Why is it so difficult to rent a place to live if you have multiple pets? Ours hardly bark, we clean up after them when messes are made, they love people and generally speaking people love them. So why does there have to be so many rules about pets?

When I moved to California, my roomie and I had two dogs - both definitely still puppies at the time. It was tough enough finding a place in Orange County that was reasonably affordable, a place that even accepted pets at all, and a place that didn’t want me to sign away the value of an arm and a leg as a “pet deposit”. So we found a place in Anaheim, moved in, had some random complaints from neighbors but generally speaking we lived pretty peacefully with our dogs for almost two years.

At this point my girlfriend and I were moving in together. Over the course of the prior two years of being in OC, rents increased across the board, and it remained difficult to find places without extortionate pet fees. We did manage to find a place in Laguna Niguel, paid the appropriate fees and moved in. We were there for almost two years and upon moving out there were arguments about how much pet deposit we paid and they decided to nickel-and-dime us out of our general security deposit too. (Several of the buildings on the facility are now condemned due to the fact that they are sinking into the ravine on which the complex had been built — you can imagine they had bigger problems to deal with than our arguments over a measly $2,000.)

Once we knew we weren’t going to renew our lease, we struck out to try and find someplace to rent where we’d be renting from a private owner. A house would have been optimal, or a townhouse even - but none of those were to be found in our price range AND accepting pets. At this point we are up to 3 dogs now, so that’s a major rental burden no matter where we go. We did manage to find a guy who was renting his condo down in San Juan Capistrano, didn’t seem to care about the dogs as he had previously had 2 dogs, and basically made the whole transition pretty smooth. He needed tenants, we needed a place … and it was all done for a good rate, with a reasonable deposit.

The first several months here at the condo have been pretty good. It was a slight downsize for us. We lost about 100 square feet of living space and are down to only one bathroom. But for the time we spend at home, this is definitely good enough for us! It’s even a little homier than our last place since it literally was someone’s home and not just a rental property. Everything was great up until about a week ago when the owner called and said the HOA had called to inform him that there had recently been “multiple calls” about our dogs being over the allowable rules of the complex. Now he did the smart thing and played dumb - after all he rented to us knowing we had the 3 and didn’t care. But obviously this isn’t an issue that’s just going to go away - so he left it up to us to find some sort of viable solution.

I wracked my brain to come up with something that would work. I tried to figure out if we could afford doggy daycare for one or two of the dogs. Fact is we really can’t take on that kind of additional expense and we never really thought we’d have to. The dogs are well behaved and quiet - and even only bark a little when we come home from work, just because they’re excited to see us. So in the end, there was only one real solution - we needed to reduce. Something NO pet parent EVER wants to have to think about. We had to figure out what to do with at least one of the dogs.

If you’ve read any of my profiles or bio or whatever, you’d know our three dogs. I’ve had Frankie since he was 8 1/2 weeks old back in November of 2003, he has made a couple relocations with me now and is definitely Daddy’s Little Boy. Brits got Lucy when she was living with friends in Irvine in 2005 and Lucy quickly assumed her role as the Pet Princess (including pink accessories to go with the title). Then at the holiday party for the company where Brits worked, in Decembe 2006, we brought home Betty as a prize. We kept repeating to each other “we have three dogs” (in reality, we didn’t HAVE to accept her, there were other prizes and other people did want the puppy … but as pet parents, we couldn’t deny how cute she was and we had to take her home). Betty challenge’s Lucy’s role as Princess sometimes, but I’ve taken to calling her Peanut because she’s just a little goofball - and she’s definitely Daddy’s Little Girl. So Frank, Lucy and Betty have been a team since Dec 2006 - and they make a great group that Brits and I refer to as our “kids”.

So back to how to reduce the total number of pets. Fact is, the girls are a team and they spend more time with each other while Frank prefers to hang out either on his own or with me when the opportunity presents itself. Considering we can’t exactly split up the girls, it would be tough to relocate two dogs at once. That meant the obvious end of the process of elimination. I have to say a temporary “good bye” to my little Frankie. I’ve had him forever and I’ve told him over and over that no matter where I go or what I do he’ll always be with me. And now the circumstance we’re stuck in is causing me to break that promise for a little while.

