iGone

It’s official, I ditched the iPad for the Nexus 10. My beautiful new beast arrived today! I’m so excited I can’t sit still. lol I’m still a multi-OS household but down to two now. lol I still have Windows on my laptop [1]No, I will not be upgrading to Windows 8. First time in MS history I haven’t upgraded when a new version came out.  However, I rarely crack open my laptop at all anymore. Usually, it is to write a really long email or more intensive work. If I could, I’d totally run Android on my laptop too.

This is my xmas present to myself this year. I’m still not caught up all the way yet so can’t justify spending a lot money on holiday stuff this year. It’s a wash on price so not bad for a self-gift.  I’ve already pre-sold the iPad. I sold it for just enough to cover the cost of the Nexus. I would have felt guilty making a profit, considering I won it from work. It’s going to a coworker’s little girl as a Christmas present. I threw in the Zagg keyboard/case since it won’t fit the Nexus. I’m sure she’ll love it, it’s in excellent condition.

I’m not kicking Apple & I gave it a good run. In the end, I just prefer Android. Apple gets props for setting the standard. To me, Android is more user friendly and provides for better functionality. It’s also a lot less restrictive on what I can & can’t do with it. This is my first foray into Android tablets so I’m hoping the Nexus 10 measures up. The specs are impressive and carrying the Nexus branding means it runs pure Android. [2]Which also means I get updates right away vs waiting for carrier tweaks for Android phones  So far, it’s a beauty. The display is amazing and it’s blazing fast so far. Even better, Google backs up not only your apps but also their working files. All my programs installed with all the working data! The only thing I had to manually setup was my email accounts.

My only complaint so far is some of my apps aren’t tablet ready. A minor annoyance but I can live with it. I’ll list out any big issues if anything major develops.

References

References
↑1 No, I will not be upgrading to Windows 8. First time in MS history I haven’t upgraded when a new version came out.
↑2 Which also means I get updates right away vs waiting for carrier tweaks for Android phones

One

Cooper
Cooper on the bus

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of little Cooper coming to live with me. Apple guy and I drove up to Folsom, CA to pick him up and bring him home. I still remember sitting in the visiting room at the animal hospital and him bounding into the room. He was (and still is) a little dynamo of energy bouncing and jumping. He was so excited and cheery, it was love at first sight. It was obvious from that first moment he was just in need of a good home with lots of love.

He didn’t have much training back then and was recovering from being malnourished. We originally thought his growth might be stunted but he is doing quite well in size now. He has reached a healthy weight of 63lbs and holding. His only real problems so far revolve around skin irritations. His little bob tail has to be cleaned with a wet nap every couple days to prevent irritation and booboo’s. He is also prone to skin infections. I’ve taken to dosing him with a little bit of Benadryl every night before bed and he gets sprayed down with an anti-fungal about once a week. Together, these keep his skin looking clean and ‘purdy.

It still angers me to this day that someone could abuse such a wonderful loving animal. Even the staff were quite taken with him. They were very happy to see him go to a good home. I’d like to think I’m giving him a good life. He has all but completely stopped trying to test me for dominance. He responds to commands very easily and for the most part is very well-behaved. He still has his hyper rambunctious moments but that just adds to his charm. hehehe He certainly seems happy. And like a good daddy, I am very protective of him. [1]Lord, if I had children I’d probably already be in jail! lol

The pic is from a few months ago. He was actually under the MUNI bus seat. It is one of my favorite pics of him. He is my little munchkin and I love him very much. Here’s to another healthy loving year ahead!

References

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↑1 Lord, if I had children I’d probably already be in jail! lol

Cents

Sometimes my beloved SF can be a bit over the top with ordinances and other times they can be front-runners on really good ideas.

One particularly new good idea was an ordinance that passed recently that requries all businesses to charge a .10 cent fee for every bag given out. The idea obviously was to encourage people to bring their own bag(s) and cut down on landfill/waste. And so far it has worked pretty well. Pretty much every store I shop at regularly has reported a massive drop in the number of bags given out.

