Quigs’ Corner

I’ve been in Orlando this week, and am now sitting at the airport waiting on my flight.   The one that was scheduled to leave NOW.  I tried to jump on an earlier one, but the standby list was incredibly long and add to that somehow American was unable to give about 30 people seat assignments.  I’m hoping that I’ll be leaving somewhat close to the rescheduled time. 

At least I was fairly lucky that I was able to go through security with little problem and was in the gate area on record time.  I’ve also been lucky enough to find a (until about 15 mins ago) quiet spot with wireless access for NO charge!  The quiet conversation grouping spot I found is near an entrance that was not in use when I sat down.  It’s now open and have learned that many people don’t respect personal space or belongings.  Oh well, the joys of business travel. 

Look for info about my trip in the next few days. 

Depending on where you work, today was a holiday.  It was not one for me, Mr Q or RLM.  It seems that it WAS one for the USPS, banks, schools, and my customers.  How is it, in the society of long-weekend lovers, that we can’t agree unanimously on if this is a day off or not?

MLK day seems to be going the same way as Washingon and Lincoln…they still get a holiday, but are smooshed together to make it more convenient for everyone.  And Veteran’s day…do most people remember when it is? Or why it is/was a holiday?  I say was, because this is another of those ‘choice’ holidays. 

The Martin Luther King holiday was a reward for a hard fought battle to honor the slain civil rights leader.  It was not an easy battle for those that were advocating for the holiday.  Even thought most states pssed it as a holdiday, two states, one from which is my home state (NH) and Arizona refused to honor it as a holiday.  I’m not sure how it ended up happening, but it’s now observed, in it’s own way apparently, as a holiday across the country.

So I wonder what really is the requirement is for a holiday? 

Everything here is sealed in ice today from the rain and freezing temps during and after the precipitation. The trees look like they have glass hanging from them and they are all ’squeaking’ as the wind blows them around.

So far, the roads have not appeared to freeze. I took the dog out for a walk, and we both got a little wet from the mist in the air, or from the wet walkways. I’m really not too worried about the roads right now; the birds are still fliting around from tree to bush and back again. Birds are pretty sensitive to impending weather, and if it were to take a major turn for the worse, they would have found something else to do today like watch football or clean their nests.

Here in North Central Texas, we have been in a drought.  Rain avoided us all last year, and the weather people are saying that 2006 was actually the second year of one.  I don’t really know what to expect here, so I thought that it was normal, after all, the relo guides say that Dallas has nearly 300 sunny days a year.  How was I supposed to know? 

Anyway, our water source, Lake Levon, was down 17 feet late last summer.  We had a storm a few weeks ago (the one that forced American passengers on a flight from San Francisco to stay parked on the tarmac at DFW for eight - yes, 8 hours while other planes came and went) that actually increased the level by 1.5 feet.  That’s pretty impressive.  It’s still not enough, and we’ve all been hoping for rain. 

Well, it seems it’s here for at least a couple of days.  This is a good thing, BUT that cold from coming from the west is bearing down on us and will turn our 70 degree today into a 32 degree tomorrow.  This area is so not prepared for these things, as I’ve mentioned before. The weather doesn’t look to be improving any til Monday or Tuesday…that means ice everywhere for days.  I’m not one to panic and but the store out of milk and bread, but now I’m getting a bit nervous.  Since we’re really on the edge of the area in pink on the map, I’ll hope that the rain stops, but the weather bible, www.weather.com doesn’t seem to think it will.  Oh well, looks like a weekend to clean out closets, or watch movies. 

Ok, ok, I know that I’ve missed a few Wednesdays. I’m back on track today with a site that I actually go to all the time, others of you probably don’t: www.apple.com

Apple announced it’s newest partnership with Cingular with the iPhone.  What a COOL device!!!  This thing is amazing not only for all it does (music, photos, email, contacts, web browing and oh yeah, you can use it as a phone too!) but how they do it. 

First, one button….no numbers, no ’send’ or ‘end’ buttons.  All navigation is done on the screen, using your finger as the mouse.  You can scroll, drag, expand, contract, search.  You name it, you can pretty much do it on this phone.  Next, the cool features-how would you like to skip through, pick and choose which of your voice mails you want to listen to, like you do your emails (c’mon, we ALL do it!).  Or how about being able to do basic editing on photos?  Or flip through your music by album covers (or CDs for you younger folks).  Did I mention that this thing is COOL?