Luckily my mother is more than willing to take Frank in for a while. She’s offered in the past to do some temporary Frank-sitting. We have sorta casually referred to the concept as “Camp Grandma”. So unfortunately, on Tuesday night I am going to have to drive Frank to LAX, put him in a kennel, say good bye and check him onto his flight to Chicago. About 5 or 6 hours later, I’ll get a call from my mom letting me know that Frank is in her care - and I have to start figuring out what needs to happen so I can have my Frankie back as soon as reasonably possible.

So far the only time I know that I will see him is going to be a trip to Chicago I am taking in mid-June. Ironically it will be Father’s Day weekend so at least I’ll get to spend that with my little boy. After that … I honestly don’t know when I will see him next. We don’t have any other travel plans to Chicago in the works probably until sometime maybe in the early fall? Those of you that know me well, know that I am pretty much “over” living in California and am 100% ready to move back to Chicago - - I guess this is one more incentive to try and speed things up to make that possible sooner than later. Obviously there are three girls I need to take into consideration (Brits, Lucy and Betty) so the timing has to be right so that we can all move together at some point. Right now I don’t know when that point is, and not having my Frankie with me until then is going to be hard.

So for all you pet parents out there - I hope none of you have to deal with this type of situation. Maybe you’re lucky enough that you own your home, or where you rent allows multiple pets, or maybe you are just a parent to one pet. No matter how you look at it … the whole situation still sucks! A few things are for sure - I am totally done with renting from managed complexes, I will only rent if the landlord can guarantee no problems with us having our three dogs, and ideally I’d prefer to just buy a home (in Chicago) and be done with all this rental ridiculousness.

I used to be addicted to sketch comedy. I grew up watching Saturday Night Live every week for probably 10 or 15 years - back before it become just “SNL” and coincidentally back when it was still actually funny. When we got cable, having Comedy Central brought all kinds of opportunities to watch sketch shows and other great (and no so great) comedy almost any time of day. Going through both broadcast and cable you’ve got your decent ones like SCTV, Mad TV, Tracey Ullman and of course classics like the amazing Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the Carol Burnett Show and even one could even loosely lump in Benny Hill … but my favorite, hands down, is Kids In The Hall.

Those comedic Canucks really knew how to lay down funny bit after funny bit, every single show. I honestly have a hard time recalling any of their sketches that I didn’t get at least a mild chuckle out of - and some of them were easily milk-shooting-out-the-nose funny. I know I’ve been quite lax in my blogging lately … to be fair, I’ve been REALLY busy with work, projects, drumming and life in general. So to tie you over until my next one-paragraph-becomes-three-pages blog entry … please enjoy one of my absolute favorite Kids In The Hall sketches.

This is going to be a short blog (ok, let’s face it, it probably won’t be short) but I needed to post a little something about Digsby! I’m not usually the one to discover awesome new softwares or tools - typically my best bud Matt is the one to find them and let me know about them. This one is no different, but it’s so awesome I just have to share.

I’m one of those people that likes to be “connected” - I use social networks (see previous blog entry) and am signed onto 4 instant messaging protocols all day every day including Google Talk, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger and MSN Messenger. Much like the social network issues I’ve had before, the problem with messengers is that I have friends who use different protocols, and so I feel this need to be accessible and to be able to access them. (Some might say I’m a bit crazy in this way, but I’m a “people person”, I like feeling connected).

Anyway … I’ve been using Trillian for a couple years in order to be able to log into multiple IM protocols in one window instead of having to run 4 different programs eating up my processor and memory. I’m a big fan of Trillian, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have it’s downsides. I don’t particularly care for the way it handles Google Talk, and that is by far my primary protocol for chatting so it’s pretty important to me.

