Rat Wars 2013 - Part 2

Now that I know the sons a' bitches are out there I couldn't give up.  At first I was depressed for a few days because I felt I was going to lose.  This weekend I got a new vigor for the war and went to OSH and bought a bunch of big rat snap traps.  I admit, I've never used a snap trap before.  I couldn't figure out how to even set the damn thing.  I turned to You Tube to figure it out.  This guy has a great video on how to bait a trap and what to use.

Basically, don't use peanut butter.  They are smart little buggers and know to just lick off the peanut butter from afar.  Also, you need to use rubber gloves, they will not come near anything that has human scent.  Use bacon.  Wrap the bacon around the bait stick with twine or steel wire so that they cannot pull it off.  Good idea. I followed his advice to the letter.  Make sure you bait where they run.  For some reason the buggers are running on the side of my fence, not the top.  So I put two traps on the top and one on the side.  I screwed the traps into the fence so they couldn't just knock them off.

Set them at 5 o'clock and back from dinner at 9 o'clock and had success.  Two down, G-d knows how many to go.  I'm using Tomcat snap traps.  Don't try those stupid black jaw like traps.  Those don't work. You know the old adage, "build a better mouse trap"?  That's BS.  There is only one trap that has worked since the beginning.  The old fashioned snap trap!

Rat Wars 2013 - Part 1

Until now I didn't really realize what was eating my tomatoes.  I feared it was rats but hoped it was squirrels.  The other night, it was official, rats.  Smaller ones.  I thought mice but Dena said tree rats.  There was one in one bush over by the house and 3 in my big Celebrity tomato plant.  They scared me, Geppetto and I them.  Sons of a bitches!

This sent my mind awhirl.  How will I combat this threat?  Cut worms are one thing.  Rats quite another.  Cut worms are not smart, nor are they big!  I devised a plan to encase my Celebrity in small chicken wire with a cut out door so I could get the tomatoes out.  But time was a factor.  I had to go buy the chicken wire, fashion the entire encasement, etc etc.  In the meantime I took to cutting my tomatoes off the celebrity before they were ripe, not green, just orange, before the sons a bitches got them.

Thursday night I was innocently picking Lemon Ice cherry tomatoes off, while picking I was stewing about the loss of celebrity big reds, some of these were 10 - 12 ounces.  I glanced up and caught something out of the corner of my eye.  Dark Grey?  Dark grey rat butt?  Seriously?  Eating my lemon ice cherry tomatoes while I'm picking them???!!!  I quietly put down my handfuls and snuck over to the garage and got one of Geppetto's weave poles.  These are 1" PVC pipes about 3' long that are used to practice weaves for agility.
I walked over and whacked it.  I heard a rustle, Geppetto went ape shit and I suspect the rat was dazed and scurried under the next pot over.   That pot is a large 1/2 wine barrel made out of solid oak.  I have these pots suspended up on top of bricks to aid in drainage, that's where the son 'a bitch was hiding.  I poked and prodded and Geppetto whined and jumped (this is what he does when he "trees" something) and finally I decided to put my back into it and I moved it about a foot from the wall.  Geppetto was able to get behind, I poked some more and a big commotion was heard from behind.  Geppetto trotted out all proud like with the small rat in his mouth.   I screeched and yelled "drop it"!  He never obeys that command.  He did this time.  He dropped it and the rat crawled slowly away and he snagged it again.  I yelled "drop it" again.  Geppetto dropped it. As the rat crawled away again I thought to myself, "How in the hell am I going to kill this thing?"

I tried yelling for Dena but she didn't come.  Geppetto had grabbed the rat again by now, I yelled drop, sit and Leave it.  Which he obeyed.  Amazing what training will do.  He watched that rat patiently while sitting and while I ran and got a long pick up stick thing that my friend gave me.  I grabbed the rat, still squirming a little, plopped it into a garbage bag and proceeded to whack it a bunch more times until it lived no more.  I admit, I felt bad about it.  But it was war.

