Archive for September, 2008
Mango posing on a rock at the Washington Park Arboretum next to Lake Washington.
The sunny weather on Sunday was probably one of the few remaining days of the year before the arrival of cold rainy days. Originally, i was planning on visiting some place on the Olympic Peninsula with Smelly and Mango. But the long drive there discouraged me so we decided to spend our Sunday in Seattle instead.
Standing in front of Alley 24, an apartment complex just across from REI.
Our first stop with Mango was REI’s flagship store in downtown Seattle. To get ready for the upcoming rainy days, Smelly and i wanted to get some light waterproof jackets so that we can walk Mango even when the weather is wet.
Mango filling up the carrier bag. In a month or two, he probably won’t be able to fit in the bag.
REI only allows service dogs to be in the store so we had to put Mango in the sling-style carrier bag. Mango weighed 16 pounds on Sunday and it was definitely harder getting him to fit into the bag that we bought two months ago. We were not able to find any reasonably-priced jackets that we like so we most likely will head back to the Outdoor Research store on 1st Ave.
After leaving REI, we went to the Washington Park Arboretum. Smelly and i first went to the Arboretum more than a year and a half ago. This time round, we had Mango with us.
Mango had his attention caught by a passing kayak.
The Shiba Inu breed in general is not known to like water. When we took Mango to one of the boat launches in the arboretum, sure enough, Mango was really wary of getting himself wet. No amount of encouragement or treat would get him into the water. I finally decided to carry Mango and drop him in knee-high - Mango’s knees - water. Almost immediately after dropping him into the water, Mango took off for the dry land.
No amount of encouragement or treat was sufficient to entice Mango to get into the water.
Meet and greet with the 12-week old Sasha.
While we were trying to get Mango into the water, a black and tan Shiba Inu puppy showed up. The 12-week old puppy seemed small to us. She was even smaller than Mango when we picked him up at nine weeks old.
Smelly posing with Mango.
We then took Mango on a walk on the trail through the wetlands. It was a very pleasant walk.
Walking Mango along the trail.
Smelly posing with Mango along the trail.
After spending two hours at the arboretum, we took Mango for his first bath in two weeks.
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We were so close. We were leading the Loafers 2 - 1 with less than four minutes to go. I made a crucial defensive mistake in missing the ball as i attempted to clear it and the Loafers tied it by a shot that was out of the reach of our goalie.
I joined Smelly’s Team Big Fish - a team sponsored by her employer Big Fish Games - last season. I would say i played in about a quarter of the games in the summer league and in all the games that i participated in, we lost all of them. Some of the losses were lopsided.
Last night’s game was our third game of the season. From my perspective, i think this is probably the best game that i have played in. We were passing well and were in control of the ball most of the time. Going into half-time, we were actually leading the opposing team, the Loafers, 2 - 1. This was actually the first lead that we have in all the games that i have played.
Smelly played her heart out last night. Since only five women showed up for our team last night, the ladies had to play the whole 90 minutes without any substitution. During the game, Smelly was able to challenge some of the opposing players and also was able to pass the ball well on many occasions. She was even involved in our second goal. Sebastien fired a shot from the left side. The ball reflected off the right goal post and then bounced off the goalie into the goal. Smelly was right next to the goalie when it happened so it was very probable that her presence caused the goalie to panic. I have never seen Smelly play so well. I am so proud of her!
Update
As noted in Smelly’s comment, during the second half of the game last night, she took a direct shot on her face. The impact of the ball on her face could probably be heard within three blocks of the neighborhood. She continued to play regardless.
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What are the chances of your checking account bank being forced out of business and the bank that you choose to replace it goes out of business as well in almost exactly a year later? My choice of banks so far has not been good. Last year, my online checking account bank Netbank was forced out of business by the FDIC. I transferred all my asset from Netbank to WaMu, a local bank in Seattle. It was a pain in the ass to get everything set up again on WaMu. I had to update my former employer’s HR so that they know where to send the next paycheck. I also had to set up all my online bill payment.