I recently experimented with Pidgin as a new multi-protocol messenger … and I loved the contact window and much of the features, but the conversation windows left a lot to be desired and the lack of skinning capability was a little disappointing. I ended up going back to using Trillian for AIM, Yahoo and MSN and then running Google Talk separately. This was a return to what I had previously been doing so it wasn’t weird, just a little sad to have to go that route when it didn’t seem that difficult to me that someone could create a better multi-protocol program.

Digsby has sort of the look and feel of Google Talk, which is a big plus for me. It not only integrates the various IM protocols that I need, but it is skinable to look however I want, and it also allows me to connect easily to my emails AND social networks. It tells me when I have a new GMail message and allows me to even archive or delete it right from the messenger panel. It also keeps me up to date on new messages, alerts, comments and wall postings from both MySpace and Facebook. So I really am more connected in one window than I’ve ever been in multiple windows! It’s a great feeling.

To top that off, Digsby can be used on multiple computers without having to be setup over and over and over again like some other messengers. I installed it at work and got it setup and loved it, so then I set it up at home and it remembered everything from my work setup automatically! I was online in like 5 minutes and didn’t have to repeat any of the setup process once it was installed and running.

Finally - if that wasn’t good enough - Digsby also has widgets that can be dropped onto websites so that anyone visiting that site can actually chat with me live directly from the site without having to have their own instant messaging platform open, or to have an instant messenger at all even! I put a Disby widget on my contact page of my website and have already had a few people drop a quick “hello” using it, which has been pretty cool. (You may feel free to do the same if you want to get in touch with me.)

OK - so that’s it for today’s Rave blog entry. It’s been a while since I’ve had something really good to blog about and I thought this one warranted at least a healthy mention. OH … by the way … Digsby is still considered to be in Private Beta Testing, but you can easily apply for a password and get involved. They are releasing updates and improvements all the time right now so every day seems to get better making it easier to get connected and stay connected from the comfort of any computer where it has been installed. If you enjoy staying as connected as I do, I’m sure this is the program for you! Check it out!

For most people who know me, or even just know of me online, you know that I’m sorta addicted to social networking. I’ve had MySpace for about the past 5 years I guess and Facebook for probably about two years now I think. I’ve tried some others including Friendster, TagWorld, Tagged, Virb and Bebo. Frankly, the ones other than MySpace and Facebook all have too many fatal flaws for me to be bothered using them. I might still have profiles on some of them, but you aren’t likely to find me using them - and honestly I’m going to start deleting them as soon as I am able to remember the login info and where the profiles are still setup.

My primary reason for selecting Facebook and MySpace is due to the crappy user interfaces and/or crappy profile stylings of the other social networks. MySpace is EASY to style if you want to and looks pretty OK even if you don’t style it yourself - and if you don’t feel like coding the CSS yourself, there are plenty of profile generators widely available to do it for you. Facebook has a VERY simple overall appearance and there is no styling available. As a web guy this sorta disappoints me AND satisfies me at the same time though because even though I can’t style my profile neither can anyone else so there isn’t a whole superficial competition of coming up with a cool profile or being considered lame for using the default scheme.

My preference … Facebook! Why? Well part of social networking is keeping tabs on what is going on with everyone to whom you are networked. Facebook, from the very start, has posted updates in a news feed on exactly what is happening with all of your friends. You can control your own privacy so people don’t always see certain things about you, and you can control what shows up in your news feed from your friends so if there are certain things you’re not interested in you won’t get updated on those items. For me … that’s great! I get to pick what other people can see of what I’m doing and I can also limit the news I receive to only items I’m interested in. COOL! I also really enjoy the fact that Facebook uses scripting for all of their editing and posting tools so that everything is done “realtime”. When I save a comment or update a profile item or post a message or whatever, it is all done right there and right away. It doesn’t need to refresh the page or take me through a series of confirmations like MySpace. I’ve most often found that the problems with MySpace occur while processing things like comment or bulletin posting and I end up either having to retype of what I did, or in most cased just giving up because it is too annoying to deal with.

