by cg on November 3, 2006
Many friends have done wonderful things for us in the last couple of weeks. A good example happened last night: our friend Rachel Candelaria called Linda on her cell on the way home from work. She asked if we had dinner plans: Linda replied ‘meatloaf’ and mentioned I hadn’t started it yet. Rachael said good, do nothing more, I’ll see you in a bit.
A half-hour later, Rachael, a manager at the Left Bank, a popular local eatery, appeared on our porch with crudité, a salad of roasted beets and greens and Left Bank’s very nice cassoulet. She also left a much-appreciated bottle of Robert Sinskey Pinot Noir. She appeared, flashed her gorgeous smile, wished us well and was gone, leaving a wonderful dinner for Linda and me. Can’t tell you how much kindness like this has helped our mood these long 3 weeks…
by cg on November 3, 2006
So we made our way, Cassie and I, on our 3.3 mile circumnavigation of Lagunita while Linda jogged the tough ’short Dish’ circuit this morning. Linda walks every other day with me, but, out of fairness and fitness, jogs the alternate days. She and I arrived at trail’s end together, and she put a snap of me on her blog, along with some very kind words. Really, dear, I’m too scared to behave in any other way.
Earlier I had run into dawn jogging community friend Paul and his Aussie, Patches. We share a lot besides a penchant for rising before dawn. Paul got Patches after his former dogs died, because he liked Cassie so much. Paul’s wife Lucy had brain cancer, and had the same neurosurgeon I now have.
But this morning’s topic was one that only true Aussie lovers who’ve known each other for a long time could even begin to discuss: the dread Aussie poopy butt. Assies have wattles, posterior fur that, when groomed and cleaned, looks quite distinguished. Wattles also help set off the Aussie’s trot, a distinctive quadripedal motion seen in no other dog to my knowledge.
Wattles, however, can also become quite noisome, especially if the dog is having those more fluid elimination episodes that affect us all from time to time. In the Aussie’s case, the only solution is a guardian with resolve, a strong stomach, a hose and a big towel: it is for most of us, an unfavorite, if very necessary chore. Paul and I checked signals, and, sure enough, saw the whole affair in much the same light. Yuk.
After that pleasant edition of guy talk out on the trail, I made my way on to a misty Lagunita. Upon returning home I noted that my trusty pedometer had clocked my walk at 5.1 miles, though I’ve measured its 3.3 miles to great precision with the GMAPS Pedometer add-on to Google maps. It would seem that current cranial events, coupled with the miserable side effects of the cocktail of anti-convulsants I’m on, has reduced the length of my pace. The pedometer measures steps, not distance, by counting the swings of a tiny pendulum. If you know and keep your average length of pace on a walk, the pedometer can produce good results. Apparently I’m losing a bit… taking more steps to cover the same ground…
by cg on November 3, 2006
My Adobe colleagues have been kind enough to let me work from home the last couple of weeks, while I deal with my health issues. Sweet spouse Linda only made one comment about the new 20-inch Apple Cinema Display that came home after John and I went to Fry’s last weekend. But here you can see how well it goes with my official duties. There’s a spare port on the KVM to connect my laptop, and the extra screen real estate means I can keep Entourage (Outlook for Mac) open and visible and still have lots of space to compose and review documents. You can open and see most of two 8.5 x 11 docs side-by-side on the Apple monitor, which is often very useful.
Adobe’s new Acrobat Connect product has been a real help, BTW. Formerly known as Macromedia Breeze, this is by far the easiest way to do online meetings. You can share a document, an app or your entire desktop with a colleague as long as they have a Flash-capable browser (98% of browsers). It’s dead easy to use (click a URL, enter password), supports video and VOIP and it works with Windows and Mac (by far the best Mac online meeting experience). I’m totally biased, but I really do love Acrobat Connect… it has made current life much easier, especially meetings…