I don’t advocate leaving your dogs in your yards, esp not smaller breeds, but this is pretty interesting… 🙂

It’s 2008! oh yeah! 2007 sucked so 2008 is gonna be badass… Haven’t blogged for a while coz been busy with work and then xmas/family stuff, went to Minnesota and even drove up to Duluth, kindda liked it up there… Didn’t do much of anything except snowboarding… 🙂

Happy new year!

sign this shit!

Say No to Petland in Austin!

Why is Petland Bad for Austin?
Over 12,000 animals are already dying at Town Lake Animal Center every year. If Petland moves into Austin, thousands of unaltered animals will be brought into the community contributing to the pet overpopulation crisis. This influx of unaltered animals will reverse all of the spay/neuter progress and efforts made over the last few years, and will create an even greater crisis and thousands of more unnecessary pet deaths in the years to come.

The arguement that Petland sells purebred animals and that people that are willing to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars to buy them, will take better care of them and keep them for their lifetime, simply isn’t true. The truth lies at shelters all over the country, including Town Lake Animal Center where thousands of purebreds are dumped every year. And right behind them are thousands of purebred rescue groups trying to save their lives, but there are just too many and many die at the shelter waiting to be saved. Just in the greater Austin area, we have many purebred rescue groups including;

All Texas Dachshund Rescue
Austin Aussie Rescue
Austin Boxer Rescue
Austin German Shepherd Dog Rescue
Border Collie Rescue Texas, Inc
Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Club Rescue
Chako Rescue Association (Pit Bulls)
Chesapeake Bay Retriever Relief and Rescue
Cocker Spaniel Rescue of Austin
Central Texas Dachshund Rescue
DFW Pug Rescue
Fila Rescue
German Shepherd Rescue of Central Texas
German Shorthaired Pointer Rescue
Gold Ribbon Rescue (Golden Retrievers)
Great Dane Rescue of North Dallas
Greyhound Pets of America
Heart of Texas Lab Rescue
Helping Hands Basset Rescue
Hound Rescue (Beagles)
Katys Promise Rottweiler Rescue
Lil’ Paws Maltese Rescue
Lone Star Catahoula Rescue
Lone Star Shih Tzu and Lhasa Apso Rescue
Luck & Legends Saint Bernard Rescue
Nationwide Boston Terrier Rescue
Ponderosa Pomeranian Rescue Inc
Reunion Rescue (Pit Bulls)
Rottilove Rescue (Rottweilers)
Shiba Inu Rescue of Texas
Spindletop Rescue (Pit Bulls)
Texas Airedale Rescue Team
Texas Alaskan Malamute Rescue Association
Texas Great Pyrenees Rescue
Weimaraner Rescue of Texas
Westie Rescue
Grimalkin Rescue (cats)
Maine Coon Rescue (cats)
Maine Coon Rescue Alliance (cats)
Texas Siamese Rescue (cats)

Why Single out Petland?
Petland purchases their animals from Hunte Corp out of Goodman, Mo, who in turn purchase their animals from from puppy mills. The Hunte Corporation is the largest puppy dealer in the U.S., selling 90,000 puppies every year to retail pet stores. Say No to Petland and the exploitation of innocent pets!

What is a Puppy Mill?
Puppy mills are commercial breeding facilities where dogs live in horrible conditions. The entire goal of a puppy mill is to raise a cash crop, puppies. With profit as the only motivator, puppy millers keep the parents of these puppies known as the breeding stock, in horrible conditions. Most are kept in small, wire cages their entire lives, sweltering in the summer, freezing in the winter. They live in their own filth, with poor food and minimal vet care. They receive no exercise and no socialization with people or other dogs. The puppies the mills produce often have a host of health and behavior problems. Once the breeding dogs are no longer useful, they are killed.

The Hunte Corporation is a wholesaler of puppies. While the Hunte Corporation ads and website show a sparkling clean and modern facility for the puppies, what is not shown is where the puppies come from before they arrive at Hunte, the same filthy puppy mills described above. The parents of these puppies are prisoners of greed, spending their entire existences in these deplorable conditions.

We urge all Austin residents to Say No To Petland by signing this Petition and calling, faxing and emailing your City Council Members. Check out http://www.austinspetdirectory.com [sic] for more information about getting involved with stopping Petland set-up shop in Austin.

Technorati Tags: petland, puppy, puppymill

Bear started kindergarden last week, we started teaching him stuff with clicker and treats, Jen and Sherry just managed to teach him how to shake hand, lol.

Technorati Tags: clicker, puppy, training, yorkie, yorkshire terrier

Some dude posted this to the dizon vs ozawa thread at superfuture, I like how she jumped into her jeans sufu-steez…

Bootstrapping ftw.

Why Early Stage Venture Investments Fail | Union Square Ventures: A New York Venture Capital Fund Focused on Early Stage & Startup Investing:

Dick Costolo, co-founder of FeedBurner, describes a startup as the process of going down lots of dark alleys only to find that they are dead ends. Dick describes the art of a successful deal as figuring out they are dead ends quickly and trying another and another until you find the one paved with gold.

So it?s pretty clear to me that most venture backed investments don?t fail because the business plan was flawed. In my experience at least 2/3 of all business plans we back are flawed.

Most venture backed investments fail because the venture capital is used to scale the business before the correct business plan is discovered. That scale/burn rate becomes the cancer that kills the business.

I should also say that for businesses that don?t have the benefit of venture capital backing, the reverse is probably true. Almost certainly non-venture backed businesses will not have the ability to get too big too fast. They will mostly fail because they have the wrong business plan and they don?t have the wherewithal to survive for the period of time it takes to figure out the correct one.

Regardless of whether you have taken venture capital or not, capital efficiency and bootstrapping are critical values. You must keep your burn rate low until you can show without a shadow of a doubt that you have a business model that works, can be operated profitably and is ready to be scaled. Then and only then should you step on the gas.

Generally true…

James Fallows (November 27, 2007) – “The” way vs “a” way (Japan v China dept):

Japan is all about the way of doing things. Practice, ritual, perfectionism, as much fanatical attention to the process as to the result. China is all about finding a way to do things. Improvisation, little interest in rules, putting up with whatever is necessary to attain the result.

Here’s the link you should use to buy stuff from Amazon’s Black Friday sale… 🙂

I love scotties, super cool dogs, cool mascot:

Technorati Tags: carnegie mellon, cmu