What I think is funny is that now MySpace has (of course) copied this feature AND copied the “clean look” homepage concept from Facebook. I guess they realized that Facebook is getting bigger, easier and more popular? I guess I don’t really have anything to back that up - but more people I know are getting Facebook than MySpace and those using both are using Facebook more frequently than their MySpace profiles and in some cases dropping MySpace altogether. So from what I am witnessing, it appears that MySpace has seen the drop in usage or at least in usage frequency and has acted accordingly by copying the social networking program that was basically getting its business. Now I’m not about to dump MySpace yet because I do have quite a few friends (including my girlfriend) that don’t have Facebook and do still actively use their MySpace. Also I’m interested to see what these new “clean up” or “reverse engineering” efforts are able to accomplish for the MySpace concept. So for now you can still find me on both networks.
I’m going to wrap up this ramble for now … I really enjoy social networking utilities and I think they’ve done a LOT to draw people together who may not have otherwise stayed in touch or had the chance to even meet at all for that matter. It has made people more accessible to each other on a 24:7 basis with just a few clicks. Photos, news, jokes and more can be shared easily and viewed at the convenience and discretion of your friends without having to remember to tell everyone you posted something or forgetting to include someone in an email blast about your latest photo gallery. In the end, anything that connects people is a good thing in my opinion.

Thanks for reading … see y’all next time!

Haven’t had a chance to blog since my last rant about telephones. Wanna know something? I think a few of the people who are guilty of needlessly calling me at times they know I won’t answer my phone may have possibly read my blog. Honestly I’m not sure who reads this thing, although now that I have it feeding to both my website and my Facebook profile, I suppose there are a lot more possible readers than if it was just some random blog not actually being viewed anywhere mainstream. So since I know at least a few people are reading from time to time I thought I’d take a moment and catch up on here to let you all know how things are going.

Firstly and probably most importantly, the project I’ve been managing at work is finally done! Right now we’re touching up the marketing campaigns and turning the proverbial ignition switch either tomorrow or Friday. I cannot say enough how elated I am to finally be through this. But I also cannot say enough how much I learned from developing something this massive quite literally from the ground up. With one or two minor exceptions the online system is my design, my text and instructions, my graphics and the basic overall functionality was designed by me. Our talented development programmer has managed to make all my crazy ideas come to life in a fully operational new marketing solution! The boss is happy with it and ready to roll it out. So for anyone involved in real estate who uses any kind of territorial marketing methods, please feel free to check out eFARMpro.com and get yourself a part of the easiest (and probably least expensive) online community marketing system yet!

Outside the office I suppose recently I have just been enjoying life as much as possible. A few weeks ago Brits and I threw a little wine-tasting party for family and just a few friends. My mom was in town at that time and it was great to have her visiting since I hadn’t seen her since May, and probably won’t again until possibly March. We drank far too much wine and took it pretty easy the next day … but it was a great time.

The following week after mom went home was Thanksgiving, which Brits and I spent at her family’s house. We relaxed while the food was coming together, we ate too much and then enjoyed each other’s company with our full bellies. The rest of the weekend was pretty nice too and was capped off by Brits buying a new car. She bought the car that I’ve wanted since before it came out … but since her lease was expiring in February anyway and they offered her a great deal, she couldn’t pass it up. So she is now the proud owner of a 2007 Mazda CX-7. I’m jealous of her for now, but I will probably end up buying one for myself sometime next year anyway so we’ll end up with matching cars again (for those who don’t know, we’ve been driving a pair of Mazda 3s for about the last 18 months).

Nothing else has really been going on really. I haven’t spent nearly as much time involved in drumming recently as I have over the past 23 years, but I am honestly just too busy with so many other things that my free time has been quite limited. I think there comes a time in every pipe band musician’s life when their passion for the art form has to take a bit of a back seat behind the other busy things going on in life. That being said, I still practice several hours a week and am still teaching bands and students actively … but I’m not gone every weekend and most weeknights with drumming things like I used to be. Most importantly, I’m quite content where I’m at right now and my own personal playing is always improving every single time I pick up the sticks, so in general things are good.

