The past week was in Wisconsin, visiting D's family -- and as we have done for a while now, we brought our dog Maggie along and stayed in a pet friendly hotel.

Maggie is a complicated girl: she was an abused puppy mill mom who has blossomed in the past four years that we've been taking care of her, but one consistent thing is her abject terror riding in a car. She pants and shakes the whole way. We tried giving her trazodone, which seems to have only made things worse. However, we're fairly certain that leaving her in a kennel, full of barking dogs and strangers, would break her spirit.

Her car ride response has improved though; she will jump up into the car herself about half the time, and the other half just stands by the door to be lifted in -- versus straining at the end of her leash to avoid the car. She seems to get that we're not leaving her someplace or taking her off to a horrible fate, but she still is not happy with the riding in the car part.

Interestingly, she is an expert at remembering places she had been before: the second time we stayed at the same hotel she went straight from the car to the door of the room we had stayed in before and it took some time to get her over to the correct room. She remembers where D's family's patio door is and heads there when we arrive for the visits. As we often say, Maggie contains multitudes.

The trip was otherwise uneventful: boardgames, eating out, antique malls, etc., etc. However, on the third day of the trip I noticed my phone case wasn't fitting right, which I wrote off as "cheap amazon junk" but on the last day of the trip I discovered that the reason it wasn't fitting was due to the battery inside puffing up like a balloon, pushing the (normally sealed) back of the phone off.

As we live in The Future, using what little voltage I had left without aggravating the dying battery, connected to Verizon, picked a very nice replacement, clicked OK a bunch of times, and had a new phone waiting for me at the Fargo Verizon store as soon as we were back in town the next day.

I get the security issues, but when you use a "copy my phone" feature which the phone manufacturers helpfully offer, it copies pretty much everything except security data. As part of my work I have a bunch of 2FA apps and other programs which meant this morning was a lot of figuring how I got them set up in the first place. Then, other settings like "what does a swipe mean in my email app" need to be fixed, the keyboard I like wasn't enabled, etc., etc. Nothing's easy when you need a pocket computer to get through life.

In I'm a TV Professional news: applied for two upcoming gigs in the area, and my latest episode of House Hunters airs next week on the 8th.

And, finally in Esmerelda news: I have no idea; all the security cameras are off-line, which usually means I need to reset the wifi router. I should have time to get down there this weekend, but I also have that project to finish. Such a busy life I lead.