Charlie's doggy graduation

Charlie graduated from the PetsMart beginning dog training program on Tuesday and I'm so proud of him! He's changed a lot in the 8 weeks that we've been taking him to training and I'm really happy with how he's grown. I also think that Charlie really enjoyed the whole experience and my wife and I (and hopefully Charlie, too!) look forward to taking him through the intermediate training program in January. We're going to take a little break for the holidays, since now through the first of the year is going to be insanely packed. We'll keep up with his commands and stuff while he's not going to school, though.

Our trainer was great and I'm really happy with the whole PetsMart training process. They teach you to teach your dogs in a very effective way and never resort to scaring your dog into obeying or using force (other than a forcefull voice) to get them to do what you want. It all worked incredibly well and I have no problem recommending that anyone interested in dog training use them. The pricing is reasonable and the training their trainers receive is obviously exceptionally good.

While I can't speak for all of their trainers, Rosanne in the Brea PetsMart was more than we could ask for. I really appreciate the time she took to help Charlie when he needed it and her style was perfect. Thank you, Rosanne!

The Brea and Yorba Linda fires

As much of the country probably knows by now, we had some pretty serious fires around here this past weekend. Brea and Yorba Linda were basically on fire and were the ones that affected my and my family the most. The Brea fire was less than two miles north of my apartment and wound up coming within less than a hundred feet of our office building. It turned out fine. My Mother lives in Yorba Linda and was under evactuation orders because it came fairly close to her house as well. Scary stuff.

Fires are a very scary thing and I've never had one come so (relatively) close to me and my family. Even though the Brea fires were a little ways away, they were steadily pushing south and I was genuinely worried that it might come close enough to make us evacuate. I was never really worried that our apartment would be damaged as there was no brush or anything near us and the fire would have had to travel through quite a large number of other buildings to get to us. The evacuation itself was what worried me most. We have two cats, a dog, and a hamster here and finding a place to go with all of them would be tough. There's extended stay hotels that allow pets, but most of them were either in Brea, Yorba Linda, or Anaheim Hills... all of which were affected by the fires. Not good. Luckily we never had to evactuate so it wasn't an issue, but I'm definitely going to do some pre-emptive planning for the future so that I can avoid this worry.

My Mother's condo is in Yorba Linda and the fire there came quite close to her place. The smoke was dark black and made the area practically dark as night, making her turn on her car's lights when she left to go to my Grandpa's house which is also in Yorba Linda, but further from where the fires were. Later in the night the fire started to approach my Grandpa's house as well, and they were prepared to leave and head to a hotel in Tustin, but luckily that didn't happen. People that chose to stay in her condo complex walked around the area in shifts through Saturday night to make sure that if anything caught fire they'd be able to warn everyone and get them out.

Thankfully neither I or anybody I know directly was negatively impacted by the fires beyond an inconvenience. Nobody I know lost anything, though people I had gone to school with or knew about through other friends lost everything they had. It's really sad and I wish everyone the best. There's so much damage in Yorba Linda, it's just baffling. Yorba Linda has really never been affected by fires like this and honestly the city was totally unprepared. It's been said that there was a major water failure in the Hidden Hills estates that prevented water from being able to be pumped up the hill and that firefighters and residents alike were left without water to fight any of the fires. It would be horrible if this could have been prevented, but hindsight is always 20/20.

Surprisingly good customer service from In-N-Out

I recently had a bad experience at In-N-Out Burger. My wife and I go there fairly regularly and get two grilled cheese, animal style, fries and a drink and leave with happy stomachs. Unfortunately on our last visit, things didn't turn out so good. We waited a good 15-20 minutes in the drive-thru just to get home to sandwiches with uncooked onions (they're normally grilled) and soggy fries. Ew.

Neither of us are real huge fans of onions, but for whatever reason we do enjoy the grilled ones that always come on our grilled cheese. We've never had to ask for that before, even at that location, and with the fries being all soggy I'm convinced they were just rushing through to get everyone out of line. They were super packed and I'll give them that. In-N-Out, of all places, shouldn't be one to sacrifice service and quality just to get people through the line.