That’s going to wrap up my blog for right now … I have a few last touches to put on the big project at work before I head home for an evening with my feet up on the couch and a bowl of popcorn in my lap. So until next time … cheers!

I know that there were thousands of generations before the modern day that didn’t have the convenience of telephone. Hell, the damn thing was only invented in the early 1870’s, so they’ve barely been around for 130 years or so. I realize how the telephone revolutionized communication and the speed and convenience and all that stuff. Then mobile phones came into being somewhere in the 1950’s, first as car-phones with riggings that took up part of the trunk and required an external antenna mount … and of course eventually they morphed into the itsy-bitsy teenie-weenie little mobiles we carry today that are, in some cases, smaller than a deck of cards! But here’s the thing … I really don’t like talking on the phone.

A lot of people don’t get it … they know I hate talking on the phone, yet they call me anyway because that’s how they prefer to handle things. Well, sorry Charlie, I don’t. I hate the phone and there’s nothing that needs to be said on the phone that can’t be shot across in a text message (for quick response) or email (for slightly delayed response). I’d rather someone take a moment to put their thoughts into a cohesive written form before transmitting them to me than to waste my time rambling on the phone. Honestly, it’s a lot easier for me to respond when I can read the entire thought, give it a moment of consideration, and then reply with my own cohesive thought via the same means (text or email).

Also - I think it’s really impolite to call people when you are well aware that they are unable to take your call at that time … and most especially when you are also well aware that they have greater access to texting or emailing during that time that you are calling.  Take for example my average workday … I do NOT answer my cell phone during the work day. Period. I do this for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that I’M AT WORK! The days of chatting away on the clock are gone for anyone other than management. I’m a working stiff and if my work doesn’t get done during the day, then I have to come home and do the work here - hence my motivation for getting it done while I’m at the office and not taking personal phone calls. I’d rather that people send me emails, or if it’s urgent send a text message, so that when I can take a brief moment of mental leave from my work, I can handle your request efficiently and get back to my work.

Now people say that telephones are better because you can hear the intonation in a person’s voice and that it provides for instant interaction without the time-lapse of email or texting.  Honestly, I don’t believe either of those outdated excuses for one moment.  First of all, if you’ve ever read one of my emails, there’s a good chance you know that I mean exactly what I say and that I type exactly what I mean. There’s no need for intonation … if I’m rambling there will be a lot of ellipses (”…”), whereas if I am making valid arguments there will be either well-formed sentences or perhaps even bulleted lists outlining my points. So perhaps the problem is that not enough people out there are as capable of putting their own thoughts into concise and cohesive written communication. But why should that become my problem? Those people need to learn how to better compose their thoughts in writing - not stick to an antiquated method of interaction just because they don’t want to take the time to write an email or learn how to use the texting function of their mobile phone.

Remember the days when people used to write letters to each other? Even after telephones were invented, it was still always thought to be more proper or more official to write a letter than to make a telephone call. Telephone calls - probably due to the expense and process involved - were thought of as ways to “quickly catch up” by phone. Things like “I’ll meet you at such-and-such a restaurant at 7pm” or “Hello Mrs. Whatsername, can you send little Billy home for dinner now, please?”.  There’s nothing worse than a long, drawn-out conversation on the telephone.

Now don’t get me wrong - sometimes there are good reasons for using the phone for extended periods or conversations. Keeping in touch with family cross-country is a good reason. Catching up with someone by phone when one or both of you are stuck in traffic is a good reason … this comes down to having nothing better to do, really. But calling someone just for sake of things that can be much more easily handled in an email … just not my thing.

So to those of you - and if you are reading this you know who you are - that call me on the phone anytime before 6:00pm during the week, or anytime before noon on weekends, please be assured that I will continue to not answer your calls. Also be assured that you are much more likely to get an email response to your voicemail than a call back from me. I can probably type out 10 email responses in the time it takes me to handle one response by phone … so for me, it is a matter of efficiency.

