Blog Posts - The Green Poodle

The Green Poodle

MOVIE: A Dog's Purpose (2017)

3/2/2019

I love movies about dogs. However, I generally avoid tear-jerker movies. I've watched this movie 3 times now and it becomes more of a tear-jerker every time.

The story follows a single dog spirit through multiple incarnations as it tries to determine exactly what a dog's purpose might be.

Each incarnation is a different (mixed) breed of dog.
Each incarnation has the dog living a different life style.
Each incarnation has a very different human companion.

You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll want to hug your dog.

In the end, the dog is satisfied that it knows its purpose. But I won't tell you what it is.

MOVIE: The Arrival of Wang (2011)

2/25/2019

The central question in this surprisingly enjoyable movie is whether you give the benefit of the doubt to ET when interrogating him. In this film, the interrogator did not; the interpreter did. What?

Our funny little alien took the time to learn what he considered to be the most commonly spoken language on the planet prior to landing. That being Mandarin Chinese. Unfortunately, he landed in Rome. Thus the interpreter.

Did Mr Wang, as he was called, come in peace as he claimed or not as the interrogator believed? You'll have to watch the film to find out.

MOVIE: The Dog Lover (2016)

2/25/2019

Based on a true story with a powerful message for those subject to the messages of sanctimonious fanatics of all types. This movie draws a distinction between puppy mills which I think we can all agree are a bad thing and legitimate dog breeders.

Being a fan of pure bred dogs, I'm also a fan of the ethical breeders and understand how expensive breeding healthy dogs can be. Trust me, they aren't getting rich. What I despise the most is something most of the do goodders seldom address and that's the back yard breeder with one or two dogs who is too lazy or too cheap to spay and neuter and ends up with puppies that are some awful mix and are not healthy and are often inbred. These are the puppies "free to good home" in the local paper or in the trunk of a car in the local WalMart parking lot.

The pure bred dog from an ethical breeder is well worth the expense every time. And if we all followed this maxim, there wouldn't be any puppy mills and there wouldn't be any shelters.

Anyway, watch the movie and see how a fanatic working for a large unethical non-profit animal rights organization changes her stripes.

Happy 2019 and Year of the Pig

2/20/2019

A lot has happened since my last post.

The Green Poodle's Attic has been opened at the Westside Antique Marketplace in Fort Worth Texas to help Mom, Dad and I purge the collections that threaten to overrun the house.
The family has added a new member -- GInger Rabbit (no photos yet). She's a pedigreed New Zealand Red born Christmas Eve 2018 and, when mature, should max out at about 11 pounds. That's significantly larger than my Muppet (Maltese), nearly as large as Dad's Rowdy (rescue Terrier mix), but no where near as large as my mixed breed Lucy. We've only had her for a couple of days and so far, all is well. But, of the dogs, only Lucy seems to be much aware of her presence and she is a bit frightened. Going to have to work on this.
Removed my POD designs from ShopVida and Zazzle. Just didn't feel that my designs fit with their way of doing business.
Hit the 200 follower mark on Instagram. As I don't actually know 200 people, this is significant for me, especially as this is my preferred social medium for advertising The Green Poodle.
George and Martha (the geese) have begun laying, a bit early. But something is getting most of the eggs before I do. I've set a trap, but the little stinker managed to get the bait without triggering the trap. Going to set my backyard camera out and try again.
The fountain has begun working again. Explanation: It is powered by a solar panel. During the winter months, the sun doesn't hit the panel and the fountain doesn't run. Just this last week, the water began flowing again. YEAH!!!!

So, having survived the winter, The Green Poodle Dog House is gearing up for Spring with much anticipation. Hope you are as well.

