More Puppy, and some iPhone Stuff

First up, the puppy...

I think he looks rather nice on my comforter.

This was our first on-leash walk. He's fairly timid, and I know puppies go through fear stages, but its something that I didn't expect and I want to address right away. He loves walking with Ayla, bouncing along behind her. Who would have thought that she would be a good role model for something?

He fought the leash for a short time, but he's quickly won over with cookies. And one of Roland's favorite things is getting his teeth brushed. Go figure!

Here's Roland trying to get Ayla to play with him, though when she starts bouncing around he gets scared and runs to one of us for safety. That doesn't stop him though, he goes right back to barking and pouncing at her again.

And this segues into iPhone stuff. For my birthday last April I upgraded from an iPhone 3G to the iPhone 4, and I absolutely love it! The camera is great (all of these pictures and videos were shot with the iPhone), its fast and responsive, the screen is beautiful, and I just find use for it everyday whether for productivity or entertainment reasons. I almost always stream podcasts from my iPhone over the Bluetooth radio in my car on my commute to and from work (Stuff You Should Know, Stuff You Missed in History Class, Stuff Mom Never Told You, Stuff to Blow Your Mind; This American Life; The Moth; The Nerdist; Joy the Baker). 

Yesterday morning I got in my car, started it up, and was fidgeting with various things before moving, when I heard barking. And I thought, that's Roland's barking! What is going on? I looked at my phone, thinking it had somehow dialed home, then remembered I don't have a home phone. I knew he was not with me, I had just put him in his crate for the morning. I sat for a few seconds bewildered. Then I realized that my car had accessed the above video file via Bluetooth and was streaming the audio over my speakers. Technology strikes again, making me hear voices!

Back to the iPhone, I've been using a lot of fun photography apps (or is it aps?), and I wanted to share a few and what I've done with them. Instagram is a huge hit with the iPhone crowd, and while I have used it I prefer qbro. qbro has many more choices for picture effects that I've had a great time using:

 

I've also been very happy with FX Photo Studio, with lots of options to improve and play around with your photos:

Ayla with a KFC-chapeau

View from work, tilt-shifted

I also love Cartoonatic and Film Director for a fun take on video. This one is shot and edited with Film Director:

He loves playing with baby carrots, tossing them around and chewing on them, which is great to keep him busy while I'm cooking dinner. In fact, open the fridge and he'll run over to try to pull the bag of baby carrots off the bottom shelf. Silly pup!

Enough randomness for now. Maybe I'll talk about food again soon.

These are a few of my favorite things...

Enough of the big smiley picture of me being the first thing you see on this blog!

Here's a few things that are making me happy at the moment:


I love these shoes so much! I can't find the style, but they are from Steve Madden and I wore them Saturday night when we went out. The heel is about 4" and I was hobbling by the end of the night, but damn they're hot!


RunKeeper - a free application for the iPhone that provides GPS-driven fitness tracking. My neighbor hooked me on this one. You can use it while running, walking, hiking, cycling, skiing, and more. It uses GPS to track where you've gone, the distance, your speed and pace, elevation, and there are more features if you purchase the Pro version. I downloaded it last week and was motivated to walk Ayla every day, and to walk as fast as I could at that! We logged almost 11 miles last week. I don't particularly enjoy running, but I can walk for ages. Then I'd come home and check out the map overview of our route, how long we walked, how fast we walked, etc. Its a great incentive! And FREE!

Image from Amazon.com

I finally picked up Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, the followup to the first Professor Layton game. Its a really fun puzzle game for the Nintendo DS, with an illustrated storyline, funny characters, and 150+ brainteasers to work through in order to solve the mystery of the diabolical box. I absolutely loved the first game and have been looking forward to playing the sequel, which released in August.


E-books on my iPhone - I'm more likely to read when its so easy. My work bag usually has a paper book in it anyway (Something Missing by Matthew Dicks right now, which I'm really enjoying), but if I'm waiting in line somewhere, or don't want to carry a book or what have you, I love having something easy to access and carry. I've used Kindle for iPhone, LexCycle's Stanza, and Iceberg. I think Iceberg has been the most difficult to use because the page turn feature is the touchiest, while Kindle has been the easiest to purchase for since its right out of the Amazon store, and I often have gift certificates there.

Not my house, but I love this caged bird graphic!

Wall decals from Leen the Graphics Queen. Her designs have simple, modern lines and bold colors, and she is one talented lady. I would love to put this bird graphic next the the giant cat post in my living room, as a little friend for Gretel to hang out with. Leen has many more awesome decals as well. And the best thing? You can win one! Go visit Its the Little Things... to enter the contest and perhaps this little birdie, or another decal of your choosing, will decorate your walls.


There's a diabolical box calling my name. Gotta go!

Food Rules

Michael Pollan has a recent bit in The New York Times food issue where he has his twenty favorite responses to his question to readers about their rules for eating well:

I cannot embed it, so the link is here.

My favorite is #15, but I'm also really digging the look and layout of the entire series. Check it out!

Pit Stop

Just a quick note - we've been busy and I have some fun (to me, at least) things to write about, which I will once I process the pictures. In the meantime, enjoy this interesting history of the fork over at Leite's Culinaria:

The Uncommon Origins of the Common Fork