A couple of things I’m not sure I’m going to like…the keypad and number pad are accessed (iow, typing) on the screen and you type on it.  This sorta reminds me of my Palm that I no longer use, and I rarely used the keypad because of the awkwardness and its inefficiency.  No doubt though, that some 3rd party/after market company is creating a plugin keyboard at this moment.  The other thing…the price.  At $499 for the 4Gb version, and $599 for the 8Gb version, this is pretty cost prohibitive for a lot of people.  In most cases in the marketplace today, cost comes down on products after a while.  I’ve not seen this happen with Apple products, and I anticipate that this will be the case with this device too.  Which means the price is what it is-forever. 

We’ll see how it is accepted when it comes out in June.  I hope it does well.  Being a new Apple convert, I like the thought they put into their interfaces, and like the thought put into their designs even more.  They get the device is for the users’ convenience, not their own.  Thank you Apple!

It’s nice to have a dog back in the house.  We’ve had Midnight for a couple of weeks now, and we’ve learned some of her quirks (boy I wish dogs could talk, it would make our jobs alot easier!).  Things like she won’t do her business unless you throw her ball, that she sleeps on her back alot…making for quite a sight and she INSISTS on laying on the sofa or bed.  We’re working on some things, have accepted others.

Since we know that she is driven by her love of fetching tennis balls (other types of balls don’t seem to be up to her standards, so soggy tennis balls it is), we took her to the park yesterday to let her run and play.  OMG, can this dog RUN!  As soon as she was off-leash, it was like she was saying ‘wahoo!  I’m free!’.  She isn’t very big to begin with, so when she compacted herself into her racing mode, she was something to see.  I have never had a dog run so fast and so intently.  I was almost worried that she wouldn’t come back, but my theory that she HAS to return the ball proved true and she came back every time, though a few times she required some encouragement.  

Our very own Rocket dog slept well last night, and I think she had happy dreams.

Post season football is in full swing now, and the team of the Q household, the NE Patriots, has made it to the next round of games next week. Today’s game was a good one, they played as a team, and the results show it.

Unfortunately, here in North Texas, the Pat’s victory and advancement to play San Diego next week will be completely overshadowed by the Cowboys last minute loss last night. Tony Romo bumbled the ball in a final seconds field goal attempt against Seattle.

For those that don’t follow the ‘Boys, former Pats’ star quarterback Drew Bledsoe started at the beginning of the season with terrible results. Coach Parcells (another Pats’ alum) decided to start backup QB Tony Romo, a Texas boy and what many in North Texas saw as the savior of the team and the one to deliver them a visit to the Superbowl this season. For weeks, the press has canonized the man, giving him lots of press (when TO isn’t attempting ‘fake’ suicides, pulling hammies or droppng balls). Romo, in my opinion, fed right into the media frenzy, being arogant and over-confident during interviews. Coach even seemed to think this when two weeks ago he told the press to ‘not annoint [Romo] yet’.

Seems that Parcells, with all his years in the NFL knew what he was talking about. Romo’s mistake was one that should not have happened. Romo has held that ball a hundred times for field goal attempts. At the end of the day, HE lost the game.

What happens next will be debated here for the next seven months until pre-season starts. I feel incredibly bad for Romo, because he has seven months to hear analysis of his failure on TV, radio and in print. I hope that he is as strong as he said he was during all those interviews in the past few months because he’s going to need it to rise above this personal tragedy.

In the meantime…GO PATS!

I read the hit book, The Devil Wears Prada in the summer of 2005. I enjoyed the book; it was entertaining without being too heavy, just what one needed for poolside reading. I shared it with the other women in my family (it was definately chick lit) and they too liked it.

I found out later that year that a movie was being made about it, with Meryl Streep as the nasty boss, Amanda Preistly. I had a little trouble imagining that, but even though I’m not her biggest fan, I respect her ability to do the nearly impossible. Otherwise, I was really looking forward to the movie. The movie was released this last summer, and for one reason or another, I never made it to my local Cinemark.