Round 1 was over.  Round 2 was imminent.

iPhone 5 versus Samsung Galaxy S4 Head to Head

I've had the opportunity to test the iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S4 head to head.  My testing was for work and it was more from a 4G Sprint (Samsung S4) versus LTE AT&T (iPhone 5) perspective but since I was doing the exact same thing on each phone I couldn't help but compare them.

Samsung S4 impressions:

• screen is bright, big and beautiful.  I loved that about it
• It's too big.  I cannot do anything one handed. When I put it up to my ear I feel like an idiot, like I have an ipad at my ear.
• its slippery.  The silver sleek back makes it slippery so a case is necessary, however if I added a case it would be really too big.
• I felt that I had worse voice calls on the Samsung than on my iphone 4s on the Sprint network.  In areas where I had not had issues before the Samsung had issues.  Why?  I don't know but it is what it is. 
• The keyboard just sucks.  On the iphone I can properly type out even with one hand a significant amount of text without it being morphed in to indiscernible words.  The S4, no way.  Some texts there wasn't a word that was recognizable so I found when I was texting or emailing I had to be paying significant attention to the phone and keyboard so I could choose the corrected words all the time. Irritating.
• I find the Google Play marketplace a pain to use.
• Android features in general do not have the same ease of use that similar functions on the iPhones do.  Everything on an Android take too many clicks or the options are buried in menus below menus.  It's just irritating.

iPhone 5 impressions

• Lighter than my 4s so that was nice and lighter than the S4
• fits quite nicely in the palm of my hand
• fast
• usability crushes the Android OS
• say what you will about iTunes and the app store but I know when I download an app there isn't some malware hidden inside it because Apple has vetted every single app.

Verdict
I'll take the iPhone 5 - hands down, every time

It's interesting how Americans love a winner but only if they win so much.  For example, the Yankees. Everyone loved them until they started winning the World Series too frequently, then people hated them.  Apple is a winner and were the darling of the tech sector for years.  Now - every tech and money blogger bashes them for lack of innovation, too controlling, blah blah blah.  Let's face it people - it's an American company.  Embrace it.  Why are you embracing a Japanese company?  Apple employs 1000's of workers in the US.  Support them - don't bash them.

Geocaching in Edmonton, Part 3

This was our last find.  It was by far the cleverest geocache I've ever seen.  It was really only a fluke that we discovered it.  The kids and my mom are determined cachers and do not give up until the find is made!  Look closely at the picture below.  Something is not quite right.  The birch tree cluster you see there, one looks like its cut off.  Upon closer inspection I thought it was odd that the birch bark was not adhered directly to the tree.  Viola!  The cache was found.  Looking closer at the second picture you see a PVC screw top on it.  This is a real birch log with one side somehow hollowed out, a 2.5" PVC pipe put into it, the original birch bark adhered to it and then its flipped upside down so you don't see the PVC cap.  It wasn't until I grabbed the log and heard a thud inside of the cache container that I realized what it was. 

Geocaching in Edmonton Part 2

Here's a picture of all of us on our hike - great shot!

 

11 Varieties this year!

Here are some pictures of my special heirloom varieties.  The top picture is the Costello Genovese - Hard to find old classic heirloom 8- 12 oz fruits.  I'm not sure why the deep ribbing, it didn't say that it was like that nor do the pictures look like that.  I have another that has deep ribbing, maybe I mixed up the labels?  The bottom one is one of the ones I am SO excited about.  The Lemon Drop - Translucent yellow/green cherries, sweet/tart flavor.  Doesn't it look like they are going to be SO interesting.

Geocaching with the Family in Canada

What a fun, fun afternoon we had yesterday.  I introduced my family and especially the kids to the world wide treasure hunt game called geocaching.  Geocaching in Edmonton is very different than in Los Angeles. With the incredible amount of greenspace in the city every cache we found was an adventure and unique.  The first cache we found was no more than a couple blocks from my sister's house but it might as well have been in the forest. The first picture is of that first cache.  It was hidden in a fake birdhouse.  I wonder if the birds get faked out too? 