Some have grumbled a bit and others have just gone off the deep end complaining that SF is passing too many nanny laws. Forgetting for a moment, these are the same folks who spend $4 – $6 a day on coffee drinks, it’s 10 cents! lol Even if you walked away with 10 bags full of groceries it’s a whole dollar extra. Then you have people complaining it’s incovenient when you forget to bring a bag. Well silly, that is the point!

My favorite complaint was that stores should be required to eat the cost. Why exactly is that? They already have to pay for bags so why should they pay again for you? I’m all for corporate responsibility but this isn’t about the stores, it’s about us (as consumers) and needless waste. The law was meant to curtail waste.

I’m a huge supporter of the new ordinance and glady fork over the .10 anytime I forget to bring a bag. I’m glad SF is working to reduce the amount of waste produced by the city. It’s better for the city and better for the environment.

Banned

I’m slipping this rant into the scheduled posts. Only because it was time-relevant. lol

I didn’t sleep well last night at all. I have no idea why but I kept waking  up like every hour on the hour. I must have worn Cooper out as well because he slept right up till I crawled out of bed at 10:30 today. Usually, he is up and fidgeting and moving around the bedroom out of boredom. lol I called off to work today. I’m a bit cranky and feeling tired. After I’ve had some food in me, I’m gonna try to take a nice nap.

In other news, the proposed ban on public nudity here is scheduled to be voted on today. I’m at Cove cafe right now and several tables are discussing it. Every table had pretty much the same theme, “why do they have to force it on everyone?” Ironic, considering it was mostly locals doing the complaining. As mentioned, the issue really isn’t about nudity anymore IMO. Instead, it’s about people being forced to endure behavior they don’t like. That is the real crutch of the issue. SF has coexisted peacefully with the real nudists here for decades. Oh they get a few random complaints but nothing major. It’s known and even expected at some of the parks, beaches, bars, and various events here. It is tolerated well for the simple reason people who didn’t want to see it could avoid it. It wasn’t forced on you. With the exhibitionists setting up shop in the plaza smack dab in the middle of the neighborhood, people no longer felt it could be avoided. And that is when the complaints started rolling in, in earnest.

The issue has been conflated and twisted so much by both sides it borders on the ridiculous. Not to mention, something so silly  & foolish has divided the community in many aspects. Not that I’m surprised, good or bad, SF always tends to be controversial. And it won’t be over today unfortunately. I read the ban is being challenged in court as a violation of freedom of speech. I say good luck with that. You’d have to prove some sort of harm for it to pass muster. And considering it only covers public spaces, I find it a stretch to claim it somehow restricts people but whatev. I’ll be glad when it’s over so we can all move on to bigger more important issues.

0-2

So, it appears I’m 0-2 on my recent dates. lol The 2nd guy started out very sweet but then got all jealous after 2 (yes 2) dates. He then promptly stopped responding to me as a way of ending it. Such behavior reeks of immaturity, which tells me it was for the best. I am not looking for drama and if you wanna throw a tantrum, knock yourself out. Had I not repeatedly made it clear this was a FWB sort of deal, [1]To which he stated he was looking for the same I could have at least understood to a degree. And we discussed it more than once. Whatev. Maybe this is the universe’s way of protecting me from drama. lolol

After the bizarre episode with the porn guy, I wasn’t sure it was the best idea but I told myself I wouldn’t avoid dating this time around. After Drew and I separated, I didn’t exactly hide from the world but I shut myself off from feelings or dating. I became almost mechanical when it came to hook-ups and play time. I guess in some ways it was a defense-mechanism. Anyhoo, I promised myself this time around I wouldn’t do that. So yeah, I’m still making the effort. I’d rather try and fail vs not try at all.

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↑1 To which he stated he was looking for the same

Settling

Ok, I’m officially in my new hosting space. Apparently, I setup my account a bit wrong so they had to move everything around internally. I must say, while there were a few unexpected delays, the customer support team has been great. I opted for 1 month of managed shared hosting, which is a fancy way of saying I paid them to help me.  It comes with 24/7 tech support by phone, chat, email, and/or online.

