It's the little things that you notice

It's when you wake up in the middle of the night b/c you suffer from insomnia (which is most likely really sleep apnea) and you look to the spot where your dog should be and she isn't.

It's when you wake up in the morning, and you go into your standard routine and you say, without even opening your eyes, "Hey wanna go outside?" Only to realize your talking to yourself.

You then try and remember if you got drunk the night before and simply forgot her outside again.

It's knowing that you have been drunk for days, but in fact she isn't outside. At least not outside your house.

It's when you're out with friends all day, and you think to yourself, "Oh I need to get home so I can...do nothing...do nothing at all. I have no reason to hurry home."

It's when you're at work and realize you could get a lot done if you stayed the extra hour, but know you can't because you need to let...no one out. You have no one at home needing to go out.

It's when you go to the grocery store for the first time, and you see the pet food isle and I think to yourself, "Do I need dog food?" Then the harsh reality of the word 'No.' sets in.

It's looking at your floor every few minutes to see that her dog bed is still there with the last dog biscuit you ever gave her.

The biscuit is still there because you realized that she was too weak to even eat it.

It's when you still walk past her food bowl every single time you go into the kitchen.

It's her toys still randomly being around the house because you simply can't bring yourself to pick the damn things up.

It's knowing you need to return the kennel you have had on loan for so many damn years now that you can't even remember*, but some how you're not able to do that.

Finally it's going to the mail box, opening it up and seeing a letter from the Vet who had to put your dog to sleep. Reading the sappy religious quote on the front, and knowing that God still gives you little comfort because you can't shut down your brain enough to buy into it.** Then opening the card to see hand written notes to you (from both Vets) and knowing that you don't have the strength to read them. So you throw it in your car so that you can continue pretending it never happened.

And the hardest moment of all is walking into the now painfully empty home.

*Thanks Patrick, I'll get it back to you soon.


**Not saying you have to be dumb to believe in God. I am saying there are things that I think and know that make it damn near impossible for me. Though I have been wrong about things in the past. Well...once anyways, but it turned out later I was right.

Verizon Droid

Let me start of by saying that I am 100% in love with my droid. I feel it was the perfect phone for me, and my needs. I do not think it is the perfect phone for everyone. I feel that for the non-power user the iPhone might still be the best phone out there.

Some things that I think the iPhone has over the Droid.

1) The camera on the iPhone is a million times better. The camera on the droid so far has given me terrible results. However I couldn't care less about this. I'll explain why later.

2) I am willing to bet that searching the iPhone app store from the phone and web is actually a bit better then from android. Not a huge deal, but there is room for improvement. Like say being able to filter out pay or free apps after a search like "Terminal"


My expeirence with iPhone is pretty limited since I have never owned one and only used my friends phones, but some things I am in love with about the droid where the iPhone comes up short.

1) I don't really do much on Facebook, but the Facebook integration into contact is the win. I only wish you could add a face book account to someone in the case where there Facebook name is different from what you call them.* Due to this feature I don't really need the camera to work very well b/c It will simply use my friends Google or Facebook profile photo. No real need for me to have the camera.

2) If you are one the desciples of Google, the integrated Google Contacts, Calendar, and Email is 100% the win. There is another Google app that deserves it's very own bullet point.

3) Google Voice for the win. I can't say this strongly enough. While Google voice is still only in BETA and invite only, it has changed the way in which I view my phone. It allows me to have it take over all of my SMS and Voice Calling. To put this in perspective, you can in theory use zero minutes and zero SMS messages if you use a Google Voice number. FOR THE WIN.

4) VPN support out of the box. Well kind of anyways. I have yet to figure out how to get this working with CISCO VPN. I will have it solved before to long though.

5) It runs Linux. Look...this matters to me. Deal with it.


Overall for the non IT/Software Developer set, the iPhone is most likely still the phone for you. If your a youngster not super interested in technology or extreme control over your device, get the iPhone. There is nothing wrong with it. It's a VERY solid device. However if your the type who wants to be able to admin a server remotely and deal with your corprate life as well as your social life all from one phone, then the droid is the win.

*I am looking at you Alissa

Maybe I am OCD

I can't seem to stop thinking about the new Android phone from Verizon. I am constantly pondering it's abilities, what calendar support it will have, how it will sync with my Linux boxes, and oh so many other things. The thing I have probably spent the most time thinking about however is the ad campaign.

I am far from a marketing guy. I find lots of things about the field to be somewhat evil, but on occasion people make what I would consider art, or at a minimum something that is very interesting and is worth of critique.

Last night I am watching baseball with a close friend, and we starting talking about the various adds we have seen a 1000 times now.* So during one of the breaks my friend and I get to talking about the android phone. We start ripping into the details of a 45 second add spot.**



Now my friend contends that the add doesn't actually tell you what the phone does. However, I have to disagree with him. I am the first to admit that I drank the open source Kool-Aid a long long time ago, but I don't think this is my blinding love of all things Open Source effecting me here. Can we go to list form for a minute? I want to just rattle of some points about why this add is amazing.

1) In the first part it nails the entire asthetic that Apple has been using for their branding.

2) It uses that branding to mock apple at the same time.

3) Then out of no where they take that entire look, and turn it on it's head.

It's awesome. I couldn't be happier with the add.*** They tell you several things the phone does by pointing out the short comings of it's supposed competitor. It's genius.

Now, here is the REALLY REALLY cool thing that the fine folks at Verizon did to promote the phone to the media.



That's right, the gave out some R2D2's. That's just sweet marketing. Sure you should give out some C3PO's so that his feelings don't hurt****, but I can live with this.

Now, look I have no belief that this will hurt apple. Their brand is so powerful right now that it's scary. There is a HUGE culture of people who buy into it and all it's trappings. That's a great job by them. I will however say that the fine folks about RIM should be really worried.
*When you watch every playoff baseball game you get beaten down by the same products over and over and over again. I'M LOOKING AT YOU FRANK TV!


**You'll be shocked to hear this, but we don't have girlfriends and not a single girl hit on us during the game.

***Here I will admit to a bit of fanboydom. Though the add is good.

****He is rather sensitive after all

Continuing The Love Fest

I have no real opinion on news papers. I would say that 85% of the news papers I have bought were because I need something to wrap glasses and dishes in. I have never been the type of person to derive a great deal of pleasure from their crisp smell, their crinkling sounds as I turn their pages, or the way in you can flip back and forth b/w the various sections any way you want. I have simply never been that guy.

I find it regretable that so many papers are folding and laying off tons of workers, mostly b/c I am in constant fear for one of my friends job. With all that said, the wonderful Joe Posnanski has created another great blog. This on is all about the down fall of news papers.

For a primer on this blog I suggest you check out these two posts from his normal blog.