Each cache we found had a large number of kid friendly goodies in it and we left a Los Angeles souvenir in each as we went.  Here's a picture of Sienna who is holding the GPS to cache #3 - as you can see, she is highly focused and was very good at it.

Cache #4 was a small micro and I was worried it would be hard to find.  I let the kids run with the GPS while I used my geo senses to track it.  I discovered it but let them make the find.  It was a toughie but Sienna made the grab.  As you can see by the picture it is a fake bolt.  The trick is in looking for things that are not normal.  None of the other 6x6 posts had a bolt in it - so, different...Clever hide for sure.

Cucumbers - yummmy

This is just a normal cucumber plant.  It's about 6" long now.  I should have put a quarter in the dirt beside the picture for context.

How is the Garden Doing?

Currently I am battling something akin to cut worms on every single tomato plant.  They are making the leaves of all my plants look like swiss cheese.  It's very frustrating.  I tried some "organic" safe spray and they just ate right through that.  I tried two applications.  I tried searching for hours at night with the flashlight to catch them by hand, mistakenly thinking they would be as big as horn worms.  They are not.  This morning at 5:30am I resorted to Neem Oil.  I sprayed under pretty much every leaf, meticulously.  We shall see what happens.  A gardening friend of mine reminded me that a healthy plant is better at fighting off disease and pests better than a weak plant and that if you are gardening in containers you must fertilize every 2 - 3 weeks.  I had not done that, but I have now.  Makes sense, just like the human body.  Here's a picture of the current state of a few plants.  As you can see the one under the window is almost 7' tall.  That plant is the cherry tomato plant.  Not sure if I should start pinching it or let it go crazy!  The little thing to the left is the spinach.  To the right in the horizontal container is the Michael Pollard variety of tomato.  This is the first year it is in gardens so it's an heirloom.  The leaves on the Michael Pollard are HUGE.  Some of the longest leave branches are 18" long.  How in the hell am I supposed to train that thing?

Spring is Here - Tomato Time!

Spring has definitely sprung here in Los Angeles.  Everything is bloom.  The nurseries are buzzing and my green thumb is itching.  I had the pleasure of going to Tomato Mania with a couple new friends last weekend and I wanted to share with you my experience and what I bought. 

They have events all over Southern California this time of year. The event I went to was at the Tapia Brothers veggie stand in the Valley by the 101.  We drove up and I immediately felt anxiety.  It was Sunday, the event had been already going on since Saturday morning.  Would they be sold out of everything?  There were cars and people everywhere.  I wanted to run to the tomato area and snatch up plants ASAP. 

The pickings probably weren't as abundant as they were on Saturday but they were still good.  There must have been over a hundred variety of tomatoes.  Maybe more.  Some of the special hybrids were picked over and there were no more yellow pears left but I had no trouble buying more than my backyard can hold.

Here's what I bought:

• Celebrity - classic beefsteak
• Cherokee Chocolate - rosy brown skin, smoky flavor
• Church "Beefsteak" heirloom - been around for 100's of years, from Virginia
• Sweet 100's - classic cherry with "100's" of cherries per vine
• Black cherry - just as it says
• Sun Gold - golden smaller fruit
• Lemon Drop - Translucent yellow/green cherries, sweet/tart flavor
• Michael Pollan - brand new hybrid, pear shaped yellow fruit with green stripes, fits in palm of hand
• Costello Genovese - Hard to find old classic heirloom 8- 12 oz fruits
• Carmello French Hybrid - italian, deep red large fruit, deeply ribbed

I hope you are all excited about his as I am.  And if you have been a recipient of the fruits of my labor before, imagine the boon this year!

