Monthly Archives: January 2008
What are the odds?
| January 28, 2008 | Posted by Angela under Family Stuff, My Travel Adventures, Random |
I had to catch an early flight this morning leaving to Atlanta and the funniest thing happened. It was the 8:05am flight on Delta direct to ATL. I arrived to the airport at about 7:30am, had no problems checking baggage, got through security fairly quickly, managed to get some breakfast in more than enough time to board. I was the last zone to board. I had a window seat (my first choice) and there was nobody in my row yet so I had no problems getting right into my seat. I was arranging my purse and back pack when I hear some people trying to get into my aisle. I look up and there was my Aunt Charlene. Her seat was in the middle, side by side to mine.
With 1.2 million San Antonio population, an average of 260 domestic and international departures and arrivals serviced by 21 carriers, I happen to sit directly next to my Aunt Charlene. I mean it was funny enough that she was on my plane, but to be in the seat right next to me? Now that is totally random!
ServerBeach Farewell video to YouTube
| January 25, 2008 | Posted by Angela under Business & Technology, The Arts, Film, Music, Fashion |
ServerBeach hosted YouTube for 2 years. They started with a single server and grew to over 200 servers in a year’s time span. I managed the YouTube account and what an adventure it was. It was almost like having a house that can only host 150 guests and 1000 show up and they are such cool people that you don’t want to tell them no. So you let the party grow and hope for the best. ServerBeach is built on automation and are not accustomed to hosting customers with over 200 servers and pushing petabytes of bandwidth a month. We did what we could and as much as we loved YouTube, it wasn’t always so easy. After the Google acquisition, naturally, YouTube was moving on to bigger and better things and it was time for them to outgrow ServerBeach. So upon their departure, we made a farewell video for YouTube. Steve Chen, founder of YouTube, loved it:
In all seriousness, we would love to host your team out here in California. I’m sure my credit card limit can pay for it. After all, I have ServerBeach and v40.youtube.com to thank for that high monthly limit. Would you guys be interested in spending a weekend out here? Angela, your drinks, especially, will be on the house.
10 items or less
| January 16, 2008 | Posted by Angela under Random |
So I was at the HEB (grocery store in Texas) this past weekend. I am posting this because I am sure many of you have been in this type of situation.
I ran in to get a some produce, some dairy products and paper products. I didn’t need much because we had already bought bulk at Costco. So I went to check out and started unloading my groceries. I noticed that a lot of women had those cool small rolling baskets. I thought I should have gotten that. I was about finished unloading my groceries when I hear the person behind me saying something. I turned to look at her and she said, “this is the 10 items or less line.” I was like “Oh crap! I am so sorry!” I felt really bad. So I started putting all my groceries back into my basket so I can go to another line. I heard the cashier and the lady in front of me laugh a little bit. I thought it was somewhat funny too but I think they were laughing at me. The lady that told me something looked at me in awe. She couldn’t believe I was moving to another line. I think she said under her breadth, “you don’t have to leave.” What was the purpose of her saying anything in the first place? Just to let me know I was in the wrong? I mean it was so unintentional to get into the 10 items or less line. It really was. I didn’t mind moving. I had maybe 25 items. I mean I wasn’t shopping for a family of 6. Anyhow, I gathered all my items and made my way out of the line. Everyone was just staring and they were either thinking “poor girl, she is so embarrassed,” or “that’s what she gets.” I thought the whole situation was really amusing. I wasn’t embarrassed at all. I mean, what would you have done?
Dog Park Disaster
| January 2, 2008 | Posted by Angela under Family Stuff |
April and Ruben, our friends, have been asking us to join them at the dog park one day. There is a dog park within McCallister park located down the street from April and Ruben’s neighborhood. They have taken their 2 dogs Posey (an older mix) and ChaCha (an older but hyper chihuahua) out there a couple of times. They have only had good things to stay about this park. The dogs are free running around everywhere having the time of their lives. I asked them about dog fights and they said that it is very rare. They say that since it is everyone’s land, dogs are not territorial. Some dogs do have muzzles on though. We were a bit hesitant to take Topaz because she can be very protective and defensive. Sierra, not so much. She is young and curious and just wants to play. So today was a perfect day to take a trip to the dog park. It was a cool, sunny, clear day; a perfect New Year’s Day. We decided to give the dog park a shot.
