Monthly Archives: September 2012

Launch 5.0

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7:12AM – Good morning and welcome to the iPhone 5 launch day live blog. This is the second year that there was no option to reserve a phone for pickup at the local Apple Store, so rather than lining up and hoping that there was stock on hand by the time I got to the front, I opted for home delivery (translation: I’ll be casting alot of longing glances out the window looking for signs of UPS). I miss the festival atmosphere at the yearly Apple Store line up, but I have to admit that sitting here in the kitchen with a fresh steaming mug of coffee is generally better than waking up at midnight and heading over to Delaware to stand in the cold until the sun comes up.

For anyone curious about the new phone, I’d recommend checking out the venerable Walt Mossberg‘s early review. If you’re interested in some hands on discussion, take a look at the forums tab at MacRumors.com. As always, I’ll keep this space updated with anything quirky or interesting that I come across over the course of the day. In the interest of not flooding the page with separate posts, all updates will be made here on Launch 5.0. Stay tuned as Steve’s faithful enjoy Christmas in September.

8:06AM – One thing I didn’t mention in the bulldog-induced angst yesterday was that FedEx dropped off three Lightning cables. That still won’t replace all of the cables I currently use, but it will at least let me make keep two at home, one in the car, and one at work without needing to remember to take a cable everywhere every day. I’m glad I got that order in before people realized the adapters weren’t going to be available until sometime in October. What I didn’t take into account with the replacement of the 30-pin dock connector was just how small the Lightning connector was going to be. It’s about a quarter the size of a standard USB connector… For reference, here’s Lightning compared to a standard issue paperclip. Pretty slick, right?

8:20AM – If you upgraded to iOS 6 or if you’re considering it, here’s a good piece on some of the more beneficial changes Apple made by Jacqui Chang over at Ars Technica.

11:24AM – UPS makes an unexpected morning stop at Rental Casa de Jeff… Box in hand, I’ll give you the rundown once things are up and running.

11:45AM – First impression: This phone is surprisingly light, but still manages to feel like a very solid build in your hand. I’m setting up the phone now and will put together a more complete first impressions piece later today.

Sick list…

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The fact that I like my dogs more that I like most people isn’t exactly a secret. Of course means I’m not going to trust their treatment to just any schlep who’s got just enough smarts to slide through vet school and hang out their own shingle. After meeting with the orthopedic surgeon this morning, the only part of me that regrets being anal retentive enough to want to see an expert is my wallet. I spent a little more than an hour getting a crash course of canine anatomy and physiology and peppering her with questions about the specific benefits and drawback of the “top three” options. After selecting the tibeal plateau leveling osteotomy (TPLO), which involves changing the structure of the joint, adding a steel plate, and a few screws, I spent another 45 minutes with the OR nurse picking her brain about after care and things to avoid once Winston gets home. I was actually impressed with being able to spend almost two hours talking to the people who are doing the surgery, though I suspect they were happy when I reached the end of my laundry list of questions.

I’m satisfied that this is the best way to proceed, or I was right up until the estimated bill was placed gently in front of me. For the record, if someone in a vet’s office comes at you with a three page itemized bill, you should go ahead and sit down before you start reading it. I offered to trade them a kidney or a lobe of my liver for the service, but they politely declined, which is unfortunate since I’m pretty certain that would be less painful than actually paying the bill. Any plans I had for a vacation, or doing anything that costs more that a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee, are suspended indefinitely.

I’m sitting here writing this with one eye on the clock. I know this hot shot doctor of mine was scheduled to do three surgeries this afternoon, but I don’t know what order she had them planned. Suffice to say every time the phone beeps, I jump halfway out of my chair. Yeah, you could saw I’m wound a little extra tight at the moment. With the ramp built from the deck to the yard and as much of the floor as possible covered with non-slip rugs, I’m down to the point of the day where all I can do is wait. No bets on how many of you can guess on how I feel about that.

FSBO…

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OK ladies and gentlemen, in the ongoing effort to clean out some tech and accessories, I have two more items up for sale:

– Seidio desk charger for iPhone 4 or 4S (with power cord). I bought this charger new about nine months ago for $40 and it’s compatible with either a “naked” iphone 4-series or with the Seidio “Surface” line of cases. Asking $20, but if you’re really interested, make me an offer.

– Seidio “Surface” case and belt clip for iPhone 4 or 4S. Ruberized texture, solid construction, and the only cases my iPhones have ever been in. Priced new at $50 for the set, I’ll send them to you for $20.

For those looking for a real bargain, I’ll send you the whole lot for $30. I’ll take PayPal or personal checks from those of you I know in the real world.

Prep time…

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I don’t see any real in depth blog posts happening in the near future. I spent most of tonight dragging out old baby gates and trying to “slip-proof” as much of the kitchen as I could manage. I’m working on the assumption that Winston will go to surgery tomorrow afternoon after our morning consultation. Sure I’ll have all afternoon and evening tomorrow to do that, but I think I’m just trying to say busy. I hate the thought of my my boy needing to more than likely go under the knife, but that’s the tomorrow I’m trying to mentally prepare for… Plus, there’s a new iOS downloading on my iPad at the moment and I’m going to need to stop trying to write and go check that out in a minute.

Teenage Girl…

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It looks like June was probably a high water mark for me at least in one respect. Somehow I managed to send 3,730 text messages. I’ve often joked about it, but it appears to be confirmed that I do, in fact, have the phone habits of a teenage girl… This fact was punctuated by the fact that a 20-something chick friend of mine assures me that my text volume is somewhere in the neighborhood of six times what hers is for the same time period. That little factoid is made even more exciting when you do the quick math and find out it’s also approximately equivalent to about five months of her average number of texts. Yeah, thanks for that bit of trivia, Allyson.