2018 Holiday Season Debriefing

12/30/2018

The 2018 Holiday Season is effectively over here at the home of The Green Poodle. Here's the recap:

Thanksgiving featured a smoked Turkey from Greenburg Smoked Turkey, Inc. in Tyler, TX. Without question the best turkey I've ever had and I look forward to another next year.
After the Thanksgiving feast, I made stock from the carcass. I rendered nearly 3 quarts of the thick fragrant liquid and froze it for later use.
Thanksgiving also featured a fruit cake from Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana, TX. Again, the best I've ever had. We've done this for a couple of years and I plan to continue the tradition.
Between Thanksgiving and Christmas I used one quart of the turkey stock to make a rice dish and another to make a pasta dish. Here's the deal: neither rice nor pasta have much taste on their own BUT they will pick up flavor from the liquid they are cooked in. I try to use a good stock for this. You could almost eat the rice or pasta on its own.
When I did the pasta, I of course, didn't want to toss out the stock I'd boiled the pasta in. So, chop all the onions I had in the house and let them simmer in the stock for a very long time to make my version of French Onion Soup. YUMMY!!!
For Christmas, we did a pot roast and pecan pie. I used a new pecan pie recipe this year and I love it. It's called Pioneer Pecan Pie from 12 Tomatoes and uses no corn syrup. The result is a pie that is less sticky, less sweet, and has a better pecan taste. I'll never go back to the old corn syrup recipe again.

As for New Year's Eve, a good movie.
As for New Year's Day, the tradition is this part of the USA is black eyed peas, which I will never eat again as long as I live no matter how hungry I think I might be. BUT, I might do a pot of pinto beans with some ham and cornbread.

Hope you enjoyed the 2018 Holiday Season and hope you have a very Happy and Prosperous 2019.

(French) Onion Soup

12/23/2018

For Thanksgiving this year, I bought a wonderful smoked turkey from Greenburg Smoked Turkey, Inc. in Tyler, TX at gobblegobble.com. After we enjoyed the bird, I cooked down the carcass-- bones and skin -- to produce 3 quarts of wonderful thick stock which I froze. I used one of those quarts Friday.

I like to use stock, especially home made stock, when I cook rice or pasta. Neither rice nor pasta have much flavor of their own but will absorb a lot of flavor from the liquid they are cooked in. So, Friday, I used a quart of my precious stock with another couple of quarts of water to boil pasta for a quick lunch. (The pasta had a great flavor!) I kept the pasta water. I chopped all the onions and garlic I had in the house, added them to the pasta water, and reduced it to about a quart. The result, some of the best onion soup I've ever had. Mom and I enjoyed bowls tonight for dinner with croutons and cheddar cheese on top. Got to do this one again!!!

MWTX Farmer's Market

10/30/2018

The Farmer's Market is new to Mineral Wells and has really taken off due to the amazing work of its board of directors. But the vendors deserve some credit as well. In some ways a family, the collection of small and local businesses that setup each weekend at the FM are everything you hope to find when you hear the term "Farmer's Market."

I've been a vendor at the MWTXFM twice. The first time was a testing of the waters. This last time I was better prepared. These are my observations and comments as a small business trying to sell at the FM.

View from the front looking into my setup.

View from the rear, looking out toward the front of my setup. (See the porta-potties!!!)

Have lots of business cards.
Be able to take card payments -- debit and credit. Find a service you are comfortable with (I use PayPal) and get setup with your smartphone.
Have lots of small bills for making change.
Be aware of the sales tax laws in your area and, if necessary, have your sales tax permit ready to show if an inspector drops by.
Don't add sales tax to purchases. Make your prices inclusive of sales tax to make things easier for everyone. When the time comes for you to remit sales taxes, use that algebra you swore you didn't need to back into the sales tax amount.
Have wrapping paper and tissue paper and bags to send people off with their purchases. Make sure to slip a business card or two into each bag. I reuse shopping bags and gift bags and put a sticker with my info on each bag.
Hang some things up to make them visible from a greater distance.
Don't overcrowd your tables.
Talk to everyone who enters your area.
Be prepared for wind. When the wind picks up, things fall over.
Be prepared for sun. Spending all day sitting out in the sun can be tough, even in a mild climate. If you can, get a canopy. Amazon has them ranging from around $50 on up. Get one you can set up and take down alone.
Take a chair and a cooler. You don't want to stand all day and you'll need cold drinks of some type, maybe even some fruit or something for lunch.