Like I said, the dog park is located within McCallister park. It is a gated area set up just like a playground. When you arrive, you have to walk down a dirt road leading to the gated area where the dogs are playing. Our walk down there was fun. We passed dogs coming and dogs going out. Topaz and Sierra were excited and curious. When you open a gate, you are in an entry way to the main section. So we walked through the entry way to the next gate that lead to the main area. There were dogs everywhere. I am talking like 50 dogs of all types of breeds and sizes. They were running around playing like crazy. I had never seen anything like it. We were still hesitant to let the dogs off their leashes. We walked around a bit just to get our dogs comfortable with their surroundings and to see how they reacted to dogs coming up to them. They seemed to be fine. So we let them off their leashes. The second we let Topaz off, she got into it a minor ramble with another dog. We put her back on her leash right away. Topaz is not an aggressive dog. There are just certain dogs she doesn’t get along with and we can’t explain why. So she remained on her leash while Sierra ran freely.
Sierra was hilarious. She kept running with one dog and then ran to another. She was was having so much fun. She was a bit timid. Some dogs would growl at her and she would get scared but she never was aggressive. I just chased her around to make sure she didn’t get into trouble. Jason stayed with Topaz on her leash. We felt so bad leaving Topaz on the leash but we didn’t want to risk anything. For some reason, dogs growl at Topaz. They would run up to her growl and then of course Topaz would growl back. Then they would start fighting and it sucked because the other dog was free and Topaz was held back by us on a leash. It just was so unfair but we couldn’t let her go. And we didn’t have control of the other dogs either so they kept running up to her. She was confronted around 3-5 times and it was making me so nervous. We decided that it was time to go. As we got ready to leave, the worst happened.
This dog, half the size of Topaz, runs up to her and starts barking at her for no reason! Of course Topaz is going to get pissed and starts barking back. Sierra gets involved and starts barking back at the dog, trying to protect Topaz. It caused such a commotion that all the dogs wanted to get involved. All of sudden, I looked around and all you see is all these dogs (unleashed mind you) running towards us. They all started barking at Topaz and Sierra. This little dog (the one that started the whole thing) kept barking at Sierra uncontrollably and Sierra was getting pissed and very aggressive. She was twice size of this dog and was about to eat her. I was trying to hold onto her and this little dog kept trying to attack her. I was holding Sierra under my legs and that dog was under my legs too. I thought I might get bit. And then I see the little dog’s owner start running after her dog and she couldn’t catch her. They were running in circles around me. It was horrible! I couldn’t even see Jason and Topaz, there was a big dirt cloud and everything was happening so fast. It looked bad on us because we had two big dogs barking and trying to fight off all these dogs. It looked like we started the whole thing. I finally got a hold of Sierra picked her up and ran outside the gate. I was in the entry way trying to catch my breath. My heart was beating so fast with all the adrenaline flowing through my body. Every dog owner was looking at us. I was so ticked off by the whole thing. Everyone had their input. One lady said “They just aren’t ready for the dog park.†I was like, lady, how the hell do you “prepare†a dog for the dog park?“ You have to start somewhere. This was their first time. Then I hear this guy say “You should let your dog off their leash, they need to fight it out. She feels like she is being backed into a corner which is why she is being aggressive.†He was pissing me and Jason off because he had told us that like 3 times while we were there. I was like “Dude, Sierra was off her leash and Topaz wasn’t because if she bites a dog, we are liable. She is not ready yet.†Everyone was pissing us off. On our way out, Topaz barked at every dog which she didn’t do on our way in. I think she is traumatized. As I said before, Topaz is not an aggressive dog but she is not going let other dogs mess with her. It wasn’t even our fault. Topaz was on a leash! It’s those little dogs that bark at her and provoke her.
I think the dog park is a cool place and I would recommend it for your dogs. You know your dogs best so you should know if your dog can handle it or not. We made the right decision to keep Topaz on the leash and the only way to prepare your dog for the dog park is by just taking them. There will be “dog snobs†that will have their opinion and you have to just take it with a grain of salt.
This is the default footer layout. You can easily add or remove columns in the footer.
Comments