Girls in Tech Los Angeles STEM Workshop

Students & Girls in Tech LA volunteers - Valor Academy

The Girls in Tech Los Angeles volunteers spirits were not dampened on this rainy day in Arleta, CA (December 1st, 2012) as they arrived bright eyed and bushy tailed to teach & mentor 95 girls in STEM workshops.  The workshops are put on by the Girl Scouts of Los Angeles and the volunteers staffed from the members of Girls in Tech Los Angeles chapter.  With curriculum developed by AT&T we were set up for another successful event.  

The morning started off with a motivational speech by Veronica Garcia who grew up in Arleta,  and is now a rocket scientist with the space shuttle program at Pratt & Whitney.  Veronica went to MIT after being encouraged by a speaker when she was in high school.  Her story was compelling and revved all of us up for the day.  We ran four workshops - technical product development that included an investor pitch, electrical engineering (hands on circuit design), bio engineering with some actual DNA (not human!), and environmental engineering which involved an oil spill clean up.  I was in the Computer Science/Product development workshop where over the course of the day I was constantly amazed at innovation shown by these girls.  The ideas they came up with were amazing and I'm sure I was looking at more than a few entrepreneurs there.  

During our break for our yummy lunch that was donated by El Pollo Loco the volunteers had a chance to mingle and chat one on one with the girls.  I'm not sure who was inspired more, the girls or the volunteers.  I know I was inspired by Kim Vawter and Valor Academy's approach to motivating their students to attend college.  More on that in another blog.

As we all look forward to 2013 - remember - there is nothing more satisfying than giving back.  Join Girls in Tech today and get involved.  

Community Builders Award

Last night was our company holiday party and I was surprised with the Webcor Community Builders award.    This is presented to the individual in the company that for that year exhibits outstanding and ongoing commitment to charitable and community service efforts.  It was nice to be recognized for what I do but I was a little uncomfortable with it.  I do the things I do because I enjoy helping people not to be recognized.  It feels good to help others and I guess once in a while it can feel good to have someone notice what you do.  So, thank you Webcor and my peers who nominated me for the recognition.  Here's a couple pictures of a few events I did this year. 

Me and Michelle @ Habitat for Humanity Build

Mark Turner Senior VP presenting award

Sexiest Job of this decade?

What is the sexiest job of this decade?  It's called a Data Scientist. They are few and far between, often have PHD's in advanced mathematics and/or statistics and the thought of Petabytes of raw data turns them on.  Currently, East and West coast major metropolitan areas (i.e. tech company areas), a data scientist is making between $300,000 and $500,000 per year.   I bet you wish you would have paid more attention in that abstract calculus class now!

What is a data scientist you ask?  They take Big Data in its rawest form and create connections, models, predictions - predictive analytics.  Take for example the now infamous story where Target was using the habits of its shoppers to predict based on what was in a woman's shopping cart if she was pregnant or not.  Often, even before she knew herself.  Check out this article to see how and try not to freak out.  The bottom line is that they assign everyone, yes, everyone a customer ID tied to your credit card and other data that you are providing.  They are then mining that data to predict certain patterns one of them being pregnancy.  It turns out that by tweaking the predicative formula they could time a women's due date to within a week.  This allowed Target to send out coupons to the woman at specific pregnancy milestones to earn her business and loyalty.  Coupons for prenatal vitamins, unscented lotion, cribs, diapers, you get the picture.  If this is what can be done with a company not really knowing who you are imagine the data collected about you if you use a customer loyalty card.

If you're interested in learning more details about how a data scientist does this work check out the Forbes article. 

Here are a couple buzz words to learn:
Hadoop architecture -- an open source architecture designed to map, crunch and qualify tons of data
Big Data -- is a collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process using on-hand database management tools
Data visualization -- is the graphical presentation of information, with the goal of providing the viewer with a qualitative understanding of the information contents Examples
Advanced Analytics -- is a grouping of analytic techniques used to predict future outcomes

California Propositions 2012

This is my first big election as an American citizen and I'm taking it seriously.  It is daunting being a California voter.  We have 11 propositions to vote on that are California wide and then in Los Angeles county there are three Measures.  This KQED website has a basic rundown of the propositions.  Here is the basics of my research and while I'm trying to be fair, it is MY blog so there may be bias in these descriptions.  The opinions are my own.  Make your own decisions, you're adults.

