Blogging is hard to do

I know I should be updating this blog more often but  I find that its hard to do.  I’m looking at all the unfinished drafts I have from months ago and I realized that finishing a blog post is harder than I thought.  It makes me wonder why I even keep a blog in the first place.  I really don’t have much to contribute besides some personal experiences that probably wouldn’t be of that much interest to anyone other than myself and maybe a few friends.  I suppose  it’s a good way to take some time for introspection and release.

I just finished one of the most difficult few months of work and now I’m ready for a good vacation.  We are planning a trip to Toronto soon to meet up with other medical professionals and share ideas and make connections.  Mostly it’s an excuse to get out and have a little fun I think.  Although I know quite a few people going just to meet that certain someone special.  It beats the bars and clubs.  I’m pretty excited to visit Canada again.

In the mean time I’m really enjoying time with the dog.  She is still the most adorable little puppy.  Everyone loves her.  She stays so calm and mellow.  Sometimes she’s too mellow and it makes it hard for me to figure out what motivates her during training.  I really should go out to doggie training for the doggie socialization at the very least.  With only me in the house I feel like she’s not stimulated enough. Besides the dog I’m looking to buy a home that me and my wife can actually live together in.  This living apart thing is getting hard to do.  Despite the difficulty I think it was good to move in together more slowly.  I think I wouldn’t know how to deal with suddenly having a roommate after years of living alone.  I think I’m ready for the plunge (like marriage wasn’t a plunge in itself).

Here are some pics of Molly:

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New Family Member

Last week I fell in love with Molly.  I was visiting the local animal shelter like I do from  time to time and stumbled upon the cutest, sweetest puppy ever.  I’ve always resisted the urge to adopt animals when I go to the pound but this time I couldn’t resist.  She is around 1-2 years old they estimate.  The Vets best guess makes her a Lhasa apso/poodle mix but it’s hard to tell.  She was picked up wandering the streets on edge of town.  She was initially a mess with mats in her hair and very dirty but cleans up really well.  She’s still a little timid at times.  She still has some abandonment issues it seems because she seems to always have to be within visual distance from her or she cries.  It’s so cute but I’m slowly breaking her of that habit.  I really encourage anyone looking for a dog to visit your local animal shelter.  There are such great dogs that unfortunately have to be put down because there isn’t enough room for them all.  Additionally, all the dogs are vaccinated, microchipped, neutered so help keep the pet population down.  She is such a great dog!

Droid update

The last time I wrote it was my first impressions of the Motorola Droid.  It has been about 6 months now and I still love every moment with my Droid.  I’m glad it has a physical keyboard even though the majority of the time I use the on screen keyboard.  I’ve dropped it a multitude of times yet its still working perfectly.  I do notice a small amount of wiggle from the slide mechanism of the device but overall pretty solid.  This thing is a tank.  Most important of all is the fact that its now rooted and every week I can have a practically new phone depending on what custom roms are out.  I do notice that the battery life is a bit lacking, only lasting 4-5 hrs with extreme use.  I have to admit that I have the kernal overclocked so that might be my fault.  I’m guessing the Droid 2 will be even better, but I’m keeping a close eye on some of the other competition like Motos X, HTC, and especially Samsung.

Life with my new Droid phone

So I had a chance to update my Blackberry Tour to the all new Motorola Droid and I have never looked back. After using a trusty BB Pearl, I thought the Tour would even be a better experience. It was at first, then came the audio problems and then the frequent lock ups and well it just wasn’t reliable enough for business use. The Droid on the other hand has not had to be rebooted even once the 2 months I’ve been using it. I love the touch screen and the growing app library. True the iPhone has a vastly superior app library for now. The UI is fast and I have installed around 20 apps without any hiccups. (I do tend to only download the highly rated apps though). The form factor is only slightly larger than the iPhone but still feels pretty big. I like how solid it feels and there is a good weight to the device. The slide out keyboard is sturdy but the keys are flat and no where near the enjoyable of an experience as the BB keys. The Dpad is pretty useless and more of an inconvience for me at least as it takes up a big portion of the right side of the keyboard. The screen is absolutely beautiful. The colors are bright and vivid and there is a lot of real estate to watch videos or type long messages like this blog entry. The sound quality is hit and miss. Most times I can hear everyone with crystal clarity but the people on the receiving end complain of me sounding far away if the phone is held at certain angles or they hear their own echos making understanding near impossible. The echo issue is even worse on speaker phone making the speakerphone pretty useless. I’ve talked to the Verizon people about this and they said it seems to be a problem that others have complained about and it may be fixed in the next update. The did recommend turning down the volume for now but that only goes so far before you can’t hear anymore. Another big issue is the wifi. Often I’ll be connected via wifi and will not be able to download from the Marketplace because it will just get stuck at “starting download”. I’m not sure what that is about but it happens frequently. Overall I’m very happy with the phone and hope that these issues get fixed soon.

Light reading

I picked up the new Dan Brown book, The Lost Symbol on my last vacation.  I liked his previous works like Angels and Demons and DaVinci Code, although I think the latter is nearly a copy of the former book.  It was a pretty quick read.  I managed to read the majority of it on the plane ride to/from New York.  Overall I wasn’t disappointed.  There was a lot of suspense and action and I admit I was drawn in.  My big gripe is that the book kept going even after the end of the story.  It was almost preachy at times.  Check it out at your local library.

WordPress for Blackberry

While I’m on vacation, I thought I’d play around with my Blackberry and install some new apps. I ran across this wordpress app and I have to say that its not half bad. The layout is clean and simple. I’m not sure how to play with the formatting or add elements like video and pictures but it is still in beta so maybe that comes later.

Comical Nightmare

Just this past weekend I had this strangely detailed dream that I had to write down.  In the dream I was Satan’s servant….literally.  I was his butler for some reason and Satan was some rich guy with a bad temper and a monocle.  He kinda looked like the Monopoly guy but taller and more evil.  I was trying to secretly figure out a way to get out of the job on moral grounds.  I had my socks all packed and everything but I was afraid to leave because I had a suspicion that Satan’s wife would kill me.  In the dream the devils wife was this even tempered attractive older lady, but I had a feeling that she was the one I should be more afraid of.  I woke up pretty disturbed.  I wonder what it all means?