Will the automobile become a "floppy drive"

I'm not a MAC person so I'm not sure when it was – perhaps 5 years ago, maybe further back – that Macs were released without floppy drives. I remember wondering WHAT they were thinking! How are you supposed to get your data OUT of the computer. Writable CD drives were fairly new (OK so maybe is was longer ago) and I thought Apple must expect CDs to be the new floppy. As it turned out, e-mail, ftp, and jump drives pretty much eliminated the need for floppies and Apple had the foresight to remove these drives from their designs before they just became unnecessary vestiges.

PC design has always been slightly behind MAC, so by the time these changes happened to my PC, I barely noticed. Because I'm in desktop publishing, primarily a service field, I've had to be able to accept data from as many sources as possible and so for a long time, I insisted on having 2 floppy drives – 3.5 inch and 5.25 inch. I now look at the two PCs I have on my desk, one about 6 years old just has a 3.5 inch drive and the "newer" one about 3 years old doesn't even have a floppy and I don't think I ever noticed!

Yesterday, while taking the early morning walk with Logan, I noticed how the new Minto development evolving in our neighbourhood seems to have very little room for parking and then I wondered if Minto has the same foresight that Apple had in the 90s. With the cost of fuel skyrocketing and the trend towards enviro-friendly consciousness, maybe cars themselves will become obsolete in the near future!

Walking the dog

Now that winter's done, I think it's finally time to "break the ice". It's almost 4 years since I started thinking about blogging and made a test post.

Logan-the-Dog is now nine years old (63 dog years). Our walks are not as lengthy as they were 4 years ago and they are less frequent but we still get out 2 or 3 times a day. Some of our walks are pure "business" trips, like right after work. Some are social walks (early in the evening) when we walk with Casey and Riley, a few of Logan's buddies, although those walks are less frequent because Casey and Riley are out at 6:30 p.m. sharp and we can't always make it.

Here's Logan-the-Dog (centre) with his buddies Casey (left) and Riley (right).

Our best walks are the early morning ones. We have a few regular paths and unless the weather is inclement, I'll let Logan make some of the initial choices to determine our path. I use this walk to wake up and usually let my mind wander. Sometimes all I can think about are the projects I'm working on, or whose pissing me off lately!

Mostly I work at home but since December I've been on an on-site contract downtown. At first this was traumatic for me and Logan-the-Dog. For me because up until then my days had been very fairly unstructured and I could work in shorts and bare feet and although I liked to get started by 8:30 there was never any pressure to do so. Now I have to walk and feed Logan, shower, shave and dress and be out of the house at 6:44 to catch the bus downtown. And I'm not around to let Logan outside in the backyard every hour or so to chase squirrels or to toss him cookies.