harikari.com

What are you thankful for?

Me?

I am most thankful that my dog Lucy made it back home from her wild adventure yesterday.

Yesterday, Seattle was surprised by a midafternoon thunderstorm. Lucy hates thunder and lightning even more than than taking a bath. I only heard a couple of thunder claps and was comfortable knowing that Lucy was safe at home, probably sleeping on my bed.

Upon arriving home I discovered that she was not in the house.  At first I thought that I had forgotten to lock up the dog door that goes into the backyard (the door was on the floor) and that she was in the yard.   When I went to reinsert the door, I found that it was binding on the runners.  At that point I knew that Lucy must have been quite scared, as she somehow ripped the locking dog door out of the runners.  (I have since tried to pull it out of the runners, myself, and can not.)

After getting out of the house, she found herself in the backyard and broke through the fence (a first) to the front of the house. She must have been totally terrified…

Lucy was running down the middle of the street when a very nice woman, Pam, saw her and stopped. Pam had never seen Lucy before, but knew that Lucy was scared and needed her help. Lucy did not have her collar and tags (remember, she was locked in my house on the bed when I left), so Pam stopped by the vet and had her scanned for a chip. Bingo… She now knew Lucy’s name and my name. But she was only able to get that far, as I am not listed and my personal information related to the chip was out of date (my bad).

After running errands with Pam for a couple of hours (Lucy loves hanging out in cars), Lucy found her way to the pet walking/sitting services of Furhead Riviera. A massive thanks goes out to Amy at Furhead Riviera for keeping Lucy safe for a few hours until I could get her back home.

These two women, who did not know Lucy or me before yesterday really made my year.

Thanks for making this a great year!

After a long day Lucy loves a nice Pinot.

I went jogging yesterday around Green Lake with my iPod Shuffle and my faithful companion Lucy (seen below reading about Paris).

While jogging I began to reflect upon the shuffle’s size and design. The Shuffle fits nicely in the palm of my hand with the controls beneath my thumb. Without breaking stride I could crank up the volume, skip a song or stop the music all together. (When jogging with a dog on a crowded path any and all of these may be required.)

Today I was over at the Apple website and wouldn’t you know it, a new iPod Shuffle. Has Apple finally exceeded customer utility? This totally reminds me of this sketch I saw last fall on SNL, in which Steve Jobs introduces several new models as each one becomes obsolete.

While I have yet to see the new shuffle in person, this Apple image indicates to me that it may in fact be TOO SMALL. I for one think that the original iPod Shuffle was just the right size and design. I won’t even get into the new versions’ lack of a USB port for use as a USB flash drive…

Apple made several other announcements today, including the ability to download movies via iTunes and new versions of the other models of Ipods.

Additionally, there was mention of an item code name iTV. Now this is an item that will either be huge or totally ‘Newton’. Anyhow, Apple is making the bold attempt to bridge the gap between the pc and the home entertainment center. Should anyone be able to successfully crack this nut, it would be huge.