If you must call me - because for whatever reason you feel you need to talk on the phone instead of sending me an email or text message - then please be respectful about two things.

1) Be aware of the time that you call and whether or not it is a time when I am not at work or otherwise knowingly engaged in something that prohibits me from answering the phone

and 2) please call one time only and leave me one simple voicemail with the main purpose of your call and note whether you will send me an email with the rest of the information, or if you would like a call back when it is convenient for me. Some people may think that leaving more voicemails either in one day, or over a series of days, is a way of making sure I get the message and call you back - unfortunately, this type of thing is more likely to have your voicemails deleted without me ever even listening to them! One short, simple message and then you wait. If I don’t respond, try emailing and watch how fast you get your answer.

That is all … this is the first rant I’ve posted on here … but it was about time.

I decided a couple weeks ago that I hated my own website - AR2 Online. Luckily since I’m a webmaster it’s not like I have to run out and find someone to build me a new website or make-do with the one I have just because a new one takes time or money. So I started building from scratch I guess about two or three weeks ago … right about the same time as I signed up for this blogging account actually. For those who know me, blue is like my official color … so yes, the new site is also blue. To come up with the colors for the general layout, I used a bitchin cool color tool that Matt showed me recently. Since I’m mostly colorblind (hence my use of blue shading with or without a schemer), this is a hand little gadget to come up with all kinds of new color palettes from one base color.

 Anyway … I digress … my new website is live online now at http://www.ar2online.com and hopefully you will like it. If you don’t, I actually don’t care much since I like it and that’s really all that matters when it comes to one’s own personal website. I spend most of my time building other people’s websites or improving my drumming website, so it was fun to take a few minutes a day in the evening to rebuild my own online presence. I’ve got some tweaks and stuff that I plan to do in the coming weeks, but the basic stuff is there and ready to be seen.

Work is keeping me VERY busy … working at home in the evenings on top of the full eight-hour days. There’s a giant project that is coming to a close this week and should result in some great things happening in my life over the next few months. I’m not counting any chickens before they hatch, but in the mean time I’m praying for a miracle.

That’s it for this edition of my blog - thank you come again.

I’ve been pretty busy with a HUGE project at work. We’re launching a totally new product by the end of this week. It was a brainstorm idea from my boss a few years ago that never got off the ground at the time. Now we’ve spent the past four and a half months turning his idea into a fully-functional reality. Based on input from people in the industry - we’ve been told that it should be a giant success. Keep an eye here for more updates on its progress once it goes public.

I spent most of this past weekend at the Seaside Highland Games in Ventura, CA. I was there as an instructor for the Pasadena Scots, one of the bands that I teach on a weekly basis. They’re a fairly new band with a lot of potential and they had a great weekend capping off a successful first year of competing. Also, one of my personal drumming students had his very first solo competition ever. He was nervous - so was I - but he did great. He didn’t get in the prizes, but I didn’t expect him to his first time out. I was really proud of him for just getting out there and giving it a shot. Now we’ve got four months until the next competition event to work on getting him ready to do some winning.

While I was at the games on Sunday, Brits was at home painting our dining room walls. We selected a muted green color and all the artwork on the walls are photos that Brits has taken from our trips to various vineyards and wine regions in California. It’s pretty neat to be able to put up decorations that look just like professional artwork, but to know that someone who lives there actually took the photos herself! We have quite a few of her photos throughout the condo and I imagine we’ll add more as time goes on. Anyway - the dining room now has green walls which is just the splash of color our place needed.

That’s all for now … I guess I will post again when I have more to say.

I have decided to make an attempted foray into the exciting world of blogging. I have tried this before unsuccessfully, but as long as I have enough to say along the way I promise I’ll do better this time. I guess I just need to realize that it doesn’t matter what I write about - someone out there might find it interesting (and if not … oh well). So go ahead and bookmark this page and see how things turn out. Next post estimated for … um … maybe tomorrow? We shall see. Good night!