Prop 30 - Tax increase for > $250k earners and what is interesting is that no one is talking about the .25 cent sales tax increase it also calls for, this is for 4 years.  The money collected will benefit education and public safety.  In my opinion adding .25 cents to state wide sales tax is too much.  It taxes everyone.  We have the highest sales tax in the country now, enough is enough.  This would raise it to over 10% in some counties.  Oh, and interestingly enough, there is a similar proposition, Prop 38.  If both pass  by state Constitution if proposition measures conflict the one with the most votes wins.  You know that will end up in court.  Sadly amusing.

Prop 31 - is confusing.  In a nutshell it establishes a two year budget cycle and allows for more local monetary control.  Its confusing.  I have no idea how I'm going to vote.  If you look at who is for and against the proposition its even more confusing.  For example, both the democratic state party and the tea party are against it.  Strange bedfellows.

Prop 32 - in listening to the ads this seemed a no brainer to me but after reading the proposition itself it is not so clear.  Yes, unions cannot use payroll deducations for political purposes but it also exempts the "super-pacs" from anything.  It seems unfair to me that unions can do nothing but super pacs can do anything they want if this prop passes.

Prop 33 - Allows insurance companies to give us discounts if we have continuous coverage for five years, BUT it also allows them to raise rates without the California insurance commissioners approval if we haven't had coverage.  The proposition is funded entirely by Mercury insurance.  I think that says it all.

Prop 34 - repeal the death penalty.  It is retroactive.  What you don't hear about is the fact that this proposition creates a general fund of $100 million for law enforcement to solve crimes quicker.  So any savings in court costs goes right back out the door.

Prop 35 - Increases penalties for human trafficking.  This seems a no brainer especially when you see the major opponent to the bill is the Erotic Providers Legal, Education and Research Project Inc.

Prop 36 - Revises the 3 strikes law so that if your third strike is stealing milk you don't go to jail for life.  Seems logical to me.  Basically, the punishment fits the crime.  Violent crimes like murder, rape, child molestation are exempt, meaning its life in prison regardless.

Prop 37 - To label or not to label genetically engineered foods.  It is amazing to me how misleading ads can be.  If you read the measure it is not anywhere near the opponents ads.  Read it and understand it before you vote. Seems clear to me.

Prop 38 - The second income tax proposition - increases taxes on most Californians from 2013 through 2024.  Supposed to benefit education.  You know and I know that they will forget they did this and raise our taxes somewhere in between 2013 and 2024 a few more times, right?  The link at the top has the tax rate chart for each income class.  Generally speaking its somewhere around 1% except if you make < $7,000 per year, then it's zero.

Prop 39 - This is a bit confusing - it changes the way taxes are levied on companies that do business in multiple states. In my 15 minute perusal its not clear to me whether this would be good or bad.  This obviously increases taxes because, let's face it, they never go down; the revenue generated would go to clean energy jobs, training, etc., for five years.

Prop 40 -  This one is just stupid.  It was proposed by the Republicans to get old senate district boundaries put back in place and this proposition was posturing for a california supreme court bid.  The court through out the request and the citizens commission that adjusted the district boundaries based on 2010 census figures stands.  A Yes vote leaves districts as they were decided a couple years ago by the commission.  A No vote means more $ will be spent in courts and for another panel to do the same bloody thing all over again.

Google sponsored Geek Girls Dinner

I had the pleasure through Girls in Tech Los Angeles to attend last week the first Geek Girls Dinner in the LA area.  Geek Girls Dinner is a global movement getting us geeky gals together to network and be inspired by motivational awesome women in our fields.  This first event in Los Angeles was no exception. 