It's not just about produce. Yes, there are farmers at the FM. But lots of people bring other hand made and even mass produced goods to the market.
Know that lots of people are out just for the social activity and the walking experience. They aren't interested in buying anything. Give them a business card and thank them for stopping by.
People who say they'll be back generally do not come back. Sometimes... But for the most part, it's their polite way of saying, "I'm not buying." Business card...
Watch what people are carrying as they walk by. Are they carrying purchases? What kinds of goods are they buying? These observations might help you decide what to bring next time.
Be prepared to spend some money. School groups bring things to sell to raise money for various activities. The kids will come booth to booth and they truly appreciate even a buck or two donation.
If you can, get someone to watch your booth and go around to see what others are doing. You might get some ideas. Especially pay attention to those who are making sales.
Attend as often as you can but make extra effort just prior to holidays. People spend money for almost any holiday.

So, that's my two cents worth, based on my limited experiences. Most of all, when you go to a farmer's market, have fun. Even if you don't sell much, you make contacts, hand out business cards, and just maybe pave the way for future business.

The Haunting of Hill House

10/16/2018

Back in the day, we all read Shirley Jackson in high school. The required reading was the short story, "The Lottery." Chilling how cruel we can be to one another. Later, I found a novel in the library, "We Have Always Lived in the Castle." A wonderful plot twister about a child who murders her family.

I'm sad to say that I have never read "The Haunting of Hill House." But, of course, I have seen both the 1963 and the 1999 films. These are amazing films of suspense and terror. Not horror as in Wes Craven et al. But terror and suspense as in M. Knight Shyamalan. For my money, these are some of the most interesting movies made.

Now, NetFlix has made a 10-part mini-series. oooooh. Ten one hour (or so) episodes about this house, it's most recent residents, and how they deal with the house's past. Spoiler alert: house flippers beware!

A must see for true aficionados of suspense, psychological thrillers, and edge of your set terror.

Finally At Last

10/13/2018

Given that I worked in tech for most of my adult life as both a software developer and as a university professor, the following story may seem a bit odd. Just let me say that I have reasons for refusing to be a first adopter of new tech and this incident simply serves to reinforce those reasons.

Up until yesterday (12 Oct 2018) I did not own a smartphone and had no desire to do so. My little flip phone did all I needed it to do and did so reliably and inexpensively.

On Saturday, 6 Oct 2018, I joined the Mineral Wells, TX Farmer's Market and attempted to sell some of my upcycles and my POD (print on demand) samples. It was a very difficult 5 hours for me and not terribly rewarding. One of the reasons I lost a few sales was my inability to take credit/debit cards. I thus resolved to remedy that prior to going back to the market.

So, I got a relatively inexpensive reconditioned smartphone and signed up for their cheapest monthly plan. I also ordered a credit card reader from PayPal which I have yet to install.

In addition, I got a "free" Galaxy Tab E 8.0 that can function as a smartphone but only if I have smartphone service. There's a process called NumberSync. Anyway, this larger tablet and the Android graphic design software will allow me to do some design work during those hours at the market when sales are slow, make+receive calls and messages, and take credit card payments on a single device. The smartphone alone doesn't have a large enough screen for the graphic design portion of all that. AND, I like my fonts a bit larger now that I've crossed the threshold into seniorhood.

To recap:

a smartphone for day to day use which, even at the cheapest plan available, is going to cost me more than I really wanted to spend
a larger tablet for market days which is costing me an additional fee but can serve as a proxy for the smartphone

The smartphone took a while to arrive because I wanted to keep my old phone number. I had a very long customer support call to prove that it was my number because it was with another carrier. (Note: I was speaking to customer support using this phone number!) Then it took another few days for the two carriers to iron all this out.

