I met Culo, then known as Jack, at the old Humane Society Silicon Valley in Santa Clara, CA, summer 1997.
December 5, 1997, almost 1 year
October 23, 2003, age 6
December 31, 2010, age 13
For the last 13 years, I've had to factor in the health and well being of my dog Culo into almost every decision made about my life. Everything from fabrics of clothing to furniture placement to work locations to vacations. Today, that lifestyle came to an end. My roommate, companion and walking buddy died at 9:30 am at Murphy Avenue Pet Clinic in Sunnyvale. The euthanasia (Euthanasia... What To Expect by DrTJDunnJr) administered by Dr. Karen Lee (Dr. Ken Stewart, Culo's usual vet was out) was very quick and humane. I was in the room when the shots were given.
I'm very sad and a little at loose ends now that Culo is gone. For instance, 6 pm used to be his dinner time. As I'm writing this, it's 6:15 pm but it doesn't mean anything special any more. I keep expecting to see him peeking at me around corners or nudging the back of my legs so I'll pet him. I still find myself watching where I step even though there's no little 25 pound dog I may smoosh. The mornings in the bathroom will be different since Culo will no longer put his paws on my lap to get petted. Or stick his nose into the shower steam to see what's going on.
Culo's last illness was an aggressive cancerous tumor in his nasal cavity.
Cancer in the sense of body cells that turn on the host and gradually destroy formerly healthy material.
The trouble started out as sneezes and weird wet sounds in his chest and throat area. By the end, the tumor almost totally blocked his breathing. Instead of switching to mouth breathing, sometimes Culo's whole body would shake in the effort to get air through his nose. To me, it sounded like a duck quacking. He would only pant with his mouth as a last resort. On the last day, he'd figured out a kind of perpetual throaty growl as a way to breath through his mouth. Poor boy was working way to hard at existing. The bloody globs he was exhaling all over the house didn't help. Some patches look like scatter diagrams.
The cancer also caused the bone in the front part of his head to crumble. In the last week, his face area noticeably lost its former shape and structure. The bump between his eyes became bigger and reader.. Plus a pinched nerve made his left eye bulge and forced his third eyelid to stick in the up position.
Bones in face shifted.
3rd Eye Lid Stuck
Even though I miss Culo, I'm so happy he's not in pain and discomfort anymore.
When I get his cremation ashes back in January, I plan to turn them into a gem such as Pet-Gems or LifeGem. That way, I can have him with me without it being creepy like taxidermy or an urn filled with dusty ashes.
It looks like my vet donates used pet supplies to Pets In Need Redwood City. Perhaps they'll take Culo's old stuff?
Energy, Climate Change & Environmental Sustainability Specialist Thomas Loxley Rosenberg presented the following slides to the CSix Cloud Computing SIG during our regular Friday meeting 2-19-10.
Environmental Sustainability and Cloud Computing
Agenda
What is environmental sustainability?
The business case for environmental sustainability
An innovative, energy-efficient cooling enclosure leveraging a 3-level cylindrical floor plan with up to 1.5 megawatts of cooling capacity and space to host up to 56 standard-sized racks. Free cooling conditions the air inside the silo by using cooler outside ambient air, along with a system of water filled pipes and coils, drizzle humidifiers and very high-efficiency fans.
Photos from Old Saratoga Post Office Cloud Computing SIG Meeting
Thomas L. Rosenberg, Taff Dirks, Julie McDaniel Setting up presentation laptop & projector
Thomas Loxley Rosenberg, Opening Presentation Slide
Thomas Loxley Rosenberg, What is Environmental Sustainability?
Mo Aidi, Thomas L. Rosenberg, Speaking to SIG Members after Presentation
Sherwin Deng, Taff Dirks, Thomas L. Rosenberg, Ed Leung, Speaking to SIG Members after Presentation
Sherwin Deng, Taff Dirks, Thomas L. Rosenberg, Ed Leung, Speaking to SIG Members after Presentation
The core of Cloud Computing made up of - virtual machines - high capacity broadband - open source SW - smartphones - app stores such as Amazon Web Services (AWS)
I liked how Lennart Frantzell tied in current trends of smartphones and social networking to the growth of cloud computing. Without demand for more bandwidth and vendor neutral infrastructure by web users, the challenge of cloud computing activity may have stayed in the enterprise domain. Social networking is driving the growth of cloud computing.
Cloud Computing Globalization and Globally Available Resources
Frantzell explained how IBM Innovation Centers play a role in expanding the global digital infrastructure. A behind the scenes innovator in converting the world from analog to digital. The demo of one hospital based Cloud Computing implementation looked a lot like Big Brother. Wearable tracking systems allow computers to determine how well a doctor sticks to a predetermined checklist. Medical practitioners are at risk for being beeped at for failing to wash their hands long enough. The level of remote monitoring gave me shivers. Other remote management, like reading energy meters, are less intrusive.
Lennart Frantzell also discussed the differences between private clouds, public clouds and hybrid clouds and how they interact. Hybrid and public clouds can act as storage or computing capacity backup or fail over. Hybrid and public clouds give enterprises the flexibility to have an internal private cloud as well immediate ability to absorb short term spike in need.
As the world becomes more and more global, integrated and "flat", it is also facing an array of problems: a financial crisis, climate disruption, energy geopolitics, food supply hazards etc. This is coinciding with technological innovations such as the following developments that can assist in resolving these problems:
The world is becoming instrumented. There are a billion transistors per human, each one costing one ten millionth of a cent.