First of all, it was at Google's campus in Santa Monica.  You truly are a geek if you get excited just walking up to Google's offices.  As I signed in I could see the couches in the employee work area were in the iconic Blue/Red/Yellow/Green colors of Google's logo.  I so wanted to go wander about their work area but alas, it was blocked by big burly security guards.  No worries, the Google hosted bar stopped me in my tracks  - with drinks like "Rover on Mars", "Solar Flare" and "Curiosity" calling my name I probably wouldn't have made it past the bar.

After mixing, networking, yummy appetizers and cocktails we all filed into the Google auditorium to be inspired by Nagin Cox of JPL/NASA and Maja Mataric, professor of Neurological Robotics from USC.  Nagin Cox has been involved with the Mars Rover project from the beginning and is a fantastic engaging speaker.  It was so fun to move with her through the evolution of NASA's exploration of Mars from the orbital satellites to the first Rover, Spirit and Opportunity and finally, Curiosity. She is an inspiration to us all and one picture in her slide show struck me as the epitome of exactly what we women face in this man's world - it was of Nagin Cox with her arms in the air in victory as Curriosity landed in the mission control room surrounded by men.  Nagin - the lone woman.  A victory in so many ways.

Maja Mataric's talk was very different from Nagin Cox's in that some of her points were how she balances between her children, her research, her classes, her grad students and the politics of being a tenured professor.  Maja Mataric is plowing new ground in robotics and how these human size robots will be caregivers for stroke victims, physical therapy and all sorts of age related issues.  I'm paraphrasing here but she drove home the point to us that you don't have to make a choice between work and family.  Just make it work and do what is right for you.  If you can't make a 9 am meeting with your boss because you need to take your kid to school, just say, "Hey, that doesn't work for me, I'll be there at 10"  I'm sure that being a published, tenured brilliant robotasist who has spoken in front of congress gives you a lot of power to make those sort of statements without being fired - but the point remains. 

The picture is of the yummy little 'droid cupcakes there were our post talk dessert.

What is the main take away from an event like this? There is no limit to what we can do as women!

Space Shuttle Endeavour's Final Flight

What an amazing day this was.  I quickly drove home from work and scooped up Dena who had a picnic lunch, the dog and lawn chairs waiting.  We raced off to Kenneth Hahn park in Baldwin Hills and had a very easy time of getting a primo spot.  Not too many people were there.  I chatted with other people and the excitement in the air was thick.  We were expecting the 747 with the shuttle on top to come in from Santa Monica Pier after its fly by on the San Francisco bridge, then go down Wilshire, do a circle around city hall, up to the Griffith Observatory, the Hollywood sign and then make a circuit back out over the ocean.

The pilots of the 747 had no real flight plan to adhere to and as long as they kept in touch with air traffic controllers they could do whatever they wanted, and they did, much to the delight of people all over the southland, including Disneyland where tourists from all over the world got a once in a lifetime sight.

Here are some shots I took as we were startled as Endeavour flew right over our heads.  We had no idea it would be so close, we were busy looking much north and had to do a quick one eighty as the roar came overhead.  Click on the pictures to make them larger.  Yes, those are fighter jets escorting the shuttle.

Microsoft Training Today

I was very happy to receive five of my companies Microsoft Training Vouchers for an authorized course which gives me five days of training.  I went back to New Horizons where I originally got my MCSE and my CCNA training and talked to a rep. I noticed that now they have three methods of training delivery - Instructor Led, Mentored Learning and remote learning which I think is watching videos from home. I made absolutely sure that I signed up for IL training (Instructor Led) as I do not want to sit and watch videos, I would be asleep in minutes.

I'm taking Windows Server 2008 Configure & admin class which was supposed to start at 7:30 this morning.  On Friday I received an email confirming the class and I noticed deep in the email that the class was from 8am to 4pm.  What?  Just to be sure I arrived at 7:30 am to a room with a TV, microphone and one other student.  It appears that instructor led no longer necessarily means the instructor is actually in the room.  I was pretty peeved for the first 45 minutes because grand assumptions were made that I'd attended classes before, I knew how to log in to the New Horizons portal and Illuminate, etc.  I told the guy I didn't even know what that was.

