From the Doghouse
A look at dogs having fun
Poser Gallery
My gallery of pictures I’ve created in Poser
My Science Fiction and Fantasy stories
Stories I’ve written
Nature by Carol
A look at the less technical side of life
Re-occurring Bills, Do The Companies Just Not Get It?
It’s that time of the month again, the week most of my bills come due. Prior to retirement, I gave very little thought to making insurance payments as they were automatically extracted from my paycheck. Retirement brought monthly insurance bills. Just thinking about...
Solar Powered Wyze Cameras, An Engineering Evolution
As with most engineering projects, it started with a need. In my case, as soon as I got high-speed Internet, I eagerly added several cameras. I chose Wyze because they are affordable, don’t require a monthly subscription, and offer excellent picture quality. Wanting...
Have A Message? Viewing Conversation As A Value Transaction
I've embedded an audio version of this post. Of course, the voice is AI generated but please let me know how you feel about this feature. Thanks! Ever get out of a meeting thinking that’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back? When you consider it, getting someone to...
Is Your Team Always Missing Deadlines? It Might Be You!
Perhaps it’s my background in electronic design speaking, but I’ve always regarded time as sacrosanct. Consider this: when you're designing a system that operates at 100 MHz, tolerating a signal that "usually" arrives on time is out of the question. Too late, or even...
Adjusting To Retirement After A Lifetime Of Employment, A Journey
For all the fears I had about retirement, I wasn't expecting the real problems. First, there was the insurance dilemma. It turns out that my wife was too young for Medicare, and there's no such thing as a family plan that covers both of us. I ended up juggling two...
Company Buyouts, Good For The Consumer?
You're justifiably proud of your waffle maker. It was a lesser-known brand, yet it cost half as much as its competitors, and its brilliant texture sensor guaranteed you got flawless waffles every time. Unfortunately, as soon as you plugged it in, someone mistook your...
Random Posts
What’s This Thing Called Cache? A Non-Technical ExplanationSpend enough time with computers and you’ll encounter cache. When your browser is acting up, the first thing you hear is, “your cache is corrupted you’ll have to clean it.” When your computer is running slow, you’re told you need more cache. Obviously cache is important but what is cache? How does it work? Let […]
Want To Be A Great Writer? You Need Great CharactersWhy this topic? Why now? Perhaps an explanation is in order. Recently I had to send a white paper I had written several years ago to a colleague having similar problems. Prior to sending it, I took the time to read it and almost spent the rest of the day rewriting it. Obviously, my goal […]
Email Scam or Luckiest Man Alive?I must be the luckiest man alive. Three weeks ago when I was looking at my bills and wondering how I was going to pay them, I got an email from an attorney in England. Some wealthy relative I didn’t even know about had died and left me his fortune. I immediately sent them all […]
Random Posts
I’m Stuck But I Have A Bold And Cunning PlanHave you ever started something but try as you might you can’t finish it? It doesn’t matter if it’s a book that you hope will get better, a movie that always puts you to sleep or the first blog post of a new year, we all been in that position. Come to think of it, […]
Agility and Your DogA long time ago we acquired a Chow because someone had abandoned her and her sister near our place as puppies. My wife found her whimpering in the barn, hiding from a storm we were having. We called her Inka because she was completely black, including her tongue. We had several other dogs at the […]
Ever Think of Your Engineer as a Super Hero? The Evidence is There.I’m going to assume you’re reading this because you’re trying to make sense of the engineer in your life. I’ve written several posts on understanding engineers but maybe you’re looking for new insights. Ever think of your engineer as a super hero? There’s more evidence than you might suspect. Let me try to describe your […]
Random Posts
Making a Demon Skull With LED EyesTwo weeks ago, I promised I would explain why I had a collection of demon skulls and I would have met that schedule but repairing my 3D printer took priority. That’s done and unfortunately by the time you read this Halloween is probably over too. Still, I really like the effect and I’ll be looking […]
A Brief Guided Tour of an Engineer’s Thought ProcessI’m going to break a few rules today. I’m going to take you on a guided tour of an engineer’s thought process. Just in case you know an engineer and realize just how easily we get distracted, we’ll keep this very focused with no detours allowed. My particular brand of engineering is electrical but except […]
Bryce 7, A Virtual World BuilderBefore I get too deep into this post I should mention that Bryce is also the name on my wife’s agility companion. He’s a handsome dog but this post is not about him. Spend any time looking at 3D models on the Internet and you will come across the names Bryce, Daz Studio and Poser. […]
From the Doghouse -It’s all about them
A look at dogs having fun!
Short Stories
With posts like these, ever wonder what kind of fiction I would write?
Random Posts
Grammar and Rhetoric, the Drout WayWhen I wrote my post on the confusing rules of writing, the last thing I expected to find was an answer. Two months later not only have I found several answers but I have a better insight into the way I learn. All thanks to two books on rhetoric and …
Don’t Be Seduced by TechnologyWhen it comes to new technology most of us are familiar with the terms “Bleeding edge” “leading edge” and “legacy”. Bleeding edge is the latest and greatest. It’s just beginning to show up in the hands of a few tech savvy consumers. We call it bleeding because it’s a given …
Communication As Seen By An EngineerCommunication, the human race has been attempting it for thousands of years. Whither it’s art, music, writing, movies, even this website, it’s all a form of communication. With that much practice, you would think we’d be better at it. Honestly, I don’t know why we aren’t better at it but …
Why All The Hate For PO Boxes, Part TwoAlmost two years ago I preordered a Google Nexus tablet, only to have the order cancelled two weeks later because I had used a PO Box as my address. Needless to say I wasn’t happy. Being very frustrated and having limited options, I wrote Google Wallet, PO Boxes and No …
Sequestration, Escrow and Congressional Cuts, An IdeaThink about this. You’ve known for a while that your company was having some issues. Your company seems to be slipping in its market position and recently the board of directors can’t seem to agree on anything. Your manager calls you into his office to tell you that the board …