Cloud computing and mobile computing are changing how software is deployed and used throughout the world.
IBM presentations of their cloud computing offerings available on cloud homepage.
All things are becoming intelligent. Algorithms and powerful systems turn those mountains of data into decisions and actions that can make the world work better. Smarter.
As the world's leading globally integrated IT company, IBM is attempting to use modern IT technology to tackle many of the world's problems. In this presentation, Lennart Frantzell will talk about IBM's global smarter planet initiative in its quest to make the world a smarter place.
About the Speaker Lennart Frantzell, PhD, is a technical consultant at the IBM Innovation Center, San Mateo. He works with IBM Business Partners and startup companies in the IBM smarter planet initiative. The IBM Innovation Centers is a world-wide network of IBM business partner centers that provide business- and technical support to help companies get started and deploy applications in the IBM smarter planet space.
Lennart Frantzell has expertise in Cloud Computing, IBM Industry Frameworks, IBM Tivoli systems management, WebSphere and other IBM middleware products. He has worked in artificial intelligence, object-oriented programming and computer games.
Donations for the relief effort in Haiti have been pouring in from throughout Silicon Valley as children, adults and companies have responded to the devastating earthquake that struck near the capital of Port-Au-Prince.
From the latest innovation of text donations to the old fashioned writing a check, valley residents have already pledged tens of thousands of dollars to help the stricken country.
"The money is coming in so fast," said Cynthia Shaw, spokeswoman for the American Red Cross Silicon Valley Chapter. "Locally, people have been very generous. Some companies are offering matching donations. The big thing we've noticed is the text to donate phenomenon."
Silicon Valley residents have taken advantage of an effortless donation process that allows them to make a $10 donation to the American Red Cross by texting "Haiti" to 90999. The money is automatically added to their cell phone bills. As of Friday morning, Californians had donated about $1.5 million by texting their donations, Shaw said.
The American Red Cross has committed $10 million for immediate relief efforts in Haiti.
The Silicon Valley Community Foundation's Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund is matching up to $100,000 in donations from donors, corporations and the community. The organization met its first $50,000 match in 24 hours, with the matching funds provided by the Irene S. Scully Fund. The second $50,000 matching program, announced Friday, was provided by the Lieve
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Roelandt Foundation. Donations will be sent to organizations working to provide critical assistance in Haiti, according to the Silicon Valley foundation.
"We're seeing the generosity of our community from all quarters," said Emmett Carson, CEO and president of the community foundation, adding that donations have been received from corporations, individual donors, kids and adults.
Other Silicon Valley companies, including Yahoo, have created matching donation programs for employees.
Some Bay Area residents have created their own personal giving pages to help raise money. Sheila Dowd of San Jose, who along with Cat Lincoln and Stefania Pomponi Butler operate Clever Girls Collective, a social media consulting group, wanted to make a small contribution. Because the women often have weekly online events, such as watching "Project Runway" and tweeting about who should be voted out, they used the opportunity to raise money online.
The women set up a giving page through firstgiving.com and promised to match $250 in donations. They got the word out to family and friends through Twitter and Facebook.
"Money is tight, but what do know how to do is organize people online," Dowd said. "We were watching Project Runway and at the same time make it socially conscious. We encouraged all of our folks to give money."
By Friday afternoon, the women had raised $620 and planned take advantage of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation's matching donation program.
The Stanford University School of Medicine, the Department of Medicine and Stanford Hospital & Clinics have offered a $25,000 matching program to the medical center community. Those funds will support patient care at Hopital Albert Schweitzer in Port-au-Prince, which withstood the Tuesday quake and is functioning as a major treatment center for mass casualties. It remains one of the few institutions providing care for the many thousands of individuals injured in the calamity, according to a Stanford press release.
The San Jose Giants will be donating $1,000 to the relief efforts.
Plastic Jungle, a Mountain-View based company, is allowing people to turn gift cards into cash donations for the American Red Cross Santa Barbara County Chapter.
Not all of the Bay Area's earthquake relief efforts are donation-driven.
At MedShare's 32,000-square foot distribution center in San Leandro, a 40-foot container filled with requested medical supplies was scheduled to ship to Haiti on Friday, sponsored by Rotary International. The supplies were donated by 20 Northern California hospitals.
The FBI is warning people to be wary of online scammers who are seeking donations through unsolicted e-mail requests.
Contact Mark Gomez at 408-920-5869.
How to donate
To make a $10 donation to the American Red Cross, text "Haiti" to 90999 and the money will automatically be added to your cell phone bill. Donations can be made online www.siliconvalley-redcross.org or over the phone, 1-877-727-6771.
To make a donation through the Silicon Valley Community Foundation"s matching funds program, go to www.siliconvalleycf.org and click on Donate Now or call 650-450-5444. Checks also can be mailed to Silicon Valley Community Foundation, 2440 West El Camino Real, Suite 300, Mountain View, CA, 94040, attn: "Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund."
Media outlets that have staff in Haiti. Reporting and hopefully helping. Sometimes the mainstream media gets on my nerves. But in times like this, they have the resources and connections to get in there and make things happen.
Mr. Joseph was the gentleman who elegantly slammed religious charlatan Pat Robertson who said Haiti made a deal with the devil. Mr. Joseph responded on The Rachel Maddow Show to Robertson's extreme hatefulness and ignorance with dignity and high self worth.
Random thoughts and observations. My goal is to use a lot of $50 words and amuse myself. Networking is a big part of my life these days, so there are many links to folks I meet, seminars & events I've attended or articles I've heard about.