I just found out a few hours ago that WaMu, where i currently have my checking account, has just been shutdown by the FDIC. The subprime defaults has claimed its second victim that is related to me. WaMu’s assets have been acquired by JP Morgan. It is very likely that i will soon have a JP Morgan checking account and i will have to redo all my online bill payment again. This sucks!
Update
I have just received an email from WaMu with the subject “WaMu News: The holidays start today”. The email claimed that they “have plenty of ways to kick your holiday savings into gear.” Eh..no they don’t!
Email from WaMu received at 0013 on 9/26.
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According to Apple, the one of the key fixes in the iPhone 2.1 Software Update is “Faster loading and searching of Contacts.”
iPhone 2.1 firmware fixes as described by Apple.
Initially after installing the 2.1 Software Update to my iPhone, Contacts did appear to load quite a bit snappier than the glacier-like 2.0/2.0.1/2.0.2 updates. But that can now be attributed to the reboot that accompanies each software update. My iPhone has not been rebooted for 3 days and 8 hours. Right now, it is taking more than 12 seconds going from the Home screen to Contacts before it becomes responsive.
ktula-s-iPhone:~ root# uptime
9:46am up 3 days 8:23, 1 user, load average: 0.53, 0.44, 0.32
In my limited attempt in trying to figure out what hell is going on when Contacts is launched, i opened a SSH session to my jail-broken iPhone and ran iostat to collect stats. I tried to run vmstat initially but it did not appear that vmstat was available on the iPhone. The version of iostat on the iPhone actually displays a portion of information that would normally come from vmstat.
ktula-s-iPhone:~ root# iostat 1
disk0 cpu load average
KB/t tps MB/s us sy id 1m 5m 15m
14.43 0 0.01 3 2 95 0.44 0.41 0.30
0.00 0 0.00 0 0 100 0.44 0.41 0.30
0.00 0 0.00 1 1 98 0.44 0.41 0.30
(Contacts being launched from this point on)
22.57 13 0.30 22 23 54 0.44 0.41 0.30
22.17 80 1.72 17 59 24 0.48 0.42 0.31
21.40 122 2.55 21 55 24 0.48 0.42 0.31
20.30 119 2.35 14 54 32 0.48 0.42 0.31
17.41 134 2.28 22 53 25 0.48 0.42 0.31
14.44 135 1.91 19 50 31 0.48 0.42 0.31
11.36 155 1.71 27 61 12 0.44 0.42 0.30
10.54 151 1.55 21 60 20 0.44 0.42 0.30
23.39 110 2.52 17 50 34 0.44 0.42 0.30
20.42 104 2.07 25 47 28 0.44 0.42 0.30
17.10 101 1.68 49 33 19 0.44 0.42 0.30
16.32 74 1.18 33 38 28 0.57 0.44 0.31
12.31 13 0.15 54 28 18 0.57 0.44 0.31
(Contacts became responsive)
0.00 0 0.00 48 25 27 0.57 0.44 0.31
When Contacts was being loaded, the idle CPU - the percentage of CPU utilization that is doing nothing shown under the “id” column - went from almost completely idle to an average of 31%. That means the CPU was busy 69% of the time while Contacts was being launched.
To look at what processes were taking the bulk of CPU while Contacts was being loaded, i looked at the process table by issuing the command “ps aux”. The process table indicated that the mobileaddressbook process was taking 46.6% of CPU.
These numbers seem normal to me. They don’t really explain to why Contacts is taking so long to load other than it appears to take quite a bit of processing power during the launch.
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This post is more than a week late. I got lazy this week and really did not feel like writing.
Last Thursday (9/11), Mango was exactly 15 weeks old. When i weighed him three days later on Sunday, he was 13.2 pounds (5.99 kilos).
So far, our breeder Leslie has been kind enough to trim Mango’s nails when Smelly and i take him there for his weekly daycare. However, at some point, we really have to do this on our own. When i took Mango to his first week of daycare, Leslie showed me how she trimmed Mango’s nails with a Dremel. Mango was put on a grooming table and was secured by a short leash from the top. You would not believe the amount of screaming and whining Mango made as Leslie proceeded to dremel his nails. Even when Leslie got done and i was holding Mango, whenever Leslie turned on the Dremel to trim another Shiba’s nails, Mango would be trembling all over. I asked Leslie if there was a way to associate nail trimming with something that’s positive. Leslie responded that it’s probably very difficult with the Shibas. The best way she recommended was to get it over with as quickly as we can.