I think I’m gonna be happier with them. I’m still discovering more and more how shitty 1and1 was in so many ways. I have direct access to chron jobs, apache, mysql [1]To be fair, 1and1 did give me mysql access, email filtering, IP blocking, etc. For basicaly a dollar more a month, I have so much more control over my domain and how it functions now. Some of these items are not for novices but it’s nice knowing I can use it, if and when I need it. I’ll definitely be using the chron jobs now.

In other news, I’m gonna attempt to import my old blog data into this one so I can do away with the duplicate setups. I figured since I’m moving all this stuff around, I might as well go for broke! lol I’m gonna try an XML import to avoid conflicting issues with API keys, blah blah blah. You shouldn’t notice anything significant. Well, if something goes horribly wrong you might see the domain go blank while I fix it again. lol

Another post coming today so sorry in advance for doube emails. I turned off subscribers so as to avoid bombarding everyone with emails.

References

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↑1 To be fair, 1and1 did give me mysql access

Change

Ever have one of those odd moments where you flash back to time in your past w/o any real explanation?

I was standing in my bathroom this morning and had an abrupt flash of a time when I was growing up and still at home in East, TX. I was overcome with a sense of being in two places at once. It was almost as if I could see both scenes overlayed on top of each other. I have no idea what sparked it but it was a bit jarring.

I started thinking about how much my life has changed since then and how very different I live. While I’m by no means wealthy, I lived very different back then. And while there were times I went w/o things I wanted, I can’t remember many times of going w/o things I needed. I grew up very poor in the boonies of East TX. My family moved from Louisiana to Texas when I was young. They actually moved from a small town to an even smaller & very remote town. lol

Looking back at the memory, it felt foreign. I probably don’t need to say my home was very cluttered and somewhat disheveled. lol I’m not making fun just stating fact. I didn’t know any better at time. I thought everyone lived the way we did. My parents weren’t hoarders but they tended to keep a lot of unnecessary stuff. I guess this might be part of how different the memory felt.

It’s funny how life changes around us and we sort of forget how different things can be. People to this day still don’t always believe me when I explain how I grew up. I admit, it sounds almost alien. It was like one step above the TV show, The Beverly Hillbillies. [1]prior to their getting rich. lol People still laugh when I tell them we had a washing machine with a crank. We had an outhouse at one time. We had a “frigadere” specifically for fresh kill before it was skinned and cut up for sale or food. (It sat on the back porch) Our a/c was a giant industrial fan mounted in the ceiling. Our heater was a wood burning stove. We never had cable. We didn’t have a phone. [2]My parents got one at some point after my 18th birthday but before my 22nd one. I had been long gone from home before then. Our water was a self-drilled well. The only thing we got from the city was electricity. And that went out every time a thunderstorm came thru, which was often. We grew our own vegetables and slaughtered our own meat. We only bought things we couldn’t readily produce (or didn’t want to). Before my foster mom died, she even made all of our clothes. For me, it was my way of life. I didn’t know different until I got older and discovered people lived in different ways. Not everyone had a separate fridge just for hunting. lol Nor did everyone have their own personal little bear logo stitched on their clothes. (My mom had a logo for each of us.)

I look at my life now and then and it’s literally like two different people. Many of the modern coveniences I’ve come to take for granted were unheard of back then. I mean how did I live before the internet, Google, Netflix, email, smartphones, etc!? Ironically, we did live and we did ok. In some ways, I think it made me more well-rounded. I can say for sure it makes me appreciate the things I do have today more.

References

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↑1 prior to their getting rich. lol
↑2 My parents got one at some point after my 18th birthday but before my 22nd one. I had been long gone from home before then.

Pings v2.0

As I settle into my new digs, you should begin to notice “likes” from Facebook showing up in the comments section. Imagine my surprise when they suddenly started showing up! I’m discovering several of my plug-in errors were caused by not by poor coding skills but my old host, 1and1.com. [1]Needless to say, I do NOT recommend anyone EVER using them. I can’t tell you how happy I am to be on a new host. If I’d know it would be this easy, I would have dumped 1and1 ages ago.