After he got me all settled I put on my headphones and tried to settle in.  Fortunately, the instructor is fairly interactive.  He makes you answer questions, put check marks, happy faces and raise your hand in the video session area, etc.  So it actually isn't too bad.  So far, today has been a review of old material - after all, the original concepts of Windows servers are still the same but the devil is in the details. 

We'll see how it goes but it appears you can teach this old dog new tricks but I'm still not on board with this new learning style.  I know its the way of the future but I'm not too happy about it.

Thanks to Tony and Dante

It's almost never that I cannot think of a title for my blog.  Often it starts with a title and builds from there.  Tonight, I am having troubles.

It started innocently enough with an evening walk with Geppetto.  A beautiful evening, nice and cool, a quiet city, peaceful.  Just me and my dog....until we rounded a corner and then, there he was.  A Cholo looking hispanic guy with the telltale tan kahki's, white t-shirt and which socks way up the calves.  Hey, we live in a good neighborhood so I wasn't nervous.  Lately, Geppetto has become a little leash aggressive.  Most dogs he'll give a little nip too.  Needless to say, this pisses off the neighbors although they would never say anything.  I don't want our dog to be ostracized. 

It's quite dark on this part of the street, Geppetto and I pull over and the guy says, "is your dog friendly?"  "No", I say, "he seems to be a little aggressive with black dogs."  "My dog is very friendly, do you think they can try it?"  "Sure, why not."  They sniff around each other and then Geppetto does his typical ignore the other dog stance, turning his back and pretending to be interested in something across the street.  The guys dog, Dante (black 17 lb cocker spaniel) , comes up to me and gives me a lick.  I pet him and Geppetto give a little whine.  The guy says, "the pound told me not to take this dog because he was so aggressive and by the time I picked him up I was terrified of being bitten.  I cradled him in my hands and could feel his ribs, I cried.  He had so much hair you couldn't tell how skinny he was.  I nursed him back to health.  He saved my life."   I looked up and studied my new friend Tony.  He lives a couple streets over and I've not seen him before.  He looks like a guy that needed saving but was on his way back.  He talked a little about his ex-girlfriend and I wondered if that was his downfall or if it was something else.  Dante knows, that's for sure.

Amazing how many people say that.  "My dog saved my life."  I have a bumper sticker on my truck that says "who rescued who?"  It's very true but lately I've been guilty of forgetting that.  We got Geppetto in August of 2011 - just a few weeks before my cancer diagnosis.  After my surgery I walked that dog every day, sometimes twice no matter what.  It started with half a block.  I barely made it home.  I broke out in a cold sweat but vowed to try again.  I guess I lied, one day I just couldn't do it and called Eco Wash and Karen sent someone over to walk Geppetto.  That was the only day though.  I built up that half a block to 2 miles before I went back to work.  It's important to keep perspective during our busy lives.  I forget that quite often.   Thanks Tony for reminding me.

The Core Foundation

I've been slapped around repeatedly by the lesson that you must have a core or base foundation of a skill before learning the more advanced skill associated with it.  The first realization or major slap in the face of this was University calculus.  I cruised through high school and as a result didn't have to work too hard or do too much extra studying in order to get A's.  This bit me in the proverbial ass during university abstract calculus.  Doesn't that sound like a fun class?  Abstract calculus?  I mean, WTF is that anyways?  Well, turns out I had no idea because I was weak in calculus basics I could not grasp the abstract concepts.  Funny how things haunt you; as an adult I purchased several books on calculus and always meant to go back and redeem myself in my own eyes.  I never did.  Besides ego and astro-physicists and perhaps the Mars Rover team, who really needs calculus let alone the abstract kind?

