In transition

My daughter has wanted a dog for as long as she knew that there was such a beast. No only has she wanted one, but she has been voraciously reading everything she could get her hands on regarding training, health, care, and anything else regarding them.

We have always said “yes, you can have a dog when we get a house” - well… obviously that is no longer an obstacle so we have started looking for a pup for her. Nothing huge, nothing purebread (don’t want the health problems) - just a nice sturdy mutt.

So we wanted to be socially conscious about this also, so we started calling around to the animal shelters and figured a good place to support would be the SPCA of Syracuse (the CNY SPCA), but ended up adopting from the Beverly Animal Shelter in Waterloo, New York.

The Bad - CNY SPCA

Now, I was prepared for an application process that was a bit of a hassle - I’ve heard stories, and I know they have to be careful about how they place the animals. The app process wasn’t as bad as it could have been, and they approved me/us for adoption on the spot. When we toured the facility we found the dogs in concrete kennels (as expected), and heard that they were having a bit of trouble with Kennel Cough.

None of this shocked me - it was really exactly as I expected this kind of place to be.

What made me absolutely certain that I will NEVER do business with them again was what they did when our name came up for an adoption of one of the dogs. I was called after a vet had checked out one particularly cute hound and the first three people had dropped out on the adoption. I was told at this point that no, I was #2 in line for the dog. I called them twice before heading in with my 11 year old to find out as much as possible regarding the dog and the adoption process, and told them that I wanted to make sure that it went smoothly because I didn’t want to disappoint my kid.

Well, everything seemed to be in order, and we went up to meet the dog. We took her out for a walk, sat with her in one of their rooms, and spent a good 15 to 20 minutes with her. I asked early on in the meet/greet about the kennel cough issue and they explained that to us.

Then, the nightmare started.

Just as we were about to say “yes, we’ll take her!”, one of the staff members came into the room. “Did anyone tell you about the surgery that she needs?”. “Excuse me?!?” says I. “Yes, she has a torn [somthing-or-other] in her hind leg - we think she may have been hit by a car. The surgery will cost between $1000 and $1500 and isn’t always successful”.

Well - my daughter went from hoping this wasn’t a problem, to trying to bargain how she could pay us back for the surgery, to accepting that we couldn’t get the dog as best as she could and crying herself to sleep that night.

The timing on this was a bit too suspect in my eyes. I think that this was a deliberate ploy by them to let the person get attached to the dog before telling them of the surgery in the hopes of having a better chance of someone actually consider paying for it. Hey - if we hadn’t just bought a house, and were in a better current financial situation (not looking at a ton of home improvements), I would have strongly considered getting the dog, so you know that there are people out there who would adopt a dog like that.

It’s their ethics in handling the situation that I seriously question, and I would caution ANYONE from using them to adopt their pet. They had opportunity after opportunity to tell me prior to getting attached to the dog that it had this problem. I can understand forgetting to tell the person once or twice, but they had at least a half dozen opportunities to tell use, and didn’t “remember” to until after we had really fallen for the dog.

Just not fair - especially for an 11 year old.

The good - the Beverly Animal Shelter, Waterloo, NY

This process was a polar opposite. Their application was over the phone, at the discretion of the staff member - and when they meet you (”you have an honest face, and are probably a terrible liar” was the comment when we visited ).

When I called them on a dog that my friend Duane found on Petfinder, I explained what had happened earlier at the CNY SPCA. The woman I talked to said that the only thing that may prevent us from taking the dog with us (if we chose to) was a Rabies vaccine, so she wanted to call me back on that. I gave her my phone number, and 10 minutes later she called telling me that they had arranged to get the dog vaccinated that afternoon, so we’d be all clear on Saturday to take the pup with us.

When we got to the shelter, it felt less like a supermax for strays, and more like a hippie compound for animals that have yet to find their homes. Cats were wandering around (but still under control and well cared for), the kennels were outside where the dogs had fresh air and sunshine, and the whole place had the atmosphere of a happy, busy farm. New buildings were under construction, but the whole place just felt very well established. My daughter took the dog walking all around the place while I spoke with the vet and staff members - and filled out the actual application and other paperwork. They helped us load up Tigger (or Tigris as my daughter named her — too much of a mouthful for me), and gave us a cover for our car seat.

Off we went - happy as clams with our newest family member.

The ugly - Tigris “Tigger”

Yay - our table has come out of storage, and it matches wonderfully with the chairs!!

y’know - as much as I may complain about snow this time of year (by the beginning of April, I swear that spring in Central NY is just a story we tell our kids to get them to quit complaining) - but on mornings like this, I can’t imagine living anyplace else…. or anyplace further south.

So, we’re looking towards the house, and noticing that we need a few things for standard living. One of those things, is a descent set of chairs for our dining room table. Now, we scored this table for a relative song. It’s Teak, with two nice sized leaves, and came with 4 chairs. The problem is the four chairs it came with didn’t like our carpet so much, and the metal undercarriage came apart. One by one, they left us until we had no more chairs.

So, to Criag’s list we went, and lo-and-behold, there were a set of Teak chairs!

I went to look at the chairs, and they were worth every penny of the $25/each (but didn’t appear much more than that)… but being a sucker for teak, I figured I’d get them anyway. When I got home with them, Misty gave me a bit of an eye-brow raise, and then we decided to reupholster them.