About a month ago, we attempted to trim Mango’s nails with the nail trimmer. Naturally, Mango threw up a fit. Really, he sounded like a pig that just found out that he was going to be slaughtered. While i was grabbing onto Mango to prevent him from jumping off the table, Smelly was doing the nail trimming. On one of the nails on his front paw, Smelly trimmed a little too much and it cut into the “quick”. Mango started bleeding immediately and was appeared to be quite traumatized. After applying some Qwik Stop Styptic powder, the bleeding stopped, but also that ended our second attempt in trimming his nails.
Two weeks ago, i decided to do some research on trimming nails using Dremel. I found this really good site that demonstrates how to do just that. The instructions are very clear and the idea is to associate the nail trimming session with something enjoyable for Mango.
The first step was to get Mango comfortable with his paws being touched and handled by us. Every time i touched his paw, i would reward him with his favorite treat - chicken jerky from Costco. I did that for about two days.
Mango investigating the Dremel when it was off.
The next step was to take the Dremel out and leave it on the floor for Mango to sniff and explore it. I would reward him with treats and praises when he was brave enough to get close to the Dremel to investigate it.
Mango sniffing the Dremel when it was on.
When Mango became comfortable with the Dremel, i would turn it on and leave it on the floor. Again, when Mango came over to investigate it, i would reward him treats and praises. This step was to get Mango used to the noise generated with the Dremel on.
Touching Mango’s nail with the Dremel.
When that went well, i moved on to the next step. With the Dremel off, i would touch one nail with the Dremel. This was follow by a treat. I proceeded to touch two nails and then gave him treat and praises. Eventually, i would touch all his nails and then give him his treat.
Mango came back from his daycare with trimmed nails.
I was planning on grinding his nails for a very short duration last week but when i picked Mango up from his daycare, i realized that Leslie had already did that for me. I also noticed that Mango was bleeding. After waiting for another day or two, i started getting Mango used to being touched by the Dremel again.
This morning, i have a slight break through. While Mango was eating his treat, i touched one of his nails with the Dremel while it was on. The grind bit was probably on his nail for only half a second but Mango seemed ok with it. Tomorrow, i am going to try it on a few more nails and see how it goes.
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What’s the difference between Sarah Palin and George W. Bush?
Lipstick.
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Supposedly the 2.1 firmware is going to resolve many performance-related issues introduced in the 2.0 firmware. I’ll wait a few more days before making that call.
Update
The 2.1 firmware update offers a little bit of improvement in terms of the launch time for SMS and Contacts and the virtual keypad lagging issue seems to be better now. The noticeable pause in going between iPod and Home screen for some of my podcasts still exist.
After more than 24 hours of not rebooting my iPhone, i collected the following application launch time:
- Home screen to iPod: 3.7 seconds
- Home screen to Clock: 3.7 seconds
- Home screen to Calendar: 4.3 seconds
- Home screen to Settings: 3.8 seconds
- Home screen to Text (SMS): 5.5 seconds
- Home screen to Photos: 3.2 seconds
- Home screen to Camera: 4.1 seconds
- Home screen to Notes: 7.2 seconds
- Home screen to Contacts (with 157 contacts): 6.6 seconds
Update
My initial euphoria over what Apple claimed the 2.1 firmware will fix has died. Now, it is taking more than 10 seconds before Contacts become responsive. I guess it is back my normal routine of rebooting my iPhone daily, just like what i had to do during the Windows 95 days.
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Seattle traffic as captured on my iPhone as i was traveling on the Metro bus.
Sure, it takes me more than one hour to get to work by commuting via a Metro bus and follow by a company-provided shuttle bus but looking at the Monday morning Seattle traffic provided by WSDOT, i am real glad i do not have to do any driving. In the one hour and 10 minutes of commute, i managed to do the following:
- Read a six-page article on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console defects woes.
- Walked three healthy blocks to catch the shuttle bus.
- Took a 20-min Power nap while i was on the shuttle bus.
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