A more enlightened individual might find these numbers a reason for pause, but I’m fairly sure I’m just going to give them a disinterested “meh” and go on about my day. So if you need anything, just go ahead and text… given the number of rollover minutes I have expiring every month, it definitely seems like that might be the only actual way to get in touch with me with some kind of consistency.

Of dogs and frogs…

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With Winston limping around in the ranks of the walking wounded, yesterday was about as low key a Sunday as you can get. Given the ridiculous amount of joint medication, arthritis medication, steroids, and pain meds coursing through his 70 pound system, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that he seems to be making out much better than I expected. His left, rear ACL is definitely blown, though so now it’s a matter of making some hard decisions about what standard of care makes sense for a slightly overweight, middle aged bulldog. I’m going to schedule a consultation with the local orthopedic vet to get a better read on what my options are at this point. Knowing that he’s a surgeon, I’m well aware that when your primary tool is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail. I’ve done more reading about animal physiology in the last three days than I have in the last 30 years. Let’s just say that the camps are pretty evenly split on what is a “reasonable” course of treatment. I’m struggling to find the fine line between “heroic” and “fiduciarily irresponsible.”

While we’re on the topic of pets, if there’s anyone out there thinking about becoming the proud owner of tree frogs, you should think long and hard about that decision. I’m pet sitting a pair of the little buggers this week and let’s just say that for something about the size of a matchbox car that live in an aquarium, they’re an inordinate amount of work. To be fair, I have to admit, the real issue isn’t the frogs. They’re actually pretty fun to watch as long as you don’t mind laying out a nightly cricket buffet. Dialing in the automatic mister on the other hand has left me puzzled, perplexed, and occasionally saturated when I open the eclosure door at precisely the wrong moment. Even at the lowest settings, the damned thing seems to blow though a gallon of water every few hours… Which doesn’t sound like much until you remember that the tank isn’t very big and there’s nowhere for the water to go once it’s been sprayed. I now own a turkey baster for the first time in my life… Although after sucking up several gallons of frog water, I don’t think this one is destined to live in the drawer with my other kitchen gadgets.

For the record, the baster method of water removal isn’t particularly efficient, I think with a little know how and the right length of plastic tubing, I might be able to rig a siphon to at least get the job done a little faster. Or I can just give in and pick up a spray bottle if I want to go all low tech about it. Come on, tell me that doesn’t sound like an entertaining Monday night.

More Joys of Bulldog Ownership

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Well, I hope to be leaving the vet soon with a bag full of anti-inflammatory and pain meds, a few steroids, and a referral to a veterinary orthopedic surgeon over at the University of Delaware. Currently $500 worth of diagnosis seems to indicate that Winston has a torn ACL and pretty much has to have surgery to correct it.

Honest to God the only thing keeping me from launching into an incredibly violent stream of curses is that rather fetching blonde receptionist sitting on the other side of the room. I’d really just like to find a nice solid surface and bash my head against it repeatedly at this point.

Any feedback from you dog people out there who have done the ACL surgery is very, very welcome.

What Annoys Jeff This Week?

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I’m on a bit of a time crunch this evening so in no particular order, here they are:

1. The general public’s complete lack of awareness about what’s going on in the world when it happens more than 15 miles from wherever they happen to be at the time. World events are important if for no other reason than they are going to impact you whether you think they will or not. Like a butterfly flapping its wings in Beijing, some decision made as a result of current events is going to impact you, your family, your finances, and your country (not necessarily in that order). For the love of God, please start paying attention… or at least promise me that if you choose to stay ignorant you won’t show up to vote in November.

2. Time Management. Keeping a room full of people waiting for thirty minutes without anything in the way of explanation is bad form, no matter who you are. So yeah, you people with piss poor time management skills just figure out how to get it together. The rest of the world is tired of waiting on you.

3. Car Pooling. Riding with other people sucks. You don’t control the speed of travel, the temperature, or really any factor of the trip other than where you start from and where you’re going. Being dependent on other people’s schedule blows. Sure, carpooling decreases the number of people on the road and decreases emissions, but it’s just so bloody inconvenient. It’s legitimately nothing personal, I just don’t think I’d like carpooling with anyone. In the future, I think I’ll either fend for myself or find a reason to avoid the trip completely.

Yesterday…

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I was laying in bed flipping channels last night and landed on Discovery or National Geographic or some channel of their ilk that was showing clips from the September 11th attacks. They say that everyone has a handful of events that are seared into their memory and I guess for everyone above a certain age, that’s going to be one of them that sticks with us forever. Watching it last night felt unnervingly like seeing it happen again for the first time, maybe even worse now, because we know everything that’s still about to happen. The disbelief of watching the first plane strike the North Tower, the second plane streaking across the skyline and exploding through the South Tower, and the few grainy frames of a jetliner slamming into the Pentagon, still bring a visceral, sickening tightness to my chest.

Eleven years later, watching those towers fall still feels like getting hit with a sucker punch every single time I see it. Whenever I walk outside and look up to see a vibrant blue, cloudless sky, I remember… and it fills me with equal parts sadness and rage that such a thing could happen on our streets and in this country in the 21st century. Whether it’s 11 years, or fifty, or a lifetime, I don’t think that’s something that will ever go away. Eleven years gone, and it still feels like yesterday.