I’ll save you the gory details - and you can just peek at the pictures below. I think we’re getting the hang of this “design on a dime” thing.

Total investment: $160 (including the chairs and a staple gun).

Crazy.

That’s what this past year has been. But, through the craziness, comes a bit of peace. A piece of land, a roof, some walls, and a ton of old wallpaper.

We have been looking for a house for what seems like years. Actively searching one out for 8 months. Then, at the beginning of February we found one. Raised Ranch, Modular construction from 1981, beautiful deck, pool, sunroom, garage, and vacant for over two years.

We tip our hat to the late James and Dorothy Holden - the house makes a great place for us three to call home… and is a wonderful canvas for our ideas.

So, I’ve been lazy. I admit it.

BUT, only in the sense of writing on my blog. Everyone missed me. I can tell by the comments that have been left.

What have I been doing, you ask? Well, for starters, I’ve been doing some fishing….

and I’ve been doing some web development…..
   

… and I’ve written an open source php web counter script that anyone can hack away on if they want.

I got a little sick of the “You have to credit us if you use ours, and you aren’t allowed to edit the following code” rhetoric from everyone else’s scripts (read: the stuff at hotscripts.com) so I created my own. I mean, it’s a freakin’ web counter for crying out loud, not a cure for cancer!

If you like it, use it. If you really like it and even want to claim it as your own, go ahead! If you can make money off of selling it on a CD with a bunch of other software, more power to you!!

The only thing that I ask is please don’t sue me if you figure out how to use it to shoot yourself in the foot. You use all of the code from this site AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Now, if we just had a “loser pays court costs” in this country for civil matters, I wouldn’t have to worry about crap like that…. but methinks that’s another post.

‘later.
T.

So, I’m finally doing a trial with Broadvoice. I signed up for their BYOD (Bring your own device) starter plan at $5.95/month. If you go to their page, you’ll see that Broadvoice even mentions Asterisk as a suitable device to work against, and they give you instructions.

My problem is, I’m using the Trixbox distribution of the software, and I’m a guy who usually likes GUI’s when he’s first learning something. Trixbox has some details on Broadvoice on their website, and a good start to a configuration, but they allude to - but leave out one crucial detail that is inconsistent with Broadvoice’s setup recommendations for Asterisk (and theirs is also lacking this detail).

So, here’s what I found:

What you’ll need to get started
Your Broadvoice account phone number
Your SIP account password <- THIS was what was lacking, and it's different from your account pass!!

I'm going to assume that you have your Broadvoice phone number - if you don't, you will find it in the same place you find your SIP password. To find this - log into your account on Broadvoice, and click the "Account" tab. At the bottom of that page, you will see a "My Devices" section, with (most likely) a "GenSIP" entry. Click the "Show Settings" next to that line, and look for "auth_password:". That, my friends, is what is needed.

Now, you are all ready to go through the setup at the Trixbox forums and get yourself online, and use that SIP password for any password in the configuration they list.

Jordan comes home from school, and on her assignment sheet she had the following chant for “when the class gets kinda dry” (her words):

Sleep is awesome
Sleep is glory
Take me to dreamland, ’cause this class is boring!

Excuse me whilst I shake my head, because this kid cracks me up.

I sat down to my email on Sunday afternoon, and started to click the ol’ delete key on every offer of better mortgage rates, money that needs to be transferred from a Sudanese prince, and various ways to make my partner thank/beg me every day.

*click* delete - *click* delete - *click*…. wait a minute… undo…

Berkeley Breathed? Rosebud Enterprises? I know those names! Mr. Breathed is one of my all time - no - he is my all time favorite author, comic artist, and philosopher (even if he doesn’t claim to that last title)…. but why is he sending me marketing email? Oh yeah, even though I am ferociously protective of my email address, I had given it to him to keep me abreast of future news and this is the first time he’s used it.

And so, I read the most pleasurable piece of SPAM I have ever encountered:

Dear Gentle, Valued, Attractive Reader of Mine,
I’d like to congratulate both of us that this email successfully infiltrated your mailbox; you have no idea the complicated emotions I experience in so narrowly avoiding your trash.

You’re reading this because at some point in your past — in a moment of wild youthful abandon — you asked to be updated about any new creations of mine. So please accept me into your computer for a moment while I shill for my latest picture book; I’m quite proud of it, which explains why I’m giving you this heads-up.

My goodness… that was undoubtedly the most feel-good bit of marketing I have ever experienced. I can not read it without smiling! I…. I…. I think I may go buy the book!

After dealing with the horrid nor-easter that travelled through our parts at the beginning of the week, we have finally settled on some beautiful weather in Central New York. The early evening skies have had a stunning display of a crescent moon and Venus in close proximity, and Orion has not quite bid adieu yet for the summer.

There are some fantastic free software packages that I’ve come across for those people interested in astronomy. Of course, these have a definite Mac bias, but several of them are available as cross platform.

Stellarium - virtual planetarium software
Celestia - explore the solar system
Cosmic Debris - track when you are most likely to see the Aurora (Mac only)
Solscape - the current weather on our closest star (Mac only)