Instead, I rented it on DVD last week. The characters were perfectly chosen, despite my hesitance to believe some of the choices were worthy. Meryl’s Amanda was played insanely believably (if its possible to be that big of a be-otch!). Andrea, played by Anne Hathaway, was pretty convincing, and Stanley Tucci as Nigel was absolutely brilliant (Full disclosure: I’ve loved him in nearly everything I’ve seen him in).

The film started off staying pretty close to the book, with some visual tricks done to communicate the transformation of Andrea from fashion dud to fashion queen while working at the fictional fashion rag, ‘Runway’. Then, suddenly the story began to change from the book. Now, we all know that this happens, it’s the whole artistic license thing (who issues those licenses anyway? I’d like to get a few revoked). What bothered me is when an entire portion of the story changed. Without going into details (so I don’t ruin it for others), the end is pretty much the same, but how they got there…so NOT the same.

This started me thinking about other movies from books I have seen and had similar complaints about. One came to mind immediately, Ya Ya Sisterhood. My mom and I watched this film, and again, looked forward to a visual reflection of what we read and loved in the novel. A disspointing number of story lines and content were changed.

Why is this, I wonder? I can only think that this is for a few reasons. Money, market share, and no way to really communicate some of the thoughts, feelings and musings of a character in a movie like you can in a book. I can, like many people, get lost in a book, get drawn in by the people and places and get sucked into the personal drama and thoughts of the characters. You almost feel like you are there, a part of the character. And as hard as movies try to do this, in most cases they miss the mark when adapting a popular book to the screen.

I don’t read as often as I’d like to, but I nearly always read when I travel. I’ve thought about watching DVDs instead to pass the time, but now that I’m convinced that the ending will probably change anyway, I’ll stick to the pages. My vote: Book is better.

As I have said before, no time away from the office goes unpunished, and this week has been no exception. Early mornings and late nights mean long days. To add to the chaos, it’s a full moon, which I think is part of the problem with my cat. For the past few days, he has been harrassing me in the middle of the night. At 3am actually. Right in the middle of that REM sleep that we all need so badly. Should I mention that this does not make me happy?

At first I thought that it was jealousy of the new dog, but then remembered that he does do this ocassionally. One look at the calendar, and viola! I found the little icon that told me it was a full moon last night (I guess I could have looked out the window when I was awakened last night to determine this too).

I’m hoping that he settles down some tonight. I certainly hope so. I’m short on sleep, and trust me, we don’t want Lynn short on sleep :-).

As some of you know, we lost our beloved black lab, Stella a year ago after a courageous battle with brain cancer and a pile of other maladies that we tried so very hard to fix. Shortly after we lost her, we adopted Buzz the cat. He’s also had a few issues as well, and are lucky to have a very caring vet that has helped him as well as caring for Stella to the end. We love Buzzy and while he is a loving little guy (on his terms of course, ‘cuz after all, he IS a cat), he is not a dog.

For the past few months, we’ve been visiting with and ‘interviewing’ labs through the DFW Lab Rescue. This is the organization that we got Stella from in 2003 and we sincerely believe in their mission and the results that they produce (over 100 dogs adopted in 2006). They use foster homes to house the dogs while they wait for their ‘forever home’.  The fosters can give you insight on the dog’s personality and quirks, and they all care about the animals a lot. They volunteer time, money and give the dogs lots of love to “Give a Lab a new leash on life”. During our ’interview’ process in our search, we met several of these dedicated people and their foster dogs. We even had a some of the dogs stay with us for a few days to help us determine if they would be the ‘one’. None of them were the right fit for us. I was beginning to give up hope that there was a dog out there for us. Until last week.

Last week, we adopted Midnight…a 3 year old black lab that is very sweet, very pretty and LOVES to fetch. In fact, she is a fetching MACHINE (Unfortunately, neither Mr. Q nor I have an arm that is a throwing machine :-)). It seems that she is a product of a broken home (owners divorced) and was surrendered to a local shelter. She had a warm, loving foster family that misses her and I think that she misses them too.

So, now Buzz and Midnight are working things out around the house (I suspect that this too will be on Buzzy’s terms). The cat isn’t completely freaked out, even pretty interested in this big black thing. The dog, on the few occasions that they have been close enough to touch, insists on licking the cat. I’m not sure this is really what the cat had in mind, but I think it’s a start to a potentially positive relationship.

I look forward to a long, happy life with Midnight and Buzz.  I’m glad that we have been able provide a good home for both of them.