The light on this stick was easy and the flavor very smooth and mild to medium strength. There were hints of spice, but nothing at all overpowering. I loved the large volumes of thick smoke the cigar produced which enabled me to blow smoke rings even though there was a slight breeze out side. As for the scent, my daughter said it had an excellent aroma. As for the burn itself, the stick had a firm ash that lasted about 1 to 1.5 inches.

Other than the cigar, man it was relaxing sitting out in the back on the swing. The weather hasn’t turned to hot yet, especially in the evening. It was about 5:30pm and the trees protect the area from any direct sun. Even the dogs were behaving and not barking – for a while anyway. As you can tell by the photo, the yard is really green back there. What you can’t tell from the photo is that most of that green is made up of weeds. I really need to get back and trim some bushes and pull back some of those weeds.

What you can’t see from the photo is the small corner of the yard that I really claim. It is that vine covered are beyond my hand.  In the corner plot are three Japanese maples that my family gifted me, a small angel statue, and a fairy stone. I need to weed, but I don’t want to disturb the angels or fairies either! When I have done some of the cleanup I will post a picture of the area.

Ah well, anyway … a good cigar and a nice evening. Next time I will tap into a growler from the Charleston Beer Exchange instead of my constant companion – Diet Coke.

We will look at the basics of WP security touching on everything from file permissions and user accounts to preventing script injection and backup procedures to protect your blog from hacking or downtime.

The May meetup of the User Group will be held on May 14 at The Flagship on the corner of Calhoun and East Bay, from 6:00pm to 7:30pm, and feature 2 presentations. For more information, visit the WordPress User Group of Charleston’s site.

The most obvious problem with the Nexus 7, and actually the problem that bothers me the least, is that it is just too small. This is really a personal preference. I know quite a few people who prefer the smaller seven inch form factor to the nine or ten inch tablets. I am not one of them. It is great that I can slip the tablet into my pants pocket or easily hold it without any arm fatigue, yes. On the other hand I find myself zooming in far too often. Often enough that I notice it; it interrupts my experience, and makes me switch over to my laptop. On quite a few occasions as I have been lying in bed using the Nexus 7 I have found myself setting it aside to get up and retrieve my laptop. That boils down to the tablet just not working for me. And when I have wanted to do simple book reading I still prefer the non-backlit basic Kindle or … horrors … a real book!

Ok, other than the size we could talk about apps. Google Play, the Android app store, has come a long way. I have to say that there is almost no app that I want that I can’t find. Play can be a bit cluttered and hard to pick through at times – kind of like searching for a gem in a flea market – but in the end I do find what I need. The good apps are free or reasonably priced, and I have never had any complaints with what I have found. I stopped using alternatives, like Amazon’s app store, simply because I didn’t need them and I didn’t like have to go to multiple sources for updates or searches. My summary of the app experience – great. Not an issue at all. Oh, and I love Chrome. Best mobile and desktop browser there is.

So what’s the problem you might ask. The problem is Android itself. Honestly, Android reminds me a lot of Windows in the old days, and I am not the first one to draw this analogy. Just like Windows of old, especially back in the good-old shareware heydays, Android is powerful, customizable, and very open. Programmers and users can do great things with it. Unfortunately with that power and openness come instability. No, I have not rooted my device or installed anything odd on it. I use the standard launcher, keyboard and settings. So there “should be” nothing causing this device to be flakey. However, I find it locking up, not accepting input, or simply crashing all too often. The most recent happened this evening (prompting this diatribe) when I was in the middle of writing a comment on a blog and the app just quit. No warning, no recovery, just quit. Sorry for the language, but it pissed me off!

In contrast, my iOS devices have never flaked out on me. I admit that Apple can be a bit draconian in their app store practices. And yes, iOS is beginning to show its age and the iPad is no where near as customizable as the Android devices. Like my Mac versus Windows, the Mac is just solid and reliable. It keeps working. I pay a premium for that in both dollars and computing freedom (more on iOS than in OS X), but at the end of the day I just want my device to work. I am a programmer by trade. I work with systems large and small all day long. What I need of my tools is for them to be rocksolid and dependable, not for them to be an additional project.

Now I have had other folks, good folks, tell me that they have not had any real stability problems with Android. No, I can’t explain the difference. I had the problem with older versions of the operating system on my old Android phone (prompting me to return to an iPhone) and a greater number of people I know, from students to professionals, have told me they have the same problem with Android. So those that don’t have the stability problem are either very lucky or doing something entirely different with their devices. I don’t know, but I have to live with my use. And again, I will remind you what I said earlier – I have not rooted or installed anything odd on my device. I spend 80 percent of my time in email or the web browser. That’s it!

So, as I said at the beginning, I just don’t like the Nexus 7. It will be going away soon. I admit to having looked at ten inch Android devices, but I keep coming back to the realization that it really is Android that I don’t like. It makes me mad. I don’t need anything else in my life making me mad – I have enough aggravation already. William Morris, someone I really admire, once said, “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”  I would add that you should have nothing in your house that raises your blood pressure when it should be lowering it. So goodbye to Android and hello again to iOS.

At least one of my dentists has gone so far as to document my teeth in some “permanent record” in case my body ever needs to be identified by dental records alone. And that alone is not a prospect that has you brimming over with hope.

As it turns out though the reason for all of this excitement is because I show evidence of being exactly what I am – a meat rending carnivore. After close inspection each of my dentists has discovered that I have serrated canine teeth. All four – both top and bottom. Not only do they poke out a bit further than their surrounding teeth, but they are quite sharply scored along the back and, at least according to the very (very!) few people I have bitten over the years, do a bit more damage than the same teeth of other normal folk. As one might say, in this case, my bite really is worse than my bar.

So why I am I tell you this? Well, I am not real sure other than to tell you if I shuffle off this mortal coil please don’t let them bury the wrong person. Or bury the right person too early.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said. He just laughed at her and shook his head.

She pulled back off into traffic but shot him that quizzical half-annoyed look. The one he knew so well. “So it’s funny to you?” she asked. “I am not always late you know.”

He look backed. “No. No, no. That’s not what I’m laughing at.”

“Yes, then? What?” she asked.

“I’m just amused by what you said. You apologizing. I was just laughing at the fact that you don’t really understand,” he said.

“What do you mean I don’t understand?”

He looked down. “It’s just that I don’t mind waiting for you,” he said.  ”I would wait for you forever.”

“Nuh uh. I do not take forever,” she said.

“That’s what I mean. You still don’t understand,” he said. “What I mean is that I was waiting to find  you my entire life. Before you, that is all there was – waiting. And I really didn’t even know if you existed. But now I do and that makes it all worth while.” He laid his hand on hers.

“So I really don’t mind waiting for you now, because I know for certain you are out there and you are coming. I would wait for you forever.”

I humbly do beseech of your pardon,
For too much loving you.
    Othello – Act 3, Scene 3, Shakespeare

Guess it is an English major thing that I relish Shakespeare so much.

Well, I never used Posterous that much, but I do hate to see it go. It has been an easy to use platform for posting quick updates. But I suppose, too many people may feel like I do, and have just not used it enough.

Please follow my other permanent streams at Google+ or MichaelCarnell.com (which will be undergoing an update soon.

Posted via email from Carnellm’s Posterous