When we noticed the issues with the food, neither of us were excited about driving back to get it replaced so we decided to just toss it and call corporate instead. All we wanted was a refund for the sandwiches and fries. Cathee called at probably close to 7PM last Sunday, and a nice lady picked up. She apologized, took down our information and told us that instead of a refund she could send us 3 free meal vouchers. These vouchers are good for a free burger (or grilled cheese), fries and a drink... each! Cathee thanked her many times and we hung up quite happy. The lady at In-N-Out corporate even called back a while later because she thought she got our apartment number wrong. Most places wouldn't have cared, I bet.

I got the vouchers in the mail today, along with a nice letter apologizing again and saying that they were in touch with the restaurant and regional manager to ensure that something like this did not happen to anyone else. I'm very impressed. Customer service like this is very hard to come by these days, at least from my personal experience. I think it's very awesome and nice of In-N-Out to extend a courtesy like that to us, especially since we just wanted our money back for the ruined food... we offered to pay for the drinks, which were fine, of course. Getting three free full meal vouchers is awesome and will definitely keep me coming back.

Re-protecting the iPhone - Updated

iPhone protection has become an ongoing issue for me. I thought I had everything settled when I got the Zagg screen protector and back protector installed on my iPhone 3G at an official Zagg company store, but it appears that that was not the case. After a couple of months of usage, the back protector started to permanently store a large amount of lint, dust, etc... and a corner started to peel up and the front screen protector got a scratch on it. I though they were "Scratch-Proof"? Apparently not.

Disappointed, I tore them off at work one day while vowing to find a better solution. I started looking at Apple's online store and found some great reviews on things, but wasn't initially wowed.

I started searching YouTube for case reviews and stumbled on to this one about the SwitchEasy CapsuleRebel. It looked pretty awesome, so I ordered two: one for me and one for the wife, who is getting an iPhone in just under two weeks. I ordered them on Friday and received them on Monday and immediately opened and installed mine. It looked great at first but then I noticed that there was a sort of manufacturing defect that caused the bottom left-hand corner to sag and expose a fair bit of chrome. Since the case is meant to cover the chrome entirely (and it does all but in that one spot) it looks pretty terrible and was quite disappointing to see. I tried out the wife's, which fit fine, but since it's a totally different color I have no interest in it. Turns out she doesn't want hers as I told her that when I took mine off if felt like I had to stretch it like crazy and was scared that hers might get screwed up if she took it off for cleaning. I packed them both up and wrote SwitchEasy asking for a refund. I haven't heard back yet.

Foregoing our usual nap, I spent a few hours starting at square one and searching for cases again online. I wound up at Apple's online store again and sorted by the most highly rated products. I read about the Incase Slider. It's the highest rated case for the iPhone 3G on Apple's store, even if it only has 18 reviews. I went down to the Apple Store in the Brea Mall (where a lady dropped her baby's bottle and spilled milk all over the floor) and picked one up, along with some screen protectors. The protectors didn't fit with the case (it pushed up two spots on the bottom), even after removing and re-applying the screen protector a number of times. I just took it off and will be taking it back to the Apple Store soon.

I'm pretty happy with the Incase Slider so far. It's a really tight fit and the bottom part that comes off for docking is pretty difficult to remove. This could be a good or a bad thing, but it's great so far. I don't have a dock (yet) so I have no plans to ever take it off. It's on there very well and can't imagine that dropping it would cause it to come off under any circumstance. It may be a negative once I finally cough up the dough for an iPhone 3G dock. I imagine that it will get a bit easier to remove it with use, but hopefully not too much.

My iPhone 3G is now screen protector-free and I'm pretty confident that I'm not missing out on any protection. I have to remind myself that the screen is made out of glass. Yes, glass. Wikipedia even describes it as "scratch-resistant." When was the last time you scratched glass? How about scratch-resistant glass? Small rocks flying at your car around 70MPH on the freeway have a hard time marking windshield glass and so I think my iPhone will be just fine in my pocket. In fact, PCWorld did an awesome torture test that included scratching keys right on the iPhone 3Gs screen, but they weren't able to scratch it. If they weren't able to scratch it intentionally with a number of keys and other things that might be in a packed pocket, I'm sure it will do just fine in the empty pocket that I keep mine in.