The strong foundation lesson continues to resonate and haunt me even today.  I'm one day away from starting my second class on virtualization.  This is what we would call a "disruptive technology".  The iPod was a disruptive technology for instance, a game changer, something that changes complete industries and destroys others.  Virtualization is the current technology of servers, the foundation of the cloud and the future of networking.  In a nutshell and in its simplest terms it allows you to put multiple computers/applications/operating systems on one computer but each computer/app/OS thinks its on its own piece of hardware.  The underlying virtualization software "fools" each of them. 

The strong foundation I seem to be missing is a deep understanding of CPUs and their advancements over the last few years.  I've pretty much ignored reading and keeping up with it as it didn't seem that important.  You always buy as much as you can afford and the rest will sort itself out.  Not true with virtualization.  Now there are dual core, quad core, terms such as Symmetrical processing (SMP), multi-core and hyper-threading.  It is necessary to understand all of this in order to understand vSMP, logical cores, virtual cores, etc.  Consider myself slapped....again. 

Canine Good Citizen Test - Take One

Geppetto, Dena and I ventured out today to try our hand at the AKC's Canine Good Citizen test that was being held as part of the practice match at the WLAOTC in Rancho Park.  The CGC is designed to reward dogs who have good manners at home and in the community. The Canine Good Citizen Program is a two-part program that stresses responsible pet ownership for owners and basic good manners for dogs. All dogs who pass the 10-step CGC test may receive a certificate from the American Kennel Club and as of January 2013 are awarded official AKC title for same.

There are 10 test items:

Test 1: Accepting a friendly stranger  <-- PASS
Test 2: Sitting politely for petting <-- PASS
Test 3: Appearance and grooming  <-- PASS
Test 4: Out for a walk (walking on a loose lead)  <-- PASS
Test 5: Walking through a crowd  <-- PASS
This test demonstrates that the dog can move about politely in pedestrian traffic and is under control in public places. The dog and handler walk around and pass close to several people (at least three). The dog may show some interest in the strangers but should continue to walk with the handler, without evidence of over-exuberance, shyness or resentment. The handler may talk to the dog and encourage or praise the dog throughout the test. The dog should not jump on people in the crowd or strain on the leash.
Test 6: Sit and down on command and Staying in place  <-- FAIL
Test 7: Coming when called  <-- FAIL 
Test 8: Reaction to another dog  <-- PASS
Test 9: Reaction to distraction  <-- PASS
This test demonstrates that the dog is confident at all times when faced with common distracting situations. The evaluator will select and present two distractions. Examples of distractions include dropping a chair, rolling a crate dolly past the dog, having a jogger run in front of the dog, or dropping a crutch or cane. The dog may express natural interest and curiosity and/or may appear slightly startled but should not panic, try to run away, show aggressiveness, or bark.
Test 10: Supervised separation  <-- we never got this far
This test demonstrates that a dog can be left with a trusted person, if necessary, and will maintain training and good manners. Evaluators are encouraged to say something like, "Would you like me to watch your dog?" and then take hold of the dog's leash. The owner will go out of sight for three minutes. This test is joked about as the longest 3 minutes of the handler's life.....

I knew Geppetto wasn't ready but today was the match so I wanted to give him and I the experience of being in the "ring".  I took him out for a good long walk this morning to tire him out and off we went.  He did fairly well in the test but did not pass.  He was extremely preoccupied with where Dena was while we were in the ring.  This served two purposes - the first was that he didn't care when they groomed him and touched him as he was busy looking for Dena but the downside was that he was not focused during the obedience portion and failed that.  I thought for sure he would fail test 3 as he doesn't like other people touching him but was shocked when he failed test 6 and 7.  He was just too preoccupied.  In all honesty though - it is always the handlers fault.  I was nervous - at one point one of the evaluators told me to breathe.  Why in the world would I be nervous?  Strange.

Off we go to practice - until next time.  And we will go alone next time and leave Dena at home!