that one go so I yelled back and walked on, fairly pissed off.

Obviously they don't care that much about their dog, since who knows what could have happened if Shelby was aggressive to the point of attacking their dog or the other way around. I realize that Shelby was on their property, but I always pick up after her and is it really worth it to come across as an asshole neighbor to start a fight about it? So now I'm pissed and trying to figure out how I'm going to handle this. I'm not going to take a different route to walk and I'm not going to do something stupid.

New Voicemail Widget

I just updated the voice mail greeting for my call widget. Give it a try and leave me a voice mail. Click below or the image like it on the right and bottom.

Dear Sprint, About that EVO 4G

Dear Sprint,

I just read that you're going to have the new HTC EVO 4G available starting in June. I can't tell you how excited I was. Even though our contract isn't up for another 6 months I was actually considering what it would take to get one. Then I read a few things that will probably keep me from getting one until January if at all.

First of all, I see that you are going to charge and additional $10/month because it's using WiMax. I understand the need for Sprint to make money. However, last I checked, Sprint was loosing customers left and right. So, why not hold off on that extra $10/month charge for a while. Get some customers and make sure you keep them with good customer service and then bring up the $10/month charge when you network has a large number of users.

I also see that you are going to charge $30/month just to use the wifi hotspot. I'm getting extremely tired of cell providers keeping users from and/or charging for tethering. Come up with a reasonable charge for the amount of bandwidth a users consumes and let the consumer use as much as they want with whatever devices they want! Don't hide behind some statement that users that tether will cause too much network congestion. Have appropriate charges and use that additional money to build out your network some more.

Considering the above two points, I can't really justify the additional hassle and cost of getting a new phone until my contract is up.

Sprint, thanks for the last few weeks of hope that you wouldn't be a complete ass. Now it's back to reality.

Sincerely,
Me

Encounters of the Dog-kind

Our cats got to meet Shelby for the first time this afternoon. As one might imagine, the cats were not exactly thrilled. The following is a paraphrase of a message I got from my wife:



Door opens to let cats free from their room

Cats:HISSSSS HISSSSS run away

Shelby:Oh we are running? Sounds like fun to me! Runs after cats

Cats:Crap it's chasing us and the bedroom doors are closed! Crap! Crap! Crap! Stare at mom like she's the devil for bringing the dog into the house

Adoption Pending

Last night we went to visit a dog named Kenzie. I've been window shopping for a new dog for a while now and when I saw the breed, read her bio, and saw her picture I knew I need to at least meet her.

Her foster home is not too far from our current home, which was a bit odd since the shelter is listed as being out of Wheaton, which is not really near her foster home. In some ways it was a little bit Deja Vu. It was a very similar experience to meeting Katie for the very first time. Kenzie was about as sweet as I could be. She was reserved, but friendly. She's mostly an Australian Shepherd, but mixed with something else. She's got probably the most unique coat I've ever seen and beautiful at that.

After leaving we did some serious thinking and had some discussion about adopting her. The wife and I had pretty much the same thoughts. There was no good reason not to adopt Kenzie. Most of my concerns could only be answered after she's been living with us for some time.

The one thing that I wasn't expecting to be able to do was to rename any dog that we were apt to adopt. This simply has to do with the fact that we're not looking to get a puppy. However, since Kenzie was dropped off with no real info on her, she hasn't been using Kenzie for that long and hopefully will take to her new name easily enough.

With that said, I'm looking forward to the day she comes home to live with us.

Frosty Fog

 
Thanks to fog and some feezing temps this morning we've been treated to the above.