The iPhone 3G may not look as sexy as it did when I had my InvisibleSHIELD installed from Zagg, but then I think back and wonder... how sexy is an iPhone with a clear backing that's peeling away, trapping lint that I can't remove, and a front screen protector with a scratch on it? Not very. The Incase Slider looks pretty good and is super slim, so I'm happy. I've had it for less than a day and since I didn't go into the office today it didn't get a pocket lint test. We'll see how it does through the weekend and I'll have a pretty good idea about whether I love it or not by then. I think it has great potential so far and will share my opinions on it sometime next week.

UPDATE 11/12/08 - 4:36AM: SwitchEasy has since sent me an email apologizing because I was not happy with the product and included instructions for sending back the cases and receiving a refund. Cool!

Lighting a house with just one bulb

Is it possible to light a house with just one bulb? I was jokingly brainstorming this with my office mate today and came to the half-serious conclusion that yes, it probably could be done... just not well. The idea is that you'd get an LED light bulb and, presuming that they're as directional as we imagined they are, shine it toward a series of mirrors that bounce the light to the desired locations and then into a prism to refract the light into the room.

My bathroom would provide the beginning of the perfect testing location for this idea. It has a light bar that extends into the doorway and points directly into the bedroom. Theoretically I could replace one of the current CFLs with an LED bulb and bounce it to a mirror that starts a zig-zag pattern of mirrors along the walls near the ceiling into the bedroom straight across the hallway.

While most LEDs that I've seen are fairly directional, it looks like this problem has been mostly solved with the LED globes that are available. That's unfortunate for my situation as I am relying on the light output to be fairly directional so that light is wasted as little as possible while I bounce it around the house. Hopefully something like an LED spotlight would be able to prevent this.

The mirror setup is my next biggest concern. I don't want to use large mirrors that need to be mounted to the walls near the ceiling. I was hoping to use fairly small mirrors, but I would have to use quite a lot of them if I were going to put them close enough to capture and bounce as much as the light as possible. That would be ugly. It would be nice if I could just use 3 or 4, but I won't be bouncing a laser.

I guess the idea isn't really as good as I thought it was and the wife wasn't too keen on me seeing if it was. This is the joy of brainstorming and blogging, getting to play out a scenario in my head and on "paper" (computer?) instead of having to tear up the house and upset the lady.

The hamster adventures

Sometime during the day on Friday (while the wife and I were gone for work) the cats were somehow able to overturn the hamster cage, spilling her out and losing her in the process. Cats getting to a hamster is not generally such a surprising thing, but we had specifically position and fortified her cage to prevent this from happening (again).

The cats obsession with Violet is nothing new. From the day we got her, the cats have always kept a watchful eye. They've knocked her cage off of a bookcase twice and she's survived and been mostly easy to catch. This time, though, we tried something new and tried to fortify her cage on a bookshelf. Apparently that didn't work and they were able to pull it out and over, spilling her free.

When I got home on Friday, I saw the cage knocked over on its side and my heart sunk. I knew she was out and hoped that she was just hiding somewhere in the bedroom. I searched for about 20 minutes until Cathee came home and had her join the hunt. We looked everywhere and couldn't find her. We checked relentlessly under the fridge, dish washer, and stove and saw no sign of her. Everything that could be moved was moved and we weren't even able to scare her out or catch a glimpse of her until Sunday night.

Every night I went to sleep worried about her. She's such a tiny hamster and I was scared that she'd wind up getting stuck somewhere to just holding out until she died, never to be found again. I would give the house a quick once-over before heading to bed just to see if I could catch a sight of her. We set up food and water in strategic locations around the house and the first night was the only night that she apparently scavenged some food.