If anyone is interested, I’m now on lunarpages. My only beef so far is their tech support is only avail 24 hours by email. They do tech support by phone 7a to 7p. Not the end of the world but in this day and age you’d think it would be ubiquitous. Anyway, I’m now going back over a few of my old plug-ins to see if the original errors have been fixed.

In related news, I have like 10 or so posts backed up. lol It’s funny when I was holding off on posting due to the move, I wanted to blog about everything. heeheee Instead of dumping them on you all at once, I’ve scheduled them out every other day. Some I’ve already had to edit for relevance.

References

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↑1 Needless to say, I do NOT recommend anyone EVER using them.

Up

Well, it looks like I’m up and running again. I’m still tinkering with the settings but so far so good. I had an issues last night when the domain updated. [1]user error lol

I’m still getting settled with the new host. If you notice any problems, please email me, blogs@[insertmydomainnamehere]

PS: The old blog archive is still down. Naturally, shitty 1and1 is down. (not my domain but all of their admin services) Once, it comes back up I’ll finish the migration. The hard part is over though! Yay!

References

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↑1 user error lol

Bizarre

I had the most bizarre encounter the other day. It was truly a noggin-scratcher. This is a bit of an adult rant so be warned. Keep in mind, I’m skipping some detail and including others that are trivial but help to paint the overall picture.

There is this guy that moved to SF a couple years back. I’d seen him around and thought he was very handsome. Actually, I thought he was HOT! lol Turns out he started doing porn and dancing (in bars) not long after he arrived. [1]No, I’m giving out his name. He lives here and I have no desire to be mean. It didn’t bother me as I see nothing wrong w/porn. It did raise a little bit of a red flag but honestly, most of my interest was of the carnal nature anyway. I’m not looking for anything serious right now. So we had dinner one night and I was pleasantly surprised at how disarmingly charming he was. While not overly intellectual, he seemed very genuine, which is a quality I like very much.

Skipping the irrelevant details, he asks to come over one night after he got off a dancing gig. I said yes, he shows up and is obviously a bit intoxicated. Thinking he just needs to crash, I offered him my couch. He asked if he could sleep in my bed w/me. Knowing he was in no shape for nookie, I figured we’d cuddle and pick up in the morning.

Two or three hours into sleep, he wakes me up for some fun. Still knowing he wasn’t prepared for certain things, I settled for giving him some licky-licky, no sticky-sticky. And after seeing him dance, I wasn’t sure he’d be that great at it anyway. You get my drift. lol We finish, everyone seems happy, and I begin to drift off to sleep again. Maybe 20 mins later he goes to the bathroom.

And here is where the bizarre comes in. He is gone for like 10-15mins. He finally comes back and I asked if he is ok. He says no and that he is gonna leave. I’m like ok. I get up to turn the light on and help him out. He is sort of mumbling under his breath and it becomes apparent he is upset. I asked if something was wrong. He starts making a lot of what would be inflammatory statements if they were at all relatable to me. He leaves and spends the next 20-30 minutes texting me a lot of gibberish and insults. I wasn’t upset as much as confused. We’d had a great time and now suddenly he is upset and absolutely refused to tell me why. After asking repeatedly why he was upset, I finally gave up. I even asked if he was upset that we had messed around. [2]Even though he instigated it. He gave the impression that wasn’t it so I have no idea what set him off. I wished him a good life and left it that.

All of my friends think he must have been doing drugs in the bathroom, being gone so long. There was no mess to clean up and he didn’t get in the shower so I doubt he was ‘cleaning.‘ I don’t know what he did or why he suddenly got upset. In a word, it was bizarre. A couple friends asked, ‘what did I expect considering he was in porn?‘ I don’t like that. While it certainly does raise concerns, doing porn doesn’t make someone less of a person. Regardless, it’s over now. I harbor no ill-will toward him. If it was drug-related I hope he eventually gets the help he needs.

References

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↑1 No, I’m giving out his name. He lives here and I have no desire to be mean.
↑2 Even though he instigated it.