Now, the real battle was getting all this tech to work. This is not exactly new technology, as far as I know, but the software that allows you to set this up is buggy beyond belief. What should have taken 5 or 10 minutes took hours. Because:

many of the error messages simply said, "Error. Try again."
many errors weren't flagged until the end of the lengthy process rather than at the moment of the error
errors flagged at the end of the process sent me back to the beginning of the process to start all over again
when restarting the process, the ID entered last time was no longer available for use this nth time around -- Zeus only knows how many IDs I left hanging out there

No. I did not call customer service / tech support. A week earlier when I was trying to set up the tablet, I called tech support and was on the line for over 2 hours before I was told that the tablet alone would not be a smartphone even though it has been assigned a phone number and I'd have to get another device -- a smartphone -- to link it to. BTW: there was no indication of this prior to my purchasing the "free" tablet and the tech took TWO HOURS to finally get around to telling me this bit of bad news. That and the call to port my number had left a bit of a sour taste in my throat for "service" calls.

But, PERSISTENCE is my middle name. When I want something, when I want to do something, I don't give up easily.

I did finally get this technological nightmare working the way it is apparently intended to work. But, if you ask me, and you didn't, the way it is intended to work is not such a good thing.

Creativity and Software Reuse

10/11/2018

Back in the day, a bit over 20 years ago, I was a not so young overly ambitious PhD student with research interests in Creative Cognition and Software Design and Development, specifically Software Reuse. Prior to that time, my career had been in software development, which I enjoyed immensely for a while. Creativity had been more of an informal interest. For a variety of reasons including then un-diagnosed bipolar disorder, new anti-professional student legislation which forced me and many others to hurry the degree plan, and academic mentors with no interest in anything other than their own careers, I rushed through my research and graduated with an absolutely unremarkable dissertation. Adding insult to injury, I had not acquired the skills I would need to pursue this research as an assistant professor. Eventually, my academic career faltered and died. But somewhere in the back of my mind, the ideas lingered.

Fast forward to 2013 or so. I have a new business and some time on my hands. I take on the once daunting task of building a custom web site for said business. And everything comes together.

First, so many of the things I tried to articulate then have come to market now in the form of DIY web site building tools provided by any number of web hosting services. I've tried several. Currently, my favorite is Weebly, the service which hosts this site.
What you'll find:

A vast and well organized library of components from which the developer can choose and, within limits, customize without recourse to code-writing.
Both generalized components useful in many situations as well as domain specific components built for more specialized applications.
A visual interface which allows the builder to pick and choose and organize the desired components to create entire software systems / web sites without recourse to writing code.
A help sub-system which assists the builder in the correct usage of components.
A thriving market of third party components which can be added to the library as needed.

The result:

shorter development times
less need for highly educated and experienced code writers
faster and easier debugging as well as less need for debugging when components have been thoroughly vetted in advance
standardization in the architecture of the end product
standardization in the "look and feel" of the end product

This last is what concerns me most. Standardization. Standardization is often synonymous with lack of creativity, lack of innovation.

I once worked for someone who was well known for saying that the last thing he wanted on his staff was a "creative" software developer. I think he equated creative with undisciplined. I equate creative with innovative and skilled.

I'm sure that my web site looks very much like other Weebly web sites in structure if not in content. How could it not? The building tools constrain what I am able to do. On the other hand, I once built 3 web sites over the course of one night when insomnia was nagging at me and my bipolar disorder had me in a manic episode. Twenty years ago, the only way to build a web page (we didn't so much talk about sites then) was to write hundreds or thousands of lines of html, upload to the web server, check it out, and begin endless repetitions of debugging and altering. Yes. We could all do it. But few thought it was really fun. It was comparable to writing in assembly language (which we all did 20 years prior to that) and we were all simply delighted when it worked (picture Tom Hanks dancing around his first fire in Castaway). So if progress in software development means better systems more quickly with less need for digging into the guts of the process, then these web site building tools are indeed progress.

But at what cost? Where is the innovation? Where is the creativity?

I admit at this point that I haven't looked into the literature in some time. But, has anyone studied the effects of these tools on creativity?

The academic communities of computer science, specifically software engineering, and psychology (specifically creative cognition) have a great opportunity here to study the effects of this relatively new type of software reuse on innovation in software engineering. Remember, within subjects design with counterbalancing to offset presentation order effects! (Because people are different but they all learn.)

As for my limited anecdotal evidence, I think I make up for in speed of build and reliability of end product what I lose in innovation. And I do check out those new components that come available so perhaps that's where the innovation lies.