While dozing off to sleep on Sunday night, I heard what sounding like some growling noises and I looked over to see Pippin with something in his mouth. I wasn't alarmed at first, since he and his sister (Josie) have a number of toys that look fairly realistic, but when I asked him what he had he ran way. I jumped out of bed and followed him into the living room where I turned on the light and saw that he definitely didn't have a toy in his mouth. He had Violet, and she wasn't moving.

I called Cathee out of bed and we trapped Pippin after a couple of minutes. He was really intent on keeping the new super-realistic toy he found! When he finally dropped her, we picked her up and checked on her. She wasn't moving and didn't appear to be breathing at first. When I saw her in his mouth, her eyes were totally closed and she was just dangling there. After Cathee held her and petted her for a little bit, she started opening her eyes and breathing and moving again.

After a short time, Violet started to act more alive. It was like she was in some sort of stasis or something. Cathee suggested that it was a defense mechanism... sort of like an extremely good "play dead" and I agree. After she "woke up" completely, she got back to her old self and jumped right out of Cathee's hands. Luckily she was quick enough to catch her. We looked all over her and found no bite marks, she wasn't bleeding, and beyond a wet spot where Pippin had her in his mouth she was in perfect condition. She somehow survived outside of her cage and loose in the house for a full 2 days and then survived being a toy for the cats on top of that. Amazing!

Today is a sad day for equal rights

Proposition 8 passed in California and it is indeed a sad day for such a progressive state. While I was fairly certain that it would pass, I had hoped that California would live up to its progressive ways and stay with the times. Hope was a major part of this election year and I guess there can only be so much. As strongly as I feel against proposition 8 I honestly do believe that if there could only be so much Hope in a campaign, that it went to electing our new President.

If proposition 8 makes it past its new legal hurdles, the banning of gay marriage will be written into California's constitution and there will be little to nothing that can be done to ever change this. It saddens me to see that a majority of the people that reside in the same state I do are so discriminatory, unfair, and conservative and feel the need to impose their personal views upon others that do not feel the same way. This is such a step back for a state that usually takes huge strides forward.

Where will this end? Can those that did not support Prop 8 now lobby to ban divorce? This would be amazing and would force the Prop 8 supporters to put their marriages where their mouths are, especially since (I believe) a majority of 8 supporters are religious. Isn't it strange that those that lobbied so hard to pass Prop 8 and "protect marriage" have some embarrassingly high divorce rates (up to 34%)? Marriage is supposed to be for life and I find it disturbingly hilarious that people fighting to "protect marriage" have some of the highest divorce rates in the country.

What if Christians (who make up the largest religious group in the US) decide that their religion should be the only religion that anyone is able to practice. Can they now draw up a few signatures, take it to ballot and vote to write that into California's Constitution, too? If you think the answer is no, take a look at what just happened with Prop 8 and tell me why. I don't see anything that prevents them from being able to do something like this if they can successfully impose other religious rules on non-followers through an act of law.

Let's be honest. This wasn't about "protecting" anything. It was about one group of people wanting to force their personal, religious, or whatever beliefs on another group of people. Isn't California and the United States past this sort of oppression and forced religious practice? What happened to the separation of church and state? I'm not a religious person and I'm not gay, but if I were gay why should I have to conform to the rules of a religion that I don't follow? Wasn't one of the foundations of this country to allow those to practice their religion how they feel and for those that don't want to practice to not have to?

We shouldn't even be voting on something like this. Religious edict should never become local, state, or federal law and it just has. The lives of people that do not practice a particular religion or do not agree with the opinions of others has just been altered and a basic civil right has been forcibly revoked from a group of people just because they are different.

Even though I am not directly affected, I am deeply saddened and worried about the precedent that this has just set. I can only imagine how empowered the Prop 8 supporters feel right now and that really bothers me.

I've heard supporters of Prop 8 say that it's not that big of a deal. They say that it's just "simple wording" and gay couples will still have the same rights that they had before. If supporters of Prop 8 were able and willing to spend nearly $36 million to force other people to conform to their beliefs over "simple wording", what will they spend and where will they stop if they decide that they want to change something that they consider to be more than that?

If Christians believe that theirs is the only true religion, what can stop them from making that law when, as of today